Dylan Edwards

We happy few

2012-01-27T05:40:00.000-08:00

Storyboarding on Wild Grinders S1 has finished - it was a fun gig, and I'm eagerly awaiting the launch of the series. Maybe there'll be a Season 2...

So 2012 has started with me switching to animation. I'm doing 2D stuff at Copernicus, and so far I've worked on 2 projects, a feature and a preschool show. Hopefully I'll have some work to share in the future, but for now it's all under wraps. Maybe the 2013 demo reel will have some.

As for my own projects, 'Onions' is proceeding pretty well. We'd like to have a rough cut put together by the spring... maybe enter it in the Film Fest.

Jan 31st is the deadline for The Sketchbook Project, and my contribution is almost finished. Just a few hours this weekend and it will be ready to go. I'll have to remember to make some scans of it before I send it in.

And The Overlord is also moving along - a merry band of talented adventurers is rallying to the Overlord's call and it is looking more and more like Episode One will become a reality. I should be recording the vocal stuff next week, and then animation can begin.

New Demo Reel

2011-12-20T12:01:00.000-08:00

Here's my latest demo reel

Tuesday, December 13th at 8pm

2011-12-07T13:01:00.000-08:00

http://youtu.be/3qUuL-CKFrk

Check out the 22 Minutes X-mas Special this Tuesday, December 13th at 8pm on CBC TV. You will see all sorts of funny skits, and Bob Rae (and my animation)!

This Hour Has 24 Frames Per Second

2011-12-03T06:39:00.000-08:00

So the other day I found myself putting in a bid on a freelance animation gig for This Hour Has 22 Minutes. (For those of you outside of Canada, this is a popular political satire show on CBC) Much to my surprise, I got the job! So I worked it in around my main storyboarding job at Copernicus, which already keeps me plenty busy.

At his point, the episode hasn't aired yet, so no images, and I can't really get into any details about it. It's a christmas special, which will be broadcast sometime in the next 20 days or so (I assume). Hopefully CBC will have it available for streaming on their website.

So with the christmas season will come the end of my storyboarding job on Wild Grinders, which has been fun. It looks like I'll be moving on to animation next, which I am looking forward to.

I finished the animatic for Episode One of 'The Overlord' and a bunch of cool people have agreed to work on it.

I also managed to get some work done on 'Onions' my stop-motion project with Siloën Daley. That's something I am allowed to share with you...

So there. I updated my blog. Now back to storyboarding...

Onions test footage!

2011-09-27T08:43:00.000-07:00

Looks like we got the camera settings sorted out.

Character Designs

2011-09-26T07:03:00.000-07:00

These are my new character designs for The Overlord which I did, working from the awesome concept sketches done by Micro Chen.

The Overlord - The Animated Webseries

2011-09-18T15:38:00.000-07:00

I launched the crowdfunding campaign on IndieGoGo today! What's that mean?

http://www.indiegogo.com/The-Overlord-Animated-Webseries

It means I'm going to make the Overlord as an animated webseries, one episode at a time. I want to pay the people involved for their talents, so there's going to be some money involved. I will be posting tidbits as they come together, designs and artwork and so on, but not on this blog; I have another blog that is completely devoted to The Overlord, called THE DEPARTMENT OF SUPREMACY

http://dept-of-supremacy.blogspot.com/

When I started the play in the Fringe Fest back in 2009, I kind of just started doing it and it snowballed as people got excited about it and it started to gain enough momentum that I no longer had to keep pushing it, I just steered it. Hopefully that's what will happen this time as well...!

Onions Test Footage

2011-09-14T03:14:00.000-07:00

harder better faster stronger

2011-09-10T10:09:00.000-07:00

So I'm drawing a lot - every day I pretty much draw as much as I can. It reminds me of that Simpsons episode where Homer goes to hell and the devil straps him to a machine that force-feeds him donuts, expecting it to be a torture, but Homer loves it. My hand gets sore sometimes, but I never get bored of drawing the same characters over and over again, and I am always learning and looking for ways of improving.

My own projects are coming along well. When my pal Siloën gets back from TIFF we'll start shooting our stop-motion short 'Onions', which is shaping up to be pretty sweet. I've started looking at crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter and IndieGoGo for The Overlord Animated Webseries. There's some encouraging success stories coming from the crowdfunding scene.

The Overlord Music is finished, and we'll be putting it up on iTunes soon...

Jim Edwards (1946-2011)

2011-07-26T04:59:00.000-07:00

My father passed away last month from cancer. Dean McNeill was a colleague from his days at CCL, and he wrote this nice piece for the GDC newsletter.

http://www.gdc.net/designers/index/articles1190.php

Laid up

2011-07-21T11:47:00.000-07:00

I had surgery on my right leg this week so it's slowed me down somewhat, allowing me some time to do things like update my blog.

Work at Copernicus has been steady, and keeping me quite busy, which is awesome. I am really enjoying the job. The show is fun, and should be on TV in a year or so. It's my first time working on a show that used an overseas studio to do the animation, so I'm looking forward to learning more about how that works.

I have had other things going on as well. We took a 6-day road trip at the end of June, visiting Grand Falls NB, Trois-Rivieres, Quebec City and Montreal Que, and Ottawa Ont. It was a hectic trip, full of family adventure and fun. A lot of driving was done in the rented Dodge Grand Caravan; we clocked 3500 km.

So yeah, surgery. I've has varicose veins in my right leg since I was a teenager. In case you don't know what that is, it's gross veins that bulge out and look gross. It was always unsightly, but otherwise not much of a problem. When I hit 35 or so, it started to become more of an issue, causing pain and swelling and other grossness. So this week I got them removed by a surgeon with a scalpel. He made about 16 incisions all up and down my leg, and sealed the wounds with staples. Yeah, it's a bit sore right now.

I will post before and after pix of my medical miracle as soon as the bandages come off...

New job etc

2011-06-13T05:34:00.000-07:00

I'm stealing some time to update my blog - I've been working at a new job for about a month now, storyboarding at Copernicus Studios, so that's been keeping me pretty busy; not so much time for new animation lately. Some of my projects have been backburnered for now, at least until my workflow with the new job evens out a bit. Drawing all day is pretty darn sweet I have to say.

I have managed to make some progress with The Overlord. I just put some of the music up on YouTube, and I will be making the mp3's available when we add in the last couple of finishing touches to the last two remaining songs.

'A Perfect World'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yAWrZijAeQ

'Power Doesn't Care'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPPdexiTb20

'Access Denied'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sxfg5w4v9Gk

'Liberté!'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCtEmt8iP6s

More animation progress

2011-05-06T07:46:00.001-07:00

Here's some playblasts of my latest stuff

excerpt from work-in-progress: Necrozone

2011-04-29T07:09:00.000-07:00

Here's a little slice of a short animated film I'm working on called 'Necrozone' which is about a guy who loves his guitar and fights the devil in a metal-battle for the soul of his best friend

Animation Demo Reel

2011-04-21T15:35:00.000-07:00

Gogo Girl

2011-03-15T17:48:00.000-07:00

I hate skin weighting and rigging. I hate it so much I am doing it over and over and over. Whee! I guess this is the way to get good at something. I've started working on some actual textures for her now. These are just rough colours to get her into the ballpark. Right now I'm getting her face blend shapes worked out. I've had the whole rig completely done twice now and I just realized I have to pull it all out and do it over again. It will be awesome in the end though. After trying to do animation with FunkyBoss I realized that I need to get my rigs right or else it hold back the animation too much.

Video of Alien

2011-03-15T07:39:00.000-07:00

Mudbox Monster

2011-03-07T17:55:00.000-08:00

I really like Mudbox. Here's a monster I made. I was calling him Dave Chalmers for a while, but he needs a better name. I'm thinking 'Zyffillax the Horrible, Crustacean Nebuloid of the Outer Darkness'

Snowman

2011-02-22T09:14:00.001-08:00

Here's some animation of a guy making a snowman. The model is 'Goon' by Sean Burgoon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PF9mpDoEUhw

The Door

2011-02-07T12:30:00.000-08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=db12YxgoKWQ

Animation by Dylan Edwards and Music by Benn Ross

A Robot's Progress - Pt 6

2011-02-03T09:07:00.000-08:00

Now my robot is armed and dangerous, sporting a wickedawesome 88mm assault gun. It needs a bit of texturing work to make it match the weathered and beaten look of the robot... all in good time

A Robot's Progress - Pt 5

2011-01-24T15:11:00.000-08:00

Here's a look at the robot model with its nice new textures files on it

New Year, New Stuff

2011-01-04T05:06:00.000-08:00

Vacation's over kids - time to get back to the grindstone of learning! 2011 is happening with or without you!

My robot project 'Orksa MBM' is 99% rigged and combat ready. Currently working on the textures.

My first foray into the wild and wacky world of Mudbox!

And I've started modeling a new character 'Estragon' - no, not 'estragen'. The name comes from Samuel Beckett's play 'Waiting for Godot'. I have an extensive backstory for her... perhaps I'll post a snippet from the novel in the future.

Demo Reel 2011

2010-12-20T18:05:00.000-08:00

Dylan Edwards Demo Reel 2011

A Robot's Progress Pt 4

2010-12-16T07:25:00.000-08:00

Here's a coolio anime styled pose-o-rama

A Robot's Progress - Pt. 3

2010-12-14T13:42:00.000-08:00

Rigging the Robot

I'm in the home stretch now, rigging the robot and getting set to do some animation with him and hopefully get it rendered in time for this semester's demo reel...

