Almost a year after I started, Arcanopocrypha is in a form to be downloaded (40megs) for all to view and whine about. So far, I’m getting really good responses from people and I’m excited to see what doors this will or wont open.

I blame Warren Ellis for this story. And Johnathan Hickman. And Brian Michael Bendis. And I thank them. In the last two years, they’ve been laying down some words that finally triggered in my mind to stop wishing and start doing. Specifically it’s been a combination of “now you tell ME a story” and “get off your ass and do it” and “commitment.” Since I started, and really committing to these scripts, I’ve never been nicer. Since I saw people read my stories and say, “you know, this doesn’t completely SUCK, Bob,” I’ve given myself the benefit of the doubt that I can pull this off.

I don’t think this story, Arcanopocrypha: the Journey Box, is the best. Of course, it’s not the new Watchmen, or anything other that a story that meets my emotional needs. Strangely, I don’t care if you like it… scratch that… I don’t care if you dislike it. Either it’s going to speak to you the way it does me, or it’s not. I hope it does but I’m ok if it doesn’t.

Since my work has become visible, I’m seeing a transformation - of how I see the world, how I see others, how I view myself versus what the world is, how others behave, what I truly am. I’ve always been bitter about the fact that we - humanity - could be so much more. Nicer in every way, but we deliberately choose not to. It’s very similar to the way people say things, “Like that may be so, but I believe in God so it must be wrong.” We COULD be a society that works towards the benefit of all. But we deliberately choose not it because something… else… something in OUR MINDS tells us to stop. Something in our minds is telling us to FAIL, but it’s our choice to listen.

It’s our choice to become authors and artists and creators of our future. Or we can choose to let others create the future for us, which isn’t necessarily bad, but it’s definitely less than optimal. But I’m no longer on the fence about this, and you’re welcome to come with me on this journey, but I’m going to expect you do deliver. And I want you to hold me to the same high standard.

Bob Kelly, April 2009

OK, a while back Warren Ellis told a bunch of people to “FORM a BAND.”

I’m gonna quote him in full here:

Warren Ellis via Bad Signal, “Building the Imperfect Beast,” 08-12-2008

Okay, I’m pretty sure I did do this last year, but I
think it’s reconfigured in my head since then. So.

What you need is one writer and three artists.
Essentially, you decide to Form A Band.

And you decide up front that all the money from
the anthology comic is divided 4 ways equally.
This is for simplicity’s sake — people argue this
point with me all the time, but I have had
publishers say to my face that they avoid
anthologies, especially creator-owned ones,
because THE SUMS ARE TOO HARD. Keep
it simple. 25% for everybody.

What you’re going to do, you see, is one writer
writing three serials for three artists.

You’re doing a two-dollar book. That’s FELL format.
A 24pp unit, all on the same paperstock, including
covers. “Guts” of 20pp, with the “cover”, constituting
4pp, wrapped around it, yes?

Three 6pp episodes is 18 pages. Your cover and
inside front cover for indicia etc are 2pp. So that
leaves you 4pp, including the back cover, to play
with. Use them to interleave the serials, use them
as backmatter, let the artists take turns doing
full-page pieces, whatever.

The cover art is a rotating job between the three
artists.

Collect it every six months as a 128pp book (therefore
still splitting everything four ways) or collect each
serial on its own as best fitting (each book therefore
splitting 50/50). (As is blatantly obvious, but people
like to ask these questions instead of thinking for
themselves.)

Go and do it. I need something to read.

Form a band, boys and girls. Form a band.

OK, let’s look at the hurdles
1) I had to form a company so that my ass isn’t too liable as a self-publisher,
2) I had to create a legal agreement,
3) I’ve had to recruit artists (which I did find one - he’s great to work with, top notch.)
4) Some serious bitterness on my behalf, but oddly… I’m better for it. I’m a hell of a lot happier in this last six months.

Oh yeah, and I had to write the scripts because that is what I want to do, y’know, write stories. As opposed to be a publisher.

It’s six months later and I’m looking at now 5 finished scripts, one in final-final, four in finished draft stages, a ton of undeveloped ideas, and no artists on the horizons.

So, I’m putting this out to twitter-verse, and facebook, and all the other places once again.

I’m looking for few good artists. Actually, I’m looking for two good artists who will commit to the project. I know that royalty projects are difficult, but if you’re wanting to break in, and you love comics, here’s an opportunity for you. Please forward to any artists you know.

For us to shop this story, an artist needs to commit to the following:
1) Character Design - based on my descriptions, you will design the main characters of the story.
2) The first 5-6 pages of the story so that we can shop it to publishers. No page rate will be paid for these first few pages.

