I've moved!

I have a new website at the following address:
www.dispatchx.wordpress.com

Please join me there.

Don't even go there!

It's been a while, I know.

Anyway...I have finished the children's book I have been working on and will start sending it out to publishers next week. Here's hoping I have better luck with this then with the novel I wrote a few years back. I will be writing the first draft of a follow-up children's book soon. My daughter's going to love them I'm sure (like she has a choice).

My idea for a couple of panels a week web comic has not been able to draw an artist (DRAW. Ha! I kill me!) yet. We'll see where that goes.

I am really wanting to continue the YA novel that I abandoned about a year ago and hope to start it up again very soon. It takes a big time commitment for a novel and having an almost 2 year old daughter running around tends to eat up time. The characters simply will not get there hooks out of me. I take that to be a good sign that I'm on to something special.

I have recently contributed a phrase to a Twilight shirt design for a friend. No, I'm not a fan. I always like a good challenge.

That's it for now.

The day after

What a crazy weekend. I attended the KC Planet Comicon over the weekend and had a good time. I got a Spider-man sketch from Skottie Young and talked with Jason Aaron briefly about the woes of finding an artist. Jason gave me something to think about so look for new writing news.

I also scored a cool print from Tommy Castillo of King Kong putting the smack down on some giant snakes.

As I alluded to on Twitter, I have a new job. Same as the old job. In other words, I got my old job back. There was much rejoicing.

I am changing Monster Mondays from every Monday to Mondays following the week I obtain a new CD. Hey folks, I'm not made of money. If someone wants to send me a CD to review then I will be happy to do so. I should have a new review up next Monday.

Monster Monday: Madeleine Peyroux- Bare Bones

You can’t help but gently sway to the opening plunk-plunk guitar tempo of [Instead] as if in a late night foggy jazz club. By the time you hear the smooth siren call it is too late for you.

Of course, you don’t realize it yet as you lean against the rail of your front porch and count the fireflies lighting up. Krista knocks some dishes together as she cleans up the kitchen. Even the sound of the water running through the faucet you find tranquil. You chalk it up to something in your [Bare Bones.]

Something crashes in the kitchen. It’s not just dishes.

You enter the house and turn the corner to the kitchen.

“Krista?”

Krista can’t answer due to the meat cleaver stuck in the back of her head. Blood covers the window in front of the sink, the counter and the pea green tiled floor. You scream.

Your eyes dart around the room but you see no one there. You can do nothing but whimper and [float down this river of tears.] The darkness in the next room breathes menace.
You go to call the police and find the phone dead. You remember that your mobile phone is lying on your bed upstairs.

You pull the largest knife you have from the kitchen drawer and step around the corner to the main hallway. The long scar along your arm brings back shivery memories.

[“You can’t do me the way you did before”]

The walk to the stairs is lit but that is little comfort. Beyond the stairs is the darkness and the scent of [Love and Treachery.] It reminds you of strawberries.

Out of the darkness leaps a swinging blade.

You scramble up the stairs by twos. The knife wielder oozes from beyond the stairs and follows you. He wears a red hood with crude slits for eyes. The light dances off the blades in a belt across his shoulder.

A tune drifts across the breeze from the open window at the top of the stairs; the neighbor humming [To Love You All Over Again.]

There must be something you can do. You tell yourself [“I Must be Saved”] as some kind of mantra. You leave the lights out upstairs and crouch in the second room’s doorway and hold your breathe.

The hood tentatively enters the darkness and searches the first room. A lamp crashes against the wall and to the ground.

You run around the corner and leap into the room with The Hood, swinging your knife violently. You feel it push into something hard and hear a muffled moan. The Hood throws your head into a dresser and you see stars. You don’t dare stop swinging your arm. You swing up and hit something else. The Hood lets go of you and falls to the ground.

After you get your bearings, you stumble to the light switch and flip it on. The Hood is in the middle of the floor with your knife sticking in his chin. He must be dead.

You can see in a mirror that you have a nasty gash in your head and a trail of blood running down your neck. Consider it a scratch since you’re still alive.

Life sure is [Somethin’ Grand.]

Or at least, it will be tomorrow.