Funky Nixon

2010-12-06T09:22:00.000-08:00

I'm working on a lip sync with the funkyBoss model - this is a playblast of work-in-progress. The full clip is going to be about 30 seconds long.

The Boss is Funky

2010-12-04T09:35:00.000-08:00

I'm finishing up the face rig for my funkyBoss...

A Robot's Progress Pt. 2

2010-12-01T09:58:00.000-08:00

UV mapping is progressing... rainbow plaid is so fabulous, isn't it?

A Robot's Progress - Pt 1

2010-11-20T07:53:00.000-08:00

My non-deforming character design project this semester is coming along. I finished the basic modeling, and I'm starting to do the fine details.

I'll be spending the weekend attaching the different piece of geometry together and working out where their pivot points should be. I want to make sure it all fits together and will work properly before I start the UV'ing

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcnOpNRuSu0

Towering Inferno

2010-11-16T05:49:00.000-08:00

The assignment was to have my character do a standing jump over an obstacle. Try as I might to make it an abstract and generic 'jump animation' I just had to add some sort of narrative so I could give the character some motivation. This version of the Boss doesn't have his facial blend shapes, but I was able to get some acting out of his jaw joint.

Robot Design Drawing

2010-11-07T14:45:00.000-08:00

Here's another colour drawing I did of the ORSKA MBM for my character design assignment. In terms of composition it's sort of a tribute to The Iron Giant. The chain he's holding is the gunstrap. I was looking at images of tanks to find textures and I noticed this one tank with a big chain hanging off the front. It struck me as a great texture detail to include somewhere in the design.

The Door - Poster Image

2010-11-01T09:34:00.000-07:00

My newest short 'THE DOOR' is finished animation. Once post production is finished (music and final editing), it will be on YouTube...

Mecha Design

2010-10-27T07:27:00.000-07:00

These are mecha designs for a future war story I wrote called 'Mecha Syndrome'. The russian ORSKA MBM is the backbone of the mobile armor forces of the central asian Red Dragon Enclave. I'll be modeling this over the next couple of weeks in Maya...

Short Video: "Boss Battle!"

2010-10-04T05:13:00.000-07:00

Here's a short movie I did over the break. Can I call it a short film these days? No actual film is being used...

Fall 2010 Demo Reel

2010-09-29T11:34:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fqSBESMESI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fqSBESMESI

In Soviet Russia...

2010-09-17T15:42:00.000-07:00

I'm always looking for ways to subvert rampant consumerism. Here's my latest great idea; an ad campaign for used car brands that are known for their longevity and toughness.

Some of my new stuff

2010-09-06T08:59:00.000-07:00

This is a composite shot I put together in After Effects using a still photo and an animated 3D render of a stikfa. I used some matte elements within maya to mask the stikfa so it looks like he's walking behind obstacles like the column in the foreground.

The Overlord is a superhero rock-musical I've written, and I'm currently shooting a pilot for a webseries. This is a teaser trailer I put together using some of the early footage and some motion graphics I whipped together in Maya

These are renders of 3D models (done in Maya) and assembled into nice compositions with Photoshop.

4th Quarter

2010-07-14T15:35:00.000-07:00

I'm starting 4th semester at Centre for Arts & Technology now. It's gonna get busy.

2D Animation Stuff

2010-07-11T08:41:00.000-07:00

Stikfa Run Cycle

2010-06-10T10:35:00.000-07:00

We had our first actual animation lesson in Maya today - it was good. Maya animation is a lot like stop-motion - I enjoyed it a lot.

stikfa renders

2010-06-08T09:15:00.000-07:00

A rough edit of my ID4 pre-vis project

2010-06-06T09:55:00.001-07:00

Superguy

2010-05-31T10:40:00.001-07:00

This is another of my flash tests. The assignment was to do a determined run cycle, so I did this little generic super guy.

It's the pitch!

2010-05-17T10:14:00.001-07:00

lizard on the rock

2010-05-14T13:47:00.001-07:00

Some more pre-vis

2010-05-14T08:23:00.001-07:00

I'm working on this pre-vis exercise using a page of script from independence day

Flash exercise - Box Step

2010-05-11T07:16:00.000-07:00

This is supposed to be a figure climbing up onto a box. I think it came out alright, except that the volume shrinks a bit when he's crouched. I'm still new at this kind of animation, so I'm learning what things to watch for. I still like the quality of the motion though.

The colors are flashing because I used red for my key frames and blue for the in-betweens

A walk cycle in Flash

2010-05-10T13:31:00.000-07:00

More of the amazing previs assignment

2010-05-07T15:12:00.001-07:00

There's a bit of extra footage on the end of this one

More Independence Day Pre-vis

2010-05-07T10:44:00.000-07:00

I sorted out my issues with video formatting! Whee!

an exercise in pre-vis

2010-05-07T05:47:00.000-07:00

Bruce vs Clowns

2010-04-17T08:57:00.001-07:00

HIFF

2010-04-13T05:13:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I found out I'm in the HIFF! That's the Halifax Independent Filmmakers' Festival!

http://www.hiff.ca

'Peach' is included in a collection of music videos that's being shown in the festival, so wow. This filmmaking thing may start to work out for me.

Benn Ross 'Peach' - Animated Music Video

2010-04-07T13:13:00.000-07:00

This is a music video that I did for Benn Ross using traditional hand-drawn animation techniques.

Welcome

2010-04-03T17:11:00.000-07:00

This is my Animation Demo Reel, showing some of my best work

- d -

The learning continues...

2010-03-09T16:29:00.001-08:00

Some school work

2010-02-24T16:43:00.001-08:00

Here's some of the stuff I've been working on in class lately. The top bits are from my character design class. It's a guy called Mudd from a series I'm developing called Mecha Syndrome. The guy at the bottom is a Dalek from Doctor Who.

2010 - off with a bang

2010-01-23T15:50:00.000-08:00

School is great. Very soul-sustaining. All the things I've loved to do all my life come together at last. We have started classic 2D hand-drawn animation this semester and I feel like I've finally come home. This is what I've always wanted to do. When I was drawing comics, I was trying to capture the moving drawings that were in my head. Now I am starting to learn how to actually make that happen for realz.

It's been crazy this month. 2 babies born into my family, projects blossoming and blooming all around me. I'm curating an animation festival! What that means is that my friends and I are looking at all the submissions and choosing what goes into the show, and we have submissions from all over Canada. It's called 'Animation With Love', and the screening is April 1st, 2010.

Year's End

2009-12-29T15:19:00.000-08:00

2009 is wrapping up now. I would say it was a year of rebuilding for me.

-

I started this blog post yesterday, but I didn't finish it. Now it's my wedding anniversary, so it's gonna have to wait. I've got other stuff to do now.

School Work

2009-11-27T03:05:00.000-08:00

School is going well. We're doing class in Photoshop now. I am pretty confident in my Photoshop skills, but it's fun to have a chance to work on some projects. We were given two assignments so far. This one was to make an action figure with your own face on it. 'Bad News Nurbs' is the name of our class - we had to have a name other than 3D Student Group B. We all had photos taken in class, so when the thumb drive went around the class I grabbed everyone's photos to make a 'collect 'em all' kind of package design.

The other assignment was to make an image using only meat. I decided to reproduce a famous photo. The results are... disturbing to say the least.

In Maya class we're all modeling penguins. These are models we will be texturing, rigging, lighting and animating. I did a couple of penguins, which didn't look much like any sort of penguin you'd recognize as such. Yesterday I tossed them out and started a new one, and it looked much better. People commented that he looked like a cowboy, so I'm going with it. I made him a ten-gallon hat, and I'm planning on giving him a sheriff's badge and shootin irons.

I call him Sheriff Stink Eye.

Hands

2009-11-16T11:32:00.000-08:00

I did a hand for Maya class today. The images here are supposed to show the progress, but they posted in reverse order. Anyways, this was all done in Maya, just using the basic tools. It really is a great piece of software. I just started with a couple of cylinders and a box and I messed with the vertices until it looked like a hand.

Our name in lights

2009-11-13T11:23:00.001-08:00

We came, performed and we conquered. It was an awesome experience! It was our best show - the audience was great, and the cast was totally on fire. The band was rockin it, and all the tech things went off without a hitch. Video will be forthcoming...

I heart Maya!

2009-11-05T17:48:00.000-08:00

Maya is really great. I'm having a lot of fun digging into this tool and figuring out what I can do with it. Here's two images I made with Maya. The flying saucer took me about 45 minutes; it has an interior bovine capture and holding chamber which you can't see in the render. The breakfast scene took me about 6 hours. But they were both learning exercises - I could probably do them a bit quicker now that I've done them once.

Also, had a good rehearsal for the Overlord tonight. Got the band going again, and got the play up on its feet again. One week to the big night!

plague house

2009-11-03T04:32:00.000-08:00

I'm sick. So is my son. Not sure if it's swine flu or regular flu. We're staying home though. I've got too much to do, but whatever. I can't go around infecting the rest of my fellow citizens. So it's just the two of us, home all day, coughing and hacking. I've got school work and also my upcoming command performance to worry about, but I'll just have to make myself chill out until this flu thing is finished with me.

some sketches and stuff

2009-11-02T06:33:00.001-08:00

I'm doing a lot of drawing at school. Here's some pages from my sketchbook.

A classmate of mine has introduced me to a new webcomics server called Smack Jeeves. I'm trying it out for my newest webcomic called 'Obsolescence'.

I also mirrored Uuna there. I asked Graeme if he was interested in continuing Uuna, and he said yes! So I've written another chapter, which will be appearing there when it's ready.

