I went to the college yesterday to do a presentation for high school students touring the college. Most of the high schools tours are pretty awful and the students seem to be there just so that they can get out of their regular classes. This group actually wanted to know things about animation and asked questions. It actually went quite well.

I gave them a tour of the animation wing, talked to them a bit about drawing and still-framed through part of What’s Opera, Doc? to show them how individual drawings mesh together to create motion.

There was some interesting interactions from the students… and a couple weird ones worth noting here so I don’t forget them:

Student: I heard from a friend that if you fail your first semester of college or university you have to pay an extra penalty fee to get back in.

Zubby: Not as far as I’m aware… I mean, other than having to pay your tuition over again, assuming you get back in.

———-

Zubby: The great thing about these Looney Tune cartoons is how timeless they are. You focus on the fact they’re entertaining, not when they were created. Does anyone know what year ‘What’s Opera, Doc?’ first came out? It’s older than you think.

Different Student: Old… 1987?

Zubby: Nope. Old, old. You’re off by 30 years. 1957 actually.

———-

Another Student: Is it true they took Bugs Bunny cartoons off TV because he’s running around naked?

Zubby: Uh……… no.

Thank you so much to everyone who posted or e-mailed about my New York trip going kaput. It was a harrowing day but things are slowly getting better.

Thursday night I stayed completely off my feet and chilled out, taking some pain killers and resting as much as possible.

I went to chiropractor/physio and my doctor there realigned my spine, initiating some of the most audible crunches either of us had ever heard. I awkwardly limped my way in and carefully walked my way out of his office. I’ll probably go back on Monday for another adjustment and to start planning an exercise regiment for strengthening the offending muscles.

Since then I’ve been resting a bunch but not so much that I let myself stiffen up. A couple friends have stopped by to help and my girlfriend took me out for dinner last night so I wouldn’t have to cook. Other people have called to check up on me and offer help as well. You guys and gals are incredible.

Work wise people are also being amazing. Our business contacts have been very understanding and we’ve set up a bunch of appointments for the coming week via phone conference. Our book buyer meetings are being shifted to the New York Book Fair happening in a few months. The literary agent I was set to meet with was also very reasonable and is going to take a look at my pitch package via mail so that we can talk about possibilities later this summer.

All in all, it could’ve been much worse. If we would’ve gone and I’d made the injury worse in New York I would’ve been really stuck and without even the comforts of home. I made the right decision, as hard as it is to imagine the comic book social going on without me lurking about.

When I posted my airport tale of woe on Thursday I figured most people wouldn’t even want to read through the sea of text I’d spit out. That so many did and responded to it really surprised me, honestly. You all kick incredible amounts of ass.

Holy crap, today sucked.

Up all night at the office working and getting ready to leave for the New York Comicon. Erik and I hit that lack of sleep where things are funnier than they should be. Just after 4 am our taxi arrives and we head off to the airport. We’re actually quite organized and, barring the need for a nap, we’re ready to rock. We zip through security clearance and chill at our gate.

The new terminal has seats crafted by some vengeful bastard uninterested in comfort of any kind, so I curl up on the floor and snooze there instead. When Erik shakes me awake, we can hear the final boarding call for our flight. Apparently the dozens of passengers sitting near us and the airline people at the desk 10 feet away didn’t think to wake us even as we almost miss our flight. But, luckily, we get on board. Looking out the window, we see big blobs of snow falling from the sky.

I doze off again until an announcement comes over the PA that we have to get the wings of the plane de-iced. Twenty minutes goes by for de-icing, then another thirty minutes waiting for a clear lane for take off. We wait so long that another announcement pops up telling us we need to de-ice the wings again and get more fuel. Our hour and a half flight has already taken most of that time just sitting on the runway.

We wait another half an hour for the fuel truck to arrive, but it never comes. They eventually tell us the entire flight is canceled and we have to head back in to the terminal. We’re frustrated but we’re told there will be an attendant waiting when we get off who can get us rebooked on the earliest flight possible to New York. Our book distributor meetings are today, so it’s crucial we get to New York by 1 pm. Another half an hour goes by as we’re told we can’t disembark the plane until the attendant arrives. When we’re finally let off there’s no attendant at all, just a security person telling us to “Go left” down the hallway… leading us straight towards customs.

