The Great Curve Interview with Preview Art!

The Great Curve: Q&A with Joshua Hale Fialkov:

Throw a rock across the internet and you can't help but hit a great review of Elk's Run, the 'down home' militia/cult comic by Joshua Hale Fialkov, Noel Tuazon, and Scott A. Keating. Joshua answered a few questions for us about his comics career so far and Elk's Run, which recently moved to Speakeasy Comics.-- JK: Can you tell us a little about yourself and how you got into comics?

Joshua: Well, I've been writing since I was a kid. I started out as a playwright, directing my own work from the time I was 16. I went to college for theater and film, and have a B.F.A. in Writing and Directing for the Stage and Screen. When I was graduating from school, a buddy and I wrote a pilot for a TV show and started shopping it around. To everybody's surprise, we found a producer and went into pre-production. After Sept. 11, 2001, our producer was personally devastated by tragedy -- he lost a lot of close friends, and narrowly escaped dying himself -- and the project fell apart. We'd already relocated out to L.A. and found ourselves struggling to find a way to get our creative voices heard. I wrote a few more specs, both for film and TV, and was getting painfully frustrated with writing to no actual end. My whole life I’d been a fan of comics, and suddenly, it just seemed like it was a medium I'd like to try my hand at.

Click here for the rest.

Elk’s Run #4 - Page 1

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Making the Pitch

I'll let you guys in on a secret. I fucking hate writing pitches. I tend to write things with serpentine plots and as much depth as possible. Taking hundee and fifty pages and compressing it down into two or thee pages of text, and effectively representing the tone and feel of that massive work is difficult for even the most seasoned guys I've met. For me... it's like punishment from God. I've been working on this particular pitch for literally months. Trying to perfect it, and get it just right... that balance between character, theme, and plot has continually eluded me. Well tonight, with the help of good buddy James Patrick, I think I've finally come damn close to getting it right. It's got that perfect balance of taut plotting, strong characterization, theme, and mood.

In other words, for the first time in my life, I'm actually proud of a pitch I wrote.

Now to see what everyone else says.

THE LIVING AND THE DEAD

I'm really lucky to have some outstandingly talented friends. Three of them have gotten together and made a book. The first two, Todd Livingston and Bob Tinnell are the creators of The Black Forest and The Wicked West, the third is my biggest regret ever. Micah Farritor came over to the Hoarse and Buggy table at San Diego '04. I saw his stuff and my jaw dropped. His art is stylish, sophisticated, and just goddamn wonderful. I didn't have a project for him, and being Mr. Nice Guy, I introduced him to Bob and Todd. And every time I've e-mailed Micah for a project since, his fame and schedule haven't allowed us to work together. But someday, he will be mine. Oh yes. He will. I forgive Todd and Bob as they're two of my favorite people in the industry, and out of. So, The Living and The Dead solicited last month from Speakeasy Comics, and it's thus far, my favorite thing by these knuckle heads. It's never too late to pre-order, so, go here and check it out.

Fused Interview

Newsarama has an interview with me conducted by the other Fused Tales contributor Chris Long. I make sexual innuendos, talk about which superhero I want to write, and allow my ego to be stroked. Fun for all!

Hoarse and Buggy Productions’ Podcast

The Second Commentary for Elk's Run is up for downloading. If you're subscrbied (using this .xml address) then it'll download automatically. Description as follows:

This is a double length commentary on Elk's Run #2, featuring Joshua Hale Fialkov and Jason Rodriguez, plus a special conversation with Scott A. Keating about the issue's unique coloring technique.

Finally sitting down for the second commentary

I feel like a jerk that it took so long. It should be complete and uploaded by week's end.

We’re So Fucked.

Mercury News says:

"WASHINGTON - (KRT) - From failed Republican congressional candidate to ousted 'czar' of an Arabian horse association, there was little in Michael D. Brown's background to prepare him for the fury of Hurricane Katrina.

But as the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Brown now faces furious criticism of the federal response to the disaster that wiped out New Orleans and much of the Gulf Coast. He provoked some of it himself when he conceded that FEMA didn't know that thousands of refugees were trapped at New Orleans' convention center without food or water until officials heard it on the news."

Click the link for the rest.

The Bendis Board Charity Auction H&B Edition!

The Hoarse and Buggy stuff just went up.

