Ultimate Future Shock

The absolute greatest science fiction story of all time! Will shock, horrify and amaze you! Gasp in awe at the mind-bending twists!

The Ultimate Future Shock by Al Ewing.

Enjoy.

Jeff

2004 10 30 Be my girl

This is just a rough demo, this song was written for Minervan pop star Brad Gentry. Stay tuned to www.progressions.org and he and his fellow celebrities just might show up in the Anton/Sage Mysteries...

2004 10 30 Be my girl (1 MB, 1:30)

Your eyes met mine across the room
We knew that it was meant to be
But when something told me to talk to you
Why didn’t it tell you to talk to me

That’s just one of the things that kept us apart
We both had to feel it calling from deep inside our hearts

If you’ll be my girl
If you’ll be my girl
If you’ll be my girl
We can make up for the time we spend together

Jeff

"Tools of a lesser God"

...Don't ask me. When I make an instrumental, it usually gets its title from the first thing to come to my head when I save the file.

2004 10 29 Tools of a lesser God (1.5 MB, 2:09)

Jeff

"Noodle park"

2004 10 28 Noodle park (864 KB, 1:11)

Jeff

"Tomorrow comes as a great big surprise"

2004 10 27 Tomorrow comes as a great big surprise (1.4 MB, 2:01)

There’s one thing you must realize when you open your eyes
Tomorrow comes as a great big surprise
No matter how you’ve planned it when you’ve said your goodbyes
Tomorrow comes as a great big surprise

Why’re you leaving me
Here to be lonely
I wish you would stay and not go
We could be happy
I could make you see
I wish you would stay and not go

Jeff

"Sympathetic ear"

2004 10 26 Sympathetic ear (879 KB, 1:13)

Now I just realized I’ve got a sympathetic ear
That doesn’t mean I want you here
to cuddle up next to me and whisper in my ear
That doesn’t mean I want you here

I think of all the people when I lie awake at night
Something tells me that just ain’t right
We’ve got to change the system got to put up a fight
Something tells me that just ain’t right

Jeff

"One Two Three"

2004 10 25 One Two Three (1.4 MB, 1:59)

I can’t really say what I’m thinking about because the
way that you leave me just turns me cold out and you
got a little wiggle and you got a little walk and the
way that you grab right ahold of my shock and my
awe my God when you do what you do the way you
do what you do I want to do it to you so you can
feel a little bit of what you give to me and you can
feel it up inside you when it’s setting you free to be

you to be me to be what you need I’m gonna
set it loose inside you at the count of three because
one’s for the one girl made for me I got to
thank the holy heavens now for letting me see
her two’s for the nice pair when we come together gonna
let her call me Daddy now forever and ever and
more for the four play five we’ve alive six and seven
for the licking when she’s giving me heaven and wait—

That would be eight nine ten now I
know we missed a number better count em again

Jeff

Anton/Sage Mysteries: Academy Angel (in development)

Coming early 2005

Enduring loser Henry Anton is surprised to find that Pam Sage has newly transferred to his high school, but she seems more interested in two other transfer students--beefy redhead Cargo Dallas and the enigmatic Todd Saunders. Henry suspects there's something mysterious going on. Is he right, or is he just jealous?

ACADEMY ANGEL, the first book in the Anton/Sage Mysteries, will be launching in early 2005, as a webcomic and minicomic simultaneously. It's set in the PROGRESSIONS universe, roughly ten years or so before the Henry Anton/Pam Sage stories we've already seen. It's a teen romance mystery tale.

Finished pieces:
Pam and classmate in their school swimming costumes

Sketches:
Pam and Todd in school sports uniforms
Henry and Slug, rough sketch
Pam, posing in regular uniform
Karmachand High School, setting for our story
Pam and classmate Christina

He knows people...

Finished a mock poster for "SOUL HUSTLER: The Day The Lord Got Busted". This is a script Stephen and I are working on, to be finished during the course of 2005 and turned into a comic in 2006.


