Howdy, anyone paying attention!

Well, it’s been busy. The Comic Con was a subtle smash hit, as DC and Marvel decided not to show and gave us little Davids a chance to shine with folks who normally wouldn’t take a stroll down Artist’s Alley. There were a few artists and writers “slumming” it in the Alley who would normally have been under the protective, sterile canopy of said super conglomerates had they been there, as well, so it was good for the fans as well.

I thank anyone who stopped by the WBD table and said hello, especially the kid from Logan Square who was nice enough to pretend he’d specifically searched us out. Hope you’re digging the books, buddy. Appreciate it. It was also a great weekend, as I was signing at The Comic Vault on Montrose and Ashland on Saturday and the turnout was better than I’d hoped (considering I just now advertised it on my own site, three days after its occurance). I am the worst salesman in the world, no wonder I got fired from the men’s Polo department at Marshall Fields ten years ago. That and I showed up drunk all the time. ANYhoo…

Believe it or not, I am still working on the film. Everyone is prepared to lynch me at this point, those who are still interested. Everyone else who worked so damned hard on it and haven’t heard anything from me, I don’t blame anyone for being irritated or just giving up on their favorite hard-luck hero. I am wrestling with a few factors, post-production issues I have no control over as well as things that are just my fault; like being caught between wanting Sam Fuller-style energy and Kubrickian methodology. You cannot have both, my man!

Don’t give up yet! I am hard at work! It will be done soon and it will knock the shit out of you! Thank you for working on it and I have not forgotten anyone!

On that note, I’d better get back to work. Anyone who’s picked up the books in the last month, especially the Lie Down Low series finale, I would love to hear what you thought.

3/13/09
One week to blastoff.
At this date the production is a swirling mass of scrambling, begging and scrounging. What began some six months ago as a bootleg idea has metastasized into a full blown experience at once both exciting and intensely intimidating.

Over the summer I worked as a Script Supervisor on a friend’s short film, something I’d never done before. I’d written a few scripts, shot a number of YouTube type videos and generally kept my ambitions on a level somewhere beneath a junky slacker’s… several years ago I met my wife while trying to get a feature made from a screenplay I’d written. After realizing what a nightmare putting a film together was I simply took the script and made it into the graphic novel that is now “Lie Down Low”. It took me seven years.

So I’m working as a Script Supervisor on this film for which I had also done the storyboards and meanwhile I’m studying my friend the director. I start to think, “look at him, he’s doing this thing. He’s just doing it. What the hell is stopping me?”I don’t have a good answer for myself, so I talk to the DP – who I am also friends with.

He tells me to go ahead and write a short, we’ll shoot it guerilla style with him, a sound guy and me riding around in a car. Sounds good to me. Sounds old school, Cassavettes style. I say, I’ll do it – then proceed to write a mindbender science fiction piece with sets, intricate props and an entirely imagined alternate universe. But hey, we can still do it with the three of us riding around in a car, right?

Enter my wife, Sujin. She had watched me with patience while the project floundered, never butting in with her knowledge and previous film experience – of which she has layers. She waited while I made phone calls to my friend in Los Angeles who I swore was going to come through with all the money I needed. Waited while I waited and made more calls and scratched my ass and did nothing.

Truth is, I could write all I wanted. I could draw an entire storyboarded version of the movie, I could put together a mean flash sequence with music I’d done on Garage Band. I could draw the damned thing as a comic book. It still didn’t make it a movie. I just didn’t know how to get started. I hate talking to people, and my unjustified pride made it really difficult to ask people for favors.

With tucked tail I asked her for help. Like some ninja trained for stillness and silence but always coiled for action she sprung to and lit a rocket under my ass. Now I’m hanging onto it like Slim Pickens, waving my hat in the air and yahooing and crapping my pants and hoping nobody notices. Next week we are shooting.

Over the next week or so I’ll be (hopefully) sitting down for a few minutes each night and keeping you up to date on the progress. If you’re thinking of shooting a movie, perhaps this can –if nothing else – show you what NOT to do. I kid. This has been a tremendous experience and I will say this before I shut up for now – make friends. Do favors. If anyone is shooting something, try to be a part of it even if you’re just standing there waiting to get coffee for someone. Be on set. Talk to people, get to know them. They may surprise you by helping when you thought it was impossible.

Talk soon.