The Sum of David

If you have any interest in the medium of graphic storytelling, this is one piece that should be at the top of your To Read/Own list.

Originally self-published by Jeff Smith from 1991 to 2004, Bone is hailed as the longest running independently-published comic by a single author. Originally, there were 55 issues, released sporadically. These days you can purchase it as a complete volume that clocks in at a spectacular 1,332 pages. And every page is a work of art.

When the three Bones - Phoney Bone, Smily Bone and Fone Bone - are run out of their hometown, they find themselves far from home and separated from one another in The Valley. We primarily follow everyman Fone Bone as he’s taken in by tough Gran’ma Ben and her (cute) grand-daughter Thorn for the winter. But as Spring blossoms, so does trouble: Thorn is having strange dreams, frightening Rat Creatures have begun to invade the valley, and a dragon has been spotted in the woods. They discover the mythic Lord of the Locusts seeks someone to release him from his ancient prison so he can destroy the world, a role he thinks can be filled by either Thorn or Bone’s cousin, Phoney. The barriers between the real world and the dream world begin to break down, and the discovery of Thorn’s mysterious lineage puts them in even more danger than before.

Smith weaves a tale that effectively combines fantasy elements like dragons, monsters, other worlds, and fate with lighter, comedic fare. The art reflects this juxtaposition as well - most of the characters are human, while the three Bones are more simply rendered, with big cartoon-y features and little clothes. Many of the human characters are still exaggerated, however, and I think that’s where Smith is at his strongest. Gran’ma Ben in particular is wonderfully expressive, despite having only lines for eyes and speaking primarily through her chin. His creature designs are straight-forward but fantastic, whether it’s a dragon, Rat Creature, or the cute baby animals. Emotion is poignant and subtle when it needs to be; action is always clear, expressive and exciting.

Rarely does one truly find an author that is just as gifted at art as he/she is at storytelling. In every work of fiction it’s the story that is key, and sometimes graphic novels can get caught up in the “how” rather than the “what” when the author/illustrator are the same person. In Bone, they work well hand in hand.

I really can’t recommend it highly enough. I’ve read it twice, and I had just as much fun this time as the first time. I’m sure I’ll pick it up again in the future.

Bone is also being re-released in color, with the talents of Steve Hamaker adding some umph to Jeff Smith’s expert inking.

…aaaaand there’s the sting I expected from the first one.

I read my second rejection letter today. The agent actually sent it a month ago, which is made a little more embarrassing due to some technical ignorance that left it buried in another email address. And since I totally sent a follow-up email yesterday to check on its progress…? Whoops. I’m suppressing the urge to send her  yet another email to apologize for the mix-up, but seeing as I would have thanked her for time and then wasted it on two unnecessary emails… Yeah, the self esteem is sitting a little lower than usual.

Andrea Somberg (aim for the stars, right?) sent a very polite and personalized email passing on The Sum of David. I got from her words that she read not only the query but also the sample pages. Agent eyes that read the query and advance to the sample chapters mean the query letter is fine, which is great news; but she said she regretted it didn’t draw her in the way she had hoped it would. Ouch.

Do you have twenty minutes to spare? Check out the Sample Chapters and let me know what you think. Celebrate the anonymity of the internet by giving me a vicious critique on the first four chapters of my masterpiece. While I’m not ready to jump head-first into another editing overhaul, it’d be great to know how I can spice it up.

Oh well. Back on the horse.

A fair warning. For the sake of humor, this may be sexist for a moment.

It amazes me that many men spend so much time trying to appear rough and tough and, well, manly, only to revert back to a child’s mentality when they are hit with a cold:

I don’t like to adhere to stereotypes, but it’s like this was filmed in my living room. If I was in Britain, of course, and married to that guy from Hot Fuzz.Josh is nearly back to 100%. He’s kind of like Wolverine when it comes to illnesses, so *shing* and a couple days of hibernation put him back up to functioning levels. I, on the other hand, have apparently become susceptible to things settling in my lungs, so I’m nursing my third round with bronchitis in six months.All that aside, we celebrated Josh’s birthday last night at the Carson City Saloon. Thanks to everybody that came out! I knew the night was a success when he came home at 2am, intoxicated to spins on $4 pitchers of PBR, and fell asleep with a big grin on his face.

Be sure to tell him happy birthday, and be sure to do so loudly.

Josh Sager posted this on his blog first, but I must also share. I think most people would be able to identify with at least one aspect of this video, and probably more if you’ve been in school in the last ten years.

