"Welcome to the Party, Pal!"

Summer IS my season.

What’s not to love? Warm (and hot) weather, big blockbuster movies, more daylight, Comic-Con? This is what I wait all year for. And I’m loving it. We had a stretch of early heat a couple of weeks ago where we had triple-digit temps for a handful of days (we’re back in the high 70s this week). People were whining already. I was LOVING it! Bring it on, I say!

Summer movies have been the big thing, of course, and there have been good and bad (in my opinion, of course). While most people didn’t consider “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” a “summer movie”, it was the first big winner for me. I loved everything about that comedy…and it WAS a comedy, in that it (imagine) actually made me LAUGH. Sadly, most so-called comedies don’t. They make me wince and groan, mostly. Maybe my sense of humor is just too limited these days, I don’t know. But when a movie comes along that’s actually my kind of funny, I do try to cherish it. “Iron Man” was, of course, the big winner. Can’t think of a single person I know that didn’t like that one…and most completely loved it (like me). “Harold and Kumar” WAS a dumb movie, yes…but I ended up seeing it with a bunch of friends and we were all in a goofy, idiotic mood so it was a fun experience. Speed Racer? I did finally sneak out and see it. Wasn’t terrible, like so many had been saying. It just wasn’t, in my opinion, universal enough. It was really made more for kids, and for Playstation kids at that. I’m of the opinion that kids are going to see movies ANYway if they’ve got all the bells and whistles, so why not make them work for grown-ups, too? It was more geared toward the younger set, but I looked at it in that light, and just kept asking myself if they accomplished, in that, what they set out to do. And they did. If I was less old and jaded and more in touch with my inner child, I’d have dug it more, but I did enjoy it. And I figured correctly….Matthew Fox was BORN to play Racer X. NICE work. By everyone in it, really. And I even went home after it was over, got in iTunes, and downloaded the soundtrack, just because of the closing credits. And if anyone here hasn’t read my Indiana Jones review on my blog yet? I’m not really going to get into it all again. Let’s just say I was not pleased, and my disgust with Lucas continues to grow. Would really have liked a “real” Indiana Jones movie after all this time. Problem is that my idea of what an “Indiana Jones film” is seems to differ from other people out there, based on a lot of the reviews. I’m hearing a lot of “come on, it’s just entertainment!”. As someone who tries to create entertainment, I really have a problem with the phrase “’just’ entertainment”. “Lost” could have “just” been a show about a bunch of people stranded on an island. It could have just been week after week of people running from polar bears. That would have been “entertaining” and a “thrill ride”, right? But some creators care about giving people more than they expect, giving them something they’ve never seen before, reaching for new heights and breaking new ground. They believe in blowing people’s minds , not just placating them as they stare slack-jawed at the screen and watching things explode. George Lucas and Steven Spielberg used to be creators like that. Ah, well. Different things float my boat, I guess. I’ve got my own issues to deal with. Let those who seem to have loved it enjoy, I say, and I’m glad that they got their money’s worth and had a great summer movie experience.

This Time Around

Whew! Got things done in the nick of time this time around! Notice how I say that like it happens any differently otherwise?

Let me start by pointing out why there are no Forte.com message board or calendar additions this time. I’ve been having more and more trouble doing those each time, because each time I do, as much fun as I’m having updating the “real time” Forte world, I’ve realized that I’m really restricting the stories that haven’t been written yet (but are already planned out) in the past. I try to write “around” those things, but it gets harder and harder each time. And I get to thinking how once Story X is finally written and posted up, having Forte hero #7 in mortal danger really doesn’t mean a lot if that hero is already shown in the timeline as reserving a room for the weekend at the Forte base in 2008 on the Forte Calendar. So while I’m not giving up the calendar and message board things, I just don’t think I’m going to do them EVERY issue. I’m also going to have to start filling in some of those holes I’m worried about, so I’ll need to get Aaron and I both to work on that! Big stories comin’!

All my additions this time around are in the Forte 2000 site. Let’s start with the Art Gallery update first, shall we? First, we’ve got new stuff from Kevin West. You may remember his awesome Tinker shot from last time. Along the way, I picked up a couple more, as these are just sketch cards, and therefore nice and cheap. An 8.5x11 color shot from him costs over four times as much. While I’d like to get a full-body shot or two from him one of these days (he’s very good), for now I’m collecting sketch card headshots of all the Forte 2000 characters from him, which is great, because when scanned and used on a page like this, they don’t’ LOOK like sketch cards, but look like full-size works. Neat, huh? That reminds me…just got a paycheck, so I should order another one from him…. So, this time I got the Dyna Girl and Rainier ones from him, and WOW, they turned out nice!

Okay, let me tell you my Dennis Martin Willman story. Feel free to go get some popcorn first. I’ll wait.

