Script #2 - finished.

Script #2 first draft has been finished. I will update it and clean it up probably tomorrow, but it's done. It's also a mess. It's 50 pages long. I'm not doing myself any positive favors by describing it as a mess. I wrote basically the last 1/3rd of it in one sitting, so the end might be a tiny bit sloppy and I hope I haven't rushed anything. That's why I wrote an outline, though, and also told myself to cut the crap as I was writing the last few scenes. The first bunch of scenes have a lot of dialogue. I think I was just typing just to type. I want you to get to know the characters. If there's one thing I should be proud of for SJMonsterHunter, I wrote some pretty damn good characters. Well, hopefully that's the case with "The Voice." Hopefully you get to know these nonexistent people. Some of them will cease to exist after a few scenes or even one scene, but I'd like whoever is seeing the show to really enjoy each person who walks on stage.

Hopefully it's funny.

Anyway, sleep. Rewrites later. Bye.

Beach Boys - All Summer Long / Little Deuce Coupe

Someone named "B. Haley" sold his or her records to a new record store near my place of work. Two of these records were early Beach Boys albums, "All Summer Long" and "Little Deuce Coupe."

I'm not an expert on these things, but I think it's hard to figure out which albums had which songs for some of these bands because the music industry at nearly every level revolved around the single instead of the album. Maybe albums were released to just "put stuff out" and get it on the shelves. There was no cohesive narrative or theme on these albums, especially in the mainstream unless you were talkin' soundtracks. I know "I Get Around" was released earlier, before it appeared here on "All Summer Long," but maybe I'm wrong.

I love the Beach Boys but had NONE of their albums. I had a best of that was released in the late 70's, after the band had burned out their fan base by releasing weirder and weirder albums while just performing the hits live. (They looked like a bunch of hippies on the cover.) Critics rave about "Pet Sounds" and whatever "Smile" is supposed to be. Artist Pete Bagge wrote a great essay "In Defense Of Mike Love," ragging on these self-indulgent albums produced by a drugged and burned out Brian Wilson while the rest of the band is begging him to not "f*** with the formula." Good for Brian for experimenting and expressing himself, good for Mike Love for trying to keep the band going.

Anyway, one of the tracks on "All Summer Long" is "Our Favorite Recording Sessions," which is the band messing up in the studio and having a laugh before someone behind the board tells them to shut up. That man has to be the late Murry Wilson, Brian's dad and Mike's uncle. I think the Beach Boys are fascinating on a level beyond Brian's brilliant vocal arrangement over simple (but well written) rock music: like a lot of bands in the 60's that you can claim to be manufactured, the Beach Boys were managed by good ol' Murry, and he did so with an iron fist and occasionally a 2x4 that deafened Brian in his right ear. Out of context, it's a group of kids having a laugh. We know now that Murry was just a split second from terrorizing and physically abusing anyone in this band, caught on tape. That's kind of bizarre.

Yes, I'm impressed by filler tracks on records from over 40 years ago.

Anyway, the Beach Boys. What a great band.

Transformers: War For Cybertron.

I could blame a lot of things that keep me from the drawing board lately. I would say that in the last year, I've been pre-occupied with the Scott Janus Monster Hunter theater commitment. But I think the decline in my drawing (amount of, not skill or quality. That was already rock bottom, thank you) can be traced to when the wife bought me a Wii.

Or maybe moving in and getting married.

But I think the Wii, along with Instant Netflix, has kept me out of the mancave and in our living room. I do draw while something (familiar) is on in the background. But it's hard to draw during MarioKart.

It's even harder to draw or write with War For Cybertron hanging out in the living room.

I play nearly every game on "normal" or "easy" settings because, if you didn't know, I'm generally terrible at video games. Seasoned gaming veterans will know from the background music and death sting where I was in the level, "you died ALREADY?" Yeah, it was the start screen, why do you ask? So I cut myself a break with these. I don't have a lot of Wii games, and stick to MarioKart. (It has also taken me a while to get through the Metroid Prime games for Gamecube, which the Wii can play.)

So for xmas this year my true love gave to me a PS3 and it is glorious. BluRay, access to Hulu+, the MLB.tv thing...it's for War For Cybertron, of which I purchased over a year ago even though I didn't have a system because I wanted to play it on my friend's. And did. (And it was awesome.)

