...where’d it go?

I had this amazing video on my profile page - it was from Fraggle Rock, a television show that I loved (and still love). If you haven't seen it, you should - there was always something about the music that I liked. Fraggle Rock was the show that made me fall in love with Jim Henson's various works - when I was little, I very much wanted to work for him. He died before I ever got the chance to so much as meet him, I remember being so horribly, horribly depressed the day I found out he'd died.

Regardless, the video was of Gobo, singing this sort of melancholy little tune called The Petal of the Rose, I think it was. I don't know why it's gone, but I'd like it back.

...also for whoever is purchasing me on this buy a person thing? What on earth is that? Who said I was 'the most beautiful comic artist around'? And most importantly, are you really sane, whoever that is? I mean, really.

I'm trying to figure out how to get it off of my profile, but I am woefully inept at the ins and outs of myspace, it seems. Oh well, looks like I've got a small project this evening!

Edit: Managed the bit about getting things off of my profile, however I am still Fraggle-less. Is it that video embedding doesn't work anymore? No idea. Will keep tinkering.

6:01 AM - 8 Comments - 14 Kudos - Add Comment

YARRRRRRRRRRR

I live. Kinda.

Visited home a couple of times. I may or may not talk about that later, depending on how I'm feeling about discussing it.

Had an amazing time at Comicon, as always.

My birthday is next week, and in a set of weird circumstances, it falls on Talk Like a Pirate Day. Or rather, my birthday is the day they chose to declare as Talk Like a Pirate Day - I have NO IDEA WHY.

I'm going to be 32, which I'm sort of...meh about? No plans, really. However, I have oddly enough fallen in love with the Pirate game application - AND I NEED MORE CREW MEMBERS.

For my birthday, I would like to have the largest pirate crew I can possibly ever ever have. A FLEET OF PIRATES. Is that what they call a group of pirates? I have no idea. But if you're reading this, throw me an invite to join your crew or something. I'm on there as Aeire the Red.

AND YARRRRRRRRRRRRRR

I swear I'll write something of substance later. For now, fluff contents me.

11:53 PM - 4 Comments - 8 Kudos - Add Comment

A long story, only appropriate really

When I was in sixth grade, the library at my middle school was having a book sale - selling the old books and duplicates they had lying around. Me being me (aka in my HORSES AND UNICORNS ARE THE MOST MAJESTIC CREATURES EVER phase), I rummaged through the piles of old crap that nobody really wanted to the stuff that hadn't been picked over yet, looking for fantasy novels. I picked up some old Xanth novels and then my eyes lit on the cover of a book called 'Myth Directions', by some guy named Robert Asprin. The title made me laugh, and best of all, it had a unicorn on the cover, so therefore it had to be a good book, and I paid my .25 for it and went merrily on my way.

I tried reading it when I got home and it just didn't interest me. I was 10 or 11 at the time, and since there was no immediate unicorn hijinks, I put the book on my bookshelf and left it unread. A little over a year later, during a very long and very hot summer, I discovered it again, lying on my bookshelf, and decided to actually read it this time instead of just looking for the unicorn bits.

...man I'm glad I picked it up again. It was some of the funniest stuff I'd read up to that point - just a really light-hearted humor book with a storyline that referenced some events that weren't mentioned in the book. I finished it, and as with all books that I liked I looked up the author at the library the next time I was there and was delighted to find there was a whole slew of books in the series that I hadn't read yet - and that I'd leapt in somewhere in the middle of the series.

Well that wouldn't do at all. I managed to get a couple more of the books from the library, but they didn't have all of them. The few I did get ahold of were just as good as that first one I read - and bonus! He referenced Wendy and Richard Pini, the creators of Elfquest, a comic that I was happily devouring at the time. I remember thinking it was neat that they knew each other that well. That Christmas was one of the best ever, because I got pretty much everything on my list - which was books, books, and more books - I remember looking in vain for the Myth books, hoping I'd gotten them and not finding them. THEN I looked in my stocking (which was huge, mind you) and finding a gigantic stack of wrapped paperback books. It was the Myth novels - all of them, every single last one.

I think I finished them all in two days. Only this time I could read them in ORDER, bam bam bam! Loved the series *so much*. I remember doodling pictures of Aahz and Skeeve and Gleep in my notebooks, dreamily imagining scenes in my head from an 'I am watching a movie' standpoint. I have this vivid memory of walking to the bus stop one winter's day and seeing rabbit tracks in the snow and being really excited for a moment because they looked like what, in my head, Aahz's footprints would look like. ...I had a really overactive imagination when I was a kid. Anyway, for some reason, I didn't really understand why, then, these books really struck a chord with me. Funny, sweet, endearing - and the main character was a naive kid named Skeeve who managed to get himself into high ranking positions without really knowing anything due to a gruff mentor named Aahz.

