Issues (or chapters, I guess) #4 and #5 are up on the Sword of My Mouth site for folks who’ve sprung for the $6 digital subscription or the $12 preorder. The final part of the book, #6, will be up a month from now, so subscribers get a sneak peek a month before the book’s debut as a part of the Toronto Comic Arts Festival. Plus commentary!

It was a push to get the book ready in time, and tricky to manage as it’s a IDW / NMK single edition co-publishing dealy, but Shannon still took the time to do these hilariously amazing bio illustrations of the two of us, check ‘em out after the jump! Read the rest of this post »

I made a text adventure videogame for the jayisgames interactive fiction competition that you can play now. Because they’re on my mind — Tate’s making steady progress on the rough edit for our new lo-fi sci-fi feature — it features two characters from the upcoming Ghosts With Shit Jobs movie, the Karrento Brothers.

So if you’re up for a bit of transmedia fun, you can play the game before the movie’s released. Check out the cover art, a description of the game, and some info about the competition after the jump. Read the rest of this post »

We finished shooting Ghosts With Shit Jobs, the new lo-fi sci-fi feature I wrote, just before Halloween. We’re currently looking for volunteers to help with post-production duties such as:

* soundtrack composition
* special effects and titling
* colour correction
* audio post and ADR

If you or someone you know are into finding out more, drop us a line! We unfortunately can’t pay up front, but click through to see if you’re excited enough by what we’ve shot so far to help us out anyway. Read the rest of this post »

The most excellent festival Indiecade has nominated my illustrated text game Everybody Dies as a finalist in their annual competition. Even better, they’re flying me out to Los Angeles to take part in the whole conference, which includes hanging out with the other awesome finalists and talks by the designer of Katamari Damacy (Keita Takahashi) and the Sims (Will Wright).

It’s been tremendously encouraging to see the response to Everybody Dies, so much so that I’ve started planning a new adventure game with crazy-talented artist Ben Shannon. Click through for more! Read the rest of this post »

We’re a few weeks away from diving into shooting Ghosts With Shit Jobs, our no-budget faux-doc about Toronto having descended into third world status, and we have a few more holes to fill. Even if you’re not a fit for any of these acting roles, crew, locations, any leads appreciated! And yeah, being a no-budget movie means that no one’s getting paid up front and it’s non-union. Experience appreciated, but often not necessary.

Click through to see the list and Sanford Kong’s awesome concept art. Get in touch at casting@lofiscifi.com with any questions/ideas.
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We’ve just launched the mini-site for Sword of My Mouth, making the first two issues (and commentary from me and Shannon) available for subscribers and people who’ve pre-ordered the graphic novel. It’s the first third (48 pages) of the book so far, and we’ll be adding a chapter every other month until we launch the complete graphic novel edition at next year’s Toronto Comic Arts Festival. UPDATE: The Globe and Mail just ran an article about our publishing experiment.

One of the things we did differently with this book was research, and so I’ll take this opportunity to write a bit about that. Read the rest of this post »

We’re in pre-production for a new lo-fi sci-fi movie called Ghosts With Shit Jobs. Involving many of the same people as our last one, Infest Wisely (imdb / official site), it’s also a no-budget, multi-director project written by me — but with approximately a million times more planning. We’re going to be starting shooting this summer.

In 2040, a generation of Torontonians have grown up after the economic collapse of the west. The movie consists of episodes of a documentary series popular in mainland China about the bad jobs some white people have — the plucky and resilient souls unlucky enough to be born into the slums of North America are both amusing and moving to the Chinese audience.

We’re doing auditions on Saturday, June 6, 12-4. If you’re in Toronto, please check out the roles we’re trying to fill — there’s a variety of ethnicities and ages. Read the rest of this post »

How does $1 sound?