Now I have a chance to play it at home and thus more frequently, and thus I do. I'm excited to. I'm a Transformers junkie and I want to play a game all TF fans are still excited about, over a year after its release. (The Wii released "Cybertron Adventures," and after witnessing the trailer I figured I would just wait it out until the PS3 decreased in price and play the real thing.) It's this first person shooter platform hybring. Maybe 3rd person shooter? Don't correct me on this, I don't care. The thing is, I don't really care that much for video games. I DO like playing them, but most games just seem to be an exercise in button mashing, especially in fighting games. I've beaten my opponents in those but I never had ANY idea what I've been doing. I fell in love with MarioKart because it actually seemed like driving.

And, as I said earlier, I'm just no good at them. Hence the "easy" mode. Maybe I'll give the harder modes a shot. But I didn't want to get frustrated as I have with Metroid: Prime at various stages even though it's an awesome (yet headache inducing) game. There are 10 levels, basically split in half for Autobots and Decepticons. Now that I could play at home, I ended up beating the game in about a week.

Maybe it was too easy, or maybe the regular missions were just for show. The real reason as seems to be with most shooter games is to go online and beat the crap out of your friends or strangers (mostly strangers). This has been where I've spent most of my time. I beat the game with ease but in no way have I felt cheated or that did I say "is that IT?"

Most media tie-in games are for crap. They are hastily put together and frequently incomprehensible, or at least they had been (see: Angry Video Game Nerd on youtube, you won't be disappointed). I had the "Transformers" movie tie in for the PS2 and even though it had Transformers, the plot seemed bizarrely generic. Like you were just going from anonymous building to street to highway to race Decepticons to certain areas before stopping and hand to hand fighting. This was repetitive, and I didn't get far because it was also annoying and frustrating (especially when my copy would freeze up the borrowed PS2).

But now movies and cartoons exist to sell the (much more expensive) game. Heck, the music industry seemed to market its acts just to be part of Guitar Hero or similar games! The Ghostbusters game was definitely a love letter from Ray Stantz to the franchise fans. The Lego franchise tie ins are a barrel of fun as well.

I think as a dedicated TF fan, I can forgive the game to having little meat beyond 10 short missions and once I "gain experience" for my characters in the online frays, which last no more than 10 minutes, and will seem pointless once the characters gain all the experience points (level 25 for each of the four classes of robots you choose from). I haven't gotten tired of it yet but I also haven't attained those levels yet. Maybe the game could have organized in such a format; gaining experience in the levels, and powering up as an added bonus and gaining those extra abilities for the rest of the game? Ah, who cares. I don't want to review the plot (does it matter?), the gameplay (not frustrating!), the voice acting (stellar), the graphics (amazing), or anything else like that. I'm just letting you know what's taking up my time and encourage you to waste your time with it as well.

The game has inspired a possible paint or mod job for a TF. Slipstream is an unlockable character after you finish the Decepticon half of the game. I'm amused by the presence of girl robots (not those lifelike sex toy things...isn't anyone afraid of shorting them out and getting electrocuted?) so therefore, even though Season 3 of G1 Transformers was bizarre and kind of crappy, I'm a fan of the Arcee. I've painted a Generations Tracks figure into "Road Rage," which is itself just a name retroactively applied to the G1 Tracks figure that, in Europe, was red instead of blue. So, Slipstream. When you play that character in the online fight games, if she stands still for a moment, HER WINGS FLAP like a butterfly. Hi-larious. And adorable. My wife and I have named her "Hugbot" on the list of robots I made up for the online battles. Take a look at the artist design on that link, that's what I'll be going trying to replicate.

Anyway, a lot of fun. I have a script I'm to finish by New Year's. It's called THE VOICE and I hope to make it awesome but I am unsure of my chances to get it produced after SJ: Monster Hunter. Then some drawing, and some Goons shows.

OH! Hired Goons will be doing a short set for fill-in drummer Poochie's bday bash in Mt. Prospect on January 21st. Details soon.

More stuff later,

-paul

Silly things of little to no importance.

Click on the image for a clearer version:



The latest "Everyone Loves Gears" episode, starring Chris Donaldson as some of the voices.



I'm a nerd.

-paul

Ron Santo, Hall Of Famer.

