Steven D. Forbes

The contracts from Markosia have come in. I reviewed them to make sure nothing else creeped in there–not that I thought there would, but it is ALWAYS better to be safe than sorry–and didn’t find anything, like I was expecting. What did I do then? I signed and sent them out to the rest of the creative team. I also sent extra postage for them to just sign and mail it to the next person, and then to send it back to Markosia (which is in England, for those that don’t know).

Yes, I paid for their postage. Nice of me? I don’t think so. I look at it as my responsibility as the one who has the idea and brought them all together to work on the project. Well, that’s not completely accurate. I didn’t find Jeff, the inker. The previous publisher did. He wanted to stay, and I was very happy with his inks, so he stayed. I’m very happy to have found Robert Keough, though.

I’m going to be lettering Bullet Time myself. That’s going to be interesting. Cheaper, too. It means less I have to carve up on the back end, it means less that could possibly go wrong, because there aren’t as many fingers in the pie.

In all, I think it’s good.

I’m also starting to think more about digital distribution. The reason? I finally got the iPhone. The 3Gs, 32gig version for those that care. A bit of a pain setting it up from one phone to the other, but it was all good. It was mainly the pictures that had some problems transferring, but after thinking it through, I finally got them.

Anyway, I started downloading comics on it from ComiXology and iVerse. I’ll be reading those while I’m at work, but I’m liking the ComiXology app. It helps the reading experience. For the aware creator, it also gives you more control over how your stories are experienced. Definitely something to be aware of.

I have a story idea that I’m going to work on, with an eye toward digital distribution. ComiXology, to be specific. That, and with an eye toward print (because print is always the goal). But I’m thinking of sets of stories to do with this idea, as well as opening it up to other creators to tell stories about it. I think it could work. I just need to get Bullet Time up and running first. After that, give this a shot. In color. Because on the web, color is free. On digital readers, color is free. Even if you were to do it on the Kindle, it would still be free, and you don’t have to change it to b/w for grayscaling. It would be done automatically. The equivalent of watching a color program on a b/w television. It only becomes expensive when you go to print, and I would like to do that while only having to pay as little as possible from my personal finances for a limited color print run.

It’ll be interesting.  I have to figure a way to do a free, readable preview, while still telling a whole story, and making that interesting enough to get someone to want to pay for the rest of the graphic novel.

I have to figure out my budget first, which means I have to have the story, which means I have work ahead of me.

Which brings me to my laptop. It’s down, it’s been down, but I hope to have it back up late next week, which improves my productivity immensely. That’ll be good. I’ve been bored at work. Reading is fun, but not when you KNOW you have work piling up at home…work you usually do while at work. Not my idea of a good time.

And that’s it for comics for now.

Home life has been good. Quiet. My stepdaughter is in San Diego for a bit. She went there to support her brother, who’s in jail.

I’m not looking forward to the phone bill. He calls collect, because he has to. I get that. But that phone bill is going to be astronomical.

Anyway, the boy’s father says he’s going to be there for him, and that he’s going to do this and that to help him get out of there as soon as possible. And then he doesn’t show up on the boy’s court date. Typical.

The court appointed lawyer advised the boy to take a deal: six months to a year on a felony. The boy took it. The charge? Burglary. And no one could prove he was in the house and burgled it. No one saw him in the house. He was seen outside of it, but not inside it.

And the people who burgled the house? Don’t know what happened to them. The house belongs to his friend’s girlfriend, who told his friend when her parents weren’t going to be home so he could burgle it. Some friends, right?

So, he has six months to a year in jail, and will have a felony conviction. He’s just made it infinitely harder on himself to find a decent paying job. The gun charge? No idea. But he’s finally going to learn something about the consequences for his actions and choices. I hope it sticks.

Anyway, I’m looking forward to setting up my office. It’s been a while since I was able to be in my own space and do what I do. About three years. I just have to get a new chair. This one is fucked up. No, it wasn’t my doing. People don’t know how to treat anything. Yes, the chair is about six or seven years old, but still. I know how to take care of my stuff. Three years of people flopping in it isn’t what I call taking care of something. Actually, call it a year and a half. Yeah. I’m not happy, because no one wants to take responsibility for the destruction of shit, and then they don’t have money to replace it. Having Lenora replace it is the same as me replacing it, because it’s our money.

When my plans come together, there may be some hurt feelings, but I’d much rather have the hurt feelings than ungrateful people destroying my stuff. Especially people who still need to learn to make their own way.

Yeah, I have plans in comics that impact real life. Just waiting on other people to do their part so I can continue my march.

Just about 1100 words. I’m done.

Go watch Superman II- The Donner Cut. That’s what I’m about to do. We can talk about it next time. See you then.