Lucky Number Seven

I was perusing the relaunched Microcinema Fest site and found this picture of me MCing at last year's Fest. I'm putting it up as an excuse to mention that the 7th Microcinema Fest will be August 23-26 in beautiful Palatine, Illinois, and the Call for Entries is out.

Pimpin' Machine

Here's another picture from the relaunched Microcinema Fest site, featuring me during the Q&A for "Sex Machine." Posted as an excuse, natch, to mention that "Sex Machine" streets May 1.

Real To Reel

Thanks to everybody who came out to the Phantoscope High School Film Festival in Richmond, Indiana Saturday night to hear me talk on a panel, and stayed for the fest. We had fifty-plus people crowded into the room and spilling out into the hallway for the talk and more than 100 for the screening of regional high school kids' short films. Afterwards a mother came up and thanked me for telling the kids not to do anything they weren't proud of. I'm sure she was picturing her son in my place in twenty-five years and was glad that I warned him off the path.

Working away at NJTTCOTE. Until then, give me a holler at johnoakdalton@hotmail.com.

The Liberator Pg. 16

Another few pages of THE LIBERATOR, my "24 Hour Comic" featuring the public-domain Nedor comic book heroes. On the mothership, the new Liberator witnesses American Crusader and the gang putting the beat-down on an alien invasion.

The Liberator Pg. 17

Fighting Yank gets a comeuppance.

The Liberator Pg. 18

Ms. Masque saves the day. More from THE LIBERATOR later.

The Sleeve

Courtesy my pal Bill Cunningham, the DVD sleeve for SEX MACHINE, streeting May 1.

The Liberator, Pg. 11

The Liberator makes First Contact, in the latest batch of pages from my 24 Hour Comic "The Liberator," based on public-domain Nedor heroes.

The Liberator, Pg. 12

I think I probably was hitting my stride, or whatever stride I had, at this point. I like this sequence the best in this comic.

The Liberator, Pg. 13

With great power comes great responsibility, etc.

The Liberator, Pg. 14

This is the Liberator getting transported up to the mothership. I probably could have drawn this better.

The Liberator, Pg. 15

The mothership could have been better. But man, was my hand getting tired.

The Liberator, Pg. 7

A new batch of pages from my 24 Hour Comic "The Liberator." Ms. Masque tries every tried and true origin to scope out the new Liberator.

The Liberator, Pg. 8

The secret origin of the new Liberator. I think this is the first page I drew at the 24 Hour Comics Event at Readers' Copies comic book store in Anderson, Indiana. To see more from this event, including photos, go here.

The Liberator, Pg. 9

Here is my version of The Woman in Red. Historically, this had just been a chick dressed up in red clothes; no powers, nothing. One of the original female superhero characters, methinks. Alan Moore did a bit of an update to her. I decided to do a more mystical version, as the team seemed to lack that figure.

The Liberator, Pg. 10

The Woman in Red references Nelson Drew, the original Liberator just seen in a flashback.

Latest Project

Jules Verne.

The Polonia Brothers.

It had to happen.

THE NEW JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH,

lensing Summer 2007. "Re-imagined" by yours truly.

Give me a yell at johnoakdalton@hotmail.com.

Joy (Astro 100)

I was asked to judge, and participate in a panel, at the Phantoscope Film Festival for high school students in eastern Indiana and western Ohio. Obviously, I am there to serve as a dire warning. But if you are in the neighborhood, say howdy.

You know, the new Ghost Rider movie wasn't half bad. Props for using Karen Carpenter in the soundtrack.

Yesterday was a record-setting 80 degrees here. A week or so ago, my pipes froze. Paging Al Gore.

Stand by for new project news. In the meantime, I'll get busy scanning the rest of The Liberator.

Give me a shout at johnoakdalton@hotmail.com.

Book Beat

My BOOK BEAT column, from the magazine POMP AND CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE, a publication of the Magna Cum Murder Mystery Conference:

THE AFGHAN by Frederick Forsyth
A top-notch espionage thriller that reads like non-fiction, the latest from the veteran scribe Forsyth pits a deep-cover British soldier against a terrorist cell with its roots in Afghanistan. Forsyth plays the action out across an international stage but keeps the brusque narrative close to the bone. Focused research, with lots of detail, and a crackling writing style makes this one a solid read.

FADE TO BLONDE by Max Phillips
I have been a big fan of the “Hard Case Crime” series of lost noir classics, done up with genre-styled covers and filled back to front with hard-nosed prose. The series has included a smattering of contemporary novels, written in a noir vein, and this one from Max Phillips is one of the strongest. An aspiring screenwriter turned handyman ends up taking on a job with a femme fatale that sets him on a perilous course. Set in the noir period, but with contemporary sex and violence, Phillips has added a solid, highly enjoyable novel to the genre.

