Monday, September 25, 2006

And peace lights up the night... (Sept. 25th)

I have a script here that's still kicking my ass, so I spent all day indoors slaing over it nd ended up not going out until late. Just wanted to take a walk to clear my head and get my thoughts on this script in order. So I'm walking along and at one point I look uup at this dark building and there's a peace sign lit up on the side of it...


It's a shitty picture, I know, but you can kind of make out the windows there at the bottom, and then just hanging there in the dark is the peace sign strung up from Christmas lights. It didn't serve as any kind of inspiration unfortunately, but it looked cool...

Sunday, September 24, 2006

Chester Senior Shoots Willie

My dad's been doing a little photogrpahy of his own recently and took this picture of Willie one evening as he climbed across the new arbor they built for my brother's wedding. It's pretty impressive, if you ask me...

September 24th


We were going to try and get out to Ralph Macchio's house this weekend for an end-of-summer pool party, but it rained for most of it and that plan fell apart. I spent most of Saturday and Sunday indoors anyway so the shitty weather didn't bother me much, but it finally cleared this afternoon so I was able to get out and do some shopping and practice my photography skills. I walked around looking for cool fire escapes to take pictures of as you can usually find people leaving random things on theirs, but there wasn't much to see this time around in my area. But here's one that gives you a choice should your building be burning; climb down the ladders floor by floor, or swing down on the vines...

September 23rd


I took a break Saturday to head out to see Jackass Number Two and thought it was one of the funniest movies I have ever seen. Maybe I'm juvenile and immature but I laughed so hard I was crying through a lot of the movie. Johnny Knoxville, Bam, Steve-O, Wee Man... these guys are comedic geniuses! They're out of their fucking minds and beat their bodies to shit, but it's absolutely brilliant!

Anyway, after I got out of the movie, my budddy Nick left me a message that he, Shannon and Andy were down at the Old Town Tavern so I went down to join them for dinner. I'd never been before and they recommended I try the burger and/or the chili... so I did. I ordered the chili burger and it was freakin' AMAZING!!! One of the best meals I've had in the city in a long time. The chili was homemade and nice and spicy with the perfect mix of meat and beans, and the burger was fantastic! I would highly recommend you head down for the food as well as the ambiance as the bar itself is a quiet and quaint place to hang out with friends. It's on 18th between Park and Broadway, right behind the Union Square Barnes and Noble.

September 22nd


This was also taken at Otto's but was shot after midnight when Smutzie's band was rocking out, so it was technically the next day...

September 21st


My sister Erika came into the city Thursday and dragged me downtown to see our friend Smutz's band play at Otto's Shrunken Head Tiki Bar. It's an extremely cool bar and I would highly recommend making a pit stop down there if you're ever looking for a cool watering hole. It's on 14th between Avenues A and B. And be sure to get one of their funky drinks in the tiki head glasses!

Just because...

...I don't post the pictures daily doesn't mean I'm not taking them. :)

I've been under some deadline pressure these past few days and have to finish my next Loners script. (It's coming, Molly and Tom!) I have managed to get out a bit each day so I don't go stir crazy and snapped a bunch of pics so I'll post them now.

Sorry for the delay.

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

September 20th


This is from the window of Staples on Broadway...

Aren't they supposed to be selling office supplies? And isn't Halloween six weeks away?!

More White Guy Dancing


I never learn...

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

September 19th

It was cloudy and overcast today and I went out after a small rain shower passed through the area. I wandered over to the park behind the Museum of Natural History as I really dig the museum and its surrounding area. A lot of nannies take their kids there to play and there are also usually plenty of people walking their dogs, but it was pretty quiet today given the weather. However I was able to find this drawn on the sidewalk in chalk amidst games of hopscotch and tic-tac-toe...

Starbucks Follow-Up

At least I can take solace in the fact that I never use the words Venti, Frappe or anything ending in -cino...