Alas, I’ve never had the pleasure of the classic, college lecture where you and 200 of your classmates fill an auditorium to learn for grades; but I know without a doubt that it wouldn’t have been conducive to my education. It certainly wouldn’t have done anything for me socially. I was never a class star, but having some level of human interaction with teachers fought my natural instincts to wallflower. I have seen speakers in the lecture setting, but that was for undocumented personal benefit, without any sort of papers or class submissions for grading. Seeing what I do of Josh’s workload as a teacher, I can’t imagine having to grade for that many — his time is consumed so much as it is trying to grade for classes of 20 to 35.

He’s been preaching about education’s outdated model for a while now, and his position lends itself to some flexibility in how the information he needs to share is broadcast. He’s always stretching the model a little. I imagine a 4+ year institution would be much, much harder to stray from the system that’s been making it money for decades and possibly longer.

I feel that all levels of education — K-12, technical or traditional college, etc — should above all instill the desire and ability to continue learning after you leave the institution, despite the major or whether you actually acquire the piece of paper that said you were there the amount of time you intended to be. I suppose some of the kids in the above video must have that drive out of necessity, but does surfing the web and facebook for hours a day allow for that urge to foster?

I’m not looking for answers, exactly. It’s merely food for thought. In my humble opinion, it is an individual’s responsibility to continue their own education after leaving whatever formal schooling they are able to secure for ourselves; especially when some fields — like graphic design — that degree means significantly less than your talent, potential and portfolio. There’s independent legwork needed in growing/maintaining knowledge, whether personally or professionally.

On a related note: After being involved with two Podcamp Pittsburghs (+ one bootcamp), I have finally begun to embrace one of the featured medias discussed there. Again. Podcasts pretty much rock my world, and once upon a time, I had subscribed to several. But they began to steal room on my hard drive, I wasn’t listening to them as much as I should have and, lamest of all excuses: my iPod didn’t have a screen. I never knew what I was listening to.

Between you and me, I still don’t know the names of half the songs in my library.

I was planning on taking a brush up course in French in the next six months. Instead, armed with a shiny new screen and some inspiration, I checked to see if there were any “Learn French” podcasts out there. iTunes lists nine beautiful options, and all are free downloads. There’s german, spanish, japanese, and more. I’m test driving two of them right now, and I may just start at the beginning to get my brain back into the swing of things. There’s a broad range of levels, too, depending on where you’d like to start.

J’adore l’internet.

Mr. Baconpants moves faster than maximum warp. Here’s a little vision of the Apacolypse I’ve deemed “Dance of Destruction.”

What better way for Cthulu and our future artificial masters to decide humanity’s fate than by dance? I submit that this will be how all conflicts are solved in the future. Be able to say “I told you so” during our unfortunate end. Available at Chestlaser.com.

Besides the disturbing Valentine in the last post, I’ve been keeping myself busy-busy with life in general. Here’s the current skinny.

Writing: I’m nearly halfway finished with The Sum of David’s sequel.

I’m beginning to think I started the story too early, which means I’ll end up cutting/condensing the first few pages. The story will take as long as it takes to tell, however, so page count is really secondary to my concerns, even though I do want to keep it about the same size as TSoD. We’ll see what happens. In my experience, this stuff usually works itself out. And trimming is always easier than having to add and recalibrate a portion of the plot. For a while, I was actually more worried about…

Well, it isn’t writer’s block, exactly. It is more like the Midas touch, except everything produced via my fingertips is stinky poo instead of wonderful shiny gold. I had a very successful write-o-thon last weekend, but haven’t been able to do anything worthwhile since then. The dialogue is wooden and fake, the action forced, and any dramatic revelations seem out of character, over-acted or blah.

This was in a blog draft I wrote last week in an effort to confess some sins and refocus. To my surprise, it actually worked. I got some solid writing in Saturday and Sunday. There are some points that I know will shift in the revision — and that’s a bummer of a feeling, when you’re putting down words and you know for a fact they aren’t going to stay — but it’s not the verbal vomit like it was last week. Whew!

Illustration: I’ve got lots on my plate, but in the most wonderful way. I’ll post current projects upon their release. For the moment, you should check out Chest Laser, an online independent clothing store. Matt Gondek has created two nifty designs so far (including the logo), and more products will follow as the store expands.

I’ve got a couple ideas slated as personal development on my agenda, too. My character designs need a little more variation, for example, so I’ve got an idea for a series that should stretch my abilities on that front. It will still be that ‘cute evil’ style I happily fall into, but hopefully in differing shades. I’m also looking forward to working with some fresh people, and that will be exciting. Who knew people would actually want the stuff I love to do anyway?

Dance: My plan to take one class a month is still on track. I’ve taken four classes at PBT since the new year and I’m loving it.

*Illustration at top is a chapter icon from The Cauldronborn. The story should probably never see the light of day, but the icon is nice — it heads a chapter where the protagonists visit a fortune teller that sees into the future by throwing a tantrum over her freshly baked cookies. Then she eats the cookies and goes into a trance. …it doesn’t have to make sense; it’s the future, maaaan.

