The Hat of War And Peace

So, I was playing this writer’s game with some friends from Whitechapel last night. We started with a simple idea, a hat is blown into an almost empty cafe. From there we each wrote a paragraph, entirely improv, nobody having any clue what the next person would write. What starts melancholy quickly turns to…. well, you’ll see.

I am responsible (if you must know) for paragraphs 1, 8 & 14. The others can be credited to my friends Robin LeBlanc, Andre Navarro, Rootfirember, VKlaus & Jess. No effort has been made to retouch or polish the story, this is what we produced in the wee hours last night.

Frank watched as the old man left the cafe, struggling with the door in the wind. It almost caught him and pulled him out, but he managed to maintain his balance and push the door closed. Just before he turned away, Frank realized that a rumpled gray fedora had blown into the room. He watched it as it tottered on edge and finally fell to the ground. It was a pleasant looking hat, full of character. It reminded him of the one he owned many years ago, before the war. But then, everything reminded him of life before the war.

They said war changed a man. They did not mention, in the infinite wisdom of generations past and hoarded scraps of wisdom, that it also changed everything it touched. Even something as simple as a hat skittering along the floor until it came to a stop. The simple object was more than a hat; it was a symbol of things loved and lost, and days long past.

It hadn’t been a hat, thirty years ago. It had been a helmet, with a hole in it, rolling down the hill until it hit a puddle of mud. The rain washed the blood off of it. On the top of the hill, dozens of soldiers were being massacred by mounted machineguns. It was a sight he’d have seared into his mind forever, but the helmet rolling down the hill was the strongest memory he had of it. Somehow, it was stronger than seeing dozens of people being mowed down because of nothing more than being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

While the helmet rolling down the hill with a hole in it was a symbol of the futility of the war, Frank’s own helmet was a symbol of strength and power.  This was proven when Frank’s squadron infiltrated the base that held the horrible General Franz Kraustitt.  Since 1941 the general had been heading horrible experiments on prisoners of war, animals and even his own men.  He was a madman trying to play god who had to be stopped.  Frank was the first one to find him and immediately the general fired at him.  A stray bullet hit his wrist and his gun dropped to the ground.

There have only been a few times Frank felt the need for a miracle. This was not one of those times. Being in war changes a man, teaches him how to survive. After all General Kraustitt was only one man, a man with sever mental problems. He could handle this. But boy oh boy was he wrong.

As Frank sank deeper into the memories spurred so rudely by the lost fedora, a small turtle watched him carefully from across the room. No one paid much attention to the turtle sitting in the small plastic cage on the counter. It was unusual for the young girl to bring the creature to the cafe, but a closer inspection of the reptile confirmed that he was brown, boring and an otherwise unremarkable pet. The turtle was not inclined to do much to entertain his audience, as he was concentrating on Frank. Something, SOMETHING about the man seemed vaguely familiar. Unsettled somewhat by being unable to place the old man, the turtle’s good sense told him to stay quiet. Yet he wanted to know more. The man across the room seemed strangely intent upon watching the hat, and the turtle couldn’t help but remember a man wearing a similar fedora.

There had been experiments before the war, and during it upon beasts. Vivisection was the tip of the iceberg in those muddy years; though it was thought to be the origin of what some called hyper-intelligence in some animals. It was not; but most people seemed to prefer to think of abominable origins for animals that spoke and thought like men, instead of believing sentience in animals could have come from more natural origins. People wanted to be the smart ones. They were intimidated, and fearful of these strange animals among them. So the turtle kept his beak shut, kept his thoughts to himself.

Frank fought his way back from the memories, amazed how vivid they had been. It was like he was being pulled back through time, all because of that rumpled old hat. He pushed his coffee aside and stood up. The turtle watched him as he crossed the room, fear growing in its heart. He wanted to warn Frank not to touch the hat, that this was a bad thing, but thoughts don’t always equal words. Not in a turtle. So he simply watched as Frank picked up the hat, turned it around in his hand, then placed it lightly on top of his head. He wasn’t surprised when Frank vanished from the cafe, hat and all.

