What a difference a year makes

In true independent comics fashion, my original plans/schedules and such have largely fallen by the wayside.

That being said, the project is still very much alive and well, one year later. After the fantastic road trip last spring (2010) I had to take a little time away from ole John P. This was not for any BAD reason, I just needed to get a little distance from a subject I was so focussed on so that I could gain some clarity.

And clarity I have gained!

I essentially held off on any serious work on the movie until Jan 1, 2011. Since then I've finished transferring the 70 odd hours of film I already have, and am moving into the shockingly exciting NEXT phase.

And with that in mind, I thought, hey good time to revise the blog. I'd like to throw down some general thoughts first, then lay out some plans.

1. I'm not writing this blog for you, or for John P. In truth, when I began shooting, my thought was 'shoot a bunch of shit, and then string it together'. Since I didn't really know what I was doing, I felt having some kind of log would be helpful so that I could at some point review what the heck I was actually doing. I thought, 'if it's online, I'll always have it somewhere, and some people may actually be interested in the thing'.

Turns out, I'm not particularly interested in whether people want to read about this or not, and in fact, knowing that people are reading it is a wee bit distracting. Taking a year off from it SURELY helped as most folks have likely drifted away, but if you are still around, I hope you enjoy it.

At the same time, and please don't take this the wrong way, I'm not super interested in your ideas about how I should do this project. I say this because it's taken a year to get to the point where I have a vision of what this thing is/could/should be, and it will likely differ from yours. Thankfully, there are many cameras out there, and I encourage you to pick one up, and tell the story your way, if you like. Ok, that was snarky, but heartfelt.

2. I'll be throwing working clips up here, along with general thoughts on the timeline, plan, scope of the project. Again, this is partially to document what I'm doing in a easy way/place, and to help me get my thoughts out on 'paper' so that I can have them mildly organized.

3. I have an outline, and most of the shooting is done. I'm off to Chicago again from 3/7-11 to hang with John and dig into his psyche. I'm also working to figure out interviewing his second wife, Misun when I get back from that trip.

4. Basic plan is to have 95% of the filming finished, and all the film logged/separated into chapters before I leave on my honeymoon. Yah, got married. Woot. Going to Viet Nam for most of May. When I return will spend June/July doing more specific editing of video and sound, and have a good working rough cut by end of August. Hell, that's six months from now. I gotta get to work, and quit screwing around on blog spot.

5. Not sure if this will work -- I remember having trouble with it last year, but here's a nice little clip I put together today. It's about a minute long and has footage from a reading in Norman OK at Atomik Pop, in addition to general footage from an awesome state park in Elgin (I believe), and driving through western Louisiana towards Houston. The music is from Zak Sally's 'Fear of Song', and is used because we're friendly with each other, not because I have any right to at all. There's no money in any of this, so I'm sure Zak's cool with it.

Well What's All This Then?

Well it's been a little while since we've had some updates here, which is fair, because I've been taking a bit of a break from thinking about the film for a wee bit. I'm back-ish now though, at least with some updates.

No new video for awhile, because I had to leave all my tapes in Denver after the tour with John. I was flying to DC, then back to Chicago, had limited space, and more importantly, didn't want to absent mindedly set the bag of tapes down somewhere and lose them all. But, with them in Denver, it's been impossible to put up new stuff.

That being said, I'm going out tomorrow and doing an interview with Donal (early friend of John P & member of many bands together), then roaming around Chicago to shoot what could be called 'b-roll' or 'second unit' stuff. Basically shots of Chicago and whatnot. I'm going to put on my headphones, listen to some loud music and cart the camera all over the city. Am legitimately looking forward to it!

For you Chicagophiles out there, I'm going to get some of the classic stuff, but there will be some weird stuff too -- Capone's house, the Biograph theater, some of the weirder/darker historical stuff.

In the meantime, if you need to SEE some stuff, I took hundreds of pictures of the tour and they can be found over at Facebook, and John's been posting some sweet little videos and such too.

To sate the masses, I WILL post a few little iPhone clips I took on tour every couple of days till we're back in Denver, which is this weekend.

