Sam Kieth, Built, Twilight Zone, John Stamos

Posted on September 16, 2011 by Brian John Mitchell

I don’t know how many of you remember The Maxx (comic book & later a cartoon on MTV in the 1990s); but I just read a thing where Sam Kieth (the guy who wrote & drew it) nonchalantly mentions drawing mostly with his right hand, but occasionally drawing with his left because it is better at certain things.  WTF?  That’s right up there with seeing Lee Renaldo switching from playing a guitar right handed to playing another guitar left handed in the middle of a song.

Got the final draft & first layout done for Built & sent it over to Joe Badon.  Trying to solidify some bits about the fonts.  I wanted to have the human character in the issue use a different font than the “robot font” I use for the lead character & there’s debate on the legibility of it (I used one of those emulated cursive fonts) & I’m thinking about changing it over to something like Curlz.

Here’s an episode from the 1980s version of The Twilight Zone that is significantly darker than any other episode of the series I can think of.

& I found this way more bizarre video that is definitely worth a few minutes of your time:

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Remora Remix, Built, Car

Posted on September 14, 2011 by Brian John Mitchell

Did some work on my remix of Remora‘s “My Brother’s Guns & Knives” basically just adding some bass & harmonica.  Still fun.  I was working on the mix on headphones & had the bass up really loud when I switched to actual speakers.  It’s a weird situation realizing people listen to most music on headphones & laptop speakers so should I mix for that or for my studio monitors?  Hard to say.

Got a second draft done for Built #2 & got the word from Joe Badon that he’s going to be onboard for drawing it.

It’s halfway through the month & my car inspection is due & I can’t get the check engine light to stay off long enough to pass inspection.  It goes off because of me not driving my car enough basically (it gets 43 miles a gallon & has a 12 gallon tank & I’m generally driving about 20 miles a week lately, which means the gas in the tank is “old” & the O2 sensor is reading it as bad gas).  I guess I need to start driving more or maybe siphon off the gas & get a fresh tank.  A pain.

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Max Ernst, Pow Wow, Rough Day, Silbeer

Posted on September 13, 2011 by Brian John Mitchell

So I reviewed one Max Ernst’s proto-graphic novels over on Finally Checking It Out.  I may be less sure than ever about what makes a comic after reading it.

I got an artist interested in drawing my new comic Pow Wow.  I’ll wait until it’s done to make too big of a deal over it as I know things can fail to come to fruition.

I had a particularly rough day taking care of my Grandma today.  She didn’t know who I was even conceptually.  I need to take notes & see if it happens according to the phase of the moon as I know the moon is more or less full.

I tried out my nutmeg mead & it has an overwhelming flavor like jager or something & I don’t think I’m hallucinating, so this is a one off batch as far as I’m concerned.

 

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Remora, Comics, Thorn1, Computers

Posted on September 12, 2011 by Brian John Mitchell

My sister stopped by today to help me with some pictures for photo references for making a paperdoll music video for Remora.  Who knows how far out until I get that to happen.

I got in a few books I ordered of woodcut graphic novels from the 1930s.  I wish I could put everything on hold & read them over the next couple of days, but no way for that to actually happen.

Doing some work on the new EP from Thorn1.  At some point Evgeny gave me what seemed like a random date in the distant future for a release date & now I realize it’s this Thursday.

So I was trying to get my Soundforge software to work on my laptop as Sony (who bought the software since the version I have came out) had given me the codes to enable it.  The codes didn’t work!  I needed to download another program from Sony to alter my software to recognize codes they give out.  So hopefully it won’t screw me up with anything else as the ancient version of Acid I use was on here as well.  I guess I can always exclusively work on music on my music computer.

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Comics, Computers, Breaking Bad, Dream

Posted on September 11, 2011 by Brian John Mitchell

I got some work done on some comics today doing layout on the scripts to deliver to artists.  So I’m feeling like something good is happening with my idea of pushing up my content creation level.

