My little gift to everyone for Christmas is this photo gallery: http://www.imagestation.com/album/index.html?id=2115803539
Ok, it's not much, just where I pulled some of my best photos from the last year or two and bunched them up. And as always they have some clunkers in there but whatever...
Enjoy!
---Allen
Saturday, December 24, 2005
Thursday, December 22, 2005
Almost Back in Action
This is a shot I took near the golf course where my parents live. It was about 7:30am as I was driving to pick up my wife Bonnie from work that morning. Yeah, they get snow here in KY.
Well it's been a very trying move to KY from WA. Had to stay with my parents for about 2 months. That was OK, but our 3 cats and their one cat didn't get along till the last week or so. We had to work out selling our house in WA which we finally did. Sold it to the one offer we got. They got everything in the deal, my pool table, washer and dryer and other stuff that my son was going to get. So he wasn't happy. And they got lots of kitchen stuff that went with the decor that we remodeled it to. So they were pretty happy I bet. And we turned around and got a nice house in Owensboro, KY. Not far from my parents and not far for my wife Bonnie to get to work. And I have a nice office in the upstairs and room to store my comics and stuff....looks like I designed it myself.
The only hitch was that we had some very high prepayment penalties we had to pay to get out of our mortgages in WA. Seems that they slipped in some things that we didn't know we were signing. But now had no choice but to pay them. This is a financial set back for Fan-Atic Press but we are not down for the count. Just another delay till we can recover. So I may just put out a few copies of Slam Bang #1 Volume III, enough to sell at the SPACE con and maybe San Diego Con. But will have to wait on my larger quantity publishing bonanza. And I'll do the same for Morgana X etc....
Morgana X is moving along with 4 pages all done by Rob Schneiders, so far. They look great! See all 4 pages below. And sales of Anton Bogaty's DRAWINGS have been fantastic with about 70 of the 100 printed copies remaining! Almost all of these sold through the web site and with refurrals from Anton's site (www.acb3.com) helping the most.
I plan on making more progress on Solitare and updating the web site at www.fanaticpress.com very soon with more new developements.More news as it happens!
Happy Holidays...
---Allen
Tuesday, November 15, 2005
Still in Transition
Well there has been some progress with all the Fan-Atic Press projects.....just slow progress. Scarlet Fields by Edward Pun has been all sketched out and he is working on the inks. It'll be a fanatistic comic, just wait and see! I'll try and show a bit more of it at www.fanaticpress.com soon. Slam Bang #1 (Volume III) is still in production....latest contributor is Brad Foster! Of course the issue wouldn't be complete without something from the master. He has contributed to just about every issue of the rag and I'm very glad to see he is continuing the tradition. Daryl Hutchinson will also have a gallery of images in the issue. I'd love to get ahold of his brother Joe as I've heard he has alot of comic pages that are begging to be published. I plan to have this book to a printer by the end of November. Wish me luck, as I also plan to be moved into a new house by then. Yeah, we are still living in my parents spare room (it's not really that bad) and are itching to be in a house. We will close on the selling of our house in WA on the 30th of November. Wish us luck in having it all work out as planned. We are looking at more houses this week but have our eye on a nice one with room for the Fan-Atic Press studios and storage for all the soon to be published issues....
Also on the plate is Morgana X the graphic novel. 3 stories by Chris Moshier are being done by 3 different artists. Anton Bogaty, Rob Schneiders, and Dave Johnson. This is turning out to be a fantastic book! Full color of course. There is also talk of a Morgana X novel by Chris, with more details soon.
Berserker Brother:Assassin the novel by Fred Saberhagen that is being adapted to comics is also moving along. The script by Chris Moshier is in it's final stages of being approved by the Saberhagens. We are still trying to tie down an artist for this series, then things will really get rolling.
Anton Bogaty's Drawings, is selling very well. We only printed a limited edition of 100 and have sold about 60 of them in just a few weeks! Next step is to submit the book to Diamond and see if we can get this out to all the stores! Depending on the orders we will go back to press and the name Anton Bogaty will be a household word. This book deserves to be seen!
Solitaire "The Witch" is still in production with over 1/2 the book penciled in great detail by Thiago Carvalho. Written by Michael Berry who just can't wait to see this out (Neither can I!) More pages are on their way and then it's up to me to ink/color/and letter this baby. Wish me luck!
