NEWS and musings
05.07.08 Read todays udate here.
Damn, it's been a while, but I have a good deal of pages for the update, and a while lot more waiting to be scanned, colored, lettered, etc.
There's not a whole lot new here. Just drawing, scanning, reading comics, cooking, and living in general. Someone left a Pepper Plant on my front porch with a note asking me to look after it, so I've been watering it, and it almost makes me want to start a small herb and flower garden. The t.v. season is winding down, and House has only two episodes left in it's fourth season, while Lost has about 3 or 4 episodes left, I believe. I think this has been the best season of Lost so far. It's a shame that 24 was unable to air this season alongside these other great shows, but Fox is so determined to keep it on that goddamn "non stop" season format that they had to wait until 2009.





03.20.08
Read todays udate here.
Adam learns the less-than-pleasant news.
It just occred to me that in a month, this layout and news page will be a year old. Damn. I had a rather unsettling dream about time travel, a shower stall full of strange larva like creatures which looked like a mix between Mothra's larva form, Mr. Mind from DC Comics, and the mind control parasites from Star Trek 2: TWOK. It was pretty peculiar . I've been keeping a close eye on the business sections of the newspaper these days, just to monitor the state of the economy, although the news is not reassuring. The decline fo the dollar has continually led to rising commodity prices, not just in Oil, but also gold, silver, what, and coffee. That last one surprised me. Warren Buffett says we're currently in a recession, even though we haven't met the technical requirements of one just yet. For those wondering, the technical definition is two or more successive quarters of negative real economic growth of a year. Of course, it was obvious some like this could happen, but no one in the current administration did anything about it, no surprise there. One news article I read, more of an aside or a blurb, really, was that OPEC is not expected to increase oil production due to the state of the U.S. Economy, which makes sense. Aside from the obvious tradition of price fixing, it's not in their financial interest. Say we buy X amount of oil from the OPEC nations, and they produce Y amount, and currently, X and Y are more or less even; that is, we're buying as much as they produce. Now, under normal circumstances, they might raise production, and we would buy more oil, and they make more money. But with a slow economy, it's risky to do that. Our economic downturn might still have a ways to go, and even if X, the amount of oil we are buying, remains steady, that doesn't mean we'll increase that amount if they increase output. Say they increase it by a factor of 5 or something, so they're producing 5 times as much oil, but due to our stagnant economy, we aren't going to buy any more than we already are, so instead of having just enough supply to meet demand, they end up with a surplus, and in markets, that can result in the value of their oil dropping. This isn't the only thing at play in current oil prices, or coffee, strangely. According to various newspapers, speculation in both oil and coffee, and likely other commodities, is driving up their costs. So, what's to be done? Well, it's the ever-applicable four words; "It's the economy, stupid!" The only real solution is to fix the U.S. economy, and while solutions exist, there are considerable barriers that will take some doing to overcome. Green collar jobs and greening in general is the most obvious solution, but I think analysts are probably right to say the Fed and various banks could do more to slow the downturn. Our national debt certainly lives less room for aid on that front, and on the state level, budgets are tight, meaning less to invest in infrastructure, special projects, etc. which could work towards long term solutions.

In other news, anyone remotely interested in the subjects of ghost ships, nautical mysteries, disastrous sea voyages, and that sort of thing, should read up on the cases of the Cyclops and The Joyita. Additionally, anyone with any interest in sea life, marine biology, or that kind of thing, should check out Endless Ocean for the Wii, which is just plain fucking awesome. I've been pretty satisfied and enthusiastic about most D.C. Comics releases lately, but I usually am anyway.

Here's a particularly strange news item, but not one that surprises me. In response to Virginia Tech and the recent shooting in Illinois, there is a small but increasingly loud number of voices calling for Colleges to allow students and faculty to carry concealed handguns, the rationale being that if anyone tries to go on a shooting spree, they'll get killed before they kill to many people. Okay, I'l generally pro-second amendment, owing to my love of the Constitution if nothing else, but this is just stupid. First, as the article points out, the actual incidence of these sort of shootings are extremely rare and uncommon, despite the sensationalist media coverage of them. So there's no real immediate NEED for it. Second, College campuses and universities, known as places of drinking, pranks, stress, and rivalry, are not the kind of place that comes to mind when someone asks me where I think more guns need to be laying around. Third, this solution is extreme and unusual, and is being proposed before any other means of solving this arguably nonexistent problem have been tried, or hardly even suggested. To me, this seems to be a solely political move, a bid for notoriety, or both. Yeah, this comic had a sequence where Adam had a pistol on campus and got in to an argument with someone over it, but that was largely meant as a joke, nothing more.


03.04.08
A medium update today. Helter, seen fully here for the first time, ended up looking vaguely like Ray Wise, though this was certainly not my intent, although that's nothing against Wise, he's a fine actor. I've been doing a bit more of the art in pencil, or a mix between pencil and ink, because I like some of the effects I am able to achieve with this method, articularly for moodier, grittier scenes, as the rough pencil lines can sometimes convey things in a way that a clean line of ink cannot, although ink can also be used for a similar effect, as in the scratchy style of Denys Cowan, but that's a method I've yet to really explore.

