Concerning Hobbits...

I recently re-watched the special editions of all three Lord of the Rings movies and my love of those movies has not waned in the slightest. Sure, I get a healthy chortle at some of the Hobbit-love scenes; my mind thinking back to Clerks II and the infamous "Frodo bricking in Sam's mouth" scene. But fabulous films nonetheless. For anyone whose never experienced the special extended editions or haven't watched them in awhile, I recommend doing so. You won't regret it.

I've been working on a lot of ideas lately. My book, which has four chapters done and about three/four more to go plus the conclusion is coming along nicely. The overall theme of the book is "moving forward with your life"; something I think a lot of people struggle with. It's basically about a guy whom has a tragedy of social proportions happen to him and how he spirals (in other people's eyes) into a life less-than impressive and how he manages to come back from it. It's a tale filled with humor, pain, loathing, house parties, local bar familiarities and female entanglements. I set it in Chicago for myriad reasons, the most important of which being that I've grown up in the area and know it well and the fact that it is, in fact, the greatest North American city, by far.

As for comics, I have two active projects with artists attached now and four projects in various stages of development. I know this probably sounds like a lot but for the most part it's strategy; keep the mind active, keep projects in the picture. I've found that it's good, for me, to keep several projects in the outline/pitch form so I can always turn to it when I need to turn away from the current project and let my mind stretch out into something different for awhile. The worst thing for me as a writer is becoming stagnant and when I stare at the computer screen and just can't think of where I want to take the story next it's nice to be able to open a different document with a completely different story idea to get my mind back on track.

In the next couple weeks I will be posting a few sketch pages from my upcoming Apecmx.com story, so be on the look out for those!

For now, I bid you a fond farewell!