Read the real life stories and experiences of freelance writer Mike Gagnon.

PRE-EMPTIVE BLOG

Well, it looks like we're spending the weekend in Kitchener so I'm writing a second blog today in case I can't find a public computer tommorow. Plus It's cheaper.

WRONG TURN

Well Pam and I rented the new slasher flick Wrong Turn last night, so here's my review. A young doctor gets lost in the backwoods somewhere in buttfuck Idaho and ends up getting into a crash with an SUV full of kids. Soon they realise that something is not right when they feel like they're being watched from the woods and find mysterious camp fires burning. They're all stuck in the middle of nowhere. The mysterious assailant quickly begins picking off the hormone driven young people. The survivors quickly discover that they're being hunted down by a trio of genetic mutants caused by severe backwoods in-breeding. The damn menonites, they do it every time. In fact I think I recognized some of my neighbours in this film.

Jessie (Eliza Dushku) and Chris (Desmond Harrington) make their move against a horrific threat in "Wrong Turn"

But seriously, all in all this film wasn't too bad. There are the occaisional scene where it looks like the freaks don't have thier make-up on right, or like it's obviously a costume, but those are thankfully very few. The sequence in the trees is completely unbelievable. I don't mean as in good effect, I just mean it over stepped it's boundaries in believability. Beside that I did notice one thing. Are Eliza Dushku's characters always exactly the same? It was kind of like watching her character Faith, from Buffy, without as much kicking. I don't know if it's a sign of type casting or amateur acting. I think she could do better. Anyway, all in all it isn't the scariest movie ever. It's gorie and I'd have to say it's worth watching just for the one in-breds crazy laugh.

Whelp I'll leave you with that untill Sunday night....

Mike

Posted by: lightning at 15:30 | link | comments

Wow, things have really turned around for me business wise, or at least they're looking up. Maybe I'm over exadjurating the positive. But how could I not?

Anyway, we got the big show coming up on the 7th, another big comic shop chain has requested to carry Independent Glimpse when it comes out, and more!

My pitch has made it into to first step of consideration for a radio documentary show. There's a couple levels more for it to pass, but I know there's a producer interested in possibly doing it so that's a plus. This could be a really big boost for us if we're accepted.

I'm also in the middle of a huge, huge deal. But as much as I want to give details I absolutely cannot untill it's set in stone. I can tell no-one. Not even my friends. But it's so big I've been nearly hyperventilating this morning at the thought of it being finalized. WOOHOO!

INDIE REVIEWS...PART...3?

Chiaroscuro - Wow. I love this book. I held off picking it up for like over a year because I didn't know if I would like it. I was so wrong. This book is so well written it's scary. So far it seems to be a slice of life type story about a couple of modern urban guys who are trying to come to grips with their existence. Anthony is a young man who seems to have his head on his shoulders, his priorities straight. He likes coffee and a little Mary J now and then. Steve on the other hand is an unreliable neurotic artist who likes to get free coffee and Mary J from Anthony. He's also got an insane phobia about his own unlimited artistic potential.

This book is a really enjoyable read and you can relate to the characters. Troy also does an amazing animated style of drawing which I find quite appealing.

Hello My Name is Ficus - This is actually a collection of short stories by Kim Coombes. They are all pretty good. The feature stars a deranged pet shop employee named Ficus. Ficus's world changes forever when he and a friend go to a club where he meets a beautiful woman and a really horny old man. There's also a story about Kim accidentally killing Jack Frost and being hunted down by Santa's elves and a short autobio about her breats size.

There's something really appealing and unique about Kims art. It a little deranged and has a flare towards the gothic. The stories are really twisted and yet funny and light hearted at the same time. A definite check-out item for indie fans.

Everyday Comics - A fantastic autobio series by a relative newcomer to indie comics, Andrew Foster. This series is a collection of strips. One for every day of his life. Kind of like an illustarted journal. Andrew takes us through hilarious moments as well as heart wrenching anguish following his daily trials and tribulations in love, life, work, and creating comics. This series is very well done and is really starting to get a lot of critical acclaim and reviews in the media. If ever in the Toronto area you should definately seek out this title!

