I have a new favorite place: Part 2

Right then, onto St. James park itself!
Once I was actually deeper inside the park, I was amazed to realize I was getting flashbacks to walking through the woods in Carp. I think it was one of those very broad mnemonic connections, a brief joining between the base elements laying underneath each (water, woods, lack of buildings, calm). Yes, a lack of buildings - seemingly. There aren't too many points in the park where you can get that impression, of course, but I was lucky enough to stumble into a couple and to get that sensation while logically knowing I was in the heart of one of the worlds largest cities...it was a little thrilling for someone so used to thinking of isolation within nature and cities as being mutually exclusive from each other.Now, Hyde Park had a few Swan in its waters but I wouldn't say it had a strong body of wildlife. St. James park does, though, a tradition that goes back about 360 years. Several small areas are enclosed for the express use of the large variety of birds. There was even a private little cottage for whoever tends to the birds, something I couldn't help envying with an intensity that would register on a Geiger counter. I wish I'd gotten more pictures of the animals, but there was just too much to photograph - I guess I should look into one of those memory sticks for my camera, so I can clutter my hard drive with several hojillion pictures that I'll never print!
About a thirdways into the park, I made a little lie to myself that I would repeat a couple more times over my time there. "I'll just look at a little more, walk a little more, then I'll grab a bench and write".
Sounds like typical procrastination, I know! But I'm still pumped about this Parkour/sci-fi script - it's just that park repeatedly flooded me with a sense of awe. This was probably enhanced by the contrast between where I'd come from (Islington: Cheap chicken shops, concrete almost everywhere, occasional stray chav wandering down from Seven Sisters) and where I was (Centuries of tradition, monuments to what a few million pounds worth of landscaping can do, tourists from all corners of the globe). Eventually I came to what is easily the most grandiose monument in the city. Oh sure, Lord Nelson's Column might be a bit taller but Queen Victoria the second still wins, this oddball competition I've been holding in my head, by a landslide.
Getting up close I couldn't help but be briefly bought back to the throne of Xerxes in 300. If the giant, stone Queen Victoria and her throne suddenly began to move across the countryside while carried by several dozen slaves - probably recent uni grads - I can't say as I'd feel like fighting her, let alone her army!
That scrap of building you can see behind it is, in fact, good old Buckingham palace. From here I turned right and went around the locked and gilded gates into the northern most portion of the park.I remember thinking to myself "Hot damn, okay, it's not like they'll have another Queen Victoria monument. I should be able to grab a snack and a seat, then write". I managed the first two, but I just couldn't lose that need to draw in as much of the park through my eyes as I could! The following picture is almost certainly going to be the subject of my next watercolour painting.After a relaxing sit n' stare, I decided to leave the park and found myself in the Picadilly area. I spotted two arcades, Picadilly and Brunell, across from each other. As some of you know, really expensive tailors are basically pornography for me - so I had a look.Yup, I am definitely getting a custom tailored suit the first time that I ever make some real money out of film. Sure you could put the cost towards a car, but my suit will (probably) do a lot less damage to the environment and it won't depreciate in value the second I wear it out of the store. As I'd suspected, these arcades were about as upscale as it gets before you reach that plateau of secret celebrity stores which you sometimes hear about. Still, it was fun to look. Amongst the suits and sweaters which cost more than a month of my rent there was a very pricey fountain pen store (anybody want to sponsor my purchase of a 1928 blue metallic fountain pen? Only eighty quid!), a gaming store which seemed out of place even if it only sold older and more respectable (?) board games and the terribly named but terribly interesting "Map World" where one could spend a grand on an original Royal Navy map of the Mediterranean, circa 1748.

Rallying, I decided to head back to the park and prove that I could overcome the henious forces of beauty and relaxation to do some writing. But I lost this second battle as well! Sitting on a bench and looking about me, enjoying the warmth and the sights, I couldn't help but think back to what I said on Monday. Why couldn't I just stop and enjoy where I was, the moment I as in, without feeling that unless I was plowing away at some task then the moment wasn't being properly utilized? Sheeeesh. I mean, hell, I'd even written a few pages on the tube ride down! So I tried to live Slow and felt all the better for it. At the end of the day I felt like I'd gotten my proper allowance of time, not an all too quick montage of attending to this n' that. I'm a little miffed that the park also obliterated all thoughts regarding my purchase of a printer/scanner, but, somehow, I have faith that the consumer electronics industry will still be around in the days to come.

Today it's sunny out again and I have some of the mundane that needs to be done (laundry, buy a new monthly rail/tube pass, take out the recycling) as well as some of the creative (more script work etc) and I'm going to see if I can still get everything done that I want to get done without that feeling of being pushed along a track. Here's hopin'!

Finally, a little hello to my new readers in New Zealand - thanks for sticking with me guys! Also, hello to the people from all over the world who keep finding my blog by accidentally typing "I heart fuckabees" into google. Unless it isn't an accident? Somehow I have trouble imagining that a lot of the metaphysical, philospohical waxings of the original text could find a home in a pornographic adaptation.

