Spiderman 3

Spiderman 3 was much better than I was expecting but still lacked something. Funny, since most of the reviews I've read said there was too much going on and was overstuffed.

My wife Tanya said that it felt like a mini-series trying to be a movie, lots of up and down action and it kept going on. I can see her point but...

I loved moments in the film. I loved that Peter Parker is dorky, even when he was evil he was dorky. I laughed when Butler Exposition gives away an important piece of information and then disappears. I loved the strong continuity. I loved John Jonah Jameson. I LOVED Sandman. I loved how they used Gwen Stacy (modeling a Photochopier! HA!)

The thing of the movie is, its cornball comicbook Spiderman with a glossy CGI look. All the girls screaming, Spidey with the American flag waving in the background, all that clapping for the hero... it's all just window dressing but it maintains the spirit of that gosh wow, cheesy feel of reading an old comicbook.

HOWEVER... one thing that they dropped the ball on was the soap opera part. There was something a bit TOO cliche about the whole MaryJane and Peter romance - the whole phone thing as a motif... jeez, that was just frickin' annoying. And that makes me sad because I loved the romance in parts 1 and 2, especially 2.

Another was Venom. Too little use of him - he's got potential to be a fantastic character in the future and he was just... underused. Nuff said.

I think some new blood needs to be injected into the Spiderman series. Sam Raimi's been doing an excellent job but it's starting to feel a little bit (a little bit) stale.

It was a dark and stormy night...

My son woke my wife up at 5 in the morning and I tried to get up but was instructed by my wife to go back to sleep "You're sick". I duly complied.

It's now an hour later and he's in his cage (Playpen! Playpen!) and I'm looking outside, not to a nice, sunny Sunday morning but a dark, cloudy miserable Sunday morning.

I've had the flu for a week and a cough for 2 weeks. Nearly everybody in my family's had it and I'm STILL not over it. I think it might have something to do with the fact that in the next 36 hours we will launch our festival of theatre performances by children.

I'm actually pretty excited by this year's work but boy am I more than a little bit exhausted. Yesterday I went to assist a group leader who kindly set up an extra rehearsal so that the kids have time to rehearse a bit more. I had my own group that morning, bringing them costumes and swords to use and dragging that all over Hong Kong was not alot of fun, especially in this weather.

I'm probably moaning more than usual in this blog. Why not see my face? and my son Sam's? They tell the whole story...

Handcrafted

One thing I love about Michel Gondry's films is the handcrafted look of his films and work. So many details are just so deliciously imperfect that it's just kitsch and lovely and fragile.

I've been avoiding thinking about my website for weeks. Tanya has purchased and made a bare bones website for me, waiting for me to put my input in it. It doesn't even have any of my stuff on there at the moments, just links that lead to deadends.

Well, I've made some images tonight. I illustrated them rather than use photoshop or use a font from word. The letters are imperfect, the lines aren't straight. Handwritten and handcrafted.

Hopefully by the end of the week I can have something resembling a website.

Cramp

A few days ago I finally got the guts to call Fluid Friction to ask if they got my CV. They told me it was "on file." and that they would contact me back should something come up. I hire people too and having your CV "on file" means crap. Calling me back from a supposed future where I would work with them as a comic book writer.

I just watched Science of Sleep, expecting to be disappointed by it but Michel Gondry just made a good film, not an incomprehensible mess like some of the reviews I'ved read. It's beautiful and full of yearning and confusion and mess, just like real like but all through that wonderful whacked out vision of his of cardboard cities, giant hands doing minute task, time machines that go forward or backward by one second and a horse in a horse suit. It's beautiful.

My dad is an ass. He wants to bill me for my childhood effectively. He's stuck in a situation of his own making and right now I reserve the right to hate him. For now.

Work is piling up. Mountains of emails, some great and some just complaining and complaining and complaining.

BIts of paper, floating emails with requests after requests after requests.

I want to scream.

Getting a job in comics

A few weeks ago some friends showed me something I thought I would never see in Hong Kong: A recruitment ad for a Comic Book Writer. In English. Comicbook writing not necessary, just creativity.

I thought some divine providence has sent me this ad. I mean, this was a job I was dreaming of doing since I started collected XMEN comics back in the days when they made some sense and continuity (when they were actually MONTHLY. I'm looking at you Joss Whedon.)

I'm not giving up my day job... I love working at Faust but this was something I HAD to apply for, just for my own sanity. My idae was that maybe I could do some project based work - I doubt very much it would be a regular comics gig.

Well, one application form and a month later, I have not heard anything from this company. Its actually really frustrating because I don't even know if they received my application. I'm going to have to call them and get verbal confirmation that I'm not what they want.

The ad is kind of what made me want to create this blog. I love comics, I love writing and the art form and telling stories. I already work in a job that provides me with alot of creativity and I would not give that up easily but I need to know if I had a chance at making a comicbook, a published comic book.

Not going to wait any longer now. I'm going to use this blog to record my experiences in writing, hopefully share some comic strips and maybe, just maybe get some feedback and interest.