August 5, 2006
By the way, the actual name of the conference I attended and spoke at yesterday is The Conference of Court Public Information Officers. Their members are communications' professionals working for courts around the country including the U.S. Supreme Court, state supreme courts, state trial courts and local court systems (in Arizona, that includes the Justices of the Peace). They even have a few members from other countries too—Australia, the Philippines, Guam and Canada.

Police caught up with two of our serial killers and it’s all over the paper this morning. Before my speech yesterday, my host (J.W. Brown, Media Relations Director for Trial Courts in Maricopa County) was called out of the lunch twice to take calls on procedural questions from the media. These two perps, who lived in Mesa, drove around at night and shot pets and people, killing six people and wounding dozens. One of their last shootings was a poor woman getting off the bus about two blocks from Deena’s condo, and they drove by and shot the woman as she walked home, about one block from Deena’s. We’ve got one, or more, shooters, independent of these monsters, still at large.

Yesterday, after my speech at the Ritz, as I exited the parking garage at the Esplanade, the ticket window attendant, a young hispanic woman of about twenty, told me the parking fee was $7. I reached in my wallet, couldn’t find a five, grabbed seven ones and handed them to her in a wad, saying, “There you go. Is that seven?” Stupid mistake. She took the bills, dropped her hands below the window, and I can’t prove this, but I strongly feel she let one of the bills drop out of sight and then pulling her hands up above the window sill, said, “There’s only six here.” I debated whether to call her on it, then reached in and got another George Washington. Won’t do that again. And Duh! I grew up in a gas station where you count out the ones and hand it to over. Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy.

Took recycling up this morning and then joined Kathy at yoga. I’ll spare you the details of both, but I do feel somewhat superior in some vague, prissy way. I told Kathy it’s like going to church when I was president of Luther League. I always hated to go, but invariably felt wonderful leaving the building.

Daily Posting of Top Secret Project
As I mentioned the other day, for the past several decades I have not been at a loss for story ideas for my proposed graphic novels. Here’s a typical idea (this one thought up about 15 years ago and I even had Frank Mell even do the logo and it’s bitchin’!):

• The Carkid: In the 1950s a Detroit proving grounds out in the Arizona desert (yes, my father worked at Ford Proving Grounds in Yucca, Arizona) is testing a dream car of the future (The XS-5000) which is turbo-charged, space aged designed (Giant fins and glass roof!), with kitchen appliances and post WWII novelties thought to be sexy for that time and place (a frying skillet in the dashboard and an automatic beer opener!). Imagine what happens when a juvenile delinquent (from Kingman) gets ahold of that car, picks up his hot girlfriend (the sheriff’s daughter) and takes lawmen on a chase that covers three states and fifteen counties?

By my count there are at least two dozen ideas like that waiting to be turned into graphic novels. So what’s the rub? Decent idea, no story. Until now.

Although I can think up concepts, like the above, all day, every day, I get a tad scattered (Let's go ride bikes!) and I really need a writer who can put it into a linear story. That’s why the top secret writer and I work so well together. He knows how to tell a great story.

Meanwhile, my goal is to put up my daily graphic efforts here on the blog, but my scanner is not working and I’ll probably post each days work on Monday, when Robert Ray can do them at work. I’m considering a new Blackberry that can allegedly photograph the artwork and post it with one fell swoop, but in the meantime I’m stuck with the old fashioned way. Drawings for today and tomorrow, coming Monday.

”The future belongs to those brave enough to go back into the past and get it.”
—Old Vaquero Saying