It occured to me that I had never seen the sci-fi film Logans Run before, surprising as that may sound, so I added it to my Netflix queue, and it should arrive in the next few days. For those who don't know, it's a sci-fi film with a fascinating, if morbind, premise; set in the 24th century, humans have survived some sort of huge catastrophe, most likely a war (nearly every dystopian film from that era seemed ot be set after the Cold War had turned hot.) and humans now live in a single, giant, domed city. People live hedonistic lives purely for pleasure, filled with drugs, orgies, and so forth, but there is one fatal catch; everyone has only 30 years to live. To control population, all humans have crystals embedded in the palm of their hand, and on their 30th year, the crystal flashes red and black, indicating that their lastday has come. When this happens, "sandmen" are dispatched to find and execute these people. The film follows a Sandman, named Logan, whom decides that he does not want to die when his last day comes, and decides to try and escape the huge city to a fabled "sanctuary" outside. I've yet to see the film, but I've always known of it, and, in any case, the premise is certainly intriguing. The film got me to thinking about Utopia, Dystopias, and Anti-Utopias, and their role in sci-fi in general. For those unfamliar with the terms, a Utopia is a depiction of a perfect world. In sci fi, this often takes the form of a highly advanced future where people are free from want, are allowed to live as they please, and personal freedom is one of the highest priorities in life. Povery, disease, war, oppression, prejudice, are depicted as non-existant. The most famous utopia is sci-fi is proabbly The Federation, in Star Trek. On the flip side, we have the Dystopia, which is portrayed a number of ways; a Dystopia is a future of horror, misery, and suffering. Sometimes it takes the form of a ruined world, and sometimes it takes the form of a very structured, totalitarian world. Dystopia's are a bit more varied than utopia's, at least in sci-fi, but most of them fall in to one of two camps; post apocalyptic or statist. Post Apocalyptic would be things like Mad Max, A Boy and his Dog, the t.v. series Jericho, (although it's not strictly sci-fi.) That statis dystopia is often protrayed as a totliatarian government of some sort, where the state or corporations rule society with an iron fist. Some dystopias mix the two together, such as the fascist government in V For Vendetta, which rose to power after world war 3 ravaged the Earth. Not all Dystopia's fall in to this camp, and one of the more famous examples is Blade Runner, which presents a less than ideal future, but it is neither strictly post apocalyptic nor statist, and while there is a degree of oligarchy, corporations do not rule everything per se, so Blade Runner could be more of a soft dystopia. The most famous dystopia in sci-fi is undoubtedly George Orwell's 1984, which generally set the standard for the statist, totalitarian dystopia. Then, there is another category, the one Logan's Run falls in to; the Anti-Utopia. An anti-Utopia is a society that APPEARS Utopian on the outside, but there is some dark, often fatal catch to it, that makes it look very unpleasant by our standards. In Logan's Run, the catch is the mandatory death by 30. The most famous Anti-Utopia would probably be Huxley's Brave New World, in which people lead lives of pleasure and comfort at the cost of having lost all meaning for living.

I have a number of thoughts on these sci-fi standbys. First, I wonder, is there any sci-fi, or fiction in general, that depicts an Anti-Dystopia? A world which may appear to be a dystopia, but for some hidden reason, is actually a good place to live? I can't think of any off the top of my head. I suppose it's a challenge for writers, maybe one that hasn't truly been met, since making a Utopia look unappealing is relaitvely easy, but making a Dystopia look appealing would be a bit harder; after all, what good would outweigh the bad we see in 1984, Soylent Green, or The Road Warrior?

I also have some issues with certain Anti-Utopian conventions, specifically Brave New World, and the notion that comfort itself is a bad thing because it can rob life of all meaning. This strikes me as the kind of thing that is more easily accepted by wealthy, affluent, pseudo-liberals from the suburbs; only people who have never known a life of hardship and toil could truly idolize it and think it's better than a life of comfort but boredom. My father has had some influence on my thinking in this area, as he was born in 1940, to parents who lived through the Great Deprssion. He lived most of his life on a farm, and unlike many people these days, has firsthand knowledge of what that sort of life is like. Today, he lives in relative comfort made possible by the mdoern world, and he has often told me that he would never go back to living the way he did when he was younger, and has complained, more than once, that; "These people nowadays don't know how good they have it!" I generally share his sentiment, and find the ideologies of luddites and primitivists to be very shallow and foolish. Does someone like John Zerzan even have a conception of what it's like to live the way he thinks humanity should live? How many of these loud, misanthropic luddites actually know what it's like to live without electricity and running water? I don't know what it's like, and I'm relatively content not to find out. This is one instance where I will take my elders at face value when they say that it's not a good life, and certainly not one they would want to ever return to.

This attitude also troubles me for philosophical reasons; the idea that modern living has "robbed life of all meaning" in some form or another comes from an idea I am in extreme disagreement with. The idea that life must have some built in meaning that is foistered on us from external sources. I have always believed that we must MAKE our own menaing in life, and we do this by hard work, soul searching, and a long process of reflection and experience. I find the idea that meaning must be forced on us by an external source to be distasteful and unamerican; we PURSUE happiness, we don't sit around thinking it will come about because some "meaning" to life, carved in stone, is given to us. Be it sweat and toil, religion, or political party lines, I find the idea that meaning in life is something we must accept from an outside source just as distasteful as the idea that we must also have all our opinions and thoughts given to us from some outside source, whether we like that or not. People must make their own meaning in life and seek their own destiny. Whether we have free will or not, any humane system of governance or social convention must ACT as if we do, as the right to self determination must be beyond any attempts to extinguish it's passionate flame, certainly beyond mere sentimentality for some mythical age in the past when suffering gave life "meaning."


On to other issues; one big news item recently has been the death of William Buckley, the man regarded as the father of the modern American conservative movement. Now, being a lifelong democrat and an avowed enemy of most all things currently seen as "conservative", I never had much in common with Buckley, nor did I have any great admiration for him, although I certainly do not cheer his passing. I've been thinking about his death and the modern right-wing movement in the U.S. ever since the news hit the wires, and I've come to a conclusion that none of the other post-mortem articles on Buckley, of which there are many, has suggested. My conclusion is this; Buckley may have founded the modern American conservative movement, but his death, at this point in time, has little real impact on it. If Buckley had died in the 70's, or even the early 80's, his death would probably have had seismic consequences for the conservative movement, but ever since the 1980's, when Reagan began bringing in the more extreme elements of the religion right, and in the 90's, when Limbaugh reduced "talk radio" to a vapid sewer, the right has been slowly moving away from Buckley's more calm, civil temperment. The difference between many on today's right and Buckley is certainly more one of degree than kind, but regardless, Buckley didn't seem to be a guiding light on the right for much of the Bush era, as the conservative "movement" largely abandoned him, as well as being increasingly made up of people who were never influenced by him in the first place. To me, Buckley will always be the guy who slung an anti-gay epithet at one of my favorite political thinkers of all time, Gore Vidal, but that's neither here nor there. Buckley had inadvertedly distanced himself from the conservative movement in the years leading up to his death due to his criticism of Bush and the disastrous war in Iraq. This was not met with scorn and anger from his fellow travelers on the right, but rather with silence more than anything. Why that was the case is anybody's guess, but it did seem that Buckley was largely ignored in his criticism, except for the usual grumbling about loyalty and accusations that he would give us dastardly democrats rhetorical resources to use against the biggest Bush blunder so far. Whether or not Buckley's death will have a huge impact on the makeup of the right is unclear, although the current confused state of the right wing does leave an opening for it to do so.


