The agony and the...well, slightly less agony.

While various people have different opinions as to what's caused my current bout of CRIPPLING FACEPAIN!, the end result is that I've spent much of the last seventy-two hours feeling like someone sanded my teeth down to exposed nerve endings and then stuffed a dead raccoon into my nasal cavity.

While there's really never a good time to feel like your life would be immeasurably improved if you used a sharpened spoon to dig out the contents of your skull (at least not that I've found, and I've got some experience in this area), feeling that way when you've got an artist waiting for the fun and wacky and generally awesome script you promised him by today is particularly problematic.

I don't know who said no writer likes writing, but every writer likes having written. I mean, I know Neil Gaiman said it and it was in an interview with him that I read it, but I believe he was quoting someone else. Either way, that's a fairly accurate assessment of my view of the whole "sitting down and transforming an abstract idea into a concrete story" thing. It's not hard work--I'd rather be writing than housepainting, though that's not saying much, as I'd rather floss my teeth with a buzzsaw than paint houses for a living--but it's not as easy as lying in bed doing nothing. Frequently it's not even as satisfying as lying in bed doing nothing.

All of which is a long way to say I don't usually get a lot of joy out of writing. I can't recall a single instance when writing has actually improved my mood. That may be because I can't recall a single instance of anything that happened more than fifteen minutes ago, but I tend to believe it's largely because I don't write much when I'm not in a good mood to begin with. If I'm not happy I'll write what I've absolutely got to because someone's waiting for or expecting it, and if I'm feeling particularly sorry for myself, I might dash off a whiny Facebook update or blog post (even though doing so inevitably makes me feel worse about myself for venting in public when I've got what is, by any reasonable standard, a pretty good life.) And that's about it.

But even in my state of extreme discomfort and/or prescription medication-induced zombification, finally hammering the script for NO MORE PARENTS #1 into shape on Monday and Tuesday was a less arduous task than I'd expected. Maybe I'm still basking in the warm glow of finishing something on the promised deadline that I didn't think I'd be able to when that deadline loomed, but there's something about this project...I'm having trouble putting my finger on what it is, but I think it may be that I actually connect with and like the characters introduced in the first issue in a way that I often don't at this stage in the writing process. I feel like I've leapfrogged over the "getting to know you" stage of scripting and settled into a comfort zone where I just let the kids (and robots) tell me what they want to do, rather than me telling the characters what they're going to do and then adjusting them as characters so what they do makes sense inside the context of the story. (Note to those who may be interested: If you're working on a WFH project, life's a lot easier if you approach things the latter way, if only because there's someone higher than you on the totem pole who has the power to make you and the characters do what they tell you and understanding and accepting that will save you and your editor a lot of headaches.)

Mind you, letting the gang do what they want required me to seriously revise the action I'd originally laid out for the second half of the issue; I had to reconsider and rewrite the basic shots from the ground up perilously close to the appointed deadline. And while Nick seemed happy with the first batch of script pages I sent him, I think he'd be a bit more comfortable if the characters didn't like talking quite so much.

But setting all that aside for the moment, I'm left in the bizarre circumstance where writing something was about as enjoyable as it possibly could be, even though it was written while I was absolutely, positively, "on the edge of doing something selfish, stupid, and irrevocable" miserable.

Which I think is pretty cool. Hopefully the good feelings I have for the script will show on the finished pages. Even if they don't...well, I like it. And feeling the way I do at the moment, liking anything at all, much less something I'm personally responsible for, is a blessing.

A

Unless you really want to, of course.

Do not push the big red button.

(via MightyGodKing.)

I should really do a blog update.

But I'm not gonna. This last couple of weeks have left me drained and fragile. I am a delicate, five hundred and seventy pound flower.




***

OK, maybe a quick note on a comic thing...

"Only one resurrection ever impressed anyone."

So said Happy Harbor's Jay Bardyla, in response to the revelation that the Major Announcement Marvel'd promised regarding the mysterious miniseries REBORN was that it would feature the return of Steve Rogers.

I'm sure the story will be good. Brubaker's the guy who "killed" Captain America, and he's the guy who's bringing him back, and I'm assuming he's not having his arm twisted too hard to do so Brubaker brought Bucky back and made it work; Captain America's been easily the most consistent quality read produced by either of the Big Two for ages now. The writer obviously has a strong vision for the story he wants to tell and the art teams, aided by some skillful (if subdued) colouring, have provided a pretty much seamless story on the visual end of things. It's reasonable to expect more of the same with Reborn, and that's not a bad thing at all in this case.