Legal Agreement Abridged
You and I co-own the characters. I own story. You own the character designs (what they look like) and receive royalties based on that design. If a different artist comes in later and redesigns the characters, you will still receive a smaller royalty amount for ownership. The story and characters are completely licensed to Heresy Research Labs to be repped - in short, HRL’s job is to get others to license and print the comics.

Here’s the detailed license. Feel free to print out and take to a lawyer.

I’ve been sending this to everyone I know. It’s put me in the perfect mindset to write Gotham Killfiles.

All my life, my mother has wanted to weave rugs - big, fancy rugs that people hang on walls. She’s not exactly been successful at doing it. For a woman who has managed to raise two children by herself, had a profitable career, and a trove of friends who she loves and loves her back, she’s only attended a few classes. All my life, she’s placed obstacles in front of her to prevent her from doing things. Slowly, she’s learning how to get around these obstacles. I’ve learned from her example, and I hope to have returned the favor.

It’s odd, these obstacles, it’s like navigating around your self, your mind, your structure of the world.

For my own dreams, I’ve finally removed one of those obstacles from my path that I’ve been worrying over. These have been the type of worries that wakes one in the night in bone-chilling panics. The price of doing business has cost me a lot - money, career, friends - most importantly friends, and faith in myself. I’m leery of paying that price even though I know there’s more coming in the future. Well, after finding the right legal council, I’ve finally done it.

On Tuesday, at 2:45 I signed documents officially creating Heresy Research Labs, llc. It’s mission is to create entertaining copyrightable materials for licensing and publishing. I like that mission: I’m here to create fun, of all interests, and with a name like Heresy, I’m hoping to break a few rules.

I’ve got heroes - well, minds that I admire - all of whom have said, “I’ve shown you, now you show me what you can do.” I am so tired of having reams of written material that goes unpublished, unseen and un-commented on. There’s only one way I’m going to improve and that way requires me to my material in front of others.

My first project will be Arcanopocrypha, a collection of short stories I’ve written for a graphic novels format, with a single overall arc. I’ve discovered a wonderful artist which I’m hoping to expand my business relationship.

I love twisting the minds of those who will listen, and I really want to play rough. Stay tooned, I’m going in!

In the last couple of centuries, with the UK’s and USA’s efforts on the rights of children, such as child labor laws and penalties for juvenile criminals, slowly a change of perspective is occurring in other nations. We’re seeing a rise of child abuse investigations in Europe - especially former Soviet Socialist Republic, and Asia is addressing on a nation-by-nation basis, such as Japan beginning to rethink their anime/hentai industry and Thailand’s continuing crackdown on sexual tourism.

For a long time, I’ve postulated a society hold the ethics it’s resources can hold, but here’s a heinous example of how these changes are taking far too long a time to cross cultures: Monster Father imprisons his daughter for 24 years, sires 7 children, kills one of them. The mother did nothing. This isn’t to say that Austrians are pro-abuse as a culture, just that their police didn’t execute when this girl and the children needed them most.

As more of these warped people come to light due to changes in culture, the more likely we’re going to encounter similar extraordinary events, and expose entire cultures of institutionalized and consensual child abuse. Eventually, we have the potential to communicate the abhorrent treatment of young women facing a culture of rape and mutilation in more remote locations.

Children don’t have a choice. We need to set a finite line. A person who physically abuses children as a form of cultural control needs to be excised from the gene pool with prejudice. Cultures that embrace these cultural memes should be pressured by the UN to change and economic efforts should be brought to bare.

I’ve delayed reading Warren Ellis‘ Crooked Little Vein for some reason. Personally, I think it’s because he comes to Phoenix to sign his Black Summer comic book on the largest downpour of water I’ve ever seen in my fraggin 8 years of living in this outer circle of hell.

Ha, vengeance is mine! Take that, you published author!

Anyways, I’m on page 57 now and I demand my leagues of zombie adventurers (all 2 of you) to go buy the book. More importantly, read the fucking thing. By page two I was laughing at the rat & coffee cup, but there I was, in my way-too-cool coffee haus when I read “People who want to fuck Godzilla” made me snort my caffeine into my sinuses. Which then lead me to meeting a beautiful girl who wants to be a SuicideGirl model. We’ve been brainstorming her SG name while I write this.

So, Warren Ellis has my vote for the next pope, and I’ll pay for all of his cellphone-fetish crack hos the next time he comes to town.

It’s gonna be out in paperback eventually, so you don’t have to spend a ungodly amount.

Before writing yesterday I ended up losing my 2gig USB thumb drive. This is the drive that all of my stuff is on. All of it. Not just SOME of it. Yes I make backups, but it’s time to make more frequent backups.

