The Woodstock Film Festival Awards were just handed out, and in a really pleasant surprise to him and me both, my bud Matt Morris won for his first-ever documentary short film, PICKING AND TRIMMING. I saw it a while back and for a first effort, it definitely didn't look like a first effort due to some dood camera work, great subject matter and really good music.
Matt and his dad edited SUPERHEROES AND PHILOSOPHY a few years back and included the essay that Scott Tipton and I gave them for that book. And Matt's dad, Tom Morris (a very accomplished author and public speaker) originally got me my first literary agent which started us on the path to Comic Books 101. So I've known them for a while and admired Matt's drive and the creativity in the little short films he's dabbled with before, but this was unexpected and really cool to see. So my big public congrats to Matt. Hope it's just the start of something.
I haven’t posted here in a while, but it’s not due to laziness--I’ve been posting IDW art and other little bits at a daily blog over here for the past three months, and have pretty much kept up a daily pace the entire time. But I figured it was past time to also mention something of my own, which is the oversize hardcover collection of the ZOMBIES VS ROBOTS VS AMAZONS series that Ashley Wood and I did. It’s a 10" x 13" hardcover book, 80 pages, and collects the entire series, the covers and other bits of art from Ash, all for only $20.
Also, it’s my birthday, but in lieu of presents, the aging blogger typing this has requested that you pick yourself up a copy of the book and enjoy.
Over at the blog, I posted an image of something I recently rediscovered that proves I was destined to work in comics to some degree... or at least stalk classic creators, one or the other. Luckily, it’s been the former so far, not the latter.
It's often a complicated or time-consuming thing to press release all new comics and show off new artwork through official means, so I decided to start up a blog that I can easily post advance artwork and breaking news and cut out all of that.
So effective yesterday, I launched the lamely named RyallTime blog, and have already posted things like Don Figueroa's new post-Transformers project, some advance Angel and Star Trek art, and some brand-new covers for Zombies vs Robots vs Amazons 3, among others. With the amount of artwork that comes in every day, and the fact that we dropped the Art Du Jour ("Mmm, that sounds good, I'll have that") section from the IDW site, means I'll have lots to post every week, with minimal chatter, too.
So, you know, if you want advance or spoiler-y artwork for IDW projects, RyallTime is for you.
It's often a complicated or time-consuming thing to press release all new comics and show off new artwork through official means, so I decided to start up a blog that I can easily post advance artwork and breaking news and cut out all of that.
So effective yesterday, I launched the lamely named RyallTime blog, and have already posted things like Don Figueroa's new post-Transformers project, some advance Angel and Star Trek art, and some brand-new covers for Zombies vs Robots vs Amazons 3, among others. With the amount of artwork that comes in every day, and the fact that we dropped the Art Du Jour ("Mmm, that sounds good, I'll have that") section from the IDW site, means I'll have lots to post every week, with minimal chatter, too.
So, you know, if you want advance or spoiler-y artwork for IDW projects, RyallTime is for you.
I know I stopped doing my weekly TV RECOMMENDATIONS column over at Comics101.com, at least for a while, so I figured I'd fill in the gap with these short recommendations from the Sundance Film Festival.
I was only here for the second weekend last year, which meant nothing but short films and the like. But so far this year, I've caught three great ones that I hope everyone will have a chance to see, with another to come at midnight tonight.
Incidentally--skiers, if you want a place to come that's great skiing and no lift lines, come to Sundance during the festival. I skied Deer Valley yesterday and today (no snowboarders allowed there) and it's just amazing--there's hardly anyone on the slopes at all.