MiG-15 in progress

2009-10-29T16:50:00.000-07:00

I've been chugging away at school, learning Maya and drawing a lot. Also meeting some fun people, maybe people I'll be working with someday. Here's some renders of a MiG-15 that I'm working on. The proportions are supposed to be a bit cartoony!

Mysterical

2009-10-25T09:09:00.000-07:00

The new version of Mysterio that's appeared in Ultimate Spider-Man #3 is great, and he's a truly fearsome enemy as well. I like 'im. I wanna be him for Halloween. I just need to wear a fog machine on my back all night.

Also, I tried out a game my brother gave me a long time ago; Myst IV: Revelation. Wow! It's pretty cool and addictive. Maybe the kids go for different sort of stuff these days, but I likes me some trippy immersive beautyscapes.

But I have school work to keep up with. That's not exactly easy either. We're drawing a lot. I'll post some examples when I get my assignments back. They're just typical art school stuff, but I like to share. Maya is really fun, but it's also really big. It's like Photoshop, but squared. Cubed, actually.

Photoshop is this amazing tool, and it has so many capabilities that you can spend years learning it and never really be able to use all its capabilities. I've learned how to use the parts of it that I need, and every once in a while I'll pick up a new trick. But Maya is even more intense. Each tool set has a tool set inside it. There's no way someone can be excellent at everything it does - I just don't believe it. I think that's why you see people who specialize - modellers, lighters, texturers, riggers... people all doing different specialized jobs, but using the same piece of software to do it.

Anyways, we did a solar system. It's cool and all, but my imagination got fired up when I was tinkering around and I made a model of a MIG-15. I learn better when I have a project I'm excited about, so I'm planing to do a little short film. The working title is 'MIG's vs Saucers' and it's about MIG-15's defending the cows of the Motherland from the Flying Saucers. Mostly it's just a chance to learn how Maya works, but I can't help it if I get all writer'y and director'y. It's just what I do.

What else do I do... webcomics. I have a new account on Smack Jeeves which I am trying out. I like it so far, so I'm using it as home for Uuna and Obsolescence. I also wrote up six comics for The Overlord, which Cal is getting drawn by six different artists. They'll be part of the advertising campaign for the Nov 12th Neptune Studio show. They all tell parts of the backstory of the Overlord universe, like the Overlord discovering the Toxic Diamond of Mumbutu, or Blacknight getting caught in the exploding Knightcave, and Lady Liberty being frozen in carbonite. It's very exciting, like Christmas, only with more comics and without the messiah baby.

(That whole messiah angle on the baby jesus story is kind of a downer anyways. It's like 'yay! let's celebrate the baby who has come to save us all from evil by getting horribly murderered! wOOt!' It would be cooler if the story was like 'Wow look at the cute baby! This reminds me of all kinds of good feelings I have about my fellow humans, I think I'll put down my weapons and stop being a jerk')

Anyways, I didn't mean to get writing about baby jesus. Comics! The new Moon Knight is good too. Fun with a moon gun. I also like Buckethead now. I know the guitar virtuoso thing is not for everyone. A lot of people like to have lyrics and an actual face to go with their music, but to them I say, 'faces are overrated and often lead to disappointment, try the bukkit'. You know you want to. A guy in a raincoat with a bucket on his head is a good signpost indicating how far off the rails this crazy train has gone. Rock n roll is not meant to be so packaged and media friendly. It should make people shake their heads in disapproval. Besides that, it's really good music.

It used to be that people would make things, like music, or soap, or food, and they would hire people to do advertising. These marketers would then do their job, and try and make people want the thing they are advertising. Nowadays, the marketers tell the manufacturers what products to make, so they'll sell better. That's sort of backwards isn't it?

Yes, it is. It's all the way backwards. I'm tired of all the backwards things in the world. It makes me want to strap a fog machine on my back and steal gold from a bank. I would start with stealing one of these:

Oh it's so crazy and stupid and over-the-top, and it's such a disgusting concentration of wealth, yet I covet it, and want it. I used to want a gold brick, but now I want one of these. They're 21 inches across, and they're 99.999% awesome.

Command Performance

2009-10-11T05:41:00.000-07:00

So now that I have my first week of school out of the way, I'm coming up for air and realizing that I have to get my butt in gear for the Overlord Command Performance at Neptune. (The what, now?)

The Overlord did quite well at the Fringe Festival. We were a 'Fringe Hit' which means we sold more tickets than any other show at our venue, and as reward, we got to do an extra show. The last time slot in each venue is reserved for the 'fringe hit'. So what that meant was on the last day of the fringe, when we originally had 2 shows scheduled, we ended up doing the show 3 times. It was awesome, but really exhausting, both mentally and physically... but emotionally quite rewarding.

So the show was a success, and now we're doing one more, a one night only command performance at the Neptune Studio stage on November 12th. This morning, when I was eating my frosted mini wheats I realized that I have to get going - lots of paperwork and scheduling and building and painting and organizing and all kinds of craziness to get finished for this show to happen... and it's not gonna happen by itself!

And I have to make it happen while I'm in school... what a conundrum

All these things that I've done

2009-10-06T15:13:00.000-07:00

Today was day 2 of animation school. I was feeling some pangs of 'what-the-hell-am-I-doing-here' yesterday, but it's better today. It's not anything to do with the teachers and curriculum... more to do with my age and experience level. Most of my classmates are fresh out of high school, and still figuring out what they want to do with their lives. I'm married with three kids, I own a house, I have a university degree, I've changed careers three times already, I've animated and written for TV already. But today I'm settling in a bit more, and I'm seeing the path a bit clearer. I know what kind of learner I am, and I just can't really get much further with Maya on my own. I'm a dramatic learner; I learn from doing, and from connecting with other people. So school is right for me, even if I am more than twice the age of most other students.

We had a lecture today with the head of the 3D animation department, which also helped me get my head around this whole school thing. After listening to him, I was thinking about the ways I'm getting my name out there, and I realize that I don't really have much of a web presence. I used to have a website on Geocities, but they're shutting down. Also, it was a crappy website. I tried for this graphic interface type of deal that was too complicated to update. Now I'm looking into getting set up with a new website so I can have all my content gathered in one, easy-to-find place. 'What content' you may ask?

Boxes - A short animated film, done with stop-motion on my kitchen table using blocks and plastiscene. I did this waaay back in 2002 as a sort of demo to get a job.

Poko - A segment of a children's TV show which I animated. This is the job I wanted when I did 'Boxes'. I don't think my short film go tme the job though. Anyways, I worked on three seasons of Poko, and I think it's the best work I've done professionally.

A - B - C - These short clips are the result of my own efforts to learn Flash on my own. They are sort of Sesame Street-ish musical thingies. The music is me, playing guitar and singing.

The Overlord - I wrote and directed a musical play, which was performed at the 2009 Atlantic Fringe Festival. There is YouTube of the 5 songs: Access Denied, Shadow in the Night, Power Doesn't Care, You're Dead Wrong, and Liberté!

Hero High - This is a comic I wrote and 'directed', published by Z2H. The artwork is by Diego Simone, a very talented Argentinian artist. It's about the most normal town in the world, where superheroes from across the planet send their kids so they can learn normal human values; you know, like an honest day's work, and pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, and taking your licks and all that wholesome character-building stuff that parents want for their kids. Naturally, the kids resist their parents wishes, and want to escape the oppressive regime of normality. Teenage super-hi-jinks ensue. And there's badguys too.

Kireji - This is another comic I did through Z2H, artwork by Jhomar Soriano. This one is auto-biographical, even though there's a giant robot in it.

Uuna - An 8-page comic, done as a submission to Zuda with artwork by Graeme Partridge-David. A fantasy tale in the spirit of JRR Tolkien.

Skitter - Another masterpiece by Me and Graeme, which won its way to the final round of Small Press Idol.

Alma: The Great White Beast - a 4-page comic written by William Gibson (no, not THAT William Gibson. A different one) and drawn by me.

Crackwalker - My ongoing webcomic. A morass of meta-comic material from my messy mind.

Drawings - I have some stuff on my DeviantArt site. Kilowog Vs Sinestro, Inherently Notable (a homage to Dave Simons) are some of my best pieces.

That's my stuff. I may have some more that I'm forgetting about at the moment. I will definitely have more stuff to add in the months to come.

Paperback Writer

2009-10-01T05:17:00.000-07:00

This song is really amazing, but the lyrics stink. It's really tight musically - bright and fresh, with an awesome sense of urgency. I'd love to hear a band do a cover of this, but change the lyrics to something more meaningful. As an aspiring writer, I feel a desire to connect more deeply with this song, but ironically, the words are the obstacle.

Speaking of obstacles, I heard back from Zuda the other day. My 8-page opus 'Uuna' (illustrated by the lovely and talented Graeme Partridge-David) was rejected. No real feedback about why, just a form-letter response about how many talented artists they get submissions from every day, and other comics are a better fit with their editorial needs. It would be great if they could give some sort of feedback with the rejection, since they're asking for completely finished artwork for the submission. Someone looked at it, and they must have thought something. Even if it's 'I just didn't like it' that would be helpful.

The good news is that I can share with the class... feedback is welcome.

As you may be able to tell, a lot of work went into this. I had been trying to get this project off the ground for years, and when it finally got going, it was an evenings and weekends sort of deal. So it took a long time to complete. I sent it into Zuda in June 2009, and work started on this in March 08. A big part of that is from working on spec. It's hard to justify taking time away from one's friends and family for a project that has no guarantee of a financial payoff... good thing we worked it that way too, because it turned out that there wasn't any. As it is, we did it for fun and because we love it, so that's still good enough for me. I still think it's a great story, and I may get a chance to work on it more in the future. Time will tell.