Holee fuck I nearly had an aneurysm.

-

Reading through my work, I’m impressed that it’s coming so coherently to me. I keep on going through my head: why didn’t I do this before? Why is this happening now? Bottomline, it’s the fucking doubt that we call carry with us day-in, day-out that has prevented me.

In fact, after establishing the reading I have made regarding patterns, I’m going to try to implement new patterns on my brain - behaviorally and physically. Should be an entertaining situation.

Pages written since last post: 5-7

I finished Dean Hamer’s the God Gene with an amount of gnashing of teeth. The book is light and easy to read, and seemingly logical until the last two chapters. I’ve begun to tire of books that get to their salient point in the first three chapters and then spend the rest of book not taking the logic further.

The God Gene is exactly one of these books. He proposes his hypothesis, and then goes to prove it. Well, the proof is, in my opinion, as logic as anyone can get it without a experimental sandbox that allows 200,000 years to pass in a second. However, once his final proof has been implemented, he doesn’t take the VMAT2 gene for a ride.

If we are godcoded, where does it take us? Outside the “god exists or doesn’t exist” argument, which Hamer refuses to tackle - a proof such as this could be used as a chain saw - but then he doesn’t take even the most logical discussions that are dealing with with genetic engineering today: should we allow this gene to continue self-propagation?

Importantly, the only tease he does deliver on is separate VMAT2 from religion - VMAT2 is supposed to make us susceptible to religious experiences, to feeling at one-with-the-universe. But he doesn’t address what causes religious asshatosity - in short, he fucking wimps out.

As a man who’s put his entire career at risk by publishing in the field of genetics challenging entire political parties’ dogma, he’s remarkably shy about not committing to the most obvious conclusions of his study. In short, it’s an oriental massage without a happy ending.

My Happy Ending
If there’s a gene that makes someone superiorly empathic with the world, one that transforms a persons behavior from the greedy, selfish cow-consumers that we are into caring entities who want to improve the all-life’s conditions, then why do we have those that believe it’s ok to kill?

Step into my thought experiment:
Once upon a time, Bob was just an average everyday man but after a vicious infection, he suffered from a fever that left him delirious for a day or two. In that delirium, his god gene fired off and he fever-dreamt that he could walk a new path and improved the world - that if other people followed him, the world would be a better place. God, you see, told Bob that by not eating omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, the world would be a better place.

Once Bob returned to something that passed for sanity, he thought, “Wow, I gotta tell everyone about my excellent experience.” Bob’s friends listened - well, most wrote him off as a looney, but one or two listened and followed his suggestions. Bob, tho, is a man with a mission and goes forth and spreads the good word about not eating fatty acids. Bob anoints himself as the Great Bobbolama and stops eating. Bob becomes thin, lean and driven with his new diet - he writes a book, creates a website, markets himself effectively. Proceeds from his book, allows him to travel and talk to more people, and everywhere he goes, he’s deliriously thin from the lack of food.

Others see this optimistic guy, who’s traveling and smiling all the time and says, “Wow, he’s so successful.” Some media mogul with a talk show has a last minute opening in her schedule, and lacking for someone credible, invites Bob on. His book hits the markets’ top ten list and suddenly the Great Bobbolama’s a millionaire with an entire industry of people who aren’t eating essential amino acids.

Fat people, who really have no intention of losing weight, buy the book for a brief emotional warm fuzzy feelgood experience. Some of them lose weight for a variety or reasons, but in their mind, the book has made them a better person. These thin and smiling people are plastered on billboards all around the world. One appears to have a modicum of talent and parents stupid enough to sign a contract: she changes her name to Jennifree and a new media teen age popstarlet is born.

And then, some scientist publishes a book countering Bob’s Evil Amino Acid fever-addled theory, informing the world that starving one’s self is not a diet but will kill you. The thin people who aren’t dead yet denounce the scientist, the media invites pundits from both sides, the debate heats up. A has-been teenage media starlet is hospitalized and publicly warns society not to follow Great Bobbolama’s words.

The Great Bobbolama releases a press release inferring Jennifree, who was once his chosen follower, is now a heretic to the cause. Some other no-name schlep, who has been pudgy all his life, decides that killing Jennifree is the only way to get Jodie Foster to notice him.

Bob denounces schleps’ actions, but because he’s stammering from the lack of nutrition, stammers at a crucial moment which the media interprets that he’s secretly pushing his followers to kill non-Bobbite believers. Suddenly the hordes who have starved themselves into stupidity transform into suicidal deathtards bent on destroying all of those that challenge the Great Bobbolama’s words.