I have a new favorite place: Part 1

St. James Park

Originally I'd planned to hit the British Library and hole up to write as well as draw. But then today turned out to be beautifully sunny, so I thought I'd head down Embankment way and find somewhere I could write outside. Once there, I trekked down the river to Big Ben and turned right into Parliament square. Here I ran into the statue of Winston Churchill which had reminded me, during my last visit to England, that some people have a different perspective on history than those who were taught it in the Canadian school system.

Now, that is a pretty nice statue - no doubt. But I remember when I was first looking for it, two and a half years ago, that I basically expected something more akin to Queen Victoria's own monument (pictures of which come later!) and that perhaps it would have neon rims. This is because of the incredible focus on the events of World War Two that I remember from grade through high school, which basically made a pantheon out of the world leaders of that time. To this day I can still tell you more about World War Two than Canada's confederation, Louis Royale and the war of 1812 combined. So when I first saw this, comparatively, humble statue I was stopped right in my tracks. I remember sitting down in the square and thinking over why on earth there were assorted kings and other military leaders (such as good old Nelson) that had monuments which dwarfed Winston's.Thus a small layer of ethnocentrism was peeled away as I realized that though Winston certainly did his share for England, he didn't conquer great swathes of Asia, reform the church, drive out the French, beat Napoleon at Waterloo, create the house of commons or any number of other huge events in the history of a nation so..soooo much older than good ol' Canada. To be fair though, Winston does get his own museum. But I would like to point out that prior to my seeing his statue for the first time, I had just seen the statue of the man who invented Sunday school and it was about the same size!Besides, there's even some American guy with a larger monument!
From here you can also see and explore Westminster Abby - so I did, if only a little.
I rather liked the Dean's courtyard, though I'm not sure this picture does it justice. The grass is taped off to keep the public from grinding the grass to death under their feet - no major crimes have happened here in a few centuries.
I also checked out the gift shop and amongst the largely standard fare I found some really neat marble tile fridge magnets with pictures of central London on them. They really appealed to that part of me which enjoys seeing the present looking back from a far future, post-apocalyptic stance.
After this I headed on over to St. James Park - I'll post about that later today, a man can only sit in front of a computer so much on a sunny Saturday!

A pair of Parkour videos I've enjoyed

I'd suggest muting the music on the second one - just my personal taste though...

A Term For The Ages

I’m pretty sure I’ve used this term in a post or two, but today I’m going to try and encourage this as a new internet meme while making a game out of it.

The term I am referring to is something I coined (probably at the same time as twelve other people across the globe, since there are no exclusive or entirely new ideas) during my last visit with the notorious Andy Brown. We were in his kitchen serving up some frosty drinks and, in a desire to make them frostier still, Andy was wrestling to get some ice out of a tray.

Poor Andy. He only wanted a couple of ice cubes. But due to the manufacture of the tray, it was difficult for him to get out less than “way the hell too much” ice. Half-chuckling at the inanity of it, he began to complain, tongue-in-cheek, that ice trays need to be made so that it was easier to get a modest amount of ice out. Standing in the kitchen with it’s magical heat box, cold box, pre-chewing device and other marvels of the modern world…I felt the need to remark “Well, it looks like we’ve got a real first world problem on our hands here”.

I’m not sure how I said something in bold type, but I’m anxious to rediscover the secret.

Enjoying the term, we made a list (sadly lost since then) of First World Problems and it was a good provider of perspective as well as komedy laffs. Two prize ones from my past experience include...

"Aw man, I'm so full. I'm not going to be able to get full value for my money at this buffet!".

"God dammit, this stationary store has a custom ink stamp for every letter but the two I need for my initials!"

"The pricing schemes for Rogers cable packages are really annoying"

One of the best things about First World Problems is how often people complain about them while being unaware of how, in a global perspective, they are lucky to even have such a problem. I think that the best First World Problem should be a bit like a pun, making the listener or reader groan as much as laugh.

So I'd like to propose a game! In the comments section for this post (which, new readers, anyone can post in) I'd love to see the most First World Problem you can come up with - from the imagination or memory, from yourself or others you've overheard.

Points are awarded for creativity and you're encouraged to phrase it as it would actually be said. Pretty much anything to do with computers and the internet are easily put into this category, so you'll want to really put your back into anything from that quarter - like one my buddy Joe sent me this morning, which sparked this post, wherein he complained about all the Facebook friend requests he was getting from people he wasn't overly fussed about. He knew what he was doing though, as he included "First. World. Problem." at the bottom of the email.

Please, pass this along! If you're a member of a forum, start a thread and get people to reply with their own suggestions. Start a wikipedia article. Organize a flash mob where a large group of people converge on a daily talk-show set and yell "First World Problems!" really loudly for ten minutes before dispersing to the ether. If you're an artist I bet you could even do some really great illustrations to go with your own First World Problems!

Come on people, let's start a movement founded on mirth!

I wasn't going to post about this....

