News - December Thru 2005 Archives

News - December 2005

Big Head Press (www.bigheadpress.com) will publish the Hook, first as an online comic.  Stay tuned.  All six of you.  And if each of you tell six others, each of them tell six others, in no time at all we will have millions of visitors! 

             Pete and I went hiking in early November.  Pete said, “Don’t worry, the trail’s three miles in and as flat as Lambeau Field.”  We arrived at Round Mountain, directly opposite Vicenze/Smith Mountain Park in Loveland.  The sign said 4.75 miles to summit, 2700 feet of elevation.  “You asshole!” I yelled, but Pete had already bounded off like a mountain goat and was out of hearing.  Two miles up the trail I came to the rear end of a large horse staring at its mistress.  A slight woman in jodhpurs, helmet and boots was trying to convince the horse to proceed up what appeared to be a crack in the cliff face.  “Smack that horse in the fanny,” she told me.  I smacked and smacked.  The horse paid me no heed.  There was another horse with another small woman similarly bedecked in front of her.

             “Well I don’t think this horse wants to go any further,” the first woman said.  I wished her luck and made my way around them.  A mile further on, the trail wound through bizarre sandstone formations and slot canyons.  The sun shone brightly and it was a beautiful day, finally free of the sound of traffic.  There is no silence like the silence of the mountains. 

             We followed a clockwise spiral to the summit.  As the spiral brought me around to the west the skies darkened and flurries began to fall.  Ten minutes later I was in the middle of a full-fledged snow storm.  When we reached the summit, we could hardly see fifty feet.  Colorado.  Love it or leave it. 

Mike Norton is back on Night Club.  Here's a page from issue #3. 

Mark Stegbauer, not Mel Rubi, is responsible for the inks on Mel’s pages in Detonator 4.  I erred in not listing him.  Readers will have ample opportunity to sample Mark’s talents as he will be inking The Hook, drawn by Gabe Eltaeb, published by Big Head Press.

News - September 2005

DOGS

 

             Our parents were real men.  They had kids.  We’re kids.  We have dogs.  Until I moved to Fort Collins, I thought Miami Beach was the dog capital of the world.  The dogs of Miami Beach are pampered purebreds with diamond collars, trailing or preceding the rock-hard buns of their roller-blading owners down Collins Avenue.  They are fashion accessories.  There are so many of them that should they ever rise up, it would be like Charlton Heston versus the ants in The Naked Jungle.  The bon vivants, French models, and senior citizens of Miami Beach would shriek and froth like mule deer tossed into a piranha pool.  There would be nothing left but bleached bones as far as Coral Gables.

             But, being dogs, they won’t do that.

             Here on the Front Range people have real dogs.  Proud mongrels and large breeds ride in the back of four-by-fours that have been jacked up to the height of ocean liners.  It’s not unusual to see Ford Expeditions sporting three or more canine muzzles, like cannon on a corvette.  Most downtown restaurants feature dog amenities: water and treat bowls set by the sidewalk.  Most houses on my block have a dog, sometimes several. 

Bob and Lucy

News - November 2005

Big Head Press has acquired publishing rights to Mike Baron and Andie Tong’s graphic novel The Architect, a horror story inspired by the life of Frank Lloyd Wright.  Tong (www.deemonproductions.com) began the project when he was a resident of Perth, Australia.  He currently resides in London where he works for Marvel UK.

             Baron, a longtime Wisconsin resident and Frank Lloyd Wright buff, drew inspiration from a tragic episode.  “In August, 1914, Mamah (Wright’s mistress,) her two children, and four others were brutally murdered at Taliesen by a deranged servant who barricaded them in the dining room and set the building on fire.  Those who managed to escape the flames he killed with an ax as they ran from the burning building.”   --Frank Lloyd Wright & the Prairie School in Wisconsin, Kristin Visser, Prairie Oak Press.  The details can be found in any Wright biography.

             Roark Dexter Smith, the title character, is a beguiler, womanizer, bon vivant, amateur mycologist and expert violinist in addition to being a world-class designer.  Oh, and Mr. Smith has another hobby, one he doesn’t want you to know about.

             Baron’s tale weaves greed, lust, murder and magic into a tapestry that proves the perfect vehicle for Tong’s clean, Eastern-influenced style.

