2 am and I’m having trouble sleeping. I hit a really good stride of getting things done and when I wake up the week will go into overdrive. It’s my 29th birthday on Wednesday and today’s the day we announce the Exalted comic book.

Yeah. You heard me.

The Exalted comic book. The one coming out from Udon spearheaded by a crazy guy named Zub.

The insane project I’ve had to keep a secret since last summer as we negotiated the contract, put together the team and worked our fingers to the bone to put together an awesome summer preview issue before the first full issue comes out this Fall.

Man, it felt good to finally be able to type that. You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to post that.

Even though the press release goes out today and the convention-exclusive zero issue is headed off to the printer, it doesn’t even feel real. Good times and bad as we got this crazy thing moving and now I don’t even know how to describe it. Every step of the way on this book has been a whirlwind.

Exalted fans, comic fans, RPG fans, fantasy fans, anime fans… this book has so much potential and I don’t want to see it squandered. In the current market no comic is a sure thing and fantasy in particular has had a hard go of it. The creative team has put their all into this and it’s my job to help make it a success. It’s amazing and terrifying at the same time.

I felt the same kind of fear when I launched Makeshift Miracle, only now I’ve got a half dozen other people on my little plane as we run it towards the cliff edge to see if it will fly. Instead of just worrying about me, myself and I… I’ve got these other creative people and two companies on board wishing, stressing, dreaming and working with me to see if we can soar.

This week is going to be all about letting people know. Like a broken record I’ll be sending out press releases and talking to websites about interviews and exposure. Getting the word out and showing just enough of the artwork to get people on board without tipping my hand completely. Trying to do the self-promotion dance without coming on too strong. Nothing like a bit of pressure to find out what you’re made of. I won’t mind if you help me spread the word or shake your media contacts where appropriate… 🙂

I’ll be posting up little tidbits on my livejournal every so often so the people who follow along here can see this project come together and watch how it all plays out. I’ll try to post links to interviews or pics when they pop up. Besides the new Exalted comic forum, the Zub livejournal will sort of be like Exalted comic HQ…. man, that’s a scary thought.

The roller coaster summer begins today. The safety bar has me locked in and my stomach’s just starting to lurch as the coaster drops. Dizzy, euphoric and a little scared. I hope I make it through the loop-dee-loops without throwing up.

Okay, got to sleep now.

Crazy cover linework by Chris Stevens:

The press release

Woke up and my stomach is now merely irritable rather than “ready to kill”. I’m quite groggy.

Browsing the usual internet jumble and I’m amazed, though I really shouldn’t be. The anonymity of the web means, as always, people can just post whatever they want without any filters whatsoever. It sometimes amazes me but usually just makes me shake my head. In many ways I’m glad that I decided to have a bit more of a “public face” on the internet. It makes me accountable for what I say and reminds me to think before I type instead of just issuing forth the first thing that hits the keyboard. I just do my best to imagine what the conversation would go like “in person” and work from there. It’s shocking how much more civil my posts become at that point. This morning I stopped myself from commenting three or four times already on various websites thanks to that wonderful filter.

The rest of the weekend looks like it will be a bit more social and relaxing, assuming my stomach behaves. Next week I start the project-equivalent of an epic song and dance that should prove quite interesting.

I don’t believe in Friday the 13th bad luck and all that. But today just got frustrating.

Worked my butt off for the past week and buggered up my sleep schedule something fierce. Now this evening I’d intended on heading downtown for a nice meal and then meeting up with friends for Kung Fu Fridays (a local movie theatre showing kick ass Kung Fu cinema). Cool plan, feeling good. I finish up dinner and soon after my stomach decides it’s going to be an unruly bastard. Mix that with a sharp cold wind smacking me in the face down Queen Street and my head started throbbing to boot.

Stumbled off the subway and am now home and in that terrible state of my stomach staying calm for 15 minutes and then tearing me open for the next 10 or so. Rinse and repeat. It’s like my body is punishing me for finally managing to find some free time.

Three days of brutal messed up sleep schedule has taken its toll. When I’m supposed to sleep I’ve been toiling over a dozen things in my brain and when I’m awake I’ve been a working robot. I napped twice during the middle of the day yesterday and floated through the interactions between naps, making the whole day feel 4 times as long and 4 times as surreal.

At one point I had a dream about Gal and I looking after baby chickens in the back seat of a car. Gal had some sort of makeshift chicken fence/barrier between the back and front seats to make sure the chicks didn’t get into the front. I think she was spreading chicken feed over the seats at one point. My brain is goo…

In the midst of the haze, I finalized work scheduling and the artists handed in the last of the line art for one of the card games. The sheer amount of shit to do at this point is barbaric and yet it’s somehow all getting finished and finished well. Productivity has become zen. Kind of funny, especially when my head’s all spaced out.

Free Comic Book Day was a brief break from the insanity. Hung out with Scott and chatted comics biz, saw Keen again, bumped shoulders with Attila and Ramon and bought the first Conan hardback with Frezetta-esque amazing artwork by Cary Nord. A good day.

Gal painted up a card image a few days ago that made me go ‘Damn!’. Totally professional finish on it with energy and confidence. The padawan is gonna kick the master’s ass unless I get my rear in gear. Sometimes it feels like I’m a teacher, not an artist…

Watched ‘The Triplettes of Belleville’ while munching on pizza yesterday. Even if I wasn’t in a sleep-assed haze that movie would’ve been ultra surreal. Amazing animation set over the a strangely paced story. Good, but hard to wrap my brain around.

