CHANGES, Part One

Time May Change Me, But I Can’t Trace Time…

The first time I tried to register with eHarmony I was rejected. They were polite about it, saying that I did not fit any of their profiles and, since they couldn’t guarantee a match, they could not take my money.

“eHarmony is based upon a complex matching system developed through extensive research with married couples. One of the requirements for successful matching is that participants fall within certain defined profiles. If we find that we will not be able to match a user using these profiles, we feel it is only fair to inform them early in the process.

We are so convinced of the importance of creating compatible matches to help people establish happy, lasting relationships that we sometimes choose not to provide service rather than risk an uncertain match.

Unfortunately, we are not able to make our profiles work for you. Our matching model could not accurately predict with whom you would be best matched. This occurs for about 20% of potential users, so 1 in 5 people simply will not benefit from our service. We hope that you understand, and we regret our inability to provide service for you at this time.”

The eHarmony questionnaire takes 10 to 20 minutes to complete but I was trying to be as truthful as possible and took much longer – I saw no benefit in lying to a matchmaker. So, when I finally got to the end and received this gentle kiss-off letter, all I could do was laugh.

My last relationship (if you could call it that) had been close to twelve years prior, with a beautiful black woman from Kenya named Njoki (pronounced Jokey). She was going to college in Berea, a little town in Kentucky – of all places. It wasn’t much of a relationship, certainly I was more enamored with her than she was with me, and it ended badly. Jim Morrison was to blame, or specifically, Val Kilmer playing Jim Morrison. We had just finished watching Oliver Stone’s “The Doors” and had a small difference of opinion about the choices Morrison made in his life. I maintained that he used drugs to escape his personal demons and ultimately committed suicide, intentionally or unintentionally. Njoki’s take was that Jim simply enjoyed his life to its fullest – live fast, die young, and leave a beautiful corpse. I simply couldn’t buy into this interpretation, so I pressed the matter. The next thing I knew, Njoki was screaming that she hated me and ran into the kitchen, opened the freezer door, and began to pelt me with ice cubes. Sounds harmless but that girl had one hell of an arm. The ice cubes cut into my forearms (which I was using to protect my face) and covered them in blood and melted ice water. When she was done, Njoki ran upstairs to my bedroom and locked the door. Okay, so some people might hear this and think, “what a nut job, freaking out over a movie.” However, anyone who has known me for a while will completely sympathize with Njoki and may even kick themselves for not thinking of ice cubes as a valid weapon. I can be quite annoying when someone doesn’t see things my way. I should probably have mentioned earlier that Njoki was visiting me in Pennsylvania for two weeks and this event happened within the first five days. We spent the rest of her visit in awkward silence, she locked away up stairs in my bedroom, only coming down for food, and I camping out in the living room.

So that was over. I didn’t really pursue another relationship after the ice attack. I instead focused on my career and decided my social life would sort itself out. It didn’t. Working freelance 24/7 and being generally antisocial didn’t help. So twelve years came and went and my career was going just fine but I wasn’t really content. It felt like I was only living half a life, my job was all I had and it was lonely. I did not want to be one of those boring people who only talk about work because they have nothing else to talk about. What I wanted was someone I could grow old and share my life with, as corny as that may sound. But there aren’t many options for a man in his mid-thirties, at least there weren’t for me. Going to clubs was not an option, never been good at the “pick up” – I’m not a “player” and I never wanted to be. Dating people I worked with was both impractical and not professional. My father used to suggest I “work” the Church but I wasn’t religious or that scummy. Fundamentally, I hated the awkwardness and ambiguity of dating, period. The idea of a matchmaking site appealed to me. It would eliminate some of the guessing game, people would be able to see my picture and read a little about me before we spoke, they would know what they were getting into and my intent would be clear. That’s were eHarmony came in. Their damned commercials were annoying but they did seem a little more trustworthy than a lot of the other internet dating sites. I worked up the nerve to give them a try, answered all their questions and was…rejected. Turned down by a website. What do you do if even the internet won’t accept you?

After I got past the initial shock and laughter, I thought about the questionnaire. What was it really? Just a very simplistic psych test – nothing more. These tests ask the same question many different ways, expecting the subject to provide the same or similar answer each time. By establishing a predictable pattern of answers the subject can be lumped into one of the pre-prepared profiles. The problem was, like most simplistic psych tests, it didn’t take into account that the wording of a question can drastically change the emphasis of the question. In my attempt to be as accurate as possible I had given too much attention to the wording of each question and my answers were not consistent. The solution was simple, answer the basic question and ignore the particulars and all would be well. With that plan in mind I logged back on to the eHarmony website only to find that they had blocked my email address and wouldn’t allow me a second chance. I considered an idea I had to get around their block but, by then, I had lost my patience and my nerve. So I gave up.

