meanwhile, back at the taqueria

Life has been making it hard to blog! All good stuffs -- dinners with friends and trips to Jacksonville and pokings at projects for Angela and Christopher. I've got a bunch of half-finished food posts to toss at ya over the next several days. Meanwhile, a couple things I missed telling you about:

Adam started posting the rest of the Burrito Blade story on Monday, in short-story format. New bits will be posted every Monday/Wednesday/Friday until we're done.

Adam also posted our newest joint Consumerism Wow venture -- here's a quick preview.

Thing #2


Lauren: First off, can I say that I love how ThinkGeek filed this under “Tech Jewelry”? I love that. But you want this not only because of cute labeling. You want this because the Evil got into your hand, it went “bad”, you had to lop it off, and now you’re stuck in the past where you don’t have access to chainsaw fuel. So you’re going to make this sucker mechanical and fight some more of the Evil dead. Except I’m not sure how you’re getting Internet access in the past, and come to think of it, this is really not the first thing I’d order online if I were trying to fight Evil with temporally limited resources. Not very clever, Adam.

Adam: Oh sure, use my remaining Internet Into The Future time to berate me for my ordering choices. Nice one. No, silly. I want this so that when I go around dope slapping people upside the head it will be a Dope Slap of Dooooom. Dooooooooooom, I tell you! None shall mess with DOOM! Damn that Richards! DAMN HIM TO… Oh, sorry, where was I?

Click through to Adam's blog to see the rest!

alas, poor Burrito

Many of you who read Burrito Blade, the webcomic drawn by Renato Pastor that I've been editing for and sometimes co-writing with Adam P. Knave for the past year or so, have probably already heard the news: we're not going to be able to continue doing the comic anymore. It feels sad and strange for us to cut our readers off in the middle of a storyline, so we're working on getting the rest of the story out of Adam's head and onto a computer, and we should start posting those abridged storybits at BurritoBlade.com next week.

Working on BB has been an adventure for all of us -- it was the first epic, episodic, ongoing project that any of us had taken part in. I browse through the archives and can see all three of us growing, stretching, and growing again in loops of ever-increasing awesomancy. The story morphed along with us, and our own characters surprised us. I think that in some ways, Burrito Blade outgrew us. I wish I could hit the reset button and start the whole project over again with the experience and confidence that I've gained from working on it -- I feel like I could do it such better justice now.

There'll be new rad projects to bend those skills to, but I'll miss Burrito Blade. Here's sending all the soft tortilla-wrapped thanks in the world to Adam and Renato for having me on the project, with a spicy side of gratitude to Maria and D. J. for having our backs.

And hey, thank you, reader, for making room for our story in your life. I hope we'll be able to give you a new one to fill the gap we're leaving, and soon.

supermonkey

Over Labor Day weekend, I got turned into a superhero! No, not at Dragon*Con, at Burrito Blade! Click through to the comic to see the full-sized image.



(Dragon*Con was rad, though. It's the best people watching ever, and you should go next year.)

a different form of awesomancy

So, usually I'm an Editor. I capitalize that because I have no editor telling me that it's silly and I shouldn't, and 'cause I'm trying to make a point here, Dickinson-style. When I was a kid, I read My Teacher Is an Alien and The Hobbit and I decided that wanted to be a writer. I wrote daily, continually, from second grade through a year or two out of college -- daily diary enteries, (bad) poems, (worse) stories & scripts, essays, blog enteries, and etc. I was in journalism through middle & high school, and then, when I realized that I hate journalism, I took 8 creative writing workshops in my 4 years at the University of Florida. All of which taught me that I enjoy editing far more than I enjoy writing.

I still write! Obviously, hi. I've got this blog, a couple personal & private ones, a notebook in my bedside stand and another that always lives in my purse. But I in no way consider myself a Writer. When I talk with friends about this, they make noises about how ohnono I'm quite good at writing, I could do it if I wanted, I should [implied: gather up my balls and] try more/harder. And hey, maybe I should... there's still a tiny monkey of hope inside me who wants to run around with leather jackets and sunglasses and crazy hair, being a literary rockstar. But, kids, writing is hard. It requires ideas and self-esteem and follow-through, all of which are weak points of mine and none of which are gonna be strengthened without a lifetime-worth of mental workouts.