Sorkin Does It Again

I was rooting for Tina Fey.

When I first saw NBC was launching two new shows about the behind-the-scenes antics at sketch comedy shows modeled after Saturday Night Live, I was convinced only one could survive. Since 30 Rock stars Tina Fey, who I love, and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip features Matthew Perry, who I am not a fan, I made up my mind that I'd be pulling for 30 Rock. However, one thing, or more specifically one person, had me second guesssing myself, and that was Aaron Sorkin, who was writing and running Studio 60. And I adore Aaron Sorkin. I've not been a fan of everything he's done, the West Wing was never for me, but Sports Night is still one of my favorite shows. When Sorkin is on, greatness ensues. I deceided I'd give him one episode to convince me I should be watching Studio 60.

I watched Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip last night. And Sorkin was on. Big time!!

That was one of the best shows I have seen on television in a long time! It really just blew me away. The writing was incredible. The dialogue was spot on. It made me want to cry. Aaron Sorkin is still a genius. It's much more serious than I expected though. The ads seemed to make it out to be a comedy, which it's not. It's a great character driven show, with emotion, heart and drama that I did not expect.

Maybe there is room for both these shows. Aaron just set the bar pretty high, Tina Fey. Now show us what you got!

Monday, September 18, 2006

365 Days of Photos?

I'll just come out and say it... living in New York City makes you lazy! I'll be the first to admit it. You never have to leave your apartment. You can make a phone call and have anything and everything delivered to your door. Food, pizzas, groceries, books, DVDs, whatever... It's so bad that I can calll my buddy Mike at the local bodega at 3AM and have him deliver me a Snickers bar if I feel like it. Not that I ever have, but I could. I'm just sayin'...

And my current freelancer lifestyle, where I don't have to go to an office or even step foot outside my living room to go to work, doesn't help matters much. There've been times where I haven't gone outside at all. I think my longest stretch was five days. There was no need to leave, especially when Mutsumi will do the laundry and throw out the garbage. It's great when it's rainy or snowing or you're sick, but I've gotten too used to it. And I'll be the first to admit that's not a healthy lifestyle to lead, both physically and/or mentally, so I'm making a move to change that.

Mutsumi just bought a beautiful new camera. Her new pride and joy! If I knew anything about cameras, I could tell you all about it, but all I know is that it's the kind of camera that I see professionals use on TV photographing models and wild animals and weddings. But that means I inherited her old point-and-click Sony Cybershot. And all I know now is that I want to take pictures!

So what I've decided to do, in order to get my ass in gear and out of the house, is to go out into the city to take pictures. Every day, I'm going to explore a bit and take pictures of New York. And in order to stay motivated and keep me on the straight and narrow with this, I'll be posting one of these pictures here daily. A buddy of mine who recently started a blog wrote to tell me how much he likes it because giving something a public forum, where people expect updates, keeps you working at it. It's totally true and that's what I hope to do here.

A quick warning though... I usually suck at taking pictures and have no experience at it whatsoever. I have no idea what I'll find on the streets everyday to take shots of, but I'm gonna try it out and see how it goes. I'm sure somedays will be more interesting than others, but I'm just looking forward to the experiment. So here we go...


This struck as me as a good first post as it seems very New York to me for several reasons. I walked out of my building and it was sunny and 80 with not a cloud in the sky. I turned the corner only to find the sidewalk covered in scaffolding and it sounded like it had started pouring rain all of a sudden. Turns out they were power-washing the building above and all the dirty water was running down off the building, over the scaffolding and onto the street, as you can see here. The fact that it was falling over a BODIES exhibit poster which was on display next to a dumpster struck me as funny. The other New York elements in the shot, like the phone booth, the fire hydrant, the mailbox, the ladder and the one-way street sign all really add to the big city feel, if you ask me. And yes, we even have yellow school buses here as you can see!

Sometimes...