Over the next year I did make an attempt to be more social. I tried to go out with friends from work but that didn’t last too long. Almost all of them were getting married and were busy starting their own families. It was like an epidemic, I went to four different weddings that year. There were also a couple of incidents that either directly or indirectly, boosted my confidence. Like the night I found myself breaking into an apartment complex’s pool with two very attractive girls and my boss to go skinny dipping – very weird and more than a little uncomfortable. I was definitely too old to be making out with a couple of twenty-somethings in a pool at two in the morning but that sort of thing does tend to lift the morale a bit. There was also one person in particular who played a large part in helping me find a little self-worth and set me thinking once again about seriously dating. I breifly looked at a few other internet dating sites but I wasn’t comfortable with them, they catered to people younger than me and seem really shallow. I decided to see if I could get off of eHarmony’s black list. I created a new email address and snuck past their crack security. I answered the questions consistently this time, still being honest but playing to their expectations. However, when I got to their questions about children I had to stop. Did I want children? Did I object to dating someone with children? At one time, in my twenties, I thought that I would like to have children but after so many years on my own and reflecting on my childhood with my father (less than a role model) the answer was no, I didn’t really want children. What the hell kind of father would I be, anyway? Certainly one that any child would be better off not having. No, I have no business being anyone’s father and that’s how I had answered the last time. This time, I paused – I was thirty-five years old, the chances of meeting someone who didn’t already have children were slim to none and, given that I’m not exactly a sex idol, I didn’t want to limit my options any more than they already were. So to the question “do you want children” I answered “maybe” and “no” to the question of whether or not I objected to dating someone with children. It wasn’t totally the truth but it wasn’t entirely a lie either. Saying “maybe” to the question of having my own children left room for discussion and I did feel more comfortable dating someone who already had children. It gave me some distance from the true parental experience. Of course I would still have a responsibility to the child but ultimately I wasn’t the child’s father, I wasn’t the one who’d been there from the beginning and if I wasn’t cutting it as a father-figure, I could always walk away. Maybe that sounds cold, but I felt that I’d rather sacrifice my relationship with someone than be a negative influence in a child’s life.

This time eHarmony found that I did fit one of their pre-prepared profiles. I was asked how far I would be willing to travel to meet someone, I chose local, and I was presented with a list of five or six potential matches. I looked them over, sent out a few feelers but none of them really caught my eye. I broadened the search to thirty mile outside of Austin – one more profile appeared. I extended it to fifty miles outside of Austin – no new profiles. I felt pretty disheartened. It was depressing to think that in all of Austin and fifty miles out, there were only seven women who even came close to being a match for me. I turned off my computer, poured a glass or three of wine and watched a movie. The next day, I went to work and didn’t think much about eHarmony or my apparent uniqueness (lucky me, too unique to attract anyone.) That night I logged on to my eHarmony account without much enthusiasm. There were the same six or seven profiles looking back at me and something else. One woman contacted me! She wasn’t one of the ones I’d sent out feelers to, she wasn’t included in my list of possible matches, this was someone new. I clicked on the link, there was a picture, it was grainy and her head was cocked at the angle of someone holding the camera at arm’s length to take their own picture. It wasn’t the best shot of her (I would come to find) but she was attractive. Her name was Rebecca Hendrickson and her profile was far more interesting than the five or six that eHarmony had sent me. And…she contacted me. I didn’t know it then, wouldn’t have even imagined it a possibility to be honest, but Rebecca Hendrickson would become my wife.

End of Part One

 

Some Comments and Stray Thoughts from Estonia and Russia…

It’s been a while since I’ve written anything here. I’ve been distracted and have neglected my writing for too long now. I’m trying to get back into a regular writing routine, so I’ll try to update this blog a little more often.

One of the distractions was a business trip I recently took to Estonia and Russia. This was my second trip to Tallinn, Estonia. My first trip was in the winter and it was nice but very cold and dark. This time I got to see Tallinn in the summer and it was quite different – at least visually. The flowers were in bloom, the trees were full, and the Old City (the area around the original medieval castle where the city began) was full of people celebrating – I don’t know what they were celebrating but they were having a good time. It was supposed to be a “training trip” so most of our day was spent working but in our off hours we moved from one pub to the next and relaxed. Despite the celebration, the Old City still felt quite and comfortable.

The Old City in Tallinn

The trip to Saint Petersburg was very different. Karina Isakova, who works for the studio we contract with in Saint Petersburg, greeted us at the airport. She took us to our hotel just long enough to get washed up before we were shown their new offices and then it was on to the pubs. All the stories I’d heard about drinking with Russians turned out to be true; they are a fun bunch. We were there during the White Nights, when the sun never completely set, and it really distorted my sense of time. I decided to quit the pubs early that first night because my wife was flying in and I wanted to be by the phone. It was dusk and I would have guessed the time to be around 7 pm – it was 2 in the morning.

My wife’s flight turned out to be a nightmare. Everything was fine until she landed in Frankfort Germany. Her connecting plane left for Saint Petersburg a half hour late – not that bad – but then they lost an engine. Even though they were past the halfway point, the pilot decided it would be safer to turn around and go back to Frankfort. Of course, my wife didn’t know that initially because the first announcement was in German (naturally) and all the people who could speak German were frantically talking over the English announcement. Soon after they had turned around, the plane lurched and there was a loud bang – a collective intake of breaths from the passengers as they prepared for the worse but it never came, thankfully. The plane landed safely in Frankfort where the pilot announced that the turbulence and bang had nothing to do with the engines; they just flew too close to another plane and were caught in its wake. Well, at least he was honest. They transferred everyone to a new plane and eventually Rebecca made it to Saint Petersburg, five hours late but safe.