Anyway, the movies:
First up, we saw a documentary called ANVIL!: THE STORY OF ANVIL. It's a real-life "Spinal Tap"-y sort of thing that, when it starts, makes you wonder if you're in for a long night. Anvil is an early '80s hard rock band that evidently inspired the likes of Metallica, Slayer, and Anthrax. Now, I've been a fan of all this music for two decades, and I've never, ever heard of Anvil, if that tells you how much they've never made it. So even though I might be the target audience for this band, I was wondering if it'd just be like an extended Behind The Music. Hardly--it's so funny, and sad, and touching, and warm, that when they came out to answer questions after the movie, even metal-haters in the crowd were wiping tears and cheering like they were at a concert. Such a touching story, these Canadian rockers who're now in their '50s and still waiting to make it and sticking together all behind the goofy, charismatic, funny lead singer, "Lips." Man, this one really got to all of us.
As a bonus, I got to say hey to Scott Ian in the bathroom, too. I've met him before and we've talked a bit over e-mail so it wasn't just like "Hey, rock star guy, nice to see you while you're just trying to take a leak."
"Family is important shit, man." That was probably the best, unintentionally funny line of the movie. You don't have to care at all about metal to get caught up with these guys. Man, was it good. We dined with folks from IFC last night (during which there was an odd half-hour blackout along the entire Main Street in town) and really pushed them to go after this movie. I just loved it.
Next, we saw DIARY OF THE DEAD, George Romero's new zombie flick. It was rumored to be all handheld cameras and such, like George had been inspired by Blair Witch or the remake of his Dawn of the Dead (not so much, as he indicated in his Q&A). Whatever the case, a new zombie flick by George is always something to anticipate, even though my expectations weren't as high as before--I didn't love LAND OF THE DEAD, and as a guy who watched it probably a dozen times and read the screenplay twice that many times while adapting it as a comic, I just didn't feel it was as fully realized a movie as it could've been.
No worries with this one--it's not a sequel at all, but just a new zombie movie told through the camera of a groups of college kids who're making a horror movie in the woods the night the world dies. It's really genuinely scary in places, and funny--it gets off some good comments about "slow-moving vs fast-moving zombies," in a way that doesn't feel forced, and some awesomely gruesome deaths. It really worked well, and it was nice to see George back in form.
This morning--which was tough to make since it was an 8:30 showing following us getting home from DIARY around 2:30 AM--was Michael Keaton's directorial debut, THE MERRY GENTLEMAN. While not a great title, he really turned in a solid first effort, helped quite a bit by the amazing camerawork his DP gave him. He co-stars as a dour hitman who says maybe 10-20 words the entire movie. He gets caught up in a strange "love triangle between a Scottish girl on the run from an abusive relationship and a cop who is drawn into the story in a nicely unforced way. The movie unfolded slowly, like something from the '70s. Some people grumbled about the pace, but I loved it. It really brought you into the characters' worlds, and even though it's a mostly grim movie, it had some nicely humorous bits, too.
There are a lot of other great-sounding flicks here, even if they're tough tickets to get (the desperation on the faces of people looking for U2 in 3D tickets is kinda funny, especially since the band is here. Funny, no one buzzed about Anvil's member's being here), but so far, it's been a solid three for three. Something about festivals in the snow that just makes it so much more fun, too.
Anyway, hope you all get a chance to see these three movies--all were just great. Hopefully THE LINGUISTS at midnight tonight keeps this streak alive.
In 2001, I was running MoviePoopShoot.com for Kevin Smith. And one of the mainstays there was my good bud, Scott Tipton. He was with me from the start, helping launch the site and doing news stories the entire almost-four years we ran the site. Scott also started a column called COMICS 101, where he delved into the history of many different characters, companies, and creators. The column was consistently the highest-"rated" column at the site.
Scott and I got to talking about comics--we did that a lot--and it occurred to us that a book that served as a primer to the comics industry might be a valuable thing.
Through a writer/public speaker we'd gotten to know through the site (Tom Morris, a gent who's written all kinds of books about philosophy, all deserving of your time), we landed a literary agent and put together a proposal for a "Comic Books for Dummies" book. The agent at the time repped a fir share of Dummies books, and he thought he could make this happen. This was maybe mid-late 2003.
