So… you’re all about to see a video of me for the first time in the history of this blog. I’m still playing around with recording and uploading my own videos (I’m not up there in extreme webcam saviness like Tina… I regret nothing), and I hope to make this a common thing on earlyorke.com. Thanks to my new laptop and all the power that it brings to my life, I’ll likely be experimenting with a number of new things here on the blog. For now though, enjoy Earl Yorke in all of his fidgety, often-neurotic lameness.
Here we go: Earl Yorke, in black and white for added dramaculousness (yeah, George W., I just ripped off one of your words):
Well, today marks the last day of the grueling summer job that Jeff — my partner for the graphic novel I’m working on — and I share at a local restaurant called The Oarweed. Basically, this is the best day of the year for the two of us because it means that we will be getting started full-time on Trea’Loong: Fann’s Ascent again! I must admit that Jeff has to put in ALOT more time down at the Oarweed than I do, so I have had a little time since May to work on the second installment in what will likely be a ten volume tale. Jeff on the other hand, who is responsible for all of the artwork, has absolutely no time at all. He’s part owner of the place, so he is there more than 70 hours per week. It’s crazy. I’m sure that you all can imagine how frustrated we were to have to put the graphic novel project on hold for nearly six months. Thankfully we can now become fully immersed in it again. Expect more frequent posts on our progress from this point on –incoming smiley face–
I can’t believe I just did that…
Anyway, I’ll keep this post short. I hope that you are all enjoying the fall season… I never did before, but I find that over the last few years I’ve done some of my best work when the leaves begin to fall. We’ll see how this seasonal period of inspiration affects the graphic novel.
I’ll leave you all with some pictures of myself and the fools that my wife and I work with at the Oarweed. These pictures are from the party we held at the restaurant tonight (which basically takes the form of us finishing what is left in the beer kegs and bottles of wine):
Emily and I
My “completely sane” manager, Steve
My partner for Trea’Loong, Jeff Fitzgerald
Dina and Jeff (the official morning cleaning crew… they can send autographed pictures at your request)
My co-workers (from left: Mike, Me, The Tin Man, and Steve) humping me… who could resist? Blech… I feel so used
Everyone completely… um… er… sober… in the service bar
The four of us posing… with Steve still trying to grab my balls… you see what I have to work with down there
Okay… working on the graphic novel all day straight is impossible, and of course I take breaks. For those of you who regularly visit earlyorke.com know that I’m obsessed with youtube.com, and I’m sure that you can only guess what I do during said breaks. I came across this video clip of the Amazing Jonathan (my hero) a few days ago, and couldn’t resist posting it here. Most of his material is the same, but stick with it until the end… you’ll be laughing your ass off. The funny thing is that this is his first television appearance ever, and it was filmed in 1983. I’m still amazed at how skinny he was! Anyway… ENJOY!
Oh, and one more thing… THE GRAPHIC NOVEL DIALOGUE IS DONE! MWA HA HA HA HAAAAAAAAAA!
Well everyone, after six months work I’ve almost completed the dialogue for the graphic novel! I only have nine bullets left on the outline that I created, which puts me on track to be done by Friday! I must say that this is my best work yet, hands-down, and I cannot wait until I can post some of it here.
That’s all for now… just a little update to keep you guys informed. Keep the emails coming, I love reading them.
…and now, because I’m one random dude, here is a picture of my sister’s cat that I snapped earlier this afternoon. I’m quite proud of myself…
“Sneaky Woman Bothers Me With Camera While I’m Trying to Work”
Photo By Dina Yorke
File under: Chasing the Dream… hehehe.
Work on Trea’Loong: Fann’s Ascent has taken up all of my free time as of late… I would apologize, but I’m not really sorry. Since I’ve been able to escape into the avian world of the graphic novel I’m writing my mental health has been rapidly improving (don’t even ask where it was at before… I think I put up a few emotional posts here, but I’m too lazy and embarrased to link them). Because of the cleansing nature of my work, I’ve been progressing with it at a fast rate that I’m more than pleased with! Unfortunately, because of my strict adherence to my work on the graphic novel I haven’t had any time to post here. Again, I’m not sorry; if all goes well we will all be tasting the fruits of mine and Jeff’s labor soon.
As for specific updates on the graphic novel… here we go:
1) We’re about 35% done with the initial sketches (translating to just over 40 actual pages… this is gonna be a long one).
2) I’ve completed the entire outline, and the plot is concrete now… yay!
3) I’ve completed about 45 pages of dialoge, which puts me just over 50% in regard to completing all of the dialoge.