I moved a bunch of my files off my external hard drive on to my laptop for using it easier for a lot of things.

I ordered a replacement hard drive for my music computer.  I’m a bit paranoid about it dying since the drive on my other laptop died.

I just found out that next season is supposed to be the final season of Breaking Bad.  Though it’s one of my favorite shows, I’m pretty happy with the idea of it ending before it starts to lose its credibility.

Last Night’s Dream:
I’m laying in bed with my ex-girlfriend & she’s telling me that we should get back together, but it will be a few months or maybe a year before it can happen – that the man she married & had a baby with has a terminal disease & that’s the whole reason she married him, out of pity.  I love this woman & loving her has been a big piece of my definition of self for more than twenty years.  There’s a 100% chance she’s lying to me & a 50-50 chance she’s lying to herself (I’d say she’s a pragmatic liar more so than a pathological liar).  I’d be better off dead than letting this woman in my life again.

Posted in comics, daily news, dreams, movies & television | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

4 Responses to Comics, Computers, Breaking Bad, Dream

  1. Nic says:
    September 12, 2011 at 3:23 am

    Hey Brian, after my old HD died I installed GSmartControl to determine the health of the new one from time to time. It doesn’t run in the background nor it has any sort of autorun or whatever, so it does not consume system resources.
    It’s also free application (GNU GPL), check it out: http://gsmartcontrol.berlios.de/home/index.php/en/About

    Cheers,
    Nic

  2. Brian John Mitchell says:
    September 12, 2011 at 10:28 am

    I probably should get something like that. To be honest I never really think to scan a drive unless something squirrelly is happening. I suppose I should do it as routine maintenance.

  3. Nic says:
    September 12, 2011 at 2:32 pm

    It doesn’t need any scans to check drive’s health, Brian. It simply reads S.M.A.R.T. data from your HD – just in case, check S.M.A.R.T. on Wikipedia.

    When you open the program, it immediately collect all the info about your HD’s health.
    If you move the mouse over a value it shows a balloon tip with its meaning.
    It can also do drive scans (quick or complete) on demand if something wrong is shown from the S.M.A.R.T. data analysis, but that’s not the program main purpose nor the normal routine.

    It doesn’t even add any registry key to Windows – so you can uninstall it completely without issues.
    It’s a safe application – The only problem I ever heard is about using GSmartControl with Samsung F4 EcoGreen drives (HD204UI, HD204UI/Z4, HD204UI/UZ4, HD155UI, HD155UI/Z4, HD155UI/UZ4):
    http://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/smartmontools/wiki/SamsungF4EGBadBlocks

Royalties, Jon DeRosa, Ads

Posted on September 10, 2011 by Brian John Mitchell

So recently I found out that throughout Europe royalties for a song are paid not just to songwriters & publishers, but also to individual performers & producers when a song is played on the radio or television (performers & producers don’t get a cut in the USA).  I’m torn on how I feel about that.  I think on the one hand it increases the value of musical performances, but on the other hand it de-emphasizes the importance of writing.  I mean, should session musicians get paid more than the band who tours & makes the song popular?  If you’re going to say everyone who goes into making a song a hit that gets played on the radio for fifty years (especially as sales dwindle), should label owners & managers & publicity folks also get paid?  What about the mixing engineer & the mastering engineer?  It’s weird when you think about all the people involved in a record & who should really get to collect money the rest of their life for a piece of art.  Maybe it’s an american thing or thinking of myself predominantly as a songwriter, but it seems to me like the songwriters are the ones who should make the money – that they are the artists & the rest of the folks are just hired hands.  I don’t know, intellectual property laws have gotten pretty screwy as far as corporations being considered copyright owners & so copyright goes on forever & nothing ever falls into fair use.  I’m starting to lean towards 50 years after authorship as a situation that would be more than fair.

Jon DeRosa has an interview up on Evening of Light.  They also have up a little retrospective where you can listen to some music from throughout Jon’s career.

