Fail

Of course, I failed Script Frenzy.

It's my fault. I'm not going to blame the new job, or the marketing for CAGES, or all the other crap I'm doing, or the fact that writing a screenplay is goddammit seriously hard. It's my fault.

Still, I really like what I've written. Enough that I'll keep going and finish the damn thing, some time, at some point in the indeterminate future. This I swear.

By the way, I'm writing the script using Zhura.com, and I really like it. Don't let the silly social networking look of it put you off -- the in-browser script editor is robust and powerful. If you'd rather not download a copy of Final Draft for whatever reason, this is your best alternative.

The reviews are in for CAGES, and people like it. They really like it. This makes me happy. I'm also soon to be doing a phone interview thing for CAGES, which is bound to be embarassing.

So I guess Cubans can buy computers now. And they run fucking Windows XP. Look, I don't want to sound crazy here, but if the Cuban government wants to shield its people from the grasping talons of corporate capitalism or whatever, well, why not go open source?

I can't believe I never heard of this before: Lego's free Factory program that lets you build your perfect virtual Lego model, then delivers all the required bricks to your door. How cool is that?

Also, I own the film Iron Man an apology. Here goes: Iron Man, I'm sorry I pre-judged you and said bad things about your trailer after San Diego last year. You are actually really awesome. Let's be friends.

Finally, I leave you with this parting image, which I'm pretty sure I saw on a gilded mural within the hallowed Duomo of Florence.

CAGES Is Almost Upon Us

My first book CAGES is at the printers right now. Like, as we speak. This is fairly exciting.

It also means that I'm going to be very busy for the foreseeable future. The marketing blitzkrieg is already underway -- the official website's getting redesigned (ditto the Insomnia Publications site), press releases are being put out, and I'm sending digital review copies to those worthy reviewers and bloggers who want to write about it.

So... are you a comic book reviewer or blogger? Would you like a review copy of the book? Well, why didn't you say so? Just shoot me an email at the usual place, and I'll be happy to send you a copy.

For those of you going to the Bristol International Comics Expo in a few weeks, you'll even have a chance to pick up a special advance copy of the book. Just sidle over to the Insomnia Publications table and look for a Scottish bloke called Crawford. Tell him, in these exact words, "G'day from Xander". He'll know what to do.

Thirdly (!), some more exciting news about CAGES: Australian comics superstar Ben Templesmith (30 Days of Night, Fell) will be providing us with a foreword for the book. He is a scholar and a gentleman.

And last but not least, I can announce that Insomnia will be attending San Diego Comic Con again this year. Okay, actually it's just me and Mel. But we'll have a table, and banners, and lovely comics to sell. Have you booked your accommodation yet?

Okay, I lied, there's one more thing: My writing partner and all-around great guy Josh Hechinger just did an excellent interview for Sequential Tart. I swear, I would have pointed you to this even if he hadn't given me a shout-out in the interview.

Awakening: A Comic You Should Buy

Allow me to indulge in some product pimpage here.

Awakening is a zombie horror comic written by Nick Tapalansky, with art by Alex Eckman-Lawn and lettering by Thomas Mauer. It was recently nominated for an Eagle Award. It's published by Archaia Studios, who are responsible for awesome comics such as Mouse Guard.

Also? Awakening is really good and you should buy it.

Full disclosure: I met Nick and Alex at San Diego Comic Con last year. They were extremely nice and professional guys, and I remember they complimented me on my shirt. (That's the way to go if you want to flatter me, really. I heart my t-shirt collection). Anyway, they pressed their book into my hands and sold me on it with a very enthusiastic pitch. Which is fortunate, because without that experience, I'm not sure I would ever have picked the book up. Another zombie comic, right?

Not really. Awakening's not a gorefest, and it's not exactly full of scares. Nor is it a winking post-ironic examination of the zombie trope, or whatever else the kids are reading these days.

Nope, it's a down and dirty detective story where the zombies barely get any screen time. They're really more like phantoms than traditional Romero-esque flesh-eaters, and when they appear at all, it often happens too fast for us to get a good look at them. Tapalansky subverts all the usual zombie cliches: Instead of attacking in packs, they work alone; instead of roaming mindlessly, they hide in the shadows and strike like hungry wolves. Heck, their victims don't even turn into zombies, and they even occasionally run away.

So the zombie stuff is really there to lend menace and atmosphere to the overarching detective/forensics story. Much like Ellis and Templesmith's Fell, we get the sense that the town in the story is physically sick, festering with an unseen evil. It's all very moody, meditative and grim. All of which is a pretty clever device, but it might not have worked so well were it not for Eckman-Lawn's frankly beautiful art.

I really don't know how to describe the art and do it justice. It's like Templesmith and McKean had a love-child. Scribbly lines, wild ink spatters and off-kilter photo-collage are the norm here, and while this sort of style is currently popular and much-copied, Eckman-Lawn seems to be approaching a real visual technique of his own. Characters fade in and out of silhouette; in and out of reality. They appear flat and vaporous in one panel and lavishly painted in the next. Swirling patterns and scraps of newsprint fade in and out of the pages, subtext literally rising to the surface.

