Art, Stories, Food, 'n' Stuff... BLAH, BLAH, BLOG

When I was a kid I wanted to be, amongst the usual secret-agent-policeman-superhero-president vocations, a comics creator and a composer.

When I was a teenager, I wanted to be a comics creator and a drummer in a rock band (that would lead to a solo career).

As a young adult, I wanted to be a comics creator, a drummer, and a composer.

Right now, I’m mostly a drummer – an instructor and teacher, to be exact – and a composer.

Comics have been more of a hobby of late. I have a few things written and plans to draw get my butt at the drawing table, but with the need for money much of my time has been devoted to teaching and composing since that is what’s been bringing home the bacon. Unfortunately, I have not been consistent enough to even try to earn money making comics. And something as time-consuming as comics needs a special amount of attention, something that is difficult for me to give as I work hard at my current vocation. Comics are and always will be a passion of mine. I’m good at writing and drawing them, and they fill me with a creative joy that no other medium gives me. I will continue to write and draw them, but I will do them because I love them, not because I want money from them. This isn’t to say that I wouldn’t want to make money with my comics should the opportunity arise, but it’s certainly not a motivation for me right now.

I’ve been mostly self-employed since 2007, taking my time as a drummer and a composer to new heights. I co-own PiNdrop Music Design with my friend and partner Noah Clark. I have written scores of percussion and other ensemble music since I started teaching and in the past few years, since starting PiNdrop, have sold several indoor percussion shows and a couple field shows. I’m teaching at a couple different high schools. I have several private students. I’ve been working hard to make sure I build on my progress.

Being self-employed is extremely rewarding. My hopes for the future? To sell a lot more music and to get hired onto a drum corps battery staff, the place which I am from.

But I also know that I’m broke, and that being self-employed is taking a toll on my personal finances, the joint finances with my wife, and our home and comfort. I contribute money, but not as much as I would like. I have applied for jobs with no results. I have interpreted my situation as the universe telling me to continue to work hard and stay the course, as good things will come. And I believe they will.

However, the impatient side of me is finding another interpretation of the universe’s message: “Perhaps it’s time to find a whole new vocation. You know what I’m talking about, kiddo…”

Culinary school has been a fantasy of mine for years. Which is weird. I’ve worked in fast food and hated it (yes, I know it’s not the same, but when you’re covered in grease and immersed in heat, who cares?). I’m obsessive-compulsive, and I’ve read and heard about what kinds of things go on in a professional kitchen. So why culinary school would even be on my list of fantasies is a good question.

But the answer is simple: I love food.

I don’t really have a particular moment I can pinpoint that shows me suddenly realizing that I love cooking, or a moment before a plate of food that turned my taste buds’ world upside down. All I know is I love to eat, and I love to eat delicious food. Though cooking can be a chore, especially when I’m tired, I know that I love it; I know that when I’m in the kitchen prepping the food and putting everything together, it’s fun and I love doing it. As a bonus, I love it when the food turns out to be good and finding out that other people enjoy it.

I don’t plan on attending in the near, near future, but I have considered it for the near future. I don’t want to give up on my current business venture, and the decision to attend an expensive culinary school is a big decision, but I do know this: at least with a culinary education, I give myself greater potential to earn a steady income. Unfortunately, music, however much I love it and no matter how good I am at it, is not the world’s best money-maker. That is the reality of my current vocation, the one half of my dream career(s).

Food, on the other hand, is a more promising money-maker. I don’t expect to become a celebrity chef, or even to be the head chef anywhere – sure, both would be nice, but I certainly don’t expect it – but a consistent, low-paying job doing something I love would be great. And even if I find that a professional kitchen isn’t the right place for me, at least a culinary education will help me to cook better and eat better.

I’ve been doing the research but I’m not going to make the decision to enroll right now. I’m sticking to my guns and seeing where this teaching and composition thing takes me. Hopefully I’ll get to where I want to go.

If not, at least I can take pride in knowing that I’ve passed on my knowledge to drummers that want to learn and I’ve written some music that has been both sold and performed.

So.

I just flipped through my first comic using Marvel’s iPhone comic reader app. I haven’t read a mainstream comic in a long time, favoring more independent stuff and manga (that’s another story). I have to say, it’s very good looking. The comics are clear and easy enough to read. Navigation is pretty straightforward and easy. There are a bunch of settings you can use to customize your reading experience.