The Adventures of Strange Boy has been in need of completion and hopefully I'll finish this up in early 2006. Written by my wife Bonnie, based on a true story of her younger brother, and illustrated by me. This will be in a children's book format but for all ages of course.
Doc Paradox by Paul Allen will be well worth the wait. Sort of a Peter Max meets Doctor Suess, this book will amaze everyone with it's intergalactic time traveling story, and original art and design. I can't wait!
So watch this space for more details of progress here at the house of idears.
===Allen
Also on the plate is Morgana X the graphic novel. 3 stories by Chris Moshier are being done by 3 different artists. Anton Bogaty, Rob Schneiders, and Dave Johnson. This is turning out to be a fantastic book! Full color of course. There is also talk of a Morgana X novel by Chris, with more details soon.
Berserker Brother:Assassin the novel by Fred Saberhagen that is being adapted to comics is also moving along. The script by Chris Moshier is in it's final stages of being approved by the Saberhagens. We are still trying to tie down an artist for this series, then things will really get rolling.
Anton Bogaty's Drawings, is selling very well. We only printed a limited edition of 100 and have sold about 60 of them in just a few weeks! Next step is to submit the book to Diamond and see if we can get this out to all the stores! Depending on the orders we will go back to press and the name Anton Bogaty will be a household word. This book deserves to be seen!
Solitaire "The Witch" is still in production with over 1/2 the book penciled in great detail by Thiago Carvalho. Written by Michael Berry who just can't wait to see this out (Neither can I!) More pages are on their way and then it's up to me to ink/color/and letter this baby. Wish me luck!
The Adventures of Strange Boy has been in need of completion and hopefully I'll finish this up in early 2006. Written by my wife Bonnie, based on a true story of her younger brother, and illustrated by me. This will be in a children's book format but for all ages of course.
Doc Paradox by Paul Allen will be well worth the wait. Sort of a Peter Max meets Doctor Suess, this book will amaze everyone with it's intergalactic time traveling story, and original art and design. I can't wait!
So watch this space for more details of progress here at the house of idears.
===Allen
Friday, November 04, 2005
Guest Speaker --Ron Fontes
I think this email from Ron should be shared (He said I could) so here it is:
Have you ever extended a helping hand to a fanboy and had it chewed off while he climbed over you, intent on The Top? It's sad to see so many half-baked comics and the greedy "creators" who dream of the merchandising and mega-budget movies they think will spring up in mere months. It's even worse when these starry-eyed egomaniacs are in their 40s. Damn, boys, it took 50 years to get Batman in a big movie. Even Hellboy has been around for 10 and Mignola paid his dues for years before that. Frank Miller has been working since the 70s. And they earned the privilege by working for other people, deferring their pet projects until they proved their worth.If you've spent 20 years being a cop, then you're a cop, not an artist or storyteller. I would never presume to tell a cop how to do his job. As for the initial hero-worship (which never fails to creep me out), that was his wish-fulfillment working overtime. Yeah, I worked at Marvel for a few years, but so what? I was hired by Special Projects because I didn't want to draw the superheroes. They wanted a skilled, competent, reliable, experienced person to stay in the job, not use it to platform a Career. It was a strain and boring at the same time. The ridiculous politics were unbearable. And all that stuff in COMIC WARS? Started then, got worse, so I got out.I'm not the world's greatest artist, actor, writer or film-maker, but I am better than average. That does not oblige me to try to exploit my talents or ideas to the max in a frantic rush to Fame and Fortune. I like a nice, quiet, steady life. I don't want to be idolized or make millions of bucks, I just want to live by telling stories and die in my sleep at a very advanced age. I want to be good to people, but I have found I can only be good to good people. The other sort just grab and boss and stuff themselves like pigs and they'll never feel gratitude. --rf
Have you ever extended a helping hand to a fanboy and had it chewed off while he climbed over you, intent on The Top? It's sad to see so many half-baked comics and the greedy "creators" who dream of the merchandising and mega-budget movies they think will spring up in mere months. It's even worse when these starry-eyed egomaniacs are in their 40s. Damn, boys, it took 50 years to get Batman in a big movie. Even Hellboy has been around for 10 and Mignola paid his dues for years before that. Frank Miller has been working since the 70s. And they earned the privilege by working for other people, deferring their pet projects until they proved their worth.If you've spent 20 years being a cop, then you're a cop, not an artist or storyteller. I would never presume to tell a cop how to do his job. As for the initial hero-worship (which never fails to creep me out), that was his wish-fulfillment working overtime. Yeah, I worked at Marvel for a few years, but so what? I was hired by Special Projects because I didn't want to draw the superheroes. They wanted a skilled, competent, reliable, experienced person to stay in the job, not use it to platform a Career. It was a strain and boring at the same time. The ridiculous politics were unbearable. And all that stuff in COMIC WARS? Started then, got worse, so I got out.I'm not the world's greatest artist, actor, writer or film-maker, but I am better than average. That does not oblige me to try to exploit my talents or ideas to the max in a frantic rush to Fame and Fortune. I like a nice, quiet, steady life. I don't want to be idolized or make millions of bucks, I just want to live by telling stories and die in my sleep at a very advanced age. I want to be good to people, but I have found I can only be good to good people. The other sort just grab and boss and stuff themselves like pigs and they'll never feel gratitude. --rf
Monday, October 31, 2005
It's Almost Halloween night! Well tonight it is....
