dogpoet

Millar is basically Marvel.

He also believes that he's been blacklisted by DC. Given his obvious affection for a lot of their characters, it'd explain why he hasn't done anything there for years, despite the fact that he's now a rather bigger deal than he was when writing The Authority.

The obvious riposte to the liberals who Googlebombed Dubya into first place. :rolleyes:

 

Who gives a fuck about Carter anymore? Only foaming at the mouth Republicans.

The amount of bile the Republicans still seem to harbour for Carter is rather disturbing in a lot of respects, apart from screwing up the economy (and given that the Republicans have all but sanctified Reagan and his monster deficit fussing about that seems a bit inconsistent) he didn't do that badly: even the godawful mess that led to the Iranian revolution appears to have been something he was saddled with by his predecessors, and it appears with the benefit of hindsight that he was dead right about his energy policy.

Most of any writers say that the actual writing part is almost like getting a root cannal. Because it's so boring and such a pain in the ass. It's like you're sitting there trying to pull ideas out of your head, while you COULD be elsewhere doing anything else. Tho they do say that once you see the finished product that it has it's rewards.

Not everybody says that Wolvy: there's quite a lot of writers (by no means all bad writers, either, as JG Ballard and Kim Newman are two who spring to mind in connection with this, although admittedly Stephen King is another) who can turn their inspiration on and off like a faucet.

Yeah but with Stephen King he's pretty much set for life. So he could pretty much retire from writing right now and not have to worry about bills. Because of all the cash he's made from a few his books becoming TV movies or being very popular. I think I read that he's got like 4 mansions. :lol:

This is why some people find his "just plain folks" routine so offensive.

You're sort of missing my point, although it is true that he hasn't actually needed to write anything for twenty odd years andf the fact that he still is suggests that either he enjoys doing it, or enjoys the additional money it brings.

Actually, given Mark's comment about the "beer shelf/fridge" can I wonder what the line is on chilling beer hereabouts? Do we disdain cold beer and feel it should be taken at room temperature so that you can taste it properly, like a decent red wine or do we prefer the idea of a nice cold beer, out of the fridge, or even the freezer?

Excellent! Malin, get home with the camera - we. Need. Those. Pics!!!

Cool your jets, Charlie: he hasn't passed out drunk yet.

Most of any writers say that the actual writing part is almost like getting a root cannal. Because it's so boring and such a pain in the ass. It's like you're sitting there trying to pull ideas out of your head, while you COULD be elsewhere doing anything else. Tho they do say that once you see the finished product that it has it's rewards.

Not everybody says that Wolvy: there's quite a lot of writers (by no means all bad writers, either, as JG Ballard and Kim Newman are two who spring to mind in connection with this, although admittedly Stephen King is another) who can turn their inspiration on and off like a faucet.

Good luck on your test, Twilight! But, now, you do have a degree already, do you not? If you can write reasonably, a smaller paper may give you a shot. The editor may have to show you how to organize your story in the standard news format, but once you've got that and are practicing it, you'll develop the skill and build up your portfolio.

 

Doggy, that's good news and bad. Good that you got that credit! Bad that they dropped it. But you've got a novel now so that's fricking great.

True that. The series is out on DVD so it's something I've got on my resume, and it was an in with Telos, so I don't really have much to complain about.

I'm almost sold. But does Spencer have the chops for a compelling plot. That's important, too. I liked BoM:LDWT a little more than Mark did, but that wasn't really Spencer's story, or was it?

I don't see why he shouldn't have the chops: his Judge Dredd stuff from the early '90s was great and (given his history of writing for soap operas), he'll be able to pay attention to continuity and not raise anybody's mum from the dead for no apparent reason...

Indeed, Dog. Spencer's John was a manipulative bastard, but very different from Azzarello's. It'd be neat to see, I think.

I'd definitely be up for seeing that one.

Possibly the rest of the American stuff is supposed to be a bit more authentic in terms of actually resembling the stuff that was shipped to India in the nineteenth century? I'd imagine that might have been a lot more hopped than most of what gets brewed at the moment.

 

Well, Sierra Nevada is dry hopped, meaning they add fresh hops while it's in the fermenter. Not a lot of American breweries do that. Also, the sort of hops we use over here have a much different flavor and smell than that of the English brewer.

I didn't know that, Lou. That would probably explain it.

Dog, you write for TV, too? What do you do for a living, man?

Clerical and administrative stuff: I'm not making enough out of the writing to live off it at present.

The television thing was a one off, unfortunately. I've already posted a link in the zombie thread, but here it is again: Urban Gothic series two, episode three. Annoyingly the production company had a falling out with Channel 5, so it wasn't recommissioned for a third series. I was rather peeved about that, though obviously not half as peeved as the producer was. The terrible thing about that going down the tubes was that it appeared to be the only telly series in the UK at the time that was willing to deal with approaches from unagented writers (I wasn't the only one who got a credit on the second series that way, in fact).

Si Spencer would be the business.

Spencer did write a bloody good Constantine in Books of Magic, didn't he? He's supposed to be doing stuff at Vertigo at the moment, so it could happen.

Honestly, I record everything I come up with and whittle it down from there. Often, I keep the first thing I came up with. Some times I don't, though. It's a process to be sure.

I've seen interviews from a lot of the songwriters who started using Fairlights when those first came in who say as much.

(to Lou) It bought me my studio... ;)

 

When you're programming in Cubase, that's not necessarily jamming. That's writing.

Well yeah, that's what I was sort of asking, in fact. Different logic at work.

