Wendago

Hump Day of week 2 and the story of the writer’s strike is slowly leaving the cover pages of big media. Not unexpected. And what is being covered has a slight slant. Again, not unexpected. As I said before, it’s hard to win the war when your enemy controls the news. At least Nikki Finke is out there.
But I just don’t understand why we gotta be enemies. Writers, directors, actors, the crew and the cats with the money and distribution.

My one year old gets along better with her buddy Duran than a bunch of seemingly like minded adults. Shame really.
I don’t know. Just seems like if everyone would quit doing everyone else’s job then we might actually make better movies…that make better money. Let the writers write. Let directors direct. This well oiled machine ain’t broke. Stop trying to fix it.
And, moguls, learn 2 share.
But as more of Hollywood shuts down, it’ll get worse. And writers will get the blame.
I had a long eye opening conversation with my old college suite-mate. He’s been an editor as long as I’ve been a writer. And he had no real understanding of why we were striking. And as we spoke it became clear that the information he did have…was slanted. He was frustrated that this whole thing was over 4 cents. He wanted to know if studios were supposed to increase their budgets just so writers could get paid more. I explained that this was more than just 4 cents. That it had to do with the future of residuals, that DVDs would go out as VHS went out, that internet was the future…and he understood. But at the end of the day he’s a friend and he’s worried about the future of his wife and kids. Does our reason really matter to an editor who will never see a dime in residuals? On some level it doesn’t.
On some level it does.
If the writers cave then everyone loses. Even the moguls, they’re just too stupid to know it. I don’t mean stupid financially. No, in that arena they clearly rock. Where they are stupid is in the area of vision and creativity. If they win, if residuals are killed then rest assured a number of brilliant writers will take their talents elsewhere. I mean, why stick around if you’re just gonna get screwed and bitter? Movies that would have brought in a billion plus dollars go away into the debate of what if.
Is Disney’s 35 billion dollars a year really gonna miss the 100 million in residuals? You get what you paid for I guess.
Pay the writers their residuals. Then get out of the writer’s way and let him/her do the job. In the end, you’ll make more money that the 100 million a year you are trying to save.
Rich people are silly. You can’t take it with you. And I don’t want to. But I’d like to keep my kid fed and covered by decent health care.

I have to be honest. I’m shocked by the support in the media. Remember, the media is owned by the same conglomerates that own the companies we are striking against. Hard to win a war when your enemy controls the news. But so far the reporting has seemed mostly fair. I keep expecting that to change. Maybe it won’t though. It’s a brave new world where every writer has a blog and every PA has a Myspace. Guess we’ll see down the road. Hopefully this thing will end soon though and we can all get back to work.
I would also like to take a moment to say a thanks to all those who have shown support on a personal level through emails and phone calls. Thank you.
I hate that it has come to this but I’ve yet to talk to any writer who was all boned up about a strike. Strikes hurt everyone. And below the line will be the first to suffer, those men and women who work their butts off daily as the essential engine that brings TV shows or movies to life. They don’t get residuals. They don’t get their faces on the covers of magazines. They too have families and they will suffer as we move into the Holidays if this thing doesn’t come to an end.
The studios would have you believe that the average screenwriter makes 200 thousand a year. You know, I was more moderate in the beginning of this thing but my tasty blood is starting to boil. I’m way above average and I’ve never had a 200 thousand dollar year. Don’t get me wrong. I’m thankful for what I have and what I’ve received. But I’m not rich. I pay my bills, I love my wife and kid. I really did trade in my Audi for a Bugaboo. A rich guy would have both. I recently went nearly two years without a job and had ICM dump three days before Christmas. Oh I did the work. I wrote every day on scripts and assorted development projects…but none of them resulted in a paycheck. Until recently. Suddenly I found myself with three jobs. Writers get paid in steps. I’ve done at least one step on each project, which means there’s more work to do and more money for me to make. But now my pencil is down. And it will stay down until this is over.
So basically, workers will suffer. writers will suffer. Staffers will suffer. It’ll trickle down too. Groceries, Malls. Joe and Martha will hold off building that extra bedroom thus construction will suffer. Near as I can tell and please let me know if I’m way off base here, but the only one who won’t suffer will be the studio guy making 20 million a year. Or his bosses running the conglomerate that owns him.
So, why fight a battle when so many will suffer?
This is why.
Why We Fight
In closing, the word is out. The writers are…writing. But the writing is personal. They are writing their blogs. In ’88 there was no way of getting the writer’s side of the story out there. Now there is. There are hundreds, maybe thousands of sites by writers and journalists following these stories. I couldn’t possibly list them all but here are three of my favorites.
Deadline Hollywood Daily
Remi’s Blog
Artful Writer
Following is a support petition I snatched from a Steve Niles myspace bulletin.
Support Petition
Again, thanks to everyone who has shown us support. And let’s hope this thing comes to an end, sooner than later.

