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dinopollard
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Name: Percival
Birthday: 8/12/1983
Gender: Male
Interests: Hanging out with friends, watching movies (at home and in the theater), listening to music, shooting pool, hookah, driving around, reading, writing.
Expertise: Literature, film, education.
Occupation: Artist
Industry: Entertainment
Message: message meEmail: email me
Website: visit my website
Member Since:
3/27/2003
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| I've had this Xanga ever since my freshman year of college. And even then, I only got it because Roxy kept telling me to. Anyway, over the years, most people I know on here either stopped updating or migrated to other journal sites with the rise of MySpace and Facebook.
So I started to ask myself, "self, why do you still use this journal?" And I really don't know. So I'm done with it now.
If anyone wants to follow my exploits, there's always my LiveJournal (http://dinopollard.livejournal.com) or my MySpace sites -- http://www.myspace.com/dp812 is my personal one and http://www.myspace.com/percivalconstantine is for my writing.
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| Well, time yet again for another overall update on where things are going in my life right now.
Basically, I've been keeping pretty damn busy. In addition to editing Russian Roulette, I've been doing quite a bit of writing. Not on my novels, but on different comic book projects. I told Kyle I wanted to adapt the Code Name: Black Widow screenplay we wrote a few years back as a comic and he was fine with it. We decided to change the title to Love & Bullets and I wrote the script for the first issue and am currently hunting for an artist. There are two I'm eyeing right now, but I haven't made a decision yet. I also wrote the script for the first issue of SoulQuest, which I'm not sure if I mentioned or not in a previous entry. Sam should have some more sketches to me, soon.
As far as the anthology goes, in some areas it's coming along very quickly, not so much in others. CW's team has been cranking out stuff, and I think they may have even finished their issue. Other teams are moving at a much slower pace. I have some ideas of where to take this project next if I don't get more work materializing soon. Since some people dropped out, I've had to scramble to come up with replacements, and there's one I wrote that I might use photography for instead of traditional pencils.
Other than that, I've been spending a lot of time with my nearest and dearest. During the week, I'm usually out with Maggie and whoever else we attach ourselves to. My weekends lately have been spent with Kelly. We hung out on Friday and on Saturday after work, I went to her cousin's birthday party and met some of her extended family before we went out for Sandy's birthday with her and Zally. My remaining weekends have filled up very quickly. I don't think there's a weekend from now until I leave where I don't have something already scheduled.
Going along that same train of thought, at Amanda's wedding Kelly and I decided we should get married before I leave. We've said before it'll eventually happen, so now we're going to do it. More of a fake wedding, actually. Joe's going to perform the ceremony and he's an ordained minister, but we're not getting a marriage license. So we'll be married in the eyes of God, which is ironic since neither of us is a Christian. I gave Kelly an engagement ring I bought at a thrift store and it's more or less just an excuse to have a big party. She's already joking about how once I'm in Japan, she's going to send me videos of Cabbage Patch dolls and telling them on camera, "say hi to Daddy" so my roommates think I moved there to escape a psychotic wife.
As excited as I am to go, I've also started to think about what will happen after the first year. Right now my basic plan is if by the end of the first year I don't like it in Japan, then I'll move back here, get a 9-5 job, and start going to grad school. I don't want to go back to NEIU though and UIC would be a bitch of a commute. So right now, I'm thinking Northwestern or Roosevelt. Northwestern is in Evanston and I'd love to live in that area and Roosevelt has campuses in both Chicago and Schaumburg. Which is especially nice for Schaumburg, since that area isn't as expensive as some of the surrounding ones.
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| I've read a bunch of Marvel Comics lately, and thought I'd give some general thoughts on different titles.
First off, my favorite of the bunch, is X-MEN. I never read LUCIFER, so the only thing I had read by Mike Carey before X-MEN was the HELLBLAZER: ALL HIS ENGINES graphic novel -- which was freaking sweet. His work on X-MEN has been excellent, though. There hasn't been an X-Men title this good since Grant Morrison left the books. Which, admittedly, wasn't all that long ago, but it felt like a lot longer when Marvel put the X-Men through all that ReLoad crap. When Peter Milligan took over this title from the absolutely horrid Chuck Austen, I had high hopes, but his run was also pretty bad. It seemed like he was just phoning it in. Carey, however, is telling some really solid stories. What's more is he's doing it with a strange mix of characters that I never thought would work -- Rogue, Iceman, Cannonball, Cable, Mystique, Omega Sentinel, Lady Mastermind, and Sabretooth. It looked like a trainwreck waiting to happen, and that was pretty much the intent (and it's starting to come full-circle as of X-MEN #200). I'm definitely staying onboard this book. Carey's got a great sense of continuity, but he doesn't let it restrain him from telling stories that can appeal to new readers as well.
