Lanarama Rides The Great Big LiveJournal Wave

These Are The Things That I Missed

2009-02-14T02:18:26Z

So, by not checking my LJ before I left for New York, I missed a chance to have my copy of the Hiketeia signed by both Greg Rucka and JG Jones. As it was, the exhibit floor with all the signings was so packed on Saturday that I didn't even bother to venture up there. Speaking of ventures, the reason I never got to the second floor was because I was buried in the basement screening rooms waiting for the Venture Bros. panel (which was insane.)

Anyway, I am embarrassed that I barely did anything comic book related last weekend. It was mainly sci-fi / cartoon things. I'm still trying to download and edit all the footage we shot -- I didn't realize there was so much of it. I filmed almost every panel we were at, including the Brave And The Bold panel, which included Phil Morris (who's voicing Jonah Hex in upcoming episodes.)

Stupid me forgot to bring Lanarama postcards with me to the con. I could have given Phil Morris one, because on the back is an "excerpt" of Lanarama and it just so happens to be the episode where Al tries to hook J'onn up with Lana. (I still have a ton of Lanarama postcards even though the comic is beyond over.) Phil Morris is even cuter in person and even though I admire his dorkitude, I am on the fence about his new show, "Emissary." I can't quite tell if it's supposed to be funny or what.

In conclusion, I am sorry I didn't get to make it back to Art Balthazar's table to buy a painting of his I really wanted. Plus he was right next to Zander Cannon, who had the only copy of Top Ten Season Two #2 I could find all weekend, and I stupidly didn't buy that when I had the chance, either. A weekend of missed opportunities. Though I did get to sit in at a round table with Bruce Timm, even when I had nothing intelligent to ask him.

HELLO. HOW ARE YOU. I AM FINE.

2008-12-22T04:15:05Z

I'm still alive. I keep forgetting I have a Livejournal.

Anyway, I love you all, but I don't give a flying fuck if you've just received a virtual gift. You could be Jesus Christ Resurrected and I'm not spending $1 to send you a virtual cupcake. (Sorry, Jesus. Thanks for the eternal life thing, though.) No amount of showing off the other virtual gifts you've received is going to convince me otherwise. Anyone know how to turn that particularly charming notification feature off?

Uh, in conclusion, Fringe sucks and The Sarah Connor Chronicles rules. Make sure to read my recaps at Geektress. And have a Merry Christmas.

Spring Fall Cleaning

2008-10-13T21:53:37Z

I'm still selling off the rest of my Lanarama archives. If anyone's interested in acquiring them, drop me a message (bk [at] lanarama.com) and let me know. I'm trying to clear out a lot of the clutter in my house and I'd like to send the Lanarama stuff to a good home. You know... a farm with lots of space to run around.

In Search Of Newsprint

2008-07-06T19:01:36Z

So, I'm currently working on a new comic strip. It'll be a very short run and the goal is to put it together in a mini-comic that I publish myself. (I will put the occasional portion of it up at Brain Confetti to generate interest.)

Most of it is written and I have a few of the major pages mapped out already. Hopefully it will read like a collection of comic strips, but every so often there will be a full page comic. (I'm toying with the idea of printing it on newsprint, so it looks more like a newspaper comic section and less like a comic book.)

While looking in to how to best publish my own mini-comic, I discovered that making a cover is going to be hella expensive. I didn't have any creative ideas for how to make a cool stand-out book cover without spending $50 on cardstock. (I'm working with 11x17 sized paper so I can have a "tabloid" sized comic.) (This is where the idea of newsprint would come in handy - I could make the cover look like the front page of a newspaper.)

Anyway, anyone have any thoughts or tips about publishing mini-comics? I'll hopefully be using the Xerox machines here at work, saving me some money in the production process, thereby saving money for anyone who wants to purchase it. (I hope to keep the price around $4.)

Long Time No Blog!

2008-06-14T02:01:28Z

I've been so insanely busy the past few weeks! First it was May Sweeps, then we did a bunch of format changes and stuff at work which threw everything in to chaos, and now it's just about working overtime CONSTANTLY. We podcasted for the first time in a month last night and I was just so exhausted I fell asleep in the middle of it! (It was my fault for laying down on the bed to listen to Rania and Laura talk about comics.) (It could also be that I haven't had any meat in about a week and I had just had a big dinner with Dane that tuckered me out.)

