Catching Up

Has it really been one week of blogging silence?!?! Damn, times flies... Forgive me. It's been a busy week.

I finally finished that 11 page story that was kicking my ass. And thankfully, my editor seemed to like it. He gave me some great comments back and I revised it. He still wants to go over some of the dialogue, so we'll probably do that over beers in the next few weeks. The script is in the artist's hands now though, and as a fan of his work, I'm excited to see what he does with it.

I know some people hate the editorial process, but I actually enjoy it. Not sure if that has anything to do with me having been and editor myself, but I enjoy having a sounding board to bounce my ideas and scripts off of. Sometimes I get so close to a project that it becomes hard to look at it objectively, and I always welcome the input of outside parties. I do the same thing with my independent projects; I show them to friends and trusted colleagues for their comments and critique. The work often turns out stronger because of it as they can point out things I may have missed, like wonky transitions, bad dialogue, an overabundance of panels and/or missed opportunities. I think it also helps to show scripts to artists as well, as they can point out storytelling aspects I never would have noticed.

Some of my time this past week has been devoted to playing X-Men Legends II. Or I should say Mutsumi has been playing with me directing. She works the controller and I offer advice and guidance. Given my rather intimate knowledge of the X-Men, I can tell her who can fly, teleport, shoot beams from his eyes, or freeze things when she needs characters with those powers. I want my turn on the control soon though.

Met with a few of my Japanese editors who were in town on business this week as well. Both secret Japanese projects go well. The release date has been set for one - February 18th, 2006, the day after my birthday. Looks like there'll even be a release party in Tokyo that day and once all the details are set, I'll let you know.

I watched The Interpreter over the weekend. I thought it was pretty good. The chemistry between Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn kinda bothered me though. I didn't think it came off naturally and felt almost too forced in places. The extras were cool though. I thought the alternate ending was the better ending, and the documentary with Sydney Pollack gave me newfound respect for the man. He had some great things to say about the creative process.

More soon...