BLAZIN' HIPS R&D

I think I found a new solution to problem involving alternating patterns for differentiation. The essential problem was that the patterning I want to use obscures the line work (the patterning contains a lot of black) in a fairly intricate overlapping arrangement. I think that if I alternate that pattern with a similar, but distinctive one, I may regain my shapes.

Didn't do nearly as much work as planned last night, because it was the first time in a long time I just spent the evening with a friend, and the first time in an even longer time with this particular friend. Even before I started getting serious about comics again, I was widely aknowleged as the world's worst friend. I never call, never write, often bail. I generally rely on other people to manage my friendships. It's only some miracle I have any at all.

So, I did a little work last night before spending an evening with a friend who is crossing the continent pretty soon. I think I need to finish EMAW #6 before I can really catch my breathe and hang out with friends again, but she's leaving in a week and a half and deserves special dispensation anyway. She's one of my best friends, and I'm probably one of her worst.

Tonight I do the serious buckle down and finish the damn book. I have to make fifty of these for APE, another thirty of my backlist, do my taxes, reserve a motel room a pick out a nice celebratory bottle of vino.

Ballard loves the time! After "Chronopolis," I move into "The Voices of Time," - —ahem - with characters in permament comas, a girl named Coma, a guy who is sleeping more and more every day, a guy who had the same sleep-deprivation surgery as the characters in manhole 69, mutant plants that can 'see' time. I wonder if Ballard is just building to a final culmination of timesession. Chronopolis was ok, and the one-sentence twist ending was okay, but I hope most of the stories don't rely on this sort of gimmick, as gimmicks get old fast.