So, as I said, usually I'm an Editor. It's all the skill of writing, and all the payoff of seeing good work hit print, without all those parts that I'm still working on. And I love editing. My really good days are the ones where I get to edit medical articles for seven hours and then take breaks and go home to edit fiction or scripts. But I sometimes I practice at being a writer -- here, in my notebooks and personal blogs, and, for the next two weeks, on Burrito Blade. Adam & I switched roles for six pages to see whether our dance would still work with me leading, and although it was odd working in someone else's universe, I'm fairly proud of the result.

If you'd like to read from the beginning you can start here, or if you'd prefer, you can read the following summary for the lackadaisical and then go straight to my first page as the writer: A couple of gods are battling for the fate of humanity in NYC using food-based magic, and have dragged a couple of humans into the havoc. And a building just collapsed on our protagonists.


I hope you like the result, too! Huge thanks to Renato for turning my rambling narrations into such pretty pictures. And oh hey, to Adam for being just as rad an editbuddy as he is a writebuddy. Lemme know what you think?

Stays Crunchy in Milk

I've been waiting for weeks to get the go-ahead to announce this... Stays Crunchy in Milk has a pub date! Stays Crunchy in Milk is a novel that I edited for Adam P. Knave, aka That Dude Who's Writing That Webcomic About The Burrito-Powered Swords Which I Am Editing And Also Writing For A Little. And the pub date is August 19, 2009! Guys, that's in 97 days.

It's the first full novel I've edited that is actually being published by an actual publisher that isn't a vanity press and which has the potential to be Read By People and Garner Cred and Possibly Earn Itself A Few Bucks, and I'm really proud of it. I've gone through the novel 3+ times now with Adam – two runs for editing, and one for proofreading. And I still enjoy reading it. It's... it's like The Wizard of Oz for vaguely jaded 20- to 30-somethings who've watched too many Saturday morning cartoons. It's about friendship and self-discovery and love and failure and hope and how completely ridiculous 98% of the stuff we loved in the 1980s was, including but not limited to cartoon cereal mascots and My Little Ponies.

And dear god hope I haven't missed any ridiculously obvious typos. Or that if I have, that at least they're funny and not just gibberish. (I think my reigning favorite from Stays Crunchy is still "mutated pastel" instead of the intended "muted pastel". If we've left anything that unintentionally funny in the book, the first person to e-mail me about it wins a t-shirt.)

In addition to having a pub date, Stays Crunchy in Milk has a gorgeous cover and 6 interior art plates by BB artist Renato Pastor, a shiny limited-run hardcover edition, and is open for pre-orders, the purchase of which will enter you to win fabulous prizes. From the mouth of Knave:

"ALL PREORDERS will be entered in the contest. That’s all you have to do, preorder the book. And what could you get?

FIRST PRIZE: A special, one-of-a-kind print (full color) by Renato Pastor depicting YOU with the main characters of the novel. Printed on archival paper and framed for you.

SECOND PRIZE: A special, one-of-a-kind print (black and white) by Renato Pastor depicting YOU with the main characters of the novel. Printed on good archival paper.

THIRD PRIZE: Tuckerization of YOU into Volume Two of Legend of the Burrito Blade, likeness and first name. And I don’t mean just a one-off. I mean a top tier secondary character who is important to the plot.

ALL PREORDERS will also have their copies signed. They will also come with a separate art print by Renato Pastor. How nifty is that? Buy a book and get it signed and also get free art!"

So, I think you should pre-order a copy if it sounds like something you'll enjoy! The trade paperback is priced at $16.95 here in the States (it'll be $18.95US in Canada and $21.95US in the UK), and the hardcover (a signed & numbered edition of just 34 copies [the book is being released on Adam's 34th birthday, and holy shit best birthday present ever]) is priced at $49.95US for people anywhere.

I'm really just giddy about this whole thing. I hope that some of you will read it and love it as much as I do.

Preorder choices!

Stays Crunchy in Milk (paperback) - US $16.95Stays Crunchy in Milk (paperback) - Canada $18.95Stays Crunchy in Milk (paperback) - UK $21.95Stays Crunchy in Milk Hardcover (anywhere) $49.95

awesomancy unleashed!

