"Welcome to the Party, Pal!"

I (heart) summer!!!!

It is officially (official enough for me...I'm in California) summertime, my favorite time of the year! I have done that thing that happens about this time every year, the one thing that best signals the season for me: I hung my jacket up on the back of my desk chair (the chair that I don't use, so I mainly just pile clothes on it), and it's probably going to stay there until about October. It is all about sunshine, long evenings and the anticipation of summer trips now. About time! That was a long winter.

Let's see what's been happening... Work, of course, which is in some ways more hectic and some ways less since the big management shift. I'm feeling a lot more positive about it either way. I took the first of my trips already. I had three big out-of-towners planned before the end of summer, and I now have Boise behind me. Aaron, Tony and I all flew in from our different cities to spend a three-day weekend visiting Russ at his new house in Boise. No wives or fiancees allowed. This was to be a MAN weekend (hurm!). So, you'd assume we went to strip clubs and worked on our Camero engines, right? Yeah, you probably know the old San Diego contingent better. We spent the bulk of the weekend--one filled with barbecue and brew, naturally--sitting in front of Russ's TV playing Marvel Ultimate Alliance on the X-Box. This trip was for Russ, and Russ wanting his guys to come hang out with him now that he was living away. So it was going to be whatever Russ wanted. And Russ wanted hot four-player X-Box action! So, yeah, spent more time than I probably have in twenty-five years doing to console game thing.

So, lots of experience on that game now. Oh my GOD what an amazing game!! I can't believe how much work they put into it! I expected a Marvel game to be you running around New York for thirty levels. They really went out of their way to take you to as many places in the Marvel Universe as possible. I got to fight on the SHIELD helicarrier! Go out into space with the Shi'ar empire (and fight the Imperial Guard!)! Travel to Asgard! Go to Atlantis! All that AND run from Galactus. I actually got to run from Galactus...being chased by a giant Galactus. I couldn't help thinking how much my brain would have just short-circuited and overloaded if someone had shown this game to me in high school. For an old-school Marvelite like myself, it was a hell of a treat. Loved the game, but had the most fun, of course, just having the experience of countless hours of 4-player videogaming with my old San Diego boys. Lots of fun. We did manage to get out and see some of the sights (on the final day) around Boise, and on the Friday night, we did get out and see Spider-Man 3 on opening night. So that's one trip down. Now San Diego and Seattle to go!

Speaking of SM3...I've actually managed to see a couple of movies recently (a VERY rare thing for me). I just had to get out and see "Grindhouse", because I loved the idea of it so much. And I saw that one twice...first on opening night, then the following weekend with some people who couldn't make it the first night. Me, I loved it, but I can't say I could recommend it to anyone for sure. It's literally one of the most disgusting films you'll ever see. Robert Rodriguez, in his film in the double-feature--"Planet Terror", had a gleeful time coming up with every creative and over-the-top way he could think of to gross you out. In context, hilarious, but you do have to have a strong stomach and appreciate the comedy in the grossness. Tarantino's film ("Death Proof") was the lesser of the two, being way too talky (and this is coming from me, who usually LIKES talky) and indulgent, but still very entertaining. The best part of the film was the fake movie trailers during the "intermission" between the two movies. Ones that were, again, extremely disgusting (and hilarious). Good stuff.

Had to go see "Hot Fuzz" on opening night, too, because I was such a huge fan of "Shawn of the Dead", and this was from the same guys. One of the funniest movies I've seen in years. Definitely recommend that one for anyone. Great laughs. I realized, while watching it, how rare it is to see a comedy that's actually FUNNY these days...at least the kind of funny that I find funny, the smarter kind of funny (not just the easy laugh and the sight gag). Can't wait to own it.

Spider-Man 3? Enjoyed it, definitely. But they really tried to cram way too much into one film, and it showed. Kind of a mess. But great performances from everyone, and overall pretty satisfying. I also think Sam overdid it with his wacky use of CGI action scenes, which totally takes you out of the film. Oh my God, though...Gwen Stacy. I'd never seen any films before with the actress they got to play her--Bryce Dallas Howard--and holy COW is she gorgeous! Now we'll see if they can manage to not screw up Fantastic Four 2, and maybe Marvel will keep its track record going.

