MATER SUSPIRIA VISION The Drone Cabinet of Doctor Trance (2010) from Mater Suspiria Vision on Vimeo.

The post I sent from the car doesn’t seem to have gone through, so: back in LA. Used Mark Millar’s name as a joke punchline/aside during the main panel, which will cost me money later (thank fuck my friends have a sense of humour). Got a photo of Helen Mirren in her brilliant Harvey Pekar memorial shirt. Eyesight is a bit blurry right now. On a plane soon, and back to the life of a working writer rather than a guy who gets driven around in limousines to tv and newspaper interviews…

Jean Snow just posted on Twitter that magazine-print-on-demand service Magcloud just released an iPad app, for viewing of digitised versions of the magazines people make and sell through that service. At the link, Magcloud explain that the app is free and (currently?) so are all Magcloud magazines obtained through the app. Presumably, once uptake of the app reaches a certain point, they’ll build in in-app purchase of digitised magazines, as well as a way to buy the physical POD editions.

Several million iPads in the wild. A convenient way to read Magcloud offerings on said iPads, with instant free delivery and what I again presume would be a far lower price per unit than is charged for the print versions. Is it me, or did Magcloud just take several steps towards killing themselves?

A few presumptions in there, yes, but…

Okay, this is a complete repost of something Kelly Sue DeConnick posted on her site earlier in the day. I would just send you there, but Neil and Wil just did that and it fried her server. So I’m just copypasting on the fly. Everything below is written by Kelly Sue. Here we go:

–

Okay, so, Fred Phelps and his family of hateful bigots are getting a lot of press for their planned appearance at (or near?) the San Diego Comic Con. The man lives for attention and confrontation. If you see him there, don’t sneer, don’t scream, don’t confront, don’t point and laugh–DON’T ACKNOWLEDGE. Ignore, ignore, ignore, ignore, ignore…

EXCEPT! We need some help in the form of a time-keeper or two, letting us know exactly how long the patron saint of backwards thinking and his family manage to stand and scream in the California sun. Then, by all means, do stare–at your watch! Make a note of what time it is and alert the internet that they’re there/still there. (But do it quietly and from a polite distance, will you?) Go get yourself a cold drink and check back every now and then until we have an approximate time count. Like… here would be good. Or on Twitter, with the hashtag #godlovesbatman

Why? Because in the spirit of love, we are pledging to donate $50 to amfAR if Phelps and his crew actually show up (often they don’t) and $10 an hour additional to amfAR for every hour they stay. And we’ll make our donation in Fred’s name.

We’d love you to join us.

(And we’d really love to be able to post a tally of how much we’ve raised.)

Repost far and wide, my pretties.

EDITED TO ADD:

1. We’ll be donating to amfAR, but Sam and Ginny have both suggested the Human Rights Campaign. Either seems appropriate.
2. Looks like the WBC is only scheduled for 45 minutes. (Lightweights!) If that’s the case, we’ll round up to $100–but times are tough and you shouldn’t feel like you have to do the same or not participate. $7.50 is better than nothing. $57.50 is peachy and cute.
3. There seems to be some confusion–you don’t need to be at SDCC to pledge. We’re doing an online donation via this link.

—

This is Warren again. It’s just been mentioned to me that “lots of LGBT folks are anti-HRC,” in which case interested parties might like to donate to NCLR or EQCA instead.

Off the plane, hidden away for a few days to do Business Stuff and get some work done. I have outdoor space, cigarettes, wifi and iced coffee, and all is well.

On the road in, fuck, about seven hours. Will be posting little bits here and there as time and signal allow. See you on the other side, folks.

Christ, what is going on over at DC today?

JACK CROSS was a disappointment, a project that went wrong fast and seemed to be outside my reach to fix. Gary did a yeoman job on these four issues, but there’ll never be any more.

And then this turned up on the DC blog:

DC COMICS PRESENTS: JACK CROSS #1 Written by WARREN ELLIS Art and cover by GARY ERSKINE Now, terror has something to fear – and his name is Jack Cross! This massive special features JACK CROSS #1-4, a never-collected volume introducing Warren Ellis’s one-man anti-terrorist unit Jack Cross and his special brand of violence and civil protest, gorgeously illustrated by Gary Erskine (THE FILTH). On sale OCTOBER 6 • 96 pg, FC, $7.99 US

I didn’t write any of that text, by the way.

Years ago, I wrote a brief run on the DC Vertigo horror comic JOHN CONSTANTINE: HELLBLAZER. Brief, because I wrote a horror story therein called SHOOT. SHOOT was about schoolyard slayings in the United States. It was completed before Columbine happened, but scheduled to appear not long after. The regime at DC Comics at the time decided that it could not be released in its completed form. I refused to go along with the changes they wanted to make. They decided not to publish the book at all. I quit.

I remember that, at the time, someone telling me that the stance was that Paul Levitz would not release the book so long as he was running DC.

It never occurred to me that a new regime would feel differently.

Vertigo has a long history of publishing thought provoking stories that resonate whether they’re horror, crime, war, western, fantasy, urban memoir, science fiction or reality based.

So why not dig through the archives and bring some of them back? Welcome to VERTIGO RESURRECTED – a series of one-shots and specials geared to do just that-embrace history and stories that connect with the present day activities of our favorite protagonists, antagonists and creators.

“Shoot,” Warren Ellis’s much-talked about, but never published, HELLBLAZER story involving schoolyard killings leads this mega-sized VERTIGO RESURRECTION special.

Also included are rarely seen tales exploring the disturbing depths of horror, war, romance and science fiction by Brian Azzarello, Grant Morrison, Garth Ennis and artists Jim Lee, Phil Jimenez, Bernie Wrightson, and others. Cover by Tim Bradstreet.

VERTIGO RESURRECTED #1 On Sale October 20 / 96 pages / $7.99

Oil painting I did for a Law & Order art show, running July 24-30 in Los Angeles!

brandonbird.com/stories.html

My episode description was “The Wife of a Once-Popular Singer (Gary Busey) is Found Dead.”

I like painting Gary Busey.

Is Friday, is just past noon…

The ads for THE SOCIAL NETWORK, the Aaron Sorkin-written film about Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook, have been clever so far. This one, however, really caught my attention.

Mostly because the very first image is of my friend Sarah Sharp, whom some of you may also remember as Trixie Bedlam.

That kind of freaked us all out, yes.

I have been told I will have some actual comics news to pass on to you tomorrow. Which I’m sure will make a nice change.

Funny thing about comics: for the last several years, I’ve either been doing Marvel comics whose artists are then moved on to more profitable enterprises, or I’ve been doing books at Avatar mostly using relatively new European and South American artists because that’s Avatar’s preference.

So this opportunity to do a graphic novel at a book publisher popped up the other month. And I’ve kind of dragged my feet on it because all the old collaborators of mine who’d fit it have gone on to bigger and better things — when my name is even mentioned to John Cassaday, he now fakes a seizure until the offending party goes away — and, ha ha, I find that I don’t really know any experienced comics artists anymore.

Maybe it’s a sign to line up a third prose novel next year.

(There should be news on the book that’ll replace the lost LISTENER soon, too.)

"There is a "coherent and significant connection" between radiation from Vatican Radio aerials and childhood cancer, researchers have said."