MAKING HERMAN
Latest entry: Entry 32,
Friday August 12, 2005
Entry 7. By David,
Friday, January 24, 2003
Not much done in the last few weeks. I'm within
a hundred or so storyboards of finishing them, but I've been
working more on the next comic lately, in the hopes of having
it done in time for the Make It Up zine fair on Saturday.
Since I still have a few more pages to pencil and ink, we
can safely assume I'll be relying on old rope once again.
"Pathetic," the comics people will sneer, "we
saw that stuff over a year ago! Where's your new work?"
Well,
here's some. >>
Here's
more. >>
And here's
one of my favourite pages. >>
I also blame Ben Arber for my lack of industry.
Having just come back from stumbling around the world for
a year, our "posse" has been busy swimming in his
pool and showing him all the new Starbucks which have popped
up in Melbourne since he's been gone. There's been lots of
time to go out and screw around since we're mostly unemployed.
Heading off to Sydney on Australia Day for the road trip we've
been talking about for a long time. More time away from work!
Entry 8. By David,
Sunday, February 2, 2003
Back yesterday from my trip to Sydney. It was
not exactly financially beneficial, as you will discover,
but may pay dividends later on. It was fraught with excitement,
adventure, sun, surf, whores, pimps, alcohol and bad food.
And I almost became "MELBOURNE MAN DIES IN M5 CAR CRASH".
Before we left, there was the MAKE IT UP zine
fair to attend, as exhibitors. On that Saturday, apparently
the second-hottest Melbourne day on record, Ben
and I sat at our table in the Lower Melbourne Town Hall, me
trying to sell copies of NAKEDFELLA COMICS and HERMAN t-shirts,
Ben trying to sell copies of the all-new comic series we had
come up with right there on the spot, FISH & DOG. We made
nine issues over the course of the day, each of which we sold
for 10 cents. They all went, and we netted a profit of 60
cents (I realise the maths don't work out, but there were
swaps going on as well).
The usual suspects were there: a roomful of
zinemakers, faces I recognise but can't put names to, J-F
who does PLAN
DEMENTURE WRESTLING GHOUL zine, lovely Nicola,
Tim Danko, Jo Waite (whose "Gumby & Child" greeting
cards are excellent) and more. Late in the day, Australian
comics phenom Christian
Read (THE WATCH, STAR WARS TALES) showed up, a
little wobbly, his first trip to Melbourne, 44 degrees outside.
Later on we went for a drink with him, plus Darren
Close (KILLEROO) and another dude whose name I
have of course forgotten, which is something I do as soon
as I turn my head away from anybody -- unfailingly -- unless
the person hands me a comic or something with their name on
it. Then we made our way to the monthly Melbourne Comics People
Gettin' Together For Groovy Times night, which is held on
the last Saturday of every month at the Melbourne Bar &
Bistro (Bourke St Mall, down the stairs, next to the Red Rooster).
Sketchbooks and art folders compulsory.
Next day I packed my bags with underwear, t-shirts,
no bathers, CDs and comics, then headed over to Ben's for
swimming and rousing rounds of HATBALL, the game with the
ball that looks like a
Ben and I did the ten hour drive overnight.
With us in the car were our schoolmate Joel (the car's owner),
Dina, who's in their uni course, and her friend Sam. The ride
was mostly relaxed, although the bushfire smoke was pretty
nasty on the eyes for a few hours.
We were dropped at King's Cross, famed the world
over for its decadence, sleaze and debauchery. In reality,
it's a couple hundred metres of hostels, internet cafes and
non-internet cafes. And some sex shops, sex shows and prostitutes.
And maybe some drugs, although I wasn't offered any. Apparently
I look like a narc.
Ben caught up with his friend Jo, and I walked
the streets of Sydney, checking stuff out randomly. Many things
were closed, unfortunately, since it was the Monday after
Australia Day, and as we all know, if a public holiday falls
on a weekend in Australia, everybody takes the Monday off
as well. We roomed for the next two nights in the Cooee backpackers
lodge (hostel) on Darlinghurst St, Kings Cross, located conveniently
between the train station and a hooker. Our bunkmate was James,
from Chester, England.
I tried to meet up with two people I know in
Sydney. One is Wade, from the AIM
course at RMIT. We arranged to meet up the day after I spoke
with him, but when I tried to contact him after that I got
smeg-all. Since Wade's the kind of guy who goes out, gets
smashed, and falls asleep on a train seat as the train goes
back and forth along the Alamein line until the next morning
when he's woken by the suits going to work, I didn't take
it personally. I called Christian, but he indicated that he
was still in Melbourne, and sounded preoccupied. Never mind.
I took some of my comics round to a couple of stores in Sydney,
and as a result NAKEDFELLA COMICS is now stocked at Kings
Comics and Comics Kingdom, both in Sydney's CBD.
Whee! Then we checked out Circular Quay and The Rocks, both
of which are pretty and expensive. Ben paid through the nose
for German beer. Schtinken fotse!
