brachiation is the word

some webcomics lovin' for your morning

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 14:09:13 GMT

Check out Ken Dahl's "Love: A Colossal Waste of Time"... it's 8 pages, and not exactly what you think it'll be...

NO FORMULA: pre-orderin' now

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 21:47:24 GMT

Just an FYI for peeps who've enjoyed STYX TAXI in the past (and especially those who didn't their hands on a copy of AS ABOVE, SO BELOW), two STYX stories -- "Rosa" and "Dinner Date #9," both with art by my great friend Rami Efal -- are seeing print again in Desperado's August release, NO FORMULA: STORIES FROM THE CHEMISTRY SET. (yay anthology!)

It's available for preorder either through your local retailer (Diamond PREVIEWS order code JUN083849) or on trusty ol' Amazon, and it features lots of standalone stories by ChemSet creators including Kevin Colden, Elizabeth Genco, Chris Arrant, Neil Kleid, and others, and the wraparound cover is by Hyeondo Park.

More about the book here and here. Thanks!

STYX TAXI: Federico wraps

Fri, 02 May 2008 17:40:42 GMT

hey all:

If you've been keeping up (or if you haven't), the latest STYX TAXI story, "Federico," wraps today on the Chemistry Set.

My apologies to Tom Williams (tomix), who's busted his ass week after week and done a fantastic job. I've been really bad about promoting this story as it's been unfolding, but it's a dark, strange little tale and it's been a fun ride telling it with Tom. Feel free to comment, shower Tom with effusive praise, and otherwise let us know what you think, either here or on TCS!

The whole story is available here, and here's the original promo:

I'll have more good news to report about STYX soon!

when I'm busy cheatin' on LJ...

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 14:13:18 GMT

As part of my workload for my Energy Technology and Policy class, I write weekly blog posts for the Webber Energy Blog, part of the Webber Energy Group (which I'm joining this summer as a research assistant).

Given that most peeps in my life aren't aware of what I'm doing in school so much as that I've disappeared from their lives in order to attend it, it seems only fair to cross-post so you can see what I've been up to.

Here's this past week's post:

Summertime Crude
A piece ran on Reuters this weekend about the different presidential candidates' views on suspending the federal gas tax for the summer to alleviate consumers' fuel price woes. John McCain and Hillary Clinton both are leaning towards suspension, while Barack Obama is wary, claiming suspending the fuel tax will save customers $25 for the entire summer suspension.
Other than scoring points with voters, what effects will a fuel tax suspension actually have?
The federal gas tax serves a pretty important purpose, functioning as a "user fee" for America's highways and roads, where those who use the most gasoline on them contribute the most towards their maintenance. Suspending the gas tax for any period of time means cutting off support for infrastructure at a time when state governments are bemoaning the lack of federal support for highway and bridge renovations. MSNBC ran a story last fall, stating that the Highway Trust Fund, the repository for monies collected from the federal gas tax and which allocates funds for highway projects nationwide, is due to run dry in 2009. While the nominal value of the gas tax has grown four-fold since 1970, the real value of the tax has been declining (i.e., not keeping up with inflation or increased fuel efficiency, which undercuts the mechanism of the tax), currently at about 3/4 its value in 1970.
If Senators McCain and Clinton want to push the U.S. towards a mass transit economy, this feels like a backhanded way to do it, where highways and roads will fall into disrepair and drivers will look for other ways to complete their commutes. If the goal is to save American taxpayers money, it looks like another "rob Paul to pay Peter" example, where taxpayers will save a little money now only to have to pay it later in the form of higher taxes to support infrastructure improvements... ones that will have to be performed as emergencies occur (as with the bridge collapse in Minnesota last year) because repair work wasn't being performed on schedule.
My wife has to gas up our car roughly once a week -- she commutes from East Austin to NW Austin. Given a weekly fill-up for our Honda Civic (which has a 10-gallon tank), costing roughly $3.50/gallon, each fill-up costs us in the neighborhood of $30-35 (assuming current prices). The federal gas tax is currently 18.4 cents per gallon. If the gas tax were lifted for the summer (June-August), we would save $1.84 per fill-up, or $22.08 for three months (12 fill-ups).
Personally, I'd rather the government keep collecting those pennies for infrastructure rehabilitation than granting me savings that will barely cover the cost of a tank of gas. Those pennies will do us all more good in the long run.