This entry will not be in chronological order. My brain is mushy, like my grandfather’s tatters. Which also means my brain must be tasty and most likely submerged in unhealthy amounts of buttery goodness.
It’s a little nutty how precious time gets.

First off, young Izzie Rain reached the one year mark without her mother and me causing any major damage, be that physical or emotional. Some, knowing Mel and I for years, might find that shocking. But what’s more shocking to us is that it has already been a year.
If you dig your leisurely existence, don’t have kids. We love’er. Decided not to sell her and all that. But we never got the memo alerting us to the fact that time accelerates when children are involved.
It’s crazy.

Last week she was born. 11.10 pounds of rip-momma-a-new-one glory.

And this week she’s standing and stringing together complex sentences: “Does my tushy look fat in this dress?”
I’m thankful that I get paid to do what I love to do. It’s a good gig if you can get it. And I’m an extrovert so I even enjoyed the guhzillion meetings that come standard with getting a job. Now those meetings annoy me. I don’t mind one or two. Meet and greet, shoot the poo, see if we, as a group, can actually tolerate one another long enough to see a screenplay from start to finish. And I realize I’m the only one to blame for my living six hours North of LA but spending 12 hours on the road for a one hour meeting that could have been accomplished via a 45 min conference call…eh…you get the idea.

A 12 hour round trip completely kills the day. The only work I get done will be that which exists in my head. Which isn’t a horrible thing. Most of what I do happens in the head first anyway. But I can also do that work while pushing the creature along the ocean.

But I accept the trade off. We chose to live in a small town with fresh air, friendly neighbors and a minute’s walk to an unpolluted ocean. What I refuse to tolerate when it comes to wasted time is Bill Gates. Bill, you’re a dick. You have been friends with Steve Jobs for how many years? Learn 2 do better.
I’ve written the pilot for a 30 minute animated series based on a popular video game. The game launched in September and wasn’t available on the Mac. So, I booted up the PC so that I could play the game. The time and energy it took to load the game was nothing but misery. First the PC demanded I do a string of Windows updates. Meanwhile ZoneAlarm and Avast are screaming that they need to be updated as well. And with each update there are string of questions to answer, downloads to confirm and it goes on and on and on. Then after hours and hours of updating I’m ready to download and the PC tells me the network doesn’t exist. Which is laughable since every Mac in the house can not only see the PC on the network but can grab and snatch any file from said PC. So while the Macs are rooting around inside the PC making fun of it, the PC retardedly insists that no network exists.
Turns out the PCs wireless software needs to be…you guessed it…updated. This turns out to be a nightmare because Linksys is demanding the installation CD. Why?? Well, this is a security measure…at least that’s what they tell you. Not true at all. It’s actually because Bill Gates is a dick. Which means, PC software is so easily pirated that Linksys wants to make sure you paid for your wireless software. By the way, is this my fault that PC software is so easily cracked and pirated? Why in the world do I need to prove that I’m legit when the security issues are due to faulty programing?
Thus begins the hunt for the original CD. I’ve moved twice since we bought the Alienware and the Linksys wireless. The CD could be anywhere. Anywhere but here as it turns out. So, what am I supposed to do? I got a seven thousand dollar Alienware just sitting there insisting that 2 + 2 = 11. So, I called Linksys. Some joker in Indonesia tells me they are willing to send me a replacement disk for both proof of purchase and money for shipping. I could, of course, buy a brand new wireless usb. Or, I can download the hack from a pirate site. Ten minutes later the PC is proudly boasting that 2 + 2 = 4. Thus, their attempt to defeat pirates has forced a legit consumer to become a pirate. Nice work, Bill. You dick.
Of course, when I launched the game the PC informed me it couldn’t allow gameplay until both the video and sound cards received updated drivers.
I used to wonder why Mac users were so arrogant. I used to think, “The Mac can’t be that much better.” I was wrong and I’m now an arrogant Mac user. If you are a PC user, do yourself a favor. Use a Mac for two months. It’ll take a month to get used to it. It’s different. No getting around that. But just like anything else it will all become second nature and then you’ll wonder and kick yourself for not switching sooner. It’ll change your life. More importantly, it’ll save you time.

