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.

Another Park, Another Sunday

Once Upon A Time my filmmaking pals Jason Santo (who I met through rewindvideo.com), Gary Lumpp (who I met through Triggerstreet), Joe Sherlock (who I met through b-independent.com) and myself started swapping microcinema tapes through the mail and writing each other long, sometimes funny emails filled with our opinions. Then Jason got the bright idea to start a website, Microcinema Scene, and we were all surprised when it shot into the stratosphere. A couple of years down the road, and the keys have been turned over to another pal o' mine, "Sex Machine" director Chris Sharpe, formerly of Eyeball Magazine and Cinema Eye and some other hipster spots. I'm glad the site is soldiering on, and I hope you go look at its soft launch today.

Afterwards, give me a shout at johnoakdalton@hotmail.com.

Sir Duke

The sun is out and the blizzard is melting. Now we have "freezing fog" and, apparently, sandbags against the coming flood. Is it spring yet?

My pal Christopher Sharpe is posting some interesting tidbits about Sex Machine at his website, here.

My other pal, Brice Kennedy, who appeared in Peter Rottentail and Hellshock/The Da Vinci Curse/Black Mass/Dead Knight, chats about my movie and the Polonia Brothers' latest, Splatter Beach, which has girls in bikinis, which I had nothing to do with, as all the bikini girl movies they keep for themselves. More from him here.

Give me a shout at johnoakdalton@hotmail.com.

Boogie On Reggae Woman

SEX MACHINE streets May 1, y'all!

Just when I thought STUDIO 60 couldn't get any hipper, it did. A sexual harrassment lawyer shows up at the set at 10 p.m. to investigate a claim and sits around swilling booze and giving out her phone number. The ultra-conservative Christian on the show jumps between two boyfriends, one of whom has fallen back into drug addiction, and is acting in a movie where she simulates drug abuse and manslaughter. They are so unbelievably hip, they exist in a parallel dimension of hipness, and I can only peep through the window for an hour on Monday nights. I am almost about to quit watching it. Only I fear that their attacks on Midwestern life will spring back up.

I have been told by my family that I basically have to give up my entire lifestyle for Lent.

Happy Fat Tuesday, everybody!

Give me a yell at johnoakdalton@hotmail.com.

Strawberry Letter 23

Longtime reader and fellow writer Peter emails:

Saw that photo of you in your snow suit shovelling snow and it immediately cleared up some writer's block I was experiencing. I was having absolutely no luck being able to visualize a serial killer from small town Indiana so I could create the character... Then, I saw that photo... :)

This month's Premiere magazine has an artice about "DTV," the cool new name for direct-to-video fare, and how it is performing extremely well for companies. One interesting note the article mentions is that a lot of writers and directors will take a chance on DTV because they would like to get the work, but many actors still won't touch it. I'll have to show the article to the next person who asks when I am going to make some "real" movies.

I was waiting in a bookstore down the way from where my daughter was getting her hair done for Winter Dance and happened to grab a Fangoria off the shelf and open right to the reviews of my pal Jon McBride's recently re-released cult classics Woodchipper Massacre and Cannibal Campout. These two SOV features are finally coming up from the underground and getting the recognition they deserve as products of their time. Cannibal is downright skin-crawling and Woodchipper is a surprisingly funny dark comedy; both shot on glorious SVHS, circulating among afficianados and hard to find for close to twenty years. Jon has given me great advice over the years, and as "Wayne Beaubier" stole some scenes in my bigfoot movie Among Us, so I wish him nothing but luck with this latest good fortune. Definitely look for these, new on DVD for the first time.

Give me a yell at johnoakdalton@hotmail.com.

Snowbound!

A blizzard hit the midwest Monday night, with snowfalls not seen of this magnitude since those crazy 70s blizzards we all remember so fondly. Except I was too little to have to dig out of those ones. We had hip-deep snow around most of the house, except thankfully the front, which was only knee deep (depicted here). I am shown clearing a path to the mailbox so we could put some Netflix DVDs in, but unfortunately the mail didn't come today. Too bad, we may be here a while, and could use some new movies. We watched "An Inconvenient Truth" while more than a foot of snow fell outside last night. A writer's life should be full of irony. Give me a yell at johnoakdalton@hotmail.com.

Wildflower

A trailer for RAZORTEETH has popped up on YouTube here. Somebody needs to get this shit in hand. Half my career's up there.