Peterhof

Thanks to my wife’s planning, we saw a good bit of Saint Petersburg in only a couple of days. Karina was gracious enough to act as our guide through the Hermitage Museum – an amazingly huge museum on par with the Louvre. We saw the summer palace, Peterhof, which is awe inspiring in its abundance of guilt gold. We attended the ballet, Don Quixote, and walked through the Russian State Museum where there were some amazing examples of Russian art. We toured many of the famous churches including the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood, which Alexander III built on the spot where Reformist revolutionaries assassinated his father, Alexander II. He built the church in a traditional Russian style as an “up yours” to his father’s killers. Later, the Soviets used this extremely ornate church as a warehouse – which was lucky since they demolished most of the churches in accordance their anti-religion beliefs.

Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood

Another church to avoid destruction was Saint Isaacs’s Cathedral. The Soviets turned it into the Anti-Religion Museum and hung a 93 meter long Foucault pendulum from the underside of the dome center, supposedly to demonstrate the earth’s rotation. Personally, I tend to agree with some of the Soviet’s feeling about organized religion and I certainly agree with the separation of Church and State. However, I did find the zealousness in which they destroyed amazing works of art and suppressed people’s faith to be surprising and as distasteful as the religious fanatics who burn books, ban movies, kill abortion doctors, and bomb buildings. The last church we visited was the Kazan Cathedral. Unlike the other churches, this one still functioned as a real place of worship. I have never see people so consumed by their beliefs. They crossed themselves, said prayers, and the women covered their heads before entering. Inside was quiet and reserved and there were long lines in front of paintings of different Saints. People bowed before their Saint’s image, they kissed them, prayed, and cried. I felt a bit overwhelmed and out of place – the dumb tourist invading peoples most personal moments. The cynic in me could make note of the souvenir stand in the corner of the church where they sold crosses and beads to the devout but that did not diminish the intense look of piety I saw on their faces. Of course, faith like that didn’t just start back up after the end of the Cold War – it had always been there – underground and secret but there. If I were to speculate, I could argue that the Soviet’s rejection of religion made their people’s belief all the stronger now that they can openly practice their faith – like the end of Communism was an answered prayer and proof of their God’s power. It doesn’t matter if I share the belief – to them it must have been very powerful.

Kazan Cathedral

I grew up at the end of the Cold War. Some of my earliest memories revolve around nuclear war – the fear of it, can we survive one, is there a way out of the arms race without resorting to mutually assured destruction? Khrushchev’s promise to bury us was before my time but I was aware of the history even at a young age. My mother was a hippy activist, my father claimed to be a card-carrying member of the Communist party (although that didn’t mean anything, his political view shifted with the wind) so I had a little more exposure than most children my age. I remember when Ronald Regan made his idiotic “Evil Empire” speech – a speech that I was sure would push us over the red line and send the missiles flying. I also remember when Gorbachev appeared on the scene and how hostile Regan and George Bush Sr. reacted to the change Gorbachev was trying to bring. I know historians like to rewrite history and lay the credit for the end of the Cold War on Ronald Regan’s senile brow but I – a teenager waiting for the end of his world in a mushroom cloud – remember it very differently. Regan and Bush did everything they could to scare the shit out of the American public, Gorbachev couldn’t be trusted, remember Khrushchev, remember that they are evil, godless, and treacherous – once they lure us in we’ll be ripe for attack. The Regan administration fought Perestroika tooth and nail until Gorbachev came to America in 1987. I remember the visit very well and I remember how public opinion swung drastically in favor of Gorbachev. Everyone wanted an end to the madness of nuclear proliferation; everyone except the arms manufactures who made billions off prolonging the threat. Public opinion is what changed the tone from the White House and it didn’t happen overnight. It was slow and begrudging. I know many people had issues with Gorbachev and I know he made mistakes – restructuring the Russian government could not have been an easy task, but from my standpoint he more than earned his Nobel Peace Prize.

Inside Saint Isaacs’s Cathedral where the pendulum once hung

The end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Berlin wall were pivotal moments and brought about vast changes in American attitudes. It was like a sigh of relief, a feeling that the next generation will grow up without the fear we’d lugged around for decades – of course, this was before the “Evil Empire” was replaced with the “Axis of Evil.” But what I realized while in Russia was, although these events were massive for me and for the American public, it was an even more massive change for the Russian people. Being there and hearing our guides talk about history and the Soviets – as if they were a separate race from the rest of Russia – really gave me a glimpse of just how different things must have been for the average Russian my age. It’s not as if I had any in-depth conversations about the Cold War or about the right or wrong of Soviet rule. The people I talked to made no broad indictments or praise of Communism. It was just something that happened and this casualness is what made the impression. The end of the Cold War, for me, can be summed up in a few major historical events that happened over the course of four or five years. It was a time that made me hopeful for the future. However, the course of my life did not change – my daily concerns, trials and pursuits were the same. But, across the ocean, a Russian man my age would spend the next 20 years living with the end of the Cold War and the fall of Communism. He would go from standing in line for bread to buying Big Mac’s at McDonald. He would see warehouses became churches once more. Depending on where he lived, he might even wake up one morning to find that he is no longer Russian as his government redrew the boarders of his country. Perestroika and Glasnost affected him on every level, down to what he ate for breakfast, who he met, where he worked, whether or not he was living in safety or in a war zone. For the everyday Russian, the world changed on a level that I don’t think most Americans can appreciate. I know I didn’t.

