R.I.P. Wizard

If it was easy, it wouldn't be exercise.

50 Girls 50 Page 6

50 Girls 50 Page 5

50 Girls 50 Page 4

50 Girls 50 Page 3

50 Girls 50 Page 2

And more thoughts on Wizard folding.

50 Girls 50 (page 1)

Oh yeah, and Wizard officially died today.

Thoughts on Al Williamson

Should be Drawing...

Boy, Did I Miss a Doozy of a Faculty Meeting...

Officially Home Sick

DO on the DL

Gross day for a run...

Tron: Legacy

Caped Counselor (page 5)

20 minute run today

Essential Moon Knight

What's up with all of these meetings?

Chick-fil-A Family nights

The Con/ Calrissian Effect (page3)

Weekend Stall

Filled 6 50lb bags of pine straw from the backyard and didn't even put a dent in it.

And the ol' wife doesn't want to write the script for Bacon and Eggs 2&3. She won't "focus on them until summer."

We'll see about that!

New Developments

Stuff I've chipped away at today...

What I've Chipped Away At...

Six days in and I have:

Displayed the 5h Graders' 50 States map. This was a huge project that was abandoned last year. I'm so happy to have it done.

Organized/Posted 2nd Semester Lesson Plans

Painted ROYGBV Buses/Bus Mural @ the school bus loop

Clean Toilets (Sno-bowl. No Bleach. Yet)

Wash/Mop floors (wife did that over the break.)

Sort the boys clothes/hand-me-downs

Finish coloring bacon and Eggs spreads

Make inside front cover

Feelin' pretty good about progress even though there's still PLENTY to do. The balancing act is always discerning what is important vs. what is REALLY important.

Mural Warmup 2011

Thoughts on Movie Trilogies

Bacon and Eggs started out as an idea for a children’s book. Betsy would write it, and I would illustrate it. Naturally. We even toyed with the notion during college.

I remember sitting on the floor in our duplex as newlyweds while Betsy hashed out a plot. I remember coloring the pages on the computer in the cluttered “office” in one the upstairs bedrooms of our new house. Each picture was a double-paged spread. Twenty-six pictures would roughly equal fifty-two pages of a children’s book. We started a correspondence with an “agent” in New York, and we both actually thought this might go somewhere. But after a while, the agent wanted more and more from us, nothing seemed to happen, we kept teaching and we decided to get pregnant. Life Happened.

Flash forward five years later, and I started rethink this concept as a comic book; and industry I happen to know a little bit about. I figured the first “book” could easily be repurposed and reformatted as an eight-page short story. The problem was that I would need two more eight-page stories to make the comic book substantial. By the earlier standard, that’s the equivalent of TWO more children’s books for ONE comic. (Let me just go on record again saying that making comic books is the most difficult artistic challenge of all the artsy-fartsy disciplines!)

Thinking about three stories for the price of one, got me thinking about TRILOGIES in general. Which ones are my favorites and why, and which ones showed promise and failed? Why are there so few trilogies where people say, “Those are ALL awesome.” Usually you’ll hear things like One was better than Two or Two was better than One. I’ve never heard “Three’s the BEST!” Ever.

I’ve only chosen to discuss movies that had an affect on me as a kid and/or and a movie theater employee. (Sorry “Screams”, “Lord of the Rings”, and “Godfathers.”) I also consider Bond movies and the Planet of the Apes franchises as episodic fiction. Each installment has very little to do with the ones that came before it.

Not to mention the lack of Superhero trilogies. Some series are lucky to make it to three movies. I can only think of handful: Batman, Superman, Spider-man, Blade, and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. There aren’t any “good” third super-hero movies. After seeing the trailers for Spider-man 3 (and knowing how great its predecessor was) I couldn’t help but have high hopes for it. I really thought that it would be the first superhero movie to break the cycle, crack the code of superhero trilogies. Spider-man is funny because I think it greatly resembles the first Superman movies. The first of both movies is about the hero growing in his powers and responsibilities. The second movies involve the heroes giving up their powers temporarily to try to lead a normal life with disastrous consequences. The third movies deal with the hero battling his darker self. If Sam Raimi and crew made a forth Spider-man movie, I can’t help but think that Spider-man have to fight Nuclear Man in his quest for peace.

