Eden

Phil Rossi's "Eden", for which i did the cover, has as of this week scaled the craggy peaks of the podiobooks.com charts - bearing pitons of strange black alloys forged by no man - and landed at #1. uh... epic. two of eight chapters out thus far, with a new one hitting every Wednesday. clicky on the image below and subscribe to the feed for free (and hit up Crescent while you're at it).

quick hack

weird bug in the blogspot code popped up this week. fixed.

i have been very happy lately. this is in itself highly unusual and almost cause for alarm. almost.

here's to fine weather, good partnerships, strong beer and a stalwart crew.

yep.

[edit] also!- i would be remiss if i did not mention that the first chapter of "Eden" dropped last week, and it's been sitting atop the Podiobooks.com charts ever since. how about doing us a solid and subscribing to the feed for FREE? beautiful, vaguely menacing times await, i promise.

[ w a i t i n g ]

also, i read Gaiman's new The Graveyard Book. the sum total of these circumstances: haunted mental distress. :/



another "crank your brightness up, folks" entry in this October-wistful series.

got to play Professor in a guest lecture today. whoo.

/.n [while listening to The Toadies]

[ b l a c k _ p u m p k i n ]

it's gotten worse. i neglected to mention that i've been listening to an excess of House of Krazees, and also spinning classic horror while painting. something had to be done.



may be hard to make out the detail if your monitor's brightness isn't kicked up a level or two. the weather needs to get warmer, and soon, or i'm going to lose my mind waiting on October. i tried soliciting advice from my brother, but he was too busy playing in the snow to offer psychiatric help.

actually, a workable draft of "The Asherah" will probably drop soon... and then i will have nothing resembling free time for fanciful visions of black-lit gourds, twisted hills and quiet madness. i suspect that will beat the spring to my doorstep.

until then, i dream.

/.n [while listening to Alice in Chains]

the great big Phil Rossi collaboration post

i have been busy.

school thrice over, novel encounters with humans, the usual pervasive madness... you know me. committee meeting, late nights fighting the Dread Wyrm Unix, a pleasant trip home with my brother and de facto sister, and regular skulduggery with the crew. i love the latter two sets so.

i suppose that much is as it was back in the heady days of yore, or the last post - being November, christ. still obsessed with Fallout. over the last ten days Halloween has leapt, resurgent and rested and whistling a dark melody, from my bones. a protracted night of appalling nightmares, re-reading of "Coraline", cool weather, and hanging out at Target and Walgreens - all stirred in a hideous cauldron - is akin to lighting a black candle in Halloween's name. one of those licorice-scented ones that i hoard between Octobers in my cabinet.

::sigh::

[ b u r n ] was, to be honest, much better received than anticipated. i did not expect there to be.. er.. enthusiasm for this or other recent projects among other human beings. it has done much for my soul. much. and so:

the last post, item (i), introduced the proposition of a collaboration with a certain gentleman author/musician based in DC. if you delve into the archives, you'll find way back on 28 V his identity: one Phil Rossi [fiction/music]. we have indeed announced our major project together: an online graphic novel to bridge his debut novel "Crescent" and its sequel. the first Act is due in June (..ambitious..), with a potential multimedia overhaul upon its completion akin to the "Dead Space" comics. small world - my old friend Lorelei is married to the guy who did those books.

i give you the press release for "Crescent: The Asherah"
here's an enlarged, detailed version of the splash image.

the other three projects are much smaller in scale. i'm at liberty to discuss two here, or so i understand. these are covers for the print edition of "Crescent", out in June, and for his new podcast novella (February) "Eden."

final cover for "Eden":


Phil and i labored like madmen on the "Crescent" cover and came up with something that we both truly love, but his publisher didn't bite. here it is anyway... back to the drawing board.

lots hidden in that one. pity.

the final project is part of the online campaign / metastory behind his upcoming podcast novel "Harvey", due later this year. details on that when possible... it's rather humorous.

plate is full. i'm happy. now if only i can survive school...

interstitial

no new art this time, instead an update post. gather 'round the hearth, one and all.

life in general is rather better now. [ b u r n ] and other recent projects have gone a long way toward reminding me what enthusiasm and satisfaction taste like. it had been a while. coupled with a vastly more entertaining and engaging teaching assignment this fall, as well as establishing a now very plausible alternative career route (which i am not planning on seizing anytime soon), i'm sleeping better at night. well. i have been "experiencing" a long string of bizarre, intriguing and maybe disturbing dreams that i wish to god i could remember enough to write down. i blame Fallout 3, which has additionally reaffirmed in full my faith in the general goodness of the world. um, yeah.

Halloween was sublime, and around that time i finally accepted that my personal happiness is intrinsically linked to ongoing creative endeavor - which sadly i am "not so much" getting from school. painting, writing, that's what i need. and so, i am pleased to tease the following projects:

i) a brewing, by no means guaranteed collaboration with one of my favorite authors; a tier-one podcaster in horror and sci-fi. he's interested in spinning a tale - the format of which is not yet settled, to my knowledge - to bridge his first novel and its pending sequel. i would provide artwork for the same: could be a traditional comic style, could be plate illustrations, i'm not entirely sure. considering the audience this gent marshaled for his first outing, it could be big. and the plot concept is potentially weird and amazing.

ii) probable novella kicking around in my head and on paper; a near-future drama with a unique and unforeseen medical crisis leading to massive societal upheaval and the potential (theological) apocalypse. the macguffin is pretty damned sweet, i think.

okay. off to sleep and teach the younglings about brains upon the morrow. out.

[ b u r n ]

i know i've gone silent for... hmm, exactly two months now. you needn't ask why - the answer will always be the annual Halloween project.

this year's offering, "burn" marks the fourth consecutive fulfillment of a tradition that began with the move to Tallahassee and the elevation of Halloween to something like [secular] veneration. but that's a tale for another day. of the tetrad, three are intentionally obtuse and self-critical assessments of important events of my life, refracted through the murky and cobwebbed lens of Hallows. "Sigil" stands apart in that it is a microfiction retelling of one of the most appalling nightmares i've ever suffered. fun stuff, that.

those who know me reasonably well should not have much trouble exhuming the meaning from "burn." suffice it to say that it describes a very current dilemma. as usual, hidden symbols and suggestions - some minor, one very much not - abound. while i hope you enjoy it, and may peek though the tattered and nighted veils into my head - i reemphasize that these are cathartic exercises.

and on that. enjoy the season and the MLB playoffs.