But I don’t know if I like it.

I’m no luddite, and I’m not opposed to technological progress (though I am skeptical about usage, but, again, that’s another story). But when I read comics, I want to read a story that was designed with the reading format in mind. Granted, Marvel is offering print comics in a digital format that is small enough for your pocket, and they’ve done a decent job of circumventing the problems of the iPhone as a comics reader. But, I’m missing a few things that I love about the comics artform in print:

1. Layout
When I read a print comic, the first thing my eye sees is a page layout. I get to see how the next part of the story was designed overall, how it will flow from one sequence to another, and to see how that layout affects the emotional conveyance of that point in the story. Whether it’s a simple, grid layout or something with more of a dynamic, flashy design, the layout has an affect on how the sequence will be read and it can impact how the reader interprets the sequence emotionally. In order to gain this experience in the Marvel app, you have to go into settings and elect to see the full page upon entering each new one, otherwise this is lost in the app because, by default, we see one panel at a time, and for big splash pages, we see one section of the page at a time until we’re done reading the page, at which point the reader then shows you the full page. Then, at least for me, “letterboxing” needs to be turned off, which will unhide the surrounding panels of the page as you go from panel to panel. This way, you can read through the page with the knowledge that you are, in fact, reading a comic page.

The problem here is that, by default, full page view is turned off and letterboxing is turned on, both by default. I wonder if the designers think that this type of setting is supposed to provide a better digital reading experience. Maybe it’s just me. But, from my point of view, I know that what I’m reading was designed to be read in print, and therefore, since I’m not reading a story designed specifically for the app, my expectation is to read the comic in a manner that is as close to reading a print comic as possible.

2. Navigation and closure
Even after turning on full page view and turning off letterboxing, there is still navigation to consider. The iPhone is pocket-sized, so there are going to be some concessions when reading these comics. By default, animated navigation is turned on. This involves sliding from one panel to another, fading, and zooming. I personally hate any kind of motion in comics, even navigational transitions (comics is a static medium. This boundary helps define the medium. Yet another story), so I turned off the animation, which means each new readable section is presented almost instantaneously. The latter is much more tolerable. With the animation turned on, my pace of reading is very much in hands of a) my own reading pace, and b) the time it takes to animate the transition. With animation turned off, I read at my own pace and transition at my own pace.

We do lose a bit of closure here, in terms of seeing how one panel is separated from the juxtaposed panel(s). The length of a panel, the space between them, and the borders all affect closure and interpretation of time. By transitioning from one panel to the next, or one section of a panel to the next, our sense of closure is affected: we can’t always read the entire wide panel because it’s too wide for the screen – unless you turn the iPhone to view it in landscape mode, but you’ll just have to turn it back again – and our sense of panel proximity is lost once the reader zooms in so that we can read the comic.

3. Non-linear reading
Ever read a comic and want to go back to a previous panel on the page? You can’t do that instantaneously, at least not that I’ve found. You can use gestures to scroll up and down the page. You have to press “back” (left side of the screen) until you get to the panel you want to see again. This omission bugs me. If I can view the whole page at once and read it because the iPhone is so small, at least let me scroll through a page freely if I want to in addition to clicking forward and back.

I will say that browsing through the pages is easy. You can easily flip through pages much like you can flip through albums in artwork view in iTunes. However, the app automatically goes to landscape mode in order to do this.

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Marvel did a decent job trying to bring the printed comic to the iPhone. I don’t have an iPad, so I can’t comment on that version of the app. I will say that, if you need a Marvel Comics fix, and you’re on the road, this app might do it for you. However, I wouldn’t use it as a default reader. Moreover, I’m not the type of guy to get my entertainment and pleasures any way I can get it: if I can’t have a good beer, I’ll go without; if I can’t watch a television show in my home on my actual television, I won’t default to a computer screen unless I can hook it up to the TV; if I can’t read a printed comic because I can’t afford to buy it, I’ll wait.

