Zub Tales

The Good: The college asked me to go to Ottawa this weekend for the Animation Festival to respresent the school, on their dime.

The Bad: They booked the airfare and hotel for me before clarifying that I was actually able to juggle going with the crazy amount of work Udon has crushing down on us… and the flight leaves tomorrow afternoon.

The Ugly: The breakneck pace of the next 24 hours making sure everyone knows what needs to be done while I’m gone while my boss Erik moves his house at the same time.

PS: DAMONK and MEGS (or anyone who knows them and can poke them to see this)! E-mail me at jimzub(at symbol)gmail.com to let me know your new contact info and phone number-age so we can hook up while I’m in Ottawa!

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The Good 2: I busted out some artwork for a client and it’s some of the best stuff I’ve ever done. Good confidence booster and reminds me that I can put out some good stuff when I push. I wish I could show everyone but it’s under wraps for now.

The Bad 2: The client likes it and wants more.

The Ugly: Me, after I get all this stuff done.

I have no idea why this stupid little Flash game is so amusing:

Play Nanaca Crash

It’s in Japanese but the site above has translations on how to play. It’s very strange and oddly entertaining as you send some poor schmuck sailing through the air and keep his body crashing along to maximise the distance.

My current record:

I don’t know who “Mr. Goring” is or why a Polish lady leaves answering machine messages for me sometimes… who ever used to have my phone number apparently didn’t tell a lot of people what their new number was and/or got his number on a pile of call-lists. When I came back from Indianapolis there were 3 messages from that lady babbling away about something like she was having a full blown conversation with my recorder.

I know the ad agencies can’t read this, but maybe they can feel it through osmosis –

I don’t want the things you’re selling. Not newspaper subscriptions, aluminum siding, water filtration systems, grocery delivery services, free samples or anything else. I like my phone number. It’s easy to remember and it rolls off the tongue. Clients know to call it and I don’t want to change it. Don’t pollute my phone line with early Saturday morning phone calls that wake me up asking for a guy who hasn’t had this number for at least a year while you try to sell me stuff no one cares about.

If you have ever bought something through unsolicited phone call advertising – I place a tiny hex on you. You have helped keep these people in business. Tell your lonely grandparents who just want to talk to somebody (because their family ignores them now that they’re old) that buying from call center people is not the alternative. They’re just prolonging the gasping lifeline for a useless form of advertising created by heartless bastards.

This groggy public service message brought to you by Zub.

I went home to visit my parents for an evening on Wednesday. It was quiet, simple and way too short. I could tell they were really happy to see me and sad that I could only stay the night and dash off early the next day.

It’s cool watching them settled in to retirement. Worrying about little things around the house instead of job stuff or money problems. Dad puttering doing stuff he’s said he would do since I was a kid. Their bookshelves have years worth of momenetos and photographs… my brother and I growing up, trips they’ve been on and people they’ve known. Parts of the house feel very much the same while other parts get overhauled or changed. The dishwasher is still there for now – 1960’s green with chrome edging – but the rest of the kitchen is almost all updated. Old cups and mugs are now mixed in with new glasses and things.

The backetball net and backboard on the driveway are still standing. The pole is rotting slightly and the paint is flaking off the back of it but Dad’s still got it there for now. We used to play 21 against each other at least once a week. The 3-point line we made created a little worn spot in the lawn that used to drive my Mom nuts… it’s grown over now but I bet Dad still knows where he’s stored the ball and air pump.

Dad’s office is still piled high with books and papers, his old desk covered in knick knacks and school supplies. The Commodore 64 in the corner has a bit of dust on it, but I bet it still works… Load “*”,8,1… heh. He’s got a shelf where he puts a copy of each published thing I’ve done that I give him a copy of. He’s bookmarked the pages with my artwork on it so he can show people who come to visit. I don’t have my published stuff even remotely as organized. There’s a Makeshift Miracle mug on top of their mircowave too. Heh.

They’re planning trips now. They go some place new about once a year. Cruises, bus trips, car trips… the occasional resort. Dad’s keeping the promise he made to my mother while they went through hard times raising two kids: once we retire we’ll really travel and enjoy life.