More entries from this semester, some fluffier than others:
City management meets future fuels
Modified Saturn to get 80+ miles/gallon
What's Next for Texas?
The EU's Biofuels Ban: Delaying the Inevitable?

my mate Paul

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 14:02:06 GMT

If you're in Austin, think about coming out tomorrow and bringing some love (and dollars) for the excellent Paul Maybury, who's doing a signing from 4-7PM at Austin Books (5002 N. Lamar Blvd)! His new book, AQUA LEUNG, is a 230-page undersea odyssey for all ages, and it's a fantastic-looking book.

(If you can't make it to the signing, there's always Amazon...)

when I'm 50...

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 12:12:09 GMT

I hope my mojo hangs in like it has for these guys.

I've already waxed a bit poetic about R.E.M.'s new album, "Accelerate," but I just got the B-52's new CD, "Funplex," and considering it's their first new record in 16 years (and first on Astralwerks), it's pretty fucking great. Loud, crunchy, danceable as hell... and still full of Athens-harkening lines like "I'm, I'm, I'm looking for some fun/waiting for the bus from Winder to come..."

(Winder isn't far from Athens.)

this weekend... STAPLE!

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 19:23:25 GMT

Despite being caught in the riptide that is midterm season, I'm breaking away to enjoy this year's STAPLE (aka Independent Media Expo) here in Austin, sharing a table with my buds, the just-plain-awesome Paul Maybury (paulmay) and Nikki Cook (heartshapedkey).

What I'm really looking forward to — besides selling, because for some reason, I actually like that part — is kicking back at the live art show afterward. Paul's on the bill for this year's, and I'm sure Nikki'll get in on that action as well. Basically, artists attack canvas or paper with markers, paint, whatever they feel like, and the results are auctioned off to the crowd, and the DJs are usually pretty sweet.

If you're in Austin, drop on by... it's on Saturday, from 11-5 or so, and we'll be at table 65! (Click the giant stapler for event info!)

First new R.E.M. in four years: "Supernatural Superserious"

Wed, 06 Feb 2008 19:13:19 GMT

Not the strongest track they could've picked for a first single, let alone one that's the public's first exposure to them in four years after a wildly lackluster album... BUT. It's new and they sound tighter than they have in a while. From the Dublin "working rehearsals," I remember thinking this was one of the weakest songs of the lot — it's about teenagers at a seance and Stipe thought about titling it "Ghost Lover" — and it turned out pretty decently.

Here's hoping the rest of "Accelerate" lives up to the hype... "Living Well's the Best Revenge," "Accelerate," "Houston" and "Horse to Water" are the ones I'm dying to hear.

(If you have no idea what I'm babbling about, look behind the cut for the live versions.)

"Living Well"

"Houston" (there wasn't any good video of "Accelerate")

"Horse to Water"

nudge nudge

Fri, 18 Jan 2008 05:08:24 GMT

For any STYX TAXI fans out there, just a reminder that the latest story, "Federico," continues every Thursday on The Chemistry Set, art by the ever-awesome tomix. Page 9, just went live, we're almost halfway through, and things are unfolding slowly but surely...

here's page 7, which a bunch of folks on Flickr seemed to like:

In other news, classes have started back up again, and yet, I'm more in the swing of things than i was last semester. I'm still scared shitless about finding a internship, but I'm going into this new round calmer and more open to the content than I think I was last time round.

Thank all the fucking deities in the sky.

