[594] applying pressure

console

< Piro >

"coloring quickly"

Thursday - August 12, 2004

Whew.

Well, the past month sure has been, uh, interesting. Seraphim and I have seen so little of our apartment that we think the cats are forgetting who we are and have started to develop the behavioral patterns of abandoned kitties. The level of rampant devastation is such that we are going to have to mount a reconstruction campaign this weekend. At least now we might actually have time to do it, as things have finally settled down a little and the biggest crunch of the year is (hopefully) behind us.

As most of you are aware, the new MegaGear store is up and running and we would like to thank everyone who has shopped with us. :) Aside from problems with the website software (which i will touch on in another rant) everything has been going fine. Lotsa store stuff to talk about, but i'm trying to keep this particular rant short -- i gotta get to work on friday's comic. :) Oh, yeah, must do a little shameless pimping: Please go buy stuff or kimiko will cry. You don't want that on your conscience, do you?

Aside from the store, there were three other things that had been looming over me. There was San Diego Comic Con, which went really well (I haven't yet had a chance to rant about that either. Sheesh, i need to rant more), then Tim from Dark Horse gave me the wonderful news last month that I needed to have the cover artwork for book 3 done by August 8th... a week after the store was scheduled to open. Gee, thanks Tim :P Actually, not Tim's fault, It HAD to be done by the 8th, or they would not be able to release the book in January. So... after recovering from SDCC, rolling into the logistics and brute panic of getting the store off the ground and running smoothly, i had to turn around and produce the cover art for book 3 in less than two days.

It actually didn't come out too bad :) I've posted the artwork over on Fredart, and a mockup of the cover you can look at here. There are some problems with it, but it will do. There had been some speculation as to who would be on the cover of book 3, well, now you know :P

I had planned out the cover sequence for MT books last year, and so far, i think the set is starting to look nice. Book 3 should be pretty cool - it contains some of my best work so far on MT (IMHO) and i'd really like to do something special for the omake this time... we'll see what i can come up with.

The last project I have had to deal with, and the one that is currently slated to take up a chunk of my time this month is a poster for the American Library Association. The ALA has asked me to do a poster for its series of posters and bookmarks for libraries. You know those READ posters you see in the library? Yeah, stuff like that :) They seemed to really like the concept sarah and I pulled together on monday, so hopefully i will be able to finish it by the deadline at the end of the month. All proceeds from sales of this poster will go to support programs and initiatives of the American Library Association, including literacy programs, etc. Sarah and I feel honored to have been asked to do this, so i hope i can do a decent poster for them.

Need to get cracking on the next comic. I wasn't really happy with the art for the last comic, so i'm gonna try to focus more - still a lot to do in this chapter.

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< Seraphim >

"shredded"

Friday - August 6, 2004

[Seraphim] - 02:25:00 - [link here]

Piro and I returned from San Diego Comic Con to an absolutely stuffed mailbox. It is partly our fault because we forgot to leave the key for the kitty sitter, but that aside, we are totally inundated with credit card applications, offers and mailings. With two individuals and two businesses we get 20 applications per week between us. That's not to mention the credit companies we do business with sending blank checks in the mail. I just love the apps and checks floating around in the mail system. We don't use credit and haven't for years and they just can't wait to get their greedy hooks into us at their mafia interest rates. I haven't used their card in years and they think I'm going to be enticed by their 0% interest for 3 days and then the rate being jacked to double digits greater than my age. Silly sillies.

I bought a commercial shredder to deal with all of it. I really want a shredder that will handles the entire envelope without even opening it and multiple at one time. I want something that will chew it up and spit it out. I need a wood chipper. Maybe I will put my credit to use. It seems like poetic justice.

We do use a piece of plastic that you have to pay off every month to pay for groceries and gas to earn reward points. We have been doing this for eight years and we still can't afford anything! I was looking around the point redemption site and saw under the 'other travel' rewards that for 1 million points you can take a Zero Gravity Parabolic Flight or for a mere 3 million points you can an MIG-25 Edge of Space Flight and for a whopping 20 million reward points you can take a suborbital space flight. That's really great - space travel just almost within the reach of the average consumer with a credit card. We'll isn't that how NASA is essentially funded?

I'm also not extremely fond of people who still write checks in stores. It is SO old technology. Have these folks heard of debit cards? I do still write checks to pay bills because I don't think the utility company that was involved in the great black out of the East should really have automatic billing access to my bank account. I write checks in the privacy of my own home. And if you are wedded to the idea of getting the float from the delay in depositing checks, be careful because some nasty companies are skipping the whole bank business and manually debiting your bank account electronically upon receipt. This just recently happened to us. I really enjoy how the transaction wasn't marked with anything to identify it - like corresponding check number or who initiated the transaction. It was just a big ole anonymous withdrawal.

I think Piro and I will just start bartering on the black market for goods. We'll use manga, comics, computer parts, and anime fansubs to conduct trades. We know a lot a people who would trade the necessities of life for these goods.