And they are. Sometimes I didn’t think it would happen, but it is.

It’s not perfect. They both have their “isms”. Stubborn in their patterns and their ways. Some of it would drive me nuts if I still lived with them. They’ll both do their thing and the other one will look at me out of the corner of their eye with a “Did you see that? He/she is ALWAYS like that!” look. But it’s tinged with a grin and they both know it. Sometimes a mess and sometimes screwing up big time, but getting through each day and enjoying what they have as well.

It’s nostalgic, strange, whimsical, sad and wonderful all at the same time.

Oh shit! Where did the last two weeks go?

Oh yeah… I got back from Dragon Con in Atlanta and came down with ‘Post-Con Body Says “I Give Up” Sickey-Sick’ and then rolled right into a crapload of work and a new semester starting at Seneca. Madness… all madness. Now I’m healthier and completely sleep deprived, the perfect mode for rambling on my livejournal.

Please enjoy the following con photos while I discuss things completely unrelated to them. The disconnect from the photos to the text will mirror my surreal self right now well.

Sweet! Exalted characters at the con! An Abyssal and Solar back-to-back.

Let’s see… Exalted #1 heads off to the printers soon. Holy crap how did the time fly so fast? The cover for issue #4 is currently getting done for solicitation, the script for #3 is done, pages for #2 are rolling in and #1 is in final color and edits… so insane. I’ll have some sneak peeks at the Cary Nord back up story and kick ass pages from Noi soon to build more hype up for the first issue release. Look forward to it.


Predator Darth Maul – It’s like geeks with a blender.
When the Predator alone is NOT cool enough!

I bought a new computer as a gift to myself for finishing the Con Circuit Challenge. This machine is ridiculous… killer processor and 2 gigs of RAM makes me a very happy boy. This puppy is crunching huge files quite well and I have enough hard drive space to keep gobs of work files actually organized no matter how bloated they seem to get.


YARRR!

After getting ultra-sick I went on a mad cleaning spree to get the germs and dust out of my place. I don’t think the apartment has been this clean since moving in. It can’t possibly last but it feels good at the moment. Dusted, mopped, vacuumed…. the whole sheebang. You know it’s bad when I have to write about a proud cleaning moment like this 🙂


No!

Brian sent the art order for Exalted 2nd edition today. My eyes are still bleeding from it. This book is going to have so much artwork it’s insane. What are those people thinking? There is no shortage of art to be done… there never is, but this is just out to lunch. I hope you fans are happy because the art and production teams are gonna be dyin’ for all of you. This book is an earthquake of RPG. You are not prepared.

No, you think you are… but you’re not.

Best product I saw at the cons.
A book about other books ABOUT chess!
I’LL TAKE TWO!!

What else?
Good comics I’ve recently read – We3 (thanks Chris!), Conan, Powers and Ultimates.
Why can’t Serenity the movie open now? Like now now…


BEST photo – Surly Mega Man!

Just imagine a groggy Zub looking like Mega Man up there when I’m tired or giddy like a schoolgirl when I get my third, fourth and fifth wind of the day.

Okay, more updates soon. I promise.

The Canadian National Expo came and went in a flash, wedged between Gen Con and next week’s Dragon Con. Erik and I can take the Toronto show for granted since it’s our home town gig, but now we know better. The Expo kicked ass! Even Friday evening, traditionally the slow day of the show, was bustling with customers and fans.

There was lots of people, tons of business and great feedback on Exalted and Udon as a whole. Good people, friends, hanging out and lots of chatter. With all the work stress and traveling, it was great to have the con experience but still be able to sleep in my own bed at night.

Less chatter and more photos behind the cut!

From Neil Gaiman’s blog:

“I walked in to the office last night to find my daughters (aged 10 and 20) both transfixed by Glen Feron’s Art of Retouching website. They would click on individual photographs, and mouse on them to see the original photo, mouse off to look at the photoshopped version that appeared in the advert or the magazine, and watch as human beings, with all the saggy bits that human beings have, would reshape or change into vessels of pure desire. I’m not sure that they’ll ever believe in photographs ever again, and that can only be a good thing.”