We'll keep you posted on the progress of the adventures of the Preacher Jeremiah Stone, aka The Soul Hustler.

Jeff

"All those years ago"

This is a little Italian-themed number. No words, just a little dinner music. Now I feel like having some Fetuccini Alfredo from Cafe Centosette.

2004 10 24 All those years ago (1.3 MB, 1:52)

Jeff

"Best bodega in town"

The bodega on the corner right next to my apartment closed today. They were emptying out the shelves. It's weird because I've been buying there since I moved onto this block around six years ago--it never occurred to me that bodegas could close!

Still, there's three total on this block alone (two now, actually) so I can see how it can happen. I wouldn't say it really WAS the "best bodega in town", but that's how the song came out. I left out the verse on how they overcharge for 40's of Coke.

2004 10 23 Best bodega in town (800 KB, 1:06)

The streets are empty cold and bare
And sad to walk around
The people mourn the passing of the
best bodega in town

The Coke machines have been unplugged and
all the children died
The patrons bowed their empty heads and
all the flowers cried

Please come back
Please come back
Please come back
We need you deli

The Coke machines have been unplugged and
all the flowers died
Every patron bowed their head and
all the children cried

Jeff

More thoughts on "The Grudge"

The Onion A.V. Club review matched my own impressions of it pretty well.

It's like a primer for "Japanese horror" symbols and motifs--a collection of scary scenes, but not really much of a story to collect them or make you care.

The Grudge functions primarily as a fright machine, using a haunted house and a time-leaping chronological structure as an excuse to tie together a bunch of bumps and jolts. As such, it functions reasonably well, operating as kind of a greatest-hits collection of J-horror tropes. Supernatural happenings that operate like diseases? Check. Creepy ambient sounds aggressively mixed into the soundtrack? Absolutely. Ghosts manifesting themselves in modern technology? They show up on videotapes, security cameras, and cell phones. Lurching bodies? Yes. Ghostly children staring into space? Oh, most certainly.

One thing I noticed was that there was so little sense of external reality in the film that I had a hard time caring about whether any of these characters were "got" by the various ghosts that were haunting them. For example the woman in the office block, by that point in the film I had pretty much resigned myself to the idea that there's *no* safe or "real" space these characters can escape to, so I hardly saw the point of even running away from the ghosts.

I remember watching "Poltergeist 2" as a child and first realizing that I really just thought the protagonists would be better off killing themselves because they couldn't escape all this stupid junk that was happening to them. I didn't care about them as people so the "horror" wasn't horrific at all, it just seemed pointless.

The first "Poltergeist" was an excellent horror movie (mainly up until the psychic arrives and they start "solving" things) because it built slow, on a foundation of reality. There seemed to be some real life to these people, both in how we saw them at the beginning and just in the way they were written once things started to happen.

"Night of the Living Dead" is another good example--not a whole lot happens before the first zombie attack, but the entire time is filled with strong character dialogue that sets up Barbara and her brother as real people that it's possible to care for. That's especially important considering that Barbara is virtually catatonic through the rest of the film. All the characters we meet subsequently are well-written and vivid as realistic people coping with a horrific scenario. They don't just feel like stick people propped up to have something jump out at them.

Ira Levin was especially good at combining real-life horror with supernatural frights in "Rosemary's Baby" and "The Stepford Wives". In both those cases, the horror is virtually metaphorical--based directly on realistic fears and confusions about modern life, amplified into a demon baby or a neighborhood of robots.

For me, horror really works best when you care about the character, and can have some reasonable hope that they might survive their fate. There's a mild thrill to watching somebody stalked by a killer in "Friday the 13th" or by ghosts in "The Grudge", but there's such a sense of inevitability about it, without any sense of reality to make it tragic.

Romeo and Juliet's fates are inevitable too, but I care about the characters so I can't help but thinking "No Juliet, look, he's going to wake up any minute now! Don't take the poison!" I find the same thing happens in the best horror movies, I care about the characters and the story lets me hold out hope that they'll make it--even if I know the story and know in my mind that they won't.