I’m not a big Valentine’s Day person. I do like the idea of appreciating your loved one. I understand that sometimes life gets in the way, and taking a day to remind someone how much you care is not only vital, but necessary to maintaining a healthy relationship. I like chocolate. I don’t mind the color pink. It’s all the other stuff that bothers me.

However. Instead of droning on about the nauseous feeling I get every time I walk into a drugstore in the two weeks before this silly, disgustingly consumer-driven holiday, I have a present for all of you:

I’m afraid I can’t offer much explanation. He loves you… and so does his tapeworm. Or his tapeworm loves you and is speaking through his host body. There’s really a number of ways to translate this, and they are all disturbing. Feel free to pass it along to all those people in your life that you care about. Happy Valentine’s Day!

The intro to the Superbowl has reminded me that I need to purchase the soundtrack of at least one of the National Treasure movies. I highly suspect that was the background music for Troy Aikman’s introduction.

Budlight: Breathing fire, flying and talking to animals. Very nice. Cheese run, excellent — I liked the trick baguette. And it’s true, accents are sexy. Also: Will Farrell!

Audi putting Luxury on notice via an auto “head” in bed. Funny, even if I had to explain it to other parties. Also a tad disturbing, but not to the point where it totally put me off… plus, that new Audi car looks SWEET.

PepsiMax: Drowsing public, cute. Wake up to Roxy music with said drink, cute. Mango pissed? Awesome.

Hm, a new episode of House is on after the game.

UnderArmor: is always very epic. It kind of made me feel wimpy, though, since my muscles don’t have muscles on top of their muscles.

Bridgestone: screaming tortoise/grasshopper tie for the best of the screaming animals. They really ramped up their advertising throughout the entire Superbowl, including sponsoring segments of the actual event. A good move, since of all the brands advertised their’s was one I had totally forgot existed.

GoDaddy is smart, if tasteless. And it totally worked — Josh went to the website before the commercial was even off the air.

FedEx: Giant pigeons? Somewhere PittGirl is screaming. Still.

Cars.com: Plan B theme was memorable and well done. Head shrinking witch doctor and “You should probably step out of the stone circle of death to, you know, avoid any confusion.” Priceless.

Tide: Talking stain was good, even if it was a little annoying.

Budweiser: Rocky horse, tee hee. The end was disappointing, though.

Life water: Dancing lizards = dumb. Sometimes having no point is cool. This was not one of those times. They probably paid a fortune to use MJ’s Thriller, too. A shame.

Is House playing after the game? I feel like I heard that somewhere.

Planters: Ugly girl attracting serious love attention. Loved it. Cyclist into the taxi = hi-LAR-ious (no hard feelings to bikers, of course). Also, pick the wedge!

Pepsi: However you feel about Justin Timberlake, he’s certainly a good sport. You can’t have a diva complex while ramming your doodles repeatedly into a mailbox post. Delightful.

Vitamin Water: Shaq as a jockey is a RIOT. If he and a horse raced, he would win on stride alone.

Bridgestone: Alice Cooper + snake and Richard Simmons, tee hee.

eTrade: Videocasting toddlers that barf about stocks are disturbing, but also cute… ish. I think. Maybe? Clowns are just creepy, though. They did follow up with a grown-up version later in the game, which was smart.

Coke: Aw, go giant Charlie Brown balloon!

Oh? is House on later?

Taco Bell: Wikshh! In my opinion, the insistent mariachi band was a grand success! Sombreros always win.

Gatorade: Noisy dog gulping water loudly? Gross and… just gross.

Victoria Secret: They know their demographic oh-so-well. But what I want to know is if I can buy the chair? Because, seriously, that’s a great chair.

Amp: Man jumping a car with his nipples after drinking an energy drink. I miss Salt’n Pepa. Josh said “That was ______!” during this one, but I didn’t know who he was talking about since I grew up sans cable (hard knock life and all that, you know).

American Idol: Oh, Ben. That was a whole lot of unnecessary. The only time he belongs on television is if there is a game on and he’s in it.

And this is where updates end because I became too engrossed in the game. Budlight was the obvious winner this year, in my opinion. They had three different kinds of commercials, including a set in the “now comes with __(supernatural power)__” theme. Pepsi and Cars.com did a nice job, also. Outside of that, there were a few decent ones and several that totally missed the mark. I guess if I can recall what company did what commercial, someone earned their $1.9 bazillion dollars.

It’s funny how much media pressure is put on the commercials, and so many of them obviously try so hard and still stink. I suppose it does give more people a reason to watch the game. Also, Tom Petty was a surprisingly entertaining halftime show. Even if most of those songs came out a decade or more ago, he’s still one of the most rock’n roll’n zombies I know. It is interesting to point out that all the halftime shows since the Big Bad Wardrobe Malfunction of ‘04 have been dudes — Paul McCartney, The Rolling Stones, and Prince. Of those, my favorite by far was been Prince: I seemed to recall it rained heavily on him, and when the heavens are participating during Purple Rain you just know it’s rock’n roll.