Okay… maybe sleep, maybe food… maybe I don’t know.

PS: Oh God, it’s becoming clear to me now… this is how my boss Erik gets through every week.

As we head into con season once again and the Toronto Comicon is done… I present, with a mix of excitement and fear… the shows I’m attending this summer:

June 30-July 3: Origins – Columbus, Ohio
July 13-17: San Diego Comic Con – San Diego, California
Aug 18-21: Gen Con Indy – Indianapolis, Indiana
Aug 26-28: Canadian National Comic Expo – Toronto, Ontario
Sept 2-5: Dragon*Con – Atlanta, Georgia

Also, possibly at
May 27-29: Toronto Comics Arts Festival – Toronto, Ontario and
Aug 5-7: WizardWorld Chicago – Chicago, Illinois

So, a few more weeks to actually get things done before cons, weddings, deadlines and general insanity take hold.

Con season slowly begins.

Spent the weekend at the Paradise Comic Con here in Toronto. I hadn’t really anticipated much coming of it and even though sales at the Udon booth were sluggish I ended up enjoying it quite a bit.

Friday: Vegged out for a few hours after the booth was all set up. Adam ”Speakeasy” Fortier threw a great get together at the Bishop after the show closed. Good people, good booze and good conversation. It was nice seeing folks and feeling like it was actually possible to relax for an evening. Highlights included Tom Fowler describing the ins and outs of DC comics and talking at length with “other Scott” from Scholastic.

The basement of the Bishop was bursting with comic kids

Saturday: The show clipped along at a pretty good pace. Chris from the Beguiling recommended some kick ass comics for me to dive into including Scott Pilgrim and Lost At Sea by Mal, Sharknife by Rey and Daisy Kutter by Kazu. It’s nice seeing this kind of variety coming out of the comic industry even while the industry trudges through tough times.

I ended up hanging out with a bunch of different people over the course of the day. It was fun bouncing between independent artists and mainstream ones, getting a good mix of what’s out there. Meeting Kean Soo and chatting about webcomics, indy artists and Flight was excellent, as was yucking it up with the Hive boys. When the show finally wrapped up for the day a slew of us descended on the Chun King Chinese restaurant on Spadina and ate ourselves silly. By the time we arrived at the official con party, I was unbelievably tired and ended up cutting out early.

Sunday: Waking up early to man the booth for the last day of the show, traffic was extremely slow but socializing and reading was good. Hanging with David Mack and Adi Granov chatting about how Adi could create his own country called Granovia was memorable. David’s always got a crazy amount of energy at these shows… it’s infectious.

A crisp morning before the show starts.

Last night Gal and I had dinner, drinks and played a few card games with two Mikes from Halifax. Mike Drake was someone we knew from our days shopping at Strange Adventures while we lived on the east coast. Seeing him at the con was great and we decided to invite them out for an evening of kooky banter and hanging out. Tipsy and amused, they left around midnight. Afterwards I read until falling asleep around 2 am.

Today’s more project management juggling, a chiropractor appointment and ideally getting some decent sleep tonight.

Just got back from the “Evening with Warren Ellis” event that the Beguiling had on tonight. It was weird seeing over a hundred people crowded around a bar listening to a comic book writer chat it up. It kind of exemplifies the type of audience and broad market appeal that Warren’s work has. He chatted about anything and everything, covering all sorts of bases about the comic industry, politics, celebrities and interesting things he’s read about. The formal speech he had at the start was decent but when the Q&A began his wit really kicked into gear and it was a joy.

Highlights included:

– The differences between Marvel and DC a decade ago and today.
– Him describing his first meeting with Patrick Stewart.
– An impersonation of Alan Moore discussing his eating habits, smoking spliffs and the magic cave under his house.
– His understanding of the importance of the internet and how technology is changing the way media is being delivered and processed.
– Him comparing Canadians with the Welsh.
– Him describing George Bush and Tony Blair locked into a death match in an 8’ x 8’ room filled with rabid weasels who had the shits.

You got a real sense of how well read he is and how confident he is in his own abilities without coming across as a monstrous ego. He’s constantly got a half dozen or more projects on the go at any point and seems to be readily generating a wellspring of new stories to tell.

It makes me want to tell more stories. It makes me want to have a voice and create things above and beyond the projects I’m assigned. Before I was so entrenched in the web comic scene, which itself is a weird offshoot of indy comics and self-publishing. Now I’m up to my hips in commercial properties and work for the “big guys”. I think I need to balance between those extremes rather then throw all my eggs in one basket or the other.

What the heck is this?

Marvel’s marketing department must be on some sort of blitz to keep increasing their revenues at all costs. I wonder who decided on that line up… Spider-Girl rather then any of the established Marvel females, no X-Men in there and the Rhino? Very, very odd.

bunny_babe, ghostyo, orkillme and other interested peoples… you ARE going to an evening with Warren Ellis tomorrow night, right? Right? You’re Ellis fans as far as I know. Correct me if I’m wrong.

Let me know… hope to see you there.

Okay… I don’t normally post random links to funny things as part of my livejournal, but this one is very strange and very amusing…

Scroll down… farther… farther… my God, so many photos and her face NEVER changes expression! It’s burned into my BRAIN!