Hey, you know what's sadly ironic? When you order a bunch of DVDs through Amazon because you tell yourself you're actually going to force yourself to sit down and watch a movie or two for a change over the holiday weekend...and then your DVD player fries. Well, I was overdue for a new one anyway. Now I have to go hit Best Buy in the next couple of days (at least I get to make use of some gift cards I've been saving up). And hey...more time to work on my zine, too!

Speaking of my zine?

This Time Around

Did I mention I have an obsessive personality?

It's been bugging me, for a long time, that one of my sites in the ForteUniverse family was largely incomplete. It bugs me every time I go to the main ForteUniverse.com page and see the note beneath "Forte.com" that says "Mostly under construction at this time". That's because I knew that if I got back to it, it would need a total redesign, and I was trying to imagine how much time that would take me, time I never seem to have.

I don't have to imagine anymore.

Wow, did that take a lot of time. But I did it (like Hiro!), using what evening time I have, night after night, for over a month now (maybe longer, I've lost track). Now, finally, that page is no longer "under construction". It it done, and it is live.

You might have looked at this page before. It was actually the very first online Forte thing I did, back living in San Diego. It started when I decided I wanted to find out what was happening with the Forte characters in current continuity. We'd done (we being me and Aaron) some of that when putting together the 1998 Clobberin' game, but that had just gotten me started. There was a lot of post-campaign continuity to fill in, and I wanted to start making some decisions on where all the characters were and what they were currently up to. I started this by writing an email from Dr. Jackal to Mist, using it as a vehicle to explore the state of Forte in 2001. I think I just emailed copies of that out to all the Forte people. But then I got this idea for a web page, springing from that email. The email address for Dr. Jackal was "dr_jackal@forte.com". This got me to thinking...what IS Forte.com? I figured the team had their own secret web site, one that let them access the Forte computer and such. I wondered what this page might look like.

So I threw together the beginnings of that, and had fun imagining all the things the page might do. Access to the Forte Database was, of course, a must. And access to the Forte email system. I decided they also used this site to video conference with each other, so I had fun making a graphical interface for that. There was some other stuff, too. But most of the pages were just placeholders, really. You'd go there and you'd get text that read "Offline at this time" or some such. I had planned to get back to it and work the page some more down the road. To start with, I just used it as a place to put up fictional emails and database entries. I put up that Jackal/Mist email. And I made a Database entry for the tale of Vanguard's bachelor party.

But by this time, the Forte 2000 thing had gotten started. Kaye, Tim and Jeff had gotten me their characters, and I'd fallen in love with them (the characters, not Kaye, Tim and Jeff. We're just friends, really...), and I wanted to do some stuff with this whole idea of a new Forte team. So the Forte 2000 site began, and, as the F2K thing began to grow, with the addition of characters from Aaron, Kevin and Ben, and the live game that happened, and with Aaron and I both starting to write stories for it regularly, the Forte.com site got left behind. And then, as time went on, the other ForteUniverse sites started to pop up, and post-campaign continuity really started to get structured and grow and grow.

Not only did the .Com site get left by the wayside, but it became pretty obsolete. First of all, after the the F2K stuff came together, that Jack/Mist email became really wrong, continuity-wise. I'd intended it to be an email showing a time with no Forte. Well, it was written as being penned in 2001. With the new F2K stuff, the new Forte team had been around over a year now, and what was written there no longer made sense (Jack talking about a world without Forte, etc). And by then I'd established what had been going on the lives of all the other old Forte characters, and that stuff no longer matched up. It needed a full rewrite if it was going to fit in with the other sites. And that would take time, and time, I didn't have a lot of.

Plus, it was sloppy. It was the first thing I'd done, really, web-wise, and I'd learned a lot since. I didn't like the look of it. And there were "promised" parts of it that needed to be done to make it right, ones that, again, would take a lot of time.