News - October 2005

I have been remiss in updating my three loyal correspondents.  In August I drove to Hot Springs, South Dakota at the beginning of Bike Week, to visit Doc and Willie.  I grew up with Doc in Mitchell, SD.  Willie dated my older sister, Ellen.  Willie now lives on five acres outside town with a view of the southern Hills.  Deer, elk, muskrat, turkey, coyote, fox and wolf are visible from the roof of his pink double-wide.  There were bikes all over the hills, and it was as close as I cared to get to Sturgis.

             I began a new comic book project which I am not at liberty to discuss, but the artist is sensational.  More as we approach publication.  Karim Whalen and I have also begun a new project, an original superhero-type book that is unlike anything you’ve ever read before.  The first issue should provoke a stir.  It’s called Slug Eye.

             Over Labor Day Thunder Mountain Harley Davidson sponsored Thunder in the Rockies, the first of what they hope will become an annual tradition.  Doc rode down on his modified Road King with ridiculous ape hangers.  The biker rally was low key and friendly, far removed from the frantic press of flesh and chrome that is Sturgis.  On Sunday we rode up to Estes Park.  Highway 34, which shoots plum-line straight across Eastern Colorado and is one boring road, turns into the most spectacular drive in the world west of Loveland.  It winds through Big Thompson Canyon which must be seen to be believed.  Sheer granite walls close in on either side leaving just enough room for the road and the rushing Big Thompson River.  And I mean Just Enough.  It’s like driving through the whorls of a fingerprint.  It opens up past the canyon into the Roosevelt National Forest with log cabins clinging to the slopes.  I have my favorites, like the blue stucco castle on the south side of the canyon just past the narrows.  Who wouldn’t want to live here?  One problem: you’re out of sun at four p.m.           

We took the turn-off to Glen Haven, an ancient hippie redoubt at eight thousand feet.  The road wound through exquisite valleys, past neat ranches and fabulous homes, past trailers perched on their patches of paradise.  Some nimrod in a GMC Yukon tore around the curve doing approximately sixty in a thirty-five mile zone and narrowly avoided clipping me.  I would have enjoyed speaking with the gentleman, but I have a rule about road rage, so I let it pass.

             The road takes a series of switchbacks before peaking with a spectacular view of the Rockies just north of Estes.  We wound into town past the Stanley, the famous hotel that served as inspiration for Stephen King’s The Shining.  They now have a Stephen King wing.  In fact, the six hour television version of The Shining, which compares favorably to the Kubrick version, was filmed there.  I have dined at the Stanley and enjoyed its spectacular views.

             Estes Park was bumper to bumper with tourists and bikers, often the same parties.  We walked around Lake Estes.  A herd of elk descended through the parking lot, among thrilled tourists, and one by one entered the lake.  Their destination: the golf course.  As Doc and I returned, the elk had taken over the course and many pissed-off golfers were standing about contemplating mayhem with their mashees and niblicks.  But that twelve point bull gave them pause.

             Sunday night, Doc, Jeremy and I attended the Cheap Trick concert at the Bud Center, where the rally was taking place.  Jeremy, who works at a liquor store, had obtained three passes to the coveted Budweiser Suite.  Unfortunately, the Bud Center is a hockey rink, and has the worst acoustics of any venue I’ve ever attended.  The Trick played at 120 db, which didn’t help.  Their new songs were pretty bad, but they caught a little of the old magic with “California Man” and “Surrender.”  For the latter, Rick Neilsen sported a five-necked guitar that was almost as tall as he was.  We didn’t stay for Alice, more’s the pity.

             Last Saturday, Pete Brandvold, Jan, and I drove up to Pingree Park, sixteen miles on a dirt road.  There were several dozen hunters in day-glo orange out for the first day of muzzle-loading elk and moose season.  We parked at a National Forest parking lot and hiked up to Crown Point, at eleven thousand feet.  What had begun as a sunny day in the parking lot turned into a very cold sunny day when we emerged from the treeline to catch the brunt of a forty-mile an hour wind blowing in from the West.

             We drove back through Penner Pass, saw many cunning cabins secreted among the trees.  When we turned onto the road to Pete’s house, the black fox that lives in the ravine right below stood by the side of the road like a sentinel.

             I have a new column up at nostomania.com, on October 1.