Sunday, December 30, 2007

2008

According to the Issac Aasimov short story "Franchise", in 2008 the U.S. president will be selected by a computer program looking for the "most representative citizen".

In the Larry Niven/Jerry Pournelle novel "The Mote in God's Eye", faster-than-light travel is also perfected in 2008. And according to Futurama, suicide booths are invented then, too.

The 1972 sci-fi film Silent Running takes place in 2008. By then all plant life on Earth has died out, and Bruce Dern is committed to growing and preserving plants in geodesic domes orbiting Saturn so that eventually the Earth can be reforested (the movie also demonstrates why we should never put Bruce Dern in charge of anything).

So...some good and some bad things to look forward to next year...


Wednesday, December 19, 2007

The Big Wait

"Well, the fact is I never know where my books come from, and I never go out looking for ideas. It all seems to happen in a way that has nothing to do with me. One day something is there that wasn't there the day before."

--Paul Auster


For the last few weeks I've been steadily waiting for 'The Big Black' to come together, but so far it remains a fragment of an idea. I try not to push it or force it to fit into some preconceived notion of what a story should properly be like, but sometimes the whole process is damned frustrating. Lately I've been staying awake for hours when I should be sleeping, trying to let things connect in my head. I've got to try and cut that out.

Anyways, that's what I've been doing for awhile now...sketching and waiting for the big black idea to coalesce.


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There's always a tendency to catagorize the best books/movies/music/etc at the end of the year in a kind of retrospective. I can't make a Top Ten list of the best comics of 2007 because there's plenty potential ones out there that I haven't read yet (like Shaun Tan's "The Arrival", Matt Kindt's "Super Spy", or Paul Karasik's apparently awesome book on Fletcher Hanks, "I Shall Destroy All the Civilized Planets", if that can be included in such a list), but right now I feel it would be extraordinarily hard to top Acme Novelty Library #18 as the best comic of the year.

Saturday, December 8, 2007

Dax's Dreamscape

Today I dreamed that Tony Danza shot me in the leg.


I have to say this is one of those kinds of dreams that defies analysis. Though I suppose if I were to choose an 80's sitcom star to wound me it would be Tony Danza...I imagine he'd be very apologetic about it afterwards, say "Whoa" a lot, and probably get into some crazy mixed-up shenanigans while trying to take me to the hospital.