Ice Age, anyone?

Just a little hyperbole. It is now near mid-June, and breakfast on the back patio this morning required long pants. 65 F at 9am in Central Arizona on June 13th. Incroyable! No doubt next week we'll get the full court press heat hammer, but so far it's been a lovely gift. A little more sun (and a lot more rain) would be nice for the garden's sake.

Dad moves into his new and smaller apartment by the end of August, so this weekend will be the first of several down in Scottsdale to help clear out what he won't need or have room for. Mainly kitchen stuff and books. The kitchen stuff is easy to get rid of, the books will require more thought. He has nearly as many as we do.

I am back to a relatively normal work schedule--only one book due at a time. I'm liking my new oil paints mightily, and am trying to get into the habit of finishing off the evening with artwork. Not last night though. This last week was proof corrections out the wazoo, plus getting Switch 12 done. By last night I couldn't even type my own name. But then, I never could. If my given name was Ssuan I'd save a lot of time in spell check.

(The picture has nothing to do with anything--was having fun with the macro setting on the camera. Pretty, yes?)

850 down, 550 to go

Let's see, since the end of April I'll have lettered, FXed and retouched 3 books, totaling about 750 pages: Battle Angel Alita:Last Order 12, Go Go Monster, and Fullmetal Alchemist 20. GGM was the biggest at over 450 pages; fortunately, it was also the simplest in terms of retouch and FX work. Also a very lovely book, which I will discuss more at a later date.

Now I'm in the process of wrapping up Red River 28 (the last, and I'll miss it, despite it being a Mary Sue of the first water, it was also an interesting book from its historical perspective, taling place in the days of The Hittite empire). Hot on its heels I need to finish Switch 12 by mid-June, then Record of a Fallen Vampire 8, due first week of July.

Then I get a break (I think. If anyone offers me something else during that period, I'll probably take it. Make hay while the sun shines, and it doesn't shine as often as it once did.) Starting in August I pick up some issues of One Piece, and will wrap up RFV and Switch. So by Fall I may either be fretting about work again--or finally spending as much time painting as working. Could happen.

Ah, sherds.

This drawing is from 10 years ago, which is sobering. I'd swear I'd just drawn it last year. Ten years ago I was in between steady comics-work gigs, and was branching out into illustration and map-making and page layout for non-duck-and-mouse endeavors. I worked with designer Christina Watkins on a variety of National Park brochures, books and guides, and one of the highlights of that time was a three day excursion she arranged for me and my able assistant to visit Mesa Verde National Park in CO, so I could do on-site research and drawings.

G and I stayed just past the main visitor center, in an area dotted with small residences for on-site personnel. Our temporary abode had been fashioned from an old stone water tower; it was nicely finished with a small kitchen, tiled shower and up a curving stairway was the bedroom, with round walls and views across the mesa. In the morning and evening deer wandered through, casually browsing on the trees. We watched the sun set over the escarpments and enjoyed the nearly complete lack of human-generated sound.

During the day we visited several of the main sites and I spent quite a few hours sketching and drawing. But the best experience of all came our second evening, when we stayed behind at Cliff Palace with a ranger as guide, and toured the entire ruin after all the tourists had left. we were taken into the back of the dwelling to see how the stone walls had been attached to the overhanging rock, saw the soot marks of ancient fires, and saw everything from a perspective afforded to few. It was a memorable evening.

This drawing was used, with others, in the Cliff Palace guide brochure (or maybe it was for Balcony House). I wonder if they're still using those same brochures ten years on?

Mice from hell and other diversions

How the hell did it get to be April 17th already?

On the plus side, it's past tax day so no more wailing and gnashing of teeth (see above illustration*) on that score until at least June. Now that the forms are mailed and the checks written, it would be churlish not to appreciate all the good stuff going on: plants waking up for spring, new flowers blooming, birds enjoying the fine repast we put out for them, a visiting-resident chipmunk playing chicken with Junior, the possible end of Wind season, and for now at least, as much work as we can handle. And dad has made the decision, on his own, to move into more suitable housing for a Man of His Years.

Small victories.

(*This illo was one of many scribbles I perpetrated on my drawing board covers over the years at Gladstone. I think I did this one during an extended run of Gottfredson daily-strip reformatting sessions.)

The elephant in the room

From personal experience as as a freelancer (and former employee) of Gemstone, and as a longtime friend and co-worker of Disney Comics editor John Clark, none of this comes as any big surprise to me. The dates given correspond to the period when I started having trouble getting invoices paid. First came ever-increasing delays, which led finally to admittance that no invoices would be paid for the foreseeable future. At that point I stopped working for them, although I continue to do small jobs out of friendship and loyalty to John.

I don't take any pleasure in these misfortunes, particularly since I have a long history working with the Disney Comics and would like to continue to contribute to them and see them made available to those that want to read 'em in English. But like so many other sad stories of the current fiscal fiasco, this one was avoidable, and quite a few people are paying a price who weren't responsible for creating the mess.

I hope someday to get the 3K Gemstone owes me. But I'm not holding my breath. There's too many entities with bigger bills ahead of me in line.

C'est la vie.