And too little, too late, says I. Click on the title for a link to my latest contribution to Bugs & Cranks.

-paul

Silent Night Of The Living Dead

Here's a promotional video for NMT's latest show "Silent Night Of The Living Dead." Click on the blog post title to learn more about the show.



Somewhat written by me, filmed by Alex Reynolds, and my wife is the voice of Virginia.

Oh, and I made two of the zombies.

The show itself opens this Friday (December 2nd) here in Chicago. It was written by Scott Janus Monster Hunter director Sean Harklerode and directed by SJMH producer Chad Wise. Several SJMH cast are in this cast or working behind the scenes.

That's all for now.

-paul

I'm just going to start posting things, comics or no comics. For starters: Black Friday.

So I should really just start writing things here even if I don't have an artistic endeavor in the works (and, uh, I do). I post about one or two times a month and this year I've drawn far, far, far less than that.

But, writing has taken over the spare creative time and why shouldn't it? And if it is, maybe I should get back to writing silly stuff here, beyond updates.

I had a LiveJournal for the whinin' and complainin' about everyday life and I intend to keep the whinin' and complainin' to an extreme minimum.

So, more updates. Here. From now on. Beyond twitter.

Since I last wrote ye, little has progressed on the artistic front. The Goons had a brunch the other day and that was nice. We have some band photos of the group, the last ones we'll be taking with drummer Kodos for a while. Got to see Serac The Preparer Goon and that was nice. (That's Kodos' baby, btw.)

People are asking when the next Goons show is. If you know a drummer or are a drummer and are into having fun and playing with a bunch of goofy guys who love cartoons, comics, and rocking out, then visit www.gabbagabbadoh.com and drop us a line.

Okay, the reason why I DON'T post is because I have little to say, and right now that is true as well. But:

-A PS3 was purchased for the KV-HQ and it is glorious. The Blu-Ray and Netflix alone make it worth it. And then there's MLBtv. But the icing on the cake is getting to play Transformers: War For Cybertron. At my own place.

-We did the doorbuster thing to get it and despite how shameful I think it is to take part in that on such a major holiday...

-I personally don't care for the damn holiday to begin with. When I worked at the University bookstore, it was two days off that meant I missed out on two days of work and had to use two days of vacation that I'd rather use when, you know, your pals are a little more available instead of trapped with their families (note: they might like their families), or when cool places are open at reasonable hours and not filled with a bunch of maniacs. Now that I work at the comic store that does shipping, I miss out on a key date of my own shipping schedule and have to haul ass to catch up. Waaaaah.

-Oh, the maniacs. Fortunately, we did not get in line until ONLY a half hour or less before the doors opened. It went around the long box store structure into the parking lot. It was not terribly cold, but as a proud midwesterner I've made it a point to not complain about the cold and other things I have no control over and instead prepare for the worst, bundling up with layers and an actual winter coat. So I don't feel bad for anyone shivering in line. Especially if they were camping out. And people were camping out.

-Hi, it's Thanksgiving and I'm bucking the cultural demand that I spend time with my family so that I can sit in line all day to buy a TV that I probably don't need nor can afford. And I could probably pay the difference of whatever I'm saving if I were earning that money working instead of sitting in line.

The line moved quickly and orderly once the doors opened. As we neared the entrance, an employee of the box store who I'm sure would have been elsewhere announced that the giant 48" TVs were sold out. We were just there for the PS3. We grabbed one right away and got some BluRays. Most notably Inception and Ghostbusters.

-The true danger of course was getting nailed in the face by the people who snagged the TVs (already placed in the shopping carts by these poor employees forced to work on Thanksgiving) who continued to shop/run around full speed aimlessly. Imagine every idiot completely unaware of the bulky large item protruding face-high from their cart milling about and looking at everything around them instead of straight ahead. Not that they could, because of the TV in their cart blocking their view.

-We hung around for a tad bit longer. Maybe we were just delirious and in no real hurry. We got what we wanted and left around 12:30. We could have easily left earlier on our own. Getting out of the parking lot was no trouble, and we were home and safe and got a deal on the PS3, which I'm sure will be much much cheaper in a year or less. (They were out of them that afternoon.)

That was the doorbuster experience. No one died at this box store, unless you count tiny bits of our soul for taking part of it. I am still slightly embarrassed by doing so.