One of the pages on it was called "Base Systems". I've always loved the Forte base, and we've always had the base map (us Forte people) on paper only, photocopies of the graph paper design that Jeff did way back in the day. I wanted that map on the site, but just scanning this hand-drawn thing would not look very professional, and would not look "realistic", as I meant for this site to look. This was one of the big things holding me back from returning to the page, because I knew this had to be done, and recreating that map for the web would be a hell of a chore. But some time back, I got to thinking about it, and decided I at least wanted to start with that. So I scanned Jeff's base plans, took them into Illustrator, and started the LONG task of creating a more professional-looking version of it.

That's where it started. As I worked on that, I started thinking about all the other things that needed to be changed about the page--and about how sick I was of that embarrassing link on my cool ForteUniverse site hanging around my neck like a badge of failure--and I decided to start adding other things. And the more I thought about those, the more I realized that I couldn't bear to put any new stuff in an old clumsy page that I didn't like, so I started thinking about a redesign. And things just went from there. I got obsessed. I knew it would never get done if I didn't just buckle down and commit myself to finishing the damn thing once and for all.

So, with some focus and dedication, I FINALLY managed to recreate the Forte.com page, and make it much more the way I thought it should be. I finally came close to what I wanted it to be...a simulation, a virtual journey that invited people to experience what it was like to be a Forte hero and log on to a secret, classified computer system and look around. A chance to feel like a famous super-hero.

But it became something else, too. Before I realized it, I found I was really creating the site as one big marketing tool for the Forte campaign and the other ForteUniverse sites. This became the site's main reason for being. So I tried to keep with that theme throughout, and point new "readers" to other stuff on other Forte sites to "learn more" ("Do You Want to Know More?" -- Starship Troopers (the silly movie, not the book)).

So I gave it a whole new look. And I rethought it, how it was put together, and I changed some things, combined some things, and added new things. Among the new things, I added some new content. Most of the stuff will not be changing (much) as time goes along. It's all really the "context" to hold the "content". The site's really designed--aside from its marketing aspect and its goal to create a real "feel" for being in the Forte Universe--to do like the other sites and hold "stories". For this relaunch, I created three main new "stories", which took the form of a rewrite of the Jack/Mist email, a big chat room transcript, and a message board thread. But let's look at those as we get to them...

First, I changed the "Team Files" page. I was always unhappy with the fact that that page basically just listed names of Forte heroes (and didn't even add in the new Forte 2000 heroes), and the apparent links on the names (in boring old text) didn't go anywhere. Now, each team member (every past and present Forte member) has a "button" with their character logo on it. And that button takes you somewhere else. What I PLAN to do is have standardized Forte.com pages for each Forte character, but that's going to take a lot of research, a lot of talks with the character creators, some new art, and a lot of time. But for now, I made sure each button actually goes to something. They either go to an existing character page on one of the other sites (Forte 2000 or Forge), or to a piece of art for that character. That way, new readers curious about these characters can learn a little more about them, or at least see what they look like.

I changed the whole look of the "Database" page to make it look snazzier, and I combined some previous things into it. There are a lot of buttons on the page, but most of them do nothing at all. This is a "fictional" page, as there really isn't an existing Forte Database (or a "Hero System" database listing all the heroes and villains in K.C.'s universe...but wouldn't it be nice?). The only real purpose of the page is to hold the occasional fictional Database entry I'll be adding. Right now, the only one up is the "Bachelor Party of Vanguard" one that had already existed, which I reformatted for the site's new look. If you never got to read it the first time, give it a go. It's pretty fun. And it involved "C.I.A. Strippers from Another World", so how bad can it be? The "Other Databases" area holds three buttons that do work, and lead to the CIA, FBI and UNCLE pages I created for the first Forte.com site (kind of fun). And don't forget to use the button for the "Forte World Map" near the bottom. I created a whole new one, and it's much snazzier. Give it a sec to load.

The "Communications" page does mainly what the original did, providing means to make video contact with other hero teams and other sources like UNCLE or the White House. But I redesigned the Questech Voodoo conferencing software interface (didn't like how the original turned out) and I gave the pages new looks. Plus I added more info on each hero team you can contact through the "Hero System".