02.17.08
Todays update. Read it here.
Up the Long Ladder.
So, in addition to the regular update, I present the 40 page short story, Toniquet, which fills in some of the gaps in the timeline; this story focuses on what happenned right after Adam was found by Jason and Grant, and goes in to more detail concerning things like the meat grinder Frankie mentioned, as well as laying down more future plot threads and tying in what has happened in the comic since that flashback to what was going on in the place Adam was being held captive. The regular update is another MJ-12 conference call.

Visual Novels are a genre of video game that has never been represented in the U.S. to any notable extent, but they're quite common and popular in Japan. Dating Sims are in a related category, but strict, proper visual novels are not the same as dating Sims, for a number of reason; While Datings Sims have some fairly common goal based gameplay structures, many visual novels have considerably less "gameplay", with some being only a step above an comic book or some other visual representation of a story, albeit presented as a video game. Some have a higher level of interactivity, with characteristics similar to an adventure game, as we understand that term in the U.S., or a chose your own adventure book. I was thinking about how easy it would be for me to make a visual novel in Flash, and simply post it online. I might experiment with this idea a bit more, because I think it would be very fun, and could be a nice addition to the comic's storyline if it works out; if I did one, it would be a side story or something to fill in a few gaps, like the short story is meant to do, since I want the main storyline to always be contianed in the comic itself.

Okay, a few words on the MJ-12 members. First, they're a fairly diverse bunch. Two black members (Aubrey, Mr. West), four women (Sam, Frankie, Aubrey, Kaoru), one Asian (Kaoru) a Brit (Mike) young and old, one young gay guy (Jason) several bisexual members, a German (Vincent), Frankie is of Italian descent (her last name, before she married Grant, was Argento, after filmmaker Dario Argento) and that's just the 12 members, not the outlying council. This was completely intentional, as I always wanted the version of MJ-12 in Herrenvolk to be something other than the usual "old white men" of most conspiracy groups. I never initially concieved Sam or Frankie as members of the MJ-12 council itself, but in the beginning I never really put much thought in to who would be on the council. I knew Jason parent's were going to be the previous leaders from fairly early on in the formulation of the storyline, and that the current leader would be a guy vaguely based on Cornel West and Samuel L. Jackson, with a few others thrown in as well. Frankie was also created for another purpose; I first formulated her to play a somewhat minor role in a background story about Jason, and I ended up liking the character so much I decided to write her in to the overall storyline in a much more prominent fashion. See, according to conspiracy lore, Majestic-12 is led by a council of 12 members, and many famous people have been alleged to have been part of this council, including Albert Einstein, Richard Feynman, and Henry Kissinger. Since most of the tales about Mj-12, in the conspiracy theory subculture, center around aliens, it figures that most of the members in these accounts would be scientists, but since I was doing a story without the alien angle, I had much freer reign in the type of people who would be on the council, and I decided I wanted them to represent not the powerful elite, by various aspects of society, so in addition to politicians, government officials, and scientists, there are educators, psychiatrists, and others thrown in to the mix. Obviously, my MJ-12 is FAr more benevolent than the MJ-12 depicted in conspiracy theory and other pop culture. I'm not willing to say I'm the first to depict this group in a heroic light, but I'm probably one of a small number.

These issues aside, a number of the members are based on various people, real and fictional, to varying degrees. For instance, the general, David Johnson, is named for former President Lyndon Banes Johnson, partly because Johnson himself is at the center of many Kennedy and Vietnam related conspiracy theories, so it was kind of an homage to that. Visually, he's inspired by both LBJ, and to a more prominent extent, Patrick Stewart. As said above, Mr. West is inspired partly by Cornel West, and I've based some of the facial features on him, but there's also a bit of Smauel L. Jackson in there. Samantha's last name is Carter, named for Jimmy Carter. Her first name is primarily an X-Files reference, after Mulder's sister Samantha, who was a pivotal plot element in that series. Calvin Sagan is named for Calin, of Calvin and Hobbes, and Carl Sagan, the astronomer and science educator. He's not supposed to resemble anyone in particular; I just wanted an older guy with horn rimmed glasses. Alan Lincoln is obviously named after Abe Lincoln, and I'm not sure if I picked "Alan" for any specific reason. I think it was just one on a list of names and I thought it sounded the best when coupled with the last name. Vincent Eichmann is named for Vincent from Final Fantasy 7, and just because I like the name Vincent, while Eichmann is the last name of a really great teacher I had in college, and it's another name that I think sounds cool. I don't think I chose the name Aubrey Jones for any specific reason, but she is the owner and C.E.O. of Jones-Jodorowsky manufacturing, with the second name, Jodorowsky, being another filmmaker. The additional short story included in this update features a few other filmmaker references, in Agents John Lynch and David Carpenter, which are just switch-ups of the names of filmmakers David Lynch and John Carpenter. Mike Oakeshott is named for political philosopher Michael Oakeshott, who was, in his day, regarded as a conservative, but by todays standards many of his positions would be considered Libertarian or even Liberal/Leftist. He formed the basis of much of Andrew Sullivans political philosophy, and Sullivan is my favorite political writer these days, even though he's a big supporter of Obama, while I'm more of a Hillary supporter. Jason is not visually based on anyone in particular, but is rather the result of an effort to design a character that was the opposite of everything I was doing at the time I concieved of Herrenvolk, which was still unnamed when I thought of the first few aspects of the story. His last name is Dawkins, a reference to English biologist and evolutionist Richard Dawkins.