In other dylonious news, I am starting school next week. Yes I am going to animation school at the tender age of 39... with a bunch of kids fresh out of high school. It's going to be weird, but I'm looking forward to a structured learning environment. I've been playing the the learning edition of Maya, and I've gone as far as I can on my own. If I want to work as a digital animator, I need some training. Look for some interesting stuff in the coming months as I start my class work.

It's a perfect day in a perfect world

2009-09-08T05:09:00.000-07:00

Well, the show has opened! What a rush! We had quite respectable sized audiences for both shows. Opening night was packed, and our second show was a mantinée on Labour Day when the weather was gorgeous out... so having a half-capacity show is pretty darned good if you ask me. I am super pleased with the audience reaction. They all left with huge smiles on their faces, and lots of people approaching me and shaking my hand. I am so grateful for the hard work of everyone in the company. We've really done something cool, I think.

The run up to opening night was so intense it blotted out nearly everything else in my mind. I wasn't worried, just really, really busy. There's still a couple of props I want to touch up for our next show on Thursday. Also to sort out: merch t-shirts, good recordings for MP3's, and some video taping of the show to assemble some sort of piece for sharing on YouTube.

But before I get to all that, I want to give my house some much-needed TLC... the laundry doesn't do itself...

Hot Thespian Action

2009-08-30T18:07:00.000-07:00

Overlord opens in 7 days...!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am madly running around, building and painting sets and props, recording sound effects and music, rehearsing, bargaining, making lists, singing, rehearsing, planning, scheming, dreaming, worrying (surprisingly, not very much though), strategizing, leading by example, visualizing, networking, and loving every minute of my life.

I think I missed the theatre.

Dylan in flux

2009-07-28T07:38:00.000-07:00

Dylan's life in a nutshell:

• Crackwalker is on hiatus, and I hate it, but it has to be that way right now

• The Overlord is taking up every spare minute, which isn't really enough time

• Uuna is driving me crazy - I didn't know how frustrating it would be to wait and hear if it's accepted at Zuda

• Obsolescence is coming along, slow but steady, which is how I like it right now

• I am applying to animation school! This is exciting and weird

• my show is in development hell, but it's not that bad. Sort of like one of those upper circles of hell where they make you eat unsalted bread or something

• I am having a lot of trouble getting any pitches for (censored) through the crucible of approvals. Maybe I just don't get this show... maybe it would help if the concept of the show they are making actually matched up with the materials in the bible.

• I am getting into the stay-at-home-Dad thing, just in time to go back to school it seems

• my wifey got an awesome job - starts next week - this will be very good

• Eric the Half a Bee is really funny

That's what I have to say about all that. All hail the Supreme Leader!

The Overlord.

2009-07-02T16:05:00.001-07:00

So I'm writing a play. Yes, a theatre play for the live stage with actors and stuff. All of a sudden I'm doing it. I don't have an explanation - the muse just shot me in the brain and now I'm writing it. I've already made an application for the Atlantic Fringe Festival, so it had better be ready by September. Sometimes, I just need a fire lit under my ass to get things done. I have been falling into a funk of late, and this is just the thing to help me get my groove back. And I think the play will also be quite awesome.

The play is called 'The Overlord'. I don't want to say too much more about it, lest I expend my creative mojo. I'd rather actually do this, instead of just describe it. Once the project is a bit further along I will share some details. For now, suffice it to say that this is comicbook-inspired. I'm looking into getting some stage pyro...

Uuna on Zuda?

2009-06-30T06:21:00.000-07:00

I sent in my first entry to Zuda - now I just wait to see if they like it. I'm not sure about the rules for what you can say about your project off the Zuda site, and I don't want to pooch myself. I can say it's called Uuna and it's a Tolkien-esque fantasy adventure. I convinced my good buddy Graeme to draw it, and I hope he doesn't end up regretting it. I have a twisting, action-packed plot, a very in-depth world and background created for this, as you might expect, and of course none of this really gets revealed in the eight pages of the Zuda submission. That's the nature of the beast.

I'll just keep my fingers crossed and hope for a chance to share it with the public - assuming they care.

I have another Zuda thingy in the works - this one's a sci-fi that I'm drawing myself, with colours provided by Lucy, a very talented internet-acquaintance of mine.

yeah

2009-03-23T11:33:00.001-07:00

I've been busy. What else is new? Bad news is I'm still poor. Poor as in, 'I have a few months left before I totally run out of money and have to sell my house to avoid bankruptcy'. So I'm busy all the damn time but still poor. What's the good news?

Well, it looks like the end is in sight. I've been plugging away at my projects, and chatting them up and believing in myself and working hard, and I've learned something - that's all a waste of time. What counts is 'finishing things you can show to important people'. Let me capitalize that so it looks the way it sounds in my mind.

Finishing Things You Can Show To Important People.

Hmm. Not mighty enough.

Finishing Things You Can Show To Important People.

Almost... still needs something...

Finishing Things You Can Show To Important People.

...not quite...

That's better.

Year of the Awesome: 2009

2009-01-08T08:19:00.000-08:00

This is it. I feel like all my ducks are finally lined up. Fasten your seatbelts, chums. This shit's about to get real. I just know that this is the year where I work really hard and it pays off. I'm gonna get a lot of my projects finished. Things I've been chipping away at for years, and never really getting enough momentum to finish.

I don't think it's just me. I'm seeing a rising tide of optimism from people. Maybe it's Obama-fever or something. I think we're gonna see a lot of awesome this year.

What awesomeness will you see from me? For starters, there'll be 12 reviews of really cool webcomics, as well as my own fascinating rantings about various topics of epic importance. I'll be scripting more issues of Hero High, and doing more weekly HH:Origins strips as I continue to search for a home for it in the professional publishing/producing world. I've had a few nibbles already - I think I've got a good shot at getting it into development for a TV show. As soon as I know anything for sure, I'll share the news. Crackwalker has entered a new phase, with a new approach to the artwork and writing. The story that has been ambling along randomly for so many years is starting to develop some form. As a writer, I've been learning a lot over the past couple of years, and Crackwalker is reflecting that progress. My recent TV writing and my work with Diego on Hero High has pushed me into a place where my ego steps back and I can see my writing with a better perspective. I can make better decisions about how to craft a story now, I think.

So I'm feeling focused now, and my daughter is old enough to go to daycare; this is like the stars coming into alignment. I suddenly find myself with stretches of time where I'm not making lunches and snacks, or making sure she makes it to the toilet, or dealing with so many other little wonderful distractions. Wonderful? Yes, my kids are wonderful, and I wouldn't trade my time with them for anything. I'm not sending her off to school for my own benefit. She's at an age now where she needs that stimulus of other children around her. The benefits for me are just a nice bonus.

It's like my life has reached a new plateau. I've been out of work for a while, and living off of lines-of-credit and so on, really trying to get it together as a writer while the wife goes to grad school - I've just about reached the end of the road in terms of paying the bills, and now the phone has started ringing. I'm having some really exciting meetings with people about my shit. It's really too early to say anything for sure. Experience has shown me that I can't count on anything until the contracts are signed and the cheque clears the bank. But things of this nature should be happening this week. It's like the tide of evil has turned.

So for those of you that are interested, check back here in the weeks to come. I'll share the good news as it starts to come in. And please share any good news of your own. I'm interested to know if this really is going to be the Year of the Awesome for everybody.

003 Bigness

2008-11-23T17:44:00.000-08:00

This was not a great month for me - I won't bore you with the details. Suffice it to say that money problems came along and stole my mojo. I didn't know what to write about for my column this month. I was just feeling empty. Then I saw the trailer for Repo: The Genetic Opera. At first I disliked it, and after I thought about it for a while I hated it.

It's good to feel inspired again.

So to be clear: I hate the trailer. I haven't seen the movie, so I'm not offering an opinion about the movie itself. The trailer fails to make me want to watch this movie. This trailer has convinced me that the film is a waste of time - a misguided effort.

Why? It's about the sense of scale. Repo is a rock opera - a musical. It is all about grand gestures, and soaring emotions and larger-than-life characters. It seems to be in the same vein as successes like Jesus Christ Superstar, Moulin Rouge and Rocky Horror Picture Show. These were grand productions. They achieve the scale necessary to pull it off.

What did I see in the trailer for Repo? I saw a stage production that was simply shot to film. There were no panoramic shots of huge sets or large outdoor vistas. It was all soundstage - claustrophobic and small. Unforgivably small. (Sorry, bad CG exterior shots do not count)

I know nothing about the history of this project, but I get the feeling that the maker of Saw went to a production of this musical and was so moved by the experience that he wanted to make a movie out of it. It looks like someone just went into the theatre where this was being done and shot it by the seat of their pants without any re-imagining or re-envisioning. It smacks of hubris and laziness. It demonstrates an ignorance of the differences in media (film vs theatre)

It's easy for a group of actors to create magic in person. When you go to a live theatre show, the personal energy can blow the roof off the theatre, and make you sweat in your seat. I'm sure the live show of Repo did just that.

But that is just not going to translate into film without a visionary director taking hold of the material and using the medium to its fullest. Rocky Horror was a stage show first, but when they made the movie, they went to locations, they had exteriors, they had special effects, they had great musical numbers, photographed like a musical. They achieved bigness.

There are creators out there that understand their medium. Jack Kirby was one - he told some of the biggest stories ever - so many that have come after are standing on his shoulders. The second Fantastic Four movie Rise of the Silver Surfer is a clear example of what I'm talking about. The Fantastic Four aren't ironic or gritty or dark, and any attempts to make them 'cool' in that way will result in failure. Stan and Jack just went for it, and told huge stories, with characters that explained what they were doing while they did it, and when you are bold like that, when you write a story about a giant purple guy from space who's come to eat the Earth, you have to just jump in with both feet. Any timidity will cause the whole thing to fail.