....I was going to finish a new, relatively comedic Bronze Age Sky God story. But I can't hold back any longer.

Tired of computer games that take up gigabyte upon gigabyte of memory?
Sick of any hobby that seems to demand hours and hours of obsessive-compulsive behavior?
Like Zombies, fleeing from or emulating?

Then check out UrbanDead.
You're in a big city, you move by clicking and have x amount of action points to spend running, hiding, fighting and looting (Survivors) or roaming, moaning, eating brains and breaking down civilization (Zombies). Bing, bang, boom.

Making a character takes literally 15 seconds. You play within the browser and since you get action points back by not playing (i.e. your guy rests), it actually discourages the usual obesessive-compulsive wasting of time that your average video game encourages. If you use up all your points, your guy falls asleep where he is (doing this in an unlocked building or out in the street is, of course, asking for it).

Set yourself a long-term goal (I'm trying to get to Giddings Mall to help keep it a haven for humans!) then voila, something you can have lots of fun with - yet it takes all the time of a daily email check.

It's fun, gosh darn it!

Plus, with less than two weeks until I take part in London's first Zombie invasion - I guess I'm just in that kind of a mood! If you join, keep an eye out for Max Punchbody (Scout - the closest thing to a Parkour athlete), currently in the northern most part of Starlington.

[Also: Hello the todays reader from Chile!]

For those of you who like to see a progression of art...

...John Allison ( of the most excellent Scarygoround) put up an "on this day" series of strips going back to 1999. It's really neat not only to see his art but his writing develop as well.

Peter Parkour

Parkour - if you’ve seen it anywhere, odds are you’ve seen it in the latest Bond - Casino Royale. Specifically the foot chase near the beginning, running through an embassy as well as a construction yard, in Africa. The man Bond was chasing was doing Parkour, while Bond was doing his best to catch up with more conventional means.

As part of my script for MySpace Man, I’ve been researching this strange new form of athleticism. Though I think I’d heard of it once or twice before, it didn’t really shoot into my consciousness until I watched the new Bond. In the film it is presented as being mostly about epic leaps from tall heights, but that is just the most camera friendly aspect and it turns out the majority of Parkour involves ground-level clearing of obstacles in a variety of ways. Meanwhile, if you are curious to see Parkour featured in another action film, Balieue 13 is a great French flick about a near future Paris which resembles the giant prison that New York becomes in good ol' Escape From New York. You can also catch a pile of clips uploaded by the Parkour community at this site.

A person who does Parkour is called a traceur and as I’m sure you’re beginning to guess, yes Parkour is French in origin. You can find a detailed list of Parkour moves, amongst other info, at it's reasoably well put together Wikipedia entry. Here I'd like to say that I honestly think this has the potentional to grip the public imagination and seep into youth culture the same way that skateboarding did in the 1980's. But I wouldn't be surprised if an element of Parkour, which has generally been glossed over everywhere I've seen it, will be lost along the way. I am referring to the philosphical aspect which is a large part of why Parkour resembles a martial art more than an XTREEEEEEME sport.

The majority of the philosophy behind Parkour was penned by it's founder, David Belle, who used specific military training used by French soldiers in the Vietnam war as a foundation for Parkour as a whole. It is a simple but elegant philosophy which extends the basic physical goal of Parkour (the surmounted of all obstacles put in one's path) to an outlook on life which emphasizes determination, an ability to adapt and an enhanced awareness of one's surroundings. Belle strongly encourages respecting the areas through which you practice Parkour and it is generally looked down upon if you cause damage (like, say, landing on a car roof from on high or yanking a signpost off its moorings while trying to gain momentum).

Though I gather there have been people who have forgotten this, in favor of performing impressive moves - thus prompting remarks from other members of the community.

As someone who will be contributing to the hullabaloo, I can honestly see Parkour having the potential to become more and more in the forefront of popular culture. Something to keep an eye on, I reckon.

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On an unrelated note, hello to my new Californian readers! Thanks for staying with me! If you'd like to read an excellent webcomic from your native state, I cannot endorse Achewood enough.

Some punchin' to go with all the readin' in the last post

Here is a fight scene that an old school chum brought to my attention via the portal of hedonism that is Facebook.



From the movie "The Protector", featuring Tony Jaa (of Ong Bak fame), this stedicam shot lasts over 3 1/2 min. To do all these stunts is impressive, but to do it in one take! Man....the description the original YouTube poser put up says it all, so I shall copy and paste it here for your perusal.

"The director calls this "the most dangerous long take scene ever." A 4 minute stedicam shot featuring a variety of martial arts.

The crew spent over 1 month preparing and choreographing before they were able to get a perfect shot. When it came time to shoot, they could only do 2 takes per day because of the set repairing and prop replacement that needed to be done. It took 5 takes to get it right. A foreign cameraman was needed because the stedicam mount was built for american / european operators who are typically much larger than asian operators.

The foreign operator they hired could only do two flights of stairs at a time and simply gave up. They decided to use a Thai stedicam operator who physically prepared for a month for this job.

