"Welcome to the Party, Pal!"

Life is good.

Well, life is much better, at least, for a couple of reasons. Oh, I'm still working way too many hours (and didn't get that last job, which I think turned out to be a good thing, because it sounded like kind of a nightmare place to work), but I'm feeling different about it...and life. Had kind of a weird life change. No, not a religious one. Had this weird thing happen to me one day while dropping by a Kinko's and waiting for a color copier to open up. I picked up a book and looked at it, mainly just wanting to look occupied and not make the guy at the copier think I was impatient and crowding him. It was a book called "100 Ways to Motivate Yourself" by Steven Chandler. I sat there thinking, wow, I could really use some of THAT (motivation) in my life right about now. Things were not good, I was overworked and miserable and not a happy camper at all. I browsed it, and what I scanned was making a lot of sense. So I went ahead and picked it up. That moment actually kind of changed my life. Not so much the book itself (which is really brilliant, by the way), but just making a choice in my life to seek out material like that, and to adapt the belief that I CAN change my life...by changing my attitude about it. I'd gotten tired of being both a) a victim and b) a whiner. And hadn't been happy in a depressingly long time. I decided it was time to take my life back. So I started down that road.

Using several books that I've now read and a number of books-on-CD that I'm listening to (instead of wasting my commute time) as my inspiration, I've somehow managed to find peace, excitement, motivation and some actual happiness again. It's about time. I've totally reworked my attitude (which I hadn't even realized had gotten so crappy) and gotten to a place where I'm bouncing (almost literally) out of bed at 5am every day, psyched to get started and get to work. While I'm still digging out from under a major mess there, I've kicked some MAJOR ass at the office and made things much better (not quite to the forty-hours-a-week kind of better, but getting there). I'm positive, I'm better with people, I'm setting goals and already starting to hit them in my life, and I seriously feel like a "me" that I haven't been in a very long time. Pretty happy about it. I've stopped dreading life and started living it, and can't wait to see where it takes me now. Things have improved in every area of my life. And now that I've decided that I'm NOT too smart or cool for self-help stuff, I'm getting lots great ideas from the stuff I'm seeking out (and have even gone so far as to--brace yourself--go down the Tony Robbins road). It's amazing what you can do with your life when you actually just make a decision and take action on it. It's a habit I plan on sticking to. So yeah...life's good, I'm happy to report (for a change). Don't worry...I don't plan on selling flowers at the airport anytime soon.

And it also didn't hurt that my team at work staged a coup and ended up getting our HORRIBLY incompetent and destructive boss booted. Do I feel bad about that? Well, sure...it's me, after all. I wouldn't have done anything if it was just about me, but my whole team was suffering and couldn't take it anymore (one girl had like a literal nervous breakdown at work), and management finally admitted that he stank...and everyone in the company knew it. You have no IDEA what a difference that made to my team. Not only is everyone feeling a relief like we'd never known, but the minute he was gone, our work (without him in the way) improved many times over, and we're suddenly leading the office in many areas, while largely managing ourselves. In an interesting twist, I almost got his job. The salvage company we partner with heard that he was gone (I'm not kidding when I say that the woman I talked to there cheered out loud), and they decided that they wanted me to take his place. Uh...I don't think I actually WANT his job. :) But management there contacted our company's management and made their wish about that clear. Alas, my company's actually looking for a manager with management experience (imagine that...), which I totally understand, but I thought it was a major feather in my cap to have a CEO of a corporation call my company and ask them to promote me because they really want to work with me only. Guess I'm doing PART of the job right.

And in other news, I'm in the middle of jury duty right now. Just when I'm making major headway at work, too, I get yanked away from the office for that. Drat. Ah, well. There's the upside to look at. Things like court getting out early and letting me get home in the early afternoon and work on my 'Times submission. :D

And speaking of which...

This Time Around

Well, the big addition this time around is that wacky Forge team page. I'd planned all along to create a Forge page, once I got 1) the first story arc done and 2) enough art. And hey...I got both! So got this wild hair to get it started, and did so, and then realized I didn't have time left before the deadline to get much ELSE done so figured I'd just buckle down and get this page totally complete. And it is.

