Getting access to Disney Plus like a lot of people, the whole family finally got to see Hamilton last night. I’m kind of astonished that they put the play on the streaming service. I’m glad they did though.

I’ve heard Lin Manuel Miranda perform a song or two from Hamilton on various shows over the years and I’ve always admired the guy’s talent. I’m not a big hip hop guy by any stretch of the imagination but there have been bits and pieces of stuff I’ve heard over the years that I’ve liked. I couldn’t name of any of the songs performed in those cases because when it comes to 98% of *all* music, I’m horrible at remembering the names of songs, period.

In the end, I was never going to go see Hamilton on stage anyway because the nature of the hot ticket would always be more than I’d want to pay. Linda has said that sometimes it’s hard for a production to even seem “worth it” no matter how good it is when you’ve thrown down $1,000.00 a ticket for a three hour play. Or $200.00 for that matter, plus parking, etc. So, much like Wicked, Spamalot or The Book of Mormon, or sporting events, I was never going to be in those seats. 

So it was fortuitous indeed that Theresa added Disney Plus to her Hulu account for less than a dollar and the family got to watch the spectacle.

It was every bit as good as I expected on every level– and when something like this can live up to the hype already built up in *my* noggin? Nice job, LMM.

I like how the varied personalities of certain historical figures are represented here. The stoic Washington, the flamboyant Jefferson. I’ve heard complaints from some quarters about the racially diverse cast not being historically accurate. Some can’t get past that. All I can say is that it’s a re-imagining of historical events in a very entertaining way. Yes, Thomas Jefferson probably dressed similarly but may not have been able to bust a rhyme with as much style. More’s the pity.

Amongst the stellar acting, dancing and singing on stage, it really is hard to single out  any one player, as I can’t speak highly enough about this whole cast. But I must admit, King George totally killed it. The King himself was cast with a more traditional song so as to possibly stand out in all ways from the rest of the production and he kinda steals the show. In this version shown from 2016, King George is played by Jonathan Drew Groff. 

When he waltzed out there, he looked familiar and it blew my mind when I finally placed him. He plays the co-lead in the Netflix series Mindhunter. Jesus, this guy has range. I had no clue about his background but he’s been nominated for Tony awards a few times. He absolutely kills it as King George. I may have to watch it again just for him.

But on a technical and design level, I love what they did with the main set. The inner and outer rotating circle of the main stage are utilized brilliantly in a variety of scenes and their method of applying microphones almost invisibly to the performers is well thought out. 

Some people were initially taken aback as during the production, there are a number of close ups of performers in many scenes. Thank goodness– that’s good storytelling and the advantage of this set up over sitting in one seat and having one long shot view from a certain seat that never changes. It’s kind of like most major sporting events. You get to see a lot more action and see it much better on tv, as opposed to being there.

If there’s anyone who *hasn’t* seen this yet, well, getting it as part of Disney Plus almost seems criminal, but I’m happy to be an accessory at this point. I’d be curious at how many new subscribers DP got when Hamilton came into the picture.

Up until now, the only draw for me was the upcoming Marvel series, as I really don’t care that much about anything Star Wars related. I have seen a bit of the Mandelorian and I might check out more of it but we’ll see.

Here’s hoping that adding Hamilton gave Disney no much more $$$ that they’ll think about adding Wicked at some point…..

Minding my business today when I noticed a bizarre blister on the inner latter third of my right pinky. This was especially curious I don’t remember any abrasion or friction being applied to the inner latter 3rd of righty.

I finished chopping all the wood in the backyard yesterday, and there was no sign of this tiny, mysterious, organic waterbed on my digit then.

I did go for a walk/run this morning and that may have something to do with it. I think we’ve gone over my rather bizarre and delicate skin condition in the past. Another of it’s occasional, strange attributes is that when I’m exercising in a warm climate, on a few occasions, there’d be a sweat build up so great that a sweat blister might be created. A summer blister water baby. Makes you want to keep running your finger over it. A little wobbly speed bump on the intersection of inner latter 3rd and pinky road.

I know exactly what you’re thinking.

