OG’s BLOG

Michael Witmer’s Pinkerton has a new Fan Art Saturday feature. As I’m a fan, I chose to draw the Pinkerton character Turtle Boy. What? Don’t know what Pinkerton is? Is that even possible? Well, go have a LOOK!

If you’re looking for an agent, you should beware that there are a lot of bad ones out there. There are predatory agencies, looking to bleed you of your money. There are evil agencies, Intellectual Property Farms, looking to bleed you of your ideas. And there are incompetent agents, well meaning idiots who will only waste your time.

But there are also good agents out there, and you might be lucky enough to snag yourself one. To help you navigate this labyrinth, I’d like to point you at the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writer’s Association website and their Writer Beware page, complete with a top-ten list of agents to watch out for.

The page is chock full of great advice and things to be wary of, but my favorite quote jumped right off the page at me:

An agent should not solicit you.

Sometimes a reputable agent will contact a writer whose work s/he’s seen and liked. But this not common, and where it does happen, it usually involves published work. Good agents don’t need to solicit: they already have more submissions than they can handle. If you subscribe to writers’ magazines or register your copyright, you may be a target–fee-charging agents often purchase lists of names and addresses from these sources.

So, when that big-name Hollywood Agency drops out of the blue, looking to possibly rep you, just be aware that it might not be the equivalent of getting discovered at the ice cream shop like you might be dreaming of. Caveat Emptor.

The Supacool folks over at StudioAKA have done it again. They of Pica Towers, JoJo in the Stars and The Big Win have created an animated adaptation of Varmints, a children’s book written by Helen Ward and illustrated by StudioAKA’s BAFTA-award-winning Marc Craste. Judging from the trailer, the movie appears to have even more charm than the book, if that’s even possible, because the book had plenty.

While you wait for that trailer to load, here’s a little more info about the film, from StudioAKA:

VARMINTS is Studio aka’s follow up to our 2004 Bafta winning film ‘Jo Jo in the Stars’. Adapted & Directed by Marc Craste, VARMINTS is based on the award-winning book of the same name by Helen Ward & illustrated by Marc, that tells the story of one small creature’s struggle to preserve a world in danger of being lost forever through recklessness and indifference.

Varmints is 25 minutes long, and was entirely self-financed by Studio aka. A crew of 35 people worked in three countries over a two year period to craft a film epic in scale and ambition. An original score by Icelandic composer Johann Johannssson and sound design by Adrian Rhodes complete the picture.

VARMINTS will Premier in September this year.

Sadly for me, the Premier will be in London. Not Baltimore. Stay tuned for news on when and if it might come to an animation festival near you. Or a DVD player.

We have another reason to be proud of Baltimore – did you know David Hasselhoff is a native son of our fine, fine city? I just found out. Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Edgar Allen Poe. And The Hoff. Oh, and it’s his birthday. (56)

Happy birthday, Knight Rider, from all of us here in Bawlmer.

My employer generously gave us the day off today in extension of the July 4 holiday. Took advantage and spent the day with my family at Cascade Lake. Too much fun! They have a huge waterslide that is even bigger than it looks in the picture above, and a couple of high platforms (12 feet and 18 feet) for “cliff diving” into the cool, cool lake.

Yeah, too much fun, but maybe too much swimming and too much cliff diving. My muscles are sore from swimming, and the soles of my feet hurt from the high impact water sports. But, ahhh. At least I know I’m alive!

OK. Wall-E was just much, much better than I expected. Somehow, you wind up caring for the little hunk of junk.

This is the first Pixar film in a while that’s made me very sad that I didn’t have a part in its making. I mean, come ON! Robots! Spaceships! Grime and Trash! This is the stuff that runs through my veins… Wait… did I just say I had grime and trash running through my veins?

Bah. You know what I meant!

[SPOILER ALERT] – Beware the comments section below if you haven’t seen the film yet and don’t want to spoil the ending. [SPOILER ALERT OFF]

Just came across a really nice webcomic this morning. Kukuburi, by Ramón Pérez. It’s more like watching an animated show than reading a comic… very nicely done. His artistic abilities put me to shame, and at the same time, make me want to draw better. That’s a nice combo.

I think I remember writer David Gerrold one time saying that in the publishing world, “Forty” means “over” or “the end”. It was unclear to me whether this was a slang reference to the age of forty, or just what, but it stuck with me.

It’s fitting because I’ve reached Croaker’s Gorge #40. This is the last 4-panel Croaker’s strip I wrote. I’m not sure exactly where to take the strip next. The 4-panel format is a little limiting for me, and I want to tell Bigger Stories. I think I want to do something with it in a longer format like Kazu Kabuishi’s Copper, but of course something ambitious like that would mean less frequent updates.

Stay tuned.

NOTE: I’ve had some people think that I’m shutting Croaker’s Gorge down. I’m not. I’m just looking at changing the format, and this is the last 4-panel strip I had written for the comic, that’s all.