Now we’re snared in the line for Canada Customs even though we never left the tarmac in Toronto. None of the staff directing lines seems to care that we’re losing valuable time and that we didn’t actually travel to the States. Every one we ask passes the buck and tells us to follow the line. After that we’re directed to the baggage area to retrieve our checked luggage but no one has any clue which bay it’s going to show up in. We find out the snowfall caused only a couple of flights to be canceled – this isn’t a major catastrophe of passengers overwhelming the terminal’s resources or anything like that, they’re just incompetent, unsympathetic and rude. We complain about the lack of information and a staff member tells us it’s a ‘weather issue’ but it’s not. I have no problem with canceling our flight for safety reasons. My frustration is a complete lack of information or proper process once that flight has been canceled. No one is even remotely trying to help us get back on schedule.

We finally track down our luggage in a carousel that never gets labeled with our flight. I lift my suitcase off and feel a horrifying icy stab up my middle as I strain a muscle in my lower back. My body was a bit tense the night before and now I’m in 100% absolute agony.

We’re told to head up to the main terminal area and grab one of the white phones on the far side of the building to rebook our flight. Having no other choice, we slowly make our way there as I limp along. We can’t even find a wheelchair or trolley to help us.

Erik gets bounced to 3 different people on the phone and waits on hold for about 45 minutes. The time wasted has wiped out our chances at getting a flight before the evening, negating the pre-convention graphic novel conference and blowing all our major meetings. Thursday was the killer day, the rest of the con was more about general social stuff. Toronto’s spiffy new airport terminal has NO chairs or benches to sit on any where in sight, so I lie slumped on the floor near the phones trying to find an angle that doesn’t burn like fire across my spine. It’s been almost seven hours since we arrived at the airport and everything has gone wrong.

We book a flight any ways and resolve ourselves to waiting around the terminal all day. We’re exhausted and need food. Erik goes over all the stuff we’re going to miss and compares it to what’s left over the rest of the weekend. Almost everything for Friday to Sunday is optional for him – without Thursday there’s almost no point in going at all. I’m going to miss a meeting I had with a literary agent but the rest is no big deal and my body hurts so bad I want to throw up.

We give up.

The full flight cost gets refunded after another frustrating half hour wait on the phone. I would’ve been laid up in the hotel for half the weekend any ways. It was a lost cause. At least we don’t waste money on New York taxis, meals, booze and all kinds of other incidental costs.

I just woke up a few minutes ago after shambling home and crashing in bed. My body aches and I feel like garbage, I haven’t eaten since noon and my packed luggage is sitting in the living room. I still have to phone and e-mail business contacts to let them know why I won’t be seeing them in New York.

What a waste.
Time for more Advil to keep the muscle spasms at bay.

Sometimes, just sometimes, work stuff flows really nicely.

One of our no-time-high-stress projects just got handed in. The client e-mailed me less than five minutes after I sent the files to rave at how amazing the artwork turned out. On a big project like this, that kind of feedback is a godsend. Whew

In other news, you must read this post by Shaenon Garrity. Not only is Shaenon a 110% awesome person, she’s also wonderfully perceptive and drills right to the core of male nerd ugliness. Read the comments too… some super sharp commentary in there.

——
Best comment:
I’ve seen this before in “How do I get my girlfriend into sports?” and “How do I get my girlfriend into video games?”

Nobody ever seems to get the unifying answer to all “How do I get my girlfriend into…” threads and that’s stop thinking of your hobby as a gendered thing and start thinking of it as something you like because it fits your particular entertainment needs. It’s not “girls like this…,” it’s “you might like this because you enjoy mysteries/strategy games/true crime/international competitions…”
——

That totally hits the nail on the head. You can’t hook people on comics/video games/RPGs or any other nerdy pursuit just by showing them what you like. Understand their entertainment needs and cater appropriately. If you asked my Dad if he was a video gamer, he’d say “No”… but he loves Bookworm because it’s very similar to Scrabble, one of his favorite board games. It’s not about what I like, it’s what entertains him. Understand that and you can hook anyone on geekly pursuits.