The turtle had made a promise to himself many years ago. To be precise, seventy years ago, before the human who “owned” him was even born. It had promised it would never, ever speak, even though the experiment had given it the ability to do so (albeit with a hideous accent), and in the lifespan of a turtle, picking up languages is no challenge. Still, the turtle knew what would happen if it dared to speak, like that time the human dropped him and he went “AAAOW FUCK”. Luckily the human was constantly on drugs, which made things easier to forget. But a cafe full of people… still, if the human continued to wear that damned hat, something horrible would happen.

When the green flashing in Frank’s eyes started to fade away, he looked at where the hat had taken him.  He was surprised to see another H4-T.  he hadn’t seen one of these devices since the war.  It was a genius invention originally brought on by the germans.  Basically they would distribute the H4-Ts in hat stores in well known Jewish areas.  hell, they’d even give them away.  And once those hats were put on the wearers would be transported to a concentration camp.  A lot even ended up in General Kraustitt’s base.  But that couldn’t have happened now.  Frank knew the general to be dead.  He killed the man himself…

It was at this point Digressing Omnipotent Narrator thought to himself “what is the world coming to?! Teleportation hats talking turtles? Jesus H Christ (not me), all things have gone awry!” But he digresses and returns to the narrative, it which Frank looks around to see the old room where he put a bullet in the generals head. The faded blood stain still marked the wall. Nazis, not the tidiest of folk.

The turtle sighed. He had to get out of the cage, get to the man with the hat, and make sure nothing was undone that should not be undone. Escaping wouldn’t be too difficult, he thought. The human had been careless lately. She had left the top panel of the cage open, and all he had to do was get his claws in the air vents just below the lid. From there, he could pull himself up and out. Luckily, the human seemed to be engrossed in her french fries, so the turtle took this opportunity to sneak to the corner of the cage, stand on his tip-toes, and crawl atop the plastic prison that he lived in from day to day. He took a moment to savor the fresh air and the smells of the cafe. Then, faster than you could blink, he too was gone.

The turtle was quickly realizing what was at stake. Drastic measures would have to be taken. The ability to speak was only the first successful experiment (after five that failed very painfully). The second was the ability to hide in plain sight. The turtle walked into an alley and, sure nobody was seeing him, he started to grow. Suddenly it could stand on his hind legs, and the shell on his back became as soft as flesh, and his face grew a nose and the eyes widened. He was now… a hunchback.

No longer a turtle, General Krausititt’s started the long hike back to his office, where he knew Frank would be waiting. It was cold, but he knew it would be. He had lived this day before. He almost hadn’t survived it, but his scientists had got to him after the shot, before he bled out. The transformation was complicated, but quick. He bore Frank no ill will, he wasn’t looking for revenge. But he had no intention of taking another bullet. The timestream must be preserved, but some other way. He would not be turtlized again today.

Krausititt could feel the timestream pulling, trying to create a loop, to make what once was merely repeat itself ad nauseum. He’d had an assistant once, a rather dim jackal-creature that had warned him of such things…every five minutes. He’d taken heed of the warning, then ended the looping for the mad beast with a few well-aimed shots. Krausititt pursed his lips, and didn’t let his will waver; history would not repeat itself. It must not. The fate of the world depended on it. He had seen it.

It wasn’t until Kraustitt stepped in to the same room they were in all those years ago that things started to happen.  Kraustitt managed to catch a surprised look from Frank before everything went blue for a moment.  Suddenly it was 1944 again.  Kraustitt was exactly where he was when Frank had stepped in.  His first instinct was to reach for his gun, but he thought better of it.  That would lead to Frank dropping his gun and then in a surprise move, getting it back and shooting him.  Besides, he could see that Frank was hesitating.  He knew that a change had happened.  Keeping his gun in his holster, Kraustit smiled at Frank.  “I suppose you want to know what’s going on, yes?”  Frank’s eyes widened.  “y..yes…”  “Don’t worry.  All will be explained in good time.  Would you like some cocoa?  Before your men got here we had a pot of it brewing.”  Frank lowered his gun and started to walk towards Kraustitt, unaware that Klaus, the 7-foot seargent-major built like a gorilla was slowly creeping behind him.

The veritable man-god grabbed him by his unsuspecting ears and hoisted him to the ceiling. “You see,” explained Krausitit, “You have been brought back into time to re thread history”. The rage was bulding in Franks face, pink an purple from pain and anger. “YOU SON OF A BITCH I’LL HAVE YOUR DISGUSTING ZOMBIE TURTLE HEAD FOR THIS! YOU CAN’T STOP ME!” SHOUTED Frank, “You are all demons, and god will rain vengeance upon your soul!” To which Krausitit replied. “No Frank, you are the demons”

and then Frank was a Zombie

THE END.