THE NIGHT GARDENER by George Pelecanos
Two rookie cops and a seasoned investigator work a serial killer case in Washington, D.C., that goes unsolved. Years later, this unsolved case has changed all three of the policemen’s lives in different ways. Now it seems as if the killer has resurfaced, and all three become a part of the new investigation. Pelecanos’ latest is less a mystery than a rumination on the impact violence has on peoples’ lives. Seeing the novel in this light, rather than as a police procedural, makes the nebulous ending more satisfying. Overall Pelecanos is a strong crime writer, and has expanded his repertoire with a more reflective outing.

BY A SLOW RIVER by Philippe Claudel
In a small town in France, the old men, the women, and the children try to carry on with their normal lives as the Great War rages on in the trenches just over the hill outside of town. Then, a pair of murders break the fragile veneer of the village’s inhabitants, leaving a dogged police inspector to eventually draw out the shocking truth. Claudel’s literate mystery features a unique setting, as the horrors of war ravage the countryside just outside the cozy confines of the town. Really fine writing, and a surprising ending, elevate this offbeat story, translated from the French.

SILENCE OF THE GRAVE by Arnaldur Indridason
Icelandic crime novelist Arnaldur Indridason returns with another police procedural delving into the culture and politics of Reykjavik. In this outing, a police investigator stumbles across a decades-old crime, born of a broken household, that holds parallels to his own fractured family life. Resonant, emotional drama, alongside crisp crime writing, makes Indridason worth seeking out.

DST: RIP

Seriously, the good people of Indiana were just forced to go to Daylight Savings Time and now they are changing it on us. We had to go through all the computer patches and bullshit again and this morning I woke up rubbing my eyes and thinking, gosh it's early, and it was. People who aren't from Indiana marvel at how we never had DST until last year. Hoosiers wonder why all of the rest of you mindlessly follow DST like sheep. It's 5 a.m., now it's 6 a.m. Two plus two equals three.

My son was driving along and got rear-ended by a guy trying to change the time on the clock in his dash. At work, the night maintenance guy tried to change the clock on our wall and it fell off the wall and onto a hub behind a bank of computers, de-powering the hub and leaving us chasing network problems all afternoon, not thinking that of course the night before a clock fell off the wall and hit our hub and shut it off.

Daylight Savings Time is the devil's work. 'Nuff said.

Give me a yell at johnoakdalton@hotmail.com.

The Liberator Pg. 1

I got a lot of response when I posted on-line my first "24 Hour Comic" effort, BAD EGGS. A few years later I tried another comic--24 pages in 24 hours--calling this one THE LIBERATOR. I had this idea I would use Nedor heroes--a group of public domain heroes that have cropped up here and there, from Alan Moore's TOM STRONG to Bill Black's FEMFORCE. The trick was to base my characters on the original origins, and not later versions by other people. It was an interesting project, and you can read what I wrote about it at the time, with photos and all, by starting here. As with my last 24 Hour Comic, I drew the last page first, with a classic "Roll Call" which I have always liked.

The Liberator Pg. 2

I called this "The Superhero Diagnosis" because that was one of the prompts on the 24 Hour Comics Page. I realized later I should have spelled that word "beyotch," probably.

The Liberator, Pg. 3

The first comic I ever read featured Hal Jordan slipping on a bar of soap, and Green Lantern's power ring flying away and landing on the hand of John Stewart, pressing him into service in the Green Lantern Corps. I guess that has impacted my comic book thinking ever since.

The Liberator, Pg. 4

One of my favorite pages. Here we see the first appearance of Pyroman. He is supposed to be the original, mixing some new versions of characters with the old like another of my favorite early comics, JUSTICE SOCIETY OF AMERICA.

The Liberator, Pg. 5

Fighting Yank and Ms. Masque are characters that are seen quite a bit in other people's Nedor stories (along with Black Terror, who I couldn't figure out how to fit in) so the trick was to make them very different than what had been seen before. I am especially happy with my take on Ms. Masque.

The Liberator, Pg. 6

A lot of people wondered what Fighting Yank was talking about here. The mysterious substance Lamesis was an Egyptian potion used by the original Liberator as a source of his super-powers. Research!

Love Letters to Rambler

Ice storms, frozen pipes, sore throat. I thought it was supposed to be spring.

I finished MENTAL SCARS for producer Richard Myles, in sunnier North Carolina, and am looking at my next few projects hopefully falling into place.

Apparently while I wasn't paying attention they decided to kill off Captain America. With a couple of slugs from a sniper's rifle. Dumb. We'll see how long that lasts.

Thinking about going to see this in a couple of weeks.

I saw the Colts Super Bowl DVD in the store the other day and still can't believe it actually happened.

More later; until then, give me a shout at johnoakdalton@hotmail.com.

Photograph

Let me break this down all meta for a minute. My profile picture went away. On Blogger you can't upload one directly, but have to link it from someplace else. I linked this picture from Microcinema Scene. But in the reboot of that site my pic went away, as the link doesn't work any more. So I got the bright idea to post the picture here and link to this post, which probably isn't going to go away anytime soon, much to the dismay of some. I really like this photo. This is me at Mt. Rushmore three years ago. This photo was taken by Canadian filmmaker Jon Ashby during Microcinema Fest, and I appreciate him letting me use it as I seem cooler than I really am. End meta transmission.