02.12.08
Todays update. Read it here.
A bit late....
Okay, I've been slacking with updates, but not content, as many pages are waiting to be posted over the next few days, and I will make an earnest effort to get this story arc finished by the 15th, as unfeasable as that may seem. Well, anyway, here are 4 pages for tonight.


01.24.08
Todays update. Read it here.

High prices? Blame the fucking press.
So, earlier today I ran out to get some food at a local diner I tend to frequent. When the bill was presented to me, it was about $3 higher than usual. I asked why, and they informed me that the price had been increased. Okay, whatever. Of course, I shouldn't question this; why? Because the economy is in such a state that prices are going to go upp everywhere. Yep, everywhere, everything, et. all. The news SAYS SO. So, when it happens, just accept it. Which, of course, is exactly the problem. No one was expecting, or bound to be accepting of, rising prices across the board UNTIL CNN, Headline, Fox, and the millions of lower class outlets began parroting that message over and over. They kept saying; gas is increasing, prices are increasing, food cost is on the rise. No one ever questions it, least of all the press themselves. They just repeat it, which doesn't upset the corporations one single tiny bit. Why? Well, if the media blitz on rising prices had NOT happened, people would be angry, and asking why things were more expensive, but with the press harping about how this is inevitable and nothing can be done to stop it, then the public will accept that and riase fewer objections when things get more expensive. Gas has to be the most notorious example of this. When fuel prices went up, the main local paper in my area ran a headline says; ""$3 a gallon gas? Get used to it."" So, in addition to running the Huckabee campaign for free, the media is also doing P.R. and propaganda for the oil industry, food industry, and every other corporate giant for free, telling us that nothing can be done about high prices and that it's inevitable as death and taxes. They NEVER seem to think to ask the following; Is it REALLY necessary to increase prices this much? Is it justified? What can be done to reverse the trend? Is this the result of real world factors or simple greed? Do the price increases reflect real supply and demand, or are the companies in question adding extra increases on to that just to make more money? But no, they just tell us to expect it, accept it, and "get used to it". Just like the so-called liberal media, even the apparently "liberal" New York Times, never questioned the Iraq war in the run up to that disaster, nor are they asking hard questions to Huckleberry, and how they gave the Bush administration a free pass for four to five years. Not to mention how the MSM, Mainstream Media, as some call it, repeated republican talking points against Al Gore in 2000, ruined Howard Deans campaing by replaying the "scream" over and over, never reported with any gusto the theft of the 2000 election by Bush and the subsequent supreme court coronation of daddys liddle dubya, never questioned the reality of so called "colony collapse disorder" and repeated discredited notions about cell phones, how the media repeatedly invites discredited global warming deniers on to their late night news talk shows and pretends they represent anything more than a fringe fueled by big business. Thats their track record, thats why I don't believe anything they say, and that's why I think all this business over rising prices shoudl be looked at very critically; the hype over it works in favor of the corporations, because they think that if the public expects rising costs in all areas of life, they may as well raise prices just for the hell of it, whether it's needed or not. The media has essnetially given them carte blanche to raise prices everywhere, when that is the LASt thing the economy needs right now.

Democracy Now recently had a VERY good discussion with two authors on how the current economic woes are the direct result of 30 years of right wing ideology and free market fundamentalism, starting slowly with the deregulation of services under Carter, and then accelerating to an unprecededented amount under Reagan and his "reagan revolution". Continued through the 90's by Gingrich and his cronies, and unfortunately, abetted by Clinton in one of the few truly bad decisions he ever made; signing NAFTA. You don't hear that kind of talk on CNN or their "peers". No, that would mean committing the ultimate sin; bashing Reagan, who has been lionized by the right wing and their allies in the media, so much so that questioning his worth and performance is somethingh of a taboo. Of course, the press was asleep at the wheel during all of this, and when the WTO protests in Seattle happened at the turn of the century, all they could talk about was a smashed Starbucks window. The establishment press, as I prefer to call them, are HARDLY liberal, and have been explicitly right wing for a long time now. They only turned against Bush when the public did, and even now they yearn for a new Bush in the form of Huckabee. Some people ihnk the media just lost their nerve after 9/11 and was afraid that criticizing the right wing was "unpatriotic", and they would lose viewership, especially to Fox News. But the compicity ofg the establishment press in aiding and abetting the right wing and the GOP goes back before 9/11, and as I said above, they practiccally repeated Republican talking pooints about Al Gore during the 2000 election. They reported the Clinton smear campaign in 97-99, and tried to aid the GOP in bringing down one of the greatest presidents of the past 50 years, who oversaw the largest economic expansion in American history, all because some yokels thought he had violated "famlee valyeeeeewwws".
Never trust the media. Ever. They lie, cheat, and deliver propaganda for the right wing and big business as if doing so was in their unspoken code of conduct. There is no liberal media, and there never was.

Frankie's comment about ennnui, and Adam's about evil springing from boredom, will be an important concept later, and ties in to ideas I will explain at a later date. Yes, Frankie has an iPhone, as does Jean. They're easy to draw and look cool. The comment about how the ground human meat affected body and mind will be important plot point later on as well.

01.23.07
Todays update-read it here.

The above image will make sense in time. Earlier, I decided to set an impossible goal that I will meet; as of this June, it will be three years since I started doing this comic, and needless to say, it has not progressed on schedule. The comic is approaching the 500 page mark, so I have decided that I will aim to reach the 2000 page mark by June. Why? Well, I guess I don't have a reason, aside from the same reason I do most anything with this comic; just to see if it can be done. I finally finished reading the Douglas Rushkoof book Coercion, which is primarily about coercive advertising and marketing techniques. The book is about 8 or 9 years old now, but it's still mindblowing, all the more so because I can just imagine how refined these methods have become since the time the book was published. It is BADLY in need of an update, and an update I would LOVE to see. Rushkoff is great when deconstructing this stuff, because he does it in an intelligent, readable, methodical manner that never lapses in to the typical Marx-light neoluddist anticonsumerism that tarnishes most books of this nature. Of course, Rushkoff is more in the mold of people like McLuhan and Toffler than Benjamin Barber and Naomi Klein.

