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The Rant Shack
(Wherein We Rant)
Mike Says:
(10/15/06)
THE NICE GUY IS BACK!!!
Did you miss us?
Whoops. Very, very sorry about that, folks. I know we sort of fell off the face of the Earth there for a while. A lot of reasons, mostly time-related. There was all the madness of the frantic van fundraiser going on in June, which built up to my couple-plus weeks in L.A. (to get the van) and San Diego for comic-con. And then more van follow-up, coupled with an insane work schedule (you spent 16 hours at your desk recently?) and a big licensing exam I had to take that's a whole other story in itself (don't get me started). It's really been about time for me and Tim both. We just got so, so busy, and time to work on this site looked like it was going away. Actually, we were about to step into a hiatus and let you all know that, as we needed to focus what time we had on finishing the second issue (so it might actually come out one day), and I've been trying to scrape up the time to update the site and let you all know that.
But then some new and interesting things happened, which got us back on the Nice Guy again, so the site updates have returned. With any luck, we'll be back to regular updates and new comics here again, and hopefully won't be leaving you hanging again like that. And we're still working on issue #2. So again, my apologies. But we are back. So wake the kids and phone the neighbors. It is ON.
And since it's been so long since our last update, there's a LOT to talk about, so buckle up and let's get started.
THE NICE GUY NOW APPEARING MONTHLY IN "BLURRED EDGE" MAGAZINE
Man, it's weird how things happen in this business...
So we were deep in the middle of our unannounced hiatus, and I was really deep in studying and working long hours and not sleeping much. And things were so frantic I hadn't even gotten to check the Nice Guy email. For, like, a long time. And during my time of not doing this, there was an email from two sources. One came from one of our biggest and oldest Nice Guy fans (sorry, that makes her sound very tall and elderly, doesn't it?) Sarah Reed (formerly Sarah Haslett, before the big hitch). Sarah, a writer of lots of stuff including a very famous (to us, anyway) Nice Guy review early on in things, had recently joined up, along with her husband Will, with a brand new videogaming magazine called "Blurred Edge". It's a magazine that deals with just what the title suggests...how the lines between videogame world and the once-seperate entertainment world are blurring, and gaming is becoming part of our everyday lives, whether we're serious gamers or not. This magazine would be geared toward not just the hard-core gamer types, but the more casual gamers, too. Or people just looking into gaming who may have gotten into it through other entertainment ("That Doom movie was the shiznit, yo! I wanna be the Rock!"). Sarah would be writing for this magazine, doing a regular column with her husband Will from a husband-and-wife gamers' perspective. And Sarah, somewhere along the way, happened to share one of our strips--"Evolution"--with the folks at Blurred. Turns out they dug it, and it really spoke to just the kind of theme they were hitting. So they wanted to use it in their first issue.
So Sarah e-mailed me to tell me about this. Funny thing about e-mail; if you don't CHECK it, then it makes it kind of hard to READ it...
Hers was e-mail number one. E-mail number two came from Ian Reynolds, editor at Blurred Edge. I managed to cluelessly miss them both. When no response had come from me, Sarah (God bless her) finally tried to e-mail Tim, and reached him. That's how we found out about this, FINALLY. NICE start to things, don't you think? I am just the sultan of professionalism.
So, anyway, it now looks like, in addition to putting up strips here and working on issue #2 of our book, Tim and I and J'amal will be doing Nice Guy strips (mostly videogame related) monthly for Blurred Edge. Great group of guys (and gals...sorry, Sarah) there, and they've got a really awesome product. We're really excited to be a part of it. Not only will it be a blast, but will be great exposure for the Nice Guy, so win-win all around.
The first issue of Blurred Edge should be out by the end of this month. If you want to learn more about it, you can either go to the web site (which isn't QUITE open yet as I'm writing this, but the page is active) at:
http://blurrededgemagazine.com
...or you MySpace folks can check them out on their MySpace page (and even befriend them) by going to:
http://www.myspace.com/blurrededgemag
We'll have more news on this as things progress and after the mag hits this stands. But for those of you who just can't get enough of the Nice Guy (or, in the case of the past three or four months, can't get ANY...), you've got another outlet. With a couple of exceptions for reprints, you'll be getting some all-new exclusive Blurred Edge Nice Guy strips. See? Videogames and comic strips about dating woes. BLURRED! Do these guys know what they're talking about or WHAT?
THE VAN QUEST...COMPLETED (MOSTLY)
So last time there was any text in this Rant space, some of you might remember reading about my situation with trying to raise money--and quickly--for a new wheelchair-equipped van. My old one was falling apart (in a painfully literal kind of way), and fate happened to toss just the exact type of van I needed in my path. I need a particular kind of driving system, for reasons I'll spare you the details on here. And it's an expensive one. A new van of this type goes for about $90,000. The used ones don't come up that often. And when they do, they're rarely as perfect as the one I came across. Not only was it a 2001 van (my current was was an '85), not only did it only have 31,000 miles on it (as opposed to my 160,000+), but it was a BADASS looking machine with blue flames on it. It was gorgeous, and it was exactly what I needed. However, it was also going for $50,000 that I didn't have...
