Daniel J. Hogan's Blog

I'm on my balcony using my iBook with my wifi and loving every second of it. I can be outside AND waste time on the internet, how great is that? The only thing that could make this better was if I had some Oberon. Mmmm.

I picked up the Hellboy Companion today , as well as the last three issues of Scud: The Disposable Assassin. I was instructed by friends not to read the rest of Scud until I pick up the huge omibus collection that comes out this fall. They said not only would I have no idea what is going on, but that it wouldn't be the same without reading everything else first. Fair enough.

The Hellboy Companion is pretty neat, and something I certainly needed to help fill in a few gaps in my knowledge of Hellboy canon. I'd recommend it for any fan.

I had the great fortune of going to Game One of the Stanley Cup Finals in Detroit on Saturday. I took pictures, I'll try to get those up soon. I was surrounded by Penguin fans in my section. It was a great time though, I had a blast. The Joe was LOUD.

I was scanning my website referral data today and found that there is a link to magicofeyri.com on the Wikipedia page about one of my favorite comics, SnarfQuest.  And I'm the first reference too!



For the record, I didn't cite myself--someone must have come across my page while looking for citations and saw how I compared it to Bone. I guess it pays to look how people are getting to your websites.

That's right kids, I'll be at Motor City Comic Con all weekend! I'll be a guest there and I'll be selling copies of The Magic of Eyri for a special Convention Only price. So if you're in the 'hood, swing by and say hi. I'll have free mini-pins and Air Heads candy at my table.

Learn more at: http://www.motorcityconventions.com/motor_city_comic_con/

In other news, my promo cards from lulu.com didn't come yesterday so I WON'T have them for this weekend. I'm all kinds of pissed off about that.  I only have about 50 cards left, which should be OK...but having a fresh batch of 500 would have been nice *grumble* I blame the pokey process that lulu.com uses for ordering said cards. They should really stream line it. Watch, I bet they'll show up today, but I won't be there to get 'em. Grrr. So I whipped up some proxy cards last night before getting on the road. They ain't that pretty, but it is better than nothing. Gotta make due "Adapt. Improvise. Overcome," as Dad likes to say.

I came to the rescue this afternoon at my local comic book shop. I was scanning the racks for the latest issue of B.P.R.D.: 1946 when I overheard a pair of young teens asking one of the employees about the value of their Magic: The Gathering cards. One claimed that he had been told a few of his cards were worth in excess of $50, perhaps even way more.

The problem was that neither of the kids nor the employee could tell which set/edition the cards were from, which affects the value of the card. For those who don't know, some Magic cards are reprinted in different sets with the original sets being the most valuable. The early sets didn't have much in the way of identification, but Wizards of the Coast quickly figured out a system--hence expansion sets and reprint sets having little icons.

Anyway, back to the story. I walked over to the counter and offered my two cents worth. I looked at the card and quickly recognized it as a Revised Edition, Force of Nature, which much to the kids' disappointment was only worth about $1.75. Discouraged, the kids left the store and the employee thanked me for me help.

I use to play Magic a lot about ten years ago, but I probably haven't touched a deck in the past five years (give or take). Once I got to college I stopped playing as much, aside from a game here or there with friends for sheer nostalgic value. I just couldn't keep up with all the sets and all the wacky rule changes. I'm sure all of my painstakingly fine tuned decks are verboten in tournament play now. I used to play in tournaments back in the day, and I even won a couple (or placed pretty high). There was a Media Play store about 20 minutes from home that had weekly (or bi-weekly, can't remember) Magic nights on Fridays.

Yeah, so my Friday nights in middle-school/high school were spent playing Magic, watching X-Files or playing Mario Kart 64 or Golden Eye at a friend's house. I was (was?) such a geek.

The other issue I had with Magic as I got older was that I didn't like having to dump a bunch of money into it all the time--and there was the ever present complaint of having to play against people who would just buy the super-rare cards worth hundreds of dollars so they could easily win. I hated that. I really liked playing sealed deck/draft tournaments--you were given a brand new starter deck and a couple of boaster packs and had to make a working deck out of it. Those were a lot of fun, because some of the people I played against who'd just buy the super rare/game breaker cards didn't know much about strategy or how to work with less.

I still enjoy the game and think it is fun, even though I haven't played it in a long time. Where's my Red/Green Erhnam Djinn deck?

Guess who was added as a guest to the front page of the Motor City Comic Con website:


Neat! I'm also on the full guest page too, but I'm listed as a "Comic Creator," hehe. Oops. I guess they probably don't have a category for me to go in otherwise. Still, it is a bit of an honor to be listed on the same page as the dude who played Cameron in Ferris Bueller's Day Off. However, don't too excited about this--I am paying to be there. But still, this is cool. More Penguicon posts (and pictures!) later tonight. 

Time for another silly comic!  Previous sketchblog entries can be viewed (at own risk) at http://danieljhogan.livejournal.com/tag/sketchblog+2008

Here is today's:

 
I actually came up with this idea a couple of weeks ago, but in my attempt to get better at time management while working on writing stuff under a deadline, I put this on the back burner until after I was done writing/editing A Queen's Tale (see previous post).  Today's adventure is based on the internet darling known as 'the lolrus,'. Click here for more lolrus nonsense. However, mine is the zolrus--a zombie lolrus.  Kind of a spoiler I guess, but what ev.

I'm happy with how this one turned out, other than realizing that it is too small.  I like what i did with the layout and the 'shadow' effect in the last panel.  as much as I like doing hand drawn panels, i think I'll stick with using the shape tool in Flash from now on, I do like the crisp look of the frames and it contrasts against my drawing style nicely.  Speaking of drawing style, I like the look of this character, mainly the eyes. I may stick with this style for the time (well, I'll have to until I get this story done).  You probably can't tell, but one of his feet is stuck in a bucket in the last panel. The funny thing is that originally he looked different in the first three panels but I loved the drawing in last panel so I redid rest to match that style.

And yes, "SCHLUMP" is the sound of getting your foot stuck in a bucket.