I guess that's the part that really hit home with me - it wasn't so much the humor and the wit, it was that it was about this kid who really didn't know what he was doing or who he wanted to be and managed to make something of himself despite it all because he had friends that knew the way. At the time, I had few aspirations, but I kinda knew I wanted to draw and write for a living - I just didn't know how. I really wished that I had someone like Aahz around to show me the way, but I didn't.

Years passed, and I waited impatiently for the next book in the series, it finally came out when I was in high school. I had to wait another three years for the next book, which came out my junior year - in the meantime, I discovered that the first book had been made into a comic. Not only that, but the artist for the comic was really good - he drew the characters a lot like how I'd envisioned them in my head, and he peppered the whole comic with all kinds of background references - I was delighted to see the elves of Elfquest romping around the Bazaar at Deva. Wow, I thought, this guy knows them TOO - man I love this! All my favorite authors and artists know each other! (As a side note - apparently, Wendy and Richard also published a comic adaptation of a Xanth novel during all of this, which made me even MORE gleeful. Eee, they all knew each other and worked together - I have no idea why this delighted me so much, but it did.)

Still more years passed, and I waited and waited, patiently, for the next book to come out, but it never did. ...then one fall, just after I started Queen of Wands and long after I'd forgotten about the Myth series, I was flying home from visiting a friend on the east coast. I stopped in the airport bookstore on the way out, thinking that it'd be nice to have something to read on the flight - and there it was, the next Myth novel. I'd all but forgotten they existed, although all the books were still in my library. I spent that flight getting caught up with what was going on in the Myth universe, and came away feeling...odd, I guess. Slightly sad. The magic was still there, but I was looking at it so much differently than I did when I was younger.

I've bought every book after - and during the course of the years that passed, that comic that I had just started dinking around with somehow got waaaaay more popular than I had ever imagined it being. I met Wendy and Richard Pini - heck I even talked with Richard on AIM a few times. ...to this day I still have yet to meet them and not dissolve into gibbering because I just don't know how to say anything to them in person and face to face because my brain just ceases to function in their presence for some reason. I bet I could, now. And then I met Phil Foglio, who is one of the nicest human beings I have ever met. I've managed to meet and just...talk with a lot of the people that I read or admired the work of over the years.

And much like Skeeve, I've got no damned clue how I ended up in all of this. It's been really, really weird the past six years or so I've been doing comics (...holy crap, it's been that long?), I didn't so much have a gruff mentor as just...a lot of friends along the way that knew what they were doing and were kind enough to offer advice and pointers to a confused girl when I asked. There was a point when I questioned, like Skeeve, whether or not what I was doing was something I really deserved, whether or not I was really a 'responsible' adult or just someone who had people that put them where they needed to be. I thought about whether or not I should be depending on these people and came to a ridiculous conclusion that maybe I should just try doing it all myself because that's the 'adult' thing to do, and was promptly put in my place by my friends. I realized I'm not an imposition to the people I talk to - I'm a peer, and in some cases I'm a friend.

I never got to meet Robert Asprin, never got him to sign any of my books (and I own...all the original paperbacks, two gigantic hardcover collections, all of the Foglio illustrated novels and both of the original Myth graphic novels that came out. I suppose a lot of them are redundant but I could never, ever bring myself to get rid of any of them - I'm a collector I guess. Or just mildly insane.). It turns out I'll never get to meet him after all - he passed away yesterday. I think this is probably the hardest I've been hit by an author's death - mostly because his books and collected works affected me that much, and he never knew it - and now he never will. This was already a week filled with news of little, personal deaths for me, and it's really weird that I'm trying to hold back tears at work over a guy I never really knew.

I'll miss you, Mr. Asprin.

10:59 AM - 3 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

<3 Adobe

Photoshop is working again. :) Much love for Erica, the gal that got me taken care of!

11:17 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

$&(*& photoshop

Apparently I cannot install Photoshop CS on my new machine because I don’t have any damn activations left. I am trying to decide whether calling the company and asking if that one time I put it on a computer and then removed it twenty minutes later after realizing said computer just could not handle the software with the speed I like actually counted as an activation, and whether they can give me one back.

...somehow I don’t think this is going to fly, leaving me Photoshopless until I manage to purchase another copy.

I might as well try. Can’t hurt to try - and if I were trying to use the program illegally I wouldn’t damn well be calling the company, would I?

5:43 PM - 5 Comments - 3 Kudos - Add Comment

Oh. Well that’s easy.

Apparently, you push in the bar, turn the key all the way to the left, then all the way to the right, there’s a little click, and the door is unlocked.

I asked the property owner when I saw her unlocking it this morning!

