:-)

CAUGHT IN THE WEB

I went online around an hour ago. (Or was it thrity minutes ago? I'm not sure anymore.) Anyway, I went online with the intention of research a particular topic for this print ad I'm trying to crack. In the process of that so-called research, I followed one hyperlink after another and ended up in a place far, far away. So, now I forget why I went online in the first place.

Anyway, here are some interesting things that I found:

1. Warren Ellis is writing another online column at the Pulse.

2. Neil Gaiman's speech at the Harvery Awards:

Where he gives some advice about creating comics.

Read outside of comics. Learn from places that aren't comics. Don't do what anyone else is doing. Steal from places that people aren't looking. Go outside. Many years ago, when it was almost unheard of for foreigners to write American comics, people used to ask why British Writers were different. I had no idea. I did notice that when I spoke socially to people like Alan Moore, or to Grant Morrison, we mostly weren't talking about comics. We were talking about avant garde forms of poetry, about non-fiction writers, about weird things we'd found. Grant Morrison discovered a long-forgotten Victorian children's author named Lucy Clifford, who wound up influencing both his Doom Patrol and, much later, my Coraline. We loved comics, but they weren't all we knew. There's a whole cool world out there. Use it

.

3.. Found these David Letterman quotes...

Everyone has a purpose in life. Perhaps yours is watching television.

Fall is my favorite season in Los Angeles, watching the birds change color and fall from the trees.

I'm just trying to make a smudge on the collective unconscious.

New York now leads the world's great cities in the number of people around whom you shouldn't make a sudden move.

Sometimes when you look in his eyes you get the feeling that someone else is driving.

There's no business like show business, but there are several businesses like accounting.

Traffic signals in New York are just rough guidelines.

USA Today has come out with a new survey - apparently, three out of every four people make up 75% of the population.

hahahhaha!

So, there.

Now, back to my research.

(Or maybe I should just go home.)

11:50pm

(Maybe it's time to go home.)

:-)

Below is an email I got from Brandie, in reaction to my HACK AND SLACK entry.

The Hack
by Luke Sullivan

The first warning sign you're in the presence of a Hack is that he'll somehow bring up his One Good Ad from Way Back. He won't tell it that. In fact, he'll show it to you and say something like, "This is the kind of work we do here." That's when you notice the ad is on brittle, yellowing paper from a magazine called Collier's.

All Hacks have one of these ads. They made their name on it. They've been riding its tired old back for decades and look about as silly doing it as Adam West now looks in his old Batman suit.

It can be a great ad. Doesn't matter. Ask yourself, what else have they done? Talented people with a gift for advertising keep doing great work, time and again, for variety of clients.

Another sign that should send your Hack-O-Meter into the red is how they talk. And how they do talk. In fact, talk is all a Hack can do, being incapable as he is of producing an ad that a fly won't lay eggs on. He'll know the buzzwords. And worse, he'll have a few of his own. "At this agency, we believe in advertising with Clutter-Busting Power."

Agencies are the way they are for a reason. It’s no accident they’re doing awful work. They have clients on one side asking for awful work, Hacks on the other side giving it to them, and a guy in the middle counting all the money. Talk is cheap. Especially talk about how “we’re going to turn this place around.”

Kuya, according to Luke, YOU ARE NOT A HACK. You are a writer, a Good creative working hard to perfect your craft. And the fact the people laughed at your script means you wrote something that worked. You should see David with his hands on his head looking for words trying to make me laugh. And he wouldn’t stop until I have that smile on my face saying he’s written something clever or witty or heck, even funny. Your story is not far off from Tony’s or Nonon’s nor Tin’s too. In fact it’s a good story to tell my students. To remind them they have to work hard at ideas and it’s very rare good ideas come out on the first try.

Brandie

Brandie's always been my guidance counselor, gimik guru, fashion consultant, makulit sibling, and in a way, my first Creative Director. Heck, it was his bright idea that I try getting a job in an ad agency.

