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.

Back seems to determined to reject the rest of me today. Or perhaps the other way around. Was crossing the street and something went squink. Now I’ve got all the mobility of the living dead. Standard living dead not these hopped up 21st century jobs.

Eyes aren’t focusing too well either.

End weather report.

That miniseries I’m illustrating?

It’s Oz Squad.

No, I didn’t make the page with this in mind. I got offered the job after contacting Chris Reilly. He’d mentioned in an online interview that he was working with Steve Ahlquist on a project (- not Oz Squad). Steve created Oz Squad back in the ’90s. (Founded on and continuing the works of L. Frank Baum, of course.) Chris emailed back saying that he and Steve were planning to relaunch the series – would I be interested in drawing it?

Note: This comic book series has been described by Oz collector Steve Teller as “the most repellent published work with the name Oz in the title I have ever seen,” and features strong scenes of violence and gunplay. Inappropriate for the young and the young at heart.

Ah yes. Nothing like bad taste to get my blood flowing. I’ll post samples of the art to my gallery at Epilogue.net as I finish it. Nothing that will give the story away. Just a glimpse or two to whet your appetite. Or completely turn you off. Tastes vary.

Busy. Of course.

Current creative projects –

Working out plot details with Nizzibet for Finnegan’s Brink. I expect to start drawing that in June. Nizzibet would be writing and coloring.

The Journals of Lado Perapek continues. New page up today.

I’ve got biweekly illustration goals for Mandate of Heaven. Still much to do and I’d like to have as much of it done as possible by June so I can dive in to Finnegan.

LuvSet’s and my Oz collaboration. No goals currently other than to get it done eventually.

A comic and illustrations for one article in The Black Seal #4. This will be the big Viet Nam issue. Both the article and the comic are already written. I’ve just got to draw. I hope to have this done by June as well. TBS #3 can be preordered through the website.

And just added to all that, this four issue miniseries. I don’t think it’s a secret but until I talk to my partners I’ll keep mum on it. The goal is to have that finished in a year.

Just call me Sleepy, Grumpy and Delirious for the immediate future.

Sometime earlier this week it sank in that Aged Mother is unlikely to drop dead anytime soon. Part of me has been waiting for her to do that ever since she got here and it became clear that she was much more frail and worn out than I’d been expecting. Not like I wanted her to but, if the inevitable is coming, I do like to be prepared.

And she kept not dying. We’ve made arrangements so (mostly) she doesn’t need us during the night. We’ve got a routine down for eating and napping. The living room got rearranged so that she could have a napping couch and we could still hang out when we wanted to. We’ve got a person coming in once a week so Nizzibet and I can get out of the house for a few hours.

Finally this week I stopped trying to fit art time in around her schedule and just started drawing whenever I could sit down for a few minutes. Given that I seem to have agreed to draw a four issue comic book miniseries (more details on that as it develops) over the next year I better get used to drawing all the time.

Back to work.

I just looked through every cover in the Spider-Man Cover Archive. Wow. Forty years of the Web Slinger. The images span the gamut from nifty but crude to graphically slick to just plain awful. Countless returns from Doc Ock, Kraven the Hunter, the Lizard, the Kingpin, the Vulture, Electro, the Shocker, the Rhino, the Black Cat and so on and so on and so on. Writers with more time and clarity than I can detail where the series jumped the shark and why it should be put to rest.

And this is just a Spider-Man archive. I’d hate to see what a Superman or Batman archive would look like. Or even Archie. Yikes.

The Mystery Person returns. Once again she/he/its statements are in bold and my replies are in italics

David,

You’re killing me. Of course I’ve got the right David Lee Ingersoll. Why, I’ve even got a signed copy of the first “Cheap Thrills” comic (that cuts it down to 100 – now if you could only remember who you gave them to).

M.P.

Having a copy of “Cheap Thrills” does narrow the field quite a bit both in time and place. You still might be someone I only knew through correspondence. I’d traded a few “Cheap Thrills” with other cartoonists. Not that I think that. I’ve assumed from the beginning that you were someone I knew (perhaps still know) personally. I’m just also being sure to keep open all other possibilities. I try not too assume too much and cut off possible avenues of investigation.

I’m not trying to torment you with this. This is supposed to be fun. Everything I will tell you is true. Personal details would give me away in a second. I will give myself away quickly enough as it is. You’ve probably already figured out my gender.

Rest assured that while I was not your best friend, I was certainly more than a casual acquaintance.

Oh, I am having fun. If I seem terse it’s only from lack of sleep and a narrow window of time to write. That cuts down on my ability to edit and rethink my statements. No upset here. Curious.

More than a casual acquaintance. Hmmm.

I have some questions to ask of you. I am looking for enlightenment. Perhaps our discussion will add something to your blog beyond a simple guessing game.

The questions will be coming.

Ask away. Enlightenment can be found in all sorts of odd places. Maybe even here. I’ll toss a few back your way. Not questions as to who you are, questions to keep the game going.

Would you still with to be that person if you could?

This all may take a while, but you’re a patient guy?

….

Site for the day:

Graphically watch artist Louis Wain slip into the depths of insanity.

-MP

Interesting. Pretty. A good example that doing drugs is artificial insanity. The last cats in the series remind me of what the world sometimes looks like when I’ve been peaking on acid.

Cheers!

DLI