YOU’RE thinking that it’s not out of the realm of possibility that within the blister is a microscopic waterworld civilization and that *in* that world, time moves at a much faster rate than out here. A million times faster. Even though it couldn’t have been formed more than six hours ago *our* time, for them, after a Big Bang occurring around 4pm, life crawled out of the dermal muck around 5pm. They walked upright by 6, invented the unicycle by 7, improv by 8, two world wars by 9 and are perhaps on the cusp of space travel right about now as I write this around 10pm. 

And of course, this is where things get awkward. This will be the Truman show moment when someone realizes they’re in an awkward, salty liquid world that is enclosed in a porous membrane. Kind of like the Truman show meets Atlantis. 

I hope there’s an Aquaman there and not that weird Kevin Costner dude from Waterworld the movie. 

Probably not. Could be Sea Monkeys. The porous membrane sky’s the limit, really. 

Listen, I’m typing this in bed on the iPad. The glow from it is illuminating the interior of Hydro-World as I hold my finger up to it.

I *was* going to take a weekend break from Creation Month and talk about Hamilton for Fantastic Friday but I’ll shove that to Saturday. Sure, the play has Thomas Jefferson flitting around stage like Prince and it’s very VERY entertaining but c’mon…

A possible microscopic Atlantis on the verge of space travel? On the inner latter 3rd of my right pinky? 

PRIORITIES! 

*Addendum. This morning, there was no trace of the blister. In its dilated sphere of time, perhaps the civilization enjoyed its billion years and slowly burned out, possibly it was plague, or maybe I scratched my finger while sleeping — we’ll never know. 

Guh, have to go back to some semblance of regular life now? Talk about Hamilton? Sigh.

This has been… Unsolved Mysteries…about lost civilizations. Good day.

I had thought about this story for a number of years before even committing it to paper. 

A dystopian near future where the U.S. is ruled by three dictatorial supermen, identical triplets who rise to power via their genetic abilities (strength, speed, pyrokinesis) after breaking free of the institution that had the hubris to artificially engineer them in the first place. We also meet the group that is trying to formulate a plan to destroy them.

Having gone the route of straight Superhero, Twilight Zone, sci fi comedy then back to super villain comedy, I wanted to get serious with his one. This one was pretty dark and I think holds up pretty well. It was the longest story I’d done to date at 64 pages. 

This was also the biggest technical challenge for me at the time, as I’d not figured out certain things in Photoshop at that point when putting the book together in late 2001. 

All in all, I think the story, dialog, effects all work pretty well and come together fairly okay. I think I hit all the notes I wanted too. 

Relative side notes: Mike Sobey once again did the cover only this time inks with color. 

And in general, I look back and think about how much I’ve improved from these early days. Woo!

I had thought about this story for a number of years before even committing it to paper. 

A dystopian near future where the U.S. is ruled by three dictatorial supermen, identical triplets who rise to power via their genetic abilities (strength, speed, pyrokinesis) after breaking free of the institution that had the hubris to artificially engineer them in the first place. We also meet the group that is trying to formulate a plan to destroy them.

Having gone the route of straight Superhero, Twilight Zone, sci fi comedy then back to super villain comedy, I wanted to get serious with his one. This one was pretty dark and I think holds up pretty well. It was the longest story I’d done to date at 64 pages. 

This was also the biggest technical challenge for me at the time, as I’d not figured out certain things in Photoshop at that point when putting the book together in late 2001. 

All in all, I think the story, dialog, effects all work pretty well and come together fairly okay. I think I hit all the notes I wanted too. 

Relative side notes: Mike Sobey once again did the cover only this time inks with color. 

And in general, I look back and think about how much I’ve improved from these early days. Woo!

A guy named Peter Willis is going through a midlife crisis. An old inventor friend of his has died and leaves him his invention, a belt that gives its wearer Tornado powers. Willis is distraught and somewhat drunk, and makes the rather unconventional leap of deciding it’s a sign that he must become a super villain. Comedy and super villains together. It’s kinda my jam.

Willis makes a to-do list of things he needs to do in order to get his villainous stature in order. He trims his eyebrows to menacing points, interviews henchmen, leaves a deceptively charming outgoing message on his answering machine, amongst other things. He does quite a bit of evil prep but in the end, he’s an incompetent narcissist who’s eventually brought down by an unassuming and unlikely opposite number. 

He was an interesting character to write and draw, the tornado powers and belt logo were fun to realize and there was even a set up for a possible sequel if I so chose to do it. 