...these blogs have to be used to make random, pointless observations. So with that in mind, today I wanted to comment on how tacky I think it is to have professional football teams playing a big televised game in a multi-million dollar, state-of-the-art arean on a football field that doubles as a baseball field! What the..?! It just looks so damn cheap when you can see the baseball diamond cutting through the 50 yard line! I expected it in high school, sure, but when I was watching the Dolphins game and the line of scrmimmage was on clearly on second base, I lost all respect for the NFL. That's no place to hike a ball from! Culpepper's the quarterback, not an infielder! What about what the dirt could do to his grip on teh ball? And what about being tackled or hit on that dirt instead of astro-turf? The players don't complain about this? For all the money these teams have, they can't shell out to get that covered up every other Sunday and at least make football look like the professional sport it bills itself as?

Hair Mayonnaise?

An actual product I found at the local pharmacy. This is just wrong...

Yuppified?

I'm starting to get pissed at myself. After all the rants and raves I've had about Starbucks and their taking over of every street corner here in NYC, I find myself going into their shops more and more. And it's all for that damn iced green tea lemonade. "Yes, sweetened, please." I'm addicted to the drink, which I can accept, but I used to go in to order it and give drty looks to the people ordering their $5 coffees and sneer at the people working on their laptops. It's an over-priced coffee house, not an office fer chrissakes! But now I find myself becoming more accepting of it all. I'm even looking at their cookies and cakes; browsing the tracks on their CDs while I wait! What's wrong with me?! Am I becoming yuppified? Am I bowing to corporate culture? All my friends like Starbucks... am I giving into peer pressure? Part of the reason might lie in the fact I watched that 60 Minutes report where the CEO talked about his belief in giving great health benefits given to even part-time employees, which I thought was pretty cool. But that would just make me yet another converted pawn in their global multi-media plan to brainwash the masses with positive spin through mind-bending marketing and promotional campaigns!! Arrrggghhhh!!!!

Friday, September 15, 2006

Dissecting Last Night's Dream

So here's what I can determine about the dream I had last night...

I was with Tyra Banks (who I saw on TV before I went to bed)
who was fully clothed (Damn!)
riding in a black Navigator (Blink 182 guys showed up in one at Hanley's)
shopping for my friend MacKenzie. (who I spoke with yesterday about her upcoming wedding)
I believe Patton Oswalt was also in the car (read his interview with Bendis recently)
and we stopped at this trendy pancake place. (no idea as I don't really like pancakes)
We ordered a blueberry pancake a cherry pancake and a nut muffin (muffin was probably for me)
and the bill came to $15.52. (No idea what that number means)
I commented that was a little pricey for breakfast food (I thought the same thing about dinner I had last night)
but paid with a crisp twenty dollar bill. (I got a bunch of those from the ATM yesterday)

I always find it interesting trying to make these connections between the waking and dreaming worlds.

Thursday, September 14, 2006

Silent City

Sometimes you read a line of dialogue that just hits home. Every sentence can mean something different to different people. In the new DMZ, Brian Wood wrote, "There's something completely terrifying about a silent city. It's hard to explain." But I completely understood what he meant.

Without getting into too much detail, I was in living in Kobe, Japan in 1995 when the Great Hanshin Earthquake struck. It's the first and only time I can ever remember hearing myself scream in terror as I was thrown from my bed and the contents of my room came crashing down on top of me. I thought the whole building was collapsing with me still inside. When the rumbling stopped, still panic stricken, I knew only one thing; I had to get out. I had to make my way to ground level. I scrambled around in the mess that was once my apartment and made it to the door. I opened it up, stepped out and was greeted with nothing but silence. I clearly remember that there was no noise whatsoever as I emerged. All the familar sounds of the city were gone. No horns honking. No trains rumbling. No dogs barking. No babies crying. No sirens. No screams. Nothing. It was as if the city had been shaken silent. Dead silent. For a split second, as I stood there in this soundless scene, I thought I might be the only person left alive. It was one of the most terrifying feelings I've ever had in my life.