So, several months back I met with Ghost House to discuss the possibility of writing a sequel to The Messengers. It was an odd journey because even though I was the original writer on The Messengers, Ghost House had never actually read my draft. My manager sent it to J.R. Young who read it and pitched the idea or rewriting it as a prequel. One script enters, two scripts leave.
I always loved that original draft and it was a little disheartening to watch it vanish piece by piece until hardly any of it remained. I didn’t hate The Messengers but as a writer, part of the fun is seeing your story made into a movie. That will finally happen. Now there was a big twist in the original that had to go. Sad about that but in the end I’m really happy with where the story ended up. In Mid-October I meet with the players at Raimi’s office on the Sony lot to discuss notes and hopefully have the thing in production by January.

In early September the Bad Planet/Alien Pig Farm crew met at Del’s Dark Delicacies in Burbank to shoot interviews and commentary for the digital formats of said comics. Big thanks for Sue and Del for giving us the space and putting up with us so late. 2am found us standing in an hour long line at Pink’s to take part in burgers and dogs.

It has been crazy busy lately but we still sneak out when we can and make the ocean walk. Sometimes we are joined by Jacob, Holly and young Duran.
One of the crazy busy elements adding to the crazy busy life was a rewrite of a six issue comic book series based on a popular video game. The idea was to turn out a story connecting game 4 to the coming release of game 5. The game developers had written the original comic story and I was brought in to polish, tighten and help out as best I could. I turned in Issue 1 a couple of weeks ago and am waiting to hear if I should continue or if I’m hated.

Tuesday evenings Alvarado Street in Monterey shuts down for the Farmer’s Market. We haven’t been in over a month but I’d like to head back there next week. Great food and goofy trinkets you can only find at a Farmer’s Market.
I finished what could only be called a TV show bible, consisting of pilot, town history, backstories, extensive character breakdowns as well as a very detailed first season break down with A,B,C and D storylines and an overall season to season story breakdown. I started this adventure six months ago (no, longer than that) with Benderspink. It’s a great show and the plan was to get out there before the pitch season ended but everyone’s schedule has been nutty. Not just mine. Currently we’re waiting for Fox’s reaction to the heafty document sent their way.

Izzie and Duran have become fast friends. Although lately we’ve kept the kids apart due to Izzie’s first runny nose which she sweetly shared with her mother and me. I, of course, got the worst of it. Turns out I was slowly ODing on cough syrup. At least I wasn’t coughing. But 12 hours after I started sipping the tasty grape flavored stuff I thought I was going to die. Everytime I stood up my head felt like it was about to explode and I would get dizzy, naseated and feel the urge to hurl. Finally I did. I was the Exorcist…well no…actually I was the possessed little girl. Mel started reading the bottle and asked me how much I’d been taking. Two tablespoons every four hours. Turns out I should have been taking one teaspoon. Oops. But I’m better now so mine enemies must wait a little longer for my eventual demise to bless the Earth.
Of course, during my runny nose I’ve been writing a pilot for a TV show that Michael Goldstein and I created years ago. We had the whole story mapped out, 22 episodes of season one and had the series mapped out through season 5. Writing the pilot has and will be pretty easy. Time has been the real issue. I’m writing it on spec so paying gigs keep bumping it aside. But I’m back on it for the moment.