Many trilogies in recent years have followed the Star Wars Trilogy formula: The first movie serves as a complete adventure/ origin tale. The second and third movies are one big five-hour movie with a cliffhanger in the middle. The cliff hanger revolves around the main character in peril and the last movie opens with a harrowing rescue (ie- Back to the Future, The Matrix movies, and the Pirates movies and my beloved X-men.) But how come, the original Star Wars trilogy can pull it off while these other series can’t?

Revisiting Bacon and Eggs as three stories made me reevaluate the trilogy formula established by the Original Star Wars Trilogy and the Indiana Jones movies and even the more recent conclusion of the Toy Story trilogy (which totally kicked my heart in the nuts. Sorry for the mixed metaphor.) It goes a little something like this:

First Movie- Game Changer. Not only is this movie tell a complete origin story, it also blows peoples’ minds!

The Second Movie is bigger in scope, but completely different. The only familiarity is the characters.

By the time the THIRD movie comes out, your audience’s tastes have changed due to all of the imitators who have followed. That why it’s important to REMAKE the first movie with a totally amped up threat level and better technology at your disposal.

Don’t believe me? Think about it: Death Star 2, Raiders of the Lost Dad, and the Great Toy Escape: Again.

I’ve got extremely high hopes for Nolan’s Dark Knight Rises. I think he and his team are smart enough to pull off the impossible: make the first flawless superhero trilogy.

I’m curious to see how often they revisit Batman Begins in this final installment.

More Bacon ane Eggs Thumbnails

Bacon and Eggs Thumbnails

Happy New Year! (January "To Do" List)

I am notorious for making lists.
Personal shopping lists.
Weekly Comic book lists.
On teacher planning days I write lists of things to do on the front board.

Just before vacations I write "To Do" lists.

Do I think I'll get everything done?
Nope.

Are they realistic?
Apparently not.

My wife doesn't know why I write them for vacations/breaks. We both have different ideas of what a vacation is. Always have. That probably won't ever change.

I see work as a prison that prevents me from getting things that done that I want to accomplish with my life. Vacations are a break from YOUR JOB.

My wife actually likes her job. She sees vacations as a break from just about everything. She's the one that plans all of the trips that I view as work.

Before the Winter Break I wrote the following "To Do" list.

I knew I wouldn't get most of it done. I absolutely knew going in that I wouldn't get most of it done. It just exists so that I can always be busy and not veggin' in front of the t.v.

I WAS surprised to not get ANY of it done. It never left my car.

So in the spirit of New Year's Resolutions I present my December, (ahem) January "To Do" list.

School Stuff:
Make Famous Floridians Display/Didactic
Make Cityscape/Community Display/Didactic
Make 50 States Display/Didactic
Organize/Post 2nd Semester Lesson Plans
Paint ROYGBV Buses/Bus Mural @ the school bus loop
Home Stuff:
Clean Toilets
Rake Yard
Fix towel rack
Wash/Mop floors
Fix/Clean Windows (replace windows is more of a $ummer project)
Cut down trees ($ummer project)
Lay sod ($ummer project)
Garbage disposal ($ummer project)
Organize garage
Steam-clean carpets
Sort the boys clothes/hand-me-downs
Comic book front:
Finish coloring bacon and Eggs spreads
Convert to comic book format
Make inside front cover
Make "About the Authors" page
Sketch "Champions" character sketches for my boy J. Torres
Get Voodoo Chyl' to the printers in Orlando
Update blog posts!

Stay tuned to see what gets carried over to February.