A couple of Y sightings this week!

Lost, episode 316, featured Hurley reading a copy of Y El Ultimo Hombre, the spanish translation edition of Y The Last Man and over on Chuck in Chuck vs. the Suburbs we get a glimpse of the new deluxe edition sitting by the infamous Tron poster.  Nice!

Very, very bummed.

Thursday night I had finished packing for our trip to LA, was putting together tickets and insurance documents and noticed that my passport wasn't in the usual spot on the shelf. I looked in my bag, looked around the apartment but no luck. This had happened before, on the night of the Dublin trip and after a few hours of frantic running about we finally found it at the office. I wasn't going to fall into that panic again, it was probably next to the drawing table like before so at around 3am we headed down there to look. No dice.

We returned home to do a more thorough dig, turned the place upside down, but no passport. I kept at it through the rest of the morning, right up to our check in time when I had to admit that it wasn't happening and I called the airline to let them know. They were very nice about it, wished us the best and let us know the next available flight out. After a few hours of sleep we got back to it. Ian returned to the office for another round of searching while I did an umpteenth run at the apartment.

It's looking like it was lost out in the world. On Monday I'll have to apply for a new one.

And Ian and I don't get to have our geeky Valentine's Day amidst Daleks and Cosplayers.

Sucks.

Okay, Wondercon is a go.  I don't have any panels or signings scheduled but as always, feel free to say hi.

Projects: None.  That is, I'm taking some much needed time off.  While I don't mind people e-mailing to see if I'm available for their book/pitches/storyboards etc. I'll let you know right now that I'm not accepting anything until... next year?  This also means I can't read proposals/plot outlines sent with your enquiries.  I'm very sorry about that.

Looking forward to this weekend.

Two things that go together surprisingly well: Buckaroo Banzai and Radiohead's Ok Computer. Try it sometime.

Con schedule so far...

Gallifrey One, Los Angeles, February 13-15 at the Los Angeles Airport Marriot Hotel. Panel info to be posted soon.

Wondercon... No idea yet, maybe?

Emerald City Comic Con. Yep. If I don't have a table I'll be wandering about as a visitor so say hi either way.

San Diego... Very likely, but there may be a conflict. More as it gets sorted.


Sketch requests. More out the door today, more to come. If you've changed your address since sending one out, drop me an e-mail.


A spot on recommendation for anyone in Vancouver: Rekado's Restaurant on Main and King Ed. Awesome Filipino cuisine, friendly service, great prices. Best dishes: Tinikling Chicken, Curry piña Chicken and the Tokwa't Tokwa.

Okay, that was a fantastic trip. Wow. Fantastic.

Yes, it took 7 days until we got our luggage, there was a lot of screaming over phones, angry e-mails and texts and much swearing to the heavens over the absolute suckage of Air Canada's handling of the whole affair. Yes, it was hard to shop for essentials during the boxing week madness of London's high street, yes it was colder than expected, yes the apartment and its management continued to be a huge pain in the ass over the next two weeks, yes we didn't get to see Tennant perform on Boxing Day...

But we did see his Hamlet on January 5th.

And it was incredible.

And we saw several other shows, Avenue Q, The 39 Steps, Bill Bailey in Tinselworm, Spamalot and Wicked (though I passed on those last two). We had a beautiful Christmas dinner complete with crackers, the Queen's address and Doctor Who. On New Year's Eve we got to witness a mind boggling sea of humanity make it's way towards Blackfriars and just missed getting hit by a champagne bottle thrown off the Millenium Bridge. We had a lovely New Year's Day meet up with Tony Lee and his beautiful fiancee Tracey at the Spice of Life. Diana found out her Zipcar membership worked internationally which resulted in a very fun day-trip to Stone Henge and Salisbury.

Vicky jetted off to Rome for 5 days to visit Hilary and see the sights. She came home with many cool stories. Mike hopped a train to Bristol to visit friends there and came back the next day with many photos.

I did stock signings at Gosh and Forbidden Planet (three trolley loads at FP!), visited Orbital and met a lot of nice people at all of them.

And now we're home. Mike and Diana are back in Toronto, Drew is in Thailand. We're getting many updates on their continuing adventures. It was great to see the cats again, Charlie has been glued to my legs since we got in the door. And though we missed most of the city's snow troubles and related outcries, there are still huge piles of leftovers all over the city and the new waves of rain are only adding to the problem. Presently we're dry and getting back to our routines (though Ian is battling a stomach bug, poor thing).