While I was away at Gen Con, it seems my boss Erik was having some fun of his own…

…like his ceiling flooding! Check these crazy photos out!

Gen Con down. Two more to go and the summer con tornado is complete.

Deciding to leave a little early on Wednesday, I packed up the car and zoomed down the 401. With boxes of Exalted #0 and the art prints in my back seat, I thought for sure that I’d be hassled at the border about the items, the con and selling stuff in the States. The border guard didn’t care about that. He wanted my sandwich… another glorious one I made up on a croissant.

Guard: What’s in the mini-cooler there?

Zub: Uh… a couple cans of pop and a sandwich I made so I didn’t have to stop for fast food.

Guard: What kind of sandwich?

Zub: Roast chicken, salami, cucumber, marble cheese… uh, mustard?

Guard: Is the salami made from beef or pork?

Zub: *looks around for a camera recording this as part of some joke* I don’t know…

Guard: Sir, Canadian beef is still outlawed in the United States. Since we can’t prove if that is pork rather than beef salami, I’m going to have to confiscate your sandwich if you want to travel into the US.

Zub: You’re gonna… what? Are you serious? You’re just gonna eat it, aren’t you? Can’t I just take the salami off?

Guard: I am very serious. I’m not going to eat it. You can watch me dispose of it here in this trash bin. I’m afraid I can’t risk Canadian beef contamination.

Then he threw out my sandwich and I passed through the border with boxes and boxes of product for the con. Such a strange start to my trip.

Imagine this for about 10 hours. Well that, and me singing off-key to the radio.

After that, the drive was uneventful. I arrived in Indianapolis in time for dinner, checked into my hotel and met up with the Wolfies for dinner at Buca di Beppos. At dinner, Will got crazy tipsy and dumped half a glass of Cianti in my lap. I also discovered that I’m in the Special Thanks part of the Lancea Sanctum book, immortalizing an in-joke from Bay Con last year. Good food and chatter all around. Afterwards was meeting up with a bunch of industry folk and drinking until the wee hours.


Panoramic compilation of photos taken from my hotel room window.

Thursday kicked off with a bang. Mage the Awakening won’t be hitting stores for a couple weeks, but White Wolf had 75 copies per day to sell at their booth. They went – fast – inhumanely fast. On Day One the gang wasn’t prepared for the booth assault that followed. The 75 allotment sold out within 10 minutes. On the other days when things were running more efficiently, they went in 7-8 minutes.

Mind you, it seemed like every booth had a killer product this year. By show’s end, Fan Pro sold out of Shadowrun 4th edition. Green Ronin sold out of Mutants & Masterminds 2nd edition (which has some kick ass art in it by Udon’s Chris Stevens!). Sabretooth and Green Ronin were selling scads of Warhammer Fantasy RPG books. Sovereign sold out of the Serenity RPG. Fantasy Flight sold out of their new board game called Descent. There were happy customers and retailers everywhere, which was a big upswing from the slower selling pace of Origins.

Standing with Ron Glass, Shepard Book from Firefly.

Thursday night Matt Millberger and I had a nice dinner and chatted deep into the night about RPGs, comics and Racer Knights. Racer Knights is White Wolf’s new constructible game that Udon helped design over the past few months. It was a hectic project to add to our schedule during the cons, but finally seeing the results and getting a better feel for what it’s all about, I’m now pretty excited about it. I’ll see if I can post up some of the characters I designed for it over the next week or so.

Friday whipped by. A couple of the German translators had lost a bet with White Wolf president Mike Tinney and were forced to wear costumes all day. Mental Note: Do NOT make bets with Mike. Dinner at PF Chang’s with Rich, Aaron and Matt from White Wolf was delicious. I had a really good martini that tasted exactly like a key lime pie – it even had little pie crust powder on the rim of the glass.

Don’t make a bet with Tinney – You’ve been warned.