So, yeah, it's got the stories, which most of you (sounds like) have already read. Though I did add a little extra bit just for this page...a "deleted scene" that was originally written to introduce Yellow Rose, a character who WAS going to be on Forge, but didn't end up being. So thought it'd be fun to toss this up there as a special Forge-page-only extra.

Let me say one thing about this page. Know what's better than being a geek? Being a PRETENTIOUS geek. :D

Yeah, I went full-on with the page, just having fun trying to make it into some major event (when really, at this point, it's all just the gift-wrapping surrounding a four-part story). I had fun. I tried to build this page on the assumption that the reader was someone who knew nothing about Forte and was finding the Forte Universe for the first time through it. So I built Forge up and made it sound all kinds of important. Really, did I NEED a big essay on how the concept of Forge first began, and the creative decisions involved? No. But it was fun, and, again, made the Forge page SOUND important. Had a good time making the character pages, too, a chance for me to, in most cases, do some exploring on previous Forte heroes and re-research their backgrounds (thanks, K.C., for scanning and emailing me the Mist and Secundus sheets I'd asked for. That was why). And it was fun nailing down their first appearances in Forte continuity (since this new team is made up of so many different eras, which was the whole idea behind making a Forte-rich new team, making one that represented the whole history of Forte) and list the dates, which really gives a sense of time to Forte. And I really had a great time doing the "supporting cast" pages, because it gave me a chance to flesh out some of the characters that have appeared in the Forge stories thus far...like being able to actually put down the backstories for all the Nightwatch Solutions employees, a group of folks that I just love. And I had enough Forge art to create its own respectable gallery, though all of it is actually repeated on either the Forte 2000 or "Eryck Webb - Other" galleries. But you may not have seen some of the most recent additions on the F2K Gallery yet, so you may be seeing some for the first time.

And yes, as you may notice on there...yet ANOTHER history of Forte. My apologies. And you won't hurt my feelings if you don't go through it all, since you've all read it in other forms elsewhere...and because it's HUGE. Again, I was writing for the Forge reader who knows squat about Forte. I started out just wanting to do a "brief" (heh) history of the world Forge operates in, but it quickly got out of control...and I couldn't stop!! I had this idea a while ago that I wanted to do something called "A Brief History of Forte", where I was going to break down the whole campaign by "eras" (as least how I saw them), and that ended up happening here. And it took a LOT more time than I thought, but once you start pulling on that thread, you know... So I managed to crank out a history of K.C.'s game world (from my perspective, at least, and my apologies, K.C., if I got some of the "pre-history" details wrong, working from memory as I was) right from the start to today. Not a complete one, mind you, but mainly centered on Forte. Figured that way if someone discovering Forge wondered what the heck all this backstory was I was talking about, they could find out...if they wanted read all that crap. So it's kind of a fun trip down the ol' memory lane, and an overview of the Forte history, that you may enjoy...but certainly aren't REQUIRED to, so just wanted to make that clear.

Hope you like the design of the site (I went for "simple but snazzy"), and hope you enjoy checking it out. And I hope it keeps me inspired to keep creating new Forge stories, because MAN are there a lot to tell. I really set myself up for a huge saga with that origin story. The retaking of San Francisco, the exploration of this villain-for-hire network, Heatspell's secret origin, that whole Nightwatch Solutions storyline with Imperator... I'd better get busy on that!

And did you NOT think there'd be new Forte 2000 art? Please.

Not AS much this time, though. Pull up the gallery page and check out the "newest additions" area at the top. let's discuss.

First, I went back to the cheap $10 art with Jason Nantz and got three new ones. The Knightsabre and Mist? Not so impressive. The Phantashia, however, turned out really nice, I thought. Hey, it's ten bucks...you take your chances. Some pretty fun stuff.