There's:

Elk's Run Art Which is an original page of art from Elk's Run #1 (the car wreck 2 page splash)

and

Western Tales 1-5 Complete set of Western Tales of Terror 1-5 signed by damn near everyone in the book.

Check 'em out. All moneys go to the charities.

The Interdictor

The Interdictor is a blog from some tech guys set up inside a building in downtown New Orleans. It's really interesting, and moderately scary. A friend and I were talking about the "Escape from NY" feel that all of these pictures and videos are showing. The devastation happened so easily... nature being what it is, and now the whole South East is left to try and struggle through it.

Keep on keeping on, guys.

The Bendis Board Charity Auction

The Bendis Board Charity Auction is a fundraiser for the Katrina victims, and H&B has donated some original Elk's Run art and a fully signed set of Western Tales of Terror #1-5. Keep an eye on it, and I'll post the links when our stuff goes up. There's already some really cool Phil Hester and Eric Powell art up, as well as some signed copies of various books. Alternately, give money to the Red Cross.

I Try to Keep My Politics Offline, but…

In this Reuters article there's a section on Bush's comments on Good Morning America. Goes like this:

Asked in an interview on ABC's "Good Morning America" if U.S. oil companies should forfeit profits during the crisis, Bush said instead American corporations should contribute cash to hurricane relief funds.

So, the companies who've posted record profits, and comparatively speaking are notoriously stingy with any sort of donations, should be allowed a free ride so that they might choose to help out.

End political rant.

The Kidney Drama Continues.

Headed for my follow up today. Still have inflamation in my prostate (which was discovered by yet another hand up the ass) and the doctor's put me on a stronger course of anti-biotics, in hopes that the prostate fixes itself, and hopefully pushes the stone (which he figures is STILL lodged in there) out. A word about having a grown man's hand up the ass.

I can't express to you the amount of pain this causes. I do not recommend anybody gives it a try. It was certainly not worth the $100 I had to pay for it.

I'm on a heaping helping of vicodin to help 'ease the pain' from the instrusion and the pain it's seemd to cause in the kidneys.

Now, I will go pass out.

ER Bumper - Sketch Page!

One of the many pages of Extras in the Elk's Run Bumper Edition, which is getting ready to head out to the printer on Thursday. Can't wait for you guys to see all the great stuff we crammed in here, hope it makes it worth it for those of you who've already bought the book, and want to be extra supportive. Did I mention I love you guys?

Click the image for full size.

Murder One

Of my Birthday swag, this has gotten the 2nd most attention. Steven Bochco and Co.'s Murder One is far and away the best coutroom drama of the 90's (eat shit The Practice, L.A. Law, and Law & Order). The thing that sets it apart, and makes it so much more... engaging than every other show is that the entire season is focused on one legal case, an underage rape/murder involving a business tycoon and a movie star. We see every twist and turn, each day in court plays out in front of us, rather than the glossed over jumps of the triumvirate of aforementioned shows. Far and away, the highlight of the show was Daniel Benzali, as Ted Hoffman, the bald headed shark with a heart of gold. He manages to show off a warmth and compassion that manages to never quite undercut his sharp mind. On every other legal show, he would be the villain, the high price attorney defending immoral, self-obsessed millionaires, yet, the beauty of the show makes him out to be a moral man in an immoral world. It's quite a striking balance, and Benzali handles it like no other.

I highly recommend the first season of the show (the second season is a different cast and different format, and excellent but in a very different way..)

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Old Boy

Checked out Old Boy finally. It's got moments of greatness, but, ends up being a bit over long, and a bit too on the nose. The twist is a bit obvious, although Dina didn't see it coming as early as I did, and it suffers a bit from that awkward Asian logic in that the motivation for the bad guy is just positively over the top and somewhat illogical. The main difference between American and Asian cinema, I think, is that the Asian directors manage to take outlandish concepts, flawed logic, and simplistic character motivations and make them work, where as in the US you just end up with "Must Love Dogs."

Anyways, the movie has some gorgeous sequences, the plot's pretty engaging, the visuals spectacular, and the performances overall pretty good. The movie has a quote on it something along the lines of "Made to be recommended by Quentin Tarantino," which I suppose is somewhat true, but, I don't think the movie quite makes it up to the levels of the Kill Bill movies, or even kickass recent Asian action films like Volcano High and Ichi the Killer.