FULL BLEED: DERELICT
Spent the last week sick. Started on Tuesday morning with a tiny cough and by the end of the day, I was shivering on the couch. Didn't sleep that night as I was chasing things around in fever, complete wreck state by Wednesday. Didn't feel human until Saturday morning, but still mostly couch-ridden at that. Now it's just a dull sense of a combat boot laid on my chest and surprise coughing fits. Since I don't have much choice in the matter, I guess I'll take it. Worst part is I didn't even have any fevered visions or surprise insights as to how to fix the thing I'm working on, which surely needs fixing.
Anyways, that sucked. I haven't had a flu take me out like that since I was animating up in LA almost twenty years back now. But then I was young enough that I could skip a day and just feel like crap enough to keep working, surviving off the wonton soup from the Chinese place half a block down Lankershim. I'm old now and that doesn't play. So I just left the TV on and slipped in and out of sleep, in and out of freezing or boiling alive. Luckily the kids are old enough to mostly fend for themselves and my wife is well enough to take care of the rest (and there was a time that was in question, so you by god know that I'm thankful those days are done.)
(from: https://www.nicap.org/ufochop1.htm which is an interesting revisit of the film)
Watched some stuff streaming off the cable box, but the only thing that really sticks out is UFO fom 1956, which I'd tried to watch before. It alternates between this sort of documentary POV to a thin narrative about a reporter who becomes effectively a PR flak for the military during the UFO flaps from 1947 to the early 50s. At that point, the saucers were being sighted over DC and people were freaking right out. There's some surprisingly effective moments, particularly at the end, that depend on seeing anything but the saucers other than in glimpses of film (where they look more like pinpricks in the stock than anything else.)
Is it a good movie? Eh. It's pretty slow. It does, however, come correct in terms of early UFO history, at least the official story. Goes over things as they changed from Project Sign to Project Grudge. Honestly, I can't recall if they got to the official Blue Book designation or not (fever, remember). But in terms of a document of that time in history and that chunk of popcult phenomena, you could do a whole lot worse. It's pretty easily findable on YT as well.
So yay, I'm a week behind now. Starting 2019 off with a bang lemme tell ya.
Beginning to map out my convention appearances this year. Largely the same as last, though I am trying to make it up for ECCC in Seattle in just a couple of months. I mean my publisher, brokeneyebooks.com is out there and I've got a still-new book just out with them, so I should make the effort. Probably going to Wonder-Con, at least for a couple days as well. FOG Con is coming up, which is one of the few SF as opposed to comics-oriented shows that I make it out for. Bay Con maybe. I can probably swing a day. San Diego is still off the list unless someone can come up with a very good reason for me to go to a very expensive and very noisy show. Rose City Comic Con is a guarantee, and likely the HPL Film Festival after that. Considering World Fantasy, but that's always over my anniversary and a tough sell on those grounds.
I'm loath to admit that it's getting tougher to justify these shows. But that's the truth. But it's getting tougher to justify a lot of things these days.
Okay, this week's edition of Stuff That Doesn't Suck AKA an easy way to stash research links in with stuff that looks like actual content:
A collection of covers from LA WEEKLY (1979-2000)
60s era computer graphics demonstration
https://ia802603.us.archive.org/10/items/experimentsinmotiongraphics/experimentsinmotiongraphics.mp4
A look behind SPIDER-VERSE's animation process. I'll note that I really liked this movie, first as a movie on its own, but secondly as a collection of art and design pulling from a lot of different and unexpected places.
Homelessness in LA (okay, it's a thing that does suck, but is worth examination)
The alien sounds of Fielded (via @revoltoftheapes on Twitter)
Kill Yr Idols zines and publishing
Borges speaks (sadly, to William F. Buckley who is not nearly as smart as he was heralded)
Oh, and the Wyrd Signal podcast. Which I can safely say is the only podcast I'm actively listening to the back archives of in their entirety. But I'll talk more on the show later.
May have a bonus feature this week. Stay tuned!