My webcomics pick this month has bigness.

Johnny Saturn by Scott Story and Benita Story
(http://johnnysaturn.com/)

Superheroes have been seeing a renaissance since Hugh Jackman first popped his claws back in 2000. The potential of the genre has been increased as these stories have broken out of the confines of nerdy obscurity, and they have become familiar to a wider audience. There's been an explosion of interest in masks and capes as people are cluing in to the huge potential of this storytelling form, a modern-day mythology that allows us to reflect on the big issues while delivering heroic thrills.

Many of these characters have been used and abused over the years. There are many superhero stories that don't bother trying to reach for mythological greatness, but instead wallow in cheap commercialism. And there are very few that reach for the great height achieved by Alan Moore in Watchmen. Enter Johnny Saturn. It's bloody, it's rough around the edges, and it's epic. Scott and Benita Story take the superhero story into a place that's both dark & gritty while still being earnest & heartfelt.

The story begins with the funeral of Johnny Saturn, where are grateful city pays its respects to their fallen hero. We are introduced to a world that has superheroes as a part of its culture, as a combination of celebrity and additional level of law enforcement/national defense. This motif is familiar to those that read conventional comics from Marvel or DC. But rather than set up a status-quo and then return to it, the universe of Johnny Saturn evolves and changes as it progresses through the chapters.

The quality of the comic also evolves. I've said this elsewhere; for me, this is one of the joys of webcomics, the diamonds-in-the-rough. The joy of witnessing talent in a raw form, people working on something just because they love it. Johnny Saturn is a labour of love. This is evident in every panel. Part of what kept me clicking 'next' was the sense of urgency that is imbued into this work. The author was driven to create this comic, as driven as the titular character is on his mission of vigilante justice.

So yes, it's a bit rough around the edges. Hell, it's rough in the center as well. Professional work is always guaranteed to be of a certain level, but it's also guaranteed to stay within certain boundaries. The plot of this comic goes out of bounds for the usual superhero story. Waaay out of bounds. I admit I was lost in the wilderness at some points. Not knowing what's going to happen next is a kind of thrill that can be hard to find in printed comics. I would assert that this is a good thing, and it's what makes this story transcend the bounds of popular fiction. It strives to become something more; if art is too strong a word, then literature at least.

Does it hit the mark? Not exactly, but it reaches for it. And that makes it well worth the price of admission.

Comic Fencing

2008-11-07T08:50:00.000-08:00

I was invited to contribute to a webcomics review site called Comics Fencing. The idea is that a number of reviewers all check out the same comic and then post their reviews. Here's the explanation from the site:

"The mission of Comic Fencing is to provide a place where webcomics are critiqued and celebrated. We also want to introduce you to comics you may not have seen yet. And we wanted to give you a way to know if you'll like a given comic or not.

The best way to do that is for our reviewers to offer mutliple reviews of the same webcomic, dueling it out in order to bring you the truth. So every week, our dedicated reviewing staff will give you their points of view on the chosen comic. Then, fully informed, you can decide if you want to read the webcomic.

We also welcome your thoughts to better inform the rest of the audience. Below each Comic Fencing review is a place to offer your comments. Is the reviewer correct? Did they miss something important? Don't let the other fans miss out!"

So my first review for them is up now. It's for a comic called "Cottonfluff Hollow". Check it out at http://comicfencing.com/

002 Bloody Brilliant

2008-10-20T10:39:00.000-07:00

In my travels about the interwebs I encounter a certain question a lot; “Can Webcomics Be a Money-making Business?” It’s not a very interesting question to me, as I think everything doesn’t have to be about money, but I have some thoughts about it nonetheless.

The entertainment and publishing industries are hungry for more stories and fresh ideas, as they always are; their jobs depend on it! But over the last few years I think the situation is getting more urgent for them. In the good ol’ days, people didn’t have as much choice in their media, so they would just watch the same buddy cop story, or the same romantic comedy, with different dressing. If the people didn’t like it, they were welcome to turn off the TV and have a picnic instead.

But as the ‘new media’ take root in our culture, the entertainment industry is having to work harder to keep people’s attention. In their search for a competitive edge, they are swimming upstream, back to the pools where these industries were spawned, returning to the source; writers.

Webcomics are a rich wilderness to search through for new writers. People with stories to tell can show their stuff in a direct and accessible way. It’s not exactly a marriage made in heaven, but they’re still only at the early dating phase. We’ll see how things work out if webcomics lets the entertainment industry get past first base.

One of the things that industry people don’t get about webcomics is the money thing. (If it’s not something you’re getting paid for, then it’s a hobby right?) It seems to get dumped into the same ‘useless’ pile as fine art and poetry. It seems like the attitude is “No one ever got rich doing that stuff, not while they were alive anyways. Just a waste of time – amusing if you enjoy that sort of thing I guess”.

That’s not a respectful attitude, is it? No wonder webcomics isn’t letting you past first base, entertainment industry. You’re not taking the time to get to understand webcomics’ feelings and hopes and dreams.

Webcomics is like graffiti. People do it without a paycheck, and they give it away for free, but the artists who do it work on their own terms, without having to compromise. Webcomics is still a very young artform compared to graffiti, but the potential is there for it to emerge as a real force in the culture of the 21st century.

So to carry on that metaphor, we can examine the question “Can Webcomics Be a Money-making Business?” through the lens of the graffiti experience. The answer is not simple. Graffiti is a specific thing – uninvited paint on a wall in a public place. You can split hairs there, and as you go, you get further away from what graffiti is. If a bank hires an artist to do a mural on the wall of their parking lot, is it still graffiti? If a well-known graffiti artist does a painting on a canvas, is it still graffiti? What if they design a t-shirt? Or a logo?

Graffiti artists can go on to have successful careers in the graphic arts industries as designers and illustrators, but graffiti is not their ‘job’. It’s possibly where they got their start, where they developed their methods, where they worked out their techniques, made their contacts... but no one makes any money off of graffiti itself.

Is the same true of webcomics? The answer is impossible to nail down. Experience has shown that everything to do with ‘the new media’ is a moving target. What’s true today could be totally changed tomorrow. As of right now, there’s no established ‘webcomics business’. People that pay their bills solely from webcomics are the exception, rather than the rule. There’s a webcomics industry, but it’s an industry in the old-fashioned sense of the word: diligence in an activity or pursuit; steady or habitual effort.

Does that have value? Absolutely, but not necessarily a dollar value. For webcomics to be an ‘industry’ in the business sense of the word, it’s got to employ other people. People with non-comic creating skills. That’s what takes something from an ‘artform’ to a ‘business’.

Don’t get me wrong. If someone wants to pay me for writing, I’ll write whatever they want. I’ll write dog-food labels if there’s a steady pay-check involved. I’m not trying to be some indy purist, I have nothing against people making money.

There’s people out there making money from their webcomics, and more power to ‘em. They’re livin’ the dream, and fueling the enterprise with their own blood sweat and tears. But being an exceptional success is not the same as having a successful business model. Right now, the only way to make a living as a webcomics creator is to just be bloody brilliant.

For now, webcomics will have to settle for just being excited about what they’ve got, which is that excitement that comes from creating something you really enjoy just for its own sake. Maybe the entertainment industry will take the time to get to know webcomics a bit better; it could be the start of a beautiful friendship.

Saturno the Demon Eater by Jilly Foo
(http://www.demoneater.com)

Because webcomics creators don’t have to pitch their idea to a publisher, there are fewer obstacles to prevent them from creating things that are very unique. Bizarre even. The author does not have to know where they are going with the story, they don’t need to have three acts worked out, and they don’t need to explain the idea. This approach can have mixed results. Sometimes there are webcomics that could benefit from a bit of development before they were released to the public. Saturno the Demon-Eater by Jilly Foo is not one of those. It’s really great just like it is. It's bloody brilliant.

This is a story that takes place in some sort of version of hell. It’s a dog-eat-dog world (literally) as demons must eat each other to grow in power. The rules of this world unfold as Saturno struggles to survive. It’s one of those stories that’s enigmatic and weird, but you can sense that the author has a logic underpinning the whole thing. It feels like something out of a scary, disturbing dream. Not a nightmare exactly – one of those dark dreams that you like for some reason.

It’s gorey and creepy. Tim Burton would just love it I’m sure. The main character Saturno has a gentle inner nature, which makes it all the more painful to try and survive in this violent world. As the demons eat each other they change shape and grow. They take all manner of forms – part of the fun is to see the interesting creatures that the author comes up with.

The artwork is beautiful. Jilly Foo’s paintings have a wonderful simplicity that allows the textures and colors to support the storytelling. The text is all done in caption style – a simple font (Garamond?) for narration and dialogue without boxes or balloons. There’s no standard page size. Some drawings are larger than others, as are some pages. The overall effect is to draw the reader into this dream-like world. I recommend reading it in a darkened room to enhance the effect.

x

Once this comic is all finished, I’m sure someone will pick it up for publication. It’s beautifully rendered, with characters you can’t help but be interested in finding out more about. It’s being hosted on a number of sites, but as far as I can tell, DrunkDuck is the main site. If you like monsters and aren’t too squeamish, then you should definitely take a look at Saturno the Demon Eater.

http://www.demoneater.com

001 - The Straight Goods

2008-09-17T09:46:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the first edition of my webcomics column in which I will be sharing opinions and reviews from the fascinating and fractured world of indy webcomics. It’s a big internet, and there are a lot of webcomics, new ones starting every day. When faced with this brave new world of unfiltered creative content, a viewer might have a few questions: What’s good? What’s a waste of my time? What am I looking at? No one can give a complete answer to those questions, because they are very subjective. Some people will hate something that other people love.

