I've moved!

I have a new website at the following address:
www.dispatchx.wordpress.com

Please join me there.

Don't even go there!

It's been a while, I know.

Anyway...I have finished the children's book I have been working on and will start sending it out to publishers next week. Here's hoping I have better luck with this then with the novel I wrote a few years back. I will be writing the first draft of a follow-up children's book soon. My daughter's going to love them I'm sure (like she has a choice).

My idea for a couple of panels a week web comic has not been able to draw an artist (DRAW. Ha! I kill me!) yet. We'll see where that goes.

I am really wanting to continue the YA novel that I abandoned about a year ago and hope to start it up again very soon. It takes a big time commitment for a novel and having an almost 2 year old daughter running around tends to eat up time. The characters simply will not get there hooks out of me. I take that to be a good sign that I'm on to something special.

I have recently contributed a phrase to a Twilight shirt design for a friend. No, I'm not a fan. I always like a good challenge.

That's it for now.

The day after

What a crazy weekend. I attended the KC Planet Comicon over the weekend and had a good time. I got a Spider-man sketch from Skottie Young and talked with Jason Aaron briefly about the woes of finding an artist. Jason gave me something to think about so look for new writing news.

I also scored a cool print from Tommy Castillo of King Kong putting the smack down on some giant snakes.

As I alluded to on Twitter, I have a new job. Same as the old job. In other words, I got my old job back. There was much rejoicing.

I am changing Monster Mondays from every Monday to Mondays following the week I obtain a new CD. Hey folks, I'm not made of money. If someone wants to send me a CD to review then I will be happy to do so. I should have a new review up next Monday.

Monster Monday: Madeleine Peyroux- Bare Bones

You can’t help but gently sway to the opening plunk-plunk guitar tempo of [Instead] as if in a late night foggy jazz club. By the time you hear the smooth siren call it is too late for you.

Of course, you don’t realize it yet as you lean against the rail of your front porch and count the fireflies lighting up. Krista knocks some dishes together as she cleans up the kitchen. Even the sound of the water running through the faucet you find tranquil. You chalk it up to something in your [Bare Bones.]

Something crashes in the kitchen. It’s not just dishes.

You enter the house and turn the corner to the kitchen.

“Krista?”

Krista can’t answer due to the meat cleaver stuck in the back of her head. Blood covers the window in front of the sink, the counter and the pea green tiled floor. You scream.

Your eyes dart around the room but you see no one there. You can do nothing but whimper and [float down this river of tears.] The darkness in the next room breathes menace.
You go to call the police and find the phone dead. You remember that your mobile phone is lying on your bed upstairs.

You pull the largest knife you have from the kitchen drawer and step around the corner to the main hallway. The long scar along your arm brings back shivery memories.

[“You can’t do me the way you did before”]

The walk to the stairs is lit but that is little comfort. Beyond the stairs is the darkness and the scent of [Love and Treachery.] It reminds you of strawberries.

Out of the darkness leaps a swinging blade.

You scramble up the stairs by twos. The knife wielder oozes from beyond the stairs and follows you. He wears a red hood with crude slits for eyes. The light dances off the blades in a belt across his shoulder.

A tune drifts across the breeze from the open window at the top of the stairs; the neighbor humming [To Love You All Over Again.]

There must be something you can do. You tell yourself [“I Must be Saved”] as some kind of mantra. You leave the lights out upstairs and crouch in the second room’s doorway and hold your breathe.

The hood tentatively enters the darkness and searches the first room. A lamp crashes against the wall and to the ground.

You run around the corner and leap into the room with The Hood, swinging your knife violently. You feel it push into something hard and hear a muffled moan. The Hood throws your head into a dresser and you see stars. You don’t dare stop swinging your arm. You swing up and hit something else. The Hood lets go of you and falls to the ground.

After you get your bearings, you stumble to the light switch and flip it on. The Hood is in the middle of the floor with your knife sticking in his chin. He must be dead.

You can see in a mirror that you have a nasty gash in your head and a trail of blood running down your neck. Consider it a scratch since you’re still alive.