Also understand that the pendulum swings both ways. Are you ready to take up all of your significant other’s hobbies? If not, why not? Why do they have to dig in to all your nerdy past times?

I made this.

I cooked up a nice steak dinner.

Lime-Garlic-Pepper seasoned steak and mushrooms, stuffing and a freshly tossed salad with a bottle o’ wine. Rock.

If someone would’ve told me in college that I’d actually be able to cook steak decently some day, I’d have called them a liar. The wonderful simplicity of my mother being at home and raising me meant that I never had to understand things such as how a stove worked, what order food is cooked in or how to season properly, let alone come up with good meal combinations or shop for quality fresh produce. The rude awakening I had when I moved away to Alberta initially degenerated me to a state where I would constantly eat out or just get by on student-worthy garbage at home. It would take quite a while for me to figure out how to cook properly, sometimes with hilarious results.

I’ve steadily gotten better at cooking over the years but rarely have a chance to make up a nice meal. Cooking for one just doesn’t have the same pizazz. I appreciate entertaining guests and want to get even better at it. It’s a hard thing to do, especially with so much work stuff on the go but when I can pull the elements together it’s quite a gratifying experience.

Is it too nerdy-domestic for me to want a killer kitchen when I get my own house? Does wanting to cook all manners of whip ass food mean I have to hand in my macho-male membership card or is the concept of guy-in-the-kitchen actually sexy?

I’ve been invited to contribute a one strip original comic of Makeshift Miracle for the Comic Festival 2007 indy comic showcase for Free Comic Book Day being organized by Chris Butcher at the Beguiling. I’m pretty excited to be a part of it. I’ve got to make sure my contribution holds up amongst the great people they have lined up for it.

Sketching up an idea today, it felt weird and cool drawing a new Makeshift page after all this time. My first idea is a simple scene that fits in between two pages of the original story; a brief exchange that’s not crucial but still has a neat sense of atmosphere to it. I haven’t decided if I should draw/color it up exactly the same style as the book or really blow it out with what I can do now in Photoshop. I’ll just have to see how it develops.

Projects are moving forward at a brisk pace. It’s hit that fine line between ‘hectic’ and ‘adventurous’ that I actually enjoy. There’s a steady stream of challenges coming in the door but we’re conquering them.

Portfolio hand-ins for the college and upcoming convention stuff will ramp up the pressure but I’ve got a pretty good idea of what’s coming now. I finally feel like I understand and can handle it all, even if I don’t know the specifics of how each part will go. There’s a comfort in finally accepting that this is what I do for a living. It’s not a stop-gap or holdover until I find something else.

On a personal level, things are also very good for a change.
I’m finally dating again and it’s going well.

There, I said it.

I did some dating over the summer and it was bumpy-good-difficult. I spent time with good people but I honestly think I tried to head back in to the whole thing prematurely. Even if my last full-blown relationship ended in July 2004 (but then skidded along in a weird almost-Limbo for a good year and a half afterwards), mentally I still wasn’t ready. My confidence was all over the place and the work stuff I’d piled on top to keep myself distracted from dwelling on it made that kind of socializing even more difficult.

I know my friends and family have been wondering if/when I would head back in to relationship waters. ‘Subtle’ inquiries, talk of setting me up with people… well meaning but stressful. I had to be comfortable with just being ‘me’ before I could look at opening up again on that level. It’s not the same as being confident while teaching or socializing in general. I think my confidence in those other two areas lead people (myself included) to believe that everything was settled and I was ready to dive back in to relationship stuff.

I don’t talk about my relationships much, especially in this journal. My past two steady girlfriends were dead-set against me talking about them in my journal/old e-mail newsletters. That was at the same time as I was just starting to get involved with internet community stuff, so it set the tone for my silence on the subject.

Looks like our contacts are too effective, heh.

We’ve got an extra hotel room for the New York Comicon… anyone know anyone needing a room? Please let me know as soon as possible if there’s interest. Contact me via jimzub(AT symbol)gmail.com