Thanks, bro!

:)

HACK AND SLASH

I spent the whole morning and afternoon trying to crack this radio script. I just had a sandwhich for lunch because I wanted to get back to the computer to try and write something.

Around 3pm, I showed my boss the two scripts I made. As I entered her office I said, "This is what you call a dry spell."

She shot down one script and told me to change the punchline of the other script.

The meeting was at 4:30pm.

I sat back at my computer and was stumped.

While all of this was happening, the printer started to go berserk, so our other presentation materials were not coming out right.

Our Business Director came over to check my radio scripts and I told him that I had nothing. He looked like a deer stuck in the headlines. I told him I'll try to come up with something, but if not, we could at least present the other materials.

15 minutes before we had to leave, I started to hack away at the keys, not really sure what I was writing... an idea we had during brainstorm stage but never really fleshed out.

I saw my boss already heading towards the door.

I hit the PRINT button and ran.

Thankfully, the printer began to cooperate, so we had all the materials ready.

I presented the two radio scripts and client loved both of them. Even our AEs, who just heard the radio scripts when I presented them, laughed at the right places.

I am such a hack.

Hack.

Hack.

Hack.

But it most definitely felt good that the work got approved.

11pm

Time to go home.

:-)

:)



Click-click and check out Carl's interview in the Sunday Inquirer Magazine.

I also posted the interview in the KOMIX101 site.

:-)

I had a dream last night...

I dreamt that I was in the largest branch of Comic Quest. It was like their super-mega-branch. I felt like I was in that white-limbo-room of the Matrix, but instead of an endless rack of guns, it was filled with comic books and graphic novels.


(photo from Brandie's phlog)

But that wasn't the best past of the dream.

As I walked past back issue boxes and shelves filled with graphic novels, I realized that some was holding my hand. I turned to see that I was holding the very soft hands of a girl.

I could not see her face and can only remember her smile. She had a big, bright smile... like a Cherish Cat, who guided me through that comic book wonderland.

As we walked through the store, I kept picking up old Marvel titles and she kept picking up Vertigo and indie / small press titles.

And when we got to the cashier, she brought out her MasterCard and paid for everything. Priceless!

We ended up in a cafe (which was still somehow part of the store) and spent the rest of the afternoon on the couch, reading comics, drinking coffee.

Then I woke up around 5am (I'm not sure, but it was still dark).

There was a pile of comic books on the floor beside my bed. I picked them up and went to the kitchen. Feeling hungry, I got some Frosted Flakes and poured skim milk into the bowl. As I munched on the cornflakes, I started to read the comic book "4", which is about how the Fantastic Four went bankrupt, lost everything, had to get "9-to-5" jobs, and moved into some downtown apartment.

In that issue, Mr. Fantastic kept having dreams about falling, about his grandfather who was part of the Airborne division during WWII. At the end of the story, Mr. Fantastic said:

"...my grandfather once told me that when you jump out of an airplane, there's something you hold onto even more tightly than your parachute.

Faith.

That your chute will open.

That states of chaos and war are only temporary.

That your efforts are worth something.

That a promise is all it takes to save a life.

And one the last things he said to me: `if you ever find yourself falling, Reed --and you will, life's one big free-fall-- believe that somewhere, somehow, there will be someone there to catch you.` "

And as he said that last line, we see that he is home and is greeted by Sue, the Invisible Woman.

I finished my cornflakes and went back to sleep.

When I woke up past noon, I kept wondering about the dream. So, I decided to go to Comic Quest, thinking it was some sort of sign or omen. When I got there, I spoke with Mike for awhile. Marco, Dean, and Nikki were also there. I got a whole bunch of comic books, and then... nothing. I was half-expecting "her" to come in Comic Quest. But no. No dream-geek-comic-book-girl entered the store.

So I went off to dinner and looked for a quiet place to read my comic books.

Maybe tonight I will dream again of being in that super-mega-Comic-Quest-branch and maybe she will be there too.