In the worst examples, it basically boils down to "You died because you're in a horror movie. Oh well." In the best examples, it makes me sad, anxious or horrifies me to see this fate befall someone that I care about, no matter how inevitable it is.

Jeff

"DJ's lament"

2004 10 22 DJ's lament (1.6 MB, 2:20)

No lyrics again, just a little something I whipped up in ACID tonight.

Jeff

Long lazy day

KG has just posted a
Flier for the London Comic Fest tomorrow, where Commercial Suicide will be launching.

In preparation for revamping the website, I'm starting to get re-acquainted with HTML and ASP again. I'd prefer to be using PHP since it has more curly brackets and looks kinda like Pascal, but I think my web server thingy only supports ASP.

Made a simple program to automate reading comic stories--a variation on the one we use now on www.progressions.org, although this one doesn't consult a database. I had a bunch of stories on the secret page where I keep all my art-in-progress, and I wanted to make it easier to read through them.

If you like, you can read through Death-Blow of the Miracle Masters by Stephen Greenwood-Hyde and me.

Or you can pick up Plastic Farm #2, where it originally appeared as a backup story.

Went to see THE GRUDGE today and found it passably scary, although basically it's just a haunted house story. Nothing that's going to stick with me, and I didn't find it near as visceral as THE RING. Much to the dismay of Stephen and my other more purist friends, I prefer the American version of The Ring, although I really don't see the point in a sequel. The idea itself is classic and, after the first film, what more can you say?

After a snarky comment from Jeff Chon about my Lindsay Lohan/Hilary Duff/Samantha Fox entry, I had to look up "Jojo". I downloaded and watched her video for the redunantly-titled "Leave (Get Out)".

Good lord, she looks like she's about five years old playing dress-up. Also, those girls she's hanging with in the video would kick her ass.

Jojo should follow in the footsteps of classic covers such as Britney's "(Can't Get No) Satisfaction", Hilary's "My Generation" and so on, and cover "Get Back" by The Beatles. She could rework the part of the lyrics that include her name and just be so darn cute.

Jeff

KILL is LOVE

Browsing around blogs I stumbled upon NOVA FORMULA which contained this:



I like it.

Jeff

"About tomorrow"

2004 10 21 About tomorrow (1.3 MB, 1:53)

I know it’s cold outside tonight
But let me hold you tight
So that you forget
About tomorrow

The wind will blow, the rain will fall
Someone you don’t like will call
Forget
About tomorrow

Jeff

Spark-Tower Wilson four more pages!

Finished inking and coloring SPARK-TOWER WILSON pages 15 through 18. It's a fairly simple stretch but I'm pleased with how it came out.

Of the current batch, 9-18, that's two pages left to lay out and four to draw. Stephen's writing the script for these pages now and I should start lettering them tomorrow.

Jeff

Crunchy

Signed back up at Crunch this week, started yesterday.

I'll be doing the 12-week program from BODY for LIFE again, starting over. I did Body for Life once before, in 2002, so I'm expecting it will be a pretty smooth process getting back into it!

Finished two pages of SPARK-TOWER WILSON Part 3 today, as well as the lettering for pages 1-8. Going to be doing some more page roughs and at least one more page finished tomorrow during the day.

Jeff

"Beautiful"

2004 10 20 Beautiful (1.2 MB, 1:47)

Do you find me beautiful she said
What could I say when you ask me that
I said

Like a Will De Kooning or a
Basquiat then she got upset
Oh well

You’re a modern masterpiece of
Grace and charm and furiosity
When I see your face you make expressions
That are so abstract to me

Jeff

This looks like a good thing

http://www.comixpress.com/

Comics printing, for mini- and full-size comics, with no minimum order.

Mmmmmmmmmm Progressions minicomics with color covers.

Jeff

PROGRESSIONS update 10/19/2004

Had an extremely productive chat with my working partner Stephen Greenwood-Hyde tonight, and we have plenty of irons in the fire.