Like when you buy your first lottery ticket and have this irrational sense that you're going to win, we thought "hey, we've got an agent, AND a proposal. Done deal."
And there were some flirtations with the Dummies folks. But the book was deemed to be too "informational" and not "how-to" enough, like most of their books. They weren't quite sure what to do with something that didn't tell people how to do something, and an entire book about how to collect comics seemed really tedious to us ("Chapter 1. Plunk down money on the counter. Take comic book home. Read. Repeat each Wednesday."). So it fell apart, and with it, our agent's interest level.
I don't quite recall where I found our next agent, but we landed someone good, someone who understood the material, who repped other comics-related projects and really felt like this book could be something even without doing it as a Dummies book. So we retooled the proposal. It was maybe 10-12 pages at this point, pitching a 400-page book.
She sent it to all kinds of legit publishers, and we had lots of interest. Some questions, like image usage and other such legalities, became sticking points. No deals. I took the job at IDW and moved to San Diego and went on to other things. This was July 2004. In fact, my last day in LA, I saw Kevin at the View Askew offices and told him about this maybe-book, and asked if he'd consider writing the intro to the book. He said yes (thinking, no doubt, the same as me, "Why not? It'll likely never happen."), which would make a nice bit of full-circle-ness to the entire Comics 101 thing. Still, I was off to start at IDW, and the book was pushed to the hinterlands of our minds at that point.
We talked to the agent now and again, and she kept pushing, kept thinking we had something here. Scott and I wrote a few sample chapters. More talk. More concerns about image rights. More non-deals.
I could have done it through IDW, but between other IDW work and writing scripts (adapting Clive Barker's The Great and Secret Show alone was an all-consuming year spent on that), we pushed it out of our heads. There were too many--well, only a few but it felt like too many--near-misses, and each one took a mental toll. It was 3-1/2 years of anguish, thinking we really had it THIS time, and then nothing. Okay, THIS time. Nope. So we decided it was best to put it behind us, and keep on with the comics. After all, circumstances had changed--with a few years in at IDW, I was better-equipped and connected to write this book, but also had much less time to actually do it, anyway. It was one of those "ah, well" things.
Another reason I really didn't want to do it at IDW is that I COULD have done it there, if that makes any sense. I started this process before taking this job, and I really wanted to only do it under our own auspices. I wanted to earn it. One thing about being the publisher and editor-in-chief at a company is, I could likely have made this happen there (see: ZOMBIES VS ROBOTS for proof of that). But it didn't feel earned. So we forgot about it. Mostly.
And then, a week or two before Christmas, a month or so after we both lost our moms to cancer, we got much-needed good news (or at least distracting news)--we heard from our agent again. There she was, still pushing, still talking to people, still determined and believing in this thing. We had another interested publisher: IMPACT Books, an imprint of F+W Publishing. IMPACT has published books like Writing Comics With Peter David, and until recently, they published Will Eisner's Comics and Sequential Art, too. They, too, do lots of how-to books, books about drawing comics and writing comics. This is also a bit of a risk for them, seeing how it's more informational than instructional. But they got it and wanted it.
And just after Christmas, we signed the deal with IMPACT. We finally had our book deal. It took a while, but it's good that it did, when all's said and done--IMPACT is perfect for the book (check out the Peter David book--the design and production values rock), and I know that the material will be better for our past three-plus years of comic book experience, too.
Which is all quite a long way to go to announce that COMIC BOOKS 101, a 288-page book, 8"x 8" in size and filled with images and talking head asides from both Scott and I as well as lots of comics pros, will be coming in the Spring of 2009. Which sounds like a long ways away... unless you're the guys who have to write a 288-page book on top of everything else.
We're well under way already, which is good since the first half of the book is due April 1, and the entire thing is due July 1. And I've been at this long enough to know that six months in the publishing world can fly by. In fact, I'm likely two pages further behind for having written this now, but we've been dying to talk about and now we can. For the next 14 months until the book hits. And then after.
