Downey Soft

Amusingly, The Hollywood Reporter tab at the top of my webbrowser reads “Robert Downey, Jr. sad…”.

The full title of the article is “Robert Downey, Jr. saddles up for ‘Cowboys’”, which isn’t much more accurate. In fact, it seems that Mr. Downey, Jr. is “in negotiations” to star in ”Cowboys & Aliens”, which “derives from a graphic novel written by Fred Van Lente and Andrew Foley” which in turn derives from “an original idea by (Scott Mitchell) Rosenberg.”

As I’m writhing about in excruciating pain at the moment, I’m not particularly inclined to believe this movie will ever happen (or that its happening would materially affect me, even if it did). I'm actually not inclined to think I won't bash my own brains out with a spatula by the end of the day. One of the managers, however, thinks the article is “Awesome. Every little bit helps.”

If that’s true--if it’s even *possible* that it’s true that the little bit of having my name in the Hollywood Reporter (dot com--no idea how related the website is to the print version)--then this is one more little bit of progress on the path to my ultimate goal (making a reasonable living off of writing.) And it strikes me that that’s a little bit of progress that, under its new online manga pilot program, the co-writer of a Tokyopop comic that becomes the basis of a potential tentpole movie franchise could be denied.

I’m strung out on a liver-disintegrating quantity of codeine right now--my lower back’s doing the thing where its usual ache is replaced by a sensation comparable to having several fishhooks twisting in it from the inside--so my comments here are basically going to be limited to, “Hey, my name’s in the Hollywood Reporter (dot com) and it might not have been if I signed the sort of contract that’s becoming increasingly common for new/young/desperate comic creators these days and oh GOD MY BACK HURTS SOMEONE PLEASE MAKE IT STOP THE PAAAAINNN…!”

But it did seem worth noting.

A