So, today I have one long page, with lots of text, and the news ticker, which will be making regular appearances from now on, every two or three pages or so. Now, one element of todays page that I want to make note of is the "corpse grinder". Frankie mentions to Adam that the hospital Lee was using for his experiments had a large device for grinding human tissue in to processed meat. Odd as it may seem, this is PARTIALLY based in what MIGHT BE reality. I was once surfing a livejournal group dedicated to photos of abandoned asylums, and I came across one set of photos that featured an abandoned facility from the 1950's or so. One item they took a photo of was a large device in the basement that they identified as a "corpse grinder", but they gave no further information. The implication of it's use seems clear, but I had never heard of such a thing before. I did research and could find no mention that any device of that sort was ever used. But the idea of it stuck with me, because it was SO gruesome and disturbing, like the kind of revolting idea that gets stuck in your head whether you like it or not. I decided I wanted to used the idea in a fictional work at some point, and HErrenvolk already established shady, cruel asylums as a recurring story element, so it was easy to work it in. Of course, the angle of making human meat has more than a few precedents in horror and sci-fi in general, from the old "Scary story" about the sausage maker to urban legends of human parts found in canned food to Soylent Green. Of course, it's for more than just gross out value and for showing how evil the bad guys are, and the idea will have more coherent story implications in the future. now, as for the news ticker, I like adding it to pages because I like using it to subtly hint at upcoming plot elements, as well as using it to satirize the ridiculous tabloid nature of most network and cable news these days. Tabloid news is something that greatly annoys me, although some readers may have guessed that already based on the faux news reports I've used in the comic, particularly the constant superimposing of generic symbols of fear and unease along with them.


01.17.08
Today's update-Read it here!

Two very large pages today/tonight. MJ-12 makes a connection between the shooting at the Inner Warmth offices and an incident from their past. The reason I don't use any standard size for pages anymore is because a webcomic simply doesn't require any standard size or shape like a print comic does, so I've decided to take advantage of that, especially for the wordier pages. I know the comic has a lot of text sometimes, and that's because the sheer amount of information I want to express on each page requires nothing less. I could spread it out over a lot of text light pages, but that just wouldn't work. Take this update, for instance; It's essentially three guys standing in an F.B.I. office, talking about the results of an autopsy and a forensic investigation. Even if I spread it over a few pages, it would be a lot of images of things like the car in the garage, or flashback images. This comic isn't as action heavy as some comics, and it's VERY heavy on text, dialogue, and exposition. This is the logical result fo that arrangement. Dave Sim's Cerebus is partly what inspired me, or at least demonstrated that a comic could be done in this way, as much of Cerebus, at least in the later stories, was simply dialogue and exposition, as opposed to nonstop action with some conversation here and there.
Now, on to other matters;
Most people would feel a good deal of trepidation over reading, or even trying to read, a novel that is 1300 pages long, and it's not hard to see why. I've had Harlots Ghost on my reading pile ever since January of 2006, and the idea of digging in to it is daunting, to say the least. But hey, Norman Mailer is Norman Mailer, so I'll get to it one day. Besides, part of me is wondering how I could resist a 1000+ page novel about the history of the C.I.A. and, as the books blurb puts it, "the soul-consuming cold war itself." I've been catching up on my reading of books lately, as opposed to comics, which I'm fairly caught up on by now. I just finished Why Are We At War, another Mailer title, published in the run up to the Iraq war, in 2003. Sure, a bit dated by now, but its a very very short book, and even given how dated it may be, it still makes a number of good points that most critics have yet to articulate so effectively. I'm also making my way through Coercion, the Rushkoff book from 1999 abou advertising techniques, persuasive methods, and "why we listen to what they say", as the subtitle puts it. The concept of mind control fascinates me, which shouldn't be surprising, given how much of the Herrenvolk storyline has dealth with mental health, manchurian candidates, and the MK-ULTRA mind control program. I have a lot of stuff to read that I picked up and just never finished, or never go to in the first place, but a lot of it is stuff that is relevant to the storylines I have in store for Herrenvolk. I've also been skimming some of the more infamous conspiracy books out there, particularly the Jim Kieth books, for story ideas. Hey, a conspiracy story can NEVER have too many black helicopters. I also did quick reads of Snitch Culture and The Cover War Against Rock, the latter of which needs an update, although there are probably more than enough books out there that cover the same ground. Those books deal with themes I have yet to explore in the comic, but intend to address one day; first, the idea that the "establishment" has led a war on rock music and "counterculture" in general. One of the more famous conspiracy theories out there is that the C.I.A. distirbuted L.S.D. and other drugs as a way of damaging the anti-war movement in the sixties. Certainly plausible, and a good dramatic tale anyway. The other topic is the proliferation of spying, surveillance, and so forth in society, which is a topic I want to get to eventually in the comic.



01.16.08
Todays update-read it here.

Two pages for tonight, as well as a scanned copy of the form Adam submitted to CMP for the ccreation of Bruce. The story switches back over to the kids of Kirby high, and heir investigation in to the rash of suicides. Now, in case it's never been too clear, Herrenvolk takes place in a SLIGHTLY alternate history/present. The major dpoints of divergence, aside from the outright fictional elements like Majestic-12 and the secret societies, are that Al Gore won the 2000 election, the U.S. adopted alternative energy in the 1990s rather than the 2000s, and 9/11 never happened. Another major point, that has been alluded to in the comic, is that a wave of domestic terrporist attacks occured in the 1999-2002 timeframe. I decided that if 9/11 had not happened in the Herrenvolk universe, I should have something at least roughly similar, so I decided to pick Meggido. Meggido was, in the real world, a report issue by the F.B.I. in the 1990's that put for the worry that a kind of millenial fervor could result in acts of violence by extremist groups, primarily among the militia and so called "patriot" movement. Infom can be found here; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Megiddo Obviously, the forecasts of this report never came to pass. I figured that in the alternate history of the comic, this would fit right in with the storylines I had been exploring. All of this has been explained in the comic so far, but not in a coherent fashion, as it's mostly been menioned in offhand remarks. Another reason I went the alternate route was Faireborne. When I started the comic, I didn't realize that the Director fo the F.B.I. was appointed by the President. I thought it was just gained by promotion or something. When I realized this, I saw that there was a problem with setting the comic in the "real" world, as I could never imagine someone like Bush appointing someone like Faireborne. I could have gone the more standard route in entertainment and chosen a generic President for the comic, but I wanted to keep it anchored in "reality" to a certain degree, so I wanted to use use people whenever I could. since the president never directly plays much of a role in the story anyhow, it doesn't seem to matter to much in retrospect, but the alternate history idea has a lot of potential as a storytelling device. I was also inspired ot go the full alt. history route by Alan Moore's Watchmen, because that comic showed an alternate history that was STILL beset with many of the same problems of the real world, STILL instantly recognizable as the Reagan 80's, and still relevant to real world issues, so that's partly what I'm striving for.