Readers, I have been remiss! I have treated your poorly, and I would like to apologize: I never told you that The Legend of the Burrito Blade, aka that webcomic I'm editing, launched on January 12th! Because we update every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, you have potentially missed out on 6 pages of comic, each of which provides you with 200% of your daily recommended value of awesomancy! Readers, I am truly sorry. Luckily for you and my sore conscience, the Internet is a place of frightening permanence, so you can start reading from the beginning of our tale and catch up with us whenever you like.

Today's comic is a particularly exciting splash page. We've now got two main characters and one main item in play! Also, cilantro! Also, a forum.

Another thing you might have missed: As part of our promotional run, I got turned into a cartoon. A cartoon with NEEDS. This was probably a short punt, as I am already more bendy and expressive than many citizens of Toon Town and do indeed enjoy dance numbers to a needful extent.

Should you find that you also have NEEDS -- and I'm talking about a need to keep up with the comic, I can't help you with the dancing thing -- you can subscribe to the Burrito Blade feed, or add the LiveJournal feed to your f-list. I cannot not recommend it!

an announcement that smells faintly of salsa

Yes, the rumors are true! Come January 2009, you will have access to the best full-page, M-W-F-updated, black&white-inked webcomic about foodmagic THAT EVER HAS BEEN CREATED.

You have questions. Don't worry, that's perfectly normal.


What's all this about, now?
An ongoing webcomic called Burrito Blade, to debut in January! Each update will be a full page of black-and-white comic book, and will appear at BurritoBlade.com every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

And who’s responsible for this?
Adam P. Knave writes it. Renato Pastor draws it. I poke it with editsticks. D.J. Kirkbride is our spiritual guide and/or inspiration-imp.

But what is it about?
The Legend of the Burrito Blade is an epic fantasy story set in modern-day New York. It's a story about how mythology affects us and how we effect mythology. It's also a story about how we choose sides and what those sides mean. And, you know, it has food-based weaponry and silliness and action and humor and everything else you might fear expect from the likes of us.

How long will the whole story be?
We are people who enjoy getting ahead of ourselves, so right now we're planning for the story to be somewhere between 500 and 600 pages of comic. I believe I mentioned epic? It'll be broken up into ~30-page chapters, which will ultimately be broken up into 3 volumes, for ease of consumption.

How regularly will new comics be posted?
The majority of the time it'll be updated M-W-F, like clockwork, sirs. The plan is to take a week off between chapters (maybe 3-4 times a year) and two weeks off between volumes (once every ~16 months), during which we'll be posting sketches and original fiction and such instead of new pages.

Dare I ask how this idea came about?
Dare on, my copatriot! See, Adam was joking around with D.J., like they often do, and he decided that since D.J. likes burritos and is a ninja that he should have the Burrito Blade. The goofiness grew into an idea in which Adam saw some odd spark of potential, and he decided to use this unsuspecting idea to tell this huge story. Then he asked me to join him, because I edited this similarly wacky book for him and it worked out pretty well. Then Brian Cronin over at Comics Should Be Good offered to run an ad for an artist because he is a great guy. Renato was one of the people who applied, and Adam knew instantly that a deep friendship was written in the stars. They seriously just get along. And thus a team was born. A team!

Does this team have a name?
It does, thanks for asking! We have decided to form AWESOMANCY STUDIOS as an umbrella for our work. We are, by name, AWESOMANCERS. This is Awesomancy Studios’ first project, it will very much not be the last. We all also enjoy doing other jobs, so you shouldn't be shocked if our team grows and changes roles as time marches on (like it does).

Is it true one of the characters is named after Kirkbride?
Yup! D’Jay (who might be the big bad, but you never can quite tell), is named directly after D.J. Kirkbride. (We hate apostrophes in fantasy names too, but you try coming up with an asthetically pleasing phonetic alternative.) Accidentally, he happens to even look like him. Seriously, accidentally. Renato hadn’t seen a picture of Kirkbride when he drew D’Jay.

I'm not really into websites anymore, so can I subscribe to a feed?
You're lucky that we're living in the incredible future. If you happen to be on LiveJournal you can friend burritoblade, and if you use an RSS reader you can add http://burritoblade.com/feed/ to your feeds. There will be (mostly!) silence from now until we go live, of course, but tidbits and trinkets will be going up periodically in the meanwhile.


Any questions?