bad signal
WARREN ELLIS

Well, yeah, I think it's definitely
autumn now, as I'm now back in
the long leather jacket.  High
winds, driving rain, and persistent
cold.  I think we'll be picking the last
of the cucumbers tonight, and
giving up on the tomatoes -- not
enough sunlight for them to ripen.
Gales took down the mini-greenhouse
last night -- luckily it's all soft
plastic and wire shelving, and was
empty but for some curly-leaved
parsley that would probably
survive a nuclear exchange.  Will
pull the last of the lettuce when I
get home, too.

My spare-time (ha!) job for this
week is considering a new book for
Marvel.  I don't really have the heart
to pursue the book Mike Wieringo
and I were going to do with a
different artist, so I need to
generate something else to fill the
schedule.  This means reading
through a frightening amount of
research material, looking for a
Marvel property that sparks
something.  In practise, this actually
means editor Nick Lowe and I
terrifying each other with old
Marvel stuff.  Illuminator, the
Christian superhero!  Torgo, the
alien fighting robot!  Nick's fixated
on Dum Dum Dugan, nonogenarian
bowler-hatted deputy director of
SHIELD and WWII Howling Commando,
but he's not going to beat me down
on that one, the bastard.

So, yeah, this afternoon I'm half-
blind from spending last night reading
the Wikipedia page listing every
single comics title Marvel ever
published.  I know what I'm looking
for -- something that can carry an
approach to the page that I'm
calling, in the privacy of my own
head, NewPulp -- but it's not turned
up yet.  Not recycling pulp tropes,
but an approach to the page itself,
the panelling, the colouring, the
cuts and the text load.

Just wrote a very brief thing for
ROLLING STONE on BATTLESTAR
GALACTICA, dunno when that
appears... Next month, maybe?
Also have a commission for Forbes,
of all places, to get to next week...

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Warren Ellis: Autumn has arrived in south east England. Headed out into the cold and wind, smiling.

bad signal
WARREN ELLIS

*  Funny:  http://clubofmars.ning.com/ is probably one of the biggest
groups on the Ning  system now.  Pretty daft for something I only
activated as a toy for you  all to play with.  Huge amount of activity
there now, blogging, videos,  photo uploads.  Plenty to waste that
valuable work time  with.

*  I'm in the middle of wrapping up a ton of script pages to  send
to Avatar, and finishing CASTLEVANIA with the other hand (it's
in the  "donkey work" stage now, writing the connective tissue,
polishing up bits,  fixing/hammering awkward sections).  So I'll
probably remain pretty  uncommunicative for the rest of the week,
beyond the first thing in the  morning/last thing at night blogging
passes and managing the really fucking  frightening amount of
messages I get at  http://www.myspace.com/warrenellis.

* But I did note that apparently the  Gene Hunt role in the
ill-advised American remake of LIFE ON MARS is going  to
good old Colm Meaney.  And god knows Meaney's made some
crap to  pay the mortgage, but he tends to elevate a thing --
or at least let some  light into it -- just by showing up.  So I
might give the remake a look  after all, even though it's
almost guaranteed to be a train  wreck...

-- W  

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Warren Ellis: Fuck me, I think I saw some blue in the sky. That can’t be right.

bad signal
ME AGAIN

I was just talking  to Brubaker about this, and apparently I haven't
covered it in a Signal or  anything.

:: WARREN'S INCREDIBLY COMPLICATED AND FUTURISTIC
SYSTEM FOR  DISCOVERING NEW MUSIC ARRRRR::

Step One:
Go to  http://www.piccadillyrecords.com on a Monday, when they
update.  Click  on the genre of preference in the left-hand bar,
and then click "magic mix"  on the page that follows.  You see,
the Mancunian geniuses at Piccadilly  rip 40-second excerpts
of every one of the week's new releases that they've  received,
and put them up on the website in associated playlists, the  Magic
Mixes.  Clicking "magic mix" will stream each genre's  playlist
straight to your WinAmp or shiTunes.  Therefore, at  your
convenience, you can listen to a chunk of everything new  that
Piccadilly, one of the best record stores in Britain, gets  every
week.  

