Well, between Birthdays and Movings-Out, I’ve failed to get everything done that needs doing.

The Schlock Buffer stands at 12 inked, but only 5 colored-and-uploaded. There are 5 GWAVAMan strips needing pencils, inks, and colors this week. Oh, and by February 15th I need to be starting work on the GWAVAMan fold-out comic (cover, two interior action-packed pages, watermark on the back) for BrainShare. My deadline on those is probably going to have to be March 1st, which will mean enormous amounts of “crunch” right at the end. See, this comic will feature numerous caricatures and characterizations of Novell GroupWise partners, and will be used at BrainShare as part of a promotion by the GWAVA team to drive delegates to all participating partner booths where they’ll surrender business cards (and their attendant contact information) for the opportunity to win prizes. Those partners featured in the comic have to pay up-front to get included, which of course means that a week before I’m supposed to be finished with it I’ll be asked to insert panels because somebody’s check cleared.

(If there are GroupWise partners reading this Journal, get with The Bliss NOW)

Yes, GWAVAMan is a total sell-out for me. As if working for Novell for a decade WASN’T? Yeesh. At least THIS sell-out leaves me a modicum of creative control, and lies within a field of work I truly love. And it’s hard work– easily the most challenging art-and-story I’ve done since scripting the Death of Captain Tagon.

So, the point of all this: I need to have the rest of the GWAVAMan weeklies pencilled and inked today (tomorrow at the latest), and colored by Friday at the latest. During “rest-the-hand” times I need to be scripting Schlock Mercenary, so that from February 7th through the 15th I can aggressively grow that buffer, hopefully through March 7th. By March 7th I should be done working on GWAVAMan, and I’ll be free to work on Schlock full-time (I know, I know… some of you may have been under the mistaken impression that I’ve BEEN doing Schlock full-time. Not so!) and growing the buffer in preparation for my busy conference schedule in mid-March, April, and May.

In short, to punnishly paraphrase Johnny Storm, “Game ON!”

VOOOMF!

–Howard

richardbliss called me last night while I was digesting some delicious Thai food chalain had brought over. He asked me if I could help him move in the morning. Hey, what are friends for?

I was there for pretty much the whole time — six hours of grunt work. We took Richard and Christina’s stuff down from their TWO third-floor apartments (one for living in, and one for office space) and filled a Budget rental truck, a U-Haul trailer, a Ford Expedition, and a Ford Mustang. Those stairs were rough, and the sheer volume of material to move and load didn’t make things any easier. By the end of the move I was wiped out. Somebody hasn’t been going to the gym lately. Still, I hung in there for the whole six hours.

The most impressive part of the job was how they’d packed everything box-able into Rubbermaid tubs. There were at least 100 tubs with everything from books to bathroom supplies, and having uniformly stackable, sturdy containers WITH HANDLES made everything a LOT easier.

The Expedition is now pulling the trailer while the truck pulls another trailer with the Mustang on it, and the convoy is on its way to sunny San Diego. I’m going to miss them. Sure, we’ll keep in touch — these are the folks for whom I’m doing the “GWAVAMan” comics, so I’ll see them at BrainShare — but not having these good friends in town makes me a little sad.

(Sorry about the misleading subject line. There was no body to be moved or concealed. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.)

–Howard

Quick question: I’m looking for the political party that says “Let’s build nuclear power plants to replace our oil, coal, and natural gas plants.” Better yet, the party that says “It’s okay for you to ship nuclear waste to Utah. Burying things in a geologically inactive desert is safe and cheap.” How about the party that says “Solar, hydro, and wind technology are harder on the environment than oil or coal, thanks to the massive areas of land they require and the highly toxic substances they must employ to store energy (PCBs, anyone?).”

I don’t want to vote for the “let’s stop Global Warming” camp, because they’re as badly tainted by partisan politics as the “Oil is great” camp. Also, they don’t seem to be pro-nuke… it’s as if they think there is some magical “new way” to get more energy out of the environment than our local star puts into it. That’s all it comes down to, really: depend on the energy the Sun sends us (and the most efficient ways to collect it still seem to involve Vast Tracts Of Land, whether you’re farming photosynthetic step-down, water-cycle energy states, or air-pressure gradients), or make energy the same way the Sun does. Leave the Solar Energy for folks who can’t get their energy any other way: plants and the animals who eat plants.

Even TPD (Thermal Depolymerization), which is being billed as the best renewable energy source around (summary: hydrocarbon wastes from agriculture and industry can be reduced very efficiently into fuel oils, leaving existing carbon sinks like natural gas and oil reserves intact. Link.), is just a slightly better method of photosynthetic step-down than Exxon uses.

Okay, true geothermal systems are a little different: the temperature gradient introduced by Earth’s active tectonic processes is more “leftovers from the planet’s formation,” with a mix of heat induced by Lunar tides, but those systems still require Vast Tracts of Land, and are subject to disruption by the very processes they seek to tap. We could also tap the magnetosphere for power, and though this WOULD slow the Earth’s spin over time, it would take a Very Long Time.

Gimme nukes. Who do I vote FOR (not AGAINST. FOR.)

*sigh*

Last night I went to Kiki’s art class. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but this art academy out-of-somebody’s-home was very impressive. There were three or four classes running while I was there, one of which had adults in it making me feel guilty for considering myself an “artist.” They asked me what mediums I work in, and I told them “line art.” That sounds better than “comics,” right?

I sat next to her and whipped out Schlock Mercenary character portraits to add to the stack that has to go out with Sandra’s birthday thank-you notes. Each one took about 10 minutes. I finished five during Kiki’s one-hour class, and had time to walk around and look at stuff, too. Kiki’s instructor commented on how quickly I was going. “That’s the difference between art for art and art for money,” I told her. “Art for art can take its time. Art for money has to go FAST.”

And on that note, I’ve got some Schlock to crank out. This buffer won’t rebuild itself.

–Howard