There are some webcomics that I really like. I don’t read them because they’re webcomics. I read them because their good. They don’t necessarily take advantage of digital technology in terms of their layout and design, but they aredesigned to be read on a webpage on a computer monitor and easily transferable to print. They’re also archived, which gives readers access to past strips for free (in many cases). I don’t have to read them by viewing one panel at a time because I can see the whole thing on my monitor. Even though they’re comics delivered in a digital format, I still wouldn’t want to read them on my iPhone.

For me, what I want to see out of portable digital comics is better use of the technology. If a creator has a webcomic or a print comic, perhaps there could be some exclusive portable content that is designed to be easily readable on a pocket-sized device while taking full advantage of the the size and technology, something that might read a little differently if it were to be delivered on a full webpage or in print. I think boundaries and limitations define a medium. Comics are static and silent. They use borders and space between panels to influence the perception of time and emotion. They use page layouts to affect the emotional impact of the page. When designing a portable digital comic, there are boundaries and limitations of the format to consider, too, just like there are for print. For portable digital comics, those include navigation, transition, resolution, and screen size. Creators should take advantage of these boundaries and limitations in order to have a much richer, fuller impact with their comics in a portable, digital format. Preparing a comic meant to be in print or for a large webpage isn’t necessarily going to translate well to the iPhone. The iPad, maybe, because the screen is bigger, but there are still other issues to consider.

Print is still my number one choice when it comes to reading, whether it’s the written word or comics. I like the experience better. It’s more intimate, more tangible. However, when I do read digital comics, I want to read something designed specifically for the format. I would have a much better reading experience in that case as opposed to trying to read a comic designed for a 6 X 9-inch printed page on a screen that’s about 2 X 3-inches in size.

I recently had trouble with my contacts and calendar entries in Entourage: they disappeared. No backups on the PC side were current, so they were basically not useable. A sync from the iPhone meant the loss of all contacts on the iPhone. This lead to a full restore and the attempt to find a way to export the iPhone contacts (fail). After taking the risk and doing a post-restore sync, everything returned to normal.

I just emailed Apple some feedback. Here it is, as sent to Apple, warts and all:

Hello. I have a few comments regarding the iPhone, iTunes, and their related applications.

Thank you,
Phillip

So, 4-24-2010 is on the horizon, and the month that was March took a lot out of me, schedule-wise. Being indoor percussion competition season in the NCBA, and Easter being this weekend, our entire season was condensed into a compact month, and I was half-asleep for most of that month as a result.

Payday has been sitting on my drafting table for that month, relatively untouched. I took to sleeping in, to be quite honest, in order to not be too tired at night for rehearsals and lessons. Now that it’s over, I expect to resume drawing in the morning. However, the time away from the drawing board has given me time to think… again.

I will continue to work on Payday, of course. I would be remiss in not finishing it, after spending all that time completing what pencilled pages I’ve finished. However, I’ve thought about in what capacity I would consider Payday to be completed? Should I continued until the very end? That’s what I would like, but considering I only draw for an hour/hour-and-a-half each weekday morning, that could take quite some time (and it already has).

I could take what exists and turn it into a short story, but it would lose the intended impact if I got rid of the ending, which hasn’t been drawn yet.

What will end up happening instead is that I will continue to work on it during the week until 4-24-2010. Then, I’ll take whatever needs to be completed and move it to the weekends to make room during the week for another, more immediately achievable project. A project involving a format that isn’t really a priority to me in the world of comics; I’ve said before that what I really want to do is graphic novels. However, this new project is conducive to working for a short periods in the mornings, the output is greater and faster, it will sate my need to do comics, and the idea I have is interesting, entertaining, and has enough fantasy elements to give me a platform to explore different stories and keep me interested, long term. All of this is important to me because, right now, I need the immediate output and the more immediate achievability to balance out the long-term, gradual achievability of working on a graphic novel. And we all know that a good amount of output is important in the comic world. Plus, because I would be working quicker, the project would not get in the way of doing graphic novels on the side.

That’s right. Provided I go through with my grand scheme, I shall be making a return to webcomics.

There’s this disaster in Haiti that’s making the news. They had a devastating earthquake that will take a lot of time, effort, and money to recover from.

So why should we care about a late-night brouhaha on NBC? Why should we care about Jay Leno, villain’s sidesick, and Conan O’Brien, former (as of 1-22-2010) host of the Tonight Show?

