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January 09, 2006
State of the Rob - 01/09/2006
Life is good right now. I've got a lot of stars aligning, and a lot of hard work paying off, which is creating this nice and pleasant atmosphere for me to inhabit.
My plan for last year really worked. I set up a solid foundation for myself to work from, and now I find myself thinking on what kind of structures I'm going to build on that foundation.
Black Chamber's a quarter of the way done now. I started coloring those pages last night, and I'm pretty damned excited. I look to get ten pages colored this week, and around three more pencilled/inked. Three pages a week is my minimum from here on out.
I had three people commission new art from me last Friday, because of that gallery thing I do at the day job. I never thought of myself as the type of painter that people would pay money to, but I guess I thought wrong. So, I'll have to change my mindset, I guess.
I saw 'Paper Moon' for the first time Saturday night. Well, the second half of it. I'm going to have to buy that sucker. Fantastic movie that didn't pull any punches. Talking to Mike Sullivan on the phone last night, he told me they filmed some of that in the town he grew up in. I know they also filmed around Hays, KS and St Joseph, MO. Also watched 'The French Connection' and 'Rocky' again. The Rocky movies make me cry every time. I don't know, they just connect with me in an insane personal way.
I need to start writing my next graphic novel soon. It's tentatively titled, egotistically enough, 'Rob'. It's the true autobiographical story of me being held up in two separate robberies (get the play on words for the title there?), and the emotional fallout from that. I'm hesitant to start writing it, because I know it'll bring up all of that stuff again, but I think I'm finally ready for it. If 'The Black Chamber' is my 'Licensed To Ill', 'Rob' will be my 'Paul's Boutique'. I've got a really cool storytelling tool that I think I may have created that will make it really unique and powerful.
It's time for me to start planning the next Rob Schamberger Makes Comix collection. It may be 24 pages this time around, but I don't want to put filler in, you know? I want to deliver the quality. This one will have stuff y'all haven't seen yet, too, which was the biggest complaint about the first one. I'd like to get these out quarterly, but focusing on the OGN's and other projects is making that a little difficult.
The collaborative anthology is progressing nicely. All six people are aboard, and the working title is, drum roll please, 'COMIXPERIENCE!' We figured the name had some resonance here locally, from my prior efforts, and we can use that. Plus, I'm working on something that will get the name even more recognition. Other than the quality the book will have, of course.
The day job's going really well. They've made an investment in me, and I'm going to continue to insure that it pays off.
How are things going for y'all?
Posted by Schamberger at January 9, 2006 07:03 AM