http://xkcd.com/680/

http://www.warrenellis.com/?p=8167

And, with the house cleared and shit wrapped and an unwise number of wine bottles emptied, I’m out. See you on the other side of little Winterval. Have a good break. Try not to stab anybody important.

http://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=1623

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← previous	December 24th, 2009	next
December 24th, 2009: It's true, Dinosaur Comics got personified last night and wished everyone an awesome new year. I do too! This is where I take my MINI CHRISTMAS VACATION: there'll be no new comic Christmas Day, and I'll be running Klassik Komicks until January 1st, 2010 (next Friday!) So it's really just four Klasik Komix. I keep spelling "Klassick Kowmics" differently each time because they're that classic! Have fun, everyone, and thank you for making 2009 one of my best years ever. It's still amazing that I get to do this comic instead of having a real job, and it's all thanks to you guys. – Ryan

http://www.warrenellis.com/?p=8165

Musician/writer Christine Hart felt it necessary to preserve this Twitter exchange from earlier in the year:

I have just been informed via the power of Twitter that I’m on io9’s 2009 Science Fiction Power List, alongside, um, Lady Gaga. Actually, it’s kind of an interesting list — and an interesting, if peculiar, concept. Doubtless, by the time you read it, the comments section will have filled with snark. But the article itself is worth a read (not least because it includes Lady Gaga. I think even Bill Gibson was talking about that last video).

I’ve just been informed that Bleeding Cool will be broadcasting all through Xmas Day.

Me? I will doubtless still be ruminating on the fact that five minutes ago I was selecting children’s books for my daughter, and that apparently with the passage of no time whatsoever I am now wrapping a MOCK THE WEEK: UNCUT DVD for her. Not sure how she went from Maurice Sendak to Frankie Boyle yelling "cunt" overnight, but suddenly she’s 14 and arguing with me over rap/rock, guitarists and what the best track on the Florence & The Machine album was. It’s brilliant, frankly.

http://alienlovespredator.com/2009/12/23/that-cant-be-jesus-christ/

http://alienlovespredator.com/?p=1438

I went heavy on the Jesus jokes there didn’t I…

It’s been a rough, rough last few weeks in the comic-making department… not only did I have to miss last week but you wouldn’t believe how many things conspired against me in trying to get this episode to you. Just when I was finishing it up a freak accident happened and I lost like half of the work I’d done. And now, separately, my computer’s pulling that blue screen crap you see here, and it won’t boot.

So… yeah like I said it’s been rough. And guess what… I’d made up my mind to do ANOTHER, FULL-PAGE update this week, to make up for last week, and also, well, it has to do with Christmas (though believe it or not Jesus’ return was initially coincidental, and unrelated to the season). Now with my computer being all busted I don’t know if that’s gonna happen. If it doesn’t (by Friday), I’m faced with putting up a Christmas-themed comic after Dec. 25… how lame is that. Anyway. BLArGh

That “Calgon take me away” line was the first random thing that popped into my head when I was writing that panel, and after it all, sure enough, I found this little vid on YouTube.

Welp, if I can get my computer working again I’ll have the next update up on Christmas Day; if not… PLEASE HAVE A MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Reminder: Follow me on Twitter, become a fan at the aLp page on Facebook, hang out on the official aLp forums.

http://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=1622

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← previous	December 23rd, 2009	next
December 23rd, 2009: Dudes I ate SO MANY COOKIES last night, mostly made by Emily Horne and Tim Maly's mom and by Beth, who doesn't have a website! Anyway, if I die of cookie overdose I wanted you to know which of my dear friends to go after! – Ryan

http://xkcd.com/679/

http://www.warrenellis.com/?p=8163

This is me with local musician Carolina Fasalo of The Voronas. Caz dumped a load of old photos on to her Facebook account and turned this up. Last summer, I think?

I was reading this interview with David Simon the other day — he gives good interviews, see if you can find the one he did with THE BELIEVER magazine sometime — and something he said stuck with me a little bit. As it often does in Simon interviews, as he’s good with a bon mot or two. I’ve hacked some connective tissue out to present it as a complete thought:

There would be a series of planning sessions. First, at the beginning of every season, we did a sort of retreat with the main writers, the guys who were going to be on staff the whole year. We’d discuss what we were trying to say… we weren’t cynical about having been given ten, 12, 13 hours — whatever we had for any season from HBO. All of that was an incredible gift.

So goddamn it, you better have something to say. That sounds really simple, but it’s actually a conversation that I don’t think happens on a lot of serialized drama. Certainly not on American television. I think that a lot of people believe that our job as TV writers is to get the show up as a franchise and get as many viewers, as many eyeballs, as we can, and keep them.