Now to be honest, what I know about the day-to-day lives of Russians during the Cold War is very little and probably biased by American propaganda. I’m sure a Russian reading this might say that I’m full of shit – and they would probably be right. But, for me, I caught a glimpse of what it might have been like on the other side, I got a broader view and that was pretty cool.

Inside of the Church on Spilled Blood

 

Marvelman – Miracleman – MARVELman

For those of you who are interested (and may not have heard already) Marvel Comics just announced, at the San Diego Comic Con, that they have purchased the rights to Marvelman (renamed Miracleman when Eclipse comics republished the book in the States) from the original creator Mick Anglo. Hopefully this finally ends the legal battle that has raged around Miracleman for over ten years now (see “Whatever happened to the man of Miracles” for more details.) However, I have yet to see a comment from Neil Gaiman, who was leading that fight, so I’m still waiting to see what this all means.

Marvel Comics seems like a very bizarre place for a book like Miracleman to wind up. I can’t imagine them taking the kind of risks with the book that Alan Moore and Eclipse comics did but it’s been years since I’ve worked with Marvel. They are under some new management, if Neil is still involved, then it could be the most innovative book Marvel has ever published.

For a much more in-depth look at this news, check out Stephen Bissette’s comments.

 

“A few Short Stories and Some News”

News First

I’ve neglected posting here for a bit. Work has been hectic. Star Wars: The Old Republic is shaping up to be a very nice looking game. We showed at E3 and won several awards, including “Best Overall Game of E3”, G4’s “Best Trailer of E3”, and Game Critic’s “Best PC Game.” However, our ship date is drawing closer and there is still much to do. We’ve been spending a lot of time looking at the schedule and making hard decisions about what will make for the best possible product. The final charge before shipping any game is always a stressful time and this project won’t be any different.

Additionally, BioWare is sending me to visit our outsourcing studio in Estonia at the end of this week and then to the studio in St. Petersburg Russia a week later. Technically, it’s a training trip but we’ve been working with these studios for a while so I expect it to be more of a “touching base” kind of thing and updating them on some new process we’ve been developing in house.  However, the preparation for the trip has kept me very busy.

Now the Stories

Nevertheless, I have found some time to get the writing section of my Website set up. Currently, there are three short stories available for anyone who cares to read them but they are not “finished” stories. They have a beginning, middle, and end but they are still being refined. I am more than open to any constructive comments and/or criticisms you may have. That is really the whole point of posting them.

The first, “In Service Of,” is a story I submitted to a writing contest. It’s about Stuart Conrad who must confront his life in the final few minutes of a plane crash. Ultimately, it didn’t win so I am currently reworking it for another submission.

The second, “The Strutting Peacock,” is about an aging womanizer who finds true love…much to his regret. I’m working on getting this one to a point where I feel it’s ready for submission.

The last, “Alone,” is about a woman who finds herself alone, the last person left at the end of the world or, at least, the end of her world. This is a story I wrote years ago and I am reworking it for submission.

Again, if you have the time and would like to read these stories, I would appreciate any feedback.

Thanks,

Jason

 

“Whatever Happened to the Man of Miracles?”

In 1993, I traveled to Oakland California to attend a rather large comic book convention. For two days prior to the convention, I attended a comic book creators conference. I had been working in comics for almost a year and, to tell the truth, I attended the conference as more of a fan boy than as a creator. The main topic was creator’s rights. The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund might even have hosted the conference but I may be remembering that wrong. Regardless, the CBLDF was a primary topic of discussion and it was the first time I had really heard much about them. For a fan boy disguised as an artist, it was an amazing experience sitting in a small room surrounded by Comic Book veterans. I listened to people like Dave Sim talk about self-publishing in his no-bullshit and gruff manor. Inspired by his speech, I bought every issue I could find of Dave’s opus, Cerebus the Aardvark. I also heard Neil Giaman (who was writing a book called Miracleman at the time, more on that later) speak about working with the major companies while maintaining ownership. He also talked some about his writing process and recommended a book called “The Penguin book of Surrealist Verse” as a tool to overcome writer’s block. He would open it to a random page and start reading. He said it always did the trick. I’ve looked everywhere for that book but have never been able to find it. For the most part, other than a quick conversation with Neil about surrealist poetry, none of the other creators spoke to me. However, I did get many sideways looks as they tried to puzzle out who I was. One artist/writer, Matt Wagner did go out of his way to talk to me. It was a nice conversation at first, until I confessed how out of place I felt. “But you do work in comics…right?” Matt asked. I assured him that I was a published artist and mentioned some of the titles I’d worked on. Matt seemed reassured and said I had as much right to be there as anyone. That was the end of the conversation and I realized Matt was feeling me out to see if I was some fan who had snuck to crash the party. I knew then, all the sideways looks weren’t just my paranoia. It was a great time and, in many ways, listening to the veterans speak helped me to evolve from a fan boy into a professional.