And the double-page spreads: Just gorgeous. Ditto the covers and the pages with closeups of character faces. The latter often feature elaborate haloes of design elements around the characters' heads, like crazy sunbursts of emotion.

Basically, it's stylish, gorgeous to look at, and a creepy-fun read. Best of all, there's a hardcover collection coming out in June. And if you're not already convinced, well, go check it out for yourself at the official site. All you have to do is email Nick, and he'll send you issues 1-4 as ebooks for free. That, folks, is how you market a comic book.

Frenzy!

So what do you do if you're knee-deep in a half-written novel and about to start a new job that'll most likely consume your writing time?

Well, if you're me, you start writing a feature film for Script Frenzy.

What's Script Frenzy? Why, it's a NaNoWriMo spin-off project wherein participants write a 100 page script in the month of April, that's what. And I'm really, super-duper happy with my idea, and with the 16 pages I've written so far.

And yet, pride cometh before the fall. Let this post stand as a digital signpost of my writing hubris, precursor to the inevitable Halfway Through The Script Crisis. I give it, oh, a week and a half.

Gainfully Employed

Well, almost. Next Thursday I'll be attending 'orientation' for an actual, physical day job, one which requires leaving the house for, oh, about 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. Shocking, I know, but there comes a time in every young writer's life when he must pull up his britches, spit on his hands, etc., etc.

But, bonus: The job is kinda-sorta within my sphere of writing interest, so it's possible for good things to come out of it somewhere down the line. If I can make the right contacts... But now I'm getting ahead of myself.

Hey, how about some free fiction? I've been happy with my recent Elephant Words output, despite the fact (because of it?) that I've been traveling to some pretty dark places with my last few pieces. There's been straight-up reality-based horror, a bit of supernatural horror, a dash of the weird-and-creepy, and even a touch of metaphysical mystery.

But the piece I'm most fond of is this one, a direct sequel to a story I wrote last year while living in Viet Nam. It's no accident that these two are my only interrelated Elephant Words stories -- there's definitely more where they came from. I don't think I've figured out these particular ideas yet. They're still there in my mind, growing larger, moving towards each other and coalescing, like colonies in a petri dish, into something larger and more advanced. Something that would very much like to be written.

But... I still have to finish the first novel, don't I?

Lastly: Is it just me, or is The Onion getting better? First they come out with that hilarious robot overlord sketch. Then we get this fantastic article (granted, the headline's funnier than the actual text, but still). And then, just when they've got you in the comedy mood, ready and waiting for the next belly-laugh, they stab you in the goddamn heart with a genuinely powerful piece of writing.

My New Favorite Blog Of All Time

Thanks be to Boing Boing for bringing to my attention the wondrous blog known only as 'Got Medieval'.

Not only am I capable of spelling the word 'Medieval', I also have more than a passing interest in matters relating to the Middle Ages. I even harbor a secret dream to (don't laugh) retrace the steps of the First Crusade from France to Jerusalem, using only land-based transportation. Sure, it'd take forever and cost a fortune, but how cool would that be?

Even if you're not much of a medievalist, this blog is hilarious. I highly recommend this post on chainmail bikinis, so very timely now that Gary Gygax has passed away. You could follow that up with a post about testicle-biting beavers, and cap it all off with pictures of monkeys doing funny things.

(Incidentally, 'Monkey Butt Trumpet'? Best band name ever.)

Hell, just read the whole thing.

A Peek Inside My Google Notebook

Next in a series of posts which I like to call 'Google Application Data That Would Be Really Useful To Anyone Stalking Me': a bunch of clippings from my Google Notebook.

In case you're not familiar with it, Google Notebook is an unobtrusive little application that lives in your browser. It allows you to highlight anything (text, images, video), right-click it and save the whole thing in a little pop-up notebook. Google then remembers the data you saved and the page it came from.

I've been using it for months, but to be honest there's not a whole lot in my notebook. I only save things in there when I remember to use it, and anyway, my personal note-taking/idea-jotting system is fragmented across at least six different media (Let's see: Moleskine notebook, pocket-sized notepad, desktop note-taking application, an actual word processor, Google Reader's 'Star' system, and Google Notebook), and the choice of which one I'll use for any given note is largely arbitrary.

Still, looking at it now, there's some interesting shit in there. Some links are frankly fantastic and deserving of another read (the mystical President of Slovenia), while others have me scratching my head as to why I noted them in the first place ('Auditory Side Effects Of Anti-Convulsant Drugs'? Hmm).

Anyway, here's the link. There's bound to be something cool in there.

My Vancouver

Sometimes it's hard to imagine how our prehistoric ancestors lived, back in the dark days before 2005 -- back before Google Maps. I personally can't fathom the idea of moving to, or even visiting, a new city without the aid of Google's magical, geo-synchronous sky-fairies.

The following is my personal Google Map of Vancouver. Some of the markers denote places I want to go; others are places I've already been. Of the latter, some are places I've been only once or twice, out of necessity (e.g. Art's Auto Service); others are firm favourites (e.g. Stella's Belgian beer and tapas bar -- make sure to try the Golden Draak, officially the World's Tastiest Beer).


