Progress Report from March 31, 2010

I have actually been moving in what could be mistaken for a forward direction on my "Reluctant Sadist" book project. "Reluctant Sadist" was an underground, self-published comic that I did back in the late 1980s'. I printed seven issues before I got distracted by sculpting, but that's a story that'll be saved for the book. All the artwork has been scanned, plus loads of stuff that I did for other comix and even a nice chunk of scribbles and sketches. It's been a lot of fun to dig back through the piles and look at all that old stuff. I've finally made my pack-rat tendencies pay-off, as I have plenty of material for the book, including old reviews from "Factsheet Five" and "Small Press Comics Explosion". Next up will be getting folks who contributed to my old comic to sign release forms, so I can use their stuff. Then the hard part, I have to start writing.

OK HW

Note: This first appeared on my other blog, Weaverwerx on March 31, 2010.

Night Vision

"Night Vision" was my second student film made as a final project for Film Making 102 at TCC Virginia Beach. This time we had to edit and have sound. This was back in the late 1980s, so editing meant physically cutting the film and using either tape or cement splices to join the new pieces. If you made a mistake, you were screwed, especially if you were working on your only copy of the film as all the students doing this project were. There was no "undo", no easy to make digital back-up. You rolled the film back and forth in the moviola and thought very carefully about the artistic choice you were about to make because there might not be any going back. Of course it was easier to think back then because there wasn't the consistent interruptions of Facebook or e-mail or cell phones, etc. The sound was accomplished by laying down all the music and dialogue to cassette tape and playing it back while projecting the film. It was closer to performance art, then cinema.

The original story of "Night Vision" was taken from an underground comic book that I published for awhile called "Reluctant Sadist". I had a ready made story already storyboarded so that gave me a big head start for this project. I also had an advantage in my then room friend and long time friend Colin Martin as he was (still is) a gifted musician and willing to take a run at acting, so I also had a star and music composer in house. Colin played "Sam" the nightmare-suffering lead and I took on the role of "Speed", his less-than-helpful, hyperactive roommate donning the hair farm. We shot all the interiors in our apartment with the black & and white dream sequences shot in and around the abandoned waterfront warehouses (long since torn down for luxury condominiums) in downtown Norfolk, Virginia. I couldn't afford the time or money for black white film, so I hit upon the idea of shooting the dream sequences on video, then filming them off the TV screen. This also allowed me to play with the brightness and contrast to give the footage a more dream-like quality. The final touch was looping the dialogue and Colin's fantastic music. As I recall, the student audience responded very well and the teacher was thrilled. Ah, glory days....

OK HW

(NOTE - this was originally published on my Weaverwerx blog on January 18, 2010)

I Was a Reluctant Sadist...

Way back in the 20th Century, in the eighth decade, I used to publish an underground comic called "Reluctant Sadist". It ran from 1986-1989 and was "digest-size" which is a regular piece of paper folded in half, so you get four pages per sheet. I did everything, write it, draw it, occasionally invited other artist to contribute. I had a blast. Recently, an old friend from that scene, Ralk Schulze of Aardvark Farms, hipped me to a "social network" devoted to the underground/self-publishing/micro-comix realm called The Poopsheet Foundation. I was amazed to see so many artists from back in the day, still doing their thing. I had recently begun to scan all he original artwork from RS, to be used for a future, to-be-disclosed-at-a-later-date project, so have been tripping down memory lane and enjoying seeing my old art. Poopsheet is the perfect venue to share that stuff, so I uploaded the covers of the first five issues. Check it out:

Here's the link to the gallery. Find more photos like this on Poopsheet

OK HW


Note: This first appeared on my other blog, Weaverwerx on September 20, 2009.