A chance meeting thanks to comics and booze.

First, I promise I haven’t forgotten my poor, overgrown, rust ridden blog. I’ve neglected it because lately I’ve been working on my stand-up. Since I’ve recently been neglecting that, I have a new blog post. Surprise, surprise. I need to find a way to multi-task so that I can work on both becoming a great writer and hilarious stand-up comic at the same time. I’ve got it! I’ll become an alcoholic. Done and done.

While perusing comics, and then later beers, I ran into a very cool indie comic auteur named Chandra Free. She told me about her work and regaled me with an amusing anecdote where she hijacked Zachary Quinto's comic panel at a convention. After she piqued my interest I later went to her website, the one I have linked here, and have to say I am impressed.

Along with a fairly stunning gallery of her works (specific nerd props for the Venture Bros section and the chibi, whiskey swilling Iron-Man), she has posted an 8-page preview of her soon (hopefully) to be published opus The God Machine on her website. The story revolves around a boy named Guy Salvatore, whose name conjures images of trench coats and "good cities gone bad." He is not however a film noir style detective (at least not yet), instead he is a teen who is depressed over the loss of his girlfriend Sith, which I assume is her name and not an indication of which side of the Force she chose. Coinciding with his loss and depression he's been witnessing an increasing number of reality-challenging oddities. Either this means his depression is presenting with psychotic features or something else is going down. Whether it's psychosis or an ethereal realm reaching out to make a connection, Guy is along for the ride whether he likes it or not. I could tell you more about the plot, but you should really just check it out for yourselves.

From what I can tell, TGM is fairly reminiscent in style and tone of seminal goth comics author (though he would likely balk at that description) Jhonen Vasquez, what with its lithe, angular main character and sardonic surrealist trappings. These trappings include a maniacal goth-children's show puppet urging the audience to commit suicide and tiny stream of consciousness 4th wall breaking asides like a dropped tooth brush exclaiming, "I'm free! =)"

That being said I can tell, mostly because Chandra told me, that there is a lot more story going on in TGM than this initial offering displays. Much like if you were to take a sumptuous banquet with myriad foreign delights, hide it behind a curtain, and then tempt a potential dinner guest with a tiny shrimp cocktail. Certainly the joys of consuming shrimp are familiar, if perhaps infrequent, so partaking is a reassurance. Appetite whet, one might begin to wonder what that delicious aroma coming from behind the curtain might be. Apologies to my friends who keep Vedge. Depending on how TGM turns out, which I hope will be well, it its possible that one day we might be referring to Jhonen Vasquez as a proto-Chandra Free.

I highly encourage taking some time and visiting Chandra’s site and preordering The God Machine preview. Even if the goth-style thing isn’t your bag, what’s the worst that could happen? You could support a talented and very nice person? You might discover the super sexy world of indie comics? You could possibly enjoy something in your life? Heaven forbid you should ever do that! We all know that enjoying anything is a sin and you should be ashamed for even entertaining the notion. Sinner.

In other news, I am working on a new short story for the ole’ Textbasedadvent here. It’s a comedic/political satire/horror story set in a not to distant future. I’m pretty excited about it so I’ll give everyone a quick preview:

“The...”

Riveting, no?