Posts tagged blog

So, I caught some scum-sucker on the roof of our wash house the other day trying to steal a metal flue. I mean honest to god, a metal flue. I know that people are hard up, and scrap metal is going for a bomb and all that, but if I had thought the hunk of junk up on that roof was worth something I’d have ripped it off already and sold it myself.

Just even more galling is the fact it looks like said scumbag returned yesterday morning to remove said flue from the roof, leaving a massive gap in the roof in the process. All I can say is that the asshole had better pray he gets caught by the police before I catch him, mainly as prison would be a cake walk compared to what I’d do to him.

</rant>

Anyways, the picture that I posted on Sunday night is indeed something I’m working on, and hope to launch sooner rather than later. Basically, I’m relaunching ‘projectfortytwo’, which will now be known as Project 42.

What is Project 42 you ask? Well, I’ve found in recent times that any time I try to start and write and draw and complete a story based comic, I find myself drifting away from it completely in one way or another. Look at Alienated Youth last year. I find myself not really planning the story out properly and just generally winging it which makes the process much more difficult for me to complete and much more difficult to produce a coherent product. Which is where the concept of Project 42 is coming in - to help me teach myself to actually plan and work out a full story and produce a fully complete comic story. Although I’ve not fully settled on the full concept of how Project 42 is going to work, I have settled on one little rule.

Each comic story I produce on Project 42 will be 42 pages long. No more, no less.

I know that one of my New Year’s Resolutions was to fully do a 20 page comic minimum, but that felt a bit restricting. In that length it’s difficult to set up, develop and properly resolve a conflict. 42 pages means enough leeway to set up the foil, develop the characters and the relationships and resolve the story to a satisfactory level.

I have a few concepts already brewing for this little endeavour and the first I’m doing is a piece called ‘Don’t Ask For Decaf’. This is going to essentially be a reboot of my old comic ‘Coffee of Doom’, renamed as I have too much respect for certain comic creators. I did a lot of learning of the writing and drawing process when I first did COD, but I was never happy with the finished product, especially with the first couple of chapters. This is going to be my way of resolving that and pulling the story back to the way I had originally envisaged it.

I am already quite a bit in to developing the story and I’ve already started thumbnailling the first few comics. But I’m not posting anything completed until I’m happy to start. And besides, I’ve still got to pull together a home for all these new comics I’ll be drawing. More news on Project 42 and ‘Don’t Ask For Decaf’ when I have it.

Jesus Christ almighty, where the hell does the time go?

I think I can honestly say this has been a proper annus horribilis and definately a year I’ll be wanting to forget in a hurry. It’s nearly a year since my wife and I got flooded out of our home (week on Friday to be exact) and to say that everything has went to pot since then would be something of an understatement.

It is part of the reason that I’ve had to give up Alienated Youth. As much as I tried and tried and tried, I couldn’t get the damn comic to resolve in my head. And so when cost cutting measures came to the fore in my household affairs I had no choice but to let it go. It’s not that I wanted to per say, creative things are trying to jump out from me but, unfortunately, time and money seem to be at a rather large premium these days.

The funny thing is, not even 10 years ago, I was writing more than I was drawing. Or doing coursework. Or going to lectures. *cough*

This is why there has been a small flurry of postings here recently. And why I’ve changed the name of the blog to The Life and Times of Mark McQueen. An almost nod to my old blog the Deviant Chronicles there, my (admittedly early) New Years Resolution is to pick my sorry ass up and start getting myself back to ‘normal’. Whatever that is.

I am going to try my damndest to keep coming back online and venting. Rambling. Ranting. Whatever gets my fingers moving and my mind ticking. I used to be very good at this way back when, so I can’t see why the spark can’t return.

I aim to grab 2012 by the scruff of the neck and make it an awesome year, not just for me but for the people closest around me. Because, quite frankly, 2011 has sucked. Royally sucked. And I refuse to go through another 12 months of the same shite as last year.

Actually, know what? That wasn’t an early New Years Resolution. It’s a New Years Revolution. 2012 - here we come!

3520 days ago, a dark cloud covered New York City. Tonnes of ash covered a very changed Manhattan skyline as the world mourned the felling of the World Trade Center towers, killing thousands of people from every walk of life, more or less every continent on Earth and touching an entire generation. As did Washington D.C. with plane fuselage poking out of the side of the Pentagon, the very epicentre of American safety. As well as Pennsylvania, where the bravery of a handful of passengers stopped the day becoming darker than what it was.

September 11th 2001 was the day the world changed, and I still remember the abject horror I witnessed as I got in from school that day. When I seen the television I turned to my brother, who as a primary school pupil at the time had already been home for about an hour, and asked what disaster film was on. My jaw hit the ground with a thud when I was told that is was live footage from New York. I sat with the rest of my family as the horror unfolded and not just a nation, but a world united against a common threat.

Fast forward 3519 days, and the mastermind behind the most atrocious attack on human life since the Holocaust has finally been taken out of the equation. Osama bin Laden has been the thorn in America’s side for around two decades, and it’s most wanted man for most of the last 10 years. The justice served as US Marines stormed his compound in Abbottabad isn’t sweet, but it is the dawning of a new day. As William Hague, Hilary Clinton and many others around the world have stated, this is not the end of al-Qaeda. However the mere fact that the lynch pin has been taken down will allow scores of families to finally put their loved ones to rest, and the world to move on. The fact that it happens in the same year as the tenth anniversary of the attacks makes it much more poignant.

When September 11th rolls around this year, let us hope there can be remembrance, reflection and relief. Remembrance of the many who are gone and those who have laid down their lives trying to make the world safer. Reflection on the changes made to the world in the 10 years since that fateful day. And relief that the person culpable has now finally met a most fitting end. This isn’t the end for the rest of us though, but at least we may now be able to move forward.

For the first time … well … ever, at least since we bought the place, the flat is roasting. Like honest to god stifling. And it’s February.

We bought the place in June, and it wasn’t this warm even then!

I think this place is finally telling us it’s a home. I reserve the right, however, to retract that statement at any time.