-Paul

Typing Typing Typing.

1. Click on the title of this threat to go to the HIRED GOONS site and listen to BIGGER THAN JEBUS, our new album.

2. I've been typing some stuff. The Voice 1st draft is 1/3rd done. Getting to the meat of it.

3. Got requests for EVERYONE LOVES GEARS. Writing the EVERYONE LOVES GEARS CHRISTMAS SPECIAL. It will be pure pain, I guarantee you. With a lot of voices.

4. Encouraged to do #3 and other filmed toys projects because a cohort at New Millennium Theatre helped me produce a stop-motion commercial for the next NMT play, Silent Night Of The Living Dead. Written by SJMHunter director Sean H., directed by regular King Vermin victim Chad W.

5. Thought I'd share. I want to post more on here so I figure I'd update you on the King Vermin's coming and goings.

Talk later. Buy my album.

-paul

Bigger Than Jebus on iTunes for $5. Scott Janus post show sum-up roundhouse kick.

So there, you can get Bigger Than Jebus online at iTunes for five bucks. It's also on Amazon MP3. Check it out.

I gotta say, I'm very, very, VERY proud of this album, even though I wrote the music to just ONE song. It was a LOT of work and I'm shamed that it took so long but it was totally worth it. These songs by Monty & Kodos are AMAZING and the mix ended up being fantastic. We seriously were considering throwing demos up on iTunes or giving them away for free as rough mixes and being done with it, but the end result was, again, worth the wait. So if you've been a fan of the Hired Goons, please check it out and buy a copy. Thanks.

SCOTT JANUS: MONSTER HUNTER just wrapped up. If you came by and saw it, thanks. It's a strange feeling to be over because...just because, I guess. It was a great show with a great cast but I don't have any elation over it. This isn't a blog where I talk about my feelings though so I'm just going to move on. I will say that we all had a lot of fun and that I learned a lot from the writing view. I'm also not the kind of person that's just going to hand something over to someone else and just sit back. This was both good and bad. The last thing I ever want to do is let anyone down and unfortunately I can be quite a jerk trying to defend something.

Another script project has been requested so I'll be working on that. An outline has been done and it looks good and so now I just have to write the darn thing. It's called THE VOICE and we'll see where and how it ends up.

I've typed too much. I will be back at the drawing table soon, so nyah.

BIGGER THAN JEBUS!

IT's FINALLY here!

Click on the title of this post to LISTEN TO THE WHOLE THING!

FINALLY!

(In other news: Script project has been greenlit. So I wrote out a character list and an outline/step by step plot. Should be fewer scenes than Scott Janus. Should be silly and fun and kinda dark in places. Will it get produced? Who knows.)

Chug-Chug Inaction strip - 10/18/2011

click on the link for the latest in Chug-Chug, courtesy of The Heckler.

I might miss Ozzie Guillen.

Click on the title for an actual article, not a comic strip, by me about my favorite White Sox skipper. This is baseball related, by the way. So if you don't care about that sort of thing, then DON'T click on the title.

Scott Janus: Monster Hunter rolls on. www.scottjanus.net.

-paul

Scott Janus trailer

Scott Janus: Monster Hunter! Sept. 23rd-Oct. 29th.

Click on the title for information about The Show I Wrote. Here's the latest promo video starring...um...

Scott Janus Testimonial #3

Scott Janus Testimonial #2

And some stills from a future episode:

Scott Janus: Monster Hunter!

Here's a video! A happy customer.

Some more "stills" from SJMH.

Here's a few more shots. Whee.

Some balls....are rollin'...

Okay, Scott Janus: Monster Hunter. Been working on that for a while. This image is a teaser from a video testimonial. Good? Bad? Who gives a poop?

I wish I had more but I'll have more in a few days, if you're keeping score and subscribed or whatever it is you do with blogs.

See you later,
-paul

I might be one of the bad influences...?

-paul

The Paul Show #85 - No one is taking this thing away from me.

The Paul Show #84 - Someone Gave Me Technology.

Hey, visit Bugs & Cranks to see where my baseball card collage comics ended up!

-Paul

Bugs & Cranks!