Given that this comic has a good deal of focus on cloning and genetic engineering, I can't help but make note of the FDA approval of cloned animal meat for human consumption. A lot of people are upset over this; the FDA had initially given the O.K. for cloned animal consumption a few years ago, but a backlash led them to reexamine their decision, and now they have announced that their original decision stands. I don't really have an opinion on it. If it's medically safe to consume, I have no real objection. If it tastes the same, that's fine. Those are legitimate concerns, and if they can be settled, then that's great; if not, then whatever. What I don't consider legitimate concerns are the luddite notions of what "real" food is, the paranoid "precautionary principle", and technophobia and anti-science attitudes in general. As I've observed many times in my life, it's a bad idea to turn sentimentality in to ideology. I haven't read up on these issues extensively, but it seems that much of the alarm and objection to G.M.O.'s, "Frankenfood", and so on, have proven pretty baseless, and there has yet to be a big smoking gun, or even a single notorious example, to point to in support of caution over these issues. Does that mean there is NO cause for concern? Of course not, but many people want to go much farther than simple caution, as the poorly named "precautionary principle" demonstrates. Not only are many of these attitudes not supported by fact, but they provide excellent examples for right wingers to use against those of us who are more realistic when it comes to environmental concerns. I still sometimes wonder if the more extreme, panic inducing scenarios about environemtnal issues are nothing but misinformation by the right wing, for the purpose of creating strawmen that they can handle rather than engaging in a serious dicussion about these issues. Yeah, it's a paranoid notion, but these days, I wouldn't put it past the oil companies and the coal industry to secretly back the most alarmist rhetoric on glboal warming JUST to scare the public so much that they become easy marks for the global warming deniers. That's not to say that I think everyone who says that this or that will bring about an extreme environmental catastrohpe is on the payroll of the oil companies. It's more like the extremists on the correct side of this debate are proving to be the "useful idiots" of the corporations. THe Peak Oil crowd actually serves a similar function, I think; they spend so much time promoting the diea that all oil is running out and will become a scarce commoditiy that nations will go to war over, and the oil companies and the Bush administration have no interest in disabusing the public of such a notion. After all, if people THINK that oil is so rare, they're less likely to complain when the price of gas goes up another 25 cents, even though these rising costs have much more to do with greed than supply and demand. But you see what I mean. Having a good assortment of useful idiots means that you don't even have to do most of the work yourself, since they do it for you free of charge and free of any notion of what they really are doing.

I guess having this kind of conspiratorial ranting on the website of a comic about conspiracies might look bad, or at least ironic, but whatever.






01.15.08
A month after Hand of the Hunter ends, Angel of Death, the final story in Part 3, begins. This story will lead directly in to part 4, tie up a number of loose ends, and introduce many new plot elements to the mix. I've been a little distracted by gaming lately, especially since I finally started on Disgaea for PSP. As par the course thus far, page size and shape will be wildly inconsistent, and things will generally be pretty free form and experimental, just because thats the fun way to do it.
Additionally, I'm going to be posting more than just updates in this news space, and make it more blog like. To start with, I would like to address something that has been irritating me for a long, long time now. Well, not a LONG time, and thats one aspect of this situation that I find so annoying; Mike Huckabee. Huckleberry. Huckafuck. I DESPISE this guy. Sure, the G.O.P. can't be expected to give a halfway decent candidate under any circumstances, but this is a new low. A fundie fascist who is ONLY popular because the goddamn media MADE him popular after that debate. Huckleberry was "nice", "affable", "down home" and all this other garbage, so the media decided to make an overnight sensation out of him. Yeah, the same media that is supposed to be "liberal" yet dutifully repeats Republican talking points every chance they get. If they had not had their dingleberry love fest, the guy would not even be on the radar and likely would never have won Iowa. One of the things that has made his "victory" in Iowna so astounding was how little cash he seems to have for his campaign, but it's really not that surprising. He doesn't need money because the goddamn media is practically campaigning for him, free of charge. Of course, he's become even more of a sideshow since b-movie martial arts wannabe dominionist neo nazi Chuck Norris has began to support him.

I hate Huckabee. I REALLY hate him. I didn't think it was possible for me to dislike a candidate more than I disliked Mitt Romney, but Hucklecock has proven me wrong. I REALLY hope he loses the rest of the primaries, because that would be a well deserved spanking to all the religious right wackos who think they can use some smiley face fascist to take over this country. But even if he DID make it to the general election, I don't think he could win against any of the Democratic front runners. I'm still 100% behind Hillary, but at this point it seeems moot since I don't think any Republican could beat her, Edwards, OR Obama. McCain could MAYBE eke out a narrow victory over Obama, but it would be a tight race.
Hell, I'm a partisan and have little shame in that regards, which makes it all the easier for me to take joy that the G.O.P. has such a piss poor lineup of candidates, none of whom are nearly as electable of Hillary or Obama.
Anyhow, read today's update here.

12.15.07
Hand of the Hunter comes to an end. 63 pages in 15 days. Now THAT was a wild ride. Fun indeed. Starting Dec. 2oth, the final arc of PArt 3, Angel of Death, begins. Read the final installment of Hand of the Hunter here.