Fri, 04 Jan 2008 05:54:52 GMT

Obama won the Iowa caucus. I really was sweating this over here, which made my sweet wife laugh. I watch politics with a doggedness that most people reserve for sports or celebrity gossip... so pulling up Talking Points Memo to see that the caucus was over and Obama'd swept Iowa by 8%... well, that made my damn night.

Well done, sir. Let's keep that momentum going into New Hampshire.

Just for kicks, here's the made-up president, Thomas Womack, that Dan and I created back in 2004, when we had no idea who Barack Obama was:

(He's the guy on the monitor in the background. His first chronological appearance in the book is at a signing, which, ironically, is where we first were introduced to Obama, during a stop on his book tour in '04.)

radio silence broken

Fri, 04 Jan 2008 01:50:35 GMT

Jesus, it has been a while since I last posted.

My first semester of grad school's over and done with. The metaphor of "drinking from a fire hose" as a learning style never seemed to get old... I still get an email or two every day with a news story, a dare to call the results of the coming presidential primary season, or hints from professors of what next semester's going to bring.

Leslie was relieved to find that, after four months of classes, she still had a husband after all. We've been celebrating my survival for the last little while, chilling with peeps like paulmay and catching up on movies, tons of movies: from the surprisingly good "Sunshine" and the excellent "Juno" to a string of musicals — a term I use loosely, as that includes Jim Henson's "Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas," the old Nelvana chestnut "The Devil and Daniel Mouse" (music by John Sebastian), the meh "Sweeney Todd," and the surprisingly sweet and subtle "Once."

Unfortunately, movies, strolls around the neighborhood, and occasional ventures down to Town Lake or South Austin have been the majority of our vacation, as we both got socked by bouts of stomach flu and head colds in the week between Christmas and New Year's, which killed our ability to go out and enjoy either holiday with friends. Still, it's been a good time for reflection, as we're both at career crossroads, and we've taken turns taking care of each other, spending more quality time than either of us could have when she was working full-time and I was schooling to the tune of 12 credit hours. She's been whipping up batches of Mexican hot chocolate with 'shmallows and I've been finding movies like "Quill" to make her smile. It's a good balance.

In the world of sequentials, I have a new comic project in the early stages — for a client, for once — "Federico" is serializing slowly but surely on the ChemSet (click the link for the story to date), and more Styx Taxi, online comix and even online prose are in the making. Announcements to come in a little while. (I've been quiet on that front so I don't disappoint by not following through.)

How're you this week, LJ-peeps? Did you have a great pair of holidays? What's on your horizons for 2008?

ho ho fucking ha

Wed, 26 Dec 2007 15:13:19 GMT

Been meaning to do a catch-up post for a while now... probably later today...

But for now, I got proof yesterday that Santa doesn't love me.

My XMas Eve present that will hopefully stop giving soon? Food poisoning.

DUH.

Mon, 12 Nov 2007 04:15:33 GMT

There've been plenty of moments since I started school where I've felt enlightened, challenged, or at least pushed to learn something I don't dig on that'll help me down the line to understand something from the inside-out.

But reading about the shift of the labor market from a steadfast system where workers could depend on a long career at the same firm with benefits and a pension to the temp/consultant/casual labor economy (where no one I know has had a job longer than 5 years)... it just makes my brain scream "DUH." The guy writing this has to explain this to politicians and businessmen and academics who probably haven't had career worries like those of my generation or younger peeps.

I rode the dotcom train through 3 jobs in 3 years, because each business folded inside of 7 months. Then I temped for a year, and worked at law firms and a government agency for the following five. Could I have stayed at those jobs longer? Certainly. But Kuttner (writer of EVERYTHING FOR SALE, the book I'm reading) keeps pointing out the need for the workplace to make some effort to challenge its workers in order to get more effort and enthusiasm out of them, and I can't say the point is lost. At the law firms, it was "do the work we give you and then wait for more," and at the agency, it was, "you can learn everything as you go, and...HEY! why don't you know how to do your job yet?"

Reading about economics might make me able to state these points more cogently, but beyond analysis, it's old hat. Which is sad.