So get used to hearing about COMIC BOOKS 101. It's a-coming. Now I just need to see if I can persuade Kevin to do that intro amidst everything he's got going on now...
I should also mention that IDW Publishing is very fortunate that site existed in the first place. Brian Lynch, who I met through Kevin, used to write some columns there and he did Monkey Man and Patchouli webcomics there. Now he's writing the best-selling IDW comic book ever, ANGEL: AFTER THE FALL (not to mention the March-debuting zom-com EVERYBODY'S DEAD). Scott Tipton? Beyond the aforementioned, he's written some SPIKE and ANGEL comics for me, and has become one of the fans' favorite STAR TREK writers. Josh Jabcuga, who I originally met there because he wanted to write a couple columns about some Russian fighter (Oleg "The Bear," if I recall) and became a good friend and really good columnist, wrote the SCARFACE prequel and the upcoming MUMMY prequel, too. And even Dara Naraghi, who did a webcomic called Lifelike at the site for a little while, recently saw LIFELIKE collected into a hardcover by IDW, and he's now writing a zombie comic called ZOMBIES!: HUNTERS and also an IGOR Movie Prequel, too. So Movie Poop Shoot may be gone, but between Comics101.com and IDW, the spirit lives on.
And comics fans who hit the shop this Wednesday can find both Brian's ANGEL 3 and my ZOMBIES VS ROBOTS VS AMAZONS 2, too.
Those of you who don't get or understand comics, well, hang in until Spring of next year, when I can recommend a good book that will clear everything up for you.
I'll be posting progress here as it all goes, no doubt. Right now, I'm back at it--We've written about 15,000 words so far, and I'm currently well into the chapter that breaks down exactly what a comic book is and what makes it different than a graphic novel.
That's right, Torakator (Tor-ah-kah-tor, not tora-cater). Coming in 2008 from Clive Barker and Chris Ryall. Created by Clive, co-written by both of us. Actual co-writing. An all-new epic series about which I will say no more for a while. Although I'm excited as hell. Torakator.
Also, Zombies vs Robots vs Amazons 1 is in stores today. And it's already been in stores long enough for a web site to review it and the reviewer, who seemed to know nothing at all about the previous series and thought the idea of pairing mechanoids, undead people and warrior-women should be played more straight, called it "doofy and lightweight." Um, the first issue was called "Group Sects," so if that was meant as an insult, well, it actually made me all swoony. Might have to be a pull quote for the TPB.
And speaking of pluggy things, on December 19, the collected edition of Clive Barker's The Great and Secret Show is finally in stores... bringing that year-plus-long journey to an end (Until we do Everville someday, I guess). It's available in a TPB and also a hardcover edition--both came out great, and I was able to hand Clive a copy of the hardcover today. He loved it. So if it's good enough for him, well, it'll also make a nice stocking stuffer for the following week, especially if your stockings are built to accommodate 6 x 10 hardcovers.
Finally, in the spirit of giving, let's all give salutations and love to Brian Lynch, Angel: After the Fall writer and all-around wonderful'un, and his bride-to-be-this-Saturday, Carrie, too. All my best to both, and to any of you big Angel fans who're looking for the ultimate collectible, well, I'd suggest you get yourself invited to his wedding for a very special exclusive. I'm pretty sure both TMZ and Wizard magazine will be covering the event, so you can see footage of it soon. My best to both of them!
I have an entry for my list of Things I Hope You Never Have to Do: writing an obituary for your mom. I lost my mom to complications from leukemia on November 3, but it was unexpected and really, really not a fun week. I'm trying to get some normalcy back now, but somehow sitting at the keyboard doesn't yet hold the same joy it once did. Hence me leading with such an unfun topic... but I'm trying to move beyond that now. My mom was the person who introduced me to comics and fostered my interest in them (and never threw away my collection when I moved out), so she's as much to credit for me working in comics as anyone else.