View Larger Map

Gary Gygax Died

God dammit.

Gary Gygax, legendary co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons, died this morning aged 69.

This is seriously sad. I remember perfectly my very first games of D&D: It was the Yellow Box starter set, and I was all of about 12 years old. I DMed (narrated the story), and my two younger brothers played the heroes (Lordan the priest and Sneak the thief, if memory serves). Later I introduced the game to my school friends, and I've been playing various RPGs on and off ever since.

But D&D was the first game to really crack open my mind and show me all the infinite possibilities of shared narratives. If anyone back in 1979 could have predicted World of Warcraft, it would have been Gary Gygax.

(It's also worth mentioning that Gary had an incredibly bizarre writing style unlike anything I've ever read. Not only was his prose purpler and more esoteric than Lovecraft on an absinthe bender, Gary, an anthropology student, loved to pepper his work with the kind of arcane terminology found only in leatherbound Medieval tomes. Thanks to Gary, an entire generation of impressionable youth grew up knowing what a 'philtre', a 'wight', a 'catoblepas' and a 'glaive-guisarme' are.)

It's hard to overstate the influence RPGs have had on my writing, and on my understanding of narrative in general. It's even harder to overstate the influence they've had on video games and popular fantasy.

Levelling your Gnome Rogue in World of Warcraft? You can thank Gary for that. Playing Legend of Zelda on your Wii? Gary again. Watching the Lord of the Rings on DVD? If it wasn't for Gary, those elves and dwarves probably wouldn't look like that.

I don't know what else to say, except: Thanks, Gary. You'll be missed.

This Week In Links

A collection of funny, useless, enlightening, enlivening, and ridiculous stuff I found on the intertubes this week, otherwise known as the weekly post of Christ I Need To Close Some Of These Firefox Tabs.

• Get your Mammoth Chunks at the Time Travel Shop -- a photo gallery depicting a very clever stunt.
  
• Starbucks Phase Two. (I knew it!)
  
• Mario cocktails for the win. (I'll take a Yoshi, thanks.)
  
• I'm dreaming of a world of giant wheel-boats and zeppelins.
• The Secret Museum of Mankind!
  
• It's true, white people do like these things.
• Speaking of the above: Why projecting all your hopes and dreams of magical elves of change onto Barack Obama... isn't going to change much of anything.
• But it's still better than watching this horrifying Clinton TV ad.
• Speaking of: It's THE BEAST! From a Lot of Fathoms! I don't know why, but I heart this trailer so, so much.

Tune in next week -- same blog time, same blog channel!

Unless I only do this once, in which case nevermind...

Boing Boinged!

I got Boing Boinged.

It's not the first time, but even so, it never gets any less cool.

So if you're one of those people who accidentally clicked my name instead of the article link... Accidental Hello! I'm a writer. This is my blog.

Wait, don't go! We can totally discuss things.

So how about that plant-human hybrid article? I actually stumbled across it last night while researching material for my latest Elephant Words piece, which is based on a photo of a mushroom seller.

Interestingly, the comments section there on BB has turned into a pretty heated discussion about genetic engineering in crops, due to the segment of article that Herr Frauenfelder selected for quoteage. I say 'interestingly' because that wasn't the bit that interested me at all. I was more intrigued by the caterpillar-mushroom hybrid stuff later in the article, as you'd have guessed if you read my story.

Anyway, welcome to you random clickers. Stay awhile, why don'tcha?

Video Mixtape: Under The Gun

If you read Josh Hechinger's blog (and you should, if only to marvel at the crazy amount of work the guy churns out), you'll have noted that he and I are co-writing a hitman romantic comedy comic called Under the Gun.

He recently posted a very cool Youtube mixtape of his influences for the series. I thought I'd respond in kind.

(Although mine's not quite as cool, because he already took that damn perfect Killers song.)

An early scene from The Killer, starring Chow Yun Fat:



Scene from The Big Hit:



Rock You Like A Hurricane - The Scorpions:




Warning: If you are not actually Josh Hechinger, this post might make little or no sense to you. In which case I advise you to back away slowly. Or, hey, stick around if you want to. It's your call.

In My Firefox Tabs Right Now

Let's see what sort of marvellous crap the internet has for us today...

Go Queensland! It's about time they did something progressive.

Thinking of going off the grid? This might help.

Free awesome art comix FTW.

For some reason, this makes me laugh uncontrollably.

Goddammit, why wasn't I born in the 60s?

Somebody Blew Up A Starbucks

Last night, right in the middle of the city of Vancouver, somebody blew up a Starbucks.

They seriously blew it up:


It's just a wild guess, but I'm thinking this might have something to do with Monday's march against the Premier over the 2010 Olympics.

I think I love this town.

Epic Win

Signed a rental contract for a house today, 5 days after rocking up to Vancouver with nothing but a car. It's in a great location too; right on the corner of East Hastings and Boundary Street where the suburb of Vancouver meets the suburb of Burnaby.

With all this good luck, we must be doing something right. And thank Xenu for Craigslist.