My brother came in to town and we went to "the track." I had never been to "the track" before, but everything (admission, parking, etc) was free, so we went and watched the ponies race. It was fun! I only made $1 bets when I saw a horse with a comic-book like name. (Jubilee! Believe in Magic! Keith Justice!)

Anyway, so like I said, I apparently am now a vegetarian. Not for reasons of conscience or health, but poverty. It's just cheaper to eat frozen vegetables and rice and grilled cheese sandwiches. Dane bought me a cheeseburger last night and I thought I was going to die of happiness. COWS ARE GOOD.

When I get a moment or three to myself, I'm going to start working on a comic strip / book I've had in my head for a while. Hopefully I can get it done before October 4th, which is the weekend of the Ohio Comic Con, which we Geektresses are hopefully going to have a table at. (Also, brisk comic sales will help me earn some much-needed extra money!)

I'm trying to get Vintage Lanarama sales going again, just as soon as I have time to sit down and inventory my art supplies. And for the one person who keeps asking me when new NotS will be happening -- I dunno! We're a laid-back comic. :)

The Sound Of My Addiction

2008-05-09T22:56:08Z

I cannot stop eating these things.

They're like little rubbery buttons that taste like awesome. And somehow have a minty after-effect.

Also everything sucks!

Nerd Rage Is Extremely Tiring

2008-04-22T20:12:22Z

Geektress just returned from the New York Comic Con, or as I shall remember it: The Weekend When Technology Decided It Hated Me. Nothing recorded correctly, except for maybe the two podcasts we did at one am when we were all dead-ass tired. I haven't listened to them yet, but I hear tales that in my exhausted delirium I did several impressions of various cartoon characters, including some stuff I made up about David Lee Roth as Gandolf the Gray. (That I do remember, because a David Lee Gandolf version of Lord of the Rings must be made. Immediately. How we arrived at this revelation is not important.)

Even that we couldn't get to cooperate, though, so those podcasts will be later in the week, I guess. The Venture Brothers panel recorded as static. The live feeds we were going to broadcast never seemed to work out -- either the webcam wouldn't load, there was a firewall preventing streaming audio, or, more commonly, we got shitty seats at various panels and all you saw was the back of some guy's head.

Overall it was pretty laid-back on Friday, and even Saturday to an extent. The tides turned for the Venture Brothers panel, though. Several people, including the three of us, had been waiting in the correct room for many hours. A separate crowd of people began lining up around 3pm in the hallway. Then the "Hey, we're going to switch rooms because we're dumbasses and thought Eli Stone would reel 'em in" announcement was made, and you could feel geek frenzy hit its peak. They had to shut down the escalators and try and corral the throngs of people that were trying to get in to the Venture Brothers panel and the one that followed, Marvel's Cup of Joe. If dorks knew how to throw punches we would've all been in trouble.

The real pinnacle was later on in the Reboot panel, though. How a cartoon that aired 15 years ago on ABC Saturday mornings could gain such a fanatical, devoted crowd, I will never know. I only wanted to go because I remember liking the show a lot when I was younger, and was excited to hear that they were bringing it back. Mostly I was hoping for a preview of the new season.

Dan Didio and Gavin Blair talked for forty minutes about how their writing process was: Get hammered drunk, then go to Vancouver strip clubs. The collective groan when it was revealed a main character was based on their favorite stripper caused Laura to whisper "Many childhoods have just been crushed." But oh, how they did NOT like the guy speaking for the company bringing back the cartoon. Apparently the reboot of Reboot hasn't even been written yet, let alone developed enough to have produced preview clips. I don't know what that guy was expecting to hear when he tried asking the crowd for ideas about the revival show, but he got a lot of animosity from hardcore early-cgi-animation fans. I was horrified and entertained at the same time.

I should have probably written this up on the main site, since it's "Write up your Comic Con news" day. Meh.