Ben and I headed to Gore Hill, home of Australia's
favourite government-funded TV network, ABC.
There we met with a nice fella from FLY,
Josh, an animator and an ex-Melbournian to boot, in the hopes
that maybe FLY will be able to help with some of the technical
aspects of HERMAN ("Can we use the ABC's recording studios
to do some of the music?"). Sending Josh a formalised
begging letter is now my highest priority (well... after writing
this). And we saw Thomas The Tank Engine! He was just sitting
there in the ABC compound, smiling! He had a license plate
that read, "TTTE-1"! EXCELLENT!
From there we took a bus to Manly, where we
relaxed for the next couple days, surfing, bodyboarding, reading,
eating tzatziki. Our bunkmate was Fran, from Chester, England.
We convinced Fran and her friend Chris (who introduced us
to the magic of PEGAZUS, a metal band from OUR TOWN) to hop
in Chris' Land Cruiser and drive with us back to Melbourne.
Alcohol helped them say yes. At the last moment, their friend
Emma decided to join us, a bad decision on her part.
10pm the next evening, we sped along the highway
to Melbourne. We were 70 kms out of Sydney, doing 110 kph,
when there was a loud bang. Metal squealed, and we went into
a spin, spraying sparks. I had time to wonder if this part
of highway has concrete dividers, and whether we would hit
them, before Chris brought the vehicle to a stop. Everybody
was OK, and we hopped out to check the damage. The back right
tyre had somehow torn off the car, nuts and all. The back
left tyre had also blown out, presumably in response to the
extra pressure. Some kindly motorists helped us push the car
out of the right lane, where it had been blocking traffic
for a while. Chris called the RAC, who sent a tow truck some
time later. The ambos appeared, saw we were fine, chatted
a little with each other, then left. The cops arrived, looked
at the wheel, went "cor blimey", then left. The
female cop was cute. Rogue tow truck drivers arrived, attempted
to talk Chris into employing their services, made a couple
of racial slurs, then left.
Eventually we wound up in the nearest town,
Campbelltown, with little money and minor assistance from
the RAC. I won't bother elaborating on how we wandered the
streets for the next couple of hours, but I will say that
any visitors to Campbelltown should avoid the MACLIN LODGE
MOTEL and the COLONIAL MOTOR INN on moral grounds.
Around 3am, it occurred to me that Ben and I
had tickets to the last ever comedy show at the Prince Patrick
Hotel (a Melbourne venue with a long history of breeding excellent
comedians) before the place gets bulldozed. The show was sixteen
hours away, and there was no indication to my mind that the
car would be fixed in the next day or so. There was no way
I could miss this show, but the only way to get back in time
would be by plane...
I discovered from a train station guard that
an hourly Night Rider bus goes through Campbelltown. If I
took this bus back to Sydney, I could make my way to the airport
and hopefully get a ticket back to Melbourne. I put this to
Ben, but he decided to stay with the others. I regretted leaving,
but it's the fucking PAT! It's CLOSING! I booked the tickets
weeks ago! I HAD TO DO IT! FOR DAVE TARANTO! FOR JANET McLEOD!
FOR THE CLIPBOARD! FOR THE SPRINGY THING THAT MAKES THE SPROINGY
NOISE! FOR COMEDY! FOR CHRIS AND JOHN (even though John wouldn't
let punters have free water)! My resolve was steely and my
face was unshaven.
At the bus stop, we met Brennan, who had fallen
asleep on the train in Sydney and ended up a long way from
home. I hopped the bus when it arrived, along with Brennan,
and also Emma, who decided that Melbourne was not worth it
and wanted to go back to Manly.
By 5am we had parted ways in Sydney and I was
schlepping my bags through the streets. By this time I was
out of my fucking skull with lack of sleep and my mysterious,
long-standing dizziness, about which I will not elaborate
here. One cab later I was at the domestic terminal, where
I blew too much money on a one-way ticket home.
I was home by 9am Saturday morning. I slept
six hours in the afternoon, then went to the Pat with Adam,
Pemberton,
Jake
and Jake's sister.
Yes, the show was worth it.
Man, that was a long six days.
Now back to storyboards.
Entry 9. By David,
Monday, February 17, 2003
I promised Jeremy last week that I would have
the storyboards done by this Thursday, but I in fact drew
the final storyboard frame (#610, "THE END") last
Friday, six days ahead of schedule. True, my original schedule
called for last Friday to happen six weeks ago, but I'm only
one man, as far as I know. I slept and watched TV over the
weekend.
Next up: record a rough dialogue track, get
these storyboards into the computer, then slap them together
with some temp music for the animatic. If you want to know
more about what an animatic is, try the Star Wars website.
They've got a nice
little feature on how they developed the animatic
for Episode I. Typically, for George Lucas, Inc., the article
is quick to point out how fantastic their cutting-edge technology
is, and how silly and antiquated earlier methods are. The
unintended lesson here is, I think, that cutting-edge technology
is nothing in the face of a stiff script and an annoying eight-year-old
lead actor.
Must find good actors.
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