Oh, to those who may be wondering, I've finally started on sketch requests. A bunch will be going out this week.

Happy New Year!

From Lying in the Gutter's Rich Johnston.

Hallelujah!

And here's an update on the Forbidden Planet signing. It's only a stock signing so if you're interested in picking up an autographed copy there will be plenty in the store come the new year. Sorry about that, we're juggling a lot of plans here and information is getting jumbled.

When we get back, time will be all open to tackle the huge sketch request pile in the office. I mean that this time! If you're looking for a personalised copy then check out the FAQ for details.

Still waiting on bags from Air Canada. Christmas dinner is cooking. Friends are all together. It's a great day.

That lovely round of snow we had over a week ago quickly turned into the biggest pain in the ass the city ever saw. Temperatures dipped to crazy low levels, the snow just kept falling and then wouldn't go away as the flight date got closer and closer. We watched the news each morning to see how aiports were handling the snow and it really did not look good at all.

But then, clear skies. For one day. Our departure date.

We missed a turn off on the way to the airport, largely due to the sun bouncing off the snow and blinding us from the signs, we wandered about Richmond's snow packed roads for a bit and made it within the recommended two hours prior to flight.

The terminal was packed with people bumped from flights due to the blizzards back east. Staff were scrambling, the system in place was all wonky and still we made it through check in, baggage drop and security in time for boarding. There were delays at the gate due to a missing flight attendant, but soon one was found and we were off.

We worried that the delay would lead to missing our connection in Calgary but as it turned out, the pilots for the Calgary to Heathrow run were on our plane so we would be alright. We still had a mother of a run to the next building, during which the combination of stress and cold, bone dry air and hauling ass prompted a mild asthma attack, something I don't get very often and didn't have meds for. Ah joy.

So anyway, on the plane, coughing and wheezing, there's an announcement from the pilot that a door indication light was on and had to be dealt with or we couldn't leave. We waited about a half hour until the all clear came through. Then it was de-icing. Then the slow taxi through frozen and freshly plowed runways. And off again.

I managed to sleep through most of the flight (melatonin helped) and despite all those delays we landed only a half hour after our original arrival time.

Breezed through customs, made it to the baggage claim... and no bags.

They never made it out of Calgary. They'd turn up in a day or so depending on the weather.

I had learned from past baggage incidents however and packed a change of clothes. Ha!

We did eventually make it to the apartment, no thanks to the driver assigned by the rental company who dropped us in the middle of a street market and pointed us to a building down the way that wasn't even the proper address. After some meandering without a map we found the place a couple of blocks over and got settled into a very hostel-ish apartment (there's a bunk bed in our room!) with a kitchen sink that immediately up an decided to vomit rank smelling water all over the floor. Alarming sure, but apparently not to the maintenance guy on the phone who said he'd come fix it in the morning.

Oh, and the fire alarm went off at 3am causing an evacuation of the building (management didn't think that was an emergency enough to show up for either, though the fire brigade did appear about a half hour later). One guest, after waiting about 15 minutes ran back in to 'save' a dish of sugar cookies she'd made earlier and passed them around. Delicious.

Back inside the apartment I decided to take a shower to warm up only to find the hot water being iffy on the prospect. It did get warm eventually but only when the cold water was turned all the way off.

I may be getting a bad feeling about this rental...

But we're still in London. Vicky made it from Montreal this morning (despite an actual fire in Laura's apartment building!). The maintenance guy showed up to fix the sink sometime in the afternoon (after a couple more nagging calls). We found a Sainsbury's and got the kitchen stocked for Christmas dinner and the rest of the crew are showing up tomorrow. Tennant is out of Hamlet but Jacobi is doing Twelfth Night *g* and Bill Bailey has a stand up show in town.

Also, I'm told that the Forbidden Planet Signing is on the 30th (Tuesday) but their site doesn't list it, not sure if that means anything. I'll post more info as it comes in.

Time for sleep. Sugarplums and all that.

Merry Christmas everyone.

Lots to do before heading out next week but it's all coming along nicely. Vic, coolest sister in the world and fantastic office manager, is currently finalising details for a signing at Forbidden Planet. I'll post more info as it comes in, so far it looks to be the last week of December.

And we finally found a cat sitter! I can breathe normally again.

The only sour note so far is the news that David Tennant is off Hamlet due to a slipped disc. Now the press release says he won't be able to return 'before Christmas' and our tickets are for Boxing Day so there's still a chance at seeing him perform (albeit a teensy one). If he can't make it, the understudy is getting great reviews and Patrick Stewart is performing as Claudius in one of the best plays ever, it'll be a great evening out. Sending out plenty of good vibes to the Universe for Tennant's speedy recovery all the same. *g*

Last night Ian and I ventured into the first snowfall of the season to buy cookie supplies. It was incredibly beautiful outside, with huge snowflakes clearly defined in the crisp air, making the whole neighbourhood sparkly. When we got home we set to work baking and kept at it till dawn.

We're really looking forward to cooking on the trip. Many discussions on what to make and where to find ingredients. Can't wait.

Dealing with weird sleep again. Bleh.

As happy as last Tuesday was there was a cloud over California called Prop 8.

If you voted for this, if you supported the banning of gay marriage in California and in states where similar proposals made the ballot... well I pity you.

You are hateful and ignorant. You are backwards. You are part of a past that will be remembered with shame and regret and the sooner you disolve into that past the better. Love will always be the future.

Some of you may be wondering why I’m not doing the art for Doctor Who #6 so I’ll clear that up right now. If you’ve read past entries from September you already know that issues 3 and 4 were given to a fill-in artist while we were dealing with a personal crisis. When things had settled somewhat I slowly got back into working with the full intention of completing my commitment to issues 5 and 6. I was told that issue 5 would be due by the end of October and I paced it a bit slow, mostly so as not to hermit up after what happened. I made myself as available to others as possible while still getting pages in here and there knowing that I’d pick it up as I went.

Ian went to Regina for the Comedy Awards at the beginning of the month, lots of errands and distractions but no problem, still okay for time. I produced a handful of pages (tricky ones at that) and then the Scream Awards came up rather unexpectedly and though I was worried about the schedule Ian and I talked it over and decided it was important to go, primarily to promote Y and Doctor Who: The Forgotten, but also to hang out with Brian, something we didn’t get to do at SDCC this year. It was a great weekend, blew off a lot of steam, met some very nice people. I brought/dragged pages to work on but as these things often go there wasn’t a spare moment.

(Did I mention that I promoted the heck out of the Forgotten on the red carpet? Brian got in on it too, his brother loves the book.)

We got home and I hit the drawing table hard. It was going to be a tough slog but I was sure I could do it, maybe I’d go a few days over but not by much. I got an e-mail from the editor on the 22nd demanding a firm date or they’d be giving issue 6 to someone else. I was a bit surprised by this seeing as how the deadline was over a week away but okay, they run things tight and after looking at it realistically I told him “November 4th”, that was four days over the deadline, four days lost due to the Scream Awards. I got an e-mail back saying “…thanks for letting me know in advance that you won’t be finished by the end of the month. That helps us a lot with planning.” And I get back to work, send a few more pages to their server.

A couple of days later I get an e-mail from Tony asking why I wasn’t working on issue 6. What the fuck?! I thought this was sorted out already, but apparently not. I e-mail the editor to find out what the hell happened. Here’s what I get back…

“Pia,

First, I want to apologize that you heard this from Tony and not me. This was just decided yesterday and I'm not sure who he heard this from, but that ultimately falls on me. I'm very sorry for that.

Second, I want you to know that we had no choice.

Even if you were able to finish twelve pages by Tuesday (after taking three weeks for the first 10), this book would be five days AND a month late. That's not including the time it would take to finish inking, coloring and lettering the pages, and getting approval from BBC. That would put us at about five-six weeks late.

As I understand it, we're only at issue 2 on the stands because of your lateness from the start. If we were on schedule, #4 would be out next week. Despite having two fill-in artists working on 3 and 4 at the same time, we were able to recapture only a month on the schedule.

If we continued on the present course, #6 would be so late that it would become returnable. And that would be an unacceptable loss of revenue and likely cause the book to be canceled outright.

So the decision was made to find another artist to finish the series.

It is very unfortunate, but we had no choice.

I hope this doesn't affect your intention to complete issue 5. But if that isn't the case, please let us know.

Best…”

First off, thanks for failing to mention the month late business when telling me the book was due by the end of October. I thought I was producing in a timely manner.

Second, “Even if you were able to finish twelve pages by Tuesday…”

Don’t demand for a firm date, accept the date and then assume I won’t deliver.

Was I pissed? Damn straight. And I promptly locked myself in the office for the next week and did indeed transfer 12 pages into their servers by the 4th. Scanned in the last set while bawling my eyes out with joy over the election results.

And what sweet looking pages they are.

I’m very sorry it ended up like this, even more so for Tony who doesn’t deserve it in the slightest. I hope we get to work on something in the future.

So my vacation/sabbatical starts early. I’ll be spending the next year doing what I should have been doing when Y ended, taking time to learn new skills, play with back burner projects and just think.

Ta.

It's a beautiful day today.

The past week was a bit nuts, things happened in the studio that will be talked about, but for now... it's a beautiful day.

Okay, Los Angeles was a blast and I don't want to spoil things too much so go check out the Scream Awards broadcast on Tuesday if you want to see a certain couple of comics co-creators on a certain stage...

And did you know Ozzy Osbourne smells kinda spicy?

Hee!

I'm going to hole up in the office for the next little while in order to catch up on a LOT of late work. Bear with me y'all.

Tonight I'll be doing laundry, packing, getting work finished on a couple of the McGann pages and with luck there'll be a little time for sleep before we fly out to LA tomorrow.

Oh and check out the gorgeous cover for issue six! By Ben Templesmith!


Lovely!

Also, plans are underway for a trip to London over Christmas. It all started last month when we miraculously snagged tickets to Hamlet (starring David Tennant and Patrick Stewart! Gasp!), then we got some friends interested in coming along (can't have Christmas dinner without friends to pull crackers with!). We've just now found a flat to house our group of six and the next challenge will be finding airline tickets. I've even started a scarf for the London weather. Found a nice alpaca yarn, a simple pattern and away it's gone.

Lots to do. Very excited.

Election Day! Don't forget to vote!

This Friday Ian and I are heading off to LA to join Brian and Ruth at the Scream Awards for some goofy, ghoulish fun.

For those who'd like to increase our chances of actually getting onstage to collect a trophy, go over to the Spike website and vote for us! Think of it as a warm up for November 4th (October 14th for all you Canucks).

If you have any hesitation about voting this time around please have a look at those who are voting and reconsider.

From Blogger Interrupted.

I fucked Sarah Palin
By voting for Barack Obama.

Ian called from Regina a little while ago to announce Canadian Content won Best Sketch Group at the Canadian Comedy Awards! I am so happy for him and the whole gang!

Currently working on 4 pages here, they're coming in slow but tomorrow I expect to make some good headway.

There's this new trend in jeans I've seen a couple of times on my way to work recently: skinny jeans pulled down so the waistline is resting under the pelvic bone, sometimes lower, creating a giant sag off the ass.

For the love of god, stop it.

The look was silly enough with big droopy pants, especially on the white suburban gangsta kids flashing signs on their freshly mown lawns, but this... this is just laughable. One chick we had the misfortune of walking behind kept tugging her stud belted skinnies to mid-white-briefed-rump, like every 10 seconds just to keep them from falling off her ass entirely. The sag of the fabric swishing about her denim plastered thighs made it look like she had just had some sort of accident.

Main Street hipsters and darlings! I expect more of you! Don't fall victim to this goofiness!

"When you are the moon, there is a person people say is the sun. I saw the sun once, and he came past me, really fast. And it was an, it was called, the, an eclipse. And he came fast! But as he came past, I, I licked his back. [sticks out tongue] And he doesn't know I licked his back! All in his yellow suit!... I'm the moon."

Oh but the Mighty Boosh makes me smile.

Detailing two pages this evening and I'm quite happy with them.

I’m going to write about what happened over the last few months. It’s a bit blunt, forgive me.

At the beginning of the summer we got a call from our friend Drew with bad news. Joanne, his fiancée had learned her cancer had returned after a lengthy fight over the winter and spring. This would be her third diagnosis with the disease, the first being four years ago with ovarian cancer. She beat that. The second bout began last year when a large tumour was found in her lung and required very risky surgery to remove it. There were complications and it looked bad but she came out from that a winner and we were all delighted, more so by their announcement that they would be getting married in October. And then that phone call. The cancer had spread to her brain and there was no treatment for it. She had six months. They wanted to keep it quiet so they could have as much normal time as possible and yep, they would still be getting married.

In July they went to Key West to stay with friends on the beach, and on our return from SDCC we heard they were back in town and wanted to get together with friends before flying off to Hawaii for the rest of August. We prepared ourselves for a solemn affair but it was anything but. Joanne looked fantastic and the night was a blast. They were going to a condo on the big island with two friends and soon we were talking about joining them mid-month to Labour Day.

I was running behind on Doctor Who by three weeks and as a result issue three had just been assigned to a cover artist. I was grumpy and tired from the push and the idea of jetting off to spend time with Drew and Joanne seemed perfect, especially since there wasn’t a lot of time to spend with them last year what with the crazy schedule on Y and then the equally crazy time right after Y that should have been spent doing nothing instead of jumping on a complicated short story and a couple of promo tours before jumping on Doctor Who.

Mid August, a couple of days before we were to be on a plane we got another call. Joanne was having some paralysis and bad headaches and had to come back immediately. The next day she had a seizure.

We visited them a couple of days later at the hospital. She still looked good and had high hopes about getting her pain regulation sorted so she could get the heck out of there. They were still set on flying out to Ontario so they could get married in October as planned. We visited again that week, had a sushi party in the lounge. Everyone’s hopes were up despite increasing incidences of seizures and issues with pain regulation.

The next two weeks were a blur, a steady downturn into awful and more awful. The doses of meds were needing to be stronger and stronger and in order to have the ceremony while still conscious the wedding was bumped up to September 2nd. The venue would be a friend’s restaurant in town, we were very happy to be invited to join them. On the Friday before, we got word that things had turned bad, that she might not make it past the weekend. Saturday, a text came in saying she was ‘fading fast’. We all rushed over and waited. She fought herself away from that brink but was pretty much out of it for the rest of the week, occasionally she’d wake up, ask about the wedding and drift off again. Tuesday, another text, another rush out to the hospital, more waiting. And still she fought. It went on like this for days, one spectacular sunset after another (as the lounge had one of the most amazing views of the city anywhere), it would have been funny if it weren’t so damn heartbreaking.

We read magazines, shared cookies and scones and fruits, passed around a back massaging machine picked up at the PNE that was quickly dubbed “Earl”, watched America’s next Top Model and then we’d go home, get some sleep and jump out of bed at every ring of the phone. Never have I held such animosity towards telemarketers.

On the morning of the 9th, a few hours after returning from a visit, we got a call that she had passed away peacefully.

Yesterday (Monday) was the memorial. Drew read the poem he had written to read to Joanne on their wedding day.

And y’know, comics just aren’t that much of a priority right now. I’m working on pages here and wondering why the hell I let so much of my life get set aside to do this. You hear it all the time among comic book artists, insanely long hours and very little time with family and friends, stress and more stress. It’s not healthy, not physically, not mentally. I’m very proud of the work I’ve done, happy as all get out at being able to reach as many readers as I did. I set a goal and achieved it to the best of my ability. I showed those who didn’t think I could do it that yes, I could. I gave those who suggested I was riding the coattails of my partner a big middle finger and it felt wonderful. And yes, it came at a cost. I see that now and need to address it.

Once issue five and six are done (Issue four has also been assigned to a cover artist), I’m going to take time off. If I do work on something it’ll be my own stuff or with friends and sure as hell won’t be on a deadline. I think I’m done with those for the foreseeable future.

Take care all, give a hug to those you love yeah?

Very sad to report the passing of a beautiful friend, Joanne, pictured here with Drew (who together knocked everyone's socks off at our wedding reception a couple of years ago). We'll miss her terribly and always remember and admire her fierce fighting spirit.

Passed along from Brian today.  Holy crap!

I would like the rains to hurry up and get here and smother the remainder of this spectacularly awful weekend.

Off to the hospital to visit a friend.

One page of inks just about complete.  Three more in pencils.

Can this go any slower today?  Back at it in the morning.

Four pages left.  

Trip has been cancelled.

Tired.

Three pages out, three pages in inks, four pages in pencils.

Right now we're all figuring out that I'm just too slow for this monthly schedule, and it sucks because with a little time this could look really interesting.  Some decisions have been made, not totally crazy about them but at this point where my hand is about to blow a gasket and there's no more speed to be gained that's all there's left to do.  More on this will no doubt be revealed soon.

Right now I need to get an icepack and some more sleep.

The trip has been moved to the end of next week.  I wish we could be there now.

Three pages mostly inked, a fourth one started in pencils.  Still at it here.