T Extravaganza

A couple of links to some cool t-shirt sites. The first one offers a different t-shirt design every day by artists on the web.
http://www.teefury.com/

The second has cool t-shirts with fake advertisements related to horror and sci-fi movies. I personally can't wait for the Antonio Bay shirt to come back in stock.
http://www.lastexittonowhere.com/

Started Twittering. We'll see how it goes.

Monster Monday: Chris Cornell- Scream

Chris Cornell- Scream

It opens with fan fair. A synth voice begins the tale as if told around some kind of funky futuristic glow pit. A tale of a creature born of metal and strings with a beat-box heart.

It’s clear from the first track that the old sound is no more a [Part of Me.] This monster is not the same old B-monster we are familiar with from the days of Soundgarden through Audioslave that we know how to handle. Didn’t we love that monster?

The beat shifts a tad and you realize that we are alone. Where did it go? It was there just a minute ago, before we blinked, red eyes pulsing to the music and hips swaying as if charmed like a snake by a techno flute from hell. [I wish we could rewind. Time.] You didn’t like the look of its machete hand. I can’t say I was thrilled about either.

I thought I heard a whisper about [Sweet Revenge.] The tiniest breathe on the back of my neck. Wait. Wasn’t this thing a machine?

“Run.” I shout.

You can’t move. Paralyzed with fear. Don’t you know you’ve got to [Get up?]

[You need a backbone to roll with the world.] You shoot out of the room into a dark hallway and keep pumping your legs as fast as you can. Your shoes hit the floor in double time behind me.

We both crash through a door and get tangled in a mess of wires and panels. Where are we?

[Ground Zero.] This is where it all must have gone wrong. It looks like some kind of techno birthing chamber. The wires are hanging from the ceiling as if the sky was gutted. Sparks fly intermittently. Blood spatters cover the glass partitions. Mutilated bodies lay sprawled on the floor like discarded toys. This is not good.

You’re world suddenly shifts as [Never Far Away] pours out from the room speakers, somehow still working. This is a groove that you can get behind. No more fear. Nothing but sweet romance. [Whenever I come. Wherever I go. No, you’re never far away, far away.]

My mouth drops open as you start dancing. I thought you only danced like that because it gets a laugh but now I can tell you’re in the zone. You really shouldn’t leave the house.

I guess it’s just me now. I grab an ax from the wall next to the fire extinguisher and search the darkness for the monster. It’ll never [Take me Alive.]

I wish I was [Long Gone.] Hey, this tune sounds familiar. Maybe this thing is what we’re used to dealing with after all. That voice of honey and rock salt can’t be mistaken. There’s only one way to be sure.

A spinning blade erupts from the wall next to me. I [Scream] like a little girl. At least I’m not dancing like a spastic belly dancer.

A barrage of sound pelts me that includes [Enemy], [Other Side of Town] and [Climbing up the Walls.] I swing the ax but can’t get a bead on the inhuman monster. It’s on me too fast. I feel a cut in my arm and another in my leg. It burns.

Just as those red eyes fill my vision, I fall from a push. You’ve come out of your stupor and grabbed a loose bunch of wires from the ceiling with a particularly nasty looking spark issuing from them. I watch as you shove them into the slit that thing has for a mouth and its eyes bug out. Arms, legs, and blades fly everywhere.

The monster falls.

All that remains of life in the monster escapes as the smoke from over-heated circuits drift up like slowly scattering snakes. You pulled through for me again.

“What a ride though, eh?” You say as we make our way through various dark rooms to the bright outside.

No doubt. But…

[Watch Out.]

Whatever happend to the Transylvania Twist?

Don't know, but I am really digging this Transylvania TV thing. One of the puppeteers is going to be at the Planetcomicon coming up in a couple of weeks in KC so maybe I can score some groovy swag. Include both a yeti and a vampire in your show and call me hooked. Making them puppets is icing.


Transylvania Television: Ep01 "Interview with Some Vampire" from Michael Heagle on Vimeo.

Monster Monday: U2- No Line on the Horizon

Let me preface this entry. So that I will at least update my blog every week, I have come up with Monster Mondays. Every Monday I will post a music review in my own unique way. Hopefully you'll find it amusing. Feel free to let me know in comments.

