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


The wacky crew at Altered States Entertainment. Posted by Picasa

I'm on the left and Robin Ator is on the Right. Posted by Picasa

Bonnie helps run the Fan-Atic Press Table at Stumptown Comic Fest Posted by Picasa

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

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!