Foster's writting is genuine and real. His artistic style is fun and cartony. I'd love to have him do some of our projects.

The Amazing Cynical Man - This book is a collection of short strips featuring characters like Cynical Man. Waldo Brakefluid, Stupid Boy, Nerdy Girl, Ernie, Spud, Cute Girl, and more. The stories are all humourous and satirical in nature. They examine human error, news, politics, history, holidays, and general silliness. They're great little reads and very entertaining. The one where Cynical Man and Nerdy Girl go on a date is also pretty funny.

Matt Feazell has blended tremendous wit and satire into the writing of these short stories that give you immediate punch lines. The art is crude by intent, as most people are stick figures with different facial features, but in the context of these strips it works very nicely and ads to the charm of the overall series.

True Swamp - Okay, you'll have to go back a little ways for this series. 1994 to be exact. True Swamp is a humourous look at the secret lives of swamp creatures when not observed by man, and when their lives are interfered with by man. Our main character is Lenny the Frog. He's a bit of a philosopher, and all he wan't to do is get a secluded place where he can get some good thinking done. Unfortuanetly every time he's just about to have an epiphany some swamp creature or another tries to eat him. Hale the mole is Lenny's friend and although he looks blind he's a great artist. There's too much to go into, but I also want to mention that the swamp creatures buy and sell goods and services using the names of cities they've visited as currency. There's also a ton of swearing.

Jon Lewis' art has a great simplistic quality and his writing is top notch satire and human observation. I heard he went on to later write a Robin series for DC comics.

Well, that's my time. So long...

Mike

Posted by: lightning at 11:12 | link | comments

Well folks, I'm pretty pumped. Got a show coming up on Nov. 7th in the Queen Elizabeth building at the CNE. This show is the first ever Toronto Comicon and it looks like it's going to be bigger than the Canadian National Comic Expo which I attend every August. If August's show was any indication we should do well at this one. Can't wait for me an Jay and Andrew to get together, talk comics, make some money!

I'z already gots a couple hush hush bizness meetins' planned. Sorry guys, I'll tell you after. Also all of our books are now part of the National Library of Canada, so that's cool.

Anyway, too much work to do to keep gabbin'

REVIEWS

Johnny Double - This one's a brilliant mix of your hardboiled detective story and your 70's flower child. Johnny Double is middle aged Private Investigator, who used to be a hippie, who used to be a cop. Johnny gets hired by a wealthy man to find his runaway daughter and keep an eye one her. Johnny quickly gets in it deep and becomes involved with the woman half his age and her friends' plans to steal the money from Al Capone's abandoned bank account. But Johnny and the whole gang end up getting a lot more than what they bargained for with the mafia chasing them and double crosses around every turn. Everything is not what it seems.

Brian Azzarello wrote a compelling and fantastic story. This is something that should be adapted into a movie staring someone like Bruce Willis or Mel Gibson. Eduardo Risso's art is fantastic. It's very expressive and I love his use of light and shadow.

Adios Palomita - These are my favorite kind of comics. These being imported and translated european comics. In fact I feel bad when I put all comics under the same microscope. I mean, my favorite comics are Batman, Hulk, Punisher, my favorite indie comics are Jay's Days, Poison Elves, Chiaroscuro, and Everyday comics anomg others, but these are just my favorite comics.

Anyway, Adios Palomita is a western and stars Joseph, Mary, and Dolores. Joseph seems to be simple gringo fisherman in Mexico married to a beautiful mexican lady named Dolores. That is untill Mary comes to call. As it turns out Joseph is a former bankrobber and outlaw who was already married to Mary! Now Mary has returned years later working as a bounty hunter and hired by a blood thirsty sheriff to bring Joseph in! Feeling hurt and betrayed Dolores won't stop untill she settles a score with the both of them! This one's also got a senile gold prospector, an alcoholic coyote, a crazy sheriff, and Dolores's 3 blood thirsty outlaw brothers. Oh, yeah and a gratuitous amount of tasteful nudity.