U2- No Line on the Horizon

Thump thump.

Its steady beating heart drives the opening title. The first line breaks through the hum. The groove grabs you by the neck and hurls you through the fourth story window. The back of your head smacks the pavement, shattered glass cascades all around you yet, for some reason, you can’t help but smile as a large shadow eclipses your vision then is gone. There was something familiar about the shape of that shadow.

By the second track, the beat has stepped it up a notch. You get up and stumble towards the convenience store down the block. Your girlfriend lays in the parking lot with a slash the size of Cleveland from the same beast that hit you.”Only love can leave such a mark.” Is she still breathing? You don’t get an answer before you hear the whine of the guitar and watch the beast take flight. It looks so peaceful in the sky, majestic even.

You can imagine taking flight yourself and almost feel the wind rush past with every firm beat from the beast’s wings as they surround you. You hear the chorus of “Moment of Surrender” and fall to your knees. How did you let things get so out of control?

Your cell phone rings and you screen the call, “Unknown Caller.” The world spins out around you and it seems you hear voices that give you short commands as if you were some kind of computer to be programmed. Maybe it’s the beast getting into your head. The sky is now empty.

You carry your girlfriend to your apartment and ease her onto the faded green couch. She’s breathing but just barely. The beast must be stopped. During “I’ll Go Crazy if I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight” you feel your resolve grow stronger and search for a weapon, any weapon. You grab a metal baseball bat you’ve had since grade school and make for the door. You take a last look at your girlfriend. “Baby, baby, baby, I know I’m not alone.”

The beast strikes again at the local bowling alley. You meet your best friend, Charlie, and drive there in his Jeep with “Get on Your Boots” blaring through the speakers. He has a loaded .45. You notice that neither of you have on sexy boots. You’re both wearing sneakers.

There is a huge hole in the side of the bowling alley that you don’t remember being there before. Bodies litter the parking lot and cars are overturned. Hopefully no one is dead. The warbling guitar during “Stand Up Comedy” draws you and Charlie into the building as a sultry siren. Charlie has the presence of mind to fire the .45 at the first sight of the beast’s wild mane. It roars as static enters its groove. You leap over scattered bowling balls to get within its shadow. Not yet swinging range…for you.

The fuzziness of “Fez: Being Born” enters through one ear and out the other as you are swept off your feet by a blow from the beast’s massive claws.

You land on your side. The thought flashes through your mind that there is a beast within each of us. “If only a heart could be as white as snow.” Your baseball bat clangs against the ground and rolls out of reach.

A rip in your leg causes you to tremble. A tear across your chest makes it hard to “Breathe.”

Charlie keeps firing into the beast until there is no answer. You can hear the beast’s heart beat, so strong and steady in the beginning, now only a low drumming. It can’t last for much longer. You find that it gives you little satisfaction. Maybe you’ll wake up and all of this will have been a dream. In its last breath, the beast whispers “Choose your enemies carefully ‘cos they will define you. They’re not there in the beginning but when your story ends. Gonna last with you longer than your friend.”

Charlie helps you to your feet and you stagger. How are you going to tell your girlfriend that your best friend meted out her revenge?

Well, you’ve got the scars, don’t you? Yeah.

Go home and rock ‘til there’s no line on the horizon, baby.

Um...remember me?

Sorry about the long drought between posts. I am in the middle of re-imagining my blog so look for some new things soon.

On the writing front, I have submitted some writing samples to Superhuman Works in the hopes of being chosen to write their flagship title Night Jak. They are a small start-up company in New York but it would be a chance to have my writing published.

The big comic convention in Kansas City will be here March 28-29. I am prepping for a day or two of networking, artist hunting and comic purchasing. This year the big media draw is Erin Gray from the original Buck Rogers and Peter Mayhew from Star Wars. I still kick myself for not getting Adam West's autograph when he was here several years ago. On the comic book side; Scottie Young, Michael Golden and my friend Chris Grine will be there, among others.

That's it for now.

Must love monsters

As I composed an ad that hopefully attracts an artist for Count Obsideo, I almost used the above phrase. It just popped into my head as a good summation of the kind of stories I like to write. I ended up not using the phrase in my ad but I thought it would make a good blog post title.