Step One B:
You can, in fact, stop here, and  order the CDs or vinyl from
Piccadilly, who operate a flat-out excellent mail  order system.
Next year, I'll probably start using it again.  But I made  myself
stop ordering CDs on January 1, because I'm floating in  the
fuckers.  I'm spending a year mp3-only.

Step Two:
So if  you're me, and you're not ordering CDs, what do you do
next?  I go first  to http://www.emusic.com, where I have a
monthly subscription that allows me  to download 90 DRM-free
high-end mp3s in every 30 days.  This is the  first place I
search for anything I like from the Piccadilly  stream.

(Yeah, I could go straight to Soulseek.  But I happen to  like
buying music.)

Now, eMusic are very good, but often a little slow  about
obtaining indie stuff.  So, sometimes, I'll be out of luck.   At
which point, I go to one or all of  these:

http://www.roughtradedigital.com/

http://www.bleep.com

http://www.tunetribe.com

As  a last resort, I'll try iTunes or one of the 7digital stores.
But I don't  like DRM on my music -- iTunes+, as well as
being a horrible scam, is still  way too spotty to be really
useful --  and I find 7digital extremely  unreliable.

Step Three:
MySpace.  Seriously.  I'll quite  frequently take a band name
from Piccadilly and plug it into google for the  band/act's
MySpace page. Which will, of course, always have four
of their  songs on there, some of which will often be up for
free download.   MySpace is still a phenomenal tool for music,
and that's nothing Fuckbook  will ever touch.  One of the
best parts of my internet day is always  checking the add
requests, finding bands in there, and clicking to their  profiles
to discover new music.  I usually link the interesting ones  on
warrenellis.com under the "::currently listening"  rubric.

There.  Staggeringly complicated, isn't it?  This is  why I am
Internet Jesus and you're an ordinary person with friends
and a  life.

-- W  

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bad signal
ME

I have an confession to make.

I have ordered a man-bag.

According to a Lifehacker thing
someone sent me this morning,
they are also referred to as the
"go-bag" or, wonderfully, the
"machismo tote."  Zoetica insists
on calling them "man-sacks," but
she's a sick little monkey.

I've just gotten sick, finally, of
stuffing everything in my pockets,
especially in summer when I can't
wear my long leather jacket.  And
I'm always missing something.  The
Bluetooth keyboard for my phone,
or the hands-free set, or plasters,
or a book, or...it goes on.  I really
needed a knife the other day,
and of course it was in the drawer
at home (a big Swiss Army blade,
which actually should have been
in the trug, but still).

I was already in the process of
refining my kit -- I bought Niki a
Sandisk 1GB mp3 player, and then
nicked it off her for the San Diego
trip, as my own Archos 20GB is
very heavy and bulky and I needed
to buy back some bag space.  And
I like it well enough, with noise-
cancelling earbuds, that I've ordered
one for myself.  But when I started
thinking about what else I really
need to carry... Bah.  Man-bag.

So I've ordered a Storm bag.  Not
a huge one, but I like the design, a
distressed PVC and textile mesh.
Well, as much as you can like a man-
bag.  And now I'm planning the kit.
Chief among which is a hand scanner.
I test-drove an optical pen-shaped
text scanner a few years back, but
never really got on with it -- and in
any case, I need to be able to scan
images on the road, and a camera
shot won't always cut it.  So I've
bought a Docupen with a 1GB card
-- the size of a long pen, it'll scan
to A4, and store a hundred images.
Three different kinds of Moleskine,
with pens and pencils -- getting out
of the habit of carrying paper and
pen was probably a bad idea, I don't
sketch anymore.

(I suddenly wonder if the Docupen
will USB into my phone?)

Treo, keyboard, spare keyboard
(a Belkin infrared), phone, phone
keyboard (bluetooth).  Victorinox
survival kitbag with a Swiss Army
Champ in there.  I need to find a
decent monocular, I think.  Sling
the Cybershot in there (the 7.2MP).
And the Sandisk 1GB.

Man-bag.  God, I am so sad.

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bad signal
WE

Up late again.  Very bad.  Need to
get a Second Life Sketch written in
the next few hours.  Which will be
a bastard, because the grid's been
grinding so fucking slowly over the
last week.  Have barely been able
to manage being inworld for five
mins at a time over the last week.
There's a real End Of Days feeling
about SL for me right now: Voice
is going to finish them off unless
they get smart fast.