Personally, I think Marvel would be better served by preserving their first really successful legacy superhero story rather than restoring the 70-year old status quo, but that's me--I don't have an upcoming movie to promote. And I'm kind of scratching my head as to how they ever thought bringing back a character killed a couple years ago would make any kind of major media splash. But never mind that.

The biggest problem with the return of Steve Rogers, I mean, the one massive issue, the elephant in the room that I'm sure keeps Joe Quesada awake at night is that, when push comes to shove, I prefer the Fantastic Four to Captain America. There are all sorts of reasons for that--my not being American is certainly a factor--but I don't really feel like going into them. Suffice it to say that, after Doctor Strange, my next favourite Marvel property is the FF.

So I was actually quite happy a year or three ago when the new creative team of Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch was announced for the title. Not because I'm a huge fan of the creative team, but because I figured having the guys who did the first two Ultimates series was a surefire way to raise the profile of The World's Greatest Comic Magazine. I haven't really looked at the sales numbers, but I gather from skimming Paul O'Brien's comments at Publisher Weekly's The Beat that, for whatever reason, they haven't been as awesome as one might have expected/hoped.

Which will happen from time to time. It may be that the FF is a concept whose time is past, that the people who aren't reading it are disinclined to do so for pretty much the same reasons I like the concept. What struck me as odd, though, was this comment from Joe Quesada:

"You try to use (Bryan Hitch) for the biggest projects possible. We try to do that with our very best talents. So when Ed had the idea of "Reborn" and we knew it was going to be a big deal and wanted to get the most out of it, we wanted to use ... Hitch. So it was literally that simple. You want to bring your A-Team for your A-Story and have them bring their A-Game."

Which is well and good for Reborn, but when that statement is made in response to a question that at least in part was made regarding pulling Hitch off the end of Millar's Fantastic Four run...well, maybe it's just me, but couldn't that be read to imply that The Fantastic Four, the book that started the Marvel Age of Comics, either isn't considered a priority for the company, or that Millar and Hitch are delivering less than their best work on the project?

I dunno. Just struck me as weird comment coming from the Editor in Chief.

A

The Following is a true story...

...Only the names have been changed to protect the helpful. Which means Steven's name actually is Steven.

STEVEN, ROGERS WIRELESS ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE SERVICE (sic) REPRESENTATIVE: Welcome to Rogers Wireless Accounts Receivable, my name is Steven. What can I do for you today?

ANDREW, NOT CHAY TANG, NO MATTER WHAT ROGERS WIRELESS SAYS: Hi, I'm calling about this bill I've been getting every month for, oh, I don't know, three or so years.

S: OK, could I get your Rogers Wireless phone number starting with area code, please?

A: No.

S: I'm sorry?

A: I don't have a Rogers Wireless phone number. That's why I'm calling.

S: You said you're getting a bill.

A: Yes. Well, I keep getting Chay Tang's bill sent to this address. I called about it last year and they told me it'd stop coming after about six months, but here we are, a year later, and I'm still getting them.

S: But you don't have an account.

A: No.

S: Well then I'd advise you return the mail to sender.

A: I've done that. And sent it back with "No one of that name here" written on the envelope, too. Doesn't work.

S: Well, as this isn't your account, that's all I can do for you.

A: You can't make a note to not waste a bunch of paper every month sending a bill to someone who doesn't have an account with you unless the person with the account--who isn't receiving their bill--tells you not to send the bill?

S: Correct.

A: That's kind of silly, isn't it?

S: That's the way it's done.

A: But the guy obviously doesn't know his bill's going to the wrong place, because he's not getting it. I am.

S: You should mark it return to sender.

A: Yeah, I've done that.

S: That's all I advise, all I can do unless you're the account holder.

A: I've been getting the account holder's bill for three years. Is that enough?

S: I'm afraid not.

A: OK, so let me get this absolutely straight: the person who lives at the place the bill is being sent, who isn't the person whose bill it is, is telling you the person whose bill it is isn't at this address, but you aren't going to do anything about it unless the person whose bill it is--who isn't here and, as far as I can tell, never has been, certainly not for the last ten years--tells you he's not here.

S: Correct.

A: Oh, I see. That's not stupid at all.

S: Canada Post mails the bills out. You should send it back to them.

