"Happy Birthday To Him" Dept.:

My buddy Les Toil, also known by some by his less moniker-ey moniker of Brian Clarke, is celebrating his birthday today, and rather than filling your eyes with my originally planned rant (something about Baby Boomers, their children, a culture of entitlement and the Do It Yourself movement that is happening in reaction to that - a topic I'll revisit out here eventually) I thought I'd give the man a shout-out worthy of his talents as an artist and designer.






The cover art for the BOOM STUDIOS graphic novel SHMOBOTS by Les & Adam.




( Read more...Collapse )





Those interested in more about Les and his work are invited to checkout the links provided in the text, and his blog, right here.

...and it's been a long year and a half away from blogging, I tellya whut.

The most fascinating thing for me now, apart from examining the wreckage remaining after the pummeling that FACEBOOK and Twitter have committed upon most blogging engines and communities, is who have actually remained here to say anything at all- and I'm amused that it's the people who are as stubborn about getting their thoughts out in something other than 140 character bites as I am. Did I say I was stubborn? I'm a very stubborn man.



The shop I now manage, where I can be found up to 75 hours a week.


I've had a lot happen in the intervening years of 2008 and 2009 and most of it is in relation to a promotion that I received at my place of employment that ladled on extra responsibility without adding any real monetary incentive apart from the ability to pay my bills. I've had family members contract diseases that would usually kill most other people and I've had a very close family member sucomb to that, I've had 10 year old friendships dissolve in a smear of angry distrust, and stupid pride, and acrimony, I've had people who were friends show some of their true colors (and those colors were much more corrupt than I would like to have thought they would be, and I'm still barely hanging in there when it comes to keeping myself out of financial bankruptcy. That being said, I've made some INCREDIBLE new friends and I'm beginning to wear the mantle of "ELDER STATESMAN IN A RELATIVELY YOUTH-ORIENTED COMMUNITY" with much less chaffing these days, so all has not been lost.

And I am as stubbornly happy as ever.

I will be updating this page with more than a YouTube entry on a basis of at least once a week - this is my promise to you. I will be cross posting these entries to Facebook, which is where I do my microblogging, and anyone who knows me from there is more than welcome to comment in the threads that are there, or here, or anywhere you should like. I'm going to try to keep this general and all purpose and "Cellar Full O'Noise" as it has been in the past, although a recent growing interest in face-to-face boardgame and RPG play may be spinning off a new blog of its own, and should that happen you all will be the first to know.

This month marks my 6th year as a LiveJournal blogger. The whole thing makes me think of this:




Talk to you all soon.

"Managing The Dragon (Lady)" Dept.:

I was reminded in a two word message from the ever-laconic Tizano deSantis that I was aproximately one year BEHIND in my explanations as to where I'm gonna be at the ENORMOUS HobbyStar FANEXPO, here in Toronto, starting Friday the 28th of August at Noon and runing til Sunday.

Where am I in the largest fan gathering of it's kind in Canada, and the third-largest in North America?

Well, lemme break it down.

( Well, first you go here...Collapse )

( ...and then you go HERE...Collapse )



( it's actually gotten bigger this year as can be seen by this map *HERE*...Collapse )

( Yer Gettin *WARMER!*...Collapse )


( and then I can be found right *HERE*...Collapse )

See? Easy-peasy! Come and see me!!! Even better, come and buy cool comics stuff from me!

This is an easy one for me - a big ol' grizzly bear.

"New Cool Things" Dept.:

There comes a moment in a generation when that generation begins to realise that they have a little more pull about the sorts of things that they see occur more than the generation that preceded them. Some people in my generation saw the election of Barack Obama as US President one such example of a kind of sea change that indicates one generation is gone and another one is taking over. Some people see the kind of "Scorched Earth" policy that has dictated US economics as being typical of the same kind of "all for me- none for you", "GREED IS GOOD" bullshittery that the disappointed hippies who became yuppies seemed to live for, and the fact that most of the whistle-blowers who are putting that mindset back into perspective are all under the age of 45 as another such indicator. This is also very likely.

For me, it's this little number right here -


Jane Austin & Seth Grahame-Smith's Pride and Prejudice and Zombies


Coming soon, and available for pre-order from Chronicle Books.

( Here's what they say about it at Chronicle, under this cut, hereCollapse )

"State of the Pappy" Dept.:

Hello internets, it's been a while....

I have a couple of Big Idea Posts in the old-head-cooker right now about the nature of web 2.0 and the benefits of shamelessness, how community finds you whether you want it to or not, why David Milch is my prophet, and on the death of one hobby and the reawakening of another.

I just have to find time to get to it.

So, the ideas are there - I'm not blocked - I'm just dancing as fast as I can over here.

The one I'm the proudest of is from the early 90s, and this was used before Joss Whedon used it. I'm proud of it because almost all of my circle of friends started using it instantly:

"He's a good guy, but his Kung Fu is poor..."

... I really need some time off, is all.

"A Pleasant Night's Entertainment" Dept.:




Had the pleasure of seeing an advance screening of Henry ("Nightmare Before Christmas", "James and the Giant Peach") Selick's adaptation of Neil Gaiman's CORALINE - with none other than Mr Gaiman there to introduce the film and provide a witty Q&A afterwards.

Any fans of Gaiman and especially of Nightmare Before Christmas owe it to themselves to check this movie out EARLY in the run to take advantage of the marvellous 3D effects and beautiful stop-motion work inside - and also to get a better idea of how much of NIGHTMARE was Selick and how much was Burton (hint: you may be surprised how much of it *isn't* Burton).

Here's the trailer:




...and here's a link to the movie site.

I've done it accidentally, and, working at a comic shop, for some reason there are a lot of people who figure I already know how everything ends before I've had a chance to see it. It happens all the time, here.

" '...sweeps clean.' Mister Kidd..."

"Acts of Surprising Philanthropy" Dept.;

As hoisted from the blog of my deary dearest velocityboy:

The first six people to respond to this post will get something made by me. It will be about or tailored to those six who respond first.

This offer does have some restrictions and limitations:
- I make no guarantees that you will like what I make. (Although let me know if you have any allergies)
- What I create will be just for you.
- It'll be done this year.
- You have no clue what it's going to be. It may be a mix tape. It may be a short work of fiction, or a poem. I may draw or paint something. I might bake you something and mail it to you. Who knows? Not you, that's for sure!
- I reserve the right to do something extremely strange.

The catch? Oh, the catch is that you have to put this in your journal as well, if you expect me to do something for you!