This clip is John in the room Elvis was born in, explaining to Bobbie -- the 80+ year old guide -- just what he does for a living. Cheers.

Congrats to John Porcellino!

Even if the excellent write up on the Denver comics scene in the Westwod this week weren't awesome, it turns out, ole Johnny P. has been nominated for an Eisner Award!

Best Graphic Album—Reprint
• Absolute Justice, by Alex Ross, Jim Krueger, and Doug Braithewaite (DC)
• A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge, by Josh Neufeld (Pantheon)
• Alec: The Years Have Pants, by Eddie Campbell (Top Shelf)
• Essex County Collected, by Jeff Lemire (Top Shelf)
• Map of My Heart: The Best of King-Cat Comics & Stories, 1996–2002, by John Porcellino (Drawn & Quarterly)

Some stiff competition, it's true, but I always did root for the underdog!

Oh Geez, Oh Pete

Well, we're in Norman OK, and my mind is truly swarming. So many sights, sounds, wonderful people, great events, monster issue back issues and strange Americana history events.

What can you say about a tour that has gone from hunting gators in Gainesville FL, to standing in the spot Elvis stood when he was 10 getting his first guitar, to driving through Dealey Plaza past the school book depository?

As Jonathan Richman would say, 'whatta woild!'

Of course, the FILM is going well. I've filmed about 30 additional hours of events, interviews, and John P. driving around (he's driven all 6,000+ miles of this trip, so far, yet seemed confused when I called him 'tenacious').

I've learned so much about so much, and it's starting to come together in my brain -- the right story to tell, and how to tell it. Of course, NOW I'm going, 'I should have filmed THAT! WHAT WAS I THINKING?!?!?!', but I'm careful not to beat myself up.

So what now?

Drive back to Denver tomorrow, then do taxes and rest for a couple days, fly to DC, meet up with Crystal, try to do an interview with Ian MacKaye -- assuming our schedules can coincide -- then back to Chicago, where I need to set up and interview a couple more family/friend types, trek down to St. Louis to chat with Kevin H. (and check out Lincoln's house in Springfield), then back to Denver on May 1/2.

Then, I'm going to not think about John P., King Cat, video, film, soundtracks, or interviews for about 4-6 weeks. I'm going to re-settle into Kilgore, get a dog, hang out with my lady, plan a wedding, and enjoy the beginning of summer. Oh, and I have to start getting ready for kil GOREFEST '10.

Then, come mid-late summer, I'll start back up. I'll go through each tape, and boil down the material I want, and try to get it down around 8-10 hours. Then spend the winter running it down further and further until it's at a workable 90-120 minutes. John's talking about a summer tour of California, so I may try to figure out some of that too -- we'll see!

I'll keep updating this blog here, posting thoughts and murmers, and all input and feedback is welcome. Oh, and here's a neat-o reference to yours truly from the Austin Domy reading the other day.

Ask Us About Our Awesome

Hey folks! It's been a wild few days. We headed from Atlanta up to Marietta so John could check out Dr. No comics -- which reportedly had lots of back issues. Could there be monster comics, we thought? Well, not so much, but it turns out Marietta is ALSO the home of Top Shelf Productions -- the great folks who put out Jeffrey Brown, James Kochalka, Edie Campbell, Alan Moore, Matt Kindt, etc. etc.

We hung around with the very gracious Chris Staros, and chatted about all things comics, Hollywood, Elvis, and hair metal until about 2am. Got up the next day and trucked it on down the line -- Gainesville line, that is.

Gainesville is great. John had an event at the library last night (about 40+ people showed) and afterwards we went out to dinner with Travis -- the awesome librarian/skater/zinester who set the show up. Today's John's speaking at a couple schools -- were I didn't think I could film -- and tomorrow is the conference at the U of F.

Things are good --- I've shot an additional five or six hours of John P. stuff, have worked through a lot of the kinks of interviewing in the car, chatting, etc. & thankfully we're not sick of each other.

Ok, I need to get going -- got my day job to do, private travel journal to keep, postcards to send (hey crystal!) and such and such and such. My 'day off' from shooting is turning into the busiest day this week!

