August 17, 2010
Like most people, sometimes I like to complain about my work. Ask Kathy.

On second thought, don't ask her.

This morning started out rough. Had a phone conversation with Dan The Man Harshberger about the status of the first Graphic Cinema and he told me he hadn't done anything because what we sent him didn't work and he didn't know what to do about it.

"Doesn't seem like a movie on paper to me," he said in that non-judgemental-judgemental Kingman way. "It's clumsy and there are way too many type faces."

Ouch! This was exactly the knocks we got on the first go round two years ago. "Well," I said, "what do you propose we do about it?"

To make a long story one paragraph shorter, an hour later, Dan sent me up a new design with this cocky, cryptic one-line message, "Now, this is more like it!" And, he wasn't fooling. It is an inspired leap of imagination and cleans up the "mess" and makes it track as clean as a Whistler portrait.

I'd love to share it but you're going to have to wait for the issue. But I will say this: the inspired part is, the opening looks like a real movie with the right graphics, title cards and layout. Plus, and this is key, you feel like you are watching, I mean reading it, in a darkened theater. Truly inspired.

High on life I went home for lunch and whipped out a couple more set scenes, including this one:



And this one:




Did two more. Came back to the office and worked with Robert Ray on integrating the new design with the narrative. Not easy work, but it's fun.

Can't ask for more than this.

"Action is hope. There is no hope without action."
—Ray Bradbury