The "E-Mail Portal" is pretty simple. Doesn't really do anything but let you look at links to fictional Forte emails. Here's where that all-new Jack to Mist email is, written from scratch and set, instead, in 1998, during the transitional period between Forte teams. I was careful to work the continuity in that with existing timeline stuff. Sorry, Jack writes emails like I do. Kind of long and rambling... You remember that "Birthday Girl" email thing on the Forte 2000 page, written as a fictional email thread among the F2K characters (and written by me, Aaron and Ben)? I reformatted it for this page and stuck it here, since that made more sense.

The "Chat Room"! Here's where the bulk of my submission for this 'Times issues lies. There is no actual Forte Chat Room that you can jump onto (again, buttons that do nuthin), but this will be the place that will list "Recently Viewed Chat Logs" for your reading pleasure. Right now, the first one is up. And it's a long one. Got to tell you, though...I had one HELL of a good time writing it. I wanted to do something with all the non-Forte 2000 original Forte characters. And I wanted to do something that bridged the two Forte eras (original and F2K). I also wanted to take kind of a snapshot in time of what was happening with all these characters in February of 2000. And I wanted to let people get to know the characters a little better. I got this idea. At the end of the first Forte 2000 story arc (in Forte 2000 #3), the original Forte heroes contact the new guys and offer to let them use the Forte name and carry on the legend. That's a pretty big offer. I figured there had to be some discussion amongst all the previous Forte folks about that. So I decided to find out what that discussion was like...and I thought it'd be interesting if they did it in the Forte chat room.

The problem was, I just started writing it, and a ways into I suddenly realized...um, I just started a chat with like 17 CHARACTERS in it! Oops. And my goal with this site is to try to bring some "reality" to this fictional universe, so I wanted it to feel and flow like a real chat would. So that meant I had to let it go where it wanted, and it got much more lengthy than I planned. That tends to happen with me... But I did try to make it as entertaining as possible to make the read go easier. Very interesting writing experience. I had to make some unusual creative decisions. When you've got all these characters "chatting", you don't want them all to "sound" alike. So you have to consider things...such as, which of these characters use full punctuation when they type in chat? Who uses lower-case letters only? Who uses all caps? Who uses smileys, and who isn't hip enough to do so? Who says "LOL" and who types "Ha ha" instead? I had to actually make all these decisions and keep them consistent through the whole thing (and had to keep going back through and checking each character, too, and had to remove a lot of commas that I just typed in by instinct). I hope this gives it all more of a realistic feel, and makes it really read like you just stepped into chat room and started eavesdropping.

This whole chat log kind of ended up as a bit of a love letter to Forte from me. I just so, so love all these characters. I have a lot of respect for them and for their creators. And I love making the characters come to life (particularly since I can't get together and actually role-play with all these people anymore, so this is the only chance I get!) and start talking, just too find out what they have to say and how they are with each other. And this also ended up a chance for me to slide in some continuity and explore some things that haven't been properly addressed in the Forte mythos. I had fun exploring their relationships with each other and taking a look at what was happening in their lives in the beginning of 2000. Hope you have fun, too.

Oh, and don't forget to click on those links within the chat to the three short "private chats" that take place between some of the characters. I made them open up in separate windows so you won't lose your place in the bigger chat by reading them.

Another hoot? The "Message Board". Had a great time trying to make a realistic-looking one, creating all those "forums". As you'll notice, you can't actually go the forums (they're not real! Shhh!), but again, this was made to simulate a real message board...not actually make one! I had fun with the "Most Recent Post" part, showing what Forte characters are talking about. I plan to change those up with each new update to the site. Like the Chat Room and Email pages, the accessible part is the "Recently Viewed" box, where, this time, you'll find one message board thread about a poker game. Not very long at all, don't worry. And fun, I think. I had the most fun trying to decide what each hero's message board "signature" would be like. I'm sure I'll be doing more of these fictional threads in the future.

"Base Systems". Oh my GOD that took me forever! My Illustrator skills just aren't what they should be (so this was a good opportunity to learn some). Had to recreate Jeff's design there, though I did add a couple of rooms that I figure Anvil added during his time with the team (he was always doing some construction there during the game, as I recall). And as you probably figured, you can't access any base systems from this site, and clicking on rooms on the map does nothing. The page is just there to show you what the Forte base looks like.