Mainstream media is filtered by professionals. There is editorial oversight. People are paid money to make sure it’s good. Most stuff you see in print or on TV is guaranteed to have a certain level of quality. You are also pretty much guaranteed a certain (limited) range of stories. Publishers and producers want to make products that they know how to sell, and as such, they will only look for marketable stories. That’s all well and good, but what about the other stories? Sometimes it’s nice to hear a story that’s different, something unfamiliar – something new.

With indy webcomics, there’s no oversight. When you read a webcomic, it’s straight from the creator. It’s a story that someone felt the need to share, and they didn’t have to sell it to anybody, they just did it. The results are often mixed. Sometimes they’re good, sometimes they’re bad. Sometimes they are well done, sometimes they make no sense. The thing is, it’s always interesting because it’s always the straight goods. I’ve seen some really surprising things in webcomics – stories I haven’t seen anywhere else.

That’s my perspective. I can’t promise to give you absolute answers about what’s good and what’s bad. What I can do is point out webcomics that have caught my eye, and tell you what I like or dislike about them. Each month you can expect this column to point out something new and interesting in the world of webcomics. Now that the introductions are over, let’s get to it.

Red Mask by Malachi Sharlow
http://www.redmask-comics.com

One of the really interesting things about webcomics is that there’s no “industry standard” way to do things. In printed comics (with a few exceptions), things are pretty much done the way they have always been done – pencils, followed by inks, followed by colours, and finally the letters. But that’s not always the way webcomics artists work, and they often experiment with different styles and techniques. One such technique is to use a 3D program like Poser or Maya and build your artwork as CG graphics. Normally, I find this style of artwork a bit lifeless and it inhibits my enjoyment of the story, but with Red Mask by Malachi Sharlow, the opposite is true.

The comic follows the adventures of Ab Redmask, a relic-hunter with a mean attitude and impressive fighting skills. He becomes entangled in the intrigues of a wealthy industrialist named Cohn Surrok who has been gathering information about ancient prophesies and has come to some interesting conclusions about the nature of the world in which he lives. You see, the world of this story is quite different from our own, and it is also different from many other fantasy worlds you may have seen. It is a world with some of the basic elements removed – there is no water, and no fire; only air and earth.

Sounds bizarre? It is, but the artwork really sells the idea. The world of Red Mask is rendered with abstract geometric shapes. The creatures that inhabit this world are composed of two parts, a cloud and a mask. They use tools and technology, drive vehicles and live in buildings – there is a whole culture underpinning the story. This is a fully realized world, that seems to have its own internal logic that holds it all together quite nicely, and supports the engaging narrative.

The writing is fun, with dialogue that made me laugh out loud. The first few pages were a bit slow, but the unique look of this comic kept me reading, and once the story picked up I was hooked. The characters are very well realized, and the artwork is very pleasing to look at, with its basic shapes and very carefully controlled colour palette. I also enjoy Malachi’s use of very large splash images. I know this bothers some people, but it’s one of the strengths of the webcomics medium. When you aren’t constrained by paper size, why not use the extra space? There are some very dramatic moments, and some action-packed moments that really benefit from the extra punch of the super-large frame.

Red Mask is a very fun and interesting comic, the kind of story you won’t see very often in print, or on TV. I recommend you check it out, and if you like it, please leave Malachi a message on the Red Mask Forums, located on the same website as the comic.

http://www.redmask-comics.com

HEY!!!

2008-09-13T09:41:00.000-07:00

I was locked out of my blog for a while - I lost my sign in info and stuff - but I got it figured out now and I'm back!

I am too busy doing the dance of joy to properly type up a blog entry.

More later

- whu?

2007-03-17T17:28:00.000-07:00

I am a writer! I signed a contract and everything! GUH

I don't know what else to say about that. If you watch Season 2 of Lunar Jim when it hits the airwaves, you should keep a lookout for Adventure 72 - 'The Missing Astronaut'. A real gem!

I am currently carrying on the time-honored writing tradition of procrastinating when I have a deadline looming. Yep. 2nd draft needs to be done on Monday.

Well I'd better get to it... or maybe I'll go mess around on facebook for a while. Damn it IS addictive!

Love and Valentines

2007-02-18T17:11:00.000-08:00

I was thinking about love and relationships and marriage and sex and loneliness on Valentine's Day because there's a lot of it in the air around that time and it seems to me that people misunderstand it a lot of the time.

My thinking started when someone was telling me about how they made Valentine's Day into Blackness Day around their house, and they made black food and put up black decorations and watched horror movies and got drunk and that's how they got through this terrible terrible day that reminds you how crappy it is to be single and that seemed really lame to me.

It's only one day of the year, and it's harmless, and if you aren't with someone on Valentine's Day it's no more or less pathetic than it would be on any other day. People don't get depressed on Secretaries' Day if they find themselves without a Secretary to celebrate; most likely they feel nothing at all, or a very slight relief that they don't have to buy any presents for any secretaries. It should be the same with Valentine's Day.

I have said this to people and they say "Screw you! You are married! You have no idea what it's like to be single and lonely!" and to them I say "Shut up! I wasn't BORN married. I've been single and lonely, and I didn't like it so I found someone and I stayed with them."

It seems to me that most people have at least one ex-partner; failed relationship; whatever you want to call it. Some of these relationships failed because the other person was psychopathic or clinically depressed or some other thing that renders them profoundly dysfunctional... some, but not most of them.

Most of them just got tired of the other person's crap, and walked away from the relationship, and that's on them. Sorry, but if you don't like being alone on Valentine's Day then you have to put up with someone's crap the rest of the year. If you are not prepared to do that, then just live with it and have no regrets on Valentine's Day; tell yourself, 'At least I don't have to deal with anyone else's crap' if that's what you think is important.

Because there's young passionate love, and then there's life-long love, and the two are very different. I'm with someone that I've had (I'm having) both with. Passionate love is the one they try and sell you on Valentine's Day; go be crazy and sweep people off their feet. It's great, but it's not going to get you through a lifetime of someone else's crap. Everyone, everyone has crap that needs to be put up with. There is no perfect person that will never get on your nerves, and god knows I can be annoying and hard to live with myself. Once the hormones wear off and you are in a relationship with someone, you have to start the hard work of building a love that will last you a lifetime.

That means a lot of things; patience, courage, understanding, compassion, forgiveness, humility, patience... did I mention patience? But it all boils down to putting up with the other person's crap. Let it go. And you know what? The other person does the same for you. They put up with your crap. And it feels really good. Better than anything you'll find in the throes of a passionate tryst.

I'm not saying that you should be a doormat - some people are jerks I guess. But I think that most people want to be loved, and if you are courageous enough to be honest with them, it will pay off.

It feels really good to be accepted when you know you are not at your best. It feels good to build that over time, and the more you build it up, the better it gets. Right now it's getting to the point where I can't find the words for how good it makes me feel anymore.

You all you bitter singles out there are making puking noises; I can hear it from here. I'll shut up now. Maybe you're right, maybe I'm the luckiest guy in the world. I tell you it sure feels like it to me.

wazzap

2007-02-10T07:29:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone out there. Life has been busy for me, but that's no excuse to neglect my blog.

First, the kids: They are well, albeit infected with bacteria and virii. Sylvie is on the anti-biotics for an ear-and-throat infection. Sammy is recovering from some sort of virus. The rest of us are sick, but not so bad that we can't function. Just the normal sort of thing you'd expect when enduring an Atlantic Canadian winter.

Other nooz: My brother got married! It was lovely, and I was the best man. I danced with my sweet wifey, and also with my little baby daughter, and also with my sons for that matter. It was good to see people I haven't seen for so long.

Big NOOZ: I am now a writer! Lunar Jim bought one of my scripts! I am dizzy with happiness when I think about it. I've finally broken into the biz. I love animating, but I'm just trying to broaden my skill set a bit.

Comix NOOZ: I have started work on Skitter #1, and it looks really good. My old tablet broke, which set off a chain-reaction of computer upgrading that led me to dump my obsolete version of Painter, so now I'm back to drawing with Photoshop. This is inferior, but it gets the job done, and I can't afford to buy Painter for Mac OS X... yet... ^_^

Animation NOOZ: I am working on a classic 2-D drawn animated movie called "Octy and his Little Baby Daughter Octopus". It's a whimsical piece inspired by Sylvie. I wanted to do something for her. Hopefully it will be completed while she is still a baby.

Ghomeshi NOOZ: I am stripping the sound off of 'Boxes' and doing an original soundtrack for it. 'Gulf War Song' worked wonderfully with it, but I want to move forward with Boxes, and unless I own all the intellectual property rights, I am trapped in indie-filmmaker limbo. I applied for a Canada Council 'emerging artist' grant and I was turned down because I'm not emerging enough. I need to get something of mine shown in a juried festival or something. So I'm dumping the Ghomeshi albatross and moving forward. Jian, if you are reading this, let me tell you that your agent is about as sharp as an eggplant. He couldn't seem to understand what I was doing with a Moxy Fruvous song, and no matter how simply I put it to him he just kept getting more and more angry. I had to give up when he got mad at CBC for Boxes being uploaded onto the Zed website, even though they had nothing to do with it. He is a moron. If I were you I'd fire him RFN. Anyways, I'm dumping your song out of my movie and you will have to live with the regret.

by-gones...