As a result of her passing and me taking a good look at everything in my own life, I decided to quit the TV Recommendations column I've been writing for over five years now. It started first at Kevin Smith's MoviePoopShoot.com for almost four years and has continued on at Scott Tipton's Comics101.com site since February 2006. Which is around 250 columns. But it just seems like it's time to stop. Between having so many IDW projects I want to write, and the WGA strike meaning we're going to be looking at more and more reality shows (easy to rip on, but hard to like or write about in an interesting way), it's time to stop. I'm a fan of well-written, scripted television. So this is also my little way to support the WGA, by not doing weekly columns that prop up the tripe that we'll be subjected to until they realize that we need actual writers to make interesting television.
Another after-effect of my mom's passing is, I'm no longer able to attend the Omega Con in Paris this coming weekend. I really hate missing the show, and the trip to France, but it just wont work with the various family things I need to take care of here. I hope I get another chance to head out there, but this one won't work out, unfortunately.
I was talking to Ashley Wood about the trip, and other things (Zombies vs Robots vs Amazons 1 in stores on December 5! I have a copy in my hands right now, hence the typos in this blog), and we just settled on the next ZvR series, likely a 4- or 5-parter. I know where I want the series to go AFTER ZvRvA, but this one will actually go elsewhere. I'll just say the abbreviation for the series will be "ZmR" and leave it at that.
Not going to Paris on Thursday means I'll now be in town, which means I'll be hanging with Clive Barker at Mysterious Galaxy this Thursday, for his Mister B. Gone signing. I'll be bringing the first copies of The Complete Great and Secret Show collection, both in TPB form and hardcover, too. I won't see the books until Thursday morning myself, and I cant wait--it's a 300+ page collection of the entire series, so it'll be nice to have those at the signing, too. Click the link if you want any information about the signing. Maybe Clive will talk a little more about our upcoming new comic series that we're co-writing (which just feels ridiculous to even type, I have to say).
Another signing of note will be Brian Lynch at Meltdown Comics in Los Angeles on Wednesday, November 21. That's the day the long-awaited Angel: After the Fall 1 comic finally arrives. I'm going to do my best to make that signing, too, but either way, anyone in LA should go and just meet Brian, one of the funnier and pleasant comics folks you'll ever meet.
Also, look at the picture in my profile and tell me how it's possible that that woman is no longer in the world. It's a darker place now, no question.
This Tuesday, October 23, I'm appearing on BEAUTY & THE GEEK (8 PM, The CW). Which will at least please my friends who I've been bothering with this news since July. Yes, it'll soon be over and I'll stop talking about it. Until the DVD set is released...
I'm sworn (well, signed, anyway) to secrecy, so I can't give details about the episode, but I'm not a contestant, anyway. Although I like to think I'm both a beauty AND a geek in my own way.
Also, I have no idea how the episode will be cut together, but I'm pretty sure that if I come off badly, that blame falls squarely on the editors' shoulders.
If anyone is savvy enough to not only record the episode, but, like, get clips of it up on YouTube, I'll send you a, uh, signed copy of this week's TV Guide that mentions the show (if I see it before The CW's lawyers get it pulled off of there).
I'm also appearing on the Spike TV Scream Awards (taping tomorrow night) but I have no idea if my little bit will actually make the broadcast, and really, one TV mention is enough, isn't it?
Really, it's true. Clive Barker said as much in an interview at IGN.com today:
"...what Chris Ryall did was absolutely not something that you could do with half your brain. He took a very complicated novel and turned it into an incredibly complicated and elegantly-structured set of 260 pages. That's a lot for any book, but here we're looking at space folding in upon itself and a trip to the dream-sea Quiddity, where humanity floats on the waves.
And so I immediately went back to him with another project which we are presently working on together - an original project. The man is just a joy. I haven't shared a cross word with him at all. You get to the point where you say, "This is my friend, not simply my colleague." He's just a thoroughly decent human being who just so happens to be brilliant."
So, you know, that's a nice way to start my day. The rest can be found here:
