So, I’m getting a little bit of traction at work. I am working a mildly ill-defined gig at a former employer, a DVD and CD-ROM company that I worked for a few years ago.

I was going to write about how much fun it is to write marketing copy. It’s like poetry, but without depth or feeling! I have been finding myself laughing out loud as I write it.

Oh, but the website they have sucks. I did a great deal of the original work on it, and it’s not been overhauled since, just, kind of… picked to death.

But that job is so far from what I’m doing now that I’d be a fool to raise the issue. I think that probably a website is the last thing they need – and if I raise the issue, it would be in that direction.

Tablet number 70’s Wiretappingleads with my 500-word piece on Fantagraphics’ successful plea for support that hit the web – and email inboxes throughout the comics world – at the end of May.

The news is good, as I’m sure you’ll be happy to hear.

In editing notes, I noted no changes from the story I filed, although I’ve not made a detailed comparison. The title changed from my totally workaday “Fantagraphics Beats Crisis,” or some such, to “Comic Relief.”

In other news, it’s very weird to be working in the same company – even the same location – that I was five years ago. Uncanny, even. I am striving to not bust out the grizzled vet routine, as only three people who work there now worked there when I did, so as far as they are concerned, I’m the new guy.

Thus, it’s weird.

On Thursday, I met alternative comics artists David Lasky and Greg Stump at Caffé Vita, formerly Café Paradiso, near my home on Seattle’s Capitol Hill for an interview which will form the basis of a story featuring them and their Seattle-set comic book, Urban Hipster. We talked about the book for a little over an hour and a half, and I will be transcribing the interview and probably post the transcript here when the feature sees print in tablet.

I also took a few pictures of them both at Vita and in the Comet.

I’ve known David’s work for quite some time, as he sent me a copy of his often-cited mini-comic adaptation of James Joyce’s Ulysses some time ago, but we’d never met. I don’t think I was highly familiar with Stump’s work except in that he has had a long-running comic in both The Stranger and in the Portland Mercury, “Dwarf Attack.”

Lasky is a classic comics introvert, very soft-spoken, and was wearing extremely long-and-thin rectangular-frame glasses with heavy black frames, a neat goatee, and shoulder-length brown hair pulled back into a pony-tail. Stump is more socially forward, and in his white teeshirt, well-muscled frame, and clean shaven head bore a resemblance to a well-known cleaning product’s anthropomorphic spokesperson.

I explored many aspects of the comic book they work together on, highlighting the relationship of the book to Seattle as a specific locale, and in particular the neighborhoods of Ballard, Capitol Hill, and the University District.

In order not to go into detail about the content of the piece I’m developing, I’ll just hold off on talking more about it today. However, I can note that I very much enjoyed the opportunity to speak with these guys, and think that I can really develop a good feature on the interview and their book.

Paul sez, “post it.”

Despite the fact of it’s being a quickie I will. Originally this was a line in a comment on Paul’s site, but it changed. “Bel” is an abbreviation I use to refer to bellerophon, this webserver.

It’s also an old, old, North African name used by the Berber, who lived along the shores of the Mediterranean before the Romans. When the Islamic expansion came, they moved into the mountains, and some beyond into the desert.

This was composed prior to this week’s earthquake in Algeria.

Originally, “Hades’ mist” was “Agent Smith,” in a silly Matrix reference which I’ve since thought better of.

For Hades’ mist has touched the mind of Bel;
and before Roman eyes his city falls.
There, above the Carthaginian shore
his home shall be among the mountain folk,
Past the end of empires: one, two, three, four.

In other news, partial restores of both modock and tussinup are in place. Digging into Gallery reveals: there is no straightforward way to automate the album-building process. Foo.

A big THANK YOU to Google caching!

Just finished a decent cut at an article for a regional travel mag: cross your fingers for me.

Now, where can I place a piece about fan-produced retro Star Trek episodes? There’s some amazing stuff out there…

X-Men 2 opened this morning and both Danelope and Zannah went at midnight and enjoyed it.

I thought perhaps some of my site visitors might enjoy a peek at the Cinescape piece I had a couple months back, reflecting my set visit. The link above starts you with the cover of the mag, and as with all Gallery-hosted material, a click will enlarge the image to the point that you can actually read the type.

Er, mostly read the type, considering the interesting layout choices made by the staff at the magazine.

A few days ago I noted that my personal fictions include a narrative whereby I cannot construct the fictional as a deliberate act of creation – I can lie, sure, but ask me to write a short story or develop a script for comics and I just shake my head, mute.

Actually, that’s not what I noted. But whatever I said, if you read it, I choose to believe that is what you understood me to say.

Being of sound mild intoxication, I propose that I will inagurate a week-long project, starting tomorrow, in which each narrative will be a wholly factual recounting of some vignette from my life as a traveler. Save one, into which I will inject a fictionalizing lie. My experience of travel begins early and has yet to stop, so there’s a fair amount of material to work with.

