Aberrant Press

In my days wandering around on this planet, I occasionally find myself trying to explain my mode of thinking to people. They wonder why I am often indecisive, irreverent and more often still, indulgent. Most times when this happens, I find myself backed into a corner, unable to properly word my viewpoint because of a lack of time to think on the subject (there’s the indecisiveness). This leads to what many will attest are “roundabout answers”, which entail me dancing around and chewing on the edges of a quandary (possibly telling a story I feel is relevant) until I lead them to the answer I want to give. People generally don’t like this. They find it off-putting because they either conclude that the opening bits that fall out of my mouth are my stance, or worse still are of a mind that they are too busy to give me five minutes to come up with an answer to a question that they themselves came to the table with answered, fully formed and ready to defend. The former is almost certainly the by-product of the latter, but I give it special consideration because it typically is subconscious. There are times when the aggravation is caused because the question is small, believed to be a given. But while I do believe that we should not sweat the small stuff, and that it is indeed all small stuff, I do not believe that any question is too small to revisit.

That leads us to a question you may have now: what does any of this have to do with the title of this post? Stop meandering and answer us, you prick! Below is a lecture that was given by John Cleese (writer, director, man of mirth) that discusses the process of creativity. The video explains my typical thought process better than I could have without taking the time to prepare my own speech, so I’m just going to use it instead. Of course, since I am still providing the answer in a way, it is 36 minutes long.

John Cleese – a lecture on Creativity from janalleman on Vimeo.

EDIT on 4-14: And now that video appears to be down. Here it is on Youtube:

Actually, watch this one too.

I have two predictions I feel I should make before they become true and put me in the awkward position of trying to prove I called them after the fact. Of course, if it turns out I’m wrong about either of these, it is because I was trying to throw everyone off so I could clean up at the betting parlor. Seriously though, this stuff is just mostly mild speculation, but I’ll throw in my two cents as to why I think the future will pan out this way.

Comics: Marvel Comics will end the Thunderbolts series only to relaunch it as West Coast Avengers (or alternately Avengers West Coast). Thunderbolts is currently selling under 20,000 copies a month and Marvel have decided that issue 174 will be the last before they end the book. Immediately thereafter, they will be launching a new book with the same writer and numbering starting at 175, promising that the title of the new series is recognizable and will carry weight thematically. With the bulk of Avengers titles selling fairly well right now (Avengers Academy being the one, sad exception), and the big crossover coming up with the X-Men that they can tie the story in with (not to mention the Avengers movie coming out this summer), it makes a lot of sense from a business standpoint. And of course, when you consider that the point of the Thunderbolts was to be a program where former villains can redeem themselves and the Avengers is an organization with a history of bolstering its roster with former villains, well, there you have it…

Television: On The Walking Dead, Michael Rooker (who played Merle, the brother to Norman Reedus’ character, Daryl) will return as the governor, a character that was a catalyst for major change in the book. Look for Daryl to initially betray the rest of the group before deciding he is not actually too fond of his brother and turning on him. The last part makes sense from a producer standpoint as the guy Reedus plays has become very popular with people and they are going to want him to develop into a “good guy”. I haven’t really watched the second season (maybe I’ll catch up later), but I’ve believed the governor part of things was the plan since the first season when Merle originally cut off his own hand and then disappeared.

EDIT: In regards to the thought about the Thunderbolts, it has since come out that I was mostly right. Right about why it would became an Avengers title, just wrong about which one they would be. Instead of going the “West Coast” route, they have opted for the more business savvy (also limiting) “Dark” route. The move does make more sense in certain ways. First, it ties the previous book to one that was at one point Marvel’s top seller. Second, it lends a sense of history to the much newer “Dark” brand. And really, when you look at it, isn’t that basically what the Dark Avengers were? The Thunderbolts in higher profile clothing?

Been super busy these last few weeks. So while I work on a series of posts I’m going to be putting on here, here are a few sketches I did at BattleZone Comics for an event focused on the return of Captain America. I think this was around 2009 if memory serves. All the sketches were done on three inch squares except for the Captain America one, which was done on a strip that was about an inch and a half wide.

My friends and I drew up a bunch of these and handed them out through the day. We also created costumes so that Cap and Red Skull could run around the parking lot and bring in customers. I’ll post a couple pictures of them tomorrow when I have time to dig them out…

COMICS ARE MORE ADDICTIVE THAN DRUGS.

Today is the 80th birthday of Johnny Cash. I was raised on the man in black and when I was little, I was told that the song The Last Gunfighter Ballad (written by Guy Clark) was about my ancestor, rancher (and possible outlaw in his youth) Tap Duncan. The story laid out in the song and the actual last days of Tap’s life match up pretty well from a structural standpoint, but there is no actual evidence outside similarity that proves he was the inspiration. Still, as I child I bought it completely and would listen to the song constantly. Even now it holds a special place in my heart, because even if it’s not actually about Tap Duncan, it still is to me. Some other time, I’ll write about Tap and his influence on western culture, but here’s his ballad to keep you in the meantime.

There are a couple of books that I’d like to suggest that most people who dig Cash might not normally pick up but are really nice. The first is Cash: An American Man which provides a nice peek into Johnny’s life by Bill Miller, who was a friend of Cash.

Also, there is the graphic novel Johnny Cash: I See a Darkness by Reinhard Kleist. This book is wonderful and the only thing I don’t like about it is that I did not make it.

You can always grab American Man and I See a Darkness through the handy links for amazon.com I’ve provided.

And since we’re here honoring the man, I also suggest giving a little time to this video of his last public performance.

Oh! Also, here is a link to a bunch of rarely seen photos from Time Magazine.