The Birth of a Four Color Memory

So, you all know by now that I’m writing a weekly column for Hypergeek called Four Color Memories. Here’s a little insight into how such a column is written.

I sit down on Sunday and sort through my notes to determine what I want to write about the next week.

I determine that my notes are all crap and I have no idea what the next column’s going to be about.

I spend some time pacing (about two days, sometimes three), trying to come up with an idea.

I come to the conclusion that I have nothing to say, that the whole idea of writing a column was ridiculous and that I should just give up while I’m ahead.

An Idea arrives.

I spend several more hours pacing, looking for an opening hook. Deadlines loom.

After beating my head on the wall until it feels like mush (my head, not the wall), the hook comes and I sit down to write.

I type up the hook and stare at the blank space beneath. I have two paragraphs, I need two pages.

I spend sometime on comics.org and wikipedia, researching my idea. This is fruitful. I quickly fill in the comic portions of the column.

Now come the anecdotes. Why I set the column up this way, I have no idea, but I require anecdotes to tie things together. This causes more pacing.

I watch some TV, because Letterman and John Stewart are distracting and I need distractions.

Finally, some old stories come to mind and I fill in the rest of the column. One more pass through, tighten things up, and the column is ready.

Now, what to write about next week…..?

 

Marching Onward

First order of business, the new promo poster for The Invisible Skein, by Amanda Hayes.

Isn’t it pretty?

The comic launches December 14th.

Also, I’ve got a new column up at Hypergeek, which you can read here.

More news later this week…

Four Color Memories

Beginning today, I am writing a weekly column on comics for the Hypergeek website. It’s a nostalgic look back at the comics of yesteryear, along with other ramblings of a pop culture nature. Come check it out.

Installment # 1

The Invisible Skein – Now in Color!!!

Art by the fabulous Amanda Hayes.

Feel free to download, save, copy, repost or distribute in any manner you choose, as long as

the titles and URL  stay intact.

Health Care, The Free Market And Me

In general, I’m pretty happy with capitalism. I like the free market, I like it when people are able to make a nice living selling things that we all want to buy. I don’t even have a problem (well, at least much of one) with people who sell things that NONE of us need or want to buy. More power to them, as long as they’re not conning people out of their pensions or making bogus medical claims that keep people from seeking real treatment.

But, like I say, in general, I support capitalism.

Here comes the exception.

When a free market system for a particular service, after many years of change and practice, evolves into a system that provides no real service to the consumer and seems to exist for no other purpose than taking our money, it’s time for that system to go away. Let the government step in and take over, for our protection. That’s why it’s there, to protect us as a whole, when we can’t do it on our own.

The health insurance system is just such a mess. They have turned into nothing more than a monetary middleman, skimming profits off the top and doing everything they can to not pay for treatments when they are needed.

Greed, it seems, is a pre-existing condition.

The figures I’ve seen show that 30% of the cost of health care in this country goes to the insurance companies, for doing, essentially, nothing. Medicare, by contrast, has an overhead of 3%.

You see where this is going?

If I’m going to pay for health care (and we’re all going to pay for health care, one way or another), I’d rather do it through my taxes, with lower overhead, knowing that whatever I pay in is at least going into the actual health care system and not into the pocket of some insurance executive.

Just my two cents…

Mondays Are For Movies….

…or movie lists, more to the point. I often find myself in the mood to watch movies in groups. Sometimes I’ll spend a week watching films by a single director, or star, sometimes I group by theme.

I have decided (randomly and for the purposes of this blog) to determine these groupings at the start of the week and to share my selections with you, just in case any of my fellow compulsives out there wanted to follow suit.

This week’s theme: Period Los Angeles Crime Dramas

1. L.A. Confidential – Based on a fantastic novel by James Ellroy, and featuring great performances by Kevin Spacey & Russell Crowe, this one (like all great L.A. mysteries) is full of lies, deception and coruption.