12.14.07 Tonight, Adam gets a new pet! A small update tonight, and tomorrow night, this story arc concludes. Read it here.


12.13.07
Okay, about ten pages. After tonight, there will be two more updates, one tomorrow, and one on the 15th, and then this story arc is over and the final story arc of part 3 will begin on Dec. 20th. I also did tonights update in some color to make it clear that West and Aubrey are black; I wasn't sure it was clear from the non color pages they've been in before. Also, Adam is supposedly to appear vageuly asian, even though he was created from scratch and technically has no "ancestry" as it's understood. Read tonights update here.


12.11.07
Okay, 11 or 12 pages, I didn't count. Read it here. I used a lot fo colored pencils, long pages, etc. this time around. This is why I'll never use anything like Smackjeeves, or any of those auto hosting sites; I won't fit my comic in to a template or anything, and I like keeping my html minimal, so I can just let the pages go wild, in whatever size, shape, etc. that I want. More tomorrow, plus some photos of my drawing area.


12.07.07
Due to extreme lethargy last night, I didn't udpate. So, to make up for it, I give you seven pages! Read it here.
I think I'll post a new pic of my drawing area, since I've moved since I took the last one, and have more space to work with now. I'm also trying to incorporate far more mixed media in to the comic, since it's just fun to do. I really enjoy doing pages in colored pencil, and there will be a page in watercolor later on.


12.05.07.
As I said, three pages. Jason researches the Weavers, while Justin and Co. find a fascinating video. Read it here.


12.04.07
One page tonight. I'll make up for it with three tomorrow night. Read it here.


12.03.07
Two pages. Jean is now safe. I'm still trying to improve in lots of areas, so just bear with me. Read it here.


12.02.07
Two pages. We meet five new characters; Justin, Ryu, Souris, Emily, and Nori. Their role will become clearer later. Here it is.


12.01.07
Here we are. The first 15 or so pages of Hand of the Hunter. It begins here.


11.27.07
Finally, a new update. This brings the U.F.O. arc to an end, with a 40 page update, putting the entire comic itself at 370 or so pages. Dec 1st, the next arc beginsl Hand of the Hunter. It will be roughly as long, and will be done in 15 days come hell or high water. Why 15 days? Just to see if I can do it. This next arc will be even more experimental when it comes to art and page presentation. Anyhow, read the last pages of this arc, starting here.


09.10.07
A month since the last update, and I have 30 new pages. So thats roughly a page a day. Anyhow, lots of experimentation in these pages, especially with coloring. It starts here.



08.12.07
A peculiar update today. One drawn page, and ten pages with no drawings but lots of manipulated photos and text. The conversation Jason and Adam have about what happened at the LF building is one I originally intended to insert in to the end of the page before the news report, with Jason and Adaam laying in bed. I decided to give the conversation it's own set of pages, with imagery vaguely relating to what's going on. Read it here, here and here.

08.10.07
Okay, we're back. One page. I'm not sure what the update schedule will be, but it will be fairly often for a while. I've moved in to a new place, I'm working on my freelance graphic design, and I've generally been occupied with other things. But I'll be updating. Anyway, here's tonights update.


05.14.07
Another update. I'm not too happy about my inability to keep up my once a day schedule. Read it here.


05.10.07
Heres tonights page. Read it here.


05.09.07
Todays page. Adam panics and maks himself look silly. Jason cuddles him. Read it here.


05.08.07
I was at an anime con over the weekend, so in the run up, duration, and aftermath of that, I was relaxing and didn't update. I'll be on a lighter schedule for a while until I get back in the groove of updating, so this week it will be just one page a day. Read todays page here.


05.01.07
Two pages. Read it here and here.


04.30.07
Two pages. I've been having a nonstop panic attack since Thursday, bit I'm never going to stop updating once a day for ANYTHING.Read it here.


04.29.07
Two pages. I've had a rough few days, but I won't let ANYTHING stop me from updating at least one page per day, fucking PERIOD. If I had to found my own ISP, server, build my own powerplant, lay the foundation for my own fucking city, this comic WILL go on! Read it here.



04.28.07
Four pages. I said I would make up the lack of updates. So now things are caught up. I just need to get over my panic attacks and keep drawing. Koon initiates his dead plan, and Jean and Maria discuss their underwear. Read it here.


04.27.07
Only one page again, for reasons I'll go in to later. Read it here.


04.26.07
Only one page tonight. I'm running on 2 1/2 hours of sleep. Add to that a very annoying visit to the dentist for a deep cleaning. Ugh. Anyhow, one page. Read it here.

04.25.07
These pages don't add much to the story, they're just sequential action pages of the gas grenade going off in the room. Read it here.


04.24.07
Two pages. More on the date, and Koon creates a diversion. This U.F.O. story arc is not 60 pages long, which means I've drawn and posted 60 pages in about a month. My right arm is tired, my eyes are strained, and my back hurts from leaning over the drawing desk. And this is just ONE thing I'm spending my day doing, the rest of my time is devoted to my graphic design work. I'm very happy to have brought the story this far and to have devoted myself to it as much as I have. Read it here.



04.23.07
Three pages, just like I said. I deliver on my promises, unlike reality, life, and the world. Some things sound better on paper than they work...on paper. I'm not sure where these pages fall. I'm not dissatisfied with them, but I'm not happy with how some of the backgrounds and props look, especially that phone. I'm getting happier with my use of tones, at least. I was unsure how to approach the torture scene in the first panel. At first I had this plan to make Jason go in to this big Jack Bauer style torture sequence, but when it came to draw it, I just couldn't bring myself to make the main character show such vicious cruelty when it wasn't called for. But I was still unsure how to handle the sequence, so I decided to take an easy way out, and have the guy break down and tell everything only after a small cut. The whole argument about the ethics of torture is something I want to address later in the comic, but this wasn't the time to launch that discussion.
Read it here.