The reason the shot is 4 minutes is because reels of 35mm film are only about 4 min in length.

They shot the first take which had a number of problems with stuntmen cues, and even a stuntman bumping into the stedicam operator. After choreographing more dynamic action, an increase of extras and improving the set, the next take they did was 17 days after the first take.

The second take was better but when the stuntman was supposed to be thrown from the 3rd story, the safety mattress was not completely in place yet so Tony Jaa stopped the shot and saved the stuntman's life.

The third take was just about perfect but just before Tony Jaa was supposed to bust through the last doorway, the film ran out. The director finally decided that instead of simply cutting there, they would try again for perfection.

They thought the fourth take was perfect but after review there were some parts that weren't as good as the pervious takes. They decided on one more try.

On the fifth try, it was almost perfect. But there were 2 miscues. On the 2nd floor, Tony Jaa slams a door into the head of a stuntman and the small glass window on the door was supposed to break. It failed to do so, so they used CGI to fix this. The 2nd issue was the fight just before the sink gets thrown. The timing was off as planned but the end result looked natural so they decided this was the take to use in the final film. Simply amazing."

Slow Food For Thought

I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned before how I feel strongly that my perception of times passing has ratcheted up a rather large notch since leaving University and perhaps another notch upon on my getting settled in England. It’s a scary thing to feel that almost as soon as you have planned what to do in a day, by merit of it having been planned it has now basically happened already and now you must plan the next day. The busier my life gets (and I am pretty bad for piling more onto my plate before I clear something else), the more this sensation intensifies.

Trying to think of a way to deal with this, while still doing the things I want do, my mind was drawn back to the Slow Food Movement. Started in Italy several years ago, the point form edition is that it entails…
- Trying to reverse the trend towards rushed lifestyles where families don’t eat together so much as nuke this and that, eating as a chore in-between tasks, instead of treating dinner time as its own entity.
- Taking pleasure from the process of cooking as much as the eating, often engaging in cooking meals that take several hours to prepare but which pay off for the effort expended. Superior satisfaction follows.
- There is also an element of environmentalism in that the Slow Movement encourages eating locally produced, organic goods instead of chemically sprayed vegetables trucked across half the globe.

I'd love to be able to fully engage in the Slow Food Movement but, like a lot of people, organic foods are a luxury item to me (on my less than epic budget) and I find that sharing a kitchen with house mates makes it very tricky to spend more than an hour on cooking and eating. So I just try to avoid more than one microwavable meal a week and I don't go buying apples from bloody Madagascar when I can get Empire Apples from within the country.

The name may also have something to do with why I purchase those apples, I admit!

From this we come to the lesser known umbrella under which Slow Food rests, the Slow Life Movement. Some of it can come off as what some would dub "fruity hippy crap" but I highly recommend persevering. Entire towns are being planned, on both sides of the Atlantic, around the Slow Movement principles. This grouping of guiding principles stress that you can still live a perfectly modern life and work the job you want while changing the way you engage your life, your job, so that you take greater pleasure from it while losing that terrifying feeling that the days are slipping through your fingers.

My apologies for not getting into a lot of the nitty-gritty, but as the movement seeps into all aspects in life (yes, there is even Slow Sex) I would have a lot of ground to cover if I tried to! So, aside from the web links, I shall direct you all to a great book which I bought Joe for Christmas last year. In Praise of Slow acts as a very good introduction to it all, written from the perspective of a convert as he chronicles the process of his induction to the different aspects of the philosophy. I remember being particularly gripped by the opening, wherein he states the event which made him think that he might be in need of Slow - the evening he seriously considered reading his children one minute bed time stories, so as to save time. I mean, screw bonding with your children when you could be making so many awesome Excel spreadsheets!

He also keeps a blog of new slow developments!

So okay, coming back to the focus - ME, ME, ME (and you, I guess!) - how to integrate any or all of this? Hard to say. I know I've managed to wean myself from looking at my watch while on the bus, train or tube - doing so and getting anxious won't actually get me where I'm going any faster! That I had to do during Uinversity and it seriously helped me get to class in a better state of mind for learning.

I also make a point of waiting until I have an hour to just listen to a new album I've purchased, instead of slapping it on while I write or whatever. That has resulted in some very enjoyable listens where I have definitely noticed subtleties which it might have taken months of background listening to find.

Other than those two, I've generally tried to cut down on multi-tasking and to tell myself that "I will spend x amount of minutes on this task before I consider working on another". Oddly, putting that kind of contstraint onto my writing, drawing etc has in fact left me better able to focus and more relaxed. Before, I found I would rush one task to get to the next and in the end have not lived up to my full capabilities in anything I had done!

