I spent the last couple of days hanging out with Dean, being relatively unproductive while I watched him being relatively productive. It's been fun to sort of watch the coloring process unfold in between glances at the TV for No Heroics (Great!) and Punisher: War Zone (Abysmal!). He and I are getting pretty close and it's awesome. It's nice to have a friend that is on the same wavelength as me creatively, but it's also nice to have someone new in my life that I can really trust. People like that don't come along too often and I'm thankful for it when they do.

As far as advances in the quest for comic stardom are concerned, I've been doing research on my Wendigo project. I'm a big fan of the Western genre in both print and screen so being able to do research for my own piece of that mythological tapestry is really rewarding. I tell you, research is a lot of fun when it's not for a fifteen page term paper. Most of my research recently has been on Native Americans and their interaction with settlers and lawmen in the Old West. Like most Americans I was well aware of how we'd treated the native people of this land, but I was shocked at the sheer tenacity and maliciousness of it. Duplicity on a grand scale, as we crawfished on nearly every deal we made with them. Pretty despicable stuff.

Anyway, research for that project is coming along nicely and I honestly think I'll be to a point where I can begin the roughs for the first script soon. At this point I'm just finding ways to flesh out the environment and the characters. Once that's done, I'll be ready to start on the scripting process. I'm excited!

So this week I only picked up a few new books. I grabbed that new Seaguy number one by Grant Morrison and Cameron Stewart. You really can't ask for a better team on a book. Morrison has become my favorite writer working in the medium and Cam Stewart is just phenomenal. His work on Brubaker's Catwoman is some of the best comic art I've ever seen. I'm going to wait to read this newest Seaguy though as I haven't read the original series. Being that I'm a completist, I'd like to read the other first.

I also picked up Flash: Rebirth which was good but not great. Ethan Van Sciver's art has never really knocked me over. Dean put it well when he commented on how Van Sciver tends to make the scenes meant to depict superspeed seem so damned static. Also, vomiting lightning is not awesome. I'll stick with it, because it's Geoff Johns writing Barry Allen, but I wasn't blown away by the first issue.

I was however blown away by Mark Waid's Irredeemable. It's the new superhero series from Waid and BOOM! Studios. Advanced reviews of the story were very favorable and I can see why. In one single issue Waid manages to build a rich world full of intriguing characters while filling you with absolute fear and dread at the thought of a superman gone mad. Really excellent stuff (as usual) from Mark Waid. There's a really great afterword by Grant Morrison in the back. It's definitely worth a look for anyone who loves Morrison or Waid.

That's about it for today. I'm off to read some more comics. Take care!