What is it that fascinates me about monsters. Beats me. I just know that I like them. Place a monster in any movie and I can guarantee you I will be interested. Add a monster to your new advertisement and I just may buy whatever your selling. Say the word "monster" and I smile.

Perhaps it's because the monster is so often misunderstood and mysterious. Both of which I have certainly been called before. Perhaps it's because so many monsters are born of someone else's mistakes or cruelty. After all, one can hardly become a vampire, werewolf or giant mutant lizard thing by themselves. It may be because the monster is what makes the hero. If the monster itself can get to be the hero then all the more awesome.

The Incredible Hulk is both a monster and a hero. Godzilla is both the destructor of Tokyo and, so many times, its savior. King Kong is both the beast that rampaged New York and the guardian of Ms. Darrow.

I am looking forward to the remake of The Wolfman that is supposed to find its way to movie theaters this year. The next DVD collection I plan on buying is The Giant Red Baron which is a Japanese show where a giant red and silver robot gets to fight all manners of giant monsters (hopefully amidst cardboard looking cities and such). I have never seen the show but the sound and look of it intrigues me. Besides, they had me with "giant monsters." I'm still waiting for a good current US television show that features a cool monster. I may have to create it myself someday.

Bring on the monsters!

Tops in movies

As promised, here are my top five favorite movies for the year 2008. I know what I said in my last post but this one is going to be short and sweet since I've already written reviews for most of these movies on this blog.

5- Quantum of Solace
4- Valkyrie
3- Iron Man
2- Hellboy 2
1- The Dark Knight

As a side note; I caught an old movie on TV the other night that I remembered fondly. Amazingly, it held up well today and had me laughing and smiling most of the way through. The name of the movie is Zorro, The Gay Blade. I highly recommend it if you are looking for something light and fun or just need to scratch that George Hamilton itch.

A dilema

What to post on this blog?

It is something that I have been thinking about for some time now and the start of a new year is as good a time as any to begin a change. The blogs that I frequent are written by professionals in some capacity as authors, editors, agents, or movie reviewers. I am not yet a professional author and my current lack of a job at all does not provide me with a wealth of things to discuss that I feel others will be even remotely interested in. I feel that even my movie and music reviews up to this point have been less than lackluster.

What am I to do about this? I'm not entirely certain yet. I do know that I will continue to post updates about what I am working on and when I finish a project. I will attempt to write more comprehensively about my writing process (such as it is) and write movie, music and book reviews with more of a professional tone and greater breadth. The added benefit will hopefully be that this blog will be more entertaining and a greater example of my writing skills. I wouldn't count out a serial work of fiction at some point either (probably sooner rather than later).

I would like to thank immensely anyone out there reading this blog. I will leave you with these immortal words: It can only get better.

PS: I have posted the first five scripted pages of Count Obsideo issue two on Deviant Art (the link is to the right). Still looking for an artist.

PSS: Still looking for a day job as well.

Tops in music

Thought I forgot about it didn't you? Well, here are my picks for the top five albums of the year 2008:

5- Another Country/ Tift Merritt: Her debut album was great and this follow-up album didn't disappoint. For fans of "kinda country" in the vein of Emmylou Harris. Some really pretty songs on this one.

4- Easy Tiger/ Ryan Adams: Not to be confused with Bryan Adams. This is another country tinged album with excellently crafted songs with melodies that will rattle around in your head for days.

3- Perfect Symmetry/ Keane: A little different sound for this band but one that works well and reminds me a bit of Duran Duran in the eighties. The amazing thing is that the band sounds better with each and every album. At this rate, I can't wait for the next one.

2- Warpaint/The Black Crowes: The Robinson brothers are back together and making great soul shaking southern fried rock and roll again. Here's to many more years ahead.

1- All the Love You Need/ Big Head Todd and the Monsters: The only band outside of The Black Crowes that consistently makes albums that I love. I honestly don't know why this blues tinged rock band is not more popular than they are. I recommend this album to everyone. While your at it, pick up all their other albums as well.

That's it. Tops in movies will be next.