Derek Gets Some Arts!

2008-04-11T17:24:08Z

As you guys know this was the last week of Lanarama and I'm taking commissions of older archive stuff, drawn out on fancy paper with purdy colorin'. Amidst that, Derek (from Starkville's House of El) requested I draw something HUUUUGE for his new podcast offices. I have a sketchpad my grandmother gave me a while ago that's 12x18 (which doesn't sound big out loud, but is pretty large) so I created some gigantic comic strips for him to hang on his walls. This is one of them and I think I love it because of the second panel.

Farewell Week

2008-04-08T03:57:10Z

Well, this is the last week of the strip. It's been a fun ride. I honestly don't know how I would carry on the strip without Al & Miles, since it's about Al & Miles. I don't expect they'll be as high-profile as screenwriters as they were running a weekly network show.

As I posted on the site, I'll be selling off the last week of the strip to whomever wants it. I'd like to sell off my archives as-is, but they're spread out over so many different types of journals and sketchpads that it wouldn't be entirely feasible. However, if there are people willing to pay for such things, I will redo any "classic" comic on 6x12 heavyweight paper, for $15 plus $1.25 shipping and handling.

For anyone interested, here's a button:

...make sure you remember to provide a URL to the comic you want re-drawn!

Sayin' Goodbye

2008-04-05T21:40:24Z

So. I've known for a few months that I wanted to end Lanarama by the end of this season. I don't watch the show anymore, and I feel weird about creating a comic mocking the show when I don't even want to watch it. For a while it's felt like a punishment: In order to do your comic you have to endure the actual show.

Anyway, the only problem I really have now is, I have a few comics that have been inked but I never got around to scanning in and coloring. But now it seems pointless to post them. I want to do a farewell, but I haven't decided how yet. I thought I was going to have some time to do a really creative ending to the strip. I thought it deserved at least that. Now I don't know if I want to bother.

Rebel, Rebel

2008-03-21T00:03:54Z

I made some new t-shirts today! For the longest time, I've been meaning to redo the Lanarama "Star Wars" graphic to make it color, and to make it more conducive to Cafepressing.

I got one in red. (Available at the Lanarama shop.)

And, we've been bouncing around ideas at Geektress for different "Geektress" type t-shirts. Now that we have a few, I'll link to our Cafepress store. My favorite is the Killer Robot Cupcake shirt, which I got in pink:

Laura says it should be entitled: "Diet Food." Anyway, our store isn't "officially" open (meaning I haven't redone the design at Geektress yet to reflect a "Merch" tab), but if you feel like checking out what we have so far, drop by.

Them's "gettin' to know you" prices. Cafepress's markup sucks ass, man. I bought four shirts today and it cost me $70.

Hourly Comic Day

2008-02-01T20:46:36Z

Today is Hourly Comic Day.

I tried it out on Tuesday to see if I would be able to keep up today. The answer is no. It took me three days to get all these inked and colored.

blah

2008-01-02T06:54:45Z

Well, here's my first time using the Wacom tablet. As you can see, it's going to take a lot more practice.

Four Days Closer to Wacom

2007-12-22T04:09:52Z

Well, I'm finally home from Christmas vacation and I am exhausted. I had no idea celebrating the birth of Jesus was so tiring, or involved so much driving. But soon I will be able to open my presents from The Husband, and as I've instructed him to get me a wacom tablet, that is what I am expecting. Hopefully lots and lots of new comics will be on the way after Tuesday.

In other news, Laura's bro finally finished up his work on our Geektress logo, and it was well worth the wait. The work he did coloring it alone is fairly awesome. We're gonna try to have the site ready for launch by New Year's. (I keep putting off recapping Tin Man and BSG: Razor, though. Lazy.)

sad face

2007-12-06T22:42:51Z

i cut my hand. sadness.

Update w/pictures and explanation:

Was doing the dishes when a glass broke and this happened:

Cost of urgent care: $35
Cost of anti-biotics: $15
Procedures included: getting a tetanus shot, "steri-strip" sutures.
Sleep lost: lots

Final outcome:

We are getting a frakking dishwasher. Chores can kill. Or at the very least, maim.