STYX TAXI: "Federico" starts...NOW!

Thu, 08 Nov 2007 13:29:34 GMT

For those who've been waiting and/or wondering, the new STYX TAXI story, "Federico" (with art by Tom Williams aka tomix), starts serializing TODAY on the Chemistry Set, and will run on Thursdays.

And while you're there, feel free to dig into the other awesome work popping up there, especially Andrew Drilon's KARE-KARE KOMIKS!

long days, longer weekend... Maker Faire!

Wed, 24 Oct 2007 15:05:48 GMT

An old friend from Athens, GA — no, not R.E.M. — dropped in this weekend from the lovely wilds of Vancouver.

Gretchen and I met when I covered for Flagpole the live staging of her radio play "Gutt Punch" at a theater on the University of Georgia's campus. It was a pretty wild show: the band providing a score was made up of the Athens music elite, people from Olivia Tremor Control, Elf Power, and others and the play was wild and abstract. I caught her afterward, we talked shop about theater, and while we hung out a good bit that summer, I only saw her in person one more time after that, when her ex-husband's band (Calvin, Don't Jump) played in Brooklyn. We bonded over theater, language, the Athens music scene and lots of coffee, but the actual chill time we had in Athens was usually an hour here or five minutes there, breaks from work or time around rehearsals... so having a long weekend to catch up, kick around an insane place like Maker Faire was unexpected and awesome.

She's been living in an island off the coast of Vancouver, making clothes, some of which incorporate soft circuitry (i.e., using solar cells or tiny batteries to power LEDs or sound-makers, conducted via wires and conductive silver/silk fabric or steel mesh), as well as writing and making pop-up books by hand.

Leslie's always been a DIYer, so she loved the idea of the Maker Faire - an expo of DIY work, from arts and crafts to green technology to crazy science stuff (like robots, handmade instruments, and even a flying car prototype) to life-sized, working catapults and a version of the game Mousetrap.

We spent the two days roaming the Travis County Expo grounds, and it was hectic. Gretchen had a booth in the Swap-o-Rama-Rama, where people could swap clothes, and then sit down at a sewing machiine or silkscreening station, and tear it up. Leslie's been wanting a sewing machine for ages, and a shop lent new machines to the Faire, and people on-site could buy the lightly-used ones at a special rate afterwards (which Leslie did).

The awesomest starter to our Faire was walking into the tech section, and hearing a familiar melody being pumped out of a handmade PVC pipe organ and set of music Tesla coils... the melody was the theme to The Legend of Zelda. Coming out of Tesla coils controlled by a laptop. Jesus.

Some of the usual suspects were there, like plug-in hybrid car builders... a guy had boosted the Prius' mileage to 100 MPG by installing an additional bank of batteries, and others had built their own electric vehicles, most of which got 30-40 miles/charge.

Other highlights: high-tech pumpkins (like the Cylon one above) with LEDs built in; insane art cars (tons of which are in the photoset above); the best pinata-maker ever; crazy steampunk-looking musical robots; some great locally-done computer casemods; and an incredibly realistic-looking animatronic pet dinosaur.

It was a great post-midterm thing to do, given how hard I was crashing. I have an ungodly amount of work to do this week, but the whole thing was inspirational all-around.

arrested development

Wed, 17 Oct 2007 03:49:28 GMT

So if you glance at my Last.fm page, you'll see I'm well-mired in the 90's.

90's alt-rock, to be exact.

Yes, I never left Atlanta and 99X circa 1995.

To be fair, I do mix it up a lot... but not right now. Studying requires the familiar: just enough for rocking out, but not so new that it requires extra attention to absorb.

The new R.E.M. stuff's nice and familiar, thankfully... I can't wait to see what Jackknife Lee + R.E.M. = with this tune ("Living Well's the Best Revenge").