I got to see the rough edit of the mead documentary & I think I might need to start shaving my head even closer to the scalp than I currently do.  Which I suppose will make me look even more like Walter White (Breaking Bad).  I just need to get some glasses.

I realize that a lot of folks who read this blog don’t regularly watch TV, so I thought I’d share this Geico ad that I dig lately.

Posted in beer, daily news, movies & television | Tagged , | 7 Comments

7 Responses to Royalties, Jon DeRosa, Ads

  1. GoddakkAttack says:
    September 12, 2011 at 8:04 am

    isn’t this what BMILive does now? well maybe not producers but for performers.
    I still can’t figure that part out if they’re only collecting when you play your own songs or if say our drummer plays the show does she get paid as well eventhough it’s not a song she has writing credits on.

  2. Brian John Mitchell says:
    September 12, 2011 at 10:33 am

    I’m pretty sure the money goes to the songwriters/publishers with BMILive. I never signed up for it because I really haven’t been playing shows since they have it. How much do you get for a show? $5 extra or less?
    You know what’s funny is I remember needing to fill out all this paperwork on one of my Euro tours with my setlist & BMI info for every show & I never got money back from it.

  3. GoddakkAttack says:
    September 13, 2011 at 11:46 am

    as is well documented in your catalog

Dream

Posted on September 9, 2011 by Brian John Mitchell

Last Night’s Dream:
I’m at a friend’s apartment & I realize it’s the apartment complex where I used to live with my ex-girlfriend.  We are walking up to the local bar & I see my ex walking back from the bar.  I debate saying something to her, but don’t bother.  As she walks by us I hear her say “fucking asshole” under her breath.

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Minor Glitches, Georges Melies, Dreams

Posted on September 8, 2011 by Brian John Mitchell

I got a bunch of packages that should’ve gone out two weeks ago ready today.  So now that I don’t need to worry about that I can start to do some work on other things.

I needed to print up some press releases & it took me twenty minutes to get my new computer to recognize my printer & then it ended up this machine didn’t have the fonts I designed the press releases with.  Going to be a tedious process getting this machine to have all the things I’m used to having.  But I guess that’s fine since I’m postulating putting more limitations on my use of machines.

So the other day I watched some Georges Melies movies with my grandmother.  I’d forgotten how awesome that guy is.  Below is one of his typically bizarre shorts that I hadn’t seen before:

Last Night’s Dreams:
I go to visit my niece at her mother’s house.  The house is chaotic & my niece has a ton of healing semi-open wounds that look bound to leave scars.  She wants me to play dolls with her.

I’m at a wake for a friend of a friend.  It was arranged to be an album recording in a house converted into a studio & in a loft section above the living rooms is where the drums are set up & I’m up there too playing bass while almost passing out.  I can feel my chest starting to collapse like it sometimes does lately & I’m wondering if something this nice will happen when I die.

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2 Responses to Minor Glitches, Georges Melies, Dreams

  1. GoddakkAttack says:
    September 9, 2011 at 9:32 am

    i can’t watch this youtube with sound at work but when i do i imagine it set to that smashing pumpkins song from the 90′s where they shoot the rocket into the moon’s eye.

Comps, Promotions, XO, Silbeer

Posted on September 7, 2011 by Brian John Mitchell

So I mastered three songs for comps & got them out today.  Feels like something is going right.

I got out all of my follow up emails for the new release promotions.  So once again something done.

Wrote half a rough script for XO.

Shot the documentary about making mead last night.  I like the idea of having content where I don’t really need to do anything I wouldn’t be doing anyway.

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Catching Up, Funny Stickers, QRD

Posted on September 6, 2011 by Brian John Mitchell

So I caught up on my email backlog today & updated who I need to contact about promos, which will mean a deluge of emails once I get those sent out.  After I’m done with that I’m really thinking about making a concerted effort to stop chasing the promo dragon & spending more time focusing on creating new content.

I read this story that I thought was pretty funny about handing out band stickers shaped like penises.

I sent out a bunch of interview reminders for QRD.  New issues coming soon….

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