You’ve seen works from this guy before on our gallery. Good guy, great art. But not exactly dependable on the speed. Which is generally fine by me. However, about a year and a half ago, when he was having a good sale on 2-character shots on eBay, I went and ordered three shots from him. Never got them. I knew from using him in the past that he’s not that fast, so I let about four months go by before I dropped a reminder. He sent back a note saying sorry for the delay, but that my stuff was “listed on his schedule” for completion by the end of that month. Okay. That didn’t happen, but I didn’t really care that much, as I had a busy summer going on (Comic-Con, the Forte Seattle 20th, etc). More time passed. The holidays came. In the middle of them, I got an email from him asking if I had ever gotten scans done of the art that he sent me, because he was putting up a new gallery and wanted to use those. Um…WHAT art? Not only had I not gotten any art, but he never emailed me any notice that they were on the way, nor any scans of them like he’d always done before.

So I wrote back and told him so. He was quite shocked, and said he was going to try to initiate a postal search right away. He said he’d sent those to me back in September. Which, by the way, was about five months after they were “on the schedule” to have been done. This was a crappy spot for both of us to be in. I had ordered art and paid for it (nearly a year before), and had nothing to show for it, and, frankly, not-too-far-fetched reasons to believe (if I was the suspicious and paranoid type) that he finally got tired of having these unfinished shots hanging over his head and decided to say he’d already mailed them to get out of doing them (or to get more time to do them without looking like the bad guy). He, on the other hand, (presumably) did the art that he got paid for, but was now faced with someone telling him it had never shown up – which, for all he knew (if he was suspicious and paranoid) was a way for someone to get free art out of him to make up for the missing stuff.

He postal search (whatever that was) bore no fruit, and he let me know that, and that he was willing to re-do my commissions. This was the best solution for both of us, because if I was scamming him, why would I be trying to get three pieces of art exactly the same as the ones I’d stolen? I felt bad that he’d have to do them all over again, and I let him know that, and told him I really appreciated it, and also how much I appreciated all the art he’d already done for me. But based on past experience, and based on how unmotivated an artist must be to do three things over again, I wasn’t planning to hold my breath.

A month or so after this I noticed he had new auctions up on eBay. My first thought, of course, was “Hey, why don’t you finish MY art before commissioning more?”. I also noticed in his auction text that he mentioned (I’m paraphrasing here) that “some people in the past have claimed that their art never showed up. This is why now I insist on return receipt on all commissions”. Excuse me? Would that make me “some people”, and that I “claimed” the art never showed up? While this idea made sense, and he was clearly just expressing his frustration, I didn’t appreciate being called out as some kind of art thief. Funny, I always thought being an art thief would feel cooler…

More time went by, and I was getting close to the point, after that eBay thing (and after seeing more commissions of his going up) of just writing him and telling him to forget it, and mentioning how little I appreciated the passive-aggressive accusation. Right about this time, I got an email from him with a pencil sketch of the Dyna Girl, telling me he was just getting ready to finish it up (color it). Let me explain the Dyna Girl. I forgot to mention that he’d told me, back when he first mentioned the “schedule”, that he was doing a full-color Dyna Girl for me, in addition to my three ordered pencil ones, just for my patience. Once again, patience pays off. Sure, I’d take a free shot. A guilty artist is a happy thing, and can get you freebies (and I always respect the customer service gesture when they do that). The D.G. pencil looked very nice, and I wrote back telling him so, and that I was looking forward to all the final works.

Another month went by.

FINALLY, I got the scan of the full-color Dyna Girl that you now see on the gallery. Wow. Nice work! Dennis is the kind of artist who likes to tell you about the methods he used to make them, and he told me about the color experimentation he was doing using Photoshop filters and such. So I finally got something from him, which was a good sign and made me feel better. Even if it was only the “bonus” shot and not my original three.

Within a day of me writing him back with my accolades on the piece, he sent me two other color works. One was the Anubis shot. He said it was an existing work he’d had that he reworked for the F2K villain Anubis, imagining what his headpiece would look like. And he also sent the one with the villain Erebus, with Erebus viewing a mystical image of Phantashia, as Dennis imaged a long-term rivalry between the two. Okay, well, Phantashia had been dead for years before Erebus ever showed up in Forte 2000 continuity, but still cool, and a nice shot (note that he Photoshopped in the Phantashia shot from an earlier commission he’d done for me). I again, thanked him for the bonus art. And again wondered to myself where the three paid commissions were.

The day after this, he sent me the Mr. Dusk and the Savannah shots (both F2K villains). Again, wow. Now the Mr. Dusk, frankly, could have just been another shot he’d done and he was CALLING it Mr. Dusk, but the Savannah seemed originally done (unless he just took another shot he had and colored her skin and put a fin on her head). He asked, in this email, if I was going to be looking for any new commissions because he was really in need of money right now. Interesting technique. He was doing free color art for me in an effort to get me to buy more from him so he could get some money? Wasn’t really sure how to feel about that, because I was still thinking “How about you finish my first ones first and then we’ll talk?” I didn’t respond to him right away, because I was thinking this through. I was getting free color art, after all, and there was every chance that he had sent the first art and it never made it here (some neighbors of mine across the street, this past St. Paddy’s Day, left a package on my door from Aaron and Jeni that the UPS guy had delivered to their home instead).