If I could get all meta for a moment, when I rebuilt my blog I lost track of my stats counter. But it was still there in the background, ticking away. I caught up to it the other day and learned that I had more than SIXTEEN THOUSAND unique visitors last year. I didn't know I knew that many people; unless my brother is going around to a lot of different terminals to check site updates. Anyway, thanks for all that, and I will try to be more interesting.

Give me a shout at johnoakdalton@hotmail.com.

Nevermore!

I had a wake-up-screaming nightmare last night in which I was attacked by a big crow. Edgar Allen Poe, Ted Hughes "Lovepet," those crows in "The Wiz," I don't care what, a dream where you get attacked by a crow is a pretty evil-assed portent. Maybe it was the spicy jambalaya I ate right before bedtime. I walked around carefully, expecting something to fall, and it did; about a half-foot of snow, and subzero temperatures.

I meant to blog about my war against STUDIO 60 but this week's episode was so full of contrived couplings and breaking aparts that I sort of can't absorb it all. At least LOST is on tomorrow.

In the meantime, I am slugging away on MENTAL SCARS for producer Richard Myles and hope to deliver a completed rewrite shortly. Seems like every producer I talk to lately is living someplace warm, making the sky a little grayer here. But soon spring will come to the heartland.

Give me a shout at johnoakdalton@hotmail.com.

Rocket Arm, Laser Eye, Etc.

Colts Win! Colts Win!
But my pipes also froze, and I spent five or six hours thawing them out. Some days are diamonds, some days are stones. Some days are both.

I've loved my Colts for a long time, but even I didn't think they were going to do it. Face it, Hoosiers, I bet a lot of you in your heart of hearts didn't, either.

Now the Colts are so popular I almost want to jump off the bandwagon. I have always felt more comfortable supporting the perennial losers. As Philip K. Dick said, "Anybody can be a winner."

Go Texans!

Give me a shout at johnoakdalton@hotmail.com.

My Milkshake Brings Feds to the Yard

Meatwad off to Abu Garib. My old movie pal Jason Santo is okay, though.

The place where my wife and I were married twenty years ago was recently desecreated when it was used to shoot a porn movie. More fuel to the persistent rumors in my community that I am involved in porn.

Another old movie pal Tyler Tharpe's new movie, RETURN IN RED, comes out in a week or so. Peep an old-school trailer here.

I report, your ass decides.

Sex Machine Gets 'Tubed

People jonesing for mo' SEX MACHINE before its DVD debut this spring can check out this on YouTube: A little package done for an Austin, Texas, cable TV show about the movie's screening there. Has some nice footage and a funny Q&A. NSFW! But you probably already knew that.

Give me a shout at johnoakdalton@hotmail.com.

Betcha By Golly Wow

Apparently ARMED AND FAMOUS is going over to VH-1, if y'all want to see more of our midwestern crackheads.

In other entertainment news, my war against STUDIO 60 continues. However, after my last post, I spent some time on the internet and found out a lot of people think that it stinks. I smell doom around it. And believe me, I have smelled a few doomed projects, many of them my own.

I have to give credit to STUDIO 60 for one believable subplot. I can believe a poisonous snake can get loose in a studio, and a ferret would be set loose to catch it. I believe this because once when I worked at WIPB-TV a penquin got loose and pooped on my foot. And once when I worked at WXOW-TV a piglet got loose in the back of the production van and shat all over the place, and it stunk so bad that when I drove up to the TV station an engineer smelled it from clear inside and came out with a bucket of water.

Less believable is the subplot where Amanda Peet, an unwed mother and also some high-up at the fictitious network, ends up locked on the roof with her coke-addled stalker, who happens to be an employee who in real life is married to the mom from MALCOLM IN THE MIDDLE. He mentions that it is an essential element of any romantic movie to be in a creepy situation like this. Note to writers: just because you point out something is trite in the context of your story, doesn't make it suddenly cool and all self-referential. It's still trite. That goes double if you try to put some 70s music to it, unless you're Quentin Tarantino and maybe not even then.

Until later, give me a holler at johnoakdalton@hotmail.com.

Where Waters Fall Frozen

ARMED AND FAMOUS, the reality show taking place in my hometown of Muncie, Indiana, has been cancelled after three weeks. In a way, I'm glad. Last week's episode, featuring domestic abuse, prostitution, and assorted crackheads on the familiar streets of my old southside neighborhoods gave me nightmares. I thought it looked like a frightening place to visit, forgetting I had grown up there.