So you work out your riffs and melodies on a keyboard before you start programming, then?

Newcastle Brown Ale

 

I weep to think of the Dog. The export variety which you can get in these parts is fucking pish.

 

I was back in Northumberland for the weekend a fortnight ago, and ye gods, did I go overboard on the stuff.

That's strange. You'd think with it being bottled, it'd travel fairly well. They brew some sort of inferior variety for export?

Lou, the Sierra Nevada came as a very pleasant surprise after the Goose Island, put it that way. Possibly the rest of the American stuff is supposed to be a bit more authentic in terms of actually resembling the stuff that was shipped to India in the nineteenth century? I'd imagine that might have been a lot more hopped than most of what gets brewed at the moment.

That's what being a musician is about--"Look what I can do!" ;)

That does sound about right given a few of the musicians I've met, in fact.

Does the jamming thing still apply if you're programming with Cubase or whatever, though? I'd always assumed that whole "when my horse is running good I don't stop him to give him sugar" was more about playing live.

It truly is one of the finest beers ever made.

It's very pleasant indeed: the other American IPA I've tried (the Goose island one) was a bit too hoppy.

As for the four beers thing: there's a slab of Guinness in the kitchen so four of those. If there wasn't, and we were being purely hypothetical though, Newcastle Brown Ale, Beamish, Kronenberg 1664, and Guinness Extra Stout.

Jon, I am very glad to hear it and happy with you. That's a great position. And Dom, I'd like to hear more about how you got your book published and the other things you are writing.

Basically by being in the right place at the right time: one of the editors at telos was taken with an episode of a television series I'd written, so when the Beeb pulled their rights to publish Doctor Who novellas and they switched over to publishing horror and fantasy novellas instead, I was in place to start making submissions which (mercifully) didn't involve writing anything on spec besides a couple of pages of plot synopsis. The first story I tried didn't work out, but that gave me the notion that they might fancy something a little prurient, which led to me sending them the vampire story, and them giving me a contract to write it.

I've currently got a couple of things I'm in the process of writing (and one of them is such a non linear mess I'll need to get it finished before I can convince any editor to take it even halfway seriously) and after a quick look at this year's Writer's Handbook, I've decided to rewrite a book on comics I wrote six or seven years ago to make it look less dated, then see if any of the agents who specialise in non fiction listed there would be willing to help me find a home for it. (Unfortunately, given some of what's been published about comics since 1999, a fair chunk of the book now gives the impression of somebody frantically kicking an open door...)

It's a little more involved than that, sweetums. I have a recording studio at my disposal...

Show off.

There is an adertising/PR firm in the same building Toni works and she is lobbying them to hire me. The women who work there are all hot, so I asked her "What kind of mixed signal are you sending me!?!?!" I sent them my resume and the usual letters of recommendation. Who knows...

Good luck.

Not the way I do it.

Well yeah, if you're sitting around programming sequencers and recording them into a four track, I suppose that's true enough. My bad.

I wish I was passionate about any other art form or craft than writing. Because writing is unrewarding.

 

I think the same can be said of other art forms as well. I happened to fall in love with music but it let me down time and time again and so now I don't even play.

That's true, but music is a rather less solitary activity, isn't it?

Writing sucks. I wish I had been born anything but a writer. I wish I was passionate about any other art form or craft than writing. Because writing is unrewarding. It's lovely while you're doing it, it's wonderful to work on it and toil on it, it's extremely satisfactory to tell stories to yourself and run rampant with lines, circles and arrows over paper. It's even a good feeling to pass the stories amongst your friends and hear "I enjoyed this." But. To be published is so difficult, so slow, so agonizingly long a process. It's shooting in the dark. It's lonely. And its bottom line - the commerciality and illogic of it - is blatant, and ugly, and takes a lot of the fun out of writing. What could be more frustrating than to slop your soul onto a page and the show it to people who... won't even look at it, and don't care, even as they are publishing and marketing something atrocious.

Oh God, yeah. The general attempts to impose a rigorous capitalist model on something that just isn't oriented in that direction (or at least shouldn't be, but you get a lot of horribly cynical types who are perfectly willing to take a more "populist" approach and patronise the hell out of their audience) has led to a pretty uneven fit in most respects. It isn't just the writers who are unhappy about it either: since the net book agreement (a retail standard we used to have over here) was disposed with in '97, there's been rather a purge of independant book retailers with the chains buying them up and wiping them out. This is leading to an increasing homogenity among the books published, and while odder stuff is still available (arguably even more available than ever before) on the internet, I don't think this is any kind of substitute for being able to find something a bit more unusual while browsing in a bookshop.

You don't want to piss off a guy from Massachusetts, trust me! They have a special brand of rage.

Is this why little has been heard of Julianna Hatfield of late? They took a terrible revenge upon her for "Feelin' Massachussets"?

Stylish!

More zombies, plus a dose of conceit...

Just gone through that Marvel Boy miniseries. Not quite Morrison at his best, but I liked the Doctor Doom joke.

I didn't like this series, at all. Rare for me to say about something by Morrison.

I did love the issue about the Living Corporation, but that hardly fit with the rest of the series, and was the only high point for me.

It's a bit inconclusive, isn't it? The way it ends on a sequel hook that's never been followed up is a bit irritating, to say the least.

My beef with it isn't so much that it's bad as it comes across as a really wasted opportunity: I mean even if her boyfriend is still locked up, why has nothing further been seen of Oubliette Midas?