I think as a comedy, it’s pretty damn solid and a lot of people seemed to agree at the time. I had one of the highest order numbers for this one and some articles and favorable reviews put up right away, as it hit the stands on September 5th of that year. In fact, there was talk of interviews and some store owners on the west coast were talking about setting up displays, etc. 

I was told all this on September 10th, 2001. The next day, comics and everything else was put on the back burner. 

Peter Willis would go on to make a cameo in a future project, “I was a Superhero Survivor”. 

One day, some 20 or 25 years ago, while watching tv, a lame auto insurance commercial appeared on screen. It must have been “Lincoln Insurance” or some such place because after showing black and white footage of old cars crashing into each other, the disembodied head of Abe Lincoln popped up in the corner of the screen telling the viewers about getting insurance.

Well this was just so entertaining, I simply had to create a comic which featured the disembodied head of our 16th president. 

*Side note: I found gobs and gobs of entertainment in the notion of the floating, disembodied head of Lincoln dispensing advice. So much so, that I would take our baby monitors and plant the receiver in a room. When Linda would come in, suddenly she’d hear a voice introducing himself as the disembodied head of Abe Lincoln, asking if she’s happy with her car insurance.

I thought this was high hilarity. Linda has no memory of it. Now I’m sad. Ah well.

Back to the comic—I created the Temporal Investigation Squad. A team which would go backward or forward in time, presumably to right wrongs. The team consisted a dotting old professor, an attractive blonde girl who was a combat expert, the disembodied head of Abe Lincoln and an emu. Those last two never got along. 

They were able to achieve time travel through a portal that for all intents and purposes looked and acted like an old wooden door, which you would open up and step through to another time. This amazing device was invented by the professor and never fully explained because comedy.

In the issue, the team goes back in time to the old west to kill a Hitler clone that had escaped the lab. I think I was fairly successful at taking several time traveling tropes and turning them on their head. 

I loved writing and drawing the disembodied head of Abe Lincoln, fighting and screaming his battle cries, “It’s Wrasslin’ Time!” and “Don’t Mess with the Rail-Splittah’!”

I made a shirt.

The professor actually created and purposely released the Hitler clone as an excuse to go back in time to get him. In reality, it was a scheme to steal money at poker or some such gimmick. The real fun came in portraying the diverse team of explorers. The only one who was an accomplished explorer was the girl, Suzie. Everyone else was either in it for personal gain, was somewhat clueless or an emu.

Although there’s plenty of potential for future iterations of the team and plenty of possible adventures, I never really pulled the trigger on that. 

Maybe someday. 

Maybe.

It’s up to Abe.

God, I love Abe.

Creative side note: this comic featured a painted cover by good friend and the ultimate illustrator, Mike Sobey.

By this point, I had the distribution/solicitation/marketing thing down pat. 

I put together for Mascot, a story set in a bizarre sector of the Twilight Zone. Basically, in an abandoned baseball field, a large bunch of baseball mascots (giant foam heads, uniforms) all battle to the death. The things I do to amuse myself. To be clear, there’s not necessarily anyone *wearing* the costumes. There’s a pirate, a Marlin, a Giant, a Tiger, etc., all just beating the hell out of each other. In an empty ball field.

It was bizarre, odd, violent and kind of fun, although I don’t think anyone really understood it, and if so, that’s on me. And I certainly didn’t help matters when I did the stupid cover.

The cover was simply the logo over a photo of clouds, with a hint of baseball park lighting in the lower corner. This was a huge tactical error on my part and especially stupid considering I’m painfully aware of just how important covers are in selling a book. 

So sue me, I was in a cloud phase. 

Why…. why not a couple Mascot heads on a baseball mound? Something to actually give an indication as to what might be happening IN the book?!?! Whatever my thought process was here… it was wrong. Lesson learned. 

Plenty of copies of Mascot are still in the basement, I think. I probably threw some boxes out by this point. I’m not sure. 

And there was a back up story as well. Something along the lines of the Pillsbury Doughboy coming alive at breakfast time and killing people. Then I was reminded that one of my clients did the advertising for pillsbury and I did some tweaking. Either way, this was not award winning material. Moving on…

The youngest actor ever to play the Doctor, Smith was too young to have watched the classic show but when doing his homework after getting the part, he fell in love with Troughton’s portrayal in Tomb of the Cybermen.