In this nightmare I was appearing on the show and responding to a police call, feeling somewhat untrained. It was very dark and I couldn't see anything as we pulled up to a house where a guy was holding his wife and kids hostage. I was sent around back and all of a sudden the guy loomed out of the darkness with a pistol to a kid's head. I warned him I was going to shoot him if he didn't put down his gun so he shot me first. As I was going down I was able to get off a shot and kill him. I saw the whole thing was being taped as I fell to the ground.

Right now JANE EYRE is on Masterpiece Theatre, and I think that's safe enough.

I stood outside in the snow tonight and cooked myself a nice New York strip on the grill, so I think I'm ready to return to the living.

Give me a shout at johnoakdalton@hotmail.com.

Wild Strawberries

I had been complaining that there was no winter, so of course I woke up and the world was ringed in a crystal-clear ice, snow dusting the fields. Thursday morning I walked down the hill to my office in a bitter, biding wind and I heard a "caw! caw!" I looked up and saw a crow in a stark bare branch above my head, against a cold iron sky. It was so Seventh Seal that the film buff in me had to admire it even as I was filled with dread. Later that day I fell ill and left work and that night while I was bundled in a blanket on the couch and feeling miserable my daughter asked if she could borrow some clothes as Friday was "Nerd Day" at school and certainly I had something that would fit the bill. It is January in Indiana.

Give me a shout at johnoakdalton@hotmail.com.

Studio 60 in the Cornfield

It's funny that right after I declared war on Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip for their unfair portrayal of midwestern life they slipped off the air. But they crept back on last night thinking that I had forgotten about them. If only it were so.

I don't know, perhaps midwestern life is a lot different than life in LA. For instance, we saw Amanda Peet meeting a new rival and within ninety seconds they were all, "You don't like me, do you?" In most offices this animosity would lie under the surface for many years and long-term subterfuge would be employed rather than out-and-out confrontation. But we are not as hip as Amanda Peet.

Even more alarming was the depiction of office romance, where a recovering coke addict abruptly falls in love with his much younger boss, who happens to be pregnant by an unnamed man. He begins stalking his boss to the point that most people would be fired and dragged off the premises by the police. But this is accepted as cute and funny by his colleagues even though most people I know would be creeped out by this man's behavior.

In LA, people get married a bunch of times and give their kids dumb names and booze it up while leaving their panties and newborn babies at home. We have those people here also, but they live across the creek in the trailer park. I guess I expected more of my Studio 60 characters.

Give me a shout at johnoakdalton@hotmail.com.

Weighing In

My wife's best friend from childhood has turned out to be a best-selling author, and with one thing leading to another she ended up staying with us for a few days. She gave me this as a Christmas present and thus earned my undying respect, but even more than that she rather kindly talks as if somehow we share similar career paths. That would be like Donald Trump walking outside Trump Tower and telling the guy with the "Will Work for Food" sign that they are both entrepreneurs. Allow me to examine this more closely.

Best-selling authors get paid six figure advances. B-movie scriptwriters figure they might get paid someday. Advantage: Best-selling authors.

Best-selling authors have book clubs that meet to discuss their works. B-movie scriptwriters have drunk dudes hosting "Bad Movie Nights. " Advantage: Best-selling authors.

Best-selling authors see their books in the front racks at bookstores. B-movie scriptwriters pray they don't see their DVDs in the dollar bin. Advantage: Best-selling authors.

Best-selling authors have friends in the same circles, who send them gifts like Prada bags and IPods and advance copies of books. B-movie scriptwriters have directors who every once in a while send them pictures of scream queens in bikinis. Advantage: B-movie scriptwriters.

Best-selling authors get on the Today Show, or Oprah. B-movie scriptwriters might get asked to be on a late-night cable-access show. Advantage: B-movie scriptwriters.

Best-selling authors appear in "People." B-movie scriptwriters appear in "Fangoria." Advantage: B-movie scriptwriters.

Perhaps all things are equal in the end, after all. If loyal readers can think of any other comparisons, feel free to post them. Until then, give me a shout at johnoakdalton@hotmail.com.

O, Happy Day

At the beginning of the season I stated that a Colts/Bears Super Bowl would be great, but I doubted we would see it.

And now we will see it.

2006 mostly sucked. Actually, so did most of 2005. But 2007 is turning into the best year ever.