Tomorrow I hit the road for LA where I’ll meet with Kevin Cornish and Zanne Devine at RKO. This will be the last story meeting before I dive into the script. It’s a twisted little thriller with the theme that promises one should be careful what one wishes for.
In my absence Mel and young Ms. Izzie Rain will attend their first official class at Parent’s Place. It’s something we regret not being a part of earlier. We’ve basically made it through year one alone. Our family is more or less East Coast. Mel’s been breast feeding so leaving Izzie with a formula packing babysitter was never an option. And although we have some great friends out here it’ll be nice to get around other parents and allow Izzie to mingle and assert her dominance on the lesser humans of her generation.
Actually the only time we’ve been away from Izzie has been our trips to the club to work out. They have a fantastic day care. We assumed young Izzie would complain at being away from mumsy and papa but she adapted with no problems.

Friday and Saturday I’ll be in San Jose for Silicon, a down home comicbook/horror/scifi convention. Tomorrow I’m going to drop by Dean’s house to confiscate his old Macbook. I could take my PC laptop but is there really any reason to explain why I don’t want to?
A few weeks back I drove into LA for Dean’s first official book signing at Carr D’Angelo’s Earth2Comics in Encino.

It was a great opportunity to see some of the old clan. The Handmans dropped in to show their support. They sent young Izzie a great little stuffed crab book (see first photo in this entry) for her one year birthday. And a big congratulations goes out to Mr. Handman for winning his first Emmy for editing.
We actually received some fantastic gifts from friends and family all over the country and it made for a great first Izzie Rain birthday. Being out here in the middle of nowhere we forget that people out there actually like us…or at least like Izzie.
Dean’s book is selling great and if you haven’t picked up a copy you should. He finished his drafts of the screenplay and the new writer (the guy who wrote Finding Nemo) has been hired. Those of you unfamiliar with the inner workings of Hollywood might think this is a slap at Dean. Not at all. Quite the opposite. Could they have shot Dean’s draft? Of course, but that ain’t how Hollywood works. Every screenplay gets rewritten. The Messengers got rewritten by eight different sets of writers. If you are going to be rewritten (and you will be) you want to be rewritten by the best. By the guy who will give the studio even more confidence to make the movie and make it right. Finding Nemo will deliver. I wish I’d been rewritten by Finding Nemo.

And in other baby news (far more important than Brit’s losing custody), Natalie and Patrick had their second bouncing boy, Jessica and Christine, their second little girl (gift baskets are bundled on the couch and awaiting our walk to the post office for proper shipment). And Mark and Christine have their third bun in the oven. Congratulations to all.
So, from Pacific Grove we wish you all a thanks for a wonderful year one. Work hard, laugh more and get some sleep.

Dean’s Nightmare Academy hits the shelves today. Amazon it or run out to your local store and grab a copy. Dean would love to hear what you think. You can email him from DeanLorey.com.

Besides running all over the peninsula snatching copies of Nightmare, the Farmer life has been pretty norm. I’m nearly done with The Messengers prequel. In fact, I’ll be finished before the lawdawgs are done with the contracts.

A few weeks back, Tom and I met Ludon and the gang at D2 Comics outside San Fransisco. We went to work on the digital comic versions of Bad Planet and Pig Farm. Ludon’s team had done and is doing an amazing job. I can’t wait to download these bad boys to the iPhone.
In September all involved will meet up in Burbank for the behind-the-scenes and commentary tracks. Should be a blast.
Next will come an Alien Pig Farm music video. I’ll keep the details to a minimum for now but holy pig poo, batman, this is going to be so much fun.

