It was an honor to be nominated

no joy in muddville

i'll get to the Eisner award cerimony in a second but first-

These are the days that drive me to drink.  Here is an e-mail I received in response to the rumors blog 

“bro, are you saying you don’t like sex or what?  That seems like that was your point” 

it went on…but that was the jist of it. 

THE POINT WAS TO STOP BELIEVING THINGS YOU READ OFF THE INTERNET!  I just used myself as en example…I don’t understand how people who read a comic book like arsenic lullaby and read these blogs have to keep getting beaten over the head with that concept. 

back to comic-con...

  Having talked to about 10,000 to 20,000 people in five days I’m really just sick of the sound of my own voice, sick of my own wit, tired, and frankly a little depressed.  It’s tough to go from all that chaos at Comic-Con to an empty apartment…usually i have a yearly anxiety attack the day after San Diego Comic-con ends.  i walk around downtown SD and go by the convention center that only a day ago had over 100,000 comic book fans packed in and now it's a ghost town.  it's very very strange, it's a feeling like if i woke up in an alternate universe where Hitler never came to power and I'm the only one with the knowledge of what could have gone on. You pare that with going from a constant stream of people wanting your autograph to being an a guy walking around alone in a town and it produces, in me anyhow, a full on anxiety attack...dredd, knott in the gut, shaky hands sometimes...it's very wierd and a little scary.  but this year when i was walking around i was with Issiac who God bless him never shuts up so there was no attack. Or so i thought, it hit me when i got home and i've been really just on the edge of a bout of depression since i got back. the three weeks before i left i was up for 18-20 hours a day with non-stop things to do, but now, nothing is on the agenda but basic cable viewing.  

I think that taking pills for depression and whatever is a bunch of crap.  I could be convinced that depression is connected to a chemical imbalance but all the studies gloss over the possibility that the depression causes the imbalance and not the other way around.  and if that's the case ,fooling around with you brains chemicals is a bad idea.  but just the same...man it'd be nice to just take a pill and have this malaise go away.  anyhoo i’m not really my acerbic angry self but many of you  wanted to know about the Eisners so I’ll do my best to recap…

  We didn’t win the Eisner award.  This is the one time everyone is pissed but me. Other publishers and well wishers stopped by the booth to say how angry they were and disappointed which I really appreciated but I don’t feel the rage myself… Maybe after a week or so I’ll be pissed and be like ”HEY, the winner was a reprint…It shouldn’t have even been in my category”  but honestly…whatever.  The real shame is not that I didn’t win but that nobody new seemed to win.  That ceremony and comics in general need some new blood…a bunch of old timers voting for another old timer isn’t very productive.  I dunno, it seems classless for me to bitch anyway because I didn’t rant and rave before about who did and didn’t deserve to be nominated, plus I was a guest at the banquet…and I would be a shitty guest if I came here and blasted it.  They where all nice and friendly so…hey…I will honestly say here that it was nice to be nominated and it was cool that some many people voted for Arsenc Lullaby...and I hear tell we came pretty close. 

Mike Mignolia (maker of Hellboy) however…had nothing to do with the process so I can speak on ol’ mike who I had the displeasure of being behind in line at the bar.  Make that behind him and before some other dork that he knew.  They proceeded to have a conversation around and through me…normally this would result in me spouting off about how they must have been raised by hobo's to not have the courtesy to not speak around someone and possibly guiding Mike by the shoulder from in front of me to the other person, which is a thing I like to do…I am very strong for my size and manhandling someone not prepared for you to be strong enough to do so is very disarming and usually guarantees you never see that person again…or that you’ll be thrown out.  On the off chance that I might win I didn’t want to risk getting kicked out,  So there I stood in between the most self serving and mindless conversation I may have ever heard.  Now I have heard mindless conversations…and self serving conversations but this was first place in combining the two.  They where discussing his movie and what project they where each considering working on and whatnot. (as though anyone gives a shit about Mike doing anything BUT hellboy...or anyone giving a shit what this other dope does at all)  And I could only wonder A. what good is being in the VIP section if I am still surrounded by nerds B. how I am stopping myself from smashing both their heads together and C. how someone who writes such an amazing book could be so fucking boring?  I shit you not they where having word for word the same conversation I have heard from a thousand fanboys 

 mike-well Hollywood likes to make things there own, and sometimes it looses a lot of why people like it” 

 dork no.2-yeah I guess they can't take it right from the book because it is a different medium”

 Mike-it is, it really is.”