I am, I am, I am Superman, and I can do anything

Tue, 16 Oct 2007 02:48:52 GMT

Belated congrats to Joe (EVERYMAN) Bucco and his wife Donna on the birth of their adorable son, Leo! (It wouldn't have been as much fun without pictures...)

(Joe's getting him started early on the family habit.)

tired, maybe got the flu, but definitely not sick

Sat, 06 Oct 2007 03:51:43 GMT

The script for "Federico," the next STYX TAXI story, is in the can. My number-one fan (aka Leslie) loved the last draft, so that's a good sign for it. With that and the story I wrote for POSTCARDS: CALIFORNIA DREAMING, it seems like I'm getting back in the groove.

Midterms are coming up, which could cramp the writing style, but who knows... maybe I'll squeak in some early-morning hours. Got a seed that's been waiting that reminds me of Styx Taxi meets "The Straight Story."

Drop me a line, all yous. It's been a while. What's new and exciting in your lives?

--Steven

fresh comics on the ChemSet

Wed, 26 Sep 2007 02:55:25 GMT

for example...

I loved Andrew's first story. Give it a look.

sweet, sweet relief: grad school begins

Fri, 24 Aug 2007 13:48:14 GMT

So that's it... I'm registered for the semester, finally. My first one here.

Anyone who's been wondering what hole I fell down into, this has been it: five weeks of "camp" and orientation, which has been sucking up loads of time. Not that grad school proper won't do that too, but at least there won't be quite so many hours per day taken up in the classroom. (We had eight hours per day the last three days, just listening to teachers explain their classes and pedagogical styles to us.)

I got a spot on the policy research project I was vying for (for better or for worse), and the only one that was climate change-oriented. It's sponsored by the Congressional Research Service, so hopefully, it'll yield a published report at the end I can point employers to. The scope of it is a bit mental: conducting data-gathering and analysis of transportation and associated policy relating to greenhouse-gas (GHG) reduction in the top 20 GHG-producing countries.

I took the scariest possible section of quantitative analysis (the one that spends more time on mathematical reasoning rather than straight-up formulas, and luckily, got the best possible section of applied microeconomics. To top it all off, I picked an elective in nonprofit strategy and entrepreneurship, which I imagine will come in handy down the road if I end up working for a nonprofit or consulting group.

I picked my classes pretty deliberately to get a lot of core classes out of the way in a timely fashion, and got myself in position to take specialty-specific sections of other core classes in the next semester or two.

It's going to be a fascinating two years, I know that, but it's going to be a metric ton or two of work.

Now I have a nice, long weekend to focus on comics, FINALLY. I can finish a certain script before certain parties kill me.

social networkery

Mon, 20 Aug 2007 16:56:57 GMT

While I'm home working on scripts (or just whenever), feel free to give me a nudge on any of the social networks to the left, especially Facebook and last.fm, both of which I'm a fairly recent joiner of.

outpacing the paces

Thu, 19 Jul 2007 01:22:30 GMT

So much has happened this past month, so little of it blogged or otherwise noted down.

The wedding went off amazingly. People are still calling us, telling us it was the most personal, the most beautiful ceremony they've been to, and the most fun they've had at a wedding in a long time. (I'm sure much of that is the kindness of friends and family, but we had a pretty fantastic time too. Both of us were just surprised by how quickly the entire thing flew by.)

Our honeymoon was a study in losing ourselves in nature and sensation. From the wind through my hair on the boat as we spotted sea lions, starfish and a grey whale, to all of our culinary encounters (B.C. sockeye salmon sushi is the tastebuds touching the divine), to waking up to look out over Seattle's Eliot Bay or the Clayquot Sound or getting lost in the bunched-up, high-rise wonder of Vancouver. It was breathtaking and over far too fast.

(I caught the whale on video, btw...)

I've been meaning to write about our experiences for the past weeks, but words don't seem to be doing them justice. I've logged anecdotes with all of the photos, so feel free to flip through.

But we're home, safe and sound, moving on now together. Lots of love to everyone who made it or who sent their love from afar.