I can think of two reasons off the top of my head.

One, which is a personal reason, is that it angers me that stupidity and selfishness would be so prominent in our entertainment and affect so many people. This is nothing new, and it’s something we should be used to, not to mention the fact that everyone can be stupid and everyone is at least just a little selfish. Actions based on stupidity and selfishness are the fault of humans and can be controlled if just a little thought was put behind them. The earthquake in Haiti? A natural disaster, not a man-made disaster. It’s something that couldn’t be prevented, unless we somehow develop the technology to stabilize tectonic plates. NBC’s blunder in changing their late night strategy? That could’ve been prevented. Leno’s lap-dog, and seemingly selfish, actions of going along with the boss, essentially ousting O’Brien? That could’ve been prevented. Causing a couple hundred people to move from New York to Los Angeles to work on the show, only to put them out of a job seven months later? That could’ve been prevented.

In the grand scheme of things, this is a pretty ridiculous story to write about three time, in my case. It’s ridiculous to get upset over. But for some reason, I am attracted to this story about stupidity and selfishness because, though it happens every day, my mind can’t wrap around the fact that people act this way.

I have no idea what really happened behind the scene, only what has been reported. But I can tell you that comparing O’Brien’s Tonight Show ratings to Leno’s final Tonight Show ratings is an illogical, unfair, and uneven comparison when you take into account a) Leno had years to build his audience and ratings; b) Leno’s 10 PM prime time show was such a failure, is was a bad lead-in to the local news, which had ratings drops, which lead into and affect O’Brien’s Tonight Show; c) Leno’s ratings were bad his first few years, but after those first few years he started to beat David Letterman in the ratings. Dick Ebersol, NBC Universal’s Chairman of Sports and Olympics, called O’Brien “chicken-hearted and gutless” and “an astounding failure”, and went on to compare O’Brien’s Tonight Show ratings to Leno’s final Tonight Show ratings. This is an executive at a huge TV Network? A man who can’t recognize the lack of logic in his point-of-view? This is a guy who is a frequent consultant on changes NBC makes to their late-night lineup?

I’ve already commented on Leno being the villain’s (NBC) sidekick, so I’ll leave it at that.

This leads me to my second reason, which is that people love a story about good and bad.

Think about this. Aside from the looting and criminal behavior of some in Haiti, which is really a string of stories within a story of the horrible earthquake, the devastation in Haiti has no villain. It’s a story of a country being a victim of a natural disaster. It’s not a story of good VS bad. It’s simply a story of natural disaster.

The story of NBC, Leno, and O’Brien? This story has “good” guys and “bad” guys – you can choose the side you want, and that’s really the appeal. If you’re reading, you know what side I’ve chosen. And some people have chosen Leno’s side. Hell, some people have made all three parties to be the bad guys, viewing them as rich brats that are fighting over a TV show. This is the appeal. This is the reason we, the audience, follow the story so intently, with so much opinionated involvement, because we get to choose sides and root for our good guy. The disaster in Haiti? Well, I guess you can choose sides… Pat Robertson chose the side of God when he “explained” that Haiti was turned to rubble because of its pact with the Devil. So yeah, I guess you could choose sides in the story of Haiti’s earthquake. But most people wouldn’t. Most people would recognize it as a tragic event.

People love a story with good VS bad. They want to choose sides. And they love a controversy. This is why we follow. Our following of the NBC/Leno/O’Brien debacle doesn’t belittle what’s happening in Haiti, nor does it mean we’re not paying attention to it. It’s simply another story to follow, something we can get ridiculously riled up about and make our own.

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As an aside, I just wanted to say that O’Brien’s last Tonight Show was wonderful. He’s witty, talented, intelligent, and fun to watch. He went out with a bang and I will be watching when he returns to television (hopefully with the same theme song; hopefully NBC didn’t keep the rights to it). I never really watched Leno in the first place, except when he had a guest I really wanted to watch, and even then my viewing was rare. In the future, I may watch because of a guest or out of morbid curiosity, but I await the day when Leno takes a backseat to someone new, someone fresh, someone like O’Brien. In fact, I see Conan beating Leno in the ratings given enough time, and all NBC will be able to do is watch the future they let go.