The Great Bobbolama, facing a choice of skinny death or surviving as a rich fucking cult leader, decides that sneaking a cheeseburger or two on the side is worth the cause. He officially, and irrevocably denies the deathtard activity because it’s damaging his sales (he’s moved onto an entire line of “The Great Bobbolama Says…” selfhelp books, with videos and celebrity endorsments) - but the damage is done. The cult splinters: the peaceful orthodoxy starvationists and the “I may not be fat, but I’m more loyal than you” aggression monkeys. Both are convinced that they are the one-true-followers of the Great Bobbolama.

After years of aggressive denouncements, and deaths of more media starlets, the Great Bobbolama announces he’s going to mend the rift between the two schisms. The orthodoxy, who’ve literally been starving for this fucker, feel betrayed, and decide it’s better that the Bobbolama die than to kiss and makeup with the aggression monkeys. So, on the eve of the Great Bobbolama’s attempt to heal the rift, his own preisthood kills him, pointing fingers at the other side.

The Power of Belief
I propose that the god gene triggers when a person needs something irrational to believe in when his physical and emotional condition causes himself to doubt the reason he exists. If this irrationality - either denial, just simple stupidity - allows one to appear successful, then others will imitate his/her success. The act of imitation places the original as a prime mover and therefore a position of authority. The pattern of successful branding is predictably repeatable, thus there will be followers. Since followers are human, language imprecise, and half the people in this world are below average intelligence, and people get off on telling other people what to do: some followers will do really stupid things like kill people.

Geez, that was simple - why couldn’t Hamer taken a chapter to say that?

So, after my last post, I’ve been sick, sick and tired, tired, and pissed off. In short, desperately looking for a job so much so that I’m willing to talk to recruiters. I am completely out of the swing of new job hunting.

My writing is suffering too. Paragraphs rather than pages. It’s not writers’ block, it’s basic exhaustion and prioritization. I’ve triple booked my social calendar. Candle’s burning at both ends, the middle and I’m thinking about throwing the whole damn ball of wax into the microwave.

The Ego
So I keep circling around the idea of the Engine of Prediction’s thesis: that intelligence drives it’s own existence, and we’re lucky and unlucky that we’re the biggest perpetrators of intelligence. I’m reading books from Dennett, Hamer, and Hawkins. The issue is that when I read their books, I feel incredibly dwarfed by their accomplishments.

Combine that with the job/career, and it makes for a pretty sucky week.

Work it through
So, I’m struggling with what I see as “inevitability.” True academia would talk about possibilities, potential events that MAY happen. That’s shit. There are certain parts of cultural structures that make things inevitable: the drive to survive - either for an organism or a cultural artifact (aka “religion”, “brand”, “corporation”) - that cause an unethical Machiavellian calculus justifying immoral actions of the participant(s).

This equation causes poor choices: we either think we have no choice, or that our sacrificial choice will cause a remarkable long shot, a soulful gamble, where we believe that if we throw ourselves on our swords, the world will change with our selfless acts.

What crap. The so-called selfless act is in itself a meme - one that governs our behavior. We perform the act, such as working late at the expense of our personal lives, - or pursuing a loved one who spurns us at the expense of our [emotional wellbeing] - suffering in pursuit of a higher cause: honor or truth or love. Our payoff is an emotional stroke that says “You did your best” - like denial, our grief over a situation.

Hamer’s work discusses the God Gene as a biomechanical device that gives us optimism. I wonder if there’s a martyrdom gene that governs our behavior. There’s definitely a martyrdom meme, we wouldn’t have messiahs without it - but a martyrdom gene where a single unit sacrifices his or her wellbeing for the good of the culture (not the group - the culture).

Oh Unholee Orgasmatronics
Warren Ellis swings his large media johnson again: Porno for Terrorist Pilots. So our city’s concrete is flesh that needs to be rendered by explosions… or something. Totally not safe for work, but the logic of feminine sexuality being destroyed by terrorist planes.

I’m strangely reminded of Laurie Anderson’s Mach 20, which has Japanese sperm whales inseminating the California coastline at a high rate of speed.

It’s a psychological event of some sort - our brains are being inseminated by another culture, one hostile to sexual imagery that they must destroy it. I find myself oddly eroticized by the video.

Pages since last post: 1… ok, 6 paragraphs. grumble

Amazingly, I’m finding the time to write a blog - I’ve missed this for several months now. Basically, work has taken over my life, but I’m making the effort to get back into my game design and writing work. What a monster: effectively, I’m designing - on top of SAP - a multiple contract control module for driving pricing and sourcing for a multi-billion dollar company. Love the work, but DAMN, it sucks at times because of the no-life aspect.