The "Calendar" page came up because I have this list of Forte birthdays and special dates that I've had for years, and occasionally I'll remind myself to send out an email to Forte players to remind them that their character's birthday is coming up...just for laughs. Thought this would be a nice way to put that info up for everyone to see whenever. And another place to create some fictional continuity (through the "events" that I add to the calendar). I plan to update this 2-month calendar every 'Times update, too.

"Links". I had most of these up before, but the page was pretty dull. I added some new ones, and when I noticed the page was all text and therefore kind of boring, I started putting together quick banner ads to intersperse in the list, just to make it more visually pleasing. Hope you enjoy checking those out. And note that all the ones in the "Seattle Links" section are real links and do work, so try some out if you like. Basically, this page functions as a means to give people a good feel for the world Forte operates in. Do note that in my obsession with realism, I actually researched domains in particular geographic areas in some cases...in my quest to make sure this all took me as long as humanly possible... I'll also be adding new links from time to time, just for fun.

And finally, the "News" page is the place where I'll be letting folks know what's been added to the site each update, and the "Ask Vanguard" page really does nothing except try to make the whole thing look more "real"...and fun. Oh, and since I didn't mention, do note that most pages have a "help" button on them. These buttons are there providing "real world" info, mainly to let you know what does and doesn't actually really work on the page. But I also used them to provide helpful Forte background info and shameless marketing links to other Forte pages. Check 'em out. You may learn some new things. Whew. Yeah, I can't believe that's finally over. Did I mention that all those flash buttons on the site (what are there, over 200?) had to be individually created? Ugh! But I'm glad it's finally done, and I no longer have to get annoyed every time I look at the ForteUniverse page.

And don't forget to try the "Log Out" button at the bottom of each page, too. Try the "Exit" button once you get to the log out page. See what I mean?--marketing!!!

And of course, there's a few new art pieces in on the Forte 2000 gallery page. I went back to the well with the very speedy and talented Sean Harrington for a Phantashia shot (neat background. Did you actually NOTICE the background? You'll see what I mean...), a Knightsabre shot (someone finally got the coloring right on her hair. I like what he did), and the really badass Wingboy shot I got for the 'Times cover this time. I also went back for one more Bryan K. Turner with his Moonspider shot, before his prices doubled (like I said earlier...the trick is to catch them before they realize how much they could really be charging for their work). Also...more Eryck Webb! I happened to get in touch with Mr. Webb (who, as you might recall, had "retired") on something else, and he asked if I needed any art, so I realized I hadn't gotten him to finish his redesigns on the new Paragons characters. So I had him re-re-do Knightmare (his first attempt was way too Spawn) and do rethinks on Starman and Avatar. Dug 'em all! Uh oh...that could mean a Paragons page is coming... And I tried a new guy named J. Brice Robertson with a Nightsable pencil job. It was okay. Obviously taken from a photo reference. But it seemed a little bland. So, just for fun, I sent it over to Mr. David Enciso for some quick color work (I do mean QUICK...he had it emailed back to me in less than an hour. How does he DO that?). Hmm. Not bad. A little more depth, there...

