Toast and Marmalade for Tea

I thought I would take a moment and answer a few questions posted at my blog.

Longtime reader and independent cartoonist Tom writes, have you any thoughts on Muncie's new film festival? The start of something good or an one hit wonder? (And thanks for the comics, Tom!)

I thought my hometown's film festival was a good idea, but they should be brave enough to show only the independent work from Indiana instead of feeling they have to couple each work with a more famous mainstream work with Indiana ties, like HOOSIERS. Film festivals at that level should represent work not available anywhere else, especially not down the road at Blockbuster. Or maybe I'm just sour because nobody invited me. How many scripts does a brother have to sell to get a shout-out from his own hometown?

Mad pulp bastard Bill writes, I remember the Cougar and the whole of the Atlas line of super stars...

I do more than remember, thanks to ebay and studious attention to quarter bins at comic book shows I have quite a lot of them. And some of them ain't bad, especially DEMON HUNTER, THE HANDS OF THE DRAGON, and WULF THE BARBARIAN--athought two of those three only lasted one issue! An awesome site here.

Filmmaker Pete writes, Seven scripts in one year?!?!? Are you kidding me? My goal has always been to write one feature script a year. And that's a chore! How do you do it? Write a blog entry about that. I would love to hear your process.Also, what are the titles of the scripts... just curious.

You have to develop discipline enough to keep distractions at bay, like comics, TV, and Colts games (or in your case, Bucs games) and stop listening to that little voice in your head that tells you nobody cares but you and nothing will ever happen with the project and nobody will ever read your work. Although creativity is important, there is a lot of craft involved ; there are plenty of creative people in the world who can't stop playing XBox long enough to get the work done. And there is a lot of butt to chair involved.

That being said, it was my busiest year since I started really chasing freelancing in 2000 A.D. and I'm not sure that feat could be repeated.

This year was great for me in that I took '06 off because of a change of job and some family issues and I didn't know if I had been away too long. But right away I did SPLINTERHEAD and NEW JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH for Polonia Brothers Entertainment, a rewrite of the bigfoot movie PRIMAL which I believe came out from Automatic Media (though it came out without my rewrite), a rewrite of a serial killer movie MENTAL SCARS for producer Richard Myles, supernatural thriller URAMESHIYA (GHOST SCREAM) for New Zealand director Amit Tripuraneni (though we are still rewriting), and two projects I did on a nondisclosure that hopefully one day I can talk about, a sci-fi and a war movie.

Old gaming pal Barticus Rex writes: You can't drift from The Shield. Seriously. And check out Big Bang Theory and How I Met Your Mother on CBS Monday nights.

Thanks for the leads. I hate missing THE SHIELD but it is too hard-core for my wife's delicate sensibilities. That's what DVD box sets are for, I guess.

New reader Brian writes, Law and Order:CI is still good. A better switch to USA.

This turned out to be true! I didn't realize this had even happened, so I found it and started watching it. It looks a little less glossy but, in my mind, is better than SVU (or as we call it in my house, SUV) right now.

Thanks for the feedback! Give me a shout at johnoakdalton@hotmail.com.