But this posting is about meeting up with co-editor of Slam Bang, Todd Ritter (on the right)and his pal Lincoln Farmer (on the left) in Louisville. We met at The Great Escape, a huge comic store in Louisville. I picked up some of my old Marvels. (Avengers this time.) and Todd got some cutting edge new-wave books and we then took off for the movie theater where we saw the new movie DOOM. I've been a huge fan of the game since it was just a demo disk back in 1993 or so.....I learned DOS just so I could work with some of the free game editors out there which you could get from BBS sites. Yeah, the dark ages. I eventually made Doom, DoomII, Duke Nu'kem, Heritic, Quake, Quake II, levels......and all that time wasn't wasted as I was eventually hired by Sierra On-Line in Redmond, WA to work on 3D games! But I digress.....
We liked the Doom movie but I thought it was just a rip off of Aliens 2. It had some nice parts but they really just dragged out the search for evil in dark, creepy places.....They should have had the cool flying skulls, the teleporting on fire beast and some of the other great evil from the game. Oh, well, at least they tried. Oh, but they did have the BFG weapon. And they called it the Bio-Force Gun or something. But when "The Rock" saw the gun, he knew the real name of the weapon! The movie has some twists and turns that kept you wondering what would happen. And there was the coolest part where you see the fighting as if you were in the game. Nice touch.
The sets were very well done and you felt you were in the game most of the time. I couldn't help feeling that the movie was a Doom/Half-Life storyline. But that was ok. Having the dead scientists with names like Carmack was a nice touch. (John Carmack was one of the two heads of ID Software.) And Steve Willits was a game designer, level creator I believe....
Then we had some food at a great BBQ place. And I gave Todd his copy of Anton Bogaty's DRAWINGS. (He bought my meal for it!)
So I'd like for us to meet up once a month.
---Allen
Tuesday, October 25, 2005
New Everything!
Well since I've moved I've changed my address and email and everything. So to contact me make sure to use: fanaticpress@yahoo.com
Send any submissions to that address as well.
I've read the comic HAVEN #1 just out by Making Comics Studios and I think it should be supported. Go to: www.havencomic.com and www.makingcomicsstudios.com and check it out. I'm pretty picky when it comes to art and lettering and coloring and stuff and this book could use some improvements in those areas but the story is so good that you'll be sucked right in for the ride. And the art does get better as it goes along and the color looks to be greatly improved for issue #2 which is completed and will be out not long from now I believe. #3 is also being worked on so this series will continue, depending on the support of readers like you! And the writer Chris Moshier is such a great guy, and talented comic writer I just had to give him a plug here. If you go to www.fanaticpress.com you'll see that he is writing some great stuff for me!
Oh, and if you contact him, ask about his 2005 San Diego Con DVD. Great job Chris!!
It appears that my next convention may be the Mid-Ohio-Con but I most likely won't have a table since I haven't had time to set it all up. But I'll try and attend in some way and hand out flyers etc...
I'm still a bit dazed from everything I've been though and being in my temporary office and such. We are also about to dump our realtor in WA since he hasn't been doing much and we feel we'd already be in our new home in Owensboro, KY if he had been more aggressive 2 months ago. Anyway I'll keep you informed on that progress. We can't wait to get into our own house again. Not that we are roughing it that much at my parents place but we just want to get settled back into our own place. Could be a while.
But full steam ahead on all the Fan-Atic Press projects...... I plan to start assembling Slam Bang #1 volume III this week! So if you have anything you'd like to contribute send it on!