Sword of My Mouth #1, the first part of the follow-up to my post-Rapture graphic novel Therefore Repent!, is now in stores and this weekend at TCAF. #1 will be the only print edtion — issues #2-6 will be digital only, after which the complete story will be collected together and published as a printed graphic novel. So if you’d like to get them as they’re released bi-monthly through this year, you have two options — you can subscribe to the complete series in a digital format for $6 or pre-order the printed graphic novel for $12 and get a free subscription to the digital issues as well as some other goodies.

In a time when the economy and other forces are making the print pamphlet model unsustainable for many indies, we’re excited to see how this will work. The digital format isn’t going to replace the print book, but it’s an interesting format that allows for cheaper prices and more direct interaction between creators and readers — one we hope to foster by adding commentary.
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At this year’s Game Developers Conference I was commissioned to do a text game set there — I got the nifty press pass pictured in exchange — and I spent the last month making it. You can play it in your browser here or here, if that one doesn’t work. You can read the announcement and my development diary I kept at GameSetWatch. Thanks to the betatesters, who I named the attendees in the game after, as well as the Hand Eye Society Social where I got a nice reception for a mini-talk about it a few weeks back.

In other IF news, Everybody Dies won a XYYZY award for Best Non-Player Characters! They had a pretty funny real-time text award ceremony. And the excellent e-zine SPAG did an interview with me about my interactive fiction.

Update: Kotaku warns it causes GDC flashbacks, Offworld said it “manages to capture quite accurately the collaborative, socially supportive and intellectually curious aspects of what it’s like to actually be there”, and Rock Paper Shotgun declares it an “oddly human little thing which captures quite a bit about the human side of development.”

One of the coolest thing about the comics world is that it doesn’t dismiss self-publishers the way the lit world does. Maybe because it’s a less pretentious field, or a newer one, or that drawing talent is more quickly discerned at a glance. Certainly it helps that one of the more prominent awards and grants, the Xeric, is open only to self-publishers.

Comic artist and former No Media Kings intern stef lenk received a Xeric grant for her illustrated booklets TeaTime 1 and 2. Whether you’ve got a project that you’re submitting to the next Xeric deadline at the end of this month, or if you’re just interested in hearing about the nuts and bolts of comics publishing from printing to promotion, you’ll find stef’s opinions and experiences in the article below food for thought. UPDATE: Canadian comic self-publishers will want to check out this Gene Day Award.
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Her baby isn’t quite right. But in a post-Rapture Detroit, not much is.

The first 22 pages of the next post-Rapture story after Therefore Repent! will be appearing in comic stores in May, to be eventually collected into a graphic novel called Sword of My Mouth in 2010. Check out Shannon Gerard’s fantastic cover art and the description after the jump, and if it looks good you can preorder at your local comic store — it’s in this month’s Previews (MAR09 4308, pg. 266). Update: I just saw it’s a Staff Pick at Previews!

(What’s that, you say? You’re behind and haven’t read the critically acclaimed Therefore Repent! yet? Well, lucky thing I’m releasing the full graphic novel as a free download today, isn’t it?)

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Our illustrated text adventure game, Everybody Dies, has chalked up over 7000 plays to date, in no small part due to the great press it’s been getting. It was declared one of the Top 5 Indie Games in 2008 by the great game industry site Gamasutra, it was listed as one of the Top 10 videogames of 2008 (alongside, y’know, Grand Theft Auto IV) by entertainment mag Variety. And you know the Onion’s AV Club? Gave it an “A”. All for a dinky little text game. Just crazy! Update: My first ever Russian review, in any medium.

If you haven’t yet, you can play it here. I’ve added Invisiclue style hints.

And you don’t even have to unwrap the latest games produced by my Artsy Games Incubator project. Just download them! There’s a point-and-click adventure set on Toronto’s Queen St. West, a pixelly Lovecraftian game with audio drama, a sharply designed underwater gold quest, an architectural preservation simulation game, & one by me and Susan where you play a plastic bag out to asphyxiate seagulls. Check out the screenshots here.

The response to the project has been terrific, with people who want to make games in future Rounds, people who are looking to start groups in their cities, and industry coverage of our Artcade event, so we’re expanding a bit. To apply to participate check this out!

