http://users.ezwv.com/~cata79/bluephoenix/comics/smart.html
As of
5/31/2000 the above links still worked.
If you
don’t want to read my interview there are others by Erik Larson and Mark Waid.
It’s totally bizarre being mentioned in the same sentence as those
guys.
The
usual gang was there: Monte Moore, Steve Oatney, I sat by Bob Rhett, Chachi
Hernandez, Jeff Lafferty,Sean Tiffany read my comic and had some good
input. Sean was disappointed the
first issue ended, and wanted to read on. Isn’t
that what I’m supposed to do? Make
the reader want more! We talked
about telling the reader just enough to make the story flow.
I struggle with not holding the reader’s hand. I’m assuming the reader is smart enough to figure things
out on his own. I hope that this is
a correct assumption. I really
don’t want to blab my mouth off and cover up all the cool artwork. Some writers do this, but I’m going to really try not to.
This also helps, because I can save some dialog and other info. for future issues.
I was
able to talk with Joe Jusko (pronounced “jus” as in “just”). He’s a very laid back kind of guy, not what you’d expect
from a world-renowned artist. Plus
the guy must work out quite a bit. He’s
HUGE! It might be intimidating at
first, but if you’re out at the San Diego Con you should go talk with him.
He’s a really cool guy. I
ended up buying a $5 card that I had him sign.
It’s on my cube wall at work.
I sat
next to a Star Trek writer who lives in Littleton.
She’s written about 13 Star Trek Novels and is contracted for more.
For the life of me I forget what her name is.
I missed the figure modeler.
I sat
across from Monte and Jennifer Stimac the fitness model. She’s done a
couple of shoots with Monte and she’s been the subject of many of his pin-ups.
If you’re familiar with Monte’s work then you’ll know that she
posed for the Mermaid sketch and a few others.
Bob was trying to recruit her as his model, because the one he uses is
having a baby.
Monte
and Steve were gracious enough to provide sub sandwiches, fruit, veges, and
snacks. Monte brought his camper
trailer and the food was laid out nicely on the table (at least what was left of
it). There were two slivers of sub
left so we had a pretty sparse lunch and a few of the chips.
There was still some pop left and we grabbed a banana on the way out.
I think Monte will have a food monitor at the next con in September.
It kind
of got dead around 4:00, which was a great time to visit retailers.
I talked with Free Time Comics and they’re having Michael Turner in
September. I have GOT to be
there. They ordered 1,000 copies of
a single issue of Fathom so he’s coming to Denver!
I think Mile High Comics dropped the ball on this one, because I’m sure
they ordered way more that 1,000 and yet they sent Michael out to California.
I’m pretty sure he lives out there so they could have him ANY time they want him. Why not leave
him here? Lyn?
William? I know you’re out
there. Can you get on that?
Comictropolis.com is starting up. I had some input
about their site. I thought their
“pop up” website was annoying. I
guess when you’re used to a Macintosh interface you’re used to having
windows shoved in your face all the time. That
just seems to clutter the place up. You’ve
got to have a nice NEAT desktop (at least a virtual one).
I’m not saying my desk at work is neat, but I don’t like clutter on
my computer desktop. I’m not sure
if they’re still in business, because I haven’t seen any changes to their
website since I saw it for the first time at the con.
Maybe they’re going the way of all those other fly-by-night dot-coms
out there. Check it out if you’ve
got time. Make sure you tell them
that their interface is annoying unless you like multiple windows popping up in
your face.
Don
Lund is starting The Comic Reader back up. I think it’s going to
print really soon if it’s not out already.
I guess that magazine had been around for a while and then took about a
seven-year break. Check it out.
They’ve got news and other interesting columns.
Hopefully they’ll print my next Press Release.
Well
I finally got my plane ticket to fly out there.
I checked the United website the other day, and yes they still have the
annoying Java Script error. I was
amazed that they had some special Internet only fares that I had to scoop up for
$298. I figured they weren’t
going down any further, but if it’s related to my stock choices then they will
next week. I think $250 was my
goal, but I’m not sure that it will actually hit that.
I checked the seat availability and saw that the flights that I wanted
were getting kind of low. Although
I don’t really trust the accuracy of the seat information, because I didn’t
notice the image changing at all so I think they just use the same picture for
all of the flights and call it good. Granted
they’ll have to change the picture for the different types of aircraft, so
maybe they’ve got 10 different pictures they use. I didn’t have any luck upgrading on the Internet, but I
hope that I will be able to over the phone.
Better
late than never… Travelocity.com notified me that the rates went down so I was pretty happy about that.