I got a new camera to keep me sane though all this....a Nikon D50 digital SLR. So you should start seeing an improvement in my photos from here on out. Felt it was time to move on up to a higher quality picture. I figured if I'm going to all the trouble to get to the right place at the right time, I should end up with the best photo I can get. My Canon s70 did a fine job but looking at the quality close up it wasn't as crisp as I'd hoped for. It's still the camera to have for point and shoot shots and I'll hold onto it as a backup and for when I don't have the energy to carry the big SLR. But I have been taking the Nikon everywhere lately.
To see some of my photos (a waterfall in WA) with the Nikon go here:
http://www.dotphoto.com/Go.asp?l=maknbacon&P=&AID=2919513&T=1
or try and see the slideshow:
http://www.dotphoto.com/Go.asp?l=maknbacon&P=&AID=2919513&Show=Y
Stay in touch!
===Allen
Send any submissions to that address as well.
I've read the comic HAVEN #1 just out by Making Comics Studios and I think it should be supported. Go to: www.havencomic.com and www.makingcomicsstudios.com and check it out. I'm pretty picky when it comes to art and lettering and coloring and stuff and this book could use some improvements in those areas but the story is so good that you'll be sucked right in for the ride. And the art does get better as it goes along and the color looks to be greatly improved for issue #2 which is completed and will be out not long from now I believe. #3 is also being worked on so this series will continue, depending on the support of readers like you! And the writer Chris Moshier is such a great guy, and talented comic writer I just had to give him a plug here. If you go to www.fanaticpress.com you'll see that he is writing some great stuff for me!
Oh, and if you contact him, ask about his 2005 San Diego Con DVD. Great job Chris!!
It appears that my next convention may be the Mid-Ohio-Con but I most likely won't have a table since I haven't had time to set it all up. But I'll try and attend in some way and hand out flyers etc...
I'm still a bit dazed from everything I've been though and being in my temporary office and such. We are also about to dump our realtor in WA since he hasn't been doing much and we feel we'd already be in our new home in Owensboro, KY if he had been more aggressive 2 months ago. Anyway I'll keep you informed on that progress. We can't wait to get into our own house again. Not that we are roughing it that much at my parents place but we just want to get settled back into our own place. Could be a while.
But full steam ahead on all the Fan-Atic Press projects...... I plan to start assembling Slam Bang #1 volume III this week! So if you have anything you'd like to contribute send it on!
I got a new camera to keep me sane though all this....a Nikon D50 digital SLR. So you should start seeing an improvement in my photos from here on out. Felt it was time to move on up to a higher quality picture. I figured if I'm going to all the trouble to get to the right place at the right time, I should end up with the best photo I can get. My Canon s70 did a fine job but looking at the quality close up it wasn't as crisp as I'd hoped for. It's still the camera to have for point and shoot shots and I'll hold onto it as a backup and for when I don't have the energy to carry the big SLR. But I have been taking the Nikon everywhere lately.
To see some of my photos (a waterfall in WA) with the Nikon go here:
http://www.dotphoto.com/Go.asp?l=maknbacon&P=&AID=2919513&T=1
or try and see the slideshow:
http://www.dotphoto.com/Go.asp?l=maknbacon&P=&AID=2919513&Show=Y
Stay in touch!
===Allen
Sunday, October 23, 2005
We Moved!
Yes boys and girls we have made the move from WA back to KY. The Fan-Atic Press empire was doing very well the last 9 years in WA but events have brought us back to KY once again. This should not interrupt publishing plans more than the delays that have already come to pass. But for more info I'll be updating this blog more often with reports on Slam Bang the distributed 200+ slick graphic novel format #1 volume III, that is in the works. See www.fanaticpress.com for more info.
My wife and I drove in the little Toyota Solara, with 3 cats, 2400 miles in 3 days. We left at noon on Friday the 14th, went through: WASHINGTON, OREGON, IDAHO, WYOMING, COLORADO, KANSAS, MISSOURI, ILLINOIS and KENTUCKY. We stopped 2 nights at cat friendly hotels for about 7 hours or less each night.....got to Owensboro, Ky Sunday night at 9:00pm. Whew!
See some photos: http://www.dotphoto.com/Go.asp?l=maknbacon&P=&AID=2942681&T=1
All emails to me should be to fanaticpress@yahoo.com
from here on out.
More news soon!
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