Work continues apace on SPARK-TOWER WILSON'S SILENT SONG Part 3. This roughly 90-page color story was originally created for the now-defunct web anthology E-volution Comics. Parts 1 and 2 are complete, and I have drawn the first eight pages or so of Part 3 and done layouts for the second eight pages. I'll be inking and coloring several of those this week.

THE DAY THE LORD GOT BUSTED, our 70's blaxploitation story of an avenging priest, has a complete plot outline now. We're crafting it as a film script first, and will be making it into a comic next, and ideally into a novel and film at some point after that.

I've been wanting to work on a screenplay for a while and I have a couple of good opportunities now. Here's the short pitch for BUSTED:

He's come back to his parish after serving ten years in prison for looking the other way. The town is run by the gangsters who framed him, and he's determined to make every last bastard pay--and take over control of the underworld for himself!

We've started discussing plans to relaunch the PROGRESSIONS minicomic, serializing THE ANTON-SAGE MYSTERIES, our high-school teen detective series starring Progressions characters Henry Anton and Pam Sage. It's something like Slam Dunk mixed with Nancy Drew mixed with Jack Hill movies.

We'll be posting it on www.progressions.org as we complete the chapters of the first volume starting next year. The website will be getting an overhaul in the next couple of months as well.

Our story DEATH-BLOW OF THE MIRACLE MASTERS was very well received when appeared as a backup in Rafer Roberts' Plastic Farm. We've got a plot for its sequel, 1001 VICIOUS BLOWS, which we'll be turning into another short story before the end of 2004. No word yet on where it will be appearing, but I'm looking forward to drawing some more kung fu.

We also have the plot outline for the first TALES OF THE EIGHT-LEGGED SAMURAI. This science-fiction/fantasy series about a race of warrior arachnoids will be broader in scope than anything we've done, but each of the individual stories will be pretty grounded and tight. Miyazaki's Nausicaa is a big influence here, as well as the alien races of Edgar Rice Burroughs and the sweeping scale of Tezuka's PHOENIX.

I have another screenplay project underway with my good friend Reed Oliver, but I need to discuss it a bit more with him before making it public and posting about it. Reed's an extremely creative guy and it's been a thrill to be working on something with him.

Jeff

"Your night of nights"

2004 10 19 Your night of nights (1.4 MB, 2:00)

No lyrics for this one, just beats and samples.

Jeff

Some Invasive Questions

Picked this up from Ciaran McNulty:

Name a CD you own that no-one on your friends list owns: Criswell Predicts by the Amazing Criswell.

Name a book you own that no-one on your friends list owns: Outlaws of the Marsh, three-volume set of the ancient Chinese classic.

Name a movie you own on DVD that no-one on your friends list owns: Hong Kong Nocturne, a Shaw Brothers musical from 1966, starring beautiful young ingenue Cheng Pei-Pei as a beautiful young ingenue in Hong Kong's glittering world of show business.

Name a place that you've visited that no-one on your friends list has visited: Stockbridge, Massachusetts, home of "Alice's Restaurant" and the Norman Rockwell Museum.

Jeff

"Fatboy Slim Isn't Good Anymore"

2004 10 18 Fatboy Slim isn't good anymore (2.4 MB, 3:18)

Fatboy Slim isn't good anymore
Where did he go?
Where did he go?

Fatboy Slim isn't good anymore
Where did he go?
Where did he go?

Right about now
The funk soul brother
Right about now
The funk soul brother
Right about now
The funk soul brother

Jeff

"The Superfantastic Magic Man"

2004 10 17 The Superfantastic Magic Man (1.5 MB, 2:10)

It’s a sensation
I’m here to give you the word
Around the nation
Or have you already heard

About the Superfantastic Magic Man and his Electrical Flying Band
They’re bringing the get down to your town as they travel across this land
And start to play

Jeff

A meeting of the Teamster's Union

Perhaps I'm slow but I just now realized that, in "Annie Hall", when Woody Allen tells Diane Keaton that since she's late to their movie date he's been with "the cast of the Godfather"... that she herself was actually part of that cast.