What we were asking was, “What should we spend 12 hours of television saying?”

Which, yes, should sound blatantly obvious. But it’s easy, when working in fast and deadline-intensive serial formats, to forget that bit: to trust to the process of pulp writing and the form’s innate effect of whatever you’re really interested in leaking out into the work regardless. It’s easy to forget what you turned up for.

It’s also an interesting process note. A good 95% of longform serials, I’d guess, turn up not knowing what they want to talk about. Sometimes they don’t discover what they showed up to talk about until the third or fourth season. And I don’t mean so much the working out of what’s now called "show mythology," the actual overarcing storyline — and we can all name shows that suddenly realised they’d payed out all the rope they had and they didn’t know where the plot went next. I mean the serials where they finally open their mouths and nothing comes out. They made the show because they were allowed to make the show.

In other news, Karl Urban has apparently been signed to RED. This brings the cast up to something like the eight thousand most popular actors in the world.

Tonight I am mostly clearing the house. Not enough strength left in me for proper writing. I’d actually really like to be digging into the outline I wrote for the GRAVEL film, and fixing all the stuff in it that looks broken. I’m delivering it at the end of the second week in January, so there’s plenty of time, and it’s actually in reasonably good shape overall. But the thing about distance from a thing — and this is actually not bad advice for any new writer — is that it gives you essential and often surprising perspective once you’ve been away from it for a few days. Walking away from something for a few days or a week is sometimes the best possible thing you can do for a piece. Again, not something we always have time for in the deadline game.

I’d also like to be working on the animated series I have in development, but, like I said. Burned way the fuck out. So I’m going to content myself with clearing the house, catching up on my RSS feeds, scheming about getting a new phone out of Vodafone, and making a few notes on loose ideas. Proper writing can wait a couple of weeks, now.

http://www.warrenellis.com/?p=8161

Very nearly completing the first volume, at Bleeding Cool:

(And there’s an error in there that should read: "…crossing the four hundred miles from Berlin to Metz")

http://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=1621

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← previous	December 22nd, 2009	next
December 22nd, 2009: Guys I got SO MANY great footers, and just in time, because winter just started here in Canada! Here's the ones I got: Danielle Baskin sent me this gorgeous footer E L sent me this pretty scene, reminding me of rural Ontario Ruth replaced the log cabin with an igloo, and the tiny woman with ADORABLE PENGUINS Mary made this pixellicious version with holiday decorations AND a subtle love message Paul added some snow and a scientifically-accurate skyline Dan made a T-Rex snowman with a top hat and everything! Ed made this stylish and minimalist footer Donnie animated this wicked-sweet jump Finally, Tim created this depiction of front-lawn snow vandalism that's about to be dealt with SO AWESOME, you guys! I slept on it to decide which one, and it was really tough. I decided to go with Paul's version (which you can now see at the bottom of the page, only I moved the snowman over some!) but it was hard to decide. Thank you all again! I am really grateful for each of you who sent something in, and I know how lucky I am as a non-artist that I can ask people for design elements and they just show up with awesome awesome things. Woo! – Ryan

http://www.warrenellis.com/?p=8157

Well, nearly. We ran into a blizzard north of Church End, east of the Gallows Green Road (love the place names up-county – Bacon End and Butcher’s Pasture are in the same area). It slicked a small, winding country lane already made treacherous by packed sheet ice. And then we hit a pothole and that was it, we were planing. Up over the kerb and headed for a low wall with a deep ditch behind it. Luckily, mounting the kerb gave us the traction we needed to pull round with a foot to spare. That was fun. Drove on, to find a car buried in a ditch at the next junction.

Oh, and the back of the kitchen flooded the other day. I’m starting to get the sense that 2009 wants to finish me off before it dies of old age. A calendrical unit yelling "I’m taking you with me, you bastard!" from its vanishing final paper bunker marked December, every spent day a room deleted from the structure until 2009 is finally huddled in one small box marked 31 and screaming obscenities in stark terror.

All of which was probably an episode of Grant’s DOOM PATROL.

This is the new issue of COILHOUSE. Delighted to see Kristamas Klousch on the cover. It goes on sale on the 22nd. This will be the link you need.

So, having lost even more time to trying to staunch an apparently endless flow of meltwater through my windows, I have to now write DO ANYTHING #026 and FREAKANGELS 0082, because Paul’s just caught up to me. And then I’m calling it Done for the year. I’ve really got nothing left in me this year. Not intending to do anything more than scribble in a notebook and write the occasional piece here until Jan 5.

