Fried.

Me that is.

I shan’t go into all the ins and outs and whys and wherefors, in part because I’m too fried to do so. Suffice to say – much drawing (but not as much as I’d like), much momness (more than I know what to do with) and not enough rest or nothing time in between.

I’ve finished two pages of Oz Squad (minus the lettering) and am at various stages with five others.

Not sure who to blame for that red x down there. It worked when I posted it this morning. It links to the Oz Squad page. Which also has an x where the Oz Squad logo should be. The code looks right but it wouldn’t be the first time I’ve made a mistake and not been able to see it the first four hundred times I’ve looked at it.

I’ve updated the Oz Squad page slightly to reflect my current participation and to quietly announce the series’ return.

Not this weblog, though it may come to that. I’m putting The Journals of Lado Perapek on hiatus until July. By that time I should have both finished my illustrations for Mandate of Heaven and created a little back log of entries for the Journals. Once the back log gets run through I’ll probably put the site on hold again until another backlog gets built up.

Not the ideal way to run a railroad, I know.

Nizzibet has a new essay online.

Look kids! Primates in comics!. Nifty website dedicated to apes (and monkeys and probably lemurs) in sequential art found via Neilalien. Nit pick. One thing I notice is how many artists don’t seem to have looked at a real gorilla. Lots of the gorillas look like men in gorilla suits or chimps on steroids.

On The Journals of Lado Perapeck – the Kipster says, “My brain says, ‘It’s as if Moebius were the fourth Hernandez Bro.,’ but we all know better than to listen to my brain.” Yay! My first review!

On whether The Journals can be seen by anyone other than Nick – so far there don’t seem to be any problems. Sorry Nick. You’ll be getting a package in the mail soon as compensation. Or something. Comics by me. Yay! Comics by me before I knew how to draw. Oh well.

On the Mystery Person – I’ve got an email from MP that either requires an essay as a response or a short smartass quip. The final post will probably be a little of both but at the moment I don’t have the here to there thought processes available to do more than provide the smartass part of the writing. So I’m holding off.

On Oz Squad – I’m progressing nicely with the artwork though at the moment we’re just talking about the first three pages. Chris Reilly’s computer experienced an existential crisis and thought not so he needs to reconstruct the next few pages.

On Aged Mother – still twitching. Skook doesn’t understand why I haven’t left her for the grizzlies. We’ve gotten used to ignoring these cultural gulfs.

On Skook – I mostly just see him in passing, a big shadow going by at sunrise or sunset.

On Nizzibet – No longer so new essay up. She’s actually got a newer one submitted but apparently Tuppenceworth isn’t ready to post it yet.

On The Four Feathers, the recent film version starring Heath Ledger – We watched it on video last night. We got it in a recent score of clearance videos. It’s entertaining. At the moment I’m not caring whether the movies I see are historically accurate. And not having read the book I can’t say how close the adaptation is. The biggest problem (for me) is that the friends that Harry goes to save are so darned nondescript. The last one, in the hideous prison, I couldn’t remember what he looked like before the wild hair and beard. I’m glad Harry knew who he was looking for, I’d have missed him.

On Weddings – Got two sets of friends getting married this summer. One on Memorial Day weekend. The other in September. Both in California. Not sure how we’ll manage that. There’s both the cost of travel and the need to find someone to look after AM.

On Today – We should have someone coming in look after Aged Mother for a few hours. Nizzibet and I will run away, perhaps to a movie, perhaps to a cafe, perhaps simply to drive and drive.

I’ve been keeping a low profile with The Journals of Lado Perapek, relatively speaking. I write about it here but I figure that if you’re reading this you either know me personally or you got here via some weird google search. Or you’re here via a link at Epilogue.net or Sentient 39. Which is me trying to say that I haven’t been doing outreach for The Journals. It seems silly to do that for a strip (sorta) that’s been running for just over two months. I’ve read too many “check out my great website” notes for sites that gave up updating six months after their debut. I promised myself that I would hold off promotion until I’d been running it for a year. At least.

However, Mr. Nick Brownlow tells me that all he gets when he goes to The Journals are broken link images. You know, those lovely white boxes with the red crosses in them. I don’t have this problem. Keenspace sometimes fails to load an image but that mainly seems to happen on my peripheral pages, not the main strip.

So I need some feedback. Is anyone else having trouble seeing The Journals? If so, is it the main pages, the essays, or just plain everything? Are you a Mac or a PC user? Dial-up or broadband? Please take a moment and look at the site and send a quick note to chaosunit@aol.com. Put “Perapek” or “Sentient39” in the subject line.

Thanks!

Two new pieces up at my Epilogue.net gallery. More Black Seal illustrations.

It’s clear that whoever passes the art at Epilogue is looking at different things than I am. He/she/it rejected what I considered the best piece of this round of submissions. Something about it being “undefined”. I don’t remember the exact wording. Ah well. The gallery is free and I don’t have to code anything.

I’m always tempted to resubmit a piece at a later date and see if it gets accepted. And I might. But first I’ll wait ’til Black Seal #3 sees print. Lots more of my illustrations in this issue. Rumor has it that it will go to press this month.

New image up at my Epilogue.net gallery.