This journal entry is my 5 minute break. Heh.

On the run today indeed… up until 4am at a meeting discussing everything that needs to happen before San Diego Comic-Con, then up at 8am, get ready and off to the print house to make sure the Exalted prints are spot on. Color corrections right before our eyes and the prints went to press as we walked away. I grabbed a couple uncut sheets as a souvenier:

On the left is a Street Fighter print we had done at the same time… good ol’ Dark Ryu. Obviously the prints will be trimmed and sorted before we pick them up on Monday.

Now a flurry of e-mails and phone calls through the afternoon mobilizing the stuff we talked about last night and keeping track of a couple new projects and then it’s off to dinner with Erik and a gent from Diamond Distribution to talk comics and books. By tonight, I’ll be in need of some serious sleepy sleep. My throat’s been acting up. I think my body is fighting a cold, so I need to beat this before we drive out to Ohio Tuesday night for Origins.

Exalted #0 is available now from Hero Fix. They send out deliveries within 48 hours, which means you could end up getting the book before people at Origins do.

The zero issue and the Jasara art print are also available as a pre-order from White Wolf’s Online Catalogue:

Exalted #0
Exalted Art Print: Jasara

Both those items will start shipping from White Wolf’s warehouse right after Origins next weekend.

Other questions are answered in the Exalted Comic FAQ.

The next article about the creation of the Exalted comic is up:

The Publishing Gauntlet – Part Six

The art process and importance of good panel-to-panel storytelling. I also reveal the guest artist who’s going to be drawing the ‘History of Exalted’ back-up story in issue #1 and it’s a doozy.

The solicitation info for the Previews catalogue got sent off yesterday. Exalted #1 will be solicited for October release. It feels a bit crazy. The issue one cover is pretty much done and it kicks all kinds of ass. I’ll show it off later this week.

I saw Batman Begins last night with some friends and ran into more friends at the theatre in a nice little coincidence.

I remember seeing the 1989 Batman movie with my brother. I took him to the flick as his birthday present and we had a blast. After that was the first time I ever read a DC comic. Up until that point I’d been a real Marvel zombie.

Flash forward 16 years and here we are.

I may have nostalgia for the original Tim Burton film but Batman Begins is the best Batman that’s been put to film so far. The casting works incredibly well. All of the characters have a very strong sense of self that keeps the movie entertaining even though it takes over an hour before even Batman appears in costume. It’s character-heavy, menacing and well built with some really effective interactions. The supporting cast makes the whole thing click – Lt. Gordon (Gary Oldman), Alfred (Michael Caine), Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman) and Ducard (Liam Neeson) in particular really knock it out of the park.

In fact the Bruce Wayne scenes work so well that when Batman is in costume kicking ass he’s oddly less compelling. I think that was also hurt by the scatter-shot editing and shaky cam they used for the action shots, which projected up on the big screen just made it look like visual jumble instead of sleek and cool fighting.

The plot has holes and there are scenes that could’ve been done better, but the characters are so sharp you can let the little things slide. It’s a smart comic book movie in the caliber of Spider-Man 2, X-Men 2 and Sin City as far as quality of adaptation. It’s really good.

A 13-year-old Zub would’ve been hypnotized all over again and gone absolutely comic book crazy.

Maybe I’ll ask Joe if he wants me to take him to Batman Begins as his birthday present this year…

Hey Jim,

Remember how you used to enjoy sketching and just fooling around in Photoshop trying to make stuff look neat? Back before it was part of your job?

No, neither do I and that’s a damn shame.

You’re pretty stressed with all these projects, screwed up schedules, weird sleep patterns and upcoming cons. You don’t have time to indulge in art for yourself or just messing around with some different techniques. You have stuff to do, people to see and sleep to catch up on.

Screw it, I did a sketch up anyways:

Remember I told you about Gala’s wonderful turn of a phrase?

We were talking about Erik’s wedding on Sunday…

Gala: “Dinner isn’t served until 7:30? Man, I sure hope they have some of those… *pause*… pumpkin wumpkin dribblets… you know what I mean?”

Jim: “You mean appetizers?”

Gala: “Yeah.”