A: I don't think Canada Post does send the bill out. I see Rogers' logo all over this envelope, and shining a high-power light through the envelope I got this phone number, which sort of implies that it's not Canada Post sending them out, it's you sending them out.

S: Canada Post is the only one who can change an address.

A: I don't think that's true.

S: It is true and accurate information.

A: Canada Post didn't generate this bill. They just delivered it.

S: That's right.

A: But you, Rogers, sent it out.

S: If you don't want to receive the mail, just write return to sender on the envelope.

A: I've done that and I keep receiving the mail.

S: Please don't yell, sir. I'm just trying to have a conversation here.

A: I wasn't yelling--

S: You raised your voice--

A: OK, now I'm talking in a very calm, cool manner. All right?

S: Thank you sir. Now, I've done all I can for you on this matter--

A: You haven't done anything--

S: That's all I can do.

A: Can I speak to your supervisor, please?

S: Do you wish to talk to him about this?

A: Yes I do.

S: I'm afraid I can't put you through to a supervisor for this.

A: You won't put me through to your supervisor?

S: Not because of this.

A: What's your name again?

S: Steven.

A: Last name?

S: I can't give that information out, sir. Security concerns.

A: Any other way to identify you? Your branch number, employee number?

S: I can't give you any more information.

A: Why start now? OK, Steven, I'd like to talk to your supervisor.

S: I can't put you through to my supervisor unless you give me a reason.

A: Someone asking to speak to your supervisor isn't a good enough reason to let them speak to your supervisor?

S: No.

A: So you aren't going to do anything and you're going to prevent me from talking to anyone else who may be able to do anything.

S: There's nothing I can do unless you're an account holder.

A: OK, you got me. I'm the account holder.

S: You've said you aren't the account holder.

A: Kidding! What, you can't take a joke! I'm Shee Tang--Chai Tang...However you pronounce it, that's who I am, that's me. Mr. Tang. Mrs.? Miss? Yeah, I'm them.

S: You aren't, sir.

A: What's my name?

S: Sir?

A: If I'm not Chay Tang, what's my name?

S: I don't know, sir.

A: I'm telling you I'm Chay Tang. How do you know I'm not Chay Tang? I've been getting his bills for three years, someone over there thinks he lives here.

S: You said you aren't the account holder, sir. I've done all I can do for you.

A: But if I call back and claim I'm the account holder to someone else, they'll help me?

S: You're welcome to call again and see if you can get a different answer from another service representative.

A: So your advice is to call one of your colleagues and commit fraud. You're telling me that's the only way Rogers Wireless is going to stop wasting paper every month sending me a bill that isn't mine.

S: I'm not advising you to do that.

A: You just did!

S: You have every right to call and see if you get a different answer from someone else. You can do that, but the answer will be the same. There's nothing we can do here for you. Is there anything else I can help you with today?

A: You can put me through to your supervisor.

S: I can't do that.

A: You've already said you could if you had a reason to. So you could, you, Steven, are actively choosing not to.

S: I'm going to end this conversation now, sir. Have a nice day and thank you for choosing Rogers Wireless.

A: I didn't choose Rogers Wireless, you--

CLICK.

***

FIVE MINUTES LATER:

JEFF, ROGERS WIRELESS ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE SERVICE REPRESENTATIVE: Welcome to Rogers Wireless Accounts Receivable, my name is Jeff. What can I do for you today?

A: Hi, I've been getting someone else's bill sent to me for three years now and I've tried returning to sender and writing "Nobody of that name here" on the envelope and I even called a year ago and they said it'd stop eventually, but it hasn't and I'd like it to, please.

J: Did you open the envelope?

A: I did not. On this occasion, I did use a high-powered light to read its contents, though, because this is getting silly.

J: So you have an account number?

A: I do. It's (Chay Tang's account number).

J: And what's the address it's going to?

A: (Andrew and Tiina's address, mostly), and that's here, except the postal code is off.

J: (quiet snort) It's a miracle it got there at all...OK, I'm looking at the account. This is strange, it's been paid.

A: Well, for all I know it's getting paid automatically or every month or something and the guy checks his bill digitally or something. So maybe I'm getting a new, different bill every month. I don't know. But I do keep getting a bill for someone else.

J: What I'll do is put a "hold bill" on this and make a note saying you called and said it's the wrong address. That should stop the bill from showing up there and maybe we can get in contact with the client to get the right address.

A: With the account number you could probably phone them...

J: Yes, we should be able to do something. You should know that there's no liability on your part for any bill received in error, if that was a worry.