8:54 AM - 3 Comments - 3 Kudos - Add Comment

THIS IS WHAT YOU GET

WHEN YOU LET THE INTERNS PLAY WITH PHOTOSHOP


The full article, but I warn you the pictures are like, a million more times interesting than what they’re actually talking about: http://www.abcnews.go.com/Politics/Vote2008/story?id=4491853&page=1

Also - I seem to be on a classical kick again. I go back and forth between what music I’m listening to, and what kind of music I’m listening to - for awhile it was ’songs I thought were really really good when I was younger but now they’re kind of cliche and lame’, now it’s ’OH GOD MORE MORE MORE GIVE ME MORE TCHIAKOVSKY NOW I WANT TO DO THAT VIOLINST’ etc.

Oddly, when talking to my roommate about this, she said her parents never listened to classical music. My mother had several different classical collections she’d listen to while we were growing up - in between the ABBA and the Neil Diamond, she’d play the previously mentioned Tchaikovsky, or Bach, or Beethoven, or a score of other classical composers. I say ’odd’ and I don’t mean that my parents roommates were odd by any means - it just struck me as odd because I suppose I’d taken that exposure for granted, and hadn’t really considered the thought that not a lot of people may have heard this sort of thing growing up.

Which is kinda sad, because classical music is...it kinda rocks, you know? Not because it’s classical or whatever, but because music with lyrics, or conventional songs, they use the combination of the words they’re saying and the music itself to make you feel. Classical, it’s just music, is all, and leaves the mood entirely open to the whim of the person listening to it. That and I just find the different instruments and the types of noises they make really...there’s something really neat about them.

I kinda wish I’d had the resources to take music lessons of some kind or another when I was a kid - instead I just listen, and wistfully think of how I’d play that if I could do so.

11:00 AM - 2 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

On Punch an’ Pie

WARNING: The following post may contain certain spoilery elements to it. I'm not giving anything away, however I'm going to have a conversation about structure, and motivations, and what goes on in the comic because people have expressed certain concerns. If you'd like an in-depth look at what goes on in my head when I write this stuff, by all means read on. If you'd rather not, then hit your back button and pretend I never posted anything. >.>















Seriously, this is your last chance to move back......



















Okay, go time: PnP is much like QoW, in that it follows characters around in a real-life situation, but that's about where the similarity ends. QoW was loosely based on my life, PnP is definitely not, although there are moments and bits of story here and there that are vague reminders of things that have happened to me here and there. More often than not, when I'm writing I'm asking myself a question and working out the answer WHILE I am writing - there were several different questions along the way with QoW, the big one being 'I'm supposed to be an adult, so what to I do now?' and the answer to that being 'Whatever you want, you moron - just keep moving forward, and keep a sense of humor about it all'. QoW followed one person's look at themselves, how they related to the rest of the world, and what they wanted to do with themselves.

PnP is a horse of a different color altogether. Where QoW's Kestrel had one or two failed relationships, it was never really about relationships in terms of significant others - it was more about friendships, and the families you make yourself. There was a hint of relationship angst from Angela's end, but that was...about it as far as relationships went, and Kestrel was never really pining for a relationship. Not like Angela.

And now we have Angela - who is still living her life and doing her thing, only we never really saw what her 'thing' was. Instead of picking up immediately after QoW, it picks up years later, with Angela in a new relationship (new to us, steady to her) and dealing with that. QoW was family and community relationships, PnP leans more towards romantic relationships.

But wait Aeire, you say - That doesn't fly because there isn't one!

There's an explanation for this that I will go into, but before I do I feel I should preface that explanation with something: I am a huge fan of turning things on their ear and shaking them around and seeing what happens. I like playing with structure and the 'standard and normal' way of doing things, and smooshing things around and pushing buttons here and there. The course may be muddled at first, because pieces are still falling into place and I'm still working with what I've got to make it a coherent whole.

Only this time it's not so much a whole.

Most romance stories follow the same standard operating procedure - here's one person, here's another person, both have their own feelings and conflicts, they're crazy about each other, and eventually they overcome all odds and get together, and at the end of the film, they're a happy couple living happily ever after.

That's so...boring.

So I tried a different route. Let's take the happy couple of happily ever after, let them be blissfully happy for awhile, overcome a few obstacles - and then split them up, and let them have their own feelings and conflicts. Let's tell the other half of the story, the one that doesn't make it into storybooks because it isn't anywhere near idyllic. And it doesn't make you feel good.

But the important part is it makes you think. And it's in viewing what you're thinking that the real interest starts for me, as a writer. The thing is, everyone's got their own way of dealing with the end of a relationship, everyone's got their own way of looking at relationships in general, and it's how people are reacting that I find endlessly fascinating. The story so far has been deliberately put into place to make people ask questions, and to garner some sort of reaction - and there's nothing wrong with any of the reactions people are having.