We went out to dinner the other night and saw our wedding photographer--a good harbinger for my twentieth wedding anniversary this year; or, as I like to tell my wife, "Two Decades of Excellence."

Go Colts!

Give me a shout at johnoakdalton@hotmail.com.

Back in the New York Groove

With PRIMAL tucked away and percolating along in California, I tip my keyboard towards the great state of North Carolina and a new project, a rewrite of a horror script featuring a junkyard killer titled MENTAL SCARS, for producer Richard Myles. More soon.

Today I recorded my audio commentary track for the DVD release of Christopher Sharpe's SEX MACHINE, and hope I didn't talk out of my ass too much. Try talking for 90 or so minutes straight without talking out of your ass. It's not easy. But I hope people enjoy it, and it is winging its way to Texas soon.

It was fun to watch SEX MACHINE again. I think people will enjoy it when it gets out there to a video store near you, in Spring 2007.

You know, Al Gore may have something. It's the middle of January, and it has been a modest 40-50 degrees in temperature, with nary a flake of snow anywhere. Not that I'm complaining.

My Colts keep breaking my heart, but pulled off a shocker over the bruising Ravens and earned a trip to the AFC Championship against their old Achilles heel, the Patriots. We'll see what happens. Do I dare to eat a peach?

Also have to love the Saints. In the late 80s I worked at WXOW-TV in LaCrosse, Wisconsin, where the Saints had their training camp, and got to mix with Saints luminaries such as Bobby Herbert, Dalton Hilliard, "Ironhead" Heyward, and others, and have followed their largely hapless adventures since. I usually like to jump off bandwagons when others jump on, but I will stick with the Saints.

I was going to write a bit about how I like the ends of things, when great comic book runs dry up and flame out and the foster kid joins the wheezing sitcom and so on, but hate watching final episodes, and the fact that I won't watch the final episode of THE PRISONER has stuck in my brother's craw for years, but downstairs I hear my wife singing along to The Carpenters, and that is a siren's call I cannot ignore.

So, until later, give me a shout at johnoakdalton@hotmail.com.

Standing Outside a Broken Phone Booth With Money in My Hand

Well, I saw the debut of the new reality show ARMED AND FAMOUS, which takes place in my hometown of Muncie, Indiana, and it was pretty much what I expected. I knew it would start with a shot of some cornfields. Of course, we saw some rubes looking at the limo coming into town with open-mouthed wonder. Of course we saw the trailer park, and the only restaurant in town where you can throw peanut shells on the floor as well as the longtime all-night cafe fondly called "The Awful Waffle." We saw Wee Man riding a bull at a local bar, natch, with plenty of guitair pickin' on the soundtrack.

What surprised me was that there was more crack than I thought and fewer mullets. It surprised me that Jack Osborne was such a dead shot. But the biggest surprise was that I think my whole family had a celebrity sighting of Trish Stratus and didn't know who she was. It started with my son observing, "that chick is pretty hot, for a cop," at which point I noted an attractive, buffed-out young woman who did seem unusually desirable for the local constabulary. While we were watching the show my wife said, "Didn't we see her somewhere?" and both being somewhat unfamiliar with the intricacies of life in the WWE realized we may have missed our brush with greatness.

So far, I have seen three people I have met on the show; thankfully, they are the mayor, the police chief, and a policeman who is the son of my mother's best friend.

New projects on the horizon; until then, give me a shout at johnoakdalton@hotmail.com.

Everybody's Talking

I have not one, but two projects in the hopper that I need to be rolling on, so here are just some links to things on my mind:

An extremely cool article on tech trends in 2006, here (poached from my pal Bill Cunningham).

The reality show based in my hometown, ARMED AND FAMOUS, gets the stinkeye from The Washington Post, here.

Not for me, but interesting.

This site, $1,000 Spielberg, is also pretty interesting. When they get down to $100 Spielberg, I am so there (also poached from Bill).

If you missed "Bigfoot Stole My Six-Pack," the theme song of my sasquatch epic AMONG US, currently playing on the SPACE channel, somebody YouTubed it here (courtesy of my pal Tim Shrum).

You know what song brought tears to my eyes the other day? "Year of the Cat" by Al Stewart.

Give me a shout at johnoakdalton@hotmail.com.

The Da Vinci Curse, Japanese Flava

The poster for THE DA VINCI CURSE in its Japanese release, via my pal Shogo (the DP for SEX MACHINE). How cool is that?