This is really turning out to be some of my best work yet, and I’m glad that I can share what little I am afforded with you all. I appreciate all of your supportive emails, and will try to keep the site updated on the graphic novel. I’ve added a new category to the side bar: About “Trea’Loong: Fann’s Ascent”. Use that to keep track of all of my graphic novel-centric posts. That’s all for now.
Yeah, it has a title now. My partner in the endeavor, Jeff Fitzgerald, first came up with Trealoong as the name of the world that the story takes place in, so that credit goes to him. I was the one who came along and put the apostrophe in there, much like my Romu’ateb vampires in the third Focus of Bloodlines installment. I just thought it would look cooler that way. As far as the Fann’s Ascent part of the title, I’m not going to say much other than it came from my mind. I will have you all know that it does refer to the main character, but that’s all I will divulge this early in the development.
I have completed the outline for the story, along with about 20% of the dialogue. Jeff and I are meeting once a week for a few hours to go over what I’ve written and form a plan for the drawings that he will be doing over the following week. I have to say that we work very well together, and our creativity on this project seems to have no end! We are on schedule to have around 35% of the graphic novel complete by our self-set March 1st deadline. From there we will begin to pitch it to various contacts that we have in the comic world.
Know this… Jeff’s artwork is phenomenal! I can’t wait to see our work blended together in a published graphic novel!
Well, that’s all for now. I’m sorry to tease you all with a title, but no description of the story. If all goes well you will be tasting the fruits of our labor in a year or less (hopefully).
Happy New Year, everybody! I hope that you are all recovering well from last nights drinking and partying. You also have my condolences if you happen to have caught Christina Aguilera on Dick Clark’s “Rockin’ New Years Eve 2006.” I’m still haunted by the nightmares… things will never be the same again.
Well, we’ve entered 2007, and to be perfectly honest I’m really not feeling it this year. I always seem to be a bit more pumped about years ending in even digits… I’m just strange like that. I’ll get over it.
Okay, let’s get to the reason why I’m writing this post in the first place: my new year resolution. It’s time for me to stop wasting time, working at the slow pace I’m at right now, and get my work out there! Jeff Fitzgerald, my partner with the graphic novel, and I will be setting our deadlines next weekend to push for getting a draft in the hands of publishers by the Spring. Talk about motivation! Working with Jeff is great, he’s a very intelligent man, and together we have come up with a very appealing story that will span several volumes. I’ll not say any more about it though… hehehe. It’s also something that I dare not post here, even in excerpt form.
I would love to hear the new year resolutions of anybody who is interested in sharing theirs here.
…and now I won’t have to for quite some time. I’m getting ahead of myself though… let’s start at the begining:
A couple of weeks ago I sent my broken laptop back in to Dell for some ridiculously over-priced repairs. Needless to say, I was hurting as far as the money thing went, but it was necessary for me to have the work done.
I’ve been keeping a secret here for quite some time (although I doubt it would matter to any of you): for nearly seven months I had absolutely no access to any of my manuscripts as they were all on that laptop! I’m a stickler for backing things up though, so the first thing I turned to after my laptop died was the zip disk that I had saved copies of all of my books on. Conveniently, my external zip drive became possessed by some evil spirit (or so I told myself), and killed the disk! After I finished venting by bashing the zip drive against a rock outside of my house, Office Space style, I sank into a deep depression because I had no way to recover any of my work.
Fortunately for me, I had started the screenplay for The Dominance Flush on my desktop computer, so I had a project to keep me occupied while trying to keep my mind off of the possibility that I would never recover my lost work. For seven months I endured this! Sure, I had the Flush and the graphic novel, but how does one cope with potential the loss of SIX COMPLETE MANUSCRIPTS?! Two weeks ago I had finally taken all I could stand… I called Dell (or India if you want to get technical), and told them to send the damned box for me to ship my laptop to them. I hate giving in to those bastards (Dell… not the Indians). I may be the only person on the planet who hates Dell, but I don’t care who knows it.
I HATE DELL!
Okay, back to the point of this post. The laptop is back now, and working fine after swapping out its motherboard and fixing the monitor. All of my work has been transferred, and it all now rests in one place on my desktop computer. I’ve also placed it all on a number of CDs, and have given them to my grandmother to store in her safe desposit box… no worries now!
So what will become of the laptop now that I have no use for it? I’m perfectly happy with my desktop though I don’t like sharing it with my wife (hehehe), so the logical thing for me to do is…
Give her the laptop…
Photo By Earl Yorke
…yes, I made her pose that way with the computer. I’m just lame like that… and so is she for actually doing it.
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