This is another book that should be a movie. In it Oliver Vatine and Alain Clement have surpassed most of the scripts produced in Hollywood today. Vatine also assisted artist Fabrice Lamy in some of the most intricate and beautiful artwork ever seen in comics.

Tommorow...more indie reviews...

Well Scooter says "Grr, ruff, ruff, yelp" which means...Goodbye

Mike

Posted by: lightning at 17:43 | link | comments

Well, got things straightened around for a table at the new Toronto comic con in November. Got my final cheque from Ken this morning. Got a call from the Sun Times.

They questioned me about the questionable failures at the Drive Test Centre and would now like to meet me for an in person interview.

Dave won't be coming home today. They're keeping Pam's dad at the hospital in Kitchener untill a bed is available in London. They did the angioplast and the stent fine, but now they want him to see a specialist in London before going home.

Scooter is being really bad today too!

Gotta get the ole site up, work on da books and more, so I'm saving the reviews for tommorow.

 Alfedersein...

Mike

Posted by: lightning at 16:34 | link | comments

Well, let's see what happened today...

Pam's not feeling well, so I had to go pick her up. She's in bed now.

The Owen Sound Sun Times newspaper would like to interview me for an article they want to do about the high failure rate at the Owen Sound "Drivetest" centre. They wanna talk to me because I'm the one that tipped them off. Hee hee.

As well, we found out last night that someone in the hospital has been stealing Dave's stuff while he's been there. Needless to say Danny, Pam and Kev (and myself) were furious. Yesterday someone stole his glasses! So, Danny had to go there and buy him new ones on his credit card so that Dave could read and see. What kind of dirty bastards work there? Everyone there is actually really great. Don't get me wrong.. Dave loves the nurses. So Dave doesn't want to say anything while he's there because he doesn't want anything to happen.

He's pretty sure that the person doing it is the guy who delivers his towels in the morning. He's pretty pissed.

So I wrote an annonymous letter to the hospital's vice president. :) She got back to me right away and now the matter is under investigation.

Hope that fucker gets fired and/or punched in the face.

I've been having a lot of really weird dreams lately. I'm starting to think they're visions of the apocalypse or something. No not really. That's crazy. That sure would be wild though eh?

I'm working on Glimpse and selling ads and I'm getting drained. I'm starting to get disheartend. Doing it alone is killing me. I wish I lived near Jay and Andrew and the rest. I'd love to work and collaborate together with them. I love the area I'm in, but creatively I really need some juice. I need to make this whole comics/publishing thing fun again. Right now every day I struggle at this alone it sucks the fun and life out of everything. I think if I could work in a group we could have some real fun. I need to get the fun back into making comics and I need to focus more on comics and less on the extra shit.

Well, I gotta work on my comic.

This looks like a job for...

Mike

Posted by: lightning at 15:34 | link | comments

Well, me am back..wait have to add fabric softner to laundry...oh no, not yet. I'm a tard.

Anyway, I can't form anything too intelligent today so I'll just tell you what happened. Maybe I'll be able to review stuff tommorow.

So, Pam had to go into Owen Sound this morning for her driving test to get the final pahse of her drivers license. For those who live in places where they don't have graduated licensing your damned lucky.

Anyway, in Owen Sound the driver testing centre moved from the government building into a little office on the other end of town. It's no longer got any MTO signs, but big white and blue signs that say "DRIVETEST". So I don't know if they've deregulated this kind of stuff or what.

Anyway since they made these changes I've seen the number of people being failed for questionable reasons rise dramatically.

Pam was failed today for errors she says she didn't make. Coincidentally when I went for my test I was failed for rules I'd never heard of. When I spoke to a different instructor later he said that such rules didn't even exist. Hmmm........ So we still both have our G2's. Pam just has to take the test again. I on the other hand, since my original license was expired, have to do testing on all of the levels of licensing just to prove that I should get my full license. Sounds like the "DRIVETEST" centre is going to make lots of $$$$$$$$$ from me.