Otherwise, it's something I'm still wrestling with and I suspect I'll be wrestling with it for some time, given the deadline driven nature of the film industry. Ah well. In closing, I'll recommend the second last issue (#69) of one of the few magazines worth more than the paper it is printed on - Colors. This particular issue is devoted to Slow Food around the world and, as with every issue, it has a lot of weblinks, books and phone numbers in the back to help readers further explore the topic as well as related topics. If nothing else, this magazine has some of the most beautiful and natural looking photography that I've seen in my many years of devouring media. For my Ottawa readers, you can buy it at Mags & Fags on Elgin St. while for all my other readers (Hello to my new reader in Tokyo!) I can suggest you follow my link to their website where they have scans of all their issues. That being said, do see if you can find an outlet to buy it in - this is the kind of magazine you keep on your shelf for years and find yourself coming back to more than once.

Plus, if you like Found magazine, then may I direct you to Colour's very impressive "1000 Extraordinary Objects" Book? Yes, yes I may.

Them folk on yonder island ain't so much like our folk
-This all reminds me...microwave meals (usually called "Ready meals") are ten times as popular in England as they are in Canada. They take up much more space in supermarkets and many of them are actually very high quality - though still pre-made food which has been stored for lord knows how long and it tends to have way too much salt in it. Certainly, there is a lot more temptation to pull you away from trying to live slow, to be sure.

-People from sleepy towns beware! A yellow light, even when the green man is still flashing underneath it, apparently signifies GO NOW NOW NOW to London drivers. This has resulted in a fair share of near misses on my part!

P.S. I have recently learned that if you read my site on an RSS feed then you only get the first version of a post. I often go back to add pictures or correct errors, so may I recommend that you bookmark the site instead? If only so I seem a tad more literate? This is important, I swear!

P.P.S. It is weird seeing people debate and discuss your possible identity.

P.P.P.S. Why the hell am I using post-scripts on a website? OH WELL, NO TURNING BACK NOW

Racially Charged Monday

I just thought this was great, especially the two guys who were the first heterosexual pair of guys to be married – just to spite people who can’t handle the idea of a black, Belgian registrar. Nice!

The 15-30-45 Challenge: Round One

Today I got a huge burst of energy for Archbrook, which I knew I had to pursue or risk the sweaty hands of regret pinching the backs of my ears and generally making me uncomfortable. So instead of finishing the Clive 30 and 45 minutes drawings, I wrote my first ever horror chase scene. Good fun, though it's ironic that writing a scene which will play out the quickest seems to be taking up the most paper and time.

All that being said, I did polish off the Devon page.The fifteen minute Devon was drawn entirely as the previous drawings have been done, using a mechanical pencil and naught but my own brain for reference. Well, almost. I did up a rough proportion guide for myself by using a ruler and eyeballing it. I'm one of those jackasses who likes to skip reading the manual and just figure out computer programs, furniture assembly and women all by himself. This is an instinct I've been able to get away with for the most part, but with drawing I am going to have to fight it every step of the way.




Knowing I had double the time for 30 minute Devon, I tried to be more ambitious and use a picture of a model for reference. This resulted in a less cartoony width to Devon which undercut the tall and thin build I want to use with her - I want her to be one of those women that remind you of gazelles, though that comes down as much to body language as dimensions. I also tried to make the pin stripe pants work a bit better by using more widely spaced lines, but in the end I abandoned the pattern.





By 45 minute Devon I not only gave up on the pinstripe pants, I decided I should try drawing her in her work clothes (remembering one cynical remark a former co-worker of mine made about the reason most superheroes are drawn wearing tights - it's easier to draw "naked" people). I didn't use model this time, but I did crib a little from the art of Pia Guerra for clothing and hair details. I figured that I could do worse than to have a look at the style of a woman who draws a world-spanning series with less than four male characters.

Meanwhile, I tried my experiment with overlaying a sketch on a photo and was generally disgusted. This is due entirely to trying to use a photo of a sketch instead of a high quality scan. So I checked with Professor Barnard Q. Budget and he said I could get a decent scanner/printer next weekend. Thanks Professor Budget, you're such a nice guy! Man, now I totally feel bad about hitting on your wife last week.

CCTV - Oh (big) brother....

In six months of living in England, this is the first time I've seen one of these vans despite the millions of cameras present in London. I'm far less bothered by the cameras than most, yet this van really pissed me off. Why? Because when I took a picture of it I immediately imagined a policeman holding me up and asking why I'd done so! It persisted as a genuine worry for a handful of seconds. Not much, but a handful more than I'd say is acceptable. Though I'd tabled the issue a few months back, the script I'm working on for Myspace Man has definitely brougtht it to the forefront of my mind again. Still, right now I'd say I have more of a problem with biomorphic citizenship cards and mandatory car tracking devices than cameras.
Anyways, a couple of night time shots in parting and a warm "Hello!" to todays batch of people who found this site by googling my name to find out what the heck Ryan North was referring to. Come to get the joke, stay for the veal!

This! Is! EXPECTED!

So anyways I just joined the majority of the Western World and saw 300. Good fun, if a bit of a let-down from how sweet the trailers made it appear. Strangely, I haven't read the source material but now I want to for but one reason: to see if that line from early in the film where King Leonidas refers to the Athenians as "boy-lovers" was in the comic. It's pretty common knowledge that homosexuality was actually viewed as better by the Spartans (as neither partner was tainted by "the frailty of the female sex"). So it came across a bit odd to have this frat boy "Hey them guys in Athena-Gamma-Delta house are all queeeers" remark pop up.