Click on the headline to see the new baseball humor site that I'm doing "Comics Made Out Of Baseball Cards" for. That's right, I'm doing those again, and for these guys. I got the hookup as mentioned in the last post through Kevin of the almighty Chin Music. They'll be reposting some of my older collage comics but I'll be making some new ones for this site, once a week. So, HOORAY for productivity, as now I have to be productive.

OTHER NEWS:

-Kodos of Hired Goons had a baby.

-I'll be hearing some new Hired Goons mixes at the end of the week. Rejoice!

-New Transformers movie: not all that insulting, but still kinda stupid.

-Scott Janus Monster Hunter. Coming soon.

-paul

Some news re: Comics Made Out Of Baseball Cards

I was in San Francisco last weekend and bumped into my pal Kevin, of whom I'm also a fan: he published Chin Music, a zine that covered rock & roll and baseball. That's like shooting me in a barrel. Anyway, I had sent him some "Comics Made Out Of Baseball Cards" and he forwarded them on to the editor of a baseball humor blog. Apparently there was some interest in carrying them, but I hadn't been contacted about it. When I saw Kevin last weekend, the powers that be were still interested. So I dropped the editors a line. Good news: some of the strips will start appearing soon, and I'll have some new ones to start doing, to appear once a week.

So, yay!

Hopefully I haven't jinxed it.

-paul

I said I'd update more but apparently I lied.

Click here for two new songs by Hired Goons. They're really good.

-paul

Welcome to the pooper-dome.

So I have been posting few updates, mostly the strips I do with the occasional band update. Since I haven't been drawing much, there have been no updates.

I have another blog on the live-journal thing, but for the last year I have just posted about the Transformers figures I've been buying. That's pretty boring and I don't plan to do that here.

But I should post something here occasionally. I love drawing my strips but I haven't had the time to even when the inspiration has been hot. I can blame the Wii (Damn you, Metroid Prime! Damn you to hell!), I can blame Netflix streaming (The Larry Sanders Show? I don't have anywhere to go!), I can blame the return of baseball, but I should just blame myself in the end. Shame. Shame on me.

I did write a script, however, and it is being produced as a play this fall (2011). Some projects I worked on through 2010 are coming to fruition finally in 2011. These projects have also taken me away from the drawing stuff.

And these projects could, I guess, fall under the King Vermin banner. The script is clearly a King Vermin product, it just so happens that a theater group is putting it on. So I will announce and update those things here.

I will post some here beyond what is on the twitter and the face-book. I will try to NOT write about my day or my feelings. Perhaps there is a short story in there. Perhaps there is a command to my legion of followers who worship me. Perhaps not. But if making a strip these days is lower on my priority, then I should find something to do with this space given to me by the blogger google gods.

UP & COMING PROJECTS

-The new HIRED GOONS album is called BIGGER THAN JEBUS. We hope to have it finished soon, and for realz. We are doing some final touches on it. It has been a long time coming and we're kinda mad at ourselves for taking so long. Various factors have been factored in. Did you know the first album took only five days to record and mix? Of course, this time around we jumped into the studio to record songs the band hadn't played live. Nearly half the album. So that was kind of rough on our schedule. Hopefully it will be worth it. Thirteen songs. Should be fun.

-Hired Goons will be opening for The Flaming Dames at Finn McCool's on Saturday, May 28th.

-I'm board op for CUBICLE, a play being put on by the same people who will be producing my script in the fall.

-I will soon be putting together The Paul Show #3.

-Free Comic Book Day: Saturday, May 7th. G-Mart Comics (2641 N. Kedzie Ave.). Stop on by.

Okay, that's it for now. We'll see how this actual blog use for my formerly strictly comics blog site goes.

#83 - Newt: The Greatest Patriot!

#82 - Awards show.

Yes, I started drawing this during the Academy Awards. And I just got finished inking it now. Hey, I'm tryin' here. More strips hopefully soon.

Chug-Chug Inaction strips

I'm in the middle of the 2nd Hired Goons album (well, past the middle, I guess we'll be done in a few weeks) and inking a Ron & Andy strip. So I've been busy. I also draw strips for The Heckler, which are now starting to appear on www.theheckler.com, so I'd appreciate if you visited their site and looked at my strips and did the "like" thing. Um, these are baseball related, so if you don't care about sports, nevermind. Click on the title of this post to see the latest one.

The Paul Show #81 - this only happened once.