I was getting worried that they wouldn’t send me a notification because
it was getting late in the day and they didn’t send notification until 4:44
pm. I’m sure the system isn’t
smart enough to make sure I wasn’t already booked, and sure enough it
wasn’t.
It
looks like Alp Altiner has decided to join the team. If you remember way back around Christmas I said I talked
with Sharon Scott of Liar comics and she recommended him. I talked with him a while back and we tried to set things up,
but he was in the process of moving and his computer was sick so our
communication was severed. I was
able to pick that back up again about a month ago and I’ve sent him a sample
to work on. I’m impressed so far,
because I’ve looked at his website (Mindhaus
Media) and he pencils AND colors too!! Check out his samples on his website, before he moves
it to a new domain. The interface
isn’t obvious… Click on the
numbers to see the samples. His
Fathom pinup rivals Michael Turner. Check
it out already. So far his new site
does not have a way to see his pencils and inks (it’s all about Flash
animation). The
guy likes to work with deadlines AND contracts.
That REALLY impresses me. I
already like him. So if he pulls
through, which I’m pretty confident that he will, then he’ll finish up with
the inks and I’ll roll on to the presses.
I figure the Karma pendulum has GOT to swing in my favor.
Currently
Alp’s working on the Darkchylde / Witchblade comic which was just solicited in
Diamond. It looks like Randy Queen
is coming back in style. I really
love his artwork. I’m going to
hold my breath until he does a pin-up for me.
Oh wait, I’d better not.
I
got my first fan page pin-up a few weeks
ago. This was Awesome!
(not to be confused with the Awesome publisher, because Rain used to work
for Extreme Studios) I got some
e-mail from Rain just out of the blue and he was seeing if I had any other
projects that he could work on. I
told him that I wanted to make sure the first project was a success before I
tried to start something else. We
had that Kama’aina (translation – born in Hawaii) thing in common so we hit
it off from the outset. I pointed
him to my fan page and he immediately wanted to do a pin-up and I received it
about a week later. The scan of the
copy doesn’t do it justice, but I think it turned out pretty good.
Check out his work when you can!
Well
I knew that Rain was sending a pin-up and I had wanted to do one for the fan
page FIRST. So as soon as I knew
that he was sending one, I got my butt in gear and sketched one up.
I think it turned out pretty good for not having drawn anything for at
least two years (maybe more). If
you compare it with my other samples I think I’m actually getting better.
So I was able to post my pin-up before his arrived. WHEW.
The
Ashcan is almost done. I gave the
printers (North
Suburban) all the originals and they scanning
stuff in at this very moment. It no
longer is an ashcan and it turned into a full size preview issue.
It will have a color wrap around cover like any other comic and the
interior pages will be gray tones. The
two fan page pin-ups will be in it and a brief summary of the series will be on
the inside back cover to entice people to buy the rest of the series.
I won’t give anything away; it’ll be more of a premise (like in the
interview / Update #12) than the actual
plot.
There
are still some loose ends to tie up with the preview issue, but I should get all
that ironed out by the end of the week. When
I created the inside front cover I worked in an RGB (Red Green Blue) palette and
not CMYK (Cyan Magenta Yellow Black) which is typically used for printing.
I generated the background using Bryce,
which does not have a CMYK output format.
I’ll attempt to correct that in Photoshop, or the printers can print it
out on a Cannon color printer, which handles
RGB format. Then they can scan it
in and the colors will be truer. I
definitely won’t make that mistake on the inside back cover.
I owe the printers that file too and then it’ll be ready to go to
print. I’ll making about 5,000 copies so I guess technically this
is a rather limited run. Since
there are about 2,000 retailers, (at least
that’s what Diamond Distributors says) that leaves about 3,000 for normal
distribution and available for sale at the San Diego convention. I figure the 2,000 sent to retailers will get trashed so
there really will only be about 3,000 copies that will stay in good condition.
Yeah,
it annoys me too. I’ll get rid of
it, or make it smaller. I used
Adobe’s Image Ready to make it. I
think it turned out pretty good (although too BIG).
I really want to redesign my website.
A guy from India was pestering me to have his company update it for me,
but I haven’t seen a proposal yet. I
may get it done even before I see one. It’s
not really in the budget to pay somebody to do this.
It’s not like web programming is rocket science.
There’s only SO much you can do with it before Netscape croaks.
I get
e-mail from out of the blue. I
guess you could call it spam, but since my e-mail is out on the Internet I guess
I’m fair game for just about anybody. This
website allows you to post digital material for download and the poster may
charge the customer a fee for the download.
