Journal

Wednesday, February 19, 2003
I have this vague theory that Money, Work and Time have a complicated relationship for a writer. When you start out you have no money, no work and a seemingly infinite amount of time. Then you start to get work and money and you start to lose the time... something I was reminded of the last time I was in DreamHaven Books, and I bought a large box of books, and found myself wishing I could as easily buy a week or two to read them in (box included the second Fantagraphics KRAZY KAT collection, a previously unpublished Kathy Acker book, Rip Off Red Girl Detective, and lots of as-yet-unread stuff).

Let's see. What have I done recently... checked the DVD of "A Short Film About John Bolton" and was mostly very pleased with it, The DVD makers put together "A Short Film About A Short Film About John Bolton" for the DVD which is a documentary of me being interviewed by Marcus Brigstocke which is kind of fun, although you can tell I've been working nonstop on the film, without a day off, for over a month and am very short of sleep -- I look sort of rough and very tired and sort of brittle around the edges. Also I really should have brushed my hair, but it probably wouldn't have helped.

Also spoke to Charles Brownstein at the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund about doing a benefit screening in LA at the end of March (possibly along with Dave McKean's THE WEEK BEFORE in order to make the evening long enough to make people feel it was worthwhile driving to the movies). We'll probably wind up holding it somewhere smaller than we'd like, to keep the CBLDF's costs down, so I suspect we'll wind up offering most of the tickets to CBLDF members, put some up on eBay, and possibly doing some other fun things as well. Bill Leibowitz of Golden Apple on Melrose will probably wind up doing most of the hard work to put the event together.

Trying to work out when I go to the UK to do the final shooting script of MIRROR MASK with Dave McKean. Looked the original draft of the script over yesterday for the first time in months and was struck by some bits I'd completely forgotten writing. The oddest of which, in a conversation between our two lead characters, a girl called Helena and a rather dodgy juggler called Valentine, was probably:

HELENA (READING)
"Remember what your mother told you."

VALENTINE
Mine said, it's a dog eat dog world, you get them before they get you, eat your greens, please don't do that, don't embarrass me in front of the neighbours, I think it will be better for everyone if you leave home and please don't ever come back.

HELENA
Really?

VALENTINE
She wasn't actually my mum, either. She bought me from a man.


Reading The Wee Free Men to Maddy, and we're both enjoying it enormously. She's started copying my attempt at a Glaswegian accent, which is how the eponymous pictsies speak. Getting fit again. Lots of backstage toing and froing on Endless Nights, what the book will look like, design decisions, all that. Bill Sienkiewicz's DELIRIUM pages have started coming in now, and he's hitting his stride. It's getting exciting -- I forget that there's a whole generation of comics readers who know Bill as an inker or cover artist, who don't know about Stray Toasters or even Elektra: Assassin. My story's being painted by the Bill who did stuff like that. It's about five very damaged people on a very strange rescue mission.

Writing 1602 Part 4 right now.

And my bedside reading is the DC Archives edition of Jack Cole's PLASTIC MAN. The first couple of volumes are a bit klunky, the third is getting there but the pacing of the stories seems slightly off. By Volume 4 however Cole hits his stride, and every story is perfect -- funny, perfectly paced, with a wealth of goofy details and pleasurable sight gags in stories that twist and reshape much as Plastic Man does. They're expensive books, the DC Archives -- $50 each -- but are often still a fraction the cost of buying the originals.