Looks like Portland’s on the hit-list. Portland instructions are in the “t” in the word “without.” Looks like you start at Voodoo Doughnuts, but I could be wrong.
Me, I’ve got kids and no clown suit, so count me out. But I’m curious as to what will be found.
And jonlaw, looks like DC will be hopping.
This story ran today in the Olympian.
It really is a great store, and the new one will be even better.
The Crime Bible: Five Books of Blood (or, as it should’ve been called, The Question) sees the first issue on stands tomorrow. I’m excited about it, frankly, and I’m looking forward to it finally seeing the light of day. I really do hope people will enjoy it. My personal feeling is that page 1, courtesy of these two guys, sells the series itself, but I confess to a vicious bias.
(As far as Lieber and Whiteout III goes, I’ve been remiss; he’s still waiting on the complete issue one, and that’s because I decided, for some unholy reason, that this time, y’know, I’d actually try to write a real-honest-to-God mystery, and it turns out those are 1) hard, and 2) require more preparation than I’d at first thought. Hopefully, I will make him happy by delivering by Thursday, which will put me one month behind schedule. This is not, incidentally, behavior of which I am proud.)
The last week of silence was due, in part, to several things. Bride took a much-needed sabbatical, which left me at home with the kids. Normally, this would not have been a problem, except we’re in the Autumnal Sick Season here in Portland, and children, as some of you may already know, double as very effective petri dishes. Dash started the festivities with a sore throat that blossomed into a fever of 102 on Thursday, keeping her home, and then, not to be out done, her older brother decided to raise, and entered the running with a 102.8. At the same time, Trautmann came down to work on Secret Project, which I was utterly unable to assist with, as I was trying to tend to the kids.
Oh, did I mention this was the week my parents decided to come up for a visit?
Both kids have recovered, Jen is back, Trautmann has a new Leopard and, of course, I am now feeling the first unmistakable twinges of a sore throat. If all goes according to schedule, I should be incoherent (well, even more incoherent) by Thursday. And yes, I recognize that’s also the day I’m hoping to deliver the script to Steve. It’s called denial, and I’ll thank you all not to ruin it.
Another sketch of the Question. This doesn’t actually appear in Crime Bible, but was done as an exercise.
To my shame, I can’t remember if this was done by Diego (who’s drawing issue 4), or Manuel Garcia (who’s drawing issue 5).
Finished Crime Bible issue 5 today. Checkmate pages tomorrow. Whiteout pages to follow.
I feel much better now, thank you for asking. 
I’m not sure what’s going on right now, to tell the truth. It doesn’t seem limited to me. Neal’s been getting his ass-kicked by the world, and I know Trautmann’s been taking heavy fire, too. Seems like it’s going around.
The last two weeks have been Festival of Flux, and output has dropped to near zero.
Well, to be honest, with rewrites, I’d have to say “negative zero.” Seriously. Goes like this. I write. I write. I write. It goes slooooowly. I am over-thinking. I stop. I read what I have write-ed. I do not like the words I have assembled, and thus, I decide to try to fix them, but am limited in that I have only 26 of these symbol thingies to make the words and either they are broken, I am broken, or the words are Not Right.
So I scrap the whole fucking thing and make a second attempt. And a third. And a fourth. And a fifth. And a sixth. And a seventh. (Seriously, I’ll stop when I reach where I stopped). And an eighth. And a ninth. And a tenth. And an eleventh.
This morning was twelve, and twelve was where I realized that the little symbols worked just fine, and even the words were still entirely functional, it was my brain that wasn’t right. So I stopped. That is what I am doing now. Stopping.
I will work on Another Project. I will make a couple of phone calls that I desperately need to return. I will watch the DVD reel that ACC sent me once again and decide if I like it or not. I will watch television, because the show is executive produced by David Mamet, who I do not often agree with, but whom I do believe Can Write Like A Motherfuck. I will get some sleep.
I will work on Other Things. Yes, I will. And I will not think about the Work I am not doing, because that is counter-productive in the extreme. I will let my back-brain percolate on ideas. I will circle the problem warily. I will bide my time. And when the motherfucker least expects it, I will pounce, and I will write.
This is my plan.
This past week has been an odd one. Between fighting the dregs of the cold and the fact that the kids had three days of school instead of five, not very much accomplished at all. A lack of inertia, research struggles, and a few spanners thrown for good measure…yeah, not a lot got done. That now has to change, because it’s October, and that means the mad-rush to the end of the year has commenced. A lot of writing needs to be done between now and January 1st (including banging out the first draft of the new Kodiak, which is already giving me migraines).
But today shook it off. And tomorrow I’ll get back to work, and be at it in earnest on Monday. Today was good.
Today was Jennifer’s birthday.
In the main, I find birthdays hard days to negotiate. They come preloaded with the need to be “good” days, and we all know how well that kind of expectation tends to go. They are also, for the most part, a no-win scenario. If you ignore the day, or try to, you fail, because even if everyone else forgets, you still don’t. And should you decide you want to downplay the day, rest assured, there’s someone who’ll look to make a big deal out of it. There’s a reason that six year-olds inevitably have total breakdowns during their birthday parties. The day can almost never go “right.”
I think the kids and I managed to get today to go right, and I’m very, very glad for that. From letting her sleep in to a Death By Chocolate cake, I think we pulled it off. She deserves it. More than I can ever say, she deserves it.
Been fighting a cold/sinus general misery for about a week now. It’s almost gone, and I’m hoping tomorrow will see my head clear enough to do some, I dunno, writing, maybe?
This is the problem with getting ill. The work backs up like…well, like water in my basement office, actually. I’ve got an angry Spaniard in Barcelona (and doesn’t that sound like a straight line?) waiting for me to deliver scripts that he can, in turn, hand to the artists he represents. I’ve got Steve waiting on the first script for Whiteout III, and he’s exhibiting the patience of a saint. That’s its own thing, frankly; been so long since I wrote that world, and, despite myself, I’m second-guessing every other word I put down, rewriting and rewriting and reworking to a level that is, frankly, uncharacteristic, even for me. JLu’s patience is about at an end, I think, but I’ve got a lucky reprieve for a few more days on delivery to Oni, it seems, as he and Randy Jarrell (scroll down a bit here) are off to SPX this weekend. So tomorrow, I resume the assault, once more scrap everything I’ve written, and start again. The ideas are there. It’s getting them to come out write/right that’s giving me the migraines. And, frankly, writing for Steve has become somewhat daunting to me, because I really want to give him work that’s worth the enormous effort I know he’s going to put into it. It’s an elevating effect, and ideally will lead to a better final product, but I’m putting a lot of pressure on myself for this project as a result, and, thus far, it’s leading to pages that no one is seeing but me.
Not to bitch or anything, of course.
Far as the fun land of Whiteout: The Movie goes…no news worth speaking of. But Lieber found the following image online, fan-created, and we both got a kick out of it, so I thought I’d share it here. No idea who created it, but they certainly know the PhotoshopFu.
I’ve mentioned Eric Newsom and his site devoted to all things Question before, and if you haven’t stopped by to check it out, you really should. He’s collected a wonderful array of critical essays, interviews, and other ephemera to satisfy the most die-hard Q fan, no matter what incarnation.
There’s a fella over there, going by the name of J3H, who’s been doing, essentially, action-figure fumettis. This is the one he’s been working on lately, and it’s really an impressive accomplishment, all the more so when you consider that — I believe — this is a lone endeavor on his part. I’m looking forward to the next installment — the HB riff in the last one was delightfully twisted.
