Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Invictus

In the words of William Earnest Henley - "My head is bloody but unbowed."

You'd never believe it, but a pipe broke under the concrete slab of my humble abode.  

It was a hot water pipe and it began leaking terribly.  Hmmm.  Actually, you'd probably believe that.  What you won't believe is that I was prepared for this disaster.  I've been ready for it for quite some time in all honesty.  Finally confronted by a nemesis I've dreaded for years (it is seriously a long story), I dashed to the water heater and turned off the supply.  

I called the plumbers and instructed them that there was no need to cut through the concrete slab - with the advent of Pex flexible piping, we could simply cut through the plasterboard, cap the supply line where it went into the floor and run the new pipe across four ceiling joists and along a header and back down to the kitchen (which was the only terminal serviced by the underground pipe).  

In the end, that is just what we did, and the mess is finally cleaned up and we have hot water again.

Now, it wasn't all gloom in my home during this last week or two.  In fact, I happened to enjoy myself immensely at Emerald City Comicon.  My wife and I got a hotel and enjoyed Seattle for a few days whilst immersing ourselves in the work of many of the finer independent artists who visited the convention.  

Though I have corresponded with them for some time, I finally got to shake hands with the creators of 'Atomic Robo', Scott Wegener and Brian Clevenger.  They were each witty and entertaining and were good enough to take the time to answer all my irrelevant questions.  

I also got to meet Brian Hurt and Cullen Bunn, the team behind 'The Sixth Gun'.  If you haven't heard of it, this is, in my opinion, one of the best comics out there right now.  I've read the series twice so far, and it was obvious to me that for once you had a set of storytellers who knew where they were taking the reader from start to finish.  Cullen Bunn told me that the series will end with the fiftieth issue - confirming my suspicions that these guys started out with a vision and story to tell, rather than to line their pockets with endless iterations of the same story.  I also found out that NBC has ordered a pilot for a television show to be based on the comic.  They begin filming on March 18th.  

Despite the fact that I called Cullen a monster twice in our first five minutes together, he and Brian were probably the warmest and most engaging people I met all weekend.

I also met Jim Zub of 'Skullkickers' fame and shared a few laughs with him.  Our reminiscing about one scene from one of his stories actually made my wife want to read the comic.  That's some damn fine reminiscing if the outcome is that my wife wants to read a comic book...

I also got to speak with Travis Hanson, who is an Eisner Award nominated artist.  He is, in my opinion, a man of exceeding talent capable of creating a sense of wonder in his onlooker.  I am, therefore, extremely excited to announce that we have tentatively reached an agreement to have him create a series of images for use in my future advertising campaigns!   

I instinctively know that anyone looking at one of his pieces of art will walk away thinking "I wish that I was there and a part of that".  In my mind, that is what any good piece of advertising is about.  

And finally, I found a little game called Gobblet.  The rules are ludicrously simple, but the strategy involved makes this one of the most complex and enjoyable games I've played in a long time.

So there you have it!  You'll note that there was much more there that was good than bad.  That's the way it seems to me at any rate - and that is the key to happiness!

Best,

Atlas




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