The next day I attended the convention. I carried my portfolio around to different artists for critiques and to several editors looking for jobs. I had been in comics long enough to realize that conventions are not the best place to find work – I’ve only known two artists who got work at a convention and I’m one of them – but you go through the motions anyway. You never know. I met Catherine Yronwode who was an editor at Eclipse Comics. She loved my portfolio and wanted me to ink a new mini-series called Miracleman Triumphant. The book was a spin-off of Miracleman. I was a big fan of the book. Alan Moore’s run was brilliant and I couldn’t think of a better writer to pick it up than Neil Giaman. Unfortunately, Cat didn’t want me to work on THAT book. DAMN! Oh well, the spin-off would be great too. I became more enthusiastic about the project when I got the script and saw Mike Deodato’s pencils. Inking the book became a labor of love for me but in the end, it was not to be. Before we could finish the first issues, Eclipse – hurt by a flood that destroyed most of their back-issue stock, along with the collapse of the direct market distribution system – filed for bankruptcy and shut down.

I went back to hunting for work and only heard bits and pieces of the story after that. I heard Todd McFarlane bought the rights to all of Eclipse’s characters, including Miracleman (I felt a small shudder at this news.) I heard there was a lawsuit over the rights but I didn’t know the details. Then a few weeks ago, I received an e-mail from Phillip Keith Veronese asking if I would be willing to do an interview about Miracleman Triumphant. I agreed and, in the course of the interview, I became interested in finding out more about the lawsuit. It is quite a story that has kept Miracleman in legal limbo for almost 20 years. As I understand it, Todd McFarlane claimed sole ownership of Miracleman and tried to cut Neil Gaiman, who had partial ownership, out of the picture. Then in subsequent discoveries, Todd’s claim became questionable due to a clause in Eclipse’s contract for Miracleman that said if anything happened to the company, all rights would revert to the original owner, Mick Anglo. As of this date, the matter is still unresolved.

So, here is the interview:

By Phillip Keith Veronese veronesepk@gmail.com

Miracleman Triumphant was to be Eclipse’s spin-off Miracleman title, filling the 10 year gap in story between the Golden Age and Silver Age storylines (fitting between issues 22 and 23). Miracleman Triumphant, however, simply wasn’t, as the title was cancelled due to Eclipse filing for bankruptcy. The majority of issue one was finished and ready to be published. In this article we’ll look to its inker, Jason Temujin Minor for more insight on the series.

Keith Veronese: How did the job on Miracleman Triumphant come about?

Jason Temujin Minor: Miracleman was the only job I ever got by going to a convention and shopping my portfolio around. Most of the time artists don’t get jobs at conventions; the editors are bombarded by portfolios and get burnt out. I met Catherine Yronwode at a convention in Oakland, California. She liked my work and told me that Eclipse Comics was working on a new Miracleman book that she wanted me to ink. I left that convention doubting that I would hear anything more from it but Cat called me and that was it. I’ve heard a lot of stories about Cat but she was very good to me and I liked her.

KV: Were you a Miracleman fan?

JM: Very much so. I started collecting the book when Eclipse reprinted the old issues, then I went back and got the original Warrior magazines that ran Marvelman and V for Vendetta. As a side note I remember when the child birth issue came out (issue 9 I think, I can’t remember). I was a teenager and the little troll at my local comic book store wouldn’t sell me the issue – in fact they had it bagged and put behind the counter with the porn comics. I asked my mother to get the issue for me and she agreed but the guy didn’t want to sell it to her either. He kept saying that she would be shocked by this and he didn’t think she could handle it. My mother actually got red faced and explained to him that not only was she a mother – and therefore actually lived through childbirth – but she was also a Doctor and had delivered several babies. She seriously doubted that anything in the book would surprise her. The troll reluctantly sold her the book. It was one of the most beautiful stories I’ve ever read and it was truly offensive that people were considering that pornography. Anyway, yes I was a fan of the book and was delighted to get the job.

KV: What was the general feeling about a second Miracleman title at the time?

JM: I don’t know what the general feeling about a second Miracleman title was at the time. For me, I think the Alan Moore issues were some of the best storytelling in comics and I was looking forward to Neil’s run. I was a little disappointed that I wasn’t working on the main title but, being a very big fan, I was delighted to get the job. Once I saw Mike Deodato’s pencils and read the script I was even more excited. I was told that this was one of Mike’s first American projects and people were trying to get him to “Americanize” his style. I don’t know if that was true or not but I liked his work immensely as it was, even more than the later work I saw from him.

KV: How did you find out the book was to go unpublished?

JM: Cat told me. I was half way through inking a page, I think I had 2 panels done and one started when I got the call. Truthfully, I don’t remember much of the discussion. I do remember that Cat sounded upset so it wasn’t like I could be angry about it. It just was what it was, and it sucked. I remember that the conversation felt less like I was being fired by my boss and more like I was commiserating with a colleague. I asked her if she wanted me to send in the last batch of pages. She said that I might as well hold on to them because I wasn’t going to get paid for that batch. I hung up with her and stared at the page I was working on, trying to work myself up to start looking for another job, I considered finishing the page just to finish it – in case Cat somehow worked things out. I took a break to think it over and never went back to the page. To this day it sits in my drawer half inked.

