EXLACTUS!!!

I can't believe I never mentioned this! I've talked about William Blankenship on this blog before. He's a talented, sometimes twisted (but loveable!), artist I've had the pleasure of working with on a story featuring the Warmageddon character Mik'l. He also has his own website, Bohemian Zen, where he blogs about whatever strikes his fancy and posts up amazing quantities of art, along with some great webcomics. Some time ago I asked him to do a commission of Marvel Comics' heroic Black Knight and he produced the stunning piece of artwork you're seeing below.




After he knocked that one out of the park, I contacted him again regarding something that had been giving me a lot of trouble. A title image for my blog--Exlactus! As you can see by lifting your eyes ever so slightly and looking, Mr. Blankenship did an incredible job with it. And to be perfectly honest, he went far beyond what I'd originally asked for. All I'd figured on was a "Galactus-type" character sitting at a desk typing on a laptop, perhaps with a small planet sitting on the desk with a bite taken out of it like an apple. Bill took those thoughts and ran a cross country marathon with them. The background is stunning, the idea of sitting on the Earth is inspired, and the idea to plug the laptop into the sun is sheer brilliance. He even had the common courtesy to keep my idea of the small planet as snack. He also created the logo, and coined the phrase "Devourer of Words". It was all him, and I'll probably never be able to thank him properly for all of it. I feel like a true heel for waiting this long to say it publicly, but...

Thank you, Bill.

Blargh

Uh, yep. So it's been quite some time since I've posted anything at all on this thing. It's not that I haven't been doing things, it's just that I've been too lazy to say anything about the things I've been doing. Got that? Okay, let us proceed.

My birthday just passed on Thursday. I am now 32. I fully expected to be a successful comics-type creator by this time, or maybe just a successful writer, or something in the general vicinity of writerly professional. But yeah, that hasn't happened. It could be because I use made up words like "writerly", but who really knows? I'm not saying this as a lead-in to giving up, mind you. There will be no quitting! Unless you count all the times I've quit posting on blogs like this one. Because I do that a lot. So if you count that, then yes, I'm a quitter. But still!

Where was I going with that? I don't really know. Basically, I'm still working on stuff. I'm doing some short scripts for a gentleman named J'amal Walton featuring a barbarian elf named Mik'l over at Warmageddon. The stories are based loosely upon the famed Labours of Hercules. I just spelled labors with a u because it seems more "Old English" to me, by the way. What do you think? Yay or nay? See... I did it again. With the yaying and the naying. Anyway, I've finished scripting the first two stories featuring Mik'l and I'm fairly proud of them. The first is a bit of a debut for the character and doesn't really have anything to do with labors of any kind. It just showcases Mik'l and gives you an idea of the kind of guy he is and the trouble he'll be getting into. The second story is loosely based on the labor of the Nemean Lion. Mik'l clashes with a beast and walks away from the story with an article of clothing. It's good times. The debut story is finished completely with art by the remarkable William Blankenship and is available for consumption on the Warmageddon website I linked up above. Bill is a cool guy, even if his logo looks a lot like the one CBS uses. Check his stuff out and pay him to make the arts for you. The second Mik'l story has to debut at some point, so keep your eyes peeled for that. I'm working on scripting the third one and hope to have that done in the not-so-distant future.

I'm tired of writing about what I'm doing for now, so I'm signing off. I'll write more soon though, so if you're interested in that sort of thing you'll be happy to know more of it's a'comin'.