You may recall that good ol' Fight Club had a similar mix of aggresion, maleness, bonding and shirtlessness. Aside from cries that it was pro-fascist, something 300 has also suffered a bit of, there were also the crieso of "man look all them homooooosexual undertones!". Learning from that, I think that perhaps this line was included with the hopes of pre-empting such comments. I don't think it succeeded but it did muddy the waters by bringing in accusations of homophobia.

But then, I wouldn't be too surprised if it is in the original work as Frank Miller is not the most likable guy. He can really embody some of the worst of right wing thinking in America and I believe it says a lot about him that he is seriously pushing to do a mini-series where Batman hunts down Osama Bin Laden. Sure, I have a copy of Batman: The Dark Knight Returns as well as Year One and even a Sin City volume. But it's interesting to have 300 come out because it is, frankly (oh ho ho) the last work of any quality that he put together before losing his mind and starting to write strangely mysognistic drivel.

I know we have another Sin City on the way, but what happens after that? Batman and Daredevil have both had claims layed to them that make it nigh-impossible for a direct translation of Miller's work on either character. Martha Washington is, oddly, too anti-American to have a chance in hell of getting made. Sin City 2 will scrape that barrel of stories clean and 300 isn't exactly set up for a sequel. So all that leaves, as the man isn't terribly prolific for someone who has been in the comics game for almost thirty years, is Ronin. Given the success of 300 thus far, it isn't hard for me to say that we'll probably see Ronin come out some time in the next few years - especially as it is another historical piece that they could film entirely in front of a green screen. As a result, I think I'm going to look into picking up a copy of that instead of 300 - especially since it's likely to be used almost verbatim for the storyboards.

Meanwhile, today has been a good day for writing and drawing of my own. Tom set me an intersting challange wherin I am to try drawing one of my webcomics characters with a 15 minute time limit, then 30 then again with 45 minutes. I'm doing one of Clive as well as one of Devon and I've done the 15 minute drawings for both. The 30 minutes should be done by the time I crash (drinking and talking over the film project on a work night has caught up with me) and it'd be fair to expect pics some time tomorrow.

In the interest of still being able to talk about whatever film work I get involved with, while respecting people's privacy, I think I'm just going to use alias' from now on. Keeping tight lipped about what is the primary reason I came to England in the first place just seems too bloody stupid not to do so. Thus I will refer to the fellow whose script idea (related to Parkour and technology in the community) as MySpace Man - since that is, oddly, how I found out about him.

I was just thinking today that it is a real shame I wasn't doing this blahhhhg thing a few months earlier, since I could have captured the pre-production and shooting of my trailer. Ah well, even though I'm currently developing an idea of MySpace Man's, there is a good chance this could lead to the making of one of my own shorts. I'll tell ya, few things combine such a density of amusing and interesting anecdotes into a short period of time as working on a film. All the more reason to make sure I'm well rested so I can continue work on the script tomorrow!

I Heart Fuckabees

Man I hope that one day I too can be as professional on set as David O. Russell. That man knows so much about acting like an adult that he will tell you how it's done.

Straddling The Atlantic: Clip Show

In the interest of retaining some of the large burst of potential new readers for "Straddling...", I thought I'd provide a jumping on point with a handful of key posts from when I started this thing through to now.

-A curious advertising campaign which was co-opted by people who weren't keen on America
-My own book review of Richard Dawkins latest book.
-My first proper go around the Oxford Circus and Hyde Park area (pictures heavy)
-Pictures from Oxford and Uffington as well as the first appearance of Dirk Hardwood
-A great trip to central London, including the Saatchi Gallery, and a little bit of education about Salvidor Dali
-The Reading bird sanctuary along the Thames
-End of 2006 review (with some great pictures of central London at night)
-The first in a series of posts on writing, entitled Scriptin' Fancy-Like, discussing the development of my own method, along with what advice I feel I can offer to others who want to write
-UFO's and London's most phallic building
-From Bill Cosby to Barack Obama
-A surreal response to a film production course
-The UK webcomics thing, meeting John Allison from Scarygoround and some close up pictures of The Gherkin

Meanwhile, if you really want to check out pictures then I highly suggest using the Picture Dump Label to group all my photo-heavy posts together for easier perusal.

More content to come...

Oliver Brackenbury : Allusion Incarnate?

O.....o.....okay!

Hello, a portion of www.qwantz.com's readership for today?! I am a friend of Ryan North! We went to school together - twice! And I was there on that ancient day when he was still thinking about doing the comic with astronauts and uh...wow. I thought I was just going to post a couple more pictures of London and do a little blurb before bed but...

Please watch this film trailer I made in the summer and then throw money/film connections? Also, I'd be honoured if any of you stay on as readers of my lil' blog in which I generally talk about London and my creative projects, all under the umbrella of trying to "make it" in "motion pictures". I generally try to make it entertaining and informative while leaving out details such as which toothpaste's packaging really gets my goat (THERE ARE FEW).