As I read that line in DMZ last night, it sent a chill up my spine as I knew exactly what he was talking about.

Our ACTOR Signing Gets "Blinked"

Just because...

...I'm back to personal postings, it doesn't mean I can't mix in a little business. :)

I recently did an interview with Adam Volk at Silver Bullet Comic Books that's now up online:

http://www.silverbulletcomicbooks.com/features/115815780996572.htm

And there's another DRAIN article with new art up at Newsarama:

http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=83864

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

When I was 11...

It's been a while since I posted anything personal on this blog. A lot of you have been giving me shit about it, which I rightfully deserve, but my summer was filled with travel and cons and work and all kinds of other time-consuming activities, a.k.a. excuses. I've devoted most of the space here over these past few months to posting pics and links that relate mostly to my job. But it's time to get back to the heart of the matter. I'm going to try and return to the more story-like nature of my pre-summer posts and let you back into my world... if you really care, that is.

I've made no secret of the fact that I'm a very active dreamer. Rarely a night goes by that I don't dream something that I remember. I sleep with a pad and pen by my bed in order to write down all the crazy stuff my mind manufactures as I sleep. Some nights are more vivid than other, and last night was a doozy. I dreamt of the first girl I thought I'd fallen in love with.... when I was 11.

I don't think I've thought of this girl, BY, once over the past 18 years. Some first love, eh? But last night, there she was, looking like she did the last time I saw her in high school, and it was so fucking real! The dream started out as some surreal reenactment of my brother's bachelor party from a few months ago. We were all on a school bus partying it up, but we got lost and ended up at this enormous mansion by some seaside. We went inside and there was BY, welcoming me in with open arms. Everyone else had disappeared, like they often do in dreams. She and I sat down and caught up, telling each other about all we'd gone through in life since we'd last seen each other. (Even though I now can't remember when was the last time we met.) We kissed, stated our regrets for not being together, professed our eternal love for each other, kissed again... and I woke up. But I didn't need my pad and pen for this one. This dream stayed with me.

I spent today thinking about what sparked this memory of BY, and why it was so clear and so real. It could be the fact that I'm working on Wonderlost, but she's not in any of the stories and I haven't really thought about her since we weren't close in high school. It could be that I've been looking through a lot of old yearbooks for photo reference for artists and maybe unconsciously glanced over old pictures of her. It could be that I recently got an updated Class of 89 high school contact list and looked it over with an eye for which girls were married and which weren't. I just rechecked and she's on it and now married. Whatever the case may be, it was kinda nice to see BY again. It got me thinking about the past...

In fifth grade, I was the fastest kid in the entire class. (And stayed the fastest all through high school actually.) BY just happened to be the fastest girl in the grade and I remember that that was the first time I noticed her. We could run fast together, my young mind thought. Over the course of time, I developed a crush on her that I kept to myself. I thought the fact that you could write CB + BY and it would read the same vertically and horizontally was pretty cool. But we were in different classes, ran in different cliques even back then, and our paths never really crossed, although we did ride the same bus. Early kisses and fumblings came and went with other girls I had easier access to. But BY was always there to catch my eye.

We left elementary school and moved onto junior high. We were growing up and all that... but it wasn't until 7th grade that I got my nerve up. One day our eyes met in the hallway (and I still remember the exact place) and BY smiled at me! I was thrilled! Oh, my god, she noticed me! Was I supposed to say something? I thought I should, so I turned around and there she was... but she was not looking back. She was walking away giggling with her friend DT. But that was enough for me. Her smile was a call to action. I knew what I had to do. I was going to ask her out! It's what all the cool kids were doing after all.