It sometimes occurs to me that The
Smiths had the perfect pop career.
A single every three months, one
album a year.  Take out the touring,
and that would be a wonderful work
rate, wouldn't it?

Of course, that was back in the days
when mystique still lived.  Don't see
it so much anymore.  Now we can
pretty much see into the colon of
even non-entities like the mouthy,
horse-faced Sade tribute act Amy
Winehouse on YouTube on an hourly
basis.  And a search for actual news
instead delivers pages of Britney
Spears crying painfully after a
private custody hearing.  Even
though she was clearly one of those
mad fame-craving children that
LA pod-houses squat out year on
year like a humanoid factory, I
find myself feeling sorry for her.
She should have been able to exist
as a perfectly made-up and
perfectly lit pop confection, a
virtual creature, and then allowed
to fade away into a real life when
her time was done.  Instead, we
get presented with her daily, almost
retching with pain and fear, her
weak chin pulled back into her neck
as her mouth twists with the agony
of trying to hold back hot tears in
the face of a bunch of people with
cameras.  Puffy eyes behind huge
ugly sunglasses.  It's no wonder they
all go mad.

Coming out of a restaurant once
with Patrick Stewart and Wendy
Neuss, I walked into paparazzi
waiting for him.  As they cranked off
their shots, Patrick said, "well, you
can't tell Niki you just went down
the pub now, can you?"  And then
he turned to them, smiled, and
said, "Thank you."  It takes a
certain perspective to know that
those glass eyes can turn nasty.  I
imagine that, like tipping a cabbie,
you never know when a painless
"thank you" will do you a favour
down the road.  And that snakes
should be respected, if only for
the harm they can do.

Wow.  That was a tangent, eh?

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bad signal

Just reconfirming the URL for  Panel & Pixel  as

http://www.panelandpixel.com/forum/index.php

Go and say hello  to Rantz.

-- W  

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bad signal
WARREN

*  This sitting-outside-in-the-
smoking-compound shit is getting
old.  It's cold and rainy every day,
and the wind keeps dumping the
ashtray out.

*  My US comics convention
appearance for 2008 seems to be
locked already.  It's not San Diego,
no.

*  Note about San Diego: I wasn't
trying to be a dickhead when I
wouldn't shake your hand.  At Heroes
Con last year, I shook hands with
everyone, as everyone stuck
their hand out, and by Saturday I
was in fucking agony and having to
ice my hand down in the hotel.  I
must've shaken hands with five or
six hundred people by that point,
as well as signing thousands of books
with that hand, and it was pulp.
Given that my signing schedule at
San Diego was something like four
times as bad, we made the decision
to disallow handshakes in order to
save my hand.  So now I'm reading
that I'm a "douche" for not shaking
hands.  

*  And I still caught the San Diego
SARS.  So consider that revenge!

*  An alternative forum to The
Engine has been raised by Rantz
Hoseley:

http://www.panelandpixel.com/forum

-- W
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bad signal
WARREN

Severe weather warnings in place
again.  The wind just yanked the
umbrella out from my table here
in the pub's Smoking Compound and
deposited it in the back of the
Chinese take-away next door.

Lost most of yesterday to just
sitting and thinking.  Poor bloody
Mike.  Molly at Marvel said everyone
up there was shaken to bits
yesterday.  At some point I'm going
to have to deal with the structural
stuff, having our book binned and
all that.  But not yet.

380 people on the Club of Mars this
morning.  Go on, let me look at you.
Watching people join and wander
around was one of the very few
things that amused me yesterday.

Today, I'll try and start those
threads on the Engine I talked about
yesterday. 

Great, here comes the rain.

Supposed to record a podcast with
BoingBoing later.  Voice is still a bit
fucked, so this should be interesting.

Just noticed the date.  My Emusic
subscription refreshes on the 16th,
and I still have 76 downloads to use
up.  I love Emusic, but they're slow
to rip the new stuff I want (which
is why I also use Bleep, Rough Trade
and Tunetribe).  Usually, it's not a
big problem.  But 76 downloads left
out of a monthly 90?

