Spilled Milk® Update #20
Sent: Sun 6/3/2001 10:03 AM
What's
in this issue:
I'm attempting to
use Dragon’s NaturallySpeaking speech recognition software. It’s difficult at first but I think I'm getting the hang of it.
I have to talk very slowly in order for it to recognize all my words. And it's not like I can just babble on and on and it will recognize what
I say. I think slowly but surely, and once it recognizes the way I
speak it will figure out what I really want to say. Even with these first few sentences, it has taken a few minutes to get
this paragraph looking the way it should. I
hope as I continue using this software I will be amazed at its power and its
ease-of-use. If I am not thoroughly
amazed the power of this software, it will definitely go in the bit-bucket.
*starts typing…
And you know what? I’m not
all that happy with the software right now.
Maybe it’s the A.C. buzzing in the background.
Maybe it’s the different microphone that I’m using (instead of the
one I used to train the thing). And
PLUS! I can’t listen to my Blink
182 CD. That’s the real hitch
right there.
This is coming up fast.
I couldn’t really take the time to go to it, but Monte will be THE featured
guest there. This is probably because he’s doing a ton of gaming work
including two Magic: The Gathering cards (Pyroclasm and Sabretooth Tiger).
Hey Monte, if you’re reading this… I’ve got dibs on the tiger!!
I don’t want to make it official, because I need to see the piece in person
first before I buy it.
I was able to get a
lock on the inside front cover with 100 giveaway issues and $100. It was
great price for advertising in a program that will have a distribution of about
1,000. I’m sure much of the gaming crowd is into comics and if they’re
not… Monte will beat them into submission. Hopefully I’ll see
some converts after a few of the preview issues are given away. The ad was
Matt Marselia’s pinup, which was inked by Erik Basaldua. Since the
program was in black and white and only used the 300 DPI ink file and then laid
in the Spilled Milk logo and an inset of the painted cover that Monte did (with
a little blurb about Monte being featured, etc.). Of course the website
was prominently displayed at the top. This ad worked out great despite the
fact that I was going to use Monte’s artwork instead of Matt’s. I
STILL don’t have the digital file from North Suburban. The preview issue
was done way back, um let’s see… LAST YEAR!! They assure me
I’ll be getting it soon. If not, then there will be no issue #1 until I
get it. I suppose this could turn into a rant, but I’ll hold off.
On the cover of the
program is a great painting done by the Montster and then you flip it open and
you see Matt’s pinup with the inset. I thought this was a great combo.
I didn’t overkill the theme with Monte’s artwork again. I figured
different was good and people would take notice.
I’d like to welcome Jay Leisten to the team. He’s a regular with Top Cow and Beth Sotelo
recommended him. He is doing awesome!! That’s all I can say.
I get e-mail at least once a week from him as he updates me on pages he’s
completed and ones that he’s working on. I must say that they’re
turning out GREAT. I’m going to have to get a hold of some better paper
if I don’t want the inkers pissed at me. Seems like the “Image”
boards are the best and hold the ink better that the Blue-Line Pro stuff, which
is what we used. So I guess now it pays to be making friends with people
at Top Cow. Not only am I getting great work, but the paper is outstanding
as well. Hey Jay, I know you’re reading this… Keep it up!!
And I’ll see you in San Diego.
Beth is working on the
color. The estimated date of completion is June 18th. That should
give me plenty of time to add them to the color preview and show some samples of
her work, which will be the majority of the series anyway. I believe after
that we’ll just roll on into issue #3 so I don’t get too far behind once the
orders start coming in. Or course I’ve got high hopes for the number of
orders. As always it rests solely on shoulders of the readers like
yourself.
And on the back will be
something by another Top Cow Guy… Patrick Blaine. He and Jay make
one great team and they’re FAST too!! Patrick did a pinup to impress the
people at Top Cow, which he did. But what was even better was that this
impressive pinup was of my character CiCi!! Now she’s got that
“Witchy” look, but future pinups will look TOTALLY different. I think
the costume will turn out to be more of what I had in mind and more in tuned
with who the character is and what the technology can do. Definitely NOT
based on my original designs, because when I did the original sketches I was
JUST starting to draw. So I would stick to the basics and not try anything
“cool”. This nanotechnology live inside her and the “costume”
should reflect that. Her costume grows from within her and it’s not just
a hard shell that forms around her. Plus it needs to be easily absorbed
back into her body. Patrick is very patient and allows me to ramble on
about what I think and how things should look. He also asks a ton of
questions, which also helps him get a better grasp on the character and what’s
inside her. I’m anxious to see what he comes up with. You will be
seeing more of Patrick’s stuff as it becomes available.
Plane ticket? …
Check.
Hotel Room? … Check.
Booth? … Check.
Color Preview? …
In progress.
Yeah, that last one is
a go! This will be a very small sample of a few pages from issues #1, #2,
and possibly #3. I wanted this 8-page sample to be extremely limited, but
due to the constraints at Brenner it makes more sense to go with their minimum
number of copies of 3,000. But about 1,500 of these will be going directly
to shop owners through Diamond Distributors, so that really only leaves about
1,500 for the fans. So I guess they will be fairly limited.
The front cover will
have that awesome pinup done Matt Marsilia. I’m sure this is the first
he’s finding this out. Way to go Matt!! And I think Patrick and
Jay will be able to whip up something for the back cover in no time. I’m
not sure if it will be colored due to the time constraints, but Patrick will
keep that in mind so there might be more detail in the shot that you would
normally see in other covers. I felt that I couldn’t use the
“Witchy” looking CiCi on the back cover because I may piss people off at Top
Cow. Patrick had showed it around to a few people at The Cow and everybody
loved it!! So far nobody was pissed and everybody knew whose character it
was!! Can you say “crossover”? I knew that you could.
I’ve got my notes on it. The whole story isn’t completely fleshed out
yet and I figure “why bother” because I’m sure other people will want a
say in what goes into that book. I can only hope I suppose.
Having only one issue
and one card was not enough to prove use for the registration on CiCi. But
applying for it way back in 1996 prevented other people from doing it so I’ve
still pretty much got the lock on it. The Crew is helping out with this
and doing some work to get the registration to stick this time. Even
better, they’re fitting the bill for this one!! Woo Hoo!!
Well I finally posed
this question to the Internet, specifically Ask.com. And it came back with
quite a few websites. For example one of the first on the list was this
one:
http://outland.cyberwar.com/~fcclostr//scirel/clone.htm
If you peel off the
extraneous directories (including the invisible one) you’ll make it to a
church site. I am starting to build a list of these sites in my link area.
If you find a good one and I don’t already have it, then by all means please
send it.
On one of the sites
there was a pop-up window that posed the question: Do animals have a soul?
I think this was mis-worded, because there is a picture of cute dog. Well
if you think about what an animal is then you’ve got to consider the insects.
Technically they are animals too, belonging to the Animal Kingdom (instead of
the Plant Kingdom). Because if you remember your biology you’ve got
Kingom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species. Although many of
them could be out of order in a few places. And there are only two
Kingdoms.
The results so far were
76% Yes, 16% No, 7% Undecided
I’m not going to tell
you how I voted. My guess is that you can figure it out for yourself.
Check out the links section for more sites.
Sorry, no rant this time…
Thanks for all your support,
_______________________________
Parker D. Smart
President - Spilled Milk ®, Corp.
psmart@SpilledMilk.com
http://SpilledMilk.com
Copyright © 2001, Spilled Milk ® Corp., All rights
reserved.
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You might make it in ALL CAPS or else I might not take you seriously J.