"Rainy day song"

2004 10 16 Rainy day song (653 KB, 0:54)

I’m here to relax and bide my time
Nothing to do
I think I’ll sit and watch the rain fall down

It’s a simple poetry of thoughts around me now
Nothing to say
I think I’ll listen to the tune flow now

This is a rainy day song
Because I’ve got a lot of things to
Do when the sun comes out,
Things to say to you so we can work it out now

I hope the rain lasts all day long
‘cause I don’t know what to
do when the sun comes out,
‘cause I know that we’re through if we don’t work it out now

Jeff

"Hardly think about her"

2004 10 15 Hardly think about her (1 MB, 1:30)

I see
Your smile
I’m not supposed to be thinking about you
It’s been
A while
(You’d say) I’m not supposed to be drinking without you

You know
I need you
So howcome you’re not here with me
I know
I promised
That I would keep these thoughts to myself

She’s so sweet that I can hardly think about her
So I wrote her this song
She’s so sweet that I can hardly think about her
‘cept I do it all day long

Jeff

The world needs more vomiting superheroes

Just finished drawing the 8-page "Der Zusammengesetze Ubermensch", written by Ryan Richards, for COMMERCIAL SUICIDE.

It's somehow ironic that in roughly fifteen years of drawing comics in one form or another it's the very probably longest superhero story I've ever done.

Also interesting, although not ironic at all, is that it very certainly contains the most vomiting superheroes I've ever done.

For some reason you just don't see guys in capes blowing chunks that much. Ryan's script just cracked me up and I kept drawing the panels in my head as I read it, so it was a joy to work on.

COMMERCIAL SUICIDE is edited by the very talented Kieron Gillen and Alex De Campi, and I believe it will be premiering in a couple of weeks in London, and will be available on the web as well.

Public Enemy

"For all you suckers, liars, your cheap amplifiers
Your crossed up wires are always starting fires
For you grown up criers, now here's a pair of pliers
Get a job like your mother, I heard she fixes old dryers"

--Public Enemy, "Public Enemy No. 1"

"Things to say when you meet your girlfriend's family"

2004 10 14 Things to say when you meet your girldfriend's family.mp3 (841 KB, 1:10)

Whoa yeah

Jeff

"Close my eyes"

I was working on an electric guitar part for this one, but I'll need to replace some cables before I can do that.

2004 10 13 Close my eyes (521 KB, 0:43)

Hey!

Why does it hurt to close my eyes
What are the things I see
Why does it hurt to think about the
Things you do to me


Why does it keep you locked inside
Don't you want to be free
What are the things you think about
When you think about me

Dean Yeagle's "Mandy"

Dean Yeagle is one of my favorite artists at the moment, mainly because of Mandy Dancercizes at the Drawing Board forum.



Fun stuff.

Jeff

Hot and cold running rooms

For some odd reason, 10:30am is not a good time to take a shower in my building. I'm beginning to suspect all the people who took theirs in the previous several hours might have used some of the hot water.

Curioser and curioser. Anyway there's not any now.

Reason number seventy-million why I need a new apartment.

Actually in a couple of hours I'll be looking at one on Mott and Houston. There was nobody there when I went by last week on Thursday, but one of the residents assured me that somebody shows the place on Wednesdays.

He also assured me that the reason this apartment in prime downtown Manhattan has been on the market for three months is because it's tiny and cramped and tucked right next to the noisy Rialto restaurant.

I'll be having a look at that place, but I'm more interested in the room upstairs, 1D. The same helpful tenant told me that room has been under construction for a year or so, but if they get it cleaned up it would be a perfect little spot. Bathroom, bedroom, study, kitchen area. Amazing view of tree-lined Mott Street just south of Houston through its two rather generously-sized windows. The view from the roof was even more inspiring.

