That being said...

      I plan on doing something with an adaptation of Journey to the West someday. I'll let you know what when I get closer to it.

Things I Have Learned from Comic-Con: Day Three

• The Sucklord, in response to someone admiring his "costume": "It's not a costume, it's a way of life!"
  
• While still the most frontin'-est rapper around, MC Frontalot is as chill and down-to-earth as he is tall. And he is, of course, not a short man by any means.
  
• Octopus Pie, as a title, is just nonsensical and has no real bearing on the strip. Not that the strip needed help being awesome.
  
• Come to think of it, Meredith Gran is also quite chill and down-to-earth, and was cool about signing something for a friend who's been feelin' kinda craptacular.
  
• Actually, though I didn't get to talk with all of them, I'm just gonna toss this out there: the whole Dumbrella crew and affiliates? C'mon. You can figure out the rest from here.
  
• From The Multicultural Mask panel on breaking down barriers of race, gender, and sexual orientation in comics, paraphrased: "They need to do something like Marvel Zombies, y'know . . . but, like, 'Marvel People of Color.' 'Ah, they're turning non-white! Run!'"
  
• It is completely justifiable to spend hundreds of dollars at a con, so long as a healthy percentage of that goes towards gifts for other people.
  
• There is nothing more uncomfortable than squeezing past the sweaty, clammy dudes hanging around the hentai / erotic art / erotic comic booths, beyond the nagging, irrational fear that you're somehow being perceived as one . . . even though the most scandalous thing you've purchased is Scott Pilgrim.
  

And, finally:

• There is no quicker way to lose five pounds than by staying on your feet for eight hours straight, three days in a row. There is no quicker way to gain it back than by going to the nearby pizzeria for lunch every day.
  

Much props to Matt, Jesse, and the crew from Onell; Boris and the crew from Rocket North; Meredith Gran, Andrew Bell, and MC Frontalot; the Sucklord; the legendary Peter Laird; David Petersen; and just about anyone who I forgot to mention, but who made NYCC completely awesome this year.

Oh hey, damn me, I forgot the one person who made it possible: my ever-lovin' fake niece, Jen . . . not that she reads this, but damnit, I remembered!

Back to regular programming as soon as I recover...

A brief confession, and some process chatter.

      I've started on outlining two projects so far, and with any luck, I'll have a manuscript for at least one of them by year's end. Both are attempts at YA, which is a bit of a departure from my short fiction, but I honestly feel like doing YA would be the only way I can do a longer project than . . . say, five pages.
      What can I say? It's also not as pretentious a genre; it's genuinely more fun to write, and I always have the short fiction to make more of a "point."
      That being said, the crew over at O'nell Design (blog here) have been putting out some cool stuff for quite some time, and I'm always tempted to write something about the characters -- if only just for fun. I'm no "fanfic" author, and I don't intend to be, but there's something about those little figures that hearkens back to when I was five years old, writing stories starring my favorite Transformers and Lego creations...
      Anyway, enough nostalgia, at least until I crack under the pressure of my five-year-old self.
      When I last ran this blog, I sometimes used "themes" to guide my writing for the week, in an effort to genuinely explore different iterations of the same word or phrase. Since I've stuck with scribbles for the most part (as a lot of places snub their nose at running work that has been previously published anywhere, even a bloody personal blog), I'll be revisiting this concept every so often, if only to try and make writing fun for myself again. For example, next week, it'll be "anticipation" for a few days (the nerds among you will know why), while the next few entries might be "acceptance."
      Just tossing that out there for y'all...

Changing gears, at least for a little while.

      In part because of this wonderful picture diary, I am inspired to do a bit more with LS, beyond random updates that have little to no bearing. This is, in part, because I became paranoid that I'd not be able to publish stuff elsewhere -- something that, in the end, I'm finding myself less and less liable to care much about.
      So, for the next few days, I will be telling a story, one that might spin-off elsewhere. I may attempt art to accompany it at some point, but nothing, as always, is certain...