I guess Infopost encrypts this data somehow for viewing so it can’t be
e-mailed to a friend. I’m not
sure how they do this, but I’m not sure how secure this encryption is. I may post an abridged version and possibly charge a quarter
or 20 cents for this download. I
would hope people would still want to buy the regular version even though you
can preview it on your computer. I’m
not sure if this would build awareness of the comic or not.
Since these guys just launched their site I’m not sure of what the site
awareness is yet. I’m guessing this is the first you’ve heard of this site.
I hadn’t heard of it either until I got the e-mail from them.
Stephen
King’s eBook was pirated and I’m sure he’s losing sales. Then there’s that whole NAPSTER thing, which I’m not sure
I want to get into that right at the moment.
Well
I almost got away without doing a rant, but I’ve got a good one for you.
Just the other day I get a call from www.b2bnow.com , they’re the people who host my website.
They say they got some e-mail from somebody who says that I spammed them. Now I personally don’t like SPAM, but I typically attempt
the standard removal policy by replying to the message with “remove” in the
subject line. Of course, this NEVER works. That person’s mailbox is
full or the address just doesn’t exist.
I’ve
actually had a few people bail out of the update list.
They just reply to me and I take them off the list.
It’s just that easy. I
don’t take it personally, because you never know if they’re just tired of
comics in general or don’t like getting e-mail.
Well
apparently somebody received Update #12 and couldn’t take it anymore.
Instead of replying to me, then found out who hosted my website (it’s
right there in the links section) and sent them a nasty-gram.
I didn’t get a “remove” e-mail from them or any flame that said
that I forgot to remove them after Update #11 (which could have happened).
Instead that person sent e-mail to eHost.com. For sake of argument lets call this guy “The Idiot”.
Once eHost gets e-mail like this saying that SPAM is coming from their
servers they immediately shut down the offenders e-mail account, namely mine.
I guess I didn’t really notice, because I don’t even use that
account. Don’t get me wrong, psmart@SpilledMilk.com is definitely a correct e-mail address, but anything you send there is forwarded
to my real e-mail account. The
address in the “reply-to” line is where messages get forwarded.
So
eHost starts an investigation and then calls me to check things out.
The guy asks me if I’m using their servers to SPAM people.
I was completely thrown off by that question.
He said they got a complaint from somebody who received “Spilled Milk
Update #12” that I was SPAMing them. So
I have to explain on the phone from what servers I actually send e-mail and
explain how I get my e-mail addresses. This
is a complete waste of my time and theirs (and yours if your reading this far
J ). He
understands my position, but there really isn’t anything to understand.
I DON’T use their servers to send out e-mail so they have no
repercussion to do ANYTHING. I
asked who this person was who erroneously reported me and they couldn’t tell
me. I asked if they could tell from
the message that it came from one of their servers.
The guy didn’t know. It
should be clearly stated in the message ID and the return path.
If he was using MS Exchange, then all of that would be hidden.
So their so-called investigation was even a good one.
I’m
just warming up…
The
guy who called was really nice and he saw my side of the story, but he informed
me that I had to reply to an e-mail that would be coming from eHost saying that
I was SPAMing and that I needed to refute this. I get the e-mail with the attached Update #12.
I check out the e-mail headers and sure enough it came from our DevTown
servers. There were no eHost
servers involved, just as I had suspected.
So if eHost had investigated even just a little, they could have figured
this out. I figured it out just
seconds after I looked at the attachment. I
guess I knew what I was looking for. So
I guess the investigators AND “The Idiot” are complete idiots.
I should never have gotten this call, because for one The Idiot should
have just sent me e-mail to be removed from the list.
Second, The Idiot should have figured out that the e-mail was not coming
from any eHost servers. Third, the
investigators should have done their job and investigated a little harder.
If all this was done I never would have gotten the call and I would have
never had to write a rebuttal that took me at least an hour and was about six
pages long.
Even
though the name of “The Idiot” was withheld I did decipher what to which
domain the message was routed. I’ve
got about five or six people using that service (ex: @HotMail.com) and I’m not
removing all of them in order to clear this matter up.
Unfortunately
this isn’t over. I have not
received a reply from eHost. I did
just get a bill from them so they’re happy to still bill me for my
inconvenience. I also still don’t
know who reported me, which means “The Idiot” is still on my list.
Which means that he is receiving this Update and will continue to do so
until I can remove him from my list. A
big fat DUH comes to mind.
I
would expect monetary compensation from eHost for wasting my time.
I’ve sent quite a few customers their way and I would hope to grow into
an actual online business that sells product.
I don’t plan on moving hosts yet, but you shouldn’t notice any change
even if I do.
Thanks for all your support,
_______________________________
Parker D. Smart
Blue
Phoenix Interview Still Available