Seekrit Projects, Sims and Slacking Off or "How I Wasted A Weekend Playing Video Games and Last Minute Lettering"

It's Monday.

It's Monday?!?

Fuck. My weekend flew by and looking back I'm not sure where it went.

That isn't true. I know exactly where it went....to a town called Sunset Valley.

I've been introduced to the world of the SIMS and I have to say I think I have a problem. For years I've heard about these games (mostly from my two younger sisters, HI GIRLS) but never paid them much mind until this weekend.

SIMS 3 was downloaded on Saturday night and by Sunday night at 9pm I had populated an entire household with computer-generated people whose lives are more involved and exciting than my own. This isn't an admission of my pathetic life (actually my life has been highly entertaining and busy over the last few months) but more an admiring of the programmers ability to create a world that I was totally immersed in after only fifteen minutes of game-play. If you've played this game before then I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir but if you haven't and you have a proclivity to these sorts of time-wasters I HIGHLY recommend giving it a shot.

What I SHOULD have been doing all weekend is lettering/editing comics. In fairness, I had a big project on Friday night/Saturday morning that I put a ton or hours into and finished moments before the 11am deadline Saturday morning. Still, that was one of three books I'm juggling right now and although the deadlines for the other two books aren't as tight, I should have been focused on those become my weekdays/nights have been a wash as far as getting any kind of lettering work accomplished.

None of this even takes my writing into account. Finding the time to write, letter, edit, and work my day job has transformed my life into a series of spinning plates on top of long sticks. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining. I would much prefer to be busy rather than not, but now a new problem of how to juggle all these activities without burning out has appeared.

Priorities become muddled when you're involved with many different passions at once. I'm a writer at heart and in the long run that's where I want to end up, but writing doesn't pay the bills. I love making comics and lettering but that only pays a few bills (READ: NOT MANY). The day job, PAing on a TV show, is what's keeping a roof over my head but isn't exactly where I want my career to stop climbing. On top of all of that there is my love for being lazy, watching too much TV and generally having an aversion to too much structure.

My solution to all of this has been to work really hard on all fronts for a few weeks and then take a two day weekend to complete waste on something inconsequential like playing The Sims 3 all weekend. It is a good life when your biggest problems are to narrow down which fun task you want to accomplish in a week/weekend.

Not sure if all of this makes for a good blog or not, it was just on my mind and need to get out. Sorry if it's not as funny or entertaining as usual (and honestly, how funny or entertaining am I usually?) but sometimes you catch me at an introspective crossroads.

For more silly posts and less ruminations on life and career I would direct you to the new tumblr that my roommate and I have started: http://blazedandneurotic.tumblr.com/

He's the neurotic one, although from just reading this blog post you that might not be clear. I swear I'm not normally this self-reflective.

Untitled Blog Post

Sometimes I get so wrapped up in making a title for these blog posts that I don't even feel like writing the damn thing so today that's the best I can do. I've had a throbbing headache all day that has put me in kind of a weird mood so excuse the mess of words that's about to spew forth.

Been really busy both with work and non-work related things. I lost about a week and a half of my life to two very addictive video games. The first of which is called Dragon Age: Origins, a RPG (Role Playing Game) that's sort of a Lord of The Rings type deal but far more interesting,  in my opinion. Then I played Mass Effect 2, another sort of RPG but set in space and with a high focus on 3rd person shooting. That game was amazing and I HIGHLY recommend getting the first one playing it to completion and then playing the second. What makes the game so cool is that every little decision you make effects the future installments of the game. The ending of this most recent endeavor set up some huge potential plot points for the third, and final, game.

I've also been lettering a lot lately, which is always a good thing. First I worked on my graphic novel (currently undergoing a possible title change) which has 45 penciled pages, another 43 pencils on the way and is hopefully going to be colored soon. I've been lettering the pencil pages as they come in, to provide myself with plenty of time to make any changes to dialogue or story elements. In fact, here are some pages from that:

Next my good friend Charles Soule (who you can find on http://charlessoule.wordpress.com/) sent me a batch of pages for his next graphic novel a book called, 27. This is one of the best books I've ever worked on, the art is amazing and the story is so brilliant that I'll be shocked if this isn't picked up and turned into a film almost immediately. Can't wait to be able to share some pages from that book with you, maybe later in the week Charles will let me post some of those pages.

I also lettered the first issue of  "Neverland" this week for Zenescope. This is a particularly exciting project for two reasons: 1) I've long been a fan of Zenescope's "Grimm Fairy Tales" series, in which they tale classic fairy tales a put a dark, sometimes sexual spin on them. The series is very dark and usually has a cool Tales From The Crypt-like twist at the end of each story arc. 2) I am a HUGE Peter Pan fan. Other than "Alice in Wonderland”, J.M. Barrie’s tale of never growing up is my all time favorite classic. So to work on a book that plays within that mythology is a huge geek moment for me. I believe Zenescope has a preview issue already available somewhere (although I didn’t letter that I am on board to letter the series), you should try and find a copy before issue one debuts.

My other obsession this week is, of course, LOST. We’re in the final season of this amazing show and I have a million and one theories running around my head, unfortunately (or fortunately) for you I’m NOT going to be sharing them here. The internet is full of amazing places to read about LOST (in fact, my favorite blog is Brian’s Lost and Gone Forever which I DEMAND you visit right away!!!) and I don’t think it’s where I should be focusing my time. I could literally write all day about LOST and I fear once I start I won’t stop. So in an effort to keep this blog about ALL things Shawn and not just Shawn Loves Lost, I’ll be keeping my insane Lost rant to myself until the final episode has aired. I imagine then I’ll have a lot to say and I’ll take up a full post dedicated solely to that.

What else?

Oh, a few plugs:

1. A good friend of my, Brian Hoffman, has started a website called Eat This New York where he started out blogging about food he had eaten around the city but recently introduced, what I assume is an ongoing, video-blog. The video is hilarious and entertaining and will make you really hungry for pizza. I would post the video here but I want you to see his site and maybe click on some ads and help the guy out so please visit the link for the video.

2. Another friend, this is a guy I’ve know for a much shorter period of time but I respect his work a whole hell of a lot, Victor Quinaz, is very busy. He’s writing  what i believe will be the one of the most fun graphic novels you’ve ever read and also directing and producing a series of parody videos that I am LOVING. The whole premise is MTV’s the Hills but set during the time of the Pilgrims. Great stuff.  The first video, “Pilgrims” you can see below. The second video titled, “Edith Wharton’s Ethan Frome” is already getting buzz from places like NY magazine’s Vulture and can be seen either on the Vulture site or on Victor’s Youtube: HERE

 

Okay that’s all for now. My headache has actually gone away a bit and I wonder if i just needed to write for a while. Sometimes i think too many thoughts get back up in my brain and even though I do talk a lot, sometimes some shit just needs to be written out.

I guess that’s why I’m a writer. Weeeeeee!