I’m 2/3rds (AKA 66.6%) of the way through writing the graphic novel follow-up to Therefore Repent!, so I thought I’d post some of the amazing sample pages by the new artist, Shannon Gerard.

I don’t want to give away too many details, but it’s set in Detroit, involves one of the Four Horsemen, and the first 22 pages should be debuting at the Toronto Comic Arts Festival in May 2009.
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My new text adventure videogame, Everybody Dies, was just voted third out of 35 entries at the annual Interactive Fiction Competition!

It starts with a metalhead, Graham, realizing that throwing that shopping cart over the bridge was not the great idea he thought it was. Even if it did get him out of washroom duty at Cost Cutters.

Play it online or read on for the wicked cover art, my thank-you speech, and more download options.

UPDATE: Invisiclue Style Hints provided below, Windows exe customized.

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If you knew I was a science fiction writer, you might assume it’s because I’m eagerly awaiting floating cities or nanotech implants. But actually, it’s the year I figure that all the World War II veterans will be dead.

On November 11th, 2020, we’ll be able to have a discussion that seems ungrateful or spiteful now: were the veterans of World War II heroes, or survivors? Is Remembrance Day actually about thinking about the specific soldiers who died, or about keeping the idea of soldiering alive?
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Time Management for Anarchists started as a seminar I did at a zine fair five years ago, so I’m happy to be launching this comic at Canzine this Sunday. After doing the seminar a bunch of times, I did a Flash animation where judging by the traffic and the comments, various non-anarchist folks found it useful/enjoyable. So I worked with Marc Ngui and comic publisher IDW to start on a comic adaptation of it to see how it’d work for a broader audience, and Diamond is shipping the results to comic shops soon (#OCT084221).

For folks involved in anarchist groups or infoshops, I’d like to send you some free copies. Just drop a line and let me know who and where you are.

You can also read a free PDF of the 22 page comic (archive.org direct download | legaltorrent bittorrent). I’d be happy to chat about the various controversial issues it brings up in the comments!

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I did a talk at Word on the Street last week tailored to a general, writing-interested Toronto audience. Ramón Pérez did live sketches that illustrated the talk, which were amazing considering the scant minutes each was allowed and the not-terribly-visual subject matter.

Other than actually writing, the most important thing to do as a writer is get your writing out to readers. You get feedback from readers, connect with fellow writers who share your sensibility, & you get a sense of closure that allows you to move on to your next project.

Some people think that getting published by a traditional book publisher is the only way to get your writing out to readers. There’s a real bottleneck here — even though there’s some benefit to the publishers in this circumstance, I would argue that writers don’t benefit from it, readers don’t benefit from it, and neither does our writing culture. This perception of the editor-gatekeepers just creates a tense and risk-averse climate.

So, I’m going to detour around the bottleneck and focus on the diversity of methods writers can use to get their writing out there. The ten things I list are often considered different mediums and require collaboration and/or different skillsets, but writing can be central to them. Read the rest of this post »

Marc Ngui and I have just finished a 22 page comic book adaptation of the workshop and flash animation I made on how to be productive without having, or being, a boss.

Starring Emma Goldman and Mikhail Bakunin, it’s a totally weird animal: part how-to, part polemic, part coming-of-age story, part interview, and Marc’s matched it with his whacked-out imagery and trippy colouring. I’m really excited to see what people think when we launch it next month. Check out more info and the cover after the jump.
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I turned 36 earlier this month, which makes it half my life that I’ve been an anarchist, a vegan, and a DIY culture maker. I was exposed to these philosophies through punk music and zines in my teens, and it’s a bit of an aberration that the ideas I encountered in a youth subculture are still relevant to me at this time in my life. But they introduced me to ways of thinking about the world and empowering practises that are still true and useful to me now, and I’m grateful I encountered them.

And so while I don’t care about whether I’m old or not, I do care about youth subcultures. Read the rest of this post »