Next up is UNCANNY X-MEN. I admit, I've been kind of disappointed in this series so far. Brubaker has done some stellar work in the past, but his work on this book just doesn't seem up to his usual snuff (kind of like Brian K. Vaughn on ULTIMATE X-MEN). "The Rise and Fall of the Shi'ar Empire" got off to a good start, but twelve issues was a bit too long and it started to drag. The latest arc isn't really impressing me, either (neither is Larroca's new style).
Another book, which is a bit of a guilty pleasure is NEW AVENGERS. Now, before I talk about this, let's get a few things out of the way. No, Iron Fist, Luke Cage, Wolverine, Spider-Man, Doctor Strange, Spider-Woman, Echo and Ronin (Hawkeye) are not a good mix for an Avengers team. No, this should not even be called an Avengers title. Yes, it should really be called DEFENDERS or MARVEL KNIGHTS. But putting all that aside, it's a fun read and I'm enjoying it.
Next book is THE LONERS. It's about a group of young heroes who emerged in the 90s who have since decided to give up their lives as superheroes because of all the trouble it's caused them and they've formed a support group for each other. The roster is the Green Goblin (Phil Urich), Turbo, Ricochet, Starstreak, the third Spider-Woman, and Darkhawk. For anyone who dug these characters when they were in their heyday, I definitely recommend this book. Plus, it's got an interesting premise, showing the other side of what it's like being a young superhero. Too bad it's only a limited series.
Last but not least is a book I never expected to like -- THUNDERBOLTS. I dig Warren Ellis, but when I read that this book was going to have a bunch of villains hunting down third-rate heroes like Jack Flagg, American Eagle and the Steel Spider, I expected it to treat those characters like crap. So I was surprised to find that Ellis actually treats them with respect and doesn't have them roll over easily. Hell, in the latest issue, American Eagle almost beats Bullseye to death. Mark Millar and Brian Bendis should take some notes from Ellis -- you don't need to crap all over third-rate characters to make the titular characters into badasses.
That's about it for now. I haven't checked out the latest NEW WARRIORS comic yet, but I plan to. WORLD WAR HULK also had a pretty good first issue, and it looks like it'll be a lot more entertaining than the pile of excrement that was CIVIL WAR.
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| For those of you with good memories, you might remember that back in December, I spent three days shooting a short film based on a short story written by Stacie called Russian Roulette. So why no news about the film in the past eight months? Because of setback after setback for editing.
Well finally, I got a chance to get into an editing room and get to work on the film. Last week, Johnny and I spent two days at his place trying to digitize the footage and John spent several hours after I left trying to get it working in Avid. No such luck, unfortunately. What Johnny was able to do was get the footage to work in Pinnacle, which means we could edit, just not with the program I'm used to.
So today, Johnny and I essentially locked ourselves in his house for almost nine hours and worked on the film nonstop. And even though we got almost the whole movie done, there's still some work to do. Not all the footage digitized properly, so we have to reenter some of it into the computer and then add it into the film. Then we have to mess around with the video a little, because right now the film is in color and I wanted it in sepia tone or at the very least, black and white. And then, once the first cut of the film is finished, Sling is going to handle the sound and music.
I'm not completely satisfied with the result of the film, but that's more due to using equipment that isn't ideal. The acting is great and I'm happy with the choices I made as a director. Still, not being able to use the best equipment does cause for some annoyances but you work with what you've got.
Even though I was working for so long, had some frustrations, and am now exhausted with a kink in my neck, I've got to be honest, I actually had a lot of fun. That being said, even though I enjoy all the time I've put into making movies, I don't think I could do it as a career. Not because it's too much work or anything like that, but because I just wouldn't have the time to tell as many stories as I'd like to.
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| When I was recruiting artists for Samurai Monkey, there were two who really caught my eye. The first was, obviously, Jose Sanchez, the artist I ended up going with. The other, a guy by the name of Sam Wells, is also very talented but his depiction of Kuro just wasn't what I was going for.
This was Sam's design for Kuro and while it's a great design, it just wasn't what I was looking for. Didn't have the same punch that Jose's sketch did. But I didn't want to lose a great artist in Sam and I thought he would be perfect for a sci-fi/fantasy title and I told him I would get back to him once I had some more ideas developed.
Anyway, last week, I sat down and began sketching out some details for this fantasy title, which I've decided to call SoulQuest. It takes place in a world with steampunk influences mixed together with futuristic technology and the focus is on a pirate named Zarim. I came up with lots of ideas for different characters and settings and I wrote them down in a sheet which I sent to Sam. He liked what I had written out and he did a sketch of Zarim, the main character.
This is his depiction of Zarim, which is awesome because it's what I pictured the guy wearing. The only thing I want to change is get rid of the hat and add a hood to Zarim's cloak -- not that he'll be wearing the hood all the time, but it will be used when he tries to travel incognito. I'm really looking forward to seeing what Sam comes up with for the other characters, some of whom are far more visual.
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