MY HEART JUST EXPLODED.

2007-11-25T05:39:14Z

Gail Simone has heard me speak about Wonder Woman and thinks I'm charming. Let me elaborate through the medium of exchanged emails.

Me: "HOLY SHIT. HOLY SHIT. HOLY SHIT. Are you guys looking at the same referral stats as I am? One of them is

http://forums.comicbookresources.com/showthread.php?p=5864663

HERE YOU GO SOME CUT AND PASTE SINCE I'M ABOUT TO HAVE A HEART ATTACK
AND DIE IN IT
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gail Simone
Moderator
Join Date: May 2004
Location: in the yard
Posts: 9,076 Geektress Podcast

This is the startup of a new website that's coming out, and there's a
very fun and chatty talkup about Wonder Woman, not just my first issue
but in general, and I have to say, it's so dang fun and charming, it
makes me feel bad for the guys who would really prefer that girls and
women stay out of comics fandom entirely. Who in the world would want
these women out of the readership? They're a blast!

http://thesethingsmatter.blogspot.com/2007/11/geektress.html

Good luck to them, I hope their website becomes a big deal.

Gail
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

SHE READS YOUR BLOG, LAURA. I'M ABOUT TO HAVE A HEART ATTACK HERE."

Laura: "I think I am going to die now. She commented on my blog too. I feel like I should do something, but I don't know what."

Me: "OKAY. I'VE HAD A FEW MINUTES TO THINK ABOUT IT.

FIRST OF ALL, CAPS LOCK.

SECOND OF ALL, LET'S NOT ALL DIE. THAT WOULD RUIN THE AWESOME.

THIRD, OMG."

Rania: "I almost just threw up. Fucking awesome, is all I have to say."

Two in One Day!

2007-11-21T04:29:23Z

Also, I forgot to mention that I'm starting my custom comic charity drive this week, for anyone who missed the comic. If you've got $5 and a comic idea, send me an email!

Plus -- and, I'm sort of ashamed to be plugging this seeing as we don't even have a site design yet, BUT -- our website is really coming together and I am so in love with this entry between Laura and myself that I need to plug it especially.

Casting Even More Pods

2007-11-20T23:10:42Z

I'll admit that I spend more time now editing podcasts than writing comics. But I'm super excited about the way the site is shaping up, and the podcasts are a fun addition.

Click here to get your own player.

I cast a pod! I cast it real good!

2007-11-11T04:04:22Z

The gals and I screwed around with recording our almost four hour phone coversation this week. The result is this thing, which is a fairly rough half hour of me trying to figure out how to set up a microphone.

If you're interested in hearing my Warner Home Video story, tune in. If not, we'll talk about other stuff eventually, I promise. Maybe. If I can figure out the microphone thing.

NYC Comic Con

2007-11-03T03:44:02Z

I found some extremely cheap plane tickets to NYC for April, and since I'm now one of the most senior of the senioritied at my day job, I fully intend to put in my vacation request for the weekend of NY Comic Con, like, now..

So, if anyone's thinking of going to the con, you can be sure that myself, Rania, and Laura will all be there, representing Geektress in full. (That is to say, if we ever get a site design for Geektress that makes the site worth linking to.)

Also, check out the crossovers between Nerd on the Street and Lanarama. We dabbled a bit in it this week, but next week we'll have full-on character mixups. I think the plan is to post all five strips on both domain names, just so no one gets left out of the loop.

I am tremendously lazy.

2007-10-27T01:50:19Z

Well, even though I was able to cross a lot off my list, I still feel as though I did not get much done.

We couldn't decide on a design idea for Geektress ("ROBOTS!" "MONKEYS!" "ROBOT MONKEYS!"), so now we are waiting for Laura's bro to draw up some ideas for us. (I would try to draw something cool, but since my "style" is "slightly elaborated stick figures with mitten hands," I don't see that happening.

Dane forgot that we were going to go photo cavorting, so I spent $30 on a new lens attachment just to sit at home and swear at the new, "improved" Lanarama.com and its commenting system failures. (I HATE MOVABLE TYPE FOUR! HATE! HAAAATE!) However, I did discover the new cable provider has a channel called "MTV Hits," which is mainly music videos I don't totally hate.

