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< Piro >

"a scary little glow"

Friday - July 27, 2007

A storm blew through our town last night and dropped some of the heaviest hail i've seen in years. Not too much damage to the property (it was mostly 3/4" to 1") but there was a LOT of it. Power didn't go out when the big storm went through, and we don't loose power that often, so it was just a wild little thunderstorm that added some entertainment to the evening.

Of course, it was just the first of many cells that rolled through the area, none of them as serious as the first one. The problem came a few hours later when a lightning strike hit something electrically important nearby and sent my drawing table into darkness. After an hour of getting flashlights and candles out, and seeing what the weather radio had to say, it was becoming clear that power was not going to be coming back on for a while. The UPS system for the computers and backup systems worked great, just like they are supposed to.

The weird thing was that after a few hours, several things beeped in the house, and as i went around to look i noticed that one of the light bulbs in a lamp was glowing very very dimly. After doing some checking, i could see that there was power trickling into the house, but it was very, very low - the kind of thing that can wreak havoc on appliances and sensitive electronic equipment. Needless to say, i scrambled around the house unplugging things, then realized that the best thing to do was to snap off all the circuit breakers on the main panel. This done, there was little i could do but wait for the power to come back on.

I've tried it before, but it's just not possible to draw comics by candelight, so i wasn't able to work any further on the comic last night. I'm actually at the warehouse right now where i am typing this update (and have a working internet connection - even the coffee shop up the street from our house that i usually fall back on for net access was without power). The power company has no estimate on when power will be back up, and i haven't seen any power trucks in the neighborhood, so i'm a little worried about it coming back on today. Hopefully by the time i finish the drawings, the power will be back and i can scan and clean up. If not, I'll try to move things to the warehouse and see if i can get the comic done here.

I used to think that Murphy was a direct relative of mine somewhere in the past, but now i'm convinced that i'm actually a reincarnation of the hapless fellow. The cavalcade of 'things that go wrong' has been so ridiculous over the past few months that i dare not actually list it all for fear that people would swear i make this stuff up. :P Hopefully, power will be back up later and i can post the comic tonight. Next week i'm going to attain some sort of schedule come hell or high water. I'm betting on floods next week.

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< Dom >

"SDCC Haze"

Friday - July 27, 2007

[Dom] - 19:00:00 - [link here]

Today, Dave Kellett introduced me to a wonderful idea: e-mail bankruptcy.

As of today, I am deleting ALL the e-mail in my MegaTokyo box. There is seven years of accumulated crap in there, but I need to start fresh.

Also, sorry for the three weeks of silence. July's always a crazy time for me, as you may know. I'm currently in San Diego, and over the past two days I've done a helluva lot of walking. I'll tell some of the story today, and as time goes on I'll keep writing - I'm in the mood again.

Yesterday, I went to the panel of one of the directors whose work I most respect, even though I can't stomach it myself: George Romero. I've always loved reading about his work, and it fascinates me with its effective commentary and great characters. But I don't have the intestinal fortitude to watch his movies all the way through (ask me about Se7en some time, I can talk about it for hours without actually having watched the film itself). So it was great to see him talking about his work's social meaning and the work behind it.

It was also awesome to see Max Brooks' obvious man-crush on Romero. I swear, he had the grin of a 13-year-old girl meeting her favorite teen idol.

The rest of the day was spent wandering what has been termed Webcomic-Con. I talked to Dave Kellett, who told me about e-mail bankruptcy, and Kaja Foglio about webcomics in general, as well as miscellaneous random subjects (including Rozen Maiden, animation studios, and children).

I honestly don't remember what I did for the rest of the night, but I think it involved talking about the Oregon Trail and dysentery.

Friday night was the most interesting so far. It started with the Image Comics panel, where they told stories about Todd McFarlane's balls and, more importantly, about the impact Image Comics had on the industry. That was a fascinating collection of people who got back together after all the years and had no regrets about what they'd started, even with some of them drifting away over the years.

After that, I wandered the floor to grab some swag, including some Balls of Fury underwear (for some reason, my Friday stories keep coming back to balls) and a severed finger for Assassin's Creed, which ended up being the best toy I've gotten in weeks.

The severed finger is just so weird that it's been great to me. I walked over to David Willis, gave him the finger, and just spread my arms in a gesture of webcomic peace. After a lot of very juvenile jokes about fingering people, I walked away happy and wandered on over to the movie panels, where Suberunker and I re-affirmed our lust for Clive Owen, because Shoot 'em Up is pant-wettingly awesome. We also saw a trailer for Be Kind, Rewind, which looks fun, but not great.

The rest of the day was spent pretty much saying hi to people and watching trailers, so there's not much else to report.

Wait, I lied, there are two things to say. First, Kevin Smith talked a lot about dog balls and Stan Lee's semen. Second, I look forward to hearing Warren Ellis talk about the same things on Saturday.

And remember! As of today, e-mail bankruptcy!