And Sean Harrington. Wow. He's definitely become one of my new regulars. Yes, he's another artist with occasional laughable boobyitis, but he does really nice work, as I found with the initial pencil stuff he did for me...but then I discovered his color work. Whew! Great color, and yet another one of those rare mutant artists who actually does the work FAST. Even the color ones I have back within, generally, two days. For that, I'll put up with occasional...um...over-inflation. I think I might have shared his Moondancer one on the board (can't recall), but LOOK at that work! Loved the addition of the 3D background. And try look up from the (ahem) central focus of the shot and look what he did with her hair. Beautiful work. I knew I was now locked in to color with him. LOVE his pencils, but the color is so darned well-done! Really neat work on the Heatspell, I thought (I was trying to build up the Forge gallery for its debut, so needed one of her). Great lighting, isn't it? And the Mist one. Hmm...speaking of 3D. Comedy aside (go ahead and laugh...I did. And Kaye and I had fun email joking about it), it's still a really nice shot. And to complete the Forge trio, I had to go for a Nightshift. Wow. See, you can do sexy without putting anyone's eye out. Not that I asked for sexy (as usual, I said "here's the art references, here's what her powers are, do what ya want with it"). But I love the suggestion of the teleportation powers with that fade to blackness at the bottom, and love the glowing hands that show her black energy powers. Awesome facial lighting, too. And while the Nightsable's not technically "new" (you've seen the original pencils already), I asked him what he'd charge me to color the existing pencil shots, and the price was too nice to pass up. So I started with the Nightsable and figure I'll go back along the way for Tinker and Dyna Girl, just so I'll keep the whole Harrington gallery looking uniform (though in the Harrington row below, I did keep the pencil version up as well, because I'm a big fan of both). Finally, if you jump over to the Windjammer page, you'll find I tried Sean out on a Delight as well. Finally, a character his style really fits. :)

Snuck in a David Enciso in the past couple of months as well, as there was one NPC heroine he hadn't done yet...Quiver, the Crusade world heroine who's got a thing going with Forte's Lightsedge (talk about your long-distance relationships). He decided to forgo the energy bow of hers and just stick with the optional sword...so her name doesn't really make a whole lot of sense with this shot, but it's a nice one anyway.

Tried a gal called Yapi Santiago, who has a whole anime thing going on. I liked her work, and her price for multiple characters, so I thought I'd try her on the Forte girls. All I asked for was a shot of the three of them. She then asked me if I wanted a super-hero shot of them or more of a non-action shot. I said non-action, and suggested maybe a shot of them at the base watching a movie on TV. I expected to get them in costume, but she ended up putting them in jammies instead. Okay...Forte 2K slumber party. That works. Notice how she kept their costume colors in the jammies, too. Fun shot. Different.

Speaking of different, I just recently discovered this guy Bryan K. Turner, who's got a real unique and fun style. I found an eBay auction for him and used the link there to check his site and all his samples and found that 1) he's doing set-price commissions so I don't have to deal with the eBay wait, and 2) based on most of his gallery...he can draw guys!! So I may have found a way to get some more Forte dude shots that, based on his Vortex, could end up being REALLY fun. Have to hit him up again.

Finally, did a little housekeeping on the Forte sites. First, I "added" five stories to the Forte 2000 Adventures page, which just means that I finally got around to adding links to the "You're a Good Man, Andy Clayton" (from the Forte '05 page) and the Forge origin tale. They DO kind of involve Forte 2000 characters, after all. And I added a Forge link on the main ForteUniverse page, and added a Team Pages area to the Forte Expanded Universe page, starting with links to Forte 2000 and Forge sites (and I do hope to be able to add The New Paragons and Armor Security one of these days...).

Next Time...On "The 'F' Word"...

Well, that's about it this time around. Trying to get my submission done early (at least early for me...not like MARTIN early...), so I'd best wrap this up. Next time will be June, and just a month away from Comic-Con. And just two months away from the Forte 20th Anniversary Seattle gathering! But more on that next time, when I hope to be back with some more Forte 2000 stuff, maybe some Forge, and maybe something else...

Michael O’Connell
Fanner of the Forte Flame