I didn't really celebrate my birthday while on vacation. Unless "celebrating" means "trying not to punch people at the Apple store while returning a defective iPod." And/or: "Watching two straight seasons of The Wire while eating take-out." The good news is, the husband type took pity on my lack of a (working) MP3 player and bought me one of those super cute and tiny Ipod Nano Videos. But, like I said (and, in accordance with the theme of this vacation, which was "Work Is Hard So Redo Everything You Just Did Because You Fucked Up,") the headphone jack was jacked up (heh) and I didn't find this out till I'd ripped my entire CD collection on there.

Then I bought myself a "Paris Sucks" shirt.

If I Had A Hammer

2007-10-15T18:40:12Z

This season of Smallville is seriously so bad that I don't even know if I can make fun of it properly. I'd have to draw pictures of unicorns being stabbed and rainbows crying and happiness being raped. And I'm not sure I'm able to do that. I'd have to use color, first of all.

I'll rest when I'm dead.

2007-10-12T21:05:43Z

Blar! Next week begins my vacation time burnoff. I have to:

- ~~Finish moving all my sites from Servage to Dreamhost.~~
- ~~Set up Lanarama fully at the new domain, "Lanarama.com"~~
- Find a design for the new site, Geektress, and finish up my Battlestar Galactica Recaps to add to it. Also re-organize site according to "tags," which are some newfangled thing on the internets.
- ~~Re-design Nerd on the Street. Also, re-do all archives as redesign requires embiggening of the pictures.~~
- Get some actual work done on the crappy romance novel.
- ~~Start work on the third comic strip in my head, which will just be my new "personal blog," hence the purging of the sucky stuff. Also, re-design the personal blog.~~
- Do actual paid client website updates, because they are looking mighty sucky as well.

And, in the analogue world:

- ~~Get new insurance policy.~~
- Get social security card re-issued.
- ~~Cancel Netflix.~~ Try to find Netflix discs and mail them out before large penalty incurred. (Seriously, I need time off to do this.)
- Go out photo cavorting with Dane.
- Maybe celebrate my birthday.

Chatarama

2007-09-13T23:46:04Z

My other blog won't load, so I'm putting this bit of non-sequiter on the livejournal. Enjoy.

7:30 PM me: at dairy queen they give you gravy with the chicken fingers
7:30 PM me: GRAVY!!!
7:33 PM me: and toast, for some reason
7:34 PM me: the new thing is to add toast to all chicken fingers
7:37 PM me: i dip it in the gravy
7:38 PM me: i dip my fries in the gravy too
7:38 PM me: EVERYTHING IS BETTER WITH GRAVY!
7:39 PM me: maybe i should start putting gravy on my rent checks

More Shilling

2007-09-08T22:44:30Z

First of all, a reminder that Lanarama is coming back on Monday, and I have a new spiffy design and I encourage everyone to leave comments and check out the forums, etc. (Also I've heard some people are having trouble viewing the .jpgs, which is pretty much the entire site. I've also heard that to prevent this you have to add off-screenville to your pop up / allowable sites, even though nothing is a pop-up, but there you go.)

Second, I am on this Smallville DVD thingy (Smallville - The Complete Sixth Season) and I wanted to provide a purchase link where, if you click through on it, I apparently get something from Amazon in return. Like a warmly worded thank-you card or something. Hell if I know; I've been an "associate" of theirs for years and never get anything. So, yeah. Here's that link again: Smallville - The Complete Sixth Season

They asked me questions about stuff. I can't remember anything I said specifically except I know I said "I LOVE SMALLVILLE!" all extra-dorky, and I'm sure that's gonna be the only soundbite they use. I'm the one in the red turtleneck in front of what looks like a spaceship console. (It is not a spaceship, just merely my day job.) (IN SPACE!)

(Also, while I'm shilling things, if you liked Greg Rucka's "Critical Space," then buy the sequel, "Patriot Acts". But don't read that without reading Critical Space first -- I hear it's not as good that way.)