Afterwards we headed to the ENnie Award ceremony and started drinking it up. Paizo, Green Ronin and White Wolf all kicked some major ass at the awards, which was great to see. Denise, Hound, Crothian and all the EN World people did a great job on organizing the evening. It was nice to to see the industry showing so well.

ENnie moments:
– Eric Mona putting his foot in his mouth by thanking people for supporting Dungeon and Dragon magazine, so that the employees “wouldn’t be reduced to selling PDFs or something.” Note that the evening was sponsered by Drive Thru RPG.

– Monte Cook following up with the next award speech by reminding all of us how his career was built off of the strength of PDF sales and that the future is digital.

– Justin dropping the F-Bomb in front of the two children who gave winners their awards.

– Peter Adkinson sitting at my left telling me over a couple drinks that his proudest moment was revitalizing gaming with D&D 3rd edition.

– The Green Ronin crew getting ‘Best Publisher’ and telling all of us how they’d pushed through unbelievable hardships over the past year and were stunned to receive the big gold at the end.

After the awards, major dancing and boozing commenced. It got pretty ridiculous. We went to the Shadowrun launch party for a bit, then found an Irish pub that served Strongbow and later on went to a dance club that played a strange mix of retro and hip-hop. The dance floor was packed, but Justin and I found a way to clear enough space to bust things out and have a good time.

Will was in tow with a bunch of friends who all went to the same college as he did. They use Gen Con as a reunion spot since they’ve spread out all over the US since school finished. It made me nostalgic for college and all the stupidity that seems so simple in retrospect. They seemed like a nice bunch of people all pursuing different lives, dealing with interpersonal problems, gossip and all those other troubles but having this one thread in common that they held on to.

By the time the night wrapped up at another bar, I mentioned how surprised I was that we’d all gotten so drunk and yet Justin hadn’t tried to kill anyone, as he’s apt to normally do. I went back to my hotel to crash only to find out the next day that stupidity happened 15 minutes after I’d left. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised. Something about an ambulance, people being dropped on their head, Justin kicking furniture and people blacking out. I’m glad I missed it.

Saturday was a big selling day, but my head was pounding to its own drum and my body groaned, making it hard to concentrate. I got to meet quite a few Exalted fans and chatted it up with people at the booth. Leo and Sara came by and I finally got a chance to chat with them. Mike and Janet also arrived and we were able to get caught up on the crazy year gone by. By mid-afternoon my body let me know quite clearly that it had just about had enough. I crashed in my hotel room for a couple hours to get rid of the body aches and feel human again. By the time I got back the show was pretty much wrapping up. My good friend Claire took me for a swanky dinner and then we headed to the White Wolf Mage Party at the Ugly Monkey. The bar was jam-packed with no air conditioning, so I stuck to the outdoor patio for a majority of the time, with occasional quick missions heading in to dance or grab a drink.


Loads of game demos on the show floor.

I headed out the back around 2am to go back to my hotel, but when I turned the corner and went past the front of the bar Hal, Claire, Peter and Justin dragged me back in for a few more songs and a drink. Chatting until after 4am, I finally got some restless sleep and felt lucky that I decided to ease off on major drinking the night before I had to drive home.

Sunday flew. I went around to the booths and said good-bye to everyone I could find, grabbed some books from friends and hit the road by 2pm. Stopping only for a quick bite and a couple quick rest stops, I made it back home just before midnight. Twelve hours of sleep later and I felt almost human.

Good times, though quite exhausting. Lots of business deals coming down the pipe and opportunities to grab hold of. The Exalted comic went over well with people and talks are already starting about foreign language editions. It was nice seeing people oohing and aahing over the artwork.

Home now and there’s tons of things to do before the Toronto Comic Expo in a handful of days. I’m feeling socially hermit-like and tired, but okay overall. I hope to see friends and fans this weekend at the show. Ideally I’ll be well rested up for it.

Oh man… it’s after 2am and I’m driving to Gen Con in Indianapolis tomorrow. How does this keep happening on the nights before I have to leave?

Must… try… to… sleep.