So far, the most interesting point to me is that months after the fact, people are still trying to blame either Heather or Angela for the breakup, citing mostly minor references here and there and blowing them up much, much larger to emphasize their points. Or liking one, hating the other. Or hating them both. Or hating anyone who might have had something to DO with their breakup. I've offered a small snapshot into what happened to lead up to the events that caused that breakup, but not much more than that, on purpose.

Yes, that's right, you heard me. I'm doing all of this very much on purpose. In looking at the infrastructure of relationships and what makes them work, there's no real answer - in looking at the infrastructure of a dying or dead relationship, there may or may not be an answer as well - but it's rare that you see anyone address what happens after the music has died, after the relationship is over, and what happens when you're just trying to get your life back together again.

Yes, we follow Angela. Of course we do, she was one half of what we started with. And yes, we follow Heather. She is the other half of what we started with. But instead of two people working through their own problems and suddenly coming together, we have two people seperating, and slowly realizing and rebuilding what they've got going in their own lives.

Will they ever get together again?

...well that'd be awfully boring and contrived, wouldn't it? Unless it were handled appropriately.

Yes, that was deliberately vague. Anyway, keep reading - and keep in mind, the loathing that you're feeling? I'm not writing that.

1:52 AM - 9 Comments - 14 Kudos - Add Comment

All about life

The other day after getting something out of my car and heading back to the office, I ran across a young woman attempting to unlock the side entrance to the building.

Push the handle in, shut the door, open the door, oops it's still locked. Open the door all the way, push the handle in extra hard, shut the door, open the door, oops it's locked. Put the key in, jiggle it around, push the handle, close the door, oops it's locked.

"Maybe try holding the handle in while you turn the key?" I suggested as helpfully as possible, the girl smiling and nodding at the advice and trying it on for size. Shut the door, oops, it's locked. Try it again, pushing the handle in extra hard, jiggling the key the other direction, shut the door, oops it's locked.

"I just can't figure out how to open it!" she says, an air of almost palpable annoyance with the damned door in her voice.

"Maybe you should talk to the property owner upstairs, she'd probably know how to open it," I reply, watching her fiddle with the door. Approximately five minutes have passed now, as she's playing with the door. She shakes her head in frustration.

"No, you don't understand. I work for her." Another jiggle, another push. "She sent me down here to do it."

"Well then she'd know how to unlock it, right?" and another shake of her head, her eyes desperate and almost panicked.

"No, see, I don't want her to think I'm stupid!"

She let me in the building finally, with an apologetic smile, and I continued to the office, struggling valiantly to keep from laughing. Because really, the more you think of it the more ridiculously funny it becomes - she has something she needs to do, she has the means to get it done, properly, but she doesn't want to look stupid to one person even though she's kinda acting like an idiot right in front of me this entire time. Not an idiot, really, just...stubborn, bullheaded, and unwilling to take the most obvious solution available because it IS the most obvious solution, and because somehow, being smart enough to realize you'd got insufficient instructions on how to do something properly, and taking the appropriate measures to get it done right, is stupider than standing around trying trick after trick after trick and hoping that one of the tricks might actually magically work.

And that's life. In a nutshell. You stand there, busily trying trick after trick to get the damn door open and in a constant state of near mortifcation hoping that nobody sees you screw up. Because they'll think you're stupid, and that really matters. Nevermind that there may be an easier solution, nevermind that there may be a different way to do things, the highest concern on your priority list is not looking like an idiot in front of people. It doesn't matter if it's a boss or a friend or a stranger on the street, we go out of our way to avoid looking dumb.

Which in a way makes us even dumber than simply going about our business and getting things done in as straightforward a fashion as possible.

The key to all of this (Oh! An inadvertent pun!) is pretty easy. The next time you're theoretically fiddling with the lock and jiggling the handle and turning the key and grinding your teeth and hoping nobody notices, take a look around you. I mean a REALLY good look.

You'd be surprised how many people are paying absolutely no attention to you as they jiggle the handle turn the key and fiddle with the lock. And that's probably the biggest joke out of all of 'em.

Edit: And as a particularly hysterical epilogue to this story, at work today I found the side door, rather than being unlocked properly, just...propped open the tinest bit, so it doesn't shut completely and inadvertently lock.

1:54 AM - 5 Comments - 7 Kudos - Add Comment

I’d like to follow up the preceeding post with one important question:

...since WHEN, exactly, does 'Dr. Pepper' sound like 'ROOT BEER'?




I think that was about the most unpleasant sip of soda I've ever had. Not that I don't like root beer mind you, I was just expecting....something completely different.

2:43 PM - 6 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment