Check out McDannold's new Rural Messenger website.

"Who watches the Watchmen?"



"We're literally printing every copy we can, shipping over 200,000 in a matter of weeks. If we get historic rates of conversion, we'll have significantly increased the total audience for graphic novels in America."

—DC's Paul Levitz on the demand for Watchmen ever since the trailer for the movie debuted.



Also:

Devil's Due lands Humanoids. I want to see a return of Metal Hurlant myself.

Matt Furey's 101 Ways to Magnetize Money

Image Comics and Tori Amos ink Comic Book Tattoo.

For my reference: Border's redesigns their website.

And Orange Alert's first book:

"He wants his money. He’s a pretty practical poet." --Samuel Delaney

Today, I'm thirty six. Yay for me, I made it through another year. And that's really all I have to say. No plans to celebrate this year as I'm in a mood.

Again.

On the bright side, we're finally living in the new house but we still have no natural gas and I can't find the leaks the gas company claims I have.

I fell down the stairs and broke our basement dehumidifier. Leave it to me, to fall down a flight of stairs without a scratch but to take out an expensive piece of equipment.

Again.

What I really want for my birthday is a hot shower and a cold beer but neither is in the cards.

Running a business from the library is no fun. But here's a neat tidbit from that Brit guy Warren Ellis and his Bad Signal mailing list that made me smile. :)



just heard from HarperCollins that the paperback edition of my novel CROOKED LITTLE VEIN is released today.

CLV is part of their "P.S." program, where they stuff all kinds of odd stuff in the back of the book -- I was prevailed upon to write an essay about the source material, there's an interview in there, they culled (AND DON'T ASK ME WHY) the ecipes I dropped into Bad Signal years ago, a few other things.

So, if you were interested but couldn't afford my gorgeous little hardback, there's a cheaper paperback now -- same design, but the Franklin snake on the cover is now picked out in a toxic orange. And it has a cover quote from a paper that cracks me up.

Anyway. I has paperback. It is a good day.

You may send tribute now.

No Internet, Phone, or Cable hooked up at the new house yet. Can't say it bothers me much, I like being off the Grid.

Still no gas at the new house but I think I got one of the two leaks fixed. Hopefully it will be restored soon. I'm not a big fan of cold showers.

It'll all work out eventually and then I can get back to Calliope, Aikido, and other endeavors I'd rather be spending time on.

I planned to blog about moving and about how well some odd things I've found sell like Free Comic Book Day books.

I planned to tell you about two new blogs I plan on launching before year's end and how I enjoy being more self reliant economically and making my own future.

I still plan to talk about these things but instead I get to talk about how the gas company won't turn on my gas because they say I have two leaks. It'll only cost $1500-$2000 to fix. So, now I have to find $2000.00 and probably find an attorney to see if I can go back on the seller. (If it's even worth it.)

Everywhere I go, the black cloud follows. I try not to let it get me down but sometimes...........

The Four Hour Day Workday. Now that's a goal!!

Everthing at Calliope Nerve Media is on sale. 'Cus damn it, I gotta move and I'm not as young as I used to be.

Buy my stuff. Or contribute to my moving fund by ordering your Amazon products via my blog.

Don't make me beg now. :)




Cheap plug done. :)

Can't wait to get this book. As soon as we're moved, it's the first thing I'm buying. For years, I've had a dream of owning a book store/comic book shop with a dojo in the back for my teaching. My instinct is telling me, it can be more than a dream.

Too bad after I fulfill today's orders, I have to pack. This is the last time I ever move.

"...an ugly hand caged in pretty metal, I observe a new mechanics. I am the wild machinist, past destroyed, reconstructing a new present." --Samuel Delaney

Well the move is finally on. Should be out of here in a couple of weeks. Only downside is no air conditioning in the new place. Here in Ohio, it's swamp weather time of year.

The post office's fourteen ounce rule is killing my margins. Might have to raise the prices on a number of items, magazines are the worst. Going to get a rubber stamp that says something like shipped in x hours as most of my orders are going out same day. Just completed my best sales month to date.

Another book I'm reading:



Once we're moved, going to throw a Printing Party online to try and raise funds to reprint Calliope 16 as well as get 17 out. Think Calliope will be evolving into more of an online venture for a while for both reasons of time and money.

Started the script to my first chap, which has been retitled: Meat Hook (Prelude to pIg.) I'm really proud of it so far. But I love pIgs, and I'm a biased bastard.

"Nonetheless, I hope my Yanqui cousins have a good long weekend of blowing things up and committing vehicular homicides while under the influence of weak beer." --Warren Ellis on America's Independence Day Holiday

"On the road to Big Sur, daydreaming about islands out of reach from the world, of writing the story as we drove, and of murdering my friends to see if I could get away with it. Those rocks go all the way down, y'know?" --Matt Fraction

"Smashing ideas together and finding a spine, I called it DETOURNEMENT for a reason. It wasn't a title. It was a promise." --Matt Fraction

"I said someone's got to take care of him. I quit school. That's what I did. --Tracy Chapman

Ideas are popping for my first collection of poetry. Right now I'm pressed for time but trust me, the book will come to be.

Most of my republished work in it will not survive it's current state. Things will mutate, change, become more. Stanzas will be cut, phrases added, I will slay my own works. Creation to be born. Flourishing minimalism, new vibes never seen before.

One Nite Pig is more than words, it's a feeling. The story of the world.
I have to prove myself as a writer. And my epitome will have name. A pinnacle. Until then, the book will not be released.

First I need to get moved and earn extra cash to pay for it all. Should get the keys to the house tomorrow.

Tracy Chapman's Fast Car is the song of the day spinning on my head-radio.



I purchased dhalgren simply on the basis of the forward called Recombinant City written by William Gibson which ends with Bill's telling line Remember me to them.



The book is mysterious and powerful. Energy surges through the pages. I love science fiction that reads like poetry though I'm not yet certain that the book is sci-fi. It may be something beyond class, category, and segment.

One recent passage I read, reminds me of Ian Banks or even my best work:

"A fire escape, above a street lamp pulsing slow as a failing heart, looked liked charred sticks, some still aglow."

Or this: "Caged in blades, his gnarled hand was silhouetted with river glitter stretching between the bridge struts."

And my favorite passage thus far: "In the long country, cut with rain, somehow there is nowhere to begin."

Samuel Delaney makes even the simplest of descriptions drip with muse. Words that I can taste and breathe.

I'm thinking I will get a degree in literature or library science. Perhaps both. Stay tuned for more on that soon. The future speaks again.