The wind's just dumped out the
ashtray.  Time to go batten down
the hatches.

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BAD SIGNAL
Warren  Ellis

http://www.newsarama.com/Chicago_07/Ringo.html

According to  this, my friend Mike Wieringo died on Sunday
of a heart attack.

We  were set to do a book together this year, something we've
been intending to  do for a few years.  Things had finally come t
ogether,  and...

The first thing I said upon seeing this was "No."

I'm going  to miss you, Mike.  And so will everyone else.

-- Warren Ellis  

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bad signal
WARREN ELLIS

*  130 people joined the Club of
Mars overnight: or, 1% of the Bad
Signal readership.  Which, for a
Sunday night, ain't bad at all.
Amused to note that Suicide Girl
Loe was in within about five mins of
sending the Signal.  One guy even
tunneled into the system through
the Dubai firewalls around Ning.  (I
activated the blog function, but
not the forum function, so people
could talk without the system turning
into a monster that'd require
moderation.)  Nice to see people
adding photos to the viewer, too.  I
like to see who's on the Signal, and it
might be interesting for you too to
see who else is on the Signal.

http://clubofmars.ning.com

*  The Engine lurches into its last
couple of weeks.  I might start some
weird threads on there later, to
try and make the final days a little
less dull.

*  And for those following all that,
on Aug 30 or thereabouts I should
be able to announce where I'll be
setting up shop next.  It's built, and
I'm going to spend the next couple
of weeks roadtesting it.

*  In between, of course, writing all
these fucking comics, and writing
LISTENER, Novel #2.  Which I'm
currently pulling apart in my head.
William Morrow were angling for a
longer novel, but I'd originally
intended to continue working in the
stripped-back style of CROOKED
LITTLE VEIN.  With some perspective,
finally, on CLV, I'm going back and
opening up the first 14000 words
of LISTENER, writing longer and
letting the thing take some time.

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bad signal
WARREN ELLIS

Was checking  my traps before bed and tripped over this,
which I set up months ago but  forgot to do anything with.

http://clubofmars.ning.com/

It's  basically just a social network.  Less function on it
than the  Engine.ning page.  I remember thinking it might
be interesting to have a  very basic social network system
behind Bad Signal, let people see who else  is on the
Signal etc etc.

So, you know, use it, don't use it,  whatever.  It's your own
person Fuckster/MySpack/Fecesbook.  The  Club of Mars.

(The title came to me while thinking about The Club  of
Rome, I think.  Or maybe the Club Of Budapest.
Whichever one had  Peter Ustinov as a member.  Maybe
both.)

(I'm going to bed now.)  

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Warren Ellis: There are 726 people following my Twitter – and a quick look reveals that I know almost none of them! This gets eerie, sometimes…

Warren Ellis: is watching shooting stars.

Warren Ellis: is waiting for that new idea to come.

Warren Ellis: Wil, your kids can be taken away from you for making them listen to Shatner’s THE TRANSFORMED MAN. And people think you’re a nice guy.

bad signal
ME

* Going to dig out my keys to the
DOKTOR SLEEPLESS wiki today and
see if I can work out what's going
on there.

* Have also created and hidden a
DOK community-style website. Not
a new message board per se, not
the new online community I was
talking about earlier.

* Will also lean on Avatar next
week in re: SCIENCE BITCH t-shirts
to go with the SCIENCE BASTARD Ts.

* Spacebar doesn't work properly
on new keyboard. Bah.

*  The comics business goes to
Wizard World Chicago this weekend.
I am not.  In fact, I have no more con
appearances scheduled, anywhere.
This is an immensely pleasant
prospect, post-San Diego.  Very
tempting to just take a couple of
years off shows entirely, though
I doubt it'll happen.  

* Have set the Apparat Novella
for December.  Have decided to
try and get one done for March as
well, aiming for 3 to 4 a year.  The
second one's historical too.  The 3rd
would have to be different...

*  Am doing a PA in Second Life
today -- details on website.

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Warren Ellis: A speeding tractor. Don’t see one of those every day. Ah, the English countryside.

Warren Ellis: Over a year away, but I need to decide where in the US I’m going to go for Election Night…