Well! I guess...I guess I'll just continue with the entry I had planned - I promise I won't be all stuttery and whatnot in the future, this was just a real big surprise for me!

So, erm, I just got back from meeting a guy who wants me to write a short (15-20 minutes) script based on a couple of ideas of his which revolve around some interesting themes to do with the encroachment of technology on personal freedoms - also there will be a wicked Parkour chase scene. Having just gotten a taste for both chase scenes and action in general while working on the last leg of my Archbrook treatment, I'm happy to sink my teeth into more. It's still early days yet, but I got a good vibe off this fellow and I can at least vouch for his not being a sasquatch rapist (probably).

Anyways, we met in a pub near Liverpool Street Station. As I'm making even more of an effort to carry my camera with me in anticipation of my webcomic (WHICH AIN'T READY YET, PLEASE DO NOT JUDGE THE CRUDE DRAWINGS OF A FEW POSTS BELOW - DINO COMICS FANS!), I expect we'll see an upswing in the amount of nifty London photographs that I post here. We'll start with a picture of the ceiling of the station itself.

And then we have a few pictures I took outside, facing Sun Street Passage. This was definitely one of those little areas of London which conveys both a sense of big-city grandeur and also an oddly intimate feeling that you would normally associate with small villages. I think the fact that the vast majority of (even wealthier, more central) buildings don't go higher than a handful of stories can account for this. Though it has it's share, London certainly doesn't have a love affair with skyscrapers like New York or Tokyo.
That's all for now, inter-net! I'm going to try to de-boggle my mind with a few hours of REM sleep...

No Brand Quality Goods

So I was fiddling with Statcounter and I figured out how see what cities people are logging in from. Sometimes you get more details - I'm on to you Kate, you were using a work computer for leisure purposes. HOW DO YOU SLEEP AT NIGHTS?Hello to my German reader! You were the most unexpected of all.
Work was a dream today as I got to head down to Euston, instead of the usual Barking, for a bit of additional training. This only took up half the day, so I had a potter around Oxford Circus and Soho Square etc, camera in tow. Aside from more pictures to be used in the Clive webcomic project, I got a few which tickled me - maybe they will tickle you? Obsoive.Some nice mural action from Tottenham Court Road.
I know that, technically, this is ugly - but I like it. Heck, it probably plays some role in my being able to access the internet. Praise be to the ugly BT monolith!This is a little side street area behind the tall shopping facades of Oxford Circus. Here I found a little bit of street art which I thought I would take a picture of before the dudes from Boston came to defuse it. Also, several record shops with really old stuff! True story.
Back on Tottenham Court Road I discovered a really neat company whose shop I'm definitely returning to. It's called Muji and they sell a wide assortment of daily living goods from stationary to furniture. I really admire the minimalism, prices and environmental undertones to their stuff. Not to mention that they have some very intelligently designed items, like a cd player/stereo that works like a lamp and biodegradable speakers.

Meanwhile I'm meeting with someone tonight for a mutual sniffing of behinds before, potentially, embarking upon some script work. Wish me luck?

3/4 Fandangle

Well, I think I've managed some drawings that induce mild titters rather than bellowing guffaws - so here's where I am thus far. I have decided to pursue something with Clive from my two lil' stories over in Bronze Age Sky God. I've spent more time on notes than art and I guess it shows - it's hard not to give into the temptation to do that which comes easier, you know? The first was more to do with layout and achieving a kind of "tracking shot effect" than actual well drawn characters while the others are more determined efforts. I really want to try and get my drawing of people up to a higher standard if I'm going to experiment with photographs for backgrounds.I think I've reached a reasonable compromise with hands, but I'm also going to have to broker a treaty with the peoples of 3/4 Angle Land before I can feel confident enough to start doing the comic proper. Meanwhile, I've started learning about layers and other such new fangled graphic trickery so that I can try an experiment - the results of which I'll try to have up some time this weekend.

I also considered a small, surreal gag strip where I could relax and make no attempt at beautiful art but instead just vent the kind of ridiculous humour which could find no place in the Clive comic. "Que Pasa Contigo?" is, I believe, Spanish for "What is Wrong with me?" by and by.
In the end, I think you can attribute this to the first internet meme to seize me by the taint in many years. Lo and behold the true face of madness!

Hands, it seems, are difficult to draw

The more I think about it, the more I sketch and the more ideas I jot down...the more doing a webcomic makes piles of sense to me. I've always known that my big film gambit could, potentially, fail. I'm going to do everything I can to achieve, you know, the opposite of that! But it's a sad truth that sometimes in "the industry" you can have all the talent, enthusiasm and work ethic in the world yet still go unrewarded.