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 …this from the guy who was INVOLVED WITH THE FILM…he was there for it’s filming and had no more insight than the average 13 year old critiquing Spiderman 3…actually he seemed to have less.  Mike Mignolia is a fat boring dork and if he wants to talk to his boyfriend he should do it after they get their booze.  and i can only pray this circumstance arises again when i'm not in a suit with a lady friend. He ordered champagne by the way.  I ordered vodka…no ice.  Do you see why I don’t hang around with comic book people?  He’s paying 10$ for something with all the alcohol content of a old orange, i don't know if it made him feel highbrow or somethng but...it's house wine Mike...it's been aged three months… he just ordered ONE by the way which means he’s also a cheapskate.  He couldn’t ask the rest of the table what they wanted? Or at least his date…oh wait…maybe...could it be...he was alone?  Hell, I asked other people if they wanted anything and I don’t even have any Hollywood money.

   Later on he won for some collection of hellboy that he actually did many years ago, and I had to sit through more blathering…I’d swear …if I wasn’t looking right at him I would think I was listening to some 50 year old yenta talking about how well the spring social went for their gated community in Miami.  You’d have to live in Miami to get that, but trust me it’s spot on.  His cadence, and enthusiasm was that of a old jewish woman taking about center pieces for the tables. The point is…don’t ever meet Mike because it will ruin the Hellboy for you forever.  Is it too much to ask that people who write dark comics to be somewhat interesting and dark themselves?  Am I the only one whos comic book is a reflection of their personality?!  I thought that’s what writing was…a part of you.  Apparently it’s just a part of a wet dream for Mike and 90% of the other comic book pros out there.  It was really disappointing and for what seemed like the three years I was in line with these two ninnies very aggravating.

this is actually cheering me up a little...say what you will about me, i'm not a disappointment to meet in person.  and by the way am i the only one who sees that that character (personality) of Hellboy...is a complete rip off of "the thing" from the fantastic four?  Jeff smith who has spent 15 years ripping off the smurfs was there too accepting an award or presenting an award i wasn't really paying attention because i was going over my acceptance speech in my mind and trying to figure out how hard to pound the podium but i WISH i had taken a picture, cause this guy was dressed like a total clown.  he used to look like an average white guy but somewhere in the last five years he's grown long greasy curry hair and has decided to wear crappy wide color suits with the top four buttons unbuttoned.  if he wasn't announced as Jeff Smith i'd think he was a porn distributor from 1972.  there's probably a picture or video of him at the awards up on the internet...go take a look, all he need is a coke spoon hanging from a gold chair and he's the perfect 70's douche-bag.  next year at the con i'm going to have someone go up with a copy of "bone" with his characters all colored blue and "the smurfs" written over the title and ask for an autograph.

  The awards themselves…I won’t comment on, I was a guest.  But I hear that the lovely and talented Kempo Kratavil who was with me gives a summary of our time at the table during her san diego blog at the link below (keep in mind that she is the only person I know with worse spelling and grammar than me.)

http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendId=8305318&blogId=503274726

I have been keeping busy though, the zombie fetus statues that we hoped to have for San Diego...well they didn't quite work out, so since i have nothing to do right now i decided to just do them myself...which is what i should have done in the first place...hopefully i'll have done some for Chicago Comic-con

comments? concerns?

douglaspasz@gmail.com

myspace.com/douglasarseniclullaby

www.arseniclullabies.com