I left my job on Friday and started "camp" today, the month-long orientation the LBJ School has whipped up for everyone, starting with logistics and an extended lecture on the various philosophies behind aspects of math. The teacher's notion is that in a field so dominated by process, it behooves us to understand the processes behind the math that proves our points.

He might have something there.

More later. In the meantime, have a little kiss from the sun, from the skies over Tofino...

R.E.M.: um, damn. foot in mouth.

Mon, 09 Jul 2007 17:11:12 GMT

SO after my snotty post about R.E.M. (while talking about Pop Songs 07), the band's managed to make me eat my own words.

The fan community for the band is pretty great about getting live shows on tape, and R.E.M. just played five nights in Dublin, what they called "working rehearsals," where they're road-testing 11 songs or so that will (probably) be on their new album. I found torrents for three of the five nights, and night 4 is what made me a believer again.

First off, the new stuff: not all of it's great, but 85% of it is fun, rocky, full of energy that was completely missing off their last album. Highlights are "Living Well's the Best Revenge," "Mr. Richards," "Man Sized Wreath," and "Horse to Water." "Living Well" in particular is fucking fierce, full of the piss and vinegar of "Monster," but with all kinds of "Document"-ish political overtones as well. If they'd released THIS album in 2004 instead of "Around the Sun," they would've sold out everywhere.

But secondly, they busted out a number of excellent old tracks ("olive branches" for the fans, they said, for sitting through their mistakes during the rehearsals) during the course of those five nights. Night 4? They hit the following:

from "Chronic Town":
- "Wolves, Lower"
- 1,000,000
- Carnival of Sorts (Boxcars)
from "Murmur":
- "West of the Fields"
from "Reckoning":
- "Harbourcoat"
- "Second Guessing"
from "Life's Rich Pageant":
- "These Days
from "Monster":
- "Circus Envy"

For night 3, they busted out a bunch of chestnuts from "Fables," too: "Feeling Gravity's Pull," "Kohoutek," "Auctioneer," and "Driver 8" (as well as "So. Central Rain" and "Little America").

Revisiting some of their oldest material seems to have reminded that they used to be a rock band, and rock they fucking did.

Well done, boys.

(If you're a fan, do a search on YouTube for "R.E.M." and "Dublin"... there's a ton of clips from these shows floating around.

post-birthday bleary

Fri, 06 Jul 2007 15:13:57 GMT

Thanks to everyone who called/wrote/posted/telepathically-sent me birthday love yesterday. It's like you all rubbed my heart with butter, as my grandfather used to say.

Leslie was very concerned about giving me a nice birthday, not understanding that my lack of decision-making wasn't due to apathy about the whole thing, but to being a little gifted/celebrated-out after the wedding. I was just having trouble with the concept of more love being showered on me. Still, my new wife can't be denied doing nice things for people.

So I reassured her — I just wanted low-key, not boring — so we had a dope dinner at this silly posh Italian market/restaurant, and then went shopping for comics at Austin Books (she picked up The Three Paradoxes by Paul Hornschemeier for herself and Moon and Ba's De: Tales and Matt Silady's The Homeless Channel for me) and delicious foodie stuff at Central Market. (I ended up grabbing a handful of Washington Gala apples, a few mango nectarines (bizarre hybrid, so I had to try them), we picked out some local (Mexia, TX) peaches, big crusty bread for bruschetta, Nancy's yogurt (organic goat's milk, with side cups of pulped fruit mixed with honey, not sugar), and I found cheeses from that producer in Seattle that I was drooling over (Beecher's; I got their Flagship and No Woman varieties).)

Mellow, indulgent, and warm. Just what I wanted.

31, baby

Thu, 05 Jul 2007 14:37:20 GMT

Leslie remains, as always, the swellest. She roused me from a deep sleep -- we were up late catching up with mah bruvva about his excellent trip to Brazil and our honeymoon -- to take me for smoky breakfast tacos for my birthday. I love this woman too many ways to explain.