KV: It’s kind of cool you left the Miracleman Triumphant page you were working on half inked. A nice tribute to the situation.

KV: I’ve seen some of the pages with just pencils by Deodato, but none with inks. Do you know what happened to the inked pages?

JM: I had inked more than half the book by the time the project was shut down and Eclipse went under. What happened to the pages I sent in, I have no idea. I still have several of the pages from the last batch I was working on – the last page is half inked, I never finished it. You can see some of the inked pages on my website http://www.jason-minor.com/artwork/comicbooks/miracleman-01.htm

KV: The inked pages are phenomenal, up to this point I’ve only seen the un-inked ones. Do you remember if it was a concerted effort to keep the unusual panel layouts that Totleben had started on the book, or was this just a part of Deodato’s style?

JM: I can’t speak for Mike about what his intentions were. My opinion from looking at his pages is that he was trying very hard to honor much of what Totleben did on the book. Totleben was probably my number one influence and I loved his work on Miracleman. For the first part of my career I tried to mimic Totleben’s inking style. By the time I started work on Miracleman Triumphant I was starting to develop more of my own style (except when I was mimicking the Jim Lee/Scott Williams style – as it was the easiest way to get my bills paid at the time.) However, I sure tried to bring a lot of the Totleben style to the inks and actually took a lot of liberties with Mike’s pencils (like choosing to use a stippling technique in some areas instead of straight inking, or using the Xeroxes of Campbell’s soup cans for the shots with the Warhols.) I don’t know how Mike felt about these liberties but I hope he liked them. Nevertheless, I think we both were very conscious of the work that came before us.

KV: Any interest on working on the title if/when the legal issues are resolved?

JM: I would love to if the opportunity was there. I remember when Cat told me that the book was canceled; she mentioned something about Todd McFarlane picking up the book. That seemed like a very odd combination to me – and obviously it didn’t work out too well. But if Neil ever gets it resolved then hell yes, I’d be on board.

KV: Where has your work in comics led you since then?

JM: I don’t remember which book I picked up after Miracleman Triumphant – it might have been Deadpool. I know I was working on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles at the same time as Miracleman Triumphant but I was wrapping that up. I was with an agent at the time and they got me a lot of inking work at Malibu. I collaborated with George Perez there and that was a lot of fun. I did several different X-titles, one-shots mostly. But I was more of a fan of the Vertigo style books and eventually got a job inking Animal Man. I also wanted to do more penciling and co-created the book Brainbanx with Elaine Lee. The series didn’t get much recognition but it was the first book I got to pencil and ink and I had a lot of fun with it. I went on to work with Peter Gross doing finishes on Books of Magic. It was around this time that Marvel had their problems with bankruptcy and all the comic book distributors were going under along with the thousands of comic book stores. Work was getting harder and harder to find and I was becoming unsatisfied working on other peoples’ books. I managed to get a job as a concept artist for a video game company. The money was three times better than comics and the work was half as hard. I quickly moved on to working as a 3-D CG artist and finally into art management for games. The unsatisfied part really never went away however, so I have recently started to work on some of my own stories – we’ll see if they go anywhere.

KV: What work are you most proud of?

JM: I’m proud of the work I did on Brainbanx and Books of Magic. Looking back at them there are so many things I would do differently now but I’m still proud of them. Of course I’m also proud of the work I did on Miracleman Triumphant but since that was never published, it is bittersweet.

KV: What are you working on right now?

JM: I’m working in the video game industry now. I am the lead Character artist on the upcoming Bioware game, “Star Wars: The Old Republic.” We are getting ready to show off the game at E3 for the first time. It’s looking pretty good. As far as my personal work goes. I’ve talked a little with Elaine Lee and we’ve discussed the possibility of working together again. But the main thing I’m working on is a series of Children’s stories with my wife Rebecca. There are also several stories of my own that I am starting to flush out and will hopefully find a publisher for. Time will tell.

For more about Jason Minor, check out his website at http://www.jason-minor.com.

The unfinished page

I’d like to thank Keith for this trip down memory lane and for inspiring me to learn more about what happened after the end of Miracleman. If you’d like to read more about the history of Miracleman/Marvelman, check out this article on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracleman.

Here are some interesting articles as well:

Alan Moore’s comments

http://inkdestroyedmybrush.blogspot.com/2009/05/miracleman-redux-penultimate-chapter.html

Some from Neil Gaiman

http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2004/02/last-legal-post-for-long-time.asp

http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2005/03/guns-and-statues.asp

And lastly, from Rick Veitch who has some interesting comments and a few pages from the book the Comic Store Troll refused to sell me. http://www.rickveitch.com/2008/05/11/happy-mothers-day/

Thanks for listening.

 

A piece of my Sketchbook and some Links

Here’s a page from my new sketchbook. Hope you like it.

Also, since I know very little about blogs, I’ve been hunting around, looking and learning. I’ve come across a couple of blogs that I thought were interesting.