So I got this wacky idea to start up a fundraising web page. Had nothing to lose, I figured. Well, as it turns out, I had a LOT to gain. The fundraiser went NUTS. I couldn't keep up with it! Friends and family ran with it, and spread the page and the story around, it before I knew it I was getting donations from all over the world. Local media kicked in, and I ended up on four different TV stations here in Sacramento. It was a whirlwind, and right at a time when I was working way too many hours at work. Keeping up with work and the web page had me pulling three or four hours of sleep a night, and time was short. The van, being sold by the company that builds them down in Van Nuys (ironic, don't you think?), just outside of L.A., wasn't going to be available forever. I had just over a month to make it happen.
Me with the new wheels in L.A.
Somehow, it happened. Thanks to so many amazing people in my life, and equally amazing complete strangers with big, giant hearts, by the time the final window came around, I'd raised $25,000. By just building a WEB PAGE! But the final thing that made it all come together was my grandmother stepping in and offering to loan me the remainder. With her unbelievable generosity, I ended up down in L.A. for a week for a fitting, and drove away--heading down to San Diego for the Con--in my new van. The same one that gets me to work everyday now, FINALLY without fear of breaking down every other day. The whole experience was an emotional roller-coaster that I can't even begin to describe, and totally upped my opinion of humanity as a whole. This is world filled with wonderful people. And plenty of them stepped in when I reluctantly asked for help. And that plenty includes not a few Nice Guy fans, so to all of you who came to the rescue, thank you, again. There really aren't enough words to properly express what this has all meant to me.
And the fundraiser is still going on, actually. See, as I said, that money from Grandma was a loan, and something that needs to be paid back. It's a LOT of money, and I'm looking for any way to get her cash back to her asap. So the site's still going...and there will be a new site up, soon, too. So for more on the whole story (all the details are in the blog on that page) and what went down, you can still check it out at:
And the PayPal link's still working, JUST in case you feel like you might want to put some money back in Grandma's savings account. :)
Part of that whole initial fundraiser was whipped up by Tim and J'amal...something we talked about in the last Rant. Tim got it in his head to do eBay art commissions to raise money, and J'amal stepped up and offered to color them for zero charge. As you might have also read, eBay went and yanked the auction at the last minute (something about Tim not actually being a recognized charity) and really screwed up the works, but Tim was undaunted. He offered commissions to folks through this site, and quite a few people jumped in and took them. Which all resulted in a NICE chunk of change toward the van! If you want to check out some of the commissions Tim and J'amal did, we've got a sampling of them up on Tim's Sketchbook, so feel free to browse. Great mix of requests, from Nice Guy fan pieces to City of Heroes characters. The guys had a lot of fun working on them for folks.
And once more, my big, sloppy thanks to Tim and J'amal for giving of their time and talent (and I know they've both got plenty of the latter, but little of the former) to help make the seemingly impossible dream a reality. You guys are the greatest.
COMIC-CON 2006
Nice Guy fans waiting to meet creators O'Connell and Watts at Comic-Con. Hey, we can dream, okay?
Oh, yeah...and since last time, there was a Comic-Con in San Diego, too...
Once again, Tim and I both made it down for the biggest comic convention on Earth, the one that goes down every summer in San Diego. While we didn't have a table this year, we still needed to be there for some promotion, and some networking, and...oh, come on, it's summer in San Diego! Like we really needed another reason?
Great but frantic time this year. Like I said, I came directly from L.A. in the new wheels, and Tim flew in. We had a LOT of people (and Con) to see, and not a lot of time to do it. We made due, despite the fact that we stayed at the CRAPPIEST HOTEL KNOWN TO MAN! This what happens when you don't jump on your reservations, like, a year early for Comic-Con. But the times were still good. We got to see our friends Russ and Tony, the San Diego boys. And our friends Joel, Martin and Jeff flew in from around the country, and Ben and Kaye made the drive from L.A. Plus we got to see some of our regular creator pals like Dan "Valentine" Cooney and Chris "Tabloia" Wisnia (with a wife that was due to give birth at any moment), and hook up with our old pal Summer Hogan and our Browncoat pals Suzi and Jessica. I got to juggle some of my other San Diego people--like Rebecca and J.D.--in the mix as well. Oh, and we even randomly ran into an old friend of ours--Mike T.--they'd we'd last track of sometime in the late '80s when he disappeared into L.A. TOTAL shock, and a great surprise. Got to hit some great panels (including seeing an exclusive trailer for the upcoming film adaptation of Frank Miller's "300", which blew us away, and the jam-packed Battlestar panel that all 100,000 Con attendees seemed to be crowded into...), spend some quality time in our favorite San Diego hangouts (Dick's Last Resort, baby!), catch Serenity one last time with a crowd (it was showing in one of the Con film rooms, and we took Joel to it because he'd somehow not gotten around to seeing it), AND catch the screening of "Done the Impossible" (more on that in a minute). A full and expensive week, one that was, as always, very creatively motivating. So it was money well spent.