(FREAKANGELS will be on a skip week this week, because Xmas Day falls on Friday. If we had any sense, we’d skip New Year’s Day too.)

Fuck you, 2009.

http://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=1620

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← previous	December 21st, 2009	next
December 21st, 2009: I received some amazing winter footers! I'll leave this up one more day and put up the winner tomorrow. Thanks every! And here's what I'm talking about (from Friday): Okay so it's WINTER and I've still got that fall footer at the bottom of the page. Just like what I did for fall, I'm having a winter footer contest. Send me your best 1000x96 (it can be a bit taller if you want) image that loops, and I'll pick the winner and put it up on the site! Also, if you send in a URL I'll link to your URL with your submission. Here's the fall version and the fall background image I use for looping. When I say "loops" I mean that the left-hand side of the image is the same as the right-hand side of the image, so when they're tiled horizontally they go together nicely. The background image is just repetitive part of the larger image without much detail to it that I can use for tiling. Send them in if you're interested, and thanks! – Ryan

http://xkcd.com/678/

http://www.warrenellis.com/?p=8155

Tiiiired. Sitting here listening to Pocahaunted and chugging coffee in order to stay lucid enough to do a GRAVEL phone conference set for 1.30am. This week’s been utterly buggered — you may have noticed the silence here — by a member of the family being rushed into hospital early in the week, which has turned everything into bubbling chaos and is necessitating runs to the hospital, rescheduling, etc. And then the snow hit, turned into two inches of white stuff sitting on three inches of ice, and Britain shut down because it is now a country of weaklings and jabbering genetic wreckage who shit themselves when the sky moves.

GRAVEL phone conference with my producers is to set the storyline. I’ve spent what little time I’ve had this week putting all my notes in order. Which is how I ended up writing the line "Bill, you’re kind of persona non fucker around here."

Also, at the top of the week, I wrapped the last few pages of ULTIMATE COMICS IRON MAN ARMOR WARS #4, which is one of the more ridiculous titles that I haven’t invented myself. Sadly, the Marvel office chose to ignore the alternate titles I wrote at the top of each script. I liked IRON MAN: HUMAN SEX JEEP the best.

Had a conversation with David Bogart at Marvel about the future of the NEWUNIVERSAL: STORMFRONT project there that got stalled when my computer and backups were destroyed. Should be sorted in a few months. I think Dave’s official title at Marvel is Grand Inquisitor or Witchfinder General or something, but I’ve known him pretty much since he started out in the business, and, frankly, it’s always nice to know that there’s a guy in that office who will never try to screw me over. Dave will look after me.

Or, of course, I will have him killed. I know lots of people in New York. I mean, trust is good, but insurance is better, right?

If I can just get a few more pages on other things out over the next two days, then from Monday I am done with 2009, and anyone who doesn’t like it can bite my muckpump.

More coffee.

http://www.warrenellis.com/?p=8153

Variety says:

Summit Entertainment has set Oct. 22 as the release date for "Red," its espionage thriller starring Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman and Helen Mirren.

Red," based on the WildStorm/DC comicbook…

…because apparently reading the names on the spine is hard work.

http://www.warrenellis.com/?p=8151

The joy of Fridays.

http://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=1619

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← previous	December 18th, 2009	next
December 18th, 2009: Here are some dudes playing classic SNES games for charity this weekend! You can watch them play and you can donate if they defeat Andross. You don't have to wait until they defeat Andross though! Okay so it's WINTER and I've still got that fall footer at the bottom of the page. Just like what I did for fall, I'm having a winter footer contest. Send me your best 1000x96 (it can be a bit taller if you want) image that loops, and I'll pick the winner and put it up on the site! Also, if you send in a URL I'll link to your URL with your submission. Here's the fall version and the fall background image I use for looping. When I say "loops" I mean that the left-hand side of the image is the same as the right-hand side of the image, so when they're tiled horizontally they go together nicely. The background image is just repetitive part of the larger image without much detail to it that I can use for tiling. Send them in if you're interested, and thanks! – Ryan

http://xkcd.com/677/

http://www.warrenellis.com/?p=8146

“In Dulce Jubilo” – the Medieval Baebes.

“Just Like Christmas” – Low

“Christmas Wrapping” – The Waitresses

http://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=1618

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← previous	December 17th, 2009	next
December 17th, 2009: Thanks to Steven, an almost-lawyer who set me straight on the bear-punching clauses! The legality of spend-a-night-in-an-actually-haunted-house clauses remain an enigma. The Child's Play charity auction for a T-Rex Squishable raised $241.51 for Child's Play. Nice work, you guys! – Ryan