WRITING EXERCISE

It's been awhile since I've tried to write anything.  Just haven't had the time nor patience for it anymore.  I use to spend hours and hours writing pages and pages worth of stuff and now... Nothing.  Even thinking about writing makes my brain seize up.  I can feel the gears trying to spin.  Trying to knock the cobwebs loose.

Anyways, I joined a creative website forum to try and get that part of my life back.  I'm sure I'll give up in a few weeks but for now, I joined in on this exercise - Come up with a short backstory to go with this image:

I was supposed to keep it down to three paragraphs.  Here's what I came up with:

MEGAN'S STORY

Larry was a cheat. They all knew it. Yet every Saturday night, here he was at their house playing poker again. Her husband and father-in-law didn't seem to mind him. Even her son Mark was won over by Larry's "charm."

Megan hated Larry. He was a stupid prick with an attitude and roaming hands. He also had no concept of the word "No." For months, she tried to figure out a way to get rid of Larry once and for all. Then it came to her.

She leaned into her husband's ear and whispered "Larry is Mark's real father." Less than a minute later, the Larry problem was solved for good.

THE END

And there we go - The first creative words out of my head for 2014.

Megan's Story copyright © 2014 by Andrew Rubio

THE END OF A FLING

You know how it is. You're far from home. Away from the people you love. Lonely. Wandering the streets, getting use to your new surroundings. Then you see it - The local comic store. You're pretty sure it has all the stuff you'd find back home at your normal store but you're not that sure . Maybe they have a better discount on new books? Maybe they'll have that back issue you've been looking for? That missing Holy Grail.

Or maybe you just want to try something new. The excitement and anticipation kicks in as you enter the store.

And so begins your tawdry affair with another comic vendor. It's only temporary. You both know what you're getting into from the get-go. It was never meant to be long term. It's only to fulfill your selfish need for instant gratification. You could wait until you return home to your faithful comic guy but you can't. You need it now.

Right now, dammit!

I've been on the road, off & on, for the past 3 years. Sometimes for a couple of weeks. Sometimes 6 or 7 weeks. Or like now, 10 full months. Each time, I'd have my local comic store (DJ's Universal Comics) hold comics for me. Meanwhile, I'd find some local "action" in each city. For the most part, it's been pretty hush-hush and I've been able to get away with it.

However…..

After a trip back from St. Louis last year, I got caught. I returned home and hit Universal Comics. As I picked up my haul from the past 5 weeks, I made the mistake of adding the few titles I had been reading in St. Louis. To raise suspicions even more, I asked for a few bag and boards more than what I was buying. My comic guy (Cat) looked me in the eye and asked "Dude, are you cheating on me?"

Caught. I fumbled a response before admitting I was getting some stuff on the side. Just to hold me over until I returned home.

He gave me the stink-eye the entire time he bag & boarded my purchases. I felt lousy having it come out that way.

This is the same comic guy who has been my comic guy since after college. The same comic guy who found a first printing of Captain America #25 for me WEEKS after it sold out. Who knows I worship Grant Morrison and holds his titles for me even if I don't ask. The same comic guy I've followed to three different store locations faithfully for close to 16 years.

Yeah. I felt pretty crummy.

That hasn't stopped me tho. These past 10 months, I've been "stationed" in Singapore. I diligently send a Pull List back home each and every week but find myself visiting the local store (Comics World) to pick up at least one title a week. Without this store, I would have been MONTHS behind on reading Blackest Night - And that's something that could not happen! Of the three stores out here (Yeah, ONLY three stores), this one is the best in terms of customer service. They've treated me really well each and every week.

This weekend, I'm going to have to tell the owner (Bill) that it's over. Like St. Louis and New Jersey before, our weekly relationship is coming to an end. I'm heading home in two weeks and I probably won't be coming back. I'll try to stay in contact. If you're having trouble finding a specific back issue or promotional item, drop me an e-mail. I'll see if I can send it to you. 

Don't shed a tear.  We can end this amicably.

HELLO AND WELCOME

Hello.  My name is Andrew Rubio and I read comic books.  I read them for pleasure.  I read them for research.  And for a brief period of time, I was actually paid to read them as a consultant.  Comic books have been the one constant throughout my life, haunting me like a four-colored banshee.

My earliest comic book memories usually include man-handling a Disney, Bugs Bunny or Archie comic.  I vaguely remember images from various early stories but can never place where they came from.

1972

From a young boy to an outcast teenager to a grumpy adult, the art form known as the COMIC BOOK has always been there. My grandfather taught me how to read using comic books (especially with Spidey Super Stories as presented by Marvel and The Electric Company).

Yes.  I still have this!

Well, the California school system helped out too but Spidey definitely left a larger impact.  I continued reading throughout my school years becoming a "serious" collector in Junior High (which means I stopped folding them over to read 'em). Continued reading as a working adult. Continued reading after my children were born. Continued reading as prices steadily increased (I started reading comics when they were .35¢. They are currently $3.99). I even got married the same week Clark Kent and Lois Lane did, reading that issue on the way to the chapel.

Lois & Clark: Oct. 9, 1996
Dawn & Andrew: Oct. 13, 1996

I’ve made 2 serious attempts to give up comics (not counting the times that financial situations forced me to take brief sabbaticals or the one time my mom forbade me from buying new comics for an entire summer).  Both of those attempts saw me crawling back to my true love after a few months.

Comic books have been there for as long as I remember. And more than likely, they'll be there for a long time to come.