When Browncoats collide! Jessica, Suzi, Tim and me at the "Done the Impossible" screening
You can check out some pics from the adventure on the Photos page, which are up now.
O'CONNELL "DOES THE IMPOSSIBLE"
One of the big goals for me at this year's Con was to catch the screening of the documentary called "Done the Impossible". You may have heard me mention this film in previous rants. It's a documentary about the whole journey of Firefly becoming the big-screen Serenity, and how the fans made it happen. I mentioned it before because when I was at the Serenity premiere in Hollywood last year, I did an interview for the film. And it's taken a whole year to get the film done and out. So Comic-Con was going to be my first chance to actually see it, and see if any of my interview might have made it into the final cut.
Like, 5 TIMES, baby! Yeah! I made it into the film. As did my buddy Tony (who went to the premiere with me) and Suzi and Jessica. Awesome fun checking that out, especially getting to see it for the first time with a crowd of around 1,000 people. And it had finally made it to DVD right about that time, so not long after I got home, it was waiting for me in the mail, too.
So if you're a Browncoat yourself, or just want to learn what the heck a "Browncoat" is and hear an amazing story about how a bunch of fans wouldn't let their cancelled show die and got a movie made, you can order yourself a copy right off the Done The Impossible web site. And you can check out a Nice Guy creator rambling in it, too...even though they didn't include any of the portions of my interview where I was shamelessly plugging the Nice Guy. Ah, well. I tried...
NICE GUYS ONCE AGAIN SIGHTED AT A-1 COMICS
Tim and me doing that Nice Guy thang at A-1
Brian Peets, owner of the two A-1 Comics stores in the Sacramento area--and a Nice Guy fan--extended another invitation to us in June to appear and sign autographs, this time for the A-1 18th Anniversary celebration.
As usual, we had a great time, and were grateful for the hospitality and Brian and the friendly A-1 staff. Aside from getting to meet some nice folks, we got to hang out (seems like we can only find the time to do it at these things...) with our fellow Sac creators, like Dan Cooney and Chris Wisnia. Plus, got to meet a couple of new folks, like Matt Silady, creator of The Homeless Channel comic. Matt, by the way, is a bastard. Oh, he's a great guy, don't misunderstand...he's just a bastard because he thought of doing something that I can't BELIEVE I didn't think of doing first! The Homeless Channel is a wonderfully unique creation where Matt uses photography, initially, and then takes those photos of models into Photoshop and works some magic and turns them into comics. I shoulda though of it first!!! But Matt was the one that did...and his site has a really swell breakdown of how he creates the stuff, so I recommend you head over and check it out. And check out The Homeless Channel, too. Great stuff!
So another great A-1 appearance, and we're very much looking forward to the next one. Long as Brian keeps inviting us, we're down! If you want to check out a few pics of the event, check 'em at the Photos page.
HOLY MATRIMONY!
Just a quick shout out to one of mine and Tim's best friends (and former roommate of ours) Aaron, who this September tied the big knot with his gal Jeni up in Seattle, where I was lucky and honored enough to be present and be the best man. Great trip, and great seeing two such worthy people getting their mitts on some big happiness. Congrats, Aaron and Jen! The Nice Guys salute you! And see ya at the San Diego reception in a couple of weeks! Let's just keep Tony away from the booze this time. You know what I'm talking about...
DISTURBING INTERNET IMAGE OF THE WEEK
Behind the scenes at Comic-Con. Thankfully, no, I did not take this picture... You can go about your business...
ONWARD!
So we're back, and hopefully back with you regular again, with big things on the horizon. So stay tuned, and we'll see y'all next time.
Michael O'Connell - Writer and Websovereign
The
Nice Guy
“Pilot”
Now on Sale!
ITEM!
New strip added in the Comics! section: "Kneeeel Before Zod"
ITEM!
New update in The Rant Shack...with the news on the A-1 Comics Van Fundraiser...and the shocking Tim Watts finger news...
ITEM!
Update to the Photos page with A-1 Comics shots! Sorry, no shots of Tim's finger...
ITEM!
Always find out the latest NG News in the What's Cookin' Section
ITEM!
Look for new material on the 1st and 15th of every month!
And now available for purchase! "Serenity", the film continuation of Firefly! Order yours now!
Want to see more? How about watching the first 9 minutes of the film for free? Click below!