Fifty/Fifty

2006-10-26T13:08:00.000-07:00

Well, Small Press Idol is finished. It was quite a ride. The grand prize went to the wildcard of the bunch, "Badlands Taxi" - congrats to them! It was a wild ride. And Skitter #0 is now available in the Dimestore catalogue.

here's the link

Graeme and I are very pleased and excited about what we've done, and we've set up a new website, and there's a blog on the new site.

Fifty Fifty Comics

Everything comic-related in my life will be reflected at the Fifty/Fifty website from here on out, so anyone who's been checking my blog for Crackwalker info should start to look over there from now on. And there will be new Crackwalker material coming up before too long. This experience with Skitter have energized me; working with GPD has been good for my comics soul. I am planning to do one or two more volumes of Crackwalker in it's current format, that being frame-by-frame webcomic/PDF format. Once that's complete I will start working on it in more of a print-page format, and divided into 24-page issues.

Anyways, what I'm saying is that 50/50 comics is Crackwalker's new home, and anything comics-related from me will be communicated through that website.

I will still be continuing this blog, but it will just be more personal stuff. Anyone who has found it interesting, please continue to view it. I hope I am proving to be a worthwhile read.

Other news in my life - I am starting work on Lunar Jim next week. I am jazzed about it. If you don't know what Lunar Jim is, just google it. I miss Poko, and I hope they start a Season 4 someday, but I guess that depends on it getting a fanatical fanbase at some point in the future. Anyways, Lunar Jim is going to be a blast, and I can't wait to start animating again.

I applied for a Canada Council Grant, and I haven't heard back yet. My proposal was for my short film called "Onions" which I started, but decided to put on hold until I secure more resources.

That's all for now - Sylvie is yellin' downstairs. I love my new house...

Wicked Come Winter

2006-09-22T17:56:00.000-07:00

I'm listening to Matt Mays - he's good people. Winter's coming on fast - I can smell it. I spent the last two nights sleeping in a cabin at Big Cove, so I got a good whiff of the great outdoors. I was chaperoning a sleepaway trip for my oldest son's Grade 7 class. It was an excellent experience - a privelege of fatherhood I guess.

I'm home now, and catching up on things. Some of you may know Jay - he's awesome, and he's married to an awesome lady, and they just had a baby boy. The last of the Poko babies... two boys and two girls. I wonder if they'll all be friends?

Skitter #0 is now available to any and all who are willing the spend $3.50 (US) with a PayPal account. A purchase over the next week or two will count as a vote for Skitter to win the grand prize.

http://www.dimestoreproductions.com/smallpressidol/idol06/index.html

We really are pleased as punch to have made it this far and getting an issue of Skitter printed was our main goal. We achieved it, and once I hold the comic in my hands, it will be a major milestone, and I have all of you who voted to thank for it, in part. So to each of you, thanks, in part.

My house renovations are coming along - we hope to have a fully funtional laundry by the end of the weekend...

I bought a house!

2006-07-24T03:30:00.000-07:00

I've been way too busy to work on Crackwalker, update my blog, or do a number of other things that I really will be getting back to, once my life calms down. I bought a house, which is good! It needs a lot of work, which is also good because I get to fix it up exactly how I want it. I get to design my own kitchen. How cool is that?

Skitter has done well, thanks you all for your support. We will now be producing a first issue, numbered issue #0. I will post details about how to get ahold of this publication as soon as I know anything.

Baby Sylvie is doing well - I've given her the nickname of Nonny (pronounced no-nee). She's my Nonny and I am her Nonny. Nonny nonny nonny... I don't know why I've latched onto that word, but the sound of it expresses the way I feel about my baby girl. Whimsical? Perhaps. Hey nonny nonny. The boys are at day camps this week. Mini-University at Dal.

Poko Season 3 is drawing to a close. Wrap party is next week. There's some talk of a Season 4 and I would be down with that. I love working on Poko - specifically I love animating for it. The little blue-haired kid has really become a presence in my life. I like time off, but I miss the little guy when I'm not animating him.

I'm downsizing my comics collection - a third of my comics must go! Once I've finished bagging and boarding them, I'll assemble a list of all the titles and put 'em up on e-bay.

That's all I got to say for now - more later

time to vote again!

2006-06-14T17:11:00.000-07:00

Small Press Idol 06 - Round 3

That's where you go to vote for Skitter in Round 3 of Small Press Idol. If you don't have an account, you have to start one for yourself. I recommend voting for the following:

Skitter
Lost Target
Wheel
Young PUPs

So that's my news about that. I'd go into more detail, but i'm typing one-handed.

No! Get your mind out of the gutter.

I'm typing one handed because I am holding a squirming 8-pounds of Sylvie. She's six weeks old now.

Her birth was nothing short of amazing, and I've witnessed two already, so I'm not easily impressed. I would relate the story here, but, well, as I said; I'm typing one-handed at the moment, and the story would require two to type properly.

Vote for Me!

2006-04-20T18:31:00.000-07:00

Graeme and I have entered our comic, called Skitter, into a contest. It's called "Small Press Idol 2006", and it's similar to American Idol in that it's based on votes. I'm asking you all to go to the site, join the forum and vote for me. You can vote for more than one comic, vote for any that appeal to you, but DEFINATELY vote for Skitter.

If Skitter is on the top 15, then we will progress to the next round, at which point we will produce three pages of sequential artwork. Of those 15, the top five will move on the the finals... each of the five comics will have a 12-page issue printed and distributed, and the final winner will be determined by sales.

The grand prize is a four-issue deal, so needless to say, that's really awesome.

Skitter is good, it's the brain child of 50/50 Comics, which is Me and G-man. Graeme is drawin' and I'm writin and colourin. We came up with the designs and characters and the story together; we both love comics, and we came up with something that expresses all the great things we love about superheroes, but hopefully it's a bit different.

Anyways, take a look at the other entries as well, there's some really good stuff there. It takes a few minutes to get an account, but then you just add a reply with a 'yes' on the forum thread for the comic you want to vote for.

http://www.dimestoreproductions.com/portal.php?page=4&sid=9e6fc6fe86ceb18d58eb7e9c503a2aea

oh how wrong i was

2006-01-23T19:14:00.000-08:00

it's 11:15 AST and the CBC says that stephen harper is the new prime minister... i wanna puke.

I voted NDP - our riding elected Alexa. The NDP did pretty well I guess. I am pissed off with Jack Layton though. I hold him responsible for making us have to call steve harper 'right honourable'. That's not something you can undo. ever.

steve 'the beav' harper - he looks like 'the beav' too, doesn't he? Stever the Beaver Harper. Maybe it will stick.

If he shows his ugly sneak creep face here in Halifax I will be there with eggs... well I guess that's a bit harsh. He hasn't betrayed the public trust yet.

Out of respect for the democratic process I will give him a chance. I guess.

Election CRAP-ola

2006-01-21T11:37:00.000-08:00

I'm starting to feel a bit better about the coming election. It seems like people are remembering that the Conservative Reform Alliance Party, or C.R.A.P. as it is more properly known, should never ever be given control of the country. It would be like giving the keys to your house to a disgruntled postal worker with a large gun collection. I guess I was sort of hoping that Peter McKay was a voice of reason or something in that that party, but I guess he's a good ol' boy at heart. In a debate, he told Alexa McDonnough to go back to her knitting. It's the kind of thing right-wing jack-offs like to say when they are losing a point. Whenever they are backed into a corner, and they are faced with a challenge on the grounds of equality or compassion or justice, they quite often resort to lame-ass character attacks; and I do mean LAME ASS. I mean knitting is cool. You might as well try and insult someone by telling them to go back to their rock band or their organic farm. All he did was point out how square he is for trying to diss knitting.

And I was reading that Stephen Harper is a self-described libertarian. What the hell is with lIbertarians anyways? What a messed-up juvenile philosophy. It's a flawed way to write off any compassion or sense of responsibility someone may have for their fellow humans. It's the kind of thing that might have appealed to me when I was fourteen years old or something, but then I grew the hell up.

So, on to things that matter:

The Longest Yard: C - It was not a good movie, but I laughed a lot, especially at the guy getting hit in the nuts with the football.

Mr. and Mrs. Smith: B - I had very low expectations, but I was surprised by the fun and charm of this movie.

March of the Penguins: A - Amazing journey to the end of the earth; Morgan Freeman has one of those voices that you could just listen to all day.

Crash: A+ - NOT the cronenburg film of the same name. This is a story of lives intertwining in racist L.A. and it is very good.

Wow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2006-01-12T17:37:00.000-08:00

Hey there all'a y'all. I am having a 'nother baby. Got two already. Ages 11 and 7. Now there's another one on the way. Kooky huh? I think this one is gonna be a girl. Just have a hunch... and we couldn't find any penis on the ultrasound. Baby's due in May, so maybe my daughter and I will have the same birthday.

That's the main thing at the moment. What else am I doing? Here's the update.

1. Working on an animated film in my basement called "Onions".
2. Reading a comic called "Y: The Last Man" (among others)
2.5. Reading sci-fi classic "Left Hand of Darkness" by Ursula K. LeGuin
3. Collecting EI until Poko Season 3 starts in March(?)
4. Moey is doing her Moey thing at Law School... (yes, while she's preggers.)
5. Jake is better at Quidditch than me.
6. Sam likes eggs.
7. I have to organize a Bachelor Party for Pif.
8. I like girls' names.

Moey and I went to a nice restaurant - Jane's on the Commons. Delicious. Life is good... well, for me anyways.