Izzie Rain’s little buddy, Duran, celebrated year one in true form at the park. Complete with old lady singing creepy, clap-along-cult-style songs and crawling in the grass.

It’s a great little park only a couple blocks from our crib.

Young Izzie Rain scarfed down her first spicy deep fried beef Taquito much to the horror of the attending vegan mothers.

And, of course, she got paraded around on Daddy’s shoulders because I’m a big freaking pushover.

So, life is good. I ain’t getting rich but I am working. Mel is both gorgeous and the perfect momma…so I got that going for me. And young Izzie Rain dazzles us with something new every day. She’s crawling now…and standing with the aid of a well placed couch. Last night she pulled the rolled up Playstation controllers out of the entertainment center, turned the Playstation on and then attempted, for quite some time, to plug the controllers in. She’s a little creepy in her early understanding of the world.

Alas, we couldn’t be more proud.

I have toyed with the adventure that is Comicon off and on for ten years. This year was the nuttiest of them all. For one thing the con just keeps getting bigger and bigger, more and more corporate and for the second thing, I was there to represent Alien Pig Farm and RAW Entertainment as a whole.

Tom Jane, yours truly and Tim Bradstreet.
After building our booth late Wednesday the entourage headed across the street to take part in seafood and begin the long process of injecting an overflowing IV of alcohol into our bloodstreams.

Around the table we find Bradstreet with Sarah and Niles.

Ludon, of D2C Games, who RAW joined forces with for digital versions of Alien Pig Farm and Bad Planet. Legendary artist, Joe Jusko and journalist, Mark Walters.

Myself and Jane.

Thursday was non-stop working the booth. Tom planted his feet and held the booth all day long, signing comics and posters for both Mutant Chronicals and Darabont’s The Mist. Niles and Bradstreet made several appearances as their schedules allowed.
Thursday night we sat down to break bread at Frank Darabont’s annual dinner. It was a melting pot of Hollywood and Comic book people. Edgar Wright, director of Shawn of the Dead, Battlestar creator, Ronald Moore, Niles, Jane, Bradstreet, Jusko, even Quint from Ain’t It Cool was there. I recall looking around the table, feeling amazingly under qualified to be there expecting some suit to approach at any moment and ask me to leave. Alas that never happened and I ended up being part of the group who stayed miserably late allowing the restaurant employees to draw time and a half. I would have pulled the camera but it didn’t feel like a picture snapping sort of event.

After four hours of fast sleep I was showered and back at the booth.

You’d think the celebrity would have slept late but Jane was there before I was. And for good reason, Friday was a big day as we had the RAW mega signing planned.

Seated: Legends, Bill Stout and Bernie Wrightson. Standing, me and Pig Farm interior artist, Don Marquez. Standing on a chair, shouting to the crowd: Tommy Jane.

That’s Tim Bradstreet’s back. In the background left to right: Mark Schultz cover artist on both Pig Farm and Bad Planet. Niles, Marquez and myself. And you can just make out Bad Planet penciler, James Daly’s head peeking into the picture as he scribbles his Johnny Hancock onto one of many RAW posters.

The whole clan. There were several hundred digital pics snapped at this moment and, of course, my camera is the one that returned the fuzzy picture. Figures.

That night was the RAW party. Ploog, Wrightson, Jane, Jusko and Niles. It was nuts. Had to be nearly 100 people stuffed into Ludon’s hotel suite. I am assuming that there were casualties by the end of the night but I understand we have PR people who make all that stuff go away.
Dave Allcock (storyboard artist on Mutant Chronicals and Jane’s upcoming directorial debut, Dark Country), myself, Jane (kneeling), Sarah, Niles and the guys from Del Rey (who Tom and I had tracked down earlier that day. If all goes as planned Del Rey may release RAW’s trade paperbacks, Pig Farm, Bad Planet).
After our party, if memory serves, we all crashed the Lucasarts party. Easy to do when you are with a celeb. We didn’t stay long. We joined up with David Arquette and Paul Rubens and took off for the Hyatt for the end of the night (stupidly early morning party). Half of the group took a limo…the rest of us piled into bikes.