It's partly my knowledge of this unpleasant fact that made me hang in and finish my degree instead of chucking my books over my shoulder and diving in right away (as I was often tempted, especially in third year). So I reckon that I'd like to work towards a rewarding day job which, if I ever gave up on film, would also be something I could do and be creative. I shouldn't talk like making money off a webcomic is a sure thing, it isn't. But one thing I can say about it is that the top quality stuff has a way of rising to the top thanks to word of mouth and the complete absence of meddling authority figures (like editors to the print-based counterparts in the papers).

The art side is easily the most challenging for me (pics soon?) but it's a challenge I am enjoying taking on. Plus I take inspiration in the fact that strong writing can help compensate for all sorts of mediocrity - keeping things afloat until the art skills start to catch up.

A great example of this is a comic called "Questionable Content". Though it has had one or two short periods where my loyalty wavered, it's one of my dailies and there is no denying the impressive progression of the art. If you want an interesting sight, use the following links to see how Jeph Jaques art improved every 100 or so comics (I suggest laying them all along a series of tabs for maximum effect).

QC#1
QC#100
QC#200
QC#300
QC#400
QC#500
QC#600
QC#700
QC#800
QC#841 (Todays)

On the ideas front, I've whittled down from two ideas to one and have started filling a notebook with notes on the main cast as well as strip ideas. Plus I have come across a layout for the strip which I think will really stand out. I'm downloading The Gimp and Inkscape tonight to begin playing with some photo's I took on Saturday for the strip.

Meanwhile, I certainly haven't forgotten about film! If I seem quiet on that front, it is only because I do not want to waste time putting up notice of every slight whif that I catch. I think both reader and writer would quickly grow tired of...

Tuesday xx, x, 200x
"Today I got talking with a dude who seems serious about making a short film out of one of my scripts"

Thursday xx, x, 200x
"Dude turned out to be a flake (or idiot, unlikable fool, unrealistic fool, opportunist, sasquatch rapist)"

REPEAT.

Bullets not meant to be taken internally

I was just reading this article on the environmental impact of how Britains major supermarket operations run and I got to a part where they say how people are generally skeptical of when any big business makes claims to taking steps towards environmental responsibility...

"The reputation of CSR was not helped, for example, when weapons manufacturer BAE Systems launched a range of "environmentally friendly" munitions as part of its corporate responsibility initiative with these immortal words: "Lead used in ammunition can harm the environment and pose a risk to people."

Cider? But I hardly even KNOW her! - SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP

So the Goon Meet was fun. I was a tad concerned that hardly anyone would show but at its height there were over fourty people, internet people, flooding Printworks and completely displacing the surprisingly sparse St. Paddy's day celebrators. A time was had!

Earlier in the day I popped out of the tube at Stepney Green and was amused to see that I wasn't too far from the Gherkin. But first I was off to the UK Webcomix Thing, primarily to hunt down John Allison and make him sell me a couple of his books for money.

Though I was taken back a bit by what felt like a pretty steep entry fee (four pounds), I had to remind myself that the University where this was being held was probably charging an unrealistic sum to ask of individuals trying to cobble together a forum/market for a bunch of self-employed artists and writers. Having grown up with a pair of the former and having been close to their own troubles and travails, I can say with a modest amount of authority that a lot of renters seem to think that because creative types are usually not schooled in business, that they should be gouged at every opportunity because (as the theory goes) they will not know they are being gouged - or even if they do, they'll be too timid to do anything but make polite mumblings long after the fact.I was pleased to meet John Allison for a few minutes as he kindly doodled some signatures in my purchases (the third and fourth SGR collections). I think he was in a nautical mood as the accompanying thumbnail sketches were of Ernest Cromerty & Desmond the Fish-man. Plus, when I asked to take a picture he chose to look out upon the sea.
Afterwards I had a thorough browse around all the tables. I wound up being, rather unexpectedly, a bit stuffed by the end of my tour as more than half the webcomic tables had free snacks laid out to draw people in. There was a wide range of talent and some of the art blew my tiny little mind. Aside from biscuits and cupcakes, I also picked up a bunch of fliers and free comics to investigate later. One thing that I was pleased not to find, were any comics which seemed like near-clones of either of the two ideas I've narrowed my own webcomic notions down to. Heck, I didn't even see one comic which used drawn characters over photographed backgrounds - which gives me hope that that style hasn't been sucked dry of all novelty and flavor.

Some, of course, were horrible - but that's par for the course. I had very little sympathy for a quite elderly lady, who seemed like she would have been better suited to being an amusing comedic foil in a sitcom than an actual person in real life, that was selling her comics which all circulated around the evils of "music" and "a shame-free life". There were also the usual cluster of folk who thought that drawing a penis with a felt-tip marker and including references to Jeffrey Dahmer made them avant-garde.

Oh well! After I left I enjoyed a long and rambling journey towards the Gherkin (which didn't seem to be open to the public that day, sadly) and then across The City to the Goon Meet in Farringdon...
Here we see The Monument, which is explained fairly well in the second picture I took of it.

Sorry, frat boys and girls....

...but all your stolen street signs, adorning corona-soaked $8 balsa-wood dorm doors everywhere, are nothing compared to this one.