- r -

Life is rich

2005-08-10T16:39:00.000-07:00

Hey! Poko is in the home stretch for Season 2, with shooting wrapping up in the fall. Season Three is pretty much a sure thing, so that's just a matter of waiting out the hiatus until shooting starts again, probably Spring 2006. I am going to have at least 3 or 4 months to myself and I am going to try damn hard to be as productive as possible. That means Crackwalker PDF's, and new Crackwalker stories. That means 50/50 Comics stuff with Graeme. That means "Onions", which is the working title for my next animated short. And if Jay is up for it we might get some Lego Space Pirates action going.

Mo will be starting Law School at Dal, and Sam will be starting Grade 2 and Jake will be starting Grade 6. We will all be living in our new rented large house on Vernon Street. Guh. What a lot of changing. Fortunately the kids don't seem worried in the least. We are moving closer to their school and closer to all their friends, so for them this is a great thing. Kids are pretty resilient I guess. When do adults stop being that resilient? Is that the starting of old age, when we start to resent change?

Yeah, so I got some big plans. I'd maybe like to start playing Dungeons and Dragons again. Maybe. It turned into a big time commitment last time, and it stopped being fun. I really want to get all my other projects going first. D&D is a good creative workout and a fun way to chill out with friends, but I need to have the life-juice to spare.

MOVIES I HAVE SEEN AND THEIR LETTER GRADES

"Two Brothers" - story about two tiger cubs living in southeast asia that are separated at a young age. Very impressive. Nice film. Good acting, both human and animal. A+

"Paycheck" - a sci-fi action thriller directed by John Woo and starring Uma Thurman and B-Fleck. Starts out very promising. Fails to deliver, degenerates into low-grade brutality and lame dialogue. F

"Fantastic Four" - classic pulp comic-book superhero fun. Cheesy dialogue only adds to the movie's charm. I'd feel good about taking a kid to see it. B+

"Bridget Jones 2: The Edge of Reason" - tries to be a story about how it's not always so easy to live happily ever after, but muddles it in typical Hollywood fashion by re-hashing the same gimmicks. Not nearly as charming as the first in the series. D-

"Hero" - chinese high-fantasy in the spirit of Crouching Tiger. Heavy on the mythological motifs, and light on the characterization. Very symbolic and beautiful with great martial arts. A-

"Batman Begins" - grim re-telling of the familiar Batman story, starting from his origins. Seems to be laying the groundwork for a long run of sequels. Overall it was good, but it was a bit heavy-handed at points. Too explosion-ey for me. B-

"Wimbledon" - romantic comedy about two tennis pros who have a courtship at the Wimbledon tournament. Intelligent and funny script, a few minor weird plot points maybe. Excellent photography and direction. A+

My blog layout seems a bit screwy

2005-06-26T18:17:00.000-07:00

Rumsfeld is an "old man" and it's past his bedtime.

2005-06-26T17:55:00.000-07:00

"Insurgencies tend to go on five, six, eight, 10, 12 years," Rumsfeld said on "Fox News Sunday." - yahoo news

What the hell does that mean anyways? Take a look at that statement and break it down; it's moronic. What kind of basis does he have for stating how long an 'insurgency' would tend to go on for?

And even if we give him the benefit of the doubt, and we suppose that he does have some credible method for estimating the duration of the so-called 'insurgency', he loses it by giving a list of every other number between 5 and 12. It's like he's betting on a bunch of roulette numbers. He might as well have pulled out a pair of dice and rolled them in front of the cameras and said whatever number came up.

All right! Snake Eyes! The war will be over in two years! Yay! Drinks for everyone!

The guy has offered his resignation to Bush twice now. He's an old man. Let him go play war games in his basement. I best he sucks at Warhammer 40,000 as bad as he sucks at conquering Iraq. I could probably beat him.

Oh man, you have to check out this. It is way scarier than the National Debt clock that's ticking away in NYC. Remember, that's thousands, followed by millions, followed by b-b-b-billions...

Follow the money, kids. You can argue about politics, you can argue about religion, but you can't argue about the money. It's right there on the page. Money going down the fucking sewey-hole.

Some quotations:

"In the councils of government we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."
Dwight David Eisenhower (American 34th President (1953-61). 1890-1969)

"A dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier, there's no question about it."
George W. Bush

"No government power can be abused long. Mankind will not bear it. There is a remedy in human nature against tyranny, that will keep us safe under every form of government."
Samuel Johnson (English Poet, Critic and Writer. 1709-1784)

"Smiling is very important. If we are not able to smile, then the world will not have peace. It is not by going out for a demonstration against nuclear missiles that we can bring about peace. It is with our capacity of smiling, breathing, and being peace that we can make peace."
Thich Nhat Hanh (Vietnamese Monk, Activist and Writer. b.1926)

"To defend one's self against fear is simply to ensure that one will, one day, be conquered by it; fears must be faced."
James Arthur Baldwin (American essayist, novelist, and playwright, 1924-1987)

"A man convinced against his will is not convinced."
Dr. Laurence J. Peter (American "hierarchiologist", Educator and Writer, 1919-1990)

Star Wars Stuff

2005-05-27T15:38:00.000-07:00

So I did a Star Wars Personality test... guess who I am. I guess I always suspected the ugly truth.

So here's my review of Revenge of the Sith: It was good! Thumbs up!

Entertaining, exciting, awesome... also kinda lame at points, and pretty much all crap dialogue. I want to see it again. Here's my listing of Star Wars movies in order of awesomeness:

1. Star Wars - Sorry, but it is still the best.
2. The Empire Strikes Back - It's good, but only as en extension of the original.
3. Return of the Jedi - It aint great, but it finishes the saga.
4. Revenge of the Sith - It just barely passes the bar.
5. The Phantom Menace - Confusing and aggravating nonsense.
6. The Attack of the Clones - Offensive drivel that besmirches the name of Yoda.

One of my favorite characters from Revenge of the Sith is General Greivous. I am perplexed as to why Lucas waited until the last movie to show him to us. That is the main thing that bugs me about this movie... he compressed all kinds of really fun stuff (possibly three movies' worth) into one movie. It's as though Lucas was most interested in telling us the story of the Republic and it's decline into imperialism, and the characters involved are secondary concerns.

Surprisingly, I was quite impressed with the Clone Wars animated series. In addition to having a beautiful visual style, it showed a lot of the grand themes of Star Wars that you only get to hear about. We get to see more of Obi Wan and Annikin being heroes and friends, more development of Annikin's struggles with the Dark Side, and more of the war with the Seperatists. We also get to see Greivous, who starts the series as a fleshy monster, and through his many injuries, is reduced to the skulking and gasping cyborg that we meet in Revenge of the Sith. The animated series ends with the kidnapping of Senator Palpatine, which is where Revenge of the Sith starts.

It is frustrating, because Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones would make better cartoons, and the Clone Wars would have made better movies than the ones we got.

Anyways, I got all that off my chest. I don't have to talk about it any more.

I'm glad I have my Darth Vader Voice Changer. Thanks Moey.

Revenge of the Sith

2005-05-18T15:50:00.000-07:00

Well I was trying not to get excited about this film, but now I can't help it. My buddy had an extra ticket for tonight's midnight show, so I said I'd go.

Now here I am, going to the midnight showing of the new Star Wars movie. I am actually looking forward to it.

All I can say is that it better be awesome.

I will let you all know when I get home tonight at 3am.

(I can't believe I have to work tomorrow!)

Song List Challenge

2005-05-12T18:49:00.000-07:00

Moey posted a Song List Challenge.

1. Your favorite song with the name of a city in the title or text.
2. A song you've listened to repeatedly when you were depressed at some point in your life.
3. Ever bought an entire album just for one song and winded up disliking everything but that song? Gimme that song.
4. A song whose lyrics you thought you knew in the past, but about which you later learned you were incorrect.
5. Your least favorite song on one of your favorite albums of all time.
6. A song you like by someone you find physically unattractive or otherwise repellent.
7. Your favorite song that has expletives in it that's not by Liz Phair.
8. A song that sounds as if it's by someone British but isn't.
9. A song you like (possibly from your past) that took you forever to finally locate a copy of.
10. A song that reminds you of spring but doesn't mention spring at all.
11. A song that sounds to you like being happy feels.
12. Your favorite song from a non-soundtrack compilation album.
13. A song from your past that would be considered politically incorrect now (and possibly was then).
14. A song sung by an overweight person.
15. A song you actually like by an artist you otherwise hate.
16. A song by a band (whose members actually play instruments) that features three or more female members.
17. One of the earliest songs that you can remember listening to.
18. A song you've been mocked by friends for liking.
19. A really good cover version you think no one else has heard
20. A song that has helped cheer you up (or empowered you somehow) after a breakup or otherwise difficult situation.

Here are my Answers:

01. New York City - Cub
02. Good Year For The Roses - Elvis Costello
03. The Darkest One - The Tragically Hip
04. Had A Dream (Sleeping With The Enemy) - Roger Hodgson
05. War of Man - Neil Young
06. Take Me Home - Phil Collins
07. Add It Up - Violent Femmes
08. Strange Disease - Prözzak
09. Oh Sherry - Steve Perry
10. The Power of Love - Laura Branigan
11. Salisbury Hill - Peter Gabriel
12. My Hero Zero - Lemonheads
13. Short People - Randy Newman
14. Don't Go - Yaz
15. Rockin' the Suburbs - Ben Folds
16. Walk Like an Egyptian - The Bangles
17. Sunshine Of Your Love - Cream
18. Joey - Concrete Blonde
19. Happiness is a Warm Gun - The Breeders
20. Master of Puppets - Metallica

Like it or lump it, suckas.