1)The Eleventh Hour is a bold entrance for the new Doctor and Smith is in fine form, handling an invading alien crisis with an escaped criminal without any Tardis, sonic or his complete faculties. At the end, he IS the Doctor. So basically, “run”.

2)Amy’s Choice. A brilliantly creepy, oddball story featuring another an evil specter that seems to know the Doctor and enjoys torturing him and his companions by placing them in dreams and in danger. Excellent stuff.

3)Vincent and the Doctor. One of the most emotional and heartbreaking eps of the new era. Brilliantly written, directed and performed. Perhaps the best of the Smith era.

4)The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang. A massive story that has everything wrapped up in a big box. Under Stonehenge. Threatened by all the races the Doctor’s ever gone up against. Surprises, twists and “timey-wimey” insanity as only Moffat can deliver.

5)A Christmas Carol. One of the finest specials of the new era gives us a DW spin on the old classic story. Fun and heartwarming.

6)The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon. One of the most ambitious stories ever from Moffat, which brings us the Silence. Scary aliens in suits that you forget the second you look away from them. Epic story.

7)A Good Man Goes to War. Once again, swinging for the fences, another huge story, as the military clergy and the headless monks have Amy and her baby hostage. The Doctor and Rory are coming to rescue them, and they’re not alone. The Doctor calls in his debts. It’s war.

8)Let’s Kill Hitler is worth it just for the title alone, but the continuing story of River is a great bonus, as is her furthered relationship with the Doctor.

9)The Girl Who Waited is a powerful tale, with an excellent performance by Gillan.

10)Dinosaurs on a Spaceship. This is the fun that Doctor Who should be. 

11)The Angels Take Manhattan is a solemn, spooky tale that ends Rory and Amy’s time with the Doctor. Emotional and excellent.

12)The Name of the Doctor is a frightening and powerful look at the Doctor and his secrets, as he’s beset by the evil that is The Great Intelligence. It’s also a great lead in to…

13)The Day of The Doctor. The biggest television event in history, shown simultaneously in over 90 countries, 50 years to the day from the first episode’s airing in 1963. The story lived up to all of it. Every hope, every expectation, every Doctor was represented…and then some! Can not recommend this one highly enough.

Honorable mentions:

*The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone. Great big story, with River, Weeping Angels military clergy and the crack in time.

*The Lodger, a great, fun, down to earth episode. Smith shines.

*The Doctor’s Wife. The Tardis takes human form. Good ep.

*God Complex. Oddball ep but worth it.

*The Wedding of River Song. The complex but very enjoyable end to Series 6.

*Cold War. A worthy entry for the return of the Ice Warriors.

*Journey to the Center of the Tardis. Bit of a hidden gem, where you see more of the old girl than at any time so far. Good ep.

I can’t really say that I’ve ever been excited about the 4th of July. Conversely, I never had any real problem with it. Except maybe the aspiring arsonists who get their rocks off by blowing off fireworks well past midnight because SPARKS GLOW PRETTY. Karma usually takes vengeance on the drunk ones in those scenarios though. 

Maybe it’s more accurate to say I never really gave the holiday a lot of thought. 244 years ago, we got our independence, all signed, sealed, and delivered. 

I could ramble on for quite a while about how this country was built, who built it for us, and who actually did the labor. But we’re all aware of these facts, and there are waves of people *not* social distancing out there that are more than happy to point out the unacceptable, horrid history of America while they sip their lattes and tweet.

But hey, they’re not wrong. Our ancestors did a mountain load of reprehensible shit over the past several centuries in the name of power, religion, land, money, or all of the above. It all happened and we don’t have a time machine to go back and fix it. 

What gets me though, is that for a while, during *my* life, I thought we were better. I really was naive enough to think we’d made progress. I, like so many people in our comfortable homes, REALLY thought things were better. That *people* were better than they were 100 years ago. 52 years ago.

I feel there have always been generally good people, generally bad people, and all the shades of gray in between where the fear, love, strength and hate dictate things. These rules apply to everyone, everywhere. It’s usually somewhat complicated. You hope that the good outweighs the bad. 