From now on, this news section will also include misc. commentary on anything I want to talk about, and the occasional photo of the day.
As many have probably noticed, Boris Yeltsin died today. I have to say, I was not expecting to wake up today and read the news of Yeltsin's death, but he was getting on in the years. Yeltsin led Russia after the fall of Communism in 1991, and while he was the first freely elected leader of modern Russia, and he is credited by some as helping to topple Communism, he never managed to get a solid handle on things, not enough to drag Russia out of the chaos and confusion that followed the collapse of the U.S.S.R. Hell, I don't know if anyone could have. It has me thinking, anyway, because cold war history is something that I intend to work in to the comic in a big way later on.



04.22.07
Just one tonight. This was an exhausting week and I don't have the energy to scan and touch up another page. I'll make it up with three pages tomorrow night, which will keep it on schedule. In any case, more on Maria and Jean's date, and an anecdote of an adventre Jean and Maria had when they were teens. This drawing of Jean is something I'm very happy with, and it really did turn out exactly as I wanted it to. I was originally going to have her legs positioned a bit differently, but I thought this would work better. I came up with the idea of Jean's mother being an old-school goth/deathrock girl a long time ago, but there was never a moment when the subject was relevant enough to mention until now. For those that don't know, the Batcave was considered the first "goth club" ever. Anyway, the page is here.


04.21.07
Two more pages. Read it here and here.

04.20.07
Two pages. More on the date. For those wondering, "Sienna" is a shade of brown. I think. Read it here.


04.19.07
Two pages. Jean and Maria go on a date. Read it here.


04.18.07
Like I said, three pages today. Read it here.



04.17.07
One page today. Three tomorrow. Read it here.



04.16.07
Two more pages. Read it here and here.


04.15.07
Thats my drawing desk. I'm going to redesign this page. Its had a new layout before, but its been the same basic theme and idea as it was in June of 05.



04.15.07
Backbreaking. Two pages. Read it here.

04.14.07
Two more pages. Adam argues with a campus official, and Alex has another argument with Cole. Read it here.

04.13.07
Tonights pages. More involving Klass and the militia compound. I enjoy making my own pseudo-tones in photoshop. In other news, I've been working at a feverish pace since beginning the update-a-day schedule. I've posted 30 or so pages since then, and there are still another 20 or so done. I generally do 2 1/1 to 3 1/2 pages a day, barring anything interrupting me for a long period of time. I've managed to inscrease my speed, and I'm starting to approach a level of quality that I'm somewhat satisfied with. anyway, tonights pages are here.


04.12.07
Tonight's update. Not a whole lot to say about it. Read it here.


04.11.07
Tonights pages. Maria asks Jean something, and Grant gives Jason the run down on an investigative lead. Read it here and here.


04.10.07
Here's tonights update. That is all. Read it here.

04.09.07
Two pages, reused from a previously dropped story that was merged in to this one. The next day, and we switch to Jean for a moment. Read it here.



04.08.07
Tonights pages. Jason and Adam talk while getting ready for bed, and we learn of more shady transpirings. Read it here.




04.07.07
Two more pages. Jason and Adam at home. In case anyone has wondered, Jason is 26, Adam is 22. I don't think it's ever been stated in the comic before, but thats how old they are. Read it here.



04.06.07
Two more pages. We learn the identity of "Alex", but not his motives. More of Majestic-12. Also, Jason has a surprise waiting for him at home. The dog is a Pembroke Welsh Corgi, in case it's unclear. Read it here. and here.



04.05.07
Two more pages. In these two pages, we meet all 12 council members of Majestic-12, which makes this the perfect time to recap whats going on, for those who don't know. Many conspiracy theories posit that, in 1947, after Roswell, the government decided that a secret organization needed to be establish to deal with all things related to aliens and alien technology, and to that end,President Truman established an roganization known as Majestc-12, whch was given carte-blanche to do whatever was needed to cover up the reality of alien contact with humanity. Conspiracy theorists assert that Majestic-12 is nothing less than a massive shadow government, made up of the most elite people in the country, if not the world. The group is named Majestic-12 because it is governed by a council of 12 members. These pages introduce those members. In this comic, howeverm Majestic-12 does not deal with extraterrestrial threats, since my comic does not involve aliens. It's still a shadow government, but it deals with earthbound enemies. A few bits of trivia;
-David Johnsons last name is taken from former president Lyndon Banes Johnson, and his appearance is vaguely based on LBJ.
-Most of the members are are seen with bluetooth headsets.
Aubreys company, Jones-Jodorowsky Manufacturing, is named after both Indiana Jones, and filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky. He was a former Mj-12 member, whose story and fate will be revealed eventually.
-Just to clarify, Frankie is a neurologist and MJ-12 member, but this is not meant to imply that she experiments on the patients in her hospital. She is actually very warm and kind, and goes out of her way to make sure those in her care are comfortable and treated humanely.
-Most of the members of the council are American, but a few are from other nations. Specifically, Mike is obviously from England, being the director of MI6, Kaoru is form Japan, and Vincent is from Germany.
-There are two gay members of the council (Jason and Kaoru), one lesbian (Samantha) and one bisexual member (Faireborne).
Read it here.



04.04.07
Two more pages. Alex and Cole dislike each other, a lot. We learn that CMP was not the only breach that took place. Not a lot else to say. Random trivia: Adam's phone is a Palm Treo. The psych hospital Adam and Jason have been in, and Frankie is the owner of, is based on McLean hospital. The vehicle Alex drives is a BMW X3. Lots of text used in these two pages. I'm trying to catch the comic up to where I want it to be, and lettering is one of the most time consuming things in making the comic, so I do this to cut down on time. I think that, in a few weeks, I'll be completely caught up. Read it here.



04.03.07
Two more pages. Alex has a heated conversation with Cole, the evil billionaire software developer. (No, this isn't supposed to be some kind of comment on Bill Gates.) Adam and Jean meet with Samantha, who has appeared a few times before. In case anyone is wondering, yes, Samantha is named after Samantha Mulder from the X-Files, and "Alex" is named after Alex Krychek from the X-Files. I'm unoriginal. We also meet Frankie, an old friend of Jason and Grant's wife. and learn a bit about just what happened to Adam after he was freed from bein a human test subject years ago. Read it here.