Here are my rules.

Each piece will roll to between 500 and 1000 words.

One piece will be posted daily. As is usual in my week-long specials, barring extremely notable events in RL, I’ll blog naught but my narrative.

You, cher googleurs and dear readers alike, are invited to opine as to whether or not the narrative of the day contains the lie, which I shall endeavor to cache from casual observation. However, I will not pursue detective-fiction rules: you’ll have to determine the falsity from the true on the basis of the clarity of emotional tenor, dear hearts. On April 20th, I’ll review the contenders and possibly come clean. If I don’t fess up right then, it will be shortly thereafter.

Two more points: this little literary game begins on Sunday, April 13 (no numerological or religious symbology intended) and will close on Saturday, April 19.

Everybody ready? GO!

Geez, it never rains but it pours.

Lots of stuff in the fire. All for upcoming publications so I can’t really talk about it. But still. I believe my long-mulled interviews project is beginning to boil and bubble away. The last piece for the puzzle is a tech publication that might be interested in material drawn from q-and-a’s with various prorgammers and UI people.

See, I think there’s a link of some kind between the music I like and the computer programs I enjoy using, and that link is, essentially, individuals with a creative vision anchored by community. That could be the blogging community or the Mac user community or the punk rock community or the bluegrass community or even, for god’s sake, the stochastic recording artist community.

(cite: Iannis Xenakis. Man, nothin’ gets my toe tappin’ like the sound of an SM-58 roasting in an open fire. Uh, yes, it’s in French. Here’s something in English.)

Anyway. I’m kind of excited. Now to think long and hard about how to turn this neat stuff into the long green so I can keep doing it.

Initial Entry: mike.whybark.com is one year old, as of yesterday.

The global archive page details the whole year’s stats.

For me personally, highlights of the year have included The Death of Mr. Red Ears, The Wreck of the Shenandoah (as well as the rest of Blimp Week), the story of my sister’s passing, and a carefully written, accurate account of a nightmare.

Of course, I also take pride in unmasking Watergate informer Deep Throat, the recent Kensapoppin’ series, and of course, the Ken Goldstein Project.

I’m also pleased to have consistently presented original material that stems from actual journalistic activity, specifically the interviews with Man in Space creator David Sander and noted author Michael Moorcock.

I do have at least one more interview to present here, but as I’m attempting to balance the demands of writing for publication with those of blogging, mum’s the word for now.

Over the past year, my writing practice has matured in ways that I think would have been difficult for me to conceptualize as a younger person. For example, I can give reliable time-based estimates for the labor involved to develop a piece to a given word count (depending on the background materials for the piece). I hope that I’ve mastered some of the basic technical aspects of writing for publication.

I believe that the aspect of my writing that still needs the most technical attention is consistency of tense and staying in the active voice. It’s something I can edit into a piece, but getting it right the first time is a better way to go. Saves paper. Much of what I write is essentially just direct recording of my stream of consciousness, and in my head, tenses are fluid.

Regarding the active voice, (make that “Grasping the active voice,”) it’s probably just something I’ll always have to watch (“fight with”). My inner voice is contemplative and analytical, and when musing, the personal pronoun is rarely employed.

I’ve also learned that my long held belief that I cannot write fiction or develop plots or imagine characters is simply wrong. What I have learned is that I have to fool myself into accessing that aspect of my creativity, and it really frustrates me.

There’s a connection between this phenomenon and my native avoidance of the active voice: my fondest desires, and most rehearsed inner fantasies, from earliest childhood, involve the disappearance of not the self, but my self.

Those of you who know me personally will find this hard to believe, as you’d be hard pressed to ever meet another grandstanding blowhard who can outdo me in the monopolize-your-attention department.

Interestingly, the erosion of identity is precisely what good character visualization and development truly requires, so perhaps, if I can find a way to link the two in my mind, the lifelong block will dissolve.

Anyway, thanks for reading. I am not planning any big changes here, although I have been constantly worrying the bone above. I rather expect that I’ll be experimenting with solutions to it here.

Caterina.net: From the Taittiriya Upanishad

O wonderful! O wonderful! O wonderful!

I am food! I am food! I am food!

I eat food! I eat food! I eat food!

My name never dies, never dies, never dies!

I was born first in the first of the worlds, earlier than the gods, in the belly of what has no death!

Whoever gives me away has helped me the most!

I, who am food, eat the eater of food!

I have overcome this world!

He who knows this shines like the sun.
Such are the laws of the mystery!

This was found via a random click into Caterina’s site from dear pal Anne Zender‘s blogroll.

I LIKE it! Screw the context, I have no idea about it – I am FOOD!

(Today I was a delicious coq au vin.)