So because of the fishy circumstances and stuff I've heard from other people I wrote the Ontario Ministry of Transportation about our concerns.

Next.

Ken. Well he still hasn't given me my final cheque. He won't return my messages, and whenever I go to the store he's "Not There". So, he got a message from me on his machine last night. Still nothing. When I call no-one picks up. And as I said isn't returning my calls. So I reported him to the Ontario Board of Labor Relations this afternooon, and filled them in on all of the unacceptable conditions that existed there during my employment.

I'm such a shit disturber today eh?

Bon Voyage...

Mike

 

Posted by: lightning at 16:35 | link | comments (1)

PENANCE BLOG 4

Well yep yesterday I missed my daily blog for the 4th time. Basically we didn't get back from Kitchener until 11 and then we decided to stay at Pam's parents because we had to be in Owen Sound in the morning anyway. As I've stated before the computer there is an expensive paper weight.

Dave is doing well. They'll be keeping him in Kitchener untill they can do the angioplast. His 2 blockages are in the right side in the artery the brings blood in. I forgot the technical name but I want to say Aorta.

Anyway the doc told him that they'd do the procedure no sooner than Tuesday, but now since he's had more angina, they've changed his meds and may have to operate as soon as today. Or maybe not. They'll basically tell hima t the last minute. SO could be today, tommorow, Wednesday.. who knows?

Scooter needs to go out and I gotta call Pam so I'll be right back to do today's blog.

Sionara...

Mike  

Posted by: lightning at 15:47 | link | comments

Well, I did so much work today I had to actually check to see if I had already done todays blog because I couldn't remember.

It's amazing what a solid day of work can do. The stack I've been working on for months is finaly gone. It' s all but whittled away. Now I have a small neat manageable little file I can wwork on from day to day. I also finished cleaning the entire apartment which was quite a chore. It's cleaner now than when we moved in. All 5 rooms and the hallway. I even did the windows, and waxed the floors. I even wrapped up all the cords that were tangled up from all the home electronics.

I even took scooter for 2 walks today and took him out side around every hour and a half or so.

Wow this place is looking better every day.

I'll have to go see Ken about my cheque on monday. Pam and her brothers are coming home tonight. I have to go to her parents to meet them. We're staying over night and then everyone is going to go back to Kitchener tommorow morning to stay with Dave for the day before his angioplast. His angiogram went well. They found 2 blockages. They'll keep him in Kitchener and to his angioplast on Monday or Tuesday at the latest. Then Danny has to bring him home. From there things are unsure. But I may be spending some time there for awhile to help take care of him.

Pam still hasn't called for her test results. That drives me nuts and makes me tense.

It was nice to see they added some more details to Cecilia Zhang's decription on tonight's news. Not that they're that helpful. They've added that she has brown eyes, is 4' 11" tall, and has shoulder length brown hair with blonde highlights. That narrows it down to about 9000 kids in Toronto now, but I guess it's a start.

Well, I gotta go han the laundry and get the hell out of here.

Up, up, and away...

Mike

Posted by: lightning at 23:03 | link | comments

Well, Pam went to Kitchener with Danny and Kevin today. Dave is finally being moved there today. No one knows what's going to happen, because they may only do the angiogram and not the angioplast today. They may send him back to the Owen Sound hospital tonight untill he can go back to Kitchener for the angioplast or they may have a bed for him to wait in in Kitchener. If they discharge him temporarily today then Danny has to give him a ride back to the hospital. That's why I didn't go, because we had to make sure there was room for Dave just in case.

I still feel bad because I feel guilty, like I should have gone to see Dave anyway. If Dave stays and waits there Pam won't be back untill Sunday. I thought that I could use a couple days alone, but now I'm not so sure being by myself was such a good idea.

Goddamn Ken never mailed me my final cheque.that means I'm super stressed about cash. I'll have to pay him a little visit tommorow.

RECENT NEWS...

Good lord I am disgusted by some of the recent news and media I've seen lately. The worst example by far is this weeks Toronto Sun issues. Christ what a tabloid of a newspaper.

