Caught up and ready.

Lord, it's been a long couple of weeks...

Long story short, if you remember that new job I started... Well, they've been pushing to get my immediate traiing out of the way as soon as possible. So I've been working schedule shifts all over the place, third shift one day, followed by first shift the second, and some days, both first and third shift in the same day. My legs have murdering me like a crazy Victorian lady with a hatchet. The good news to that is that I've lost some weight because of it. Bad news is that I have been able to do jack shit as far as productivity goes for this last few weeks. I still got one more day or training this Saturday, which is a dual shift day, but after that... It'll stabilize. (Hey, I'm still just happy to be working.) It didn't help that last week, my modem burnt out and I realized just how much of my life was tied into the internet, which I must admit... Disturbed me a touch. Realizing how much simple little things, like checking the web for my bank account status, movie times and info, news, weather, and even silly flash games. (And that's not even getting into the big things like reading webcomics, checking email, forums and good old fashioned pornography.) Obviously, as you're reading this now, we got a new modem... But the fact it went out right as I was starting to work those hectic and overwhelming work schedules... It's an understatement to say that I was rather impatient and very irritable during that time.

Now to be bluntly honest, I haven't had a real chance to break loose and do half the crap I've been wanting to do for the last few months due to the job and commissions. I mean, my friend Jen got me a new computer I haven't had a lot of opportunities to get really experimental with, and my friend James got me these really neat 'crow quill' like pens, I've been really dying to break out and try new things with. But with the completion of that, I've able to actually get to work on comic book work, finally. It seems like I've been talking about it forever, but it's been a road with quite a few obstacles that's now passed. The commission above was the last of the commissions I had to get taken care of. I've been playing a bit with coloring techniques.

A few weeks ago, I read a really fascinating article (that, of course, I cannot find the link to) about market branding for comic creators. Now, even during the production of Shadowgirls, these were ideas I had in mind to do, and it was really neat to see that other people had the same ideas and implemented them with success. So after reviewing everything, Black Banshee, which I had been planning on doing next... Has been shelved for the time being, so I can focus 100% on Firecracker. I know the kind of comic I want to produce, and I got a feeling I know the kind of comic the people reading this blog wants to read.

I've been giving a lot of thought about this, for well over a year now. (Ask my friend Silphy. She can verify this.) When to comes to comics, there's a certain kind of comic I've been wanting to read again for years. There's been a few of these over the years, but far too often, they're the exception instead of the rule. (I've talked about the Captain America: Fighting Avenger comic, as well as Batman: Mad Love.) Pasty Walker: Hellcat is another, almost any of the 2002-on-up Power Pack miniseries, as well as the Marvel Adventures: Avengers comic. (Seriously, there was an issue where all the Avengers turned into M.O.D.O.Ks. It was freakin' awesome.) But a large majority of the books tend to be overly dramatic and needlessly dark and depressing books that are supposed to invoke the feelings of gothic noir, despite the fact it's freakin' people in tights. It shouldn't be silly and insulting, but it should be freakin' fun. That's the comics I want to do and that's the comics I'm going to do. So, now that I'm caught up with commissions and outside obligations, I plan to begin major production, right now. And since there's only like seventy or so people reading this blog, you're going to be privy to inside character concepts, and semi-spoilers about what to expect from Firecracker. So far, what I've written, I'm happy with, and I hope I can excite you all with what I got in mind.

(By the way, the Transformers Mosaics are still happening. Just there's no rush on those.)