A: It wasn't. It's just--four or five pieces of paper and an envelope a month for years, you know? It's wasteful.

J: I understand. I'm a conservationist myself. OK, I've put the hold bill on it and written the note. Is there anything else I can do for you today?

A: One other thing. I'd like to make a complaint about a colleague of yours, Steven. I called you guys earlier, and he swore up and down that there was absolutely nothing he could do about this.

J: Well...technically, I'm not supposed to do anything if you aren't the account holder. But you gave the account number and the address, so I fudged things a little.

A: So if I complain about Steven and they notice you were actually helpful, you could get in trouble. I get it. OK, then. Well, Jeff, thank you for the effort, I really do appreciate it.

J: Have a good day, sir. Thanks for choosing Rogers Wireless.

CLICK.

A: Yeah, like that's EVER going to happen now...

A

My new word.

In Art College I had a teacher, Derek Besant who, as a student in art college (or university--not sure where he was educated, actually...), had a teacher who took an idiosyncratic approach to yardwork. As I recall, when this other teacher's neighbours complained about the length of his lawn, he had all his students come over to his house one weekend, cover the yard with cement, and paint it green.

Even at the time I first heard this story, many years before I'd be fortunate enough to marry someone who came with a yard I'd come to call my own, this struck me as a good idea.

As the guy who's spent a stupid amount of time this last week and a half tearing dandelions with root systems that even your average redwood would have to grudgingly acknowledge as impressive, pouring concrete over the whole damn mess strikes me as not just a good idea, but something I'm actually kind of stunned isn't the norm, at least when it comes to people who've got better things to do with their lives than root around in the dirt (and if you aren't rooting around in the dirt for the purposes of feeding yourself, your family, or me and my family, you've got better things to be doing than digging around in the dirt. Like reading. Or eating. Or watching paint dry.)

Transforming my yard into something resembling the world's smallest detonated minefield one #*&%ing batch of dandelions at a time has become something of an obsession for me now. Originally, as part of the prep for this coming weekends Temple of Fondoom party, I'd wanted to get the back yard looking like someone had done something to groom it sometime in the last five years, which was a tricky proposition, as no one had. Well, Tiina might have. I was too busy reading, eating, and watching paint dry to notice.

Clearly, there's no way the lunar landscape out back is going to be anything remotely resembling presentable by the weekend--I've slowly come to realize that what I naively thought of as "the lawn" was actually thistle, while "the yellow stuff" turned out to be the grass. But still I continue, consumed by the desire to purge all dandelions from the backyard.

Which is, by almost any measure, not what I should be doing over the next week. Mowing, sure. Cleaning the house, definitely. Even plugging away at the spec screenplay revision (Emmy-Winning Hollywood Producer sent another round of notes in) and the script for NO MORE PARENTS, if I can't possibly avoid writing something more ambitious than a blog post. But what I should absolutely not be doing is ripping up great sections of the yard trying to eliminate the pestilent weed that the majority of my neighbours--while impressed with my nobly misguided efforts--seem to agree is something you've just got to live with.

So of course, that's all I really want to do at the moment. It's not a case of the grass being greener on the other side of the fence--the grass is also yellow out there. It's a deadly combination of addiction and procrastination. I call it procraddictination.

Actually, I don't call it that. I just came up with it as I typed the last sentence. But I might start calling it that now.

A

Irony, thy name is Racist Moron

"The responsible white separatist community condemns this. It makes us look bad." John DeNugent, responsible racist, on the Holocaust Museum shooting.

I'm reasonably sure that quote contains everything necessary to build a really tasteless sitcom starring Jim Belushi.

I'm saying Jim Belushi is a racist, mind you. But something about the ten minutes of ALL ABOUT JIM I watched that one time I couldn't find the remote makes me think he could play one really well.

Has Dick Cheney been arrested yet?

A

GAAAAAH! MOTHER#**&ERS!

THE LAST COPIES I HAD, YOU LOUSY $%!#s! MY LAST GODDAMN COPIES!

hatehatehatehatehatehatehatehate

OK, OK. Calm down, Foley. It's not the end of the world. It's just another HAAAAATE!


The Future of Comics (I) Fiona Staples' first Wildstorm work, a tie-in to the film TRICK 'R TREAT, is finally being released this October. That's a good thing. Yes. And then there's this...



...

Nope. Happy for Fiona and Dan, but still foaming at the mouth pissed at Canada Post.

A