I believe it was Monday that they had the stupidist front page article ever. I understand people being interested in entertainment news, hell I'd have to. Even Brittany Spears or however you spell it. But for christ sakes Monday's Toronto Sun had a front page article about the color of Brittany's bra! Who the hell cares? Like I said, I guess I can understand it being news, but the front page? How many world political crisis, wars, scandals, bombings, elections, and everything else are much more news worthy than that crap. Thousands of innocent people are killed everyday by weather anomolies or reprehensible governments and Brittany's friggin' bra makes front page over real news. I guess that's just an example of the Sun's well known journalistic integrity!

Also, all respect to the family of Cecilia Zhang and I hope they find her soon and well. I was glad to see her on the front page of the Sun the day after that Brittany garbage. I do however have to say that it would be a friggin' miracle to find her sooner rather than latter if the public goes by the description the media has been using. Here it is: "Cecilia is 9 years old, asian, and she speaks good English..." Okay, it's not so bad when it's in the newspaper so they can place a photo next to it, but I was hearing about this on the radio for 2 days before I ever saw her picture in the paper. How the hell would someone know which kid it is? In Toronto that description narrows it down to only just 10,000 kids. Whatever happened to the days when they gave real details like "birthmark on right cheek, scar on right knee..." and so on. Saying that she maybe doesn't have those kinds of things is a cop out. Everyone has some distinguishing mark. Especially a kid. She's gotta have a cut, scrape, or scar from playing or something. Maybe something medical. If they can tell you about every inch of a wanted criminals' body why can't they get a decent description to find a missing girl. It's no wonder that the TV news said tonight that the police believe that they'll have over 1000 tips called in by the close of the weekend. There's 10,000 kids in the city matching her description! Hopefully they strike on the right tips to check out first and find the girl safely.

Well, I guess I'm done for now. I feel like I wanna write more, but my brain is tapped out right now.

Tune in again, same bat-time, same bat-channel...

Mike

Posted by: lightning at 20:12 | link | comments

Alright, so today is another day.

I was going to go out and sell more ads this afternoon after working on the computer, but it's snowing and this place NEEDS to be cleaned for me to continue living here.

So I ended up e-mailing half the businesses in town this afternoon anyway, so hopefully someone will buy an ad from that.

 

This place still has hours more of cleaning to do. My work pile on the other hand is about 1/8 of it's former size. COuld I really be starting to get ahead?

Conventions and current news on my mind, but I don't have time right now to cover that.

Scooter was outside for his first snowfall today. Speaking of scoots he also needs to go outside again.

Later...

Mike

Posted by: lightning at 18:27 | link | comments

Well, I guess when it rains it pours.

Last night I got a call from my mom. She told me that my dog Jake (who lives with them) had gotten hit by a car and that my dad had to rush him to the vet.

I was a little upset to say the least.

Then she called back later to tell me that Jake had had to be put to sleep.

I'm really really trying not to get depressed after everything else that's happened in the last couple weeks. It's really hard.. I don't know what to do. I can't do anything.

I was goig to do a blog tribute about Jake, but I'm going to wait untill my Doteasy server is working again so I can use images and stuff. SO I guess I'll put on a suit and get out this afternoon and fight the good fight to sell some ads.  

I think I'm the numbest I've ever been in my life.

Posted by: lightning at 13:54 | link | comments (1)

Okay, gotta make this quick...

Gotta go pick up Pam in 10 minutes. She had to work late for a health and safety seminar.

Scooter got his vaccinations today. We're told he'll have the shits for 24 hours.

Website should be up again soon. I paid Doteasy's extortion attempt of a bill. Just waiting, waiting, waiting....

No time to check e-mail today. Got house cleaned and business papers more organized. Have to start following proper procedure and file my taxes quarterly instead of annually.

Exited, have new promo stuff for SMASH!/Glimpse ready. Need Jay's address for artwork.

Other things I want to talk about, but I'd need to write a much longer blog.

Pam's dad goes to Kitchener on Thursday and may come home as soon as Friday.

Bye...

Mike

Posted by: lightning at 23:06 | link | comments