Finally, I got some long, long, long, long-awaited art from a guy named Thomas Redd. I think I mentioned him in my essay on eBay art. I'd ordered three shots from him. Finally got one of them a few months later, with an explanation stating that he'd gone into the hospital with a very serious condition. Okay, I believed him. He said he was almost done with the other two. Then I didn't hear from him again. I emailed every couple of months. Nothing. With that hospital thing, there was that chance that he had...you know...died...but I checked his eBay I.D. and feedback he got (which had a number of negatives saying they never got their stuff and not to trust him), and found he'd bought himself some action figures from someone in December. More emails, more silence. Finally I hit the end of my patience. I emailed him demanding a refund through PayPal for my two uncompleted commissions. No response. I got on the PayPal page, which lets you send a money request to someone. It also lets you send a reminder after you do so. So I sent reminders daily. Sometimes SEVERAL daily. I started sending emails, sometimes several a day that said nothing but "Give me my money back". He has an AOL email address, which means, if you have AOL, too, you can check the status of your sent email. At first my emails were unread. But eventually, they showed as read and/or deleted. He finally (without responding) canceled my PayPal money request. So I immediately started another, and started sending daily reminders again. I also sent an email stating clearly that I didn't want the art anymore, because after all this, I 1) didn't plan to wait anymore, and 2) had no confidence that he wouldn't just crank out something crappy to make me go away. That email showed as "deleted", so I don't think he ever even read it. Which is when I started sending emails with subject headings only, no body to them, so he'd have to read what I said (the first one after that deletion was titled "Deleting emails is rude. You're a thief and a child. Give me my money back." Just to let him know that I could tell what he was doing with my emails.

As it was over a year since our transaction, I couldn't file either a PayPal or eBay complaint. However, eBay does use this conflict resolution service. If you use the no-charge option, the service just sends automated emails to the other party. No teeth to it, but the hope is that the official-looking thing might scare them into responding. Didn't for him. I then looked up his name on Whitepages.com, as I could see, on the original eBay auction page, what city he was from. I figured since he lived in a town of only 6000 people (I looked it up), the chances of there being more than one Thomas Redd probably weren't good. So it was probably him. I sent him a letter--one page, typed, with no signature, and in large type. It simply said "Respond to your Email, get on your PayPal account, be a man, and give me my money back." And I also added "The phone calls start next". There WAS a phone number listed for him. I had no way of knowing if it really was his, but I figured at some point I'd try it and find out. All the while, I continued my daily PayPal reminders, making sure he got something from me every single day.

After about six weeks, I finally got this email from him:

"This is the Vortex commission with the Max nearly complete. I have had a number of just completely devastating personal circumstances in the last year including losing my home and computer files. I am finally reorganizing and am uploading my files back into the computer. The MAX is drawn and in the computer program for coloring ( tho' it is saved into layers). I will send the b & w so you can see it."

Yeah. Right. I fell for that before.

So after me stating I didn't want the art anymore, he was sending me the art. But since he deleted that email, he probably didn't hear that part. I didn't respond. Just thought I'd wait to see how long it took to get the Max. I finally got it eight days later, with a request for my physical address so he could send the original art. After waiting a few days to respond to him (and thinking of all the way I could respond), I finally just sent back an email with my address only, nothing else.

Yeah. He pissed me off.

As K.C. has said, I am way, way too patient with artists. And I'll continue to be so. Again, I'd rather have them feel guilty because I'm being cool about it (which has often gotten me free additional art or free coloring as an apology) than resent me for nagging them and have them do a crappy job to make me go away. But a year? For a guy that's really not even that good? And a guy that refuses to respond to emails? No. He learned that yes, I do have a breaking point, and yes, I will annoy the living hell out of you and not stop doing so EVER until I get my money back or what I paid for (I was going to keep this up indefinitely. Seriously). All this was just over $60, true, but that wasn't really the point. The point was, he ripped me off, and took advantage of my good nature. Well, welcome to my OTHER nature. So daily badgering for six weeks (I didn't mind. I had fun doing it) finally did the trick. Didn't get me my money, but got me the art. Frankly, after all this, I wasn't going to even use the art, but I figured I paid for it, so why not...and hey, it was a good chance to publicly ridicule him (as I did on the gallery, which you'll see if you scroll down) for all the frustration he put me through. Moral of this story? If you're thinking about getting some eBay art, do not EVER use a guy named Thomas Redd. LOOOOOSer.

Oh, almost forgot...and I finally brought the Forte Post-Campaign Timeline up to date with all the story stuff that's happened since last time (looooong ago) I did that. I think the only new stuff is from 2000 on...).

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

I have no idea! Especially since that'll be right after Comic-Con (woo hoo!), so who knows how much time I'll have. Better start planning now. But I'll get you something...and hopefully some Con news and pics. Summertime, baby!

Michael O’Connell
I Write the Tales that Make the Forte World Sing