I think the HOPE was, that the backward-thinking, racist shit-heads were on the decline. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, the 2016 election opened our eyes on a few things. A lot of stunned people who couldn’t believe who won–no one more so than the guy who won. In one fell swoop, we found out there were a lot of people who felt under-represented, angry, disenchanted, you name it. 

Worst of all, having a dim-witted, ranting, racist malcontent in the Oval Office emboldened a lot of people with similar hobbies to start throwing their weight around. It was disheartening to see these trolls start thinking they became legitimized by having a like-minded comrade in the White House.

Then 2020 happened. I wasn’t overly happy with 2019 but this year is unwinding like several bad summer blockbuster films one after the other. 

COVID and Floyd. 

Nothing good happened anywhere around these events. Not leading up to it, or coming off of it. The president of the United States has been as big a disappointment here as he has in everything else. 

We need help and we need it bad. We need an intelligent plan to deal with so many things but at the moment, we need to make sure we never have another COVID situation like this again, nor another Floyd scenario. Right now, I have little faith that we can prevent either from happening again.

But these are the problems I’m thinking about on Independence Day, and I’m sure most of you are too. I’m embarrassed and ashamed of what we’ve let this place become.

And NO, I’m not one of these hysterical types who’ll threaten to move to Canada. What good does that threat do? If everyone with a conscience, a sense of decency moves there, who and what’s left here?

It all just pisses me off, because yeah, I was dumb enough to think we were better than this. Hopefully we can change things in November.

Instead, I’m forced to look at Independence Day and America and think, “What the hell have we done with it?”

Maybe I’ll chalk this one up to watching a lot of so so Hercules movies on Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Hercules always seemed like a fun loving guy who didn’t know his own strength and got into some crazy adventures. I decided to create a demigod called Steve Steel — basically, a combination of the old Hercules movie actors Steve Reeves and Alan Steele.

His only real appearance in this form came in the Epoch anthology book I did with some other illustrators at my studio. My story in the collection was a 14 page adventure where we come in during the tail end of a huge battle. We hit the ground running and maintain a fast pace throughout. A very powerful demon/god named Be’el, had mopped the floor with most of earth’s heroes. Even Steel, who had to be brought back to consciousness by Mataak (who I talked about yesterday), one of the others still standing. John and Theresa Longbow (*see yesterday) were doing what they could to stall the demon long enough to come up with a plan. 

Steel’s natural strength was too devastating in our fragile world, so he’d had power regulating implants put in his body to lower the levels. Be’el had managed to take control of the power dampening implants in Steve’s body to steal his strength away. Once Steve realized this, he ripped the implants out of his body, thus unleashing his full strength. While usually all too powerful in that state, it’s what was needed to defeat Be’el and drive him back through the dimensional portal to his home.

I actually had a few other interesting characters I brought in here as back up villains to Be’el, including a feminine android, a levitating Sumo wrestler and a hyper kid that flies around bouncing off walks called High Impact. During the course of the 14 page story, everyone pretty much interacts with and/or battles everyone else. 

Also, I’ve got two narrators who are watching the story along with us, with one explaining certain details to the other for some built in exposition. All’s made clear by the end. This one holds up fairly well across the board.

It would be 2008 when we next saw the altered version of the character, as Elof, an Asgardian prince as part of The Battalion in my graphic novel “100 Covers”, which I’ll get to later on this month. 

The Epoch anthology story would be the last time I’d play with most of these characters, especially John and Theresa Longbow. John especially had some potential, with his mental powers. Maybe some day.

Epoch was a vanity project where most of the illustrators in our storyboard studio got together and contributed. Mike Dammer contributed a page, Scott Larson did a two or three page short story, Seitu Hayden, Jim Wisnewski and Mike Edsey and I all did various longer stories for the book, with Mike Sobey doing the cover. 

I only add this to the proceedings this month as this was the start of the Epoch imprint I used for my solo books for the next several years and kicked it off by organizing the group project. 

All in all, it being an anthology book, black and white, and created by unknowns, we didn’t do too badly as far as sales. We all pitched in the proportionate amount of money based on how many pages we contributed and after it hit the stands, we each even got some of our investment back, so that was cool. 

All in all, a win-win.

It was definitely a one time deal though. 

Illustrators are much like cats when you try to herd them, so this was our one shot *together*. It’s been 20 years, but while I think Seitu might have had something published since, I don’t anyone else has.