Life sure is [Somethin’ Grand.]

Or at least, it will be tomorrow.

T Extravaganza

A couple of links to some cool t-shirt sites. The first one offers a different t-shirt design every day by artists on the web.
http://www.teefury.com/

The second has cool t-shirts with fake advertisements related to horror and sci-fi movies. I personally can't wait for the Antonio Bay shirt to come back in stock.
http://www.lastexittonowhere.com/

Started Twittering. We'll see how it goes.

Monster Monday: Chris Cornell- Scream

Chris Cornell- Scream

It opens with fan fair. A synth voice begins the tale as if told around some kind of funky futuristic glow pit. A tale of a creature born of metal and strings with a beat-box heart.

It’s clear from the first track that the old sound is no more a [Part of Me.] This monster is not the same old B-monster we are familiar with from the days of Soundgarden through Audioslave that we know how to handle. Didn’t we love that monster?

The beat shifts a tad and you realize that we are alone. Where did it go? It was there just a minute ago, before we blinked, red eyes pulsing to the music and hips swaying as if charmed like a snake by a techno flute from hell. [I wish we could rewind. Time.] You didn’t like the look of its machete hand. I can’t say I was thrilled about either.

I thought I heard a whisper about [Sweet Revenge.] The tiniest breathe on the back of my neck. Wait. Wasn’t this thing a machine?

“Run.” I shout.

You can’t move. Paralyzed with fear. Don’t you know you’ve got to [Get up?]

[You need a backbone to roll with the world.] You shoot out of the room into a dark hallway and keep pumping your legs as fast as you can. Your shoes hit the floor in double time behind me.

We both crash through a door and get tangled in a mess of wires and panels. Where are we?

[Ground Zero.] This is where it all must have gone wrong. It looks like some kind of techno birthing chamber. The wires are hanging from the ceiling as if the sky was gutted. Sparks fly intermittently. Blood spatters cover the glass partitions. Mutilated bodies lay sprawled on the floor like discarded toys. This is not good.

You’re world suddenly shifts as [Never Far Away] pours out from the room speakers, somehow still working. This is a groove that you can get behind. No more fear. Nothing but sweet romance. [Whenever I come. Wherever I go. No, you’re never far away, far away.]

My mouth drops open as you start dancing. I thought you only danced like that because it gets a laugh but now I can tell you’re in the zone. You really shouldn’t leave the house.

I guess it’s just me now. I grab an ax from the wall next to the fire extinguisher and search the darkness for the monster. It’ll never [Take me Alive.]

I wish I was [Long Gone.] Hey, this tune sounds familiar. Maybe this thing is what we’re used to dealing with after all. That voice of honey and rock salt can’t be mistaken. There’s only one way to be sure.

A spinning blade erupts from the wall next to me. I [Scream] like a little girl. At least I’m not dancing like a spastic belly dancer.

A barrage of sound pelts me that includes [Enemy], [Other Side of Town] and [Climbing up the Walls.] I swing the ax but can’t get a bead on the inhuman monster. It’s on me too fast. I feel a cut in my arm and another in my leg. It burns.

Just as those red eyes fill my vision, I fall from a push. You’ve come out of your stupor and grabbed a loose bunch of wires from the ceiling with a particularly nasty looking spark issuing from them. I watch as you shove them into the slit that thing has for a mouth and its eyes bug out. Arms, legs, and blades fly everywhere.

The monster falls.

All that remains of life in the monster escapes as the smoke from over-heated circuits drift up like slowly scattering snakes. You pulled through for me again.

“What a ride though, eh?” You say as we make our way through various dark rooms to the bright outside.

No doubt. But…

[Watch Out.]

Whatever happend to the Transylvania Twist?

Don't know, but I am really digging this Transylvania TV thing. One of the puppeteers is going to be at the Planetcomicon coming up in a couple of weeks in KC so maybe I can score some groovy swag. Include both a yeti and a vampire in your show and call me hooked. Making them puppets is icing.


Transylvania Television: Ep01 "Interview with Some Vampire" from Michael Heagle on Vimeo.