The first is Stephen Bissette’s blog, Myrant. I’ve been a fan of Stephen’s work from back in the Swamp Thing days. Along with Alan Moore, John Totleben, and Rick Veitch, Stephen was one of the main reasons I got interested in comics.

The second is Neil Gaiman’s Journal. Neil is, in my humble opinion, one of the best writers to come out of comics. This is evident by how well he has been able to branch out from comics into novels and movies. He is also a pretty nice guy (at least he was the one time I met him years and years ago.)

Third is Rick Veitch, who I mentioned above. Rick has his own take on the world and its interesting. I’ve been a fan of Rick’s ever since I read “The One” – a great book.

And last but not least is an old friend of mine, Nick Zuccarello, a great guy and a damn fine 3D artist.

Okay, so two out of the four (Stephen and Rick) are former students of the Joe Kubert school like myself but it’s just a coincidence.

 

Work? What Work?

It’s been a busy couple of weeks. My friend Tramell Isaac called me to say that 3D Realms, the company he worked for in Dallas, had shut their doors and laid off everyone. This came as somewhat of a surprise to me. The game they were working on, “Duke Nukem Forever,” had a long and turbulent history – they’d been in production, in one form or another, for 10 years – but I’d heard the game was nearly done and looking good. The circumstances surrounding the shut down seem bazaar but, since I hardly know all the facts, I’ll refrain from comment. In the end, it’s not that important anyway. What’s important is that Tramell is out of work. Throughout his career,  Tramell had only been unemployed for a maximum of two day – a fact of which he is very proud. This shut down has broken that record. To top it off, Tramell’s landlord was forced to foreclose and had to evict Tramell from his house. So in the course of one month Tramell went from being a gainfully employed Art Director and living large to having no job and being homeless – all through no fault of his own. Of course, we’ve all heard about the economic disaster the last administration left us in but this brought it home for me. On one level, it made me feel very grateful to have (what seems like) a secure job. On another level, it made me acutely aware of how fast things can change – how fleeting comfort is.

I’ve known Tramell since we both attended the Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic art, where we were roommates. That was nineteen years ago. He has always been a very driven and determined man and I have no worries that he will land on his feet. But Tramell’s circumstances are far from unique these days. Another friend of mine, Mark Pennington is also having a hard time finding jobs. He is a freelance Comic Book artist and has worked on some pretty big titles such as X-Men, Spawn, and such, but he too is feeling the pain. So what’s the point? Maybe only this, success is temporary and fame is meaningless – they make it little easier to pay your bills and feed your family. Enjoy them while you have them and don’t waste tears on them when they’re gone. Eventually they come round again.

The last couple of weeks I’ve been updating my Baraka Studios website that I share with Tramell and Mark. I’ve tried to reorganize the site to make it easier to navigate. You can check out Mark and Tramell’s work here:

Tramell Ray Isaac

Mark Pennington

Tramell at his desk

This is a sketch I did of Tramell while we were in class, way back in the Kubert days. I was trying to fill up my sketch book for an assignment and this seemed like as good a shot as any to include in my book.

 

A Thousand Little Deaths…

It’s Thursday night, the 30^th of April.

I’m starting a “Blog” today and I’m not sure why. I guess the point is to talk about my personal projects, my freelance work, or my life in general. But who cares? Why would you or anyone want to read about me? Hell if I know. There is nothing very interesting about my life, certainly nothing more interesting than anyone else’s life. But maybe that is the point. Maybe that is why Blogs have become so popular. They give us a small glimpse in to the lives and stories of ordinary people. Everyone has a story. It may not be a blockbuster but it’s a story nonetheless. Everyone faces challenges, everyone is looking for something or someone, and everyone is hoping that the decisions they make are the right ones. Some people say that we don’t die just once; instead, we die over and over again. With each milestone in our lives the old us dies and a new us continues. Here are a few of my deaths…

It’s September 1^st, 1971.

I’m born in DeKalb Illinois. My mother has decided to name me Jason. She was going to name me Damien but she decides against it. She said it was because of The Omen, and didn’t want to name her son after the anti-chirst. I can only assume that this is a false memory since The Omen came out in 1976. My father is reading a book about Ghengis Khan and decides on my middle name, Temujin. He names me after Ghengis Khan in hope that I too would conquer half the globe. His favorite annotate about the Great Khan was that a virgin, carrying a bag of gold, could walk from one end of the Khan’s empire to the other and never worry about getting attacked, raped, or robbed. To my father’s great disappointment, I never had any such ambitions to rule the world. On my birth certificate, he spells the Great Khan’s name as Timujin – to this date I’ve never found that spelling of the name anywhere else. He swears that it is correct. He might be right.

It is 1976 or 77 – I’m not sure

My parents call me into their bedroom. From the expressions on their faces, I know it is serious. I wonder if I’ve done something wrong. My mother looks stone faced. My father has been crying. One of them tells me that they are getting divorced – I don’t remember which one. I’ve never heard the word before, I do not know its definition, but I know what they mean. I start crying and beg them to stay together. They don’t. My father leaves. My mother works herself to death, trying to put herself through Medical school and support me. Often we eat only when the neighbors are kind enough to share their leftovers. The divorce was the best decision of my mother’s life.