So I waited a few days, deciding on a plan, figuring out what to say, making sure I looked OK, picking out the right clothes... and then I did it. One day after lunch I simply walked up to BY and asked her out. She looked at me (I guess for what seemed like an eternity, as the cliche goes), smiled and said yes! Just like that, I had a girlfriend. My first steady girlfriend! BY and I were dating! But I quickly realized I had no clue what to do next, so I just said something like "Cool. Thanks. I'll see you later then." and walked away. She smiled and nodded and waved.

That was the first and last time I saw BY as my girlfriend though. At the end of the day, as I waited for her to ride the bus home together, her friend DT came up to me and told me BY felt she rushed into things and was breaking up with me. And right there and then, I learned a lot about life and love and what my future held in dealing with women.

I walked home and cried and suffered through my first heart break. My memories of the days following this first fumbled attempt at dating are fuzzy now, but I'm sure I sulked, hid and avoided BY as best I could. Another precursor to my future of dealing with women.

We finished junior high and spent four years in high school together, but BY and I never really talked or hung out as we got older. We were never the best of friends. Never really friends even. Sure, we had mutual acquaintances and saw each other in different classes and at parties and things, but I don't think we ever really spoke much. I think she may have yelled at me once or twice because I was drunk or a dick to her friend or both, but that's about it. Which is why the dream last night is all the more baffling. Where the hell did that clarity of nocturnal vision come from?!

This morning I pulled out our high school yearbook and looked her up. There was BY smiling out at me.

My 11 year old self smiled back.

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

More Shameless Self-Promotion

An interview I did about the upcoming Marvel: Ultimate Alliance video game just hit the net...

http://www.marvel.com/news/vgstories.619

Take care,
C.B.

Monday, September 11, 2006

CBC to Write Loners for Marvel

So I guess I've just become the industry's newest three initialed writer...

As announced in Baltimore at the Diamond Retailer Summit this evening, I will indeed be writing the new series Loners for Marvel, which was originally the Excelsior team concept you saw featured in Runaways.

I did comics press tour in support of the announcement, so you can read all about it...

http://www.comicbookresources.com/news/newsitem.cgi?id=8337

http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=83668

And with art...

http://www.wizarduniverse.com/magazine/wizard/001594288.cfm

I'm really loving writing the book and I hope you'll all dig reading it!

Tuesday, September 05, 2006

New Mangaverse Digest on Sale 9/7!!!

The New Mangaverse digest, collecting all five issues of the Marvel mini-series written by me with art by the incomparable Tommy Ohtsuka, goes on sale this Thursday, Septmber 7th, in comic shops and book stores nationwide! Please be sure to check it out and let me know what you think! We appreciate your support!!


Visit http://csls.diamondcomics.com/ to find the shop nearest you.

Spider-Clan Page One

The amazing Skottie Young has a new blog up and has posted the first page from our upcoming Spider-Clan collaboration. The 38 page story will be appearing in the new issue of Spider-Family this Novemberm so pre-order it today! Here's a sneak peek at the page...


And be sure to check out Skottie's blog for more info and kick ass artwork at http://skottieyoung.blogspot.com.

Signing at Jim Hanley's Universe NYC

Just wanted to give a head's up to all Tri-State area folk... Tom DeFalco, Mike Oeming, Bryan Glass and I will be doing a signing for the ACTOR Presents Anthology next Wednesday, September 13th at Jim Hanley's Universe in New York City from 4-6PM. We'll have copies of the anthology on hand, as well as all our other books, and look forward to seeing you there. Come on down and support a wonderful cause and a great comic shop!

You can check out their site at http://www.jhuniverse.com for more details and directions. I hope to see you there!

Monday, September 04, 2006

Preview of S.A.S.E. with Rob Guillory

For those who haven't seen it, Newarama has posted a six-page preview of my story S.A.S.E. with Rob Guillory from the upcoming ACTOR Presents anthology. You can check it out at:

http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=82611

The anthology debuts this coming weekend at the Baltimore Comic Con and goes on sale nationally the following Wednesday, September 13th.

Take care,
C.B.