That’s Amy and Hunter. Hunter is currently cutting The Mist with Darabont. And Jane has been sitting in on most of the sessions in preparation for his Dark Country adventures.

What should have been a friendly bike ride became a scene out of the French Connection.

It was a race to the finish line…or to the death…whichever happened to come first. Sadly the whole race came to a crushing halt as the south bound Amtrak blocked our path. Of course, this was a perfect opportunity for Tom to leap from the bike, run toward the moving train and…jump aboard. As he rode off into the moonset, I sat there too stunned to remember that I actually had a camera in my hand.
The Tribe reassembled outside the back bar at the Hyatt where I ran into Messengers scribe and good friend Mark Wheaton and his whole entourage. I also saw good buddy, Carr D’Angelo.

Carr (left) and I met years ago when he was still and executive at Universal. In the last few years he and Jud (right) opened a comic book shop in Encino and they had just won the Eisner award for the greatest comic book shop in the world. Needless to say, Carr was glowing.
Later, Niles mentioned to Tom that there was a certain comic book writer at the bar. Tom wanted to meet this particular writer and rushed inside only to learn that the guy had just left. So, Tom proceeded to shout to the crowd, “Five bucks to the man who will kick (unnamed writer’s) @$$!”
Then, while chatting with Niles, suddenly he says, “Oh crap, come on!” Some stupidly drunk dude had just snatched Tom’s cigar out of his mouth and it looked like a fight was about to break out. Niles and I approached while I yelled for Bradstreet. As it turned out, the guy was drunk but not stupid. He quickly started backpedaling and although words were exchanged, no punches flew.
I put Niles and Sarah on a bike back to the Omni. Bradstreet got Tom up to his room. And although the drunk had backed down from Tom he continued to accost others. Including Jovanka, Editor in Chief of Rue Morgue. I stepped in a few more times and did my best to talk the guy down, at one point showing him pics of my daughter in an attempt to distract him. It worked and eventually he departed. Then I joined forces with Jovanka and the guys from Rue Morgue for our journey back to the Omni. It had become a surreal night and there’s strength in numbers.
Of course, this near fight meshed with Tom’s earlier shouts to kick the butt of the unnamed writer until the following day the story that Tom and this writer had gone to blows had become a thing of legend.

Less than four hours of sleep later and I was back at the booth. All week Ludon had the digital teasers for Bad Planet and Pig Farm playing to the crowd and the kids loved it, staring enthralled.

Obviously by Saturday we were all wasted. Jane, Allcock and Daly at the booth.
Later Tom and I broke away to walk Artist Alley searching for an artist to pencil the six issue series he and I are co-writing called, The Lycan. I think we found our guy but it’s too early to go making announcements.

That night we started out at the Red Pearl. Jusko, Jane, Bradstreet, Ludon, Allcock and myself.

Unfortunately for Jusko I snapped a pic of him in mid-spicy-belch.

…a pic that had Bradstreet laughing so uncontrollably hard that he wept.

My friend and neighbor, Allen Spiegel was eating at the Red Pearl that night as well. We had actually been looking for Allen earlier in the day to pick his brain about publishing within the foreign markets.

Then it was off to the roof of the Westgate to see a band play…but we got there too late. Much to Bradstreet’s dismay. He was a big fan of this band who I’d never heard of before.

No band aside, it was another successful party. Dave, myself, Tom and Jim Lee.
At one point I recall seeing Tom approach the railing. Although I cannot confirm this…there are rumors that he may have been planning to relieve himself onto the sidewalk three stories below. Of course, if that were his plan I’m certain I would have reminded him that every person at this party came packing a digital camera. And saying that would have certainly stopped such thoughts of airborne urination.
Of course, when…and if…he saw the fountain at the other end of the rooftop…well, all I can say is that words do not stop a viking.
Of course, I’m certain this is probably all rumor. I’m certain the following morning this did not become yet another thing of legend as Dave Allcock’s rendering will prove.