I had a MySpace blog way back when (like 2007) and never really stuck anything on it.  This is my second attempt at a blog and I'm sure it'll work exactly like the last one.  Eventually, I'll add the original MySpace stuff to this blog to keep all my thoughts in one place.  It'll also pad this place up a bit.

If you're looking for a blog with in-depth reviews of comics, this probably won't be the place to find them. Admittedly, I'm not smart enough to deliver an insightful or scholarly review of anything. I just like to babble. But if you're looking for aimless ramblings about the Micronauts or the time a friend of mine took the bus, carrying his entire comic collection in milk boxes to trade with me then this is the place for you.

Thanks for reading.

THE STORY OF THE MAKING OF LOSS OF MUFFIN

(Originally posted on my MySpace blog back in 2007)


It was June 2003, during one of our Three Monkeys Worldwide "production" meetings, when the idea for Loss of Muffin came to be. 

We were just a few months out from shooting Punching Hitler. We had just lost Penn & Teller as our stars (a story for another time) and were trying to figure out how we were going to pull this off without them. The other problem we were dealing with was what to shoot Hitler on. The previous September, we shot our Short The Meditation on a Canon XL-1 and weren't too impressed with the quality of the image (nor of the Short!). It was just three months later that we got our hands on the Panasonic camera but at the time, we were really worried.

Well, I was worried. Ed was of the opinion that as long as the script was good....it wouldn't matter what we shot on. I thought otherwise (it has to look good or it won't be taken seriously). So to prove his point, he was really hot on shooting something over the weekend using his itsy-bitsy camera (a one chip something or other). Scott and I joked around with him and our Hitler production meeting became a "What should Ed shoot this weekend" meeting. 

At some point, Ed told us a joke with a silly, turn-of-the-century punchline that made us snicker. Fueled by that "laughter," Ed had the idea for his Short. And to make it even kookier, he would say it was adapted from something written by Edgar Allan Poe (who he was reading the collected works of). But which story to use? In the end, we chose ALL of them (in the credits, the title reads Based on the collected works of Edgar Allan Poe. Snicker!). But which official title to use? Thumbing through the table of contents, we found a winner - Loss of Breath. A Tale Neither in nor Out of Blackwood. Edgar be praised! We had our Short!

Ed made me swear on the lives of my children to edit whatever footage he shot. Not thinking he was serious, I said okay and the meeting was over.

The following Monday, Ed gave me a DV tape with raw footage. The nut actually did it!! So now I was sworn to edit the damn thing! I loaded the footage in and quickly cut something together with a basic scratch track (using the soundtrack from Four Rooms). I also made a horridly long end credit sequence (using music I really wanted to use in The Meditation but Ed refusing to let it in). 

I dropped a VHS copy off with Ed two days later and let him review it. Apparently, he loved the flow of the project and wanted to work together on the final edit. He found a music track by Uber Superstar Sayed Sabrina to drop into the project and came to the edit bay the next day.

Using Soundtrack & Garage Band, Ed and I finished the rest of the music (becoming Three Monkey's official composer - Mark Andrews) and we dropped it in. We threw in some sound effects, I did some tightening and a few hours later...we were done. We had a completed Short.

Or so Ed thought. After all, this wouldn't be a Three Monkeys Worldwide production without the input of the Third Monkey. The next day, I called Scott in and we set to work on fine-tuning the "outlandish" end credits. Amusing mostly ourselves, we thew everything in including the kitchen sink. With that done...it was a wrap!

We submitted it to a few places and actually won an award (Best Comedic Short Under 5 Minutes). Who knew?

Now that the experience is 4 years in the past, I look back at Loss of Muffin with fondness and nostalgia. I didn't realize it at the time but Muffin was the first project in a really really really long time that felt like the "good old days." You know. Those days when a friend would call you up and say "Hey! You wanna shoot something this weekend?" and you say "Yeah! But what?" and your friend says "Who cares? Let's shoot!" then you race out the door. Making a Short hasn't felt that carefree in a long time. It's all based on schedules and budget and actors and producers and etcetera now. It was nice to goof around like that again.

I hope you enjoy this exercise in fooling around with no real intent.

Now....why "Remastered," you ask? (You'd better ask! I'm not typing all this shit for my health!)

Once Muffin was done, I mastered it onto a DV tape and forgot about it. Years later, I discovered the DV tape was faulty and the sound had several audio drop outs. And when I say several, I'm being very generous. It had TONS of drop outs. I always said that one day, I would go back and fix it. Of course, I never really meant it!

Cut to a couple of weeks ago. I was thumbing through Ed's CD collection and found a very small, mpg version of Loss of Muffin....with NO AUDIO DROP OUTS!!!! Apparently, this was a copy of something I gave him years ago before dumping the Short out on the crappy DV.

Re-loading the Short back into the computer and using this new-found audio, I remastered Muffin back to it's original "glory". The thumbnail version had it's share of problems so I only used that audio to cover up any drop outs from the original. And boy-oh-boy, was there plenty to cover up. Overall, this solution worked 90% of the time. There are a few glitches that couldn't be completely fixed but...I'm happy with it now.

So there you go. The story of the remastered Muffin. It'll never be perfect (heck, it never even started out perfect!) but it's finally done.

And...did I mention we won an award for it? I did? Oh. Well....whatever!

Loss of Muffin copyright © 2003 by Three Monkeys Worldwide

Blog copyright © Andrew Rubio