Before I could respond, just two days later, I got the shot of the three F2K villainesses (Prowler, Toast and Blue Dragon). Wow. It looked to me at first like he’d just Photoshopped some girl photos and put costumes on them, but further review and reviews of his older art convinced me that he’d actually done this. He said he’d been working on this one for a while and went on about the rendering that was used that he’d been doing on a friend’s computer system with more filters. And he asked again about the chance of new commissions. The guilt was now coming on strong. I felt kind of like I was being “bullied” into giving him more money, but at the same time, I WAS getting more and more free color art. More payment was only fair, really, but this was a bad time for me, financially. I was waiting to see if some money owed back to me was coming, and it hadn’t shown yet. So I emailed him mentioning this, and asked what his asking price for color works was (as he’s doing exclusively color now, unlike the old days). He responded with a very fair price…AND the color Seahawk shot, which he even went so far as to use George Clooney (the actor “cast” to play Seahawk) as the reference. Whew. No pressure or anything. I told him to give me a couple of days to see how the money situation went. I got the money news back, and I did get my money back that I’d been waiting for. Before I could let him know this, he’d sent to Max and Cinco shots. Or what COULD be Max and Cinco. He claimed the Max was of Max’s secret identity, Bobby McMillan, but really, that could be anyone (thought it’s a great shot), and the Cinco could be just any nude women, really. He was starting to stretch the believability a little.

Max? Not Max? You make the call!

But, for all this, I went ahead and ordered a couple more, and that took away my guilt. Considering how little I’d paid for the initial three shots (it was a good sale), even with the new commissions I’d already received more than my money’s worth. And he assured me he was going to get right to work on the rest of them, and that they were going to look great.

That was over a month ago…

Just got an email a couple of days ago from him, telling me my commissions were ALMOST done. And, also, telling me he was in a tight spot for money, and was wondering if I needed another commission. Okay. Enough. I let him know that money was way too right now with San Diego coming up in a couple of months (I just paid for my airline tickets), so I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to pick up any more. He wrote back saying that was cool, and let me know how impressed I was going to be with the new commissions when they were done.

So they obvious question here, a year and a half later, is that if he can crank out the freebies that fast, why in the hell can’t he manage to get my original order done? Artists, man. I’ll never figure them out. So while a couple or more of those shots may be cheats, they’re all still very nice works, and nice additions to our gallery. And I think he’s got the message that the money train has stopped until I actually get my promised works. We’ll see if that ever comes to be. I haven’t exactly been ripped off here, but I have been both perplexed and annoyed. But if all my shots do show up and stand up to his previous work, then you really won’t hear me complaining.

Okay, in the fiction arena, the origin of Seahawk continues on the Forte 2000 Adventures page with the addition of "Seahawk: Number Zero (Part 2)". This tale takes place, as the last one, a few months before Forte 2000 came to be, but this one also includes a flashback within a flashback that jumps back an additional year, further fleshing out his background. A bit of it was already written earlier, but I mainly rewrote that part, and the vast majority of it is all new. Hope you enjoy getting to know Seahawk some more, and enjoy the ongoing tale as it unfolds (this ain’t the final chapter). Sorry...it's Mike-sized...

And in a final addition, I did something I’ve been meaning to for quite some time, something in keeping with all the super-hero movies of this summer. I created the Forte 2000 Soundtrack (volume one) using iTunes. iTunes lets you create playlists, and I’ve been meaning to put one together for a lot of the songs I’ve used for inspiration when writing the F2K tales. A lot of the songs are just good action songs, ones you can use to visualize combat scenes and such. Some are used for more moody moments. Some are actually different character’s “themes”. For example, the “Superman” song from Five for Fighting was my inspiration for a yet-completed solo Max story that I’m working on. The “Hard Candy” song by Counting Crows is just something that really helps me visualize and get a feel for the personality of Nightsable. Music is a big inspiration for me when writing stories, and I thought it would be fun to share some of the ones I’ve used for the latter-day Forte. You can listen to samples of them through the iTunes software, if you have it, and even buy the tracks if you want. Or, you can just check out the list and see if you know any of the songs (or own them) and pick them up through one of your other sources if you like. On the page where I’ve placed the playlist, I’ve listed kind of how I’ve used each song. Welcome to my creative brain!

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

I can make no promises for next time, seeing as how it’s RIGHT at the end of the Comic-Con trip, but we’ll see what I can pull off. Hopefully I’ll have time to write up a Con report and photo gallery, if nothing else. Going to be a fun one this year! Stay tuned here for all the details, and see you next time!

Michael O’Connell
Forte Soul-Brutha Numba One