Wednesday, September 3, 2014

Book trailers from Bald Bros Studio

Hi folks,

    Check out the awesome work from our collaboration with Bald Bros. Studio on creating book trailers for a couple of my titles. It has been so much fun working with them to develop the scripts and story boards to make these videos. Seeing the characters I created come to life or at least two dimensional is truly amazing to me. There are more to come, but enjoy what has been done.
    https://www.youtube.com/user/BaldBrosStudio

Wednesday, August 13, 2014

Its 5 AM and I've been up since 4

     Sometimes it is nice to wake up in the middle of the night and see that text message on my phone just waiting for me to respond. "I miss U" she last sent to me, but that was a week ago. Since then the phone has been silent in the middle of the night. The only texts that come through are during regular business hours.
      My project development partner was up til 11 pm with me, going back and forth on our script through Adobe Story. "How about this?" a text would come through and another idea would go into production. It is the stuff I live for and the nights I never want to end.
      Now I sit with ideas in my head and it is after 5 AM. Maybe I'll watch the sun rise or take my dog for a hike. Either way I wont be getting any text messages anytime soon.

Wednesday, July 23, 2014

Rock Bottom or laying on Clean Slate

   Incase anyone was wondering I have a twitter account @localhero117 Any way the other day I posted a tweet ""When you hit rock bottom the only thing you can start with is clean slate" In the past I found rock bottom to be somewhat liberating. It couldn't get worse and up was the only way to go, that was until it got worse and I kept going down.
   How do I know I have hit bottom? Well I won't fall into the trap of saying it can't get worse nor will I look only up. Right now all I do is pace back and forth looking down at the clean slate beneath my feet. Make no mistake, this slate was not cleaned by me nor am I watching it as some kind of positive reminder. No. I am watching it as I pace to make sure it does not shatter, partly due to the fact slate is usually not found too deep down. You can draw your own conclusion on that statement. The thing that you do find at the bottom are clichés and people with lame advice, all things you do not want to hear. They say these things because they care. However, if you hit bottom as tell me, I will not say "You can only go up" or anything of that nature. More than likely you get a shrug out of me and maybe I will buy you a beer, unless you are an alcoholic and that is why you have hit rock bottom.
   Slate is usually found in river beds. And the only thing I remember from Heraclitus is change is constant or something like that. And you can never step into the same river twice. So there it is, a way to look to the positive and look up. Should you find yourself at rock bottom, laying over clean slate you know it is only for a moment in time as it is a constant changing world.

Monday, June 23, 2014

Getting old is hell. So says my 96 year old grandmother. She is right. You think when you are young and face a problem that it, being life, will get easier as you get older. Those problems you faced in your youth do become easier with the choices being more recognizable. However, the problems you face as an adult past your twenties are just as hard to find solutions to as the seemingly easy ones from your youth.
      This holds true for the two characters, John and Luis Solo, in my book The Collectors. In their youth they skipped out on the town that treated them like shit to pursue a more pure life out there, where ever there was located. Out there turned and smacked them in the face sending them back to East Town to where they started. It was good to be home, for the brothers, as they found work and settled into their always falling short lives. The beach community of East Town, filled with high rise casinos, creates a false sense of fortune being one roll of the dice away. And that with just a little more cash, you too can be a whale in a town full of Sharks.
     Well, you can't, not in this town. This town will chew you up spit you out and piss on your corpse. It's not personal, it's not even business, it just is how things are down in the septic vortex that is East Town Florida.
      Sound familiar? Maybe you have been there, maybe you bought salt taffy on the beach and watched the seagulls eat baby turtles. Or a shark bleed a fish until it was nothing but chum.

Monday, May 19, 2014

Book fair winners and losers

   Bookmark It, in Orlando FL, held a book fair Sunday with forty authors showing off their latest titles. It was a beautiful sunny day with a light breeze and lower than normal temperatures for this time of year, 83 degrees. I was with my co-author Jorge Sastre and we had three books out for sale, one being The Collectors.
   We had done book signings before but this was our first book fair. We would be sitting down with many other authors, all selling our blood, sweat and tears. On display was years of our lives in 189 pages for $10. The personalities there were all different, yet each of us bonded instantly because we all knew what the other had gone through to get there. But in the back of each of our minds, the other author is the competition. So friendly but watchful eyes scanned the table tops, seeking out a similar book and inspecting, with admirable smiles, though in our minds we were looking for flaws or ideas for our own book covers.
   All that sounds cynical but really it was a good time and I made some great new contacts. Hell, I'll even mention a new book I picked up, Doc Voodoo Aces&Eights by Beating Windward Press. I met the author, Dale Lucas when he came over to our table to complement us on the artwork for The Collectors (thanks Tom Wolfe!) Dale is a cool guy and we swapped stories on how we got our art work done. Doc Voodoo looks great!
  

Monday, April 21, 2014

Movie time...get your popcorn started

    I've been keeping this under wraps of sorts because it is a slow process and I've had the dream burned before. That being said, we actually did some filming on my book, The Collectors, published by Forker Media. I cannot begin to tell you how much fun it is to be on set of a movie, let alone one based on a book you wrote.
    It all started out with my co-author, Jorge Sastre, and I meeting up with Bald Bros. Studio and developing a script. From there we scouted out locations to film and worked with the director to get the right feel of the film. We were fortunate enough to find several people willing to help. (Side note: When you tell people you wrote a book they say "that's great". When you tell them it will be a movie, they ask how they can be a part of it.)
   Filming was a blast and I got to read lines with some of the actors. We haven't finished yet, but everything is a work in progress.

Thursday, March 20, 2014

New Punisher and so far I love it

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    My favorite comic book hero (if Frank would even consider himself a hero) is back with a new writer and new artists. I got my grease stained fingers on issue #2 before I could get #1. I stared at the cover for two weeks with out cracking into the new book. I just had to go back to my new favorite comic shop Nerdtropolis and see if they had issue 1 yet. And it was in.
    Let me backtrack a moment. A few months ago I picked up Max Comics hardback of The Punisher. It's a good book, The Punisher as we know and love him. The thing was, it was The Punisher we know and love. I was on the hunt for Punisher Noir but no luck finding it on the shelf.
   The writer, Nathan Edmondson does a great job of breathing new life into Frank Castle while staying true to who he is and why he is doing (what we love) he does. There was great mention in there about The Avengers and the like being too busy to deal with the scum Castle chooses to deal with.
   The artwork is fantastic! Set in sunny L.A., I felt The Punisher might be a little out of place, but not at all. I especially liked the skull mask, similar to the noir book I'm looking to buy. I wont get weird into details on Frank's new looks but I like it. He's not super bulky and his slicked back hair gets in his eyes from time to time. Did I go to far?
   Great book for a deserving character. I can't wait to get my hands on #3