Pre-Tour Round Up

Odds are, as you read this, ole John P. is hurtling off through the Illinois wild on his way to Memphis. I'm hitting the road tomorrow with Crystal, headed to Nashville, where we'll meet up on Monday to officially launch the filmed part of the tour.

We're making stops all over the place, and this got me to thinking about one of the things I just love about John Porcellino. I grew up in a town of 900, and the closest city was Syracuse, NY (a teeming metropolis at 140,000). As a kid, my friends and I would drive up there for basically any show we could get our grubby little hands on, and I always loved the bands who'd play Syracuse (or Utica/Albany/Binghamton) because you knew they were really out there workin' it for the fans, which I appreciated.

And I still feel that way. It drives me crazy when bands play NY-Boston-DC-Chicago-Seattle-SF-LA. Or authors. As a comic shop owner in an admittedly tier two city (Denver), it drives me nuts that the 'big names' don't come out to our neck of the woods (or Albuquerque/Salt Lake/St. Louis/KC). Frankly, the kids in Brooklyn (God love 'em) don't need YET ANOTHER COOL THING TO DO. But the kids in Broomfield do.

And that's why I'm super excited to go to Norman OK, Houston TX, Gainesville FL, and Savannah GA on this tour with John 'keepin it real' Porcellino.

Couple other neat things before we hit the road --

Good write up on Chicago Zine Fest in the Chicago Huffington Post.

Another short write up on the documentary project in Monsters and Rockets (still referring to me as Daniel, which is bizarre and funny at the same time).

NY-based artist/musician/writer Summer Pierre has an interview coming out on Monday with John P., with a little teaser bit here. And, there's a contest!

Lastly, it turns out our Houston event is the same night as the first game of the NCAA Final Four. How funny is that?

Ok team -- interviewing Anne Elizabeth Moore this am, and then getting some work/sleep.

The hidden buddhas

So many updates! First off, John's in Chicago, which is really great. It's lovely to see him, and getting to spend loads of time with him is giving me a lot of much needed insight into his brain, character, and life.

We did the Chicago Comics Symposium, and then the Chicago Zinefest -- where a super sweet guy mistook me for John, told me he was a huge fan and totally made my day. We sold a crap load of comics, and I got some GREAT footage of John P. in action - wheelin' & dealin', stealin' hearts and crackin' skulls. Well, sort of.

Took the day off on Sunday to run 10 kilometers (a first) in honor of my birthday which is today (bizarrely the same as John's dad). Yesterday was a FEST of interviews and talking to really neat people, and hearing great stories. I drove out to Dekalb, where John went to college, and met up with him. He took me on a tour of the city/town, including the old house where he and his buddies would host keggers and play music.

Then the fun began. We drove to Fred H.'s house for an interview. Fred grew up with John, turned him on to R.E.M., shared a love of comics and mischief making. I haven't transferred the tape, but the funniest story was them submitting a copy of The Replacements 'Hootenanny' as their 'demo tape' to the battle of the homecoming bands committee, and won a slot on the bill.

Fred's a really great guy who teaches high school, focusing on media and literature. He's that really cool teacher you had who helped, probably without knowing it, and it was great to meet him and his family.

Then we trucked it over to Al Stark's house. Al does drop dead beautiful block printing, and makes kites that are both beautiful AND functional. Al was the nicest, most unassuming guy, and after years of reading his letter to King Cat, I was nervous to chat with him. But he was gracious and friendly, and offered up stories and memories for the project. I highly recommend you truck it over to his site to check out his work.

Then, with precious little battery power, we headed to the woods to look up Frank Kurtz, the guy who owned the first shop to sell King Cat, and who John credits for getting him to actually think about doing KC as more than a hobby.

Frank was great. He won an Eisner award, fer crissakes, and the three of us just had a blast shooting the bull about all things comics for a good hour or more. The thing that kicked ass about Frank was his attitude towards making things -- he said that people would come into his shop and say, 'I've got this great idea for a Superman story', and he'd tell them, 'don't just talk about your idea, go do it, make it someone beside