I'm not in any position to actually sign for a new apartment right now, but this is all part of making that happen.

Jeff

Duff?

Good lord, I can't get Hilary Duff's "Fly" out of my head.

I was downloading videos and I picked up "Fly", and "Rumors" by Lindsay Lohan and then, because for some reason it was there--"Touch me" by Samantha Fox.

Samantha Fox was a minor sex symbol in the 80's, famous for her extraordinary bosom. But in the video (technically "Touch me (I want to feel your body)" she's almost completely covered, wearing a trendy jacket, and hardly sexy at all. Not that she actually was, but she seemed to be when I was thirteen or fourteen.

Lindsay Lohan, on the other hand, who it seems like last week was a cute freckled kid, displays more cleavage in any single shot from "Rumors" than Page Three girl Sam Fox did in her entire video. The song itself is a pretty generic rip of Christina Aguilera-style "soul"/"R&B". Every single element of the song and the video was meticulously constructed by computer and sent to us through time travel from about five years ago. Hasn't stopped me from watching it about five times today, though.

Duff's video is pretty dull, nothing interesting to speak of, but the song itself grabs me pretty well. Catchy and epic in the right places for a big-budget pop song. Not perfect, by any means, but sugary sweet, sticky enough to stay with me after only a couple of listens.

Jeff

Around me now

2004 10 12 Around me now (1.2 MB, 2:07)

I thought I threw you away already but you’re
Back at my door
You want to come in and play now baby but I
Don’t need you anymore

When I woke up beside you baby now I
Couldn’t think anymore
If you can tell me just one thing baby then I
Won’t hurt you anymore

Why should I keep you around me now
I know we had our fun but now it’s done
If I should let you stay around me now
You’d need to learn to breathe again you’d need to learn to feel again
You’d need to learn to live your life without you

Jeff

Toothpick Joe Has Killed Again

2004 10 11 Toothpick Joe Has Killed Again (1.2 MB, 1:45)

Pyramids of Mars

2004 10 10 Pyramids of Mars (1.2 MB, 1:46)

I couldn’t find you
No matter how hard I tried
I couldn’t change your mind
No matter how hard I cried

And so I waited far too long
Before I realized you’re gone
I lost you to the Pyramids of Mars

The red sky shone down
It cast a light on your face
You seemed at home here
You seemed at peace in this place

And so I waited for the stars
That once I tried to see as ours
I lost you to the Pyramids of Mars

Jeff

Violent years

2004 10 09 Violent years (885 KB, 1:15)

I’ve got a need for certain promises that
You’ve got to make to me
I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes
If you’re not straight with me
Because I’ve got a sinister urge and
It lives between my ears

These are the violent years

I’ve seen the way you’re looking at me
You’ve got to pray for me
I wouldn’t want to be in my shoes
If you’re away from me
Because I’ve got a sinister urge
Every time that you’re near

These are the violent years

Jeff

Grudge against you

2004 10 08 Grudge against you (669 KB, 0:56)

She’s got a grudge against you
You know that it’s true
She’s got a grudge against you
No matter what you do

She’s got a grudge against your Mama and your sister too
She’s got a crush on you, a crush on you
A grudge against your Mama and your sister too
She’s got a grudge against you

Jeff

Spoonfed

2004 10 07 Spoonfed (830 KB, 1:10)

You say
You’d talk to me but you’re too shy now
You say
You’d like to leave but you’re too high now
You say
Whatever comes into your precious mind
Wasting all my precious time

Spoon fed
There’s nothing here that really matters
Spoon fed
You don’t think you could get much fatter
Soon dead
With nothing left behind but precious lines
Why were we wasting all the precious times

Jeff

A new day, a new song

Here's something fun. I'm writing and recording a new song each day. Nothing complicated, just simple 4-track style recordings and spontaneous compositions.

I've done it in the past and it's a lot of fun. I decided that now I'll be publishing them each day on the web.

I'll include the lyrics to each song as I post them.

Jeff