It is 1983

I meet Brian Walker. He is a couple of years older than I am and has Alopecia. He wears a very bad wig and reads Comic Books. I don’t notice the wig but I do ridicule him for being “too old” to read comics. He will become my closest friend for the next 10 years. A week after chastising Brian for his love of comics, I am collecting them myself. Soon, we are creating our own comics and superheroes. Brian is an artist like me. He is more talented than I am but lacks ambition.

It is 1989

I’m a year away from graduating but I’m done with high school. My grades are horrible and I don’t care. My mother and I are fighting all the time. She’s tried everything. I’ve taken the tested and have an above average IQ yet my grades tell a different story. She can’t understand the contradiction. Half the time I don’t show up for school, the other half I’m drawing in class. I realize that I’ve hit a dead-end and decide to quit. My mother takes it hard but has no real choice but to accept it. I take the GED and pass. For the next year, I draw and write my first book.

It is 1990

I’ve applied to the Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art. My interview is with Joe himself. I show him a comic book that I’ve written and illustrated. He is impressed and I am accepted. The school is a reawakening for me. I am surrounded talented people and the teachers work us to death. It is wonderful. At the end of my first year one of my favorite teachers suggests that I might be ready to start looking for work professionally. I’m not, but his comment inspires me to start looking. The second year at Kubert’s doesn’t go so well. I am at odds with some of the teachers and the school doesn’t like the fact that I’m going on interviews while I’m still a student. I quit before the end of the school year and focus on getting work as a comic book inker.

It is 1992

My first published work hit’s the stands. It is a pin-up in the back of The Punisher #72. I will do a few more pin-ups before getting a monthly gig as an inker on the Marvel title Terror Inc. It will last for 5 issues before being canceled but it is a start.

It is 1996

Stuart Moore, an editor for DC Comics calls me about a project called BrainBanx. They want me to be the artist and co-creator on the book along with the writer, Elaine Lee. Up until this point, I’d been primarily an Inker. This is my first real job as the penciler and inker. In my enthusiasms, I get a little carried away with the art, mixing too many different styles and techniques. The result will be an elaborate experiment but perhaps not the best work I’ve ever done. I had a lot of fun.

It is 1999

Marvel Comics has declared bankruptcy. They’ve gone exclusively with one distributer, forcing all comic book stores to create two accounts with their distributers – one for Marvel Comics and one for everything else. Unable to cope with the added expense, hundreds of mom and pop comic stores go out of business, many independent comic companies shut now, and hundreds of comic artist are struggling to keep working. I make 8000 dollars for the whole year. I need to find other work. Tramell Isaac, a friend from the Joe Kubert School, hires me to work for a video game company named Kinesoft in Austin Texas. I’m hired as a concept artist but quickly learn 3d modeling. After 6 months, Kinesoft shuts down. Shortly before the shut down, Sony On-line Entertainment hires me to work on a project called Star Wars Galaxies.

It is 2005

Star Wars Galaxies has launched to a very lack luster reception. However, the game is a “Live” product and we continue to add and improve upon the title. I am promoted to Character Lead and eventually Art Director of the Live game. It is my first experience as a manager – something I never wanted to do. I’m amazed to find it very rewarding.

It is 2006

I begin work for Bioware working on their Star Wars MMO. I become the Lead Character Artist when the former Lead quits. However, I want to focus a little more on my personal life. I join Eharmony.com and soon meet a beautiful and amazing woman named Rebecca. We are married in 2008 and I buy my first home.

It is today

I continue to work at Bioware. The game is looking very good but we still have a lot to do. I’m sure this year will be very busy. Rebecca and I have just gotten back from our Honeymoon. We spent 3 weeks in Europe and visited Switzerland, Venice (for Carnival), Amsterdam, and Paris. It was a wonderful trip except that Rebecca broke her foot in front of the Arc de Triomphe 3 days before we were supposed to return.

We are home now and trying to sell Rebecca’s old house in a bad economy, working on buying a dog, and discussing children. And, in the middle of all of this, I find myself truly missing Comics – the art form I ridiculed Brian for loving. If feel like my life is coming full circle, that the many deaths and lifes have brought me back to what I love. So I’ve created a new website, jason-minor.com, I’m starting this blog, and I’m preparing a portfolio to send out to the different comic book companies. We’ll see if any of the editors remember me. I’m also getting myself back into writing, something I’ve put off for too long, and Rebecca and I are planning several children’s books. Don’t get me wrong, I do enjoy my job at Bioware and have no intentions of quitting but the writing, the children’s books, and the comics is work I’m doing for me – not because I have to, not anymore, but because I want to. That is a very unique feeling.

So I don’t know what will come of all of this. Maybe nothing, maybe I’ll just keep managing at Bioware and that’s okay. Or maybe I’ll be able to have my cake and eat it too. I guess if you aren’t bored to death by now and care to follow this blog, you’ll found out. Regardless if I succeed or fail in these attempts, I know it will be just one more death and rebirth.

Thanks for listening.

Jason Temujin (or Timujin) Minor