Getting back on track — if you missed any of the commercials or would like to re-watch them, you can do so here.

Have you ever seen a good movie adaption of a book you’ve read? I haven’t. So I’m doing this one backwards: movie first, then book.

The His Dark Materials series only came onto my radar when I saw the trailer for the movie last year. Josh suggested we check the film out on Sunday, and we headed to the cheapies in Bridgeville. (Sidenote for Pittsburghers: Screenworks 14 is well worth a short drive. $2 tickets!)

The Golden Compass is set in a world parallel to our own. One extraordinary difference is that each person’s soul resides outside their body, in the form of an animal totem called a daemon. When uncle Asriel leaves Lyra at Jordan College so he can travel North to investigate a mysterious substance called Dust, we follow this mischievous young girl as she is plucked from her charge by the suave Ms. Coulter. Lyra is gifted with a surprise birthright before she leaves with the woman: an alethiometer, the last compass of its kind that will lead to truth. All the others have been destroyed by the Magisterium, who Ms. Coulter happens to work for (uh oh!). Lyra discovers that Ms. Coulter is in charge of a project that is kidnapping children and when she tries to steal the alethiometer from Lyra, the girl runs away and her adventure North in search of her uncle and the missing kids — begins.

The tale that unfolds is unlike any other story I’ve experienced, especially on the big screen. There was lots of drama, action, emotion. Storywise, however, I couldn’t help thinking there were things missing. I know that it is inevitable to lose detail that you would get from reading the book, but I was left not caring for things I suspect I should have been more concerned about. For instance, the Dust that the Magisterium wants kept a secret? So much so that they would kill for it? I couldn’t really care. I know it’s supposed to be a mystery, but it would have taken a little more information to actually pique my interest. It is possible to keep certain details hidden from the audience and allow the viewers to still leave feeling satisfied.

With a couple exceptions, I thought the acting was excellent — Dakota Blue Richards does an exceptional job, especially considering the weight of such a strong leading role. The cast seemed to interact well with each other and, most surprisingly, the CGI. There were only a couple times when my mind did a little double-take and said “Aha, that monkey is totally not hugging Ms. Coulter!“.

Visually, it is stunning. The environments are beautiful and believable, the machinery was conceptually inventive, the costume design is great, and character design for the CG characters was good. My favorite CG character should probably be Pan, Lyra’s trusted daemon, since he’s all cute and squeaky and shape-shifting, etc… but my warm and fuzzy feelings are all over Iorek*, exiled prince of the armored bears. Wicked.

I have a couple beefs with The Golden Compass, but all in all it was an enjoyable flick. I would certainly recommend it if you are a fan of the genre, although it might be a little too deep-end fantasy for more casual fans. I personally look forward to the next installment. I’m also getting the soundtrack.

*This affection has nothing to do with the fact that The Sum of David has a butt-kicking polar bear, and that seeing Iorek deal out some awesome Bear Rambo justice on the big screen was all kinds of righteous. None at all.**

**Okay, maybe a little.

Wikipedia is the downfall of my productivity at work.

I will read about most everything with some level of interest, although history oftentimes wins out. Why? It’s the stories, made even more powerful because of the reality behind them. My genre of choice might be fantasy for entertainment, but I can’t ignore the human factor of our past — the actions, inactions, passions, and what people are willing to risk their life over.

I did some link hopping from a chocolate company to underground teaching and opened up a facet of WWII knowledge that I’d never thought about or been aware of; concerning a subject I most certainly take for granted everyday.

In 1939, the invasion and subsequent occupation of Poland marked the start of World War II. The Nazi doctrine determined that the Slavs would serve as manual labor to the Germans, and they did not require an education. All education in the country was banned. The punishment for breaking Nazi law was, as in so many cases, death.

However.

Those who escaped the deportation to concentration camps or the Nazi’s murder of the nation’s leaders, politicians, artists, and potential trouble-makers organized a network of underground universities. They arranged lectures in basements and crowded apartments. Underground printers were established to provide them with materials and books. In 1944, there were hundreds of teachers and thousands of students. High school students risked their lives to learn grammar, geography and mathematics, receiving certificates from their “non-existent” schools that they could use to enter “non-existent” colleges.

The moral of the story? Knowledge is power. The Nazis understood that, seeing as how they tried to take it away from the Poles; and the Poles recognized what losing education would mean and held onto it even at the risk of execution. Whether it’s formal or not, don’t take your access to information for granted — you never know when you won’t have it anymore.