2. The Black Dahlia – Not a masterpiece like Confidential (by any stretch of the imagination), but still a nicely atmospheric period piece based on another James Ellroy book. Don’t go looking for great acting or solid plot (cause it ain’t there), instead immerse yourself in the feel of the film and you won’t be too disappointed.

3. Hollywoodland – This is a good one. Based on the real life mystery surrounding the death of TV actor George Reeves (Superman), with Ben Affleck actually giving a great performance (in flashback) as Reeves, this one has plenty of twists and turns to go with the setting.

4. Changeling – No, not the ghost flick with George C. Scott, this one’s a twisty little drama directed by Clint Eastwood and written by J. Michael Stracynski. Well done from every angle.

5. Chinatown – You knew this was coming, right? Directed by Roman Polanski and starring Jack Nicholson, this is THE definitive L.A. private eye story. With one of the best (and most quoted) final scenes in film history.

Extra Credit – Dark Blue – Although this one doesn’t fit the same period (it takes place in the 90’s, during the Rodney King riots) it sure has the feel. Lies and corruption and this time Kurt Russell’s along for the ride. Worth checking out.

Thoughts On The Skein

So, I’m working on this web comic.

And we’ve gotten through the business stuff, and the script for the first 36 page storyline is done, and the web stuff, while not finished, is well underway. And I’m looking at pages of beautiful art by Amanda and I’m facing, for the first time, the reality of words that I wrote being translated into images on paper and computer screen.

It is surreal. It is daunting. It is amazing.

To have characters that I imagined so fully realized in visual form is (if you’ll forgive the cliche) like a dream come true. To be doing work in a form that I have loved for as long as I can remember and to be working with an artist that instinctually gets what I’m looking for and manages to pull those images from my head and bring them to life in ways that are beyond what I imagined is more than I could have hoped for.

Synchronicity.

Yes, there are pretty new pictures. Go look at them.

The Invisible Skein Summit

Okay, official start date for the series is Dec 10, 2009. 4 Pages every week, each storyline running 36 pages over the course of nine weeks. Then a skip week, and then next story begins. Some color promos and a countdown clock will be up at the site on or around Oct 9th.

If you’re the twittery sort, you can follow further tidbits at my twitter feed or Amanda’s, since she’s promised to start using it.

And this is us at our production meeting in Traverse City this very night…

The Business of Creating A Web Comic

I never imagined the shear number of things that you need to think about when creating a web comic. I think, somewhere in the back of my mind, I figured it would be easy, once I found my artist (the lovely and talented Amanda Hayes).

Then reality came crashing down. First, we have to register the domain and get the basic web site up and running. This is a lot easier than it sounds. Every hosting service has different tools and different ways of getting to the little details, and none of them seem to spell things out in just the way that I need. Sure, if you want to throw up a standard blog, that’s easy enough. Or maybe a website for your real estate business. Hell, there’s a template just for the occasion. But a web comic?

And not just any web comic. This isn’t a single page strip. This is an ongoing story, delivered four pages at a time. The closest example I can find is Warren Ellis‘ Freak Angels. If you look at it, it shows you the first page of the current batch, with a little gizmo that allows you to flip through the other pages and a sidebar that will take you back to previous issues.

Which is precisely what I need.

Unfortunately, that’s a custom built template attached to the top of WordPress, the blogging software. So, now I need a programmer who can twist WordPress for me and make it do something similar. But it also has to look different. I have no desire to copy the look or feel of Warren’s site, I just need some of the function.

And of course I need it done, basically, for free.

Because, while we hope to eventually generate money from this endeavour, we are under no illusion that it’s going to come right away. And we are, as they say, broke.

And of course, we also need some legal paperwork. Something that defines the title, The Invisible Skein, the characters and the the overall story as co-created and co-owned, 50/50. I would imagine that there’s some sort of contract template out there for such a thing, but I’m having a devil of a time findng one.

And after that, we need to look into promotion. Obviously, one of the simplest ways for a web comic to start pulling in some cash is through merchandising. So we’ll need to find a decent deal with a supplier of things like t-shirts, coffee mugs, mouse pads and such. Yet another business detail.

Mind you, I’m not really complaining. I’m having the time of my life getting this rolling. But the amount of things involved has suprised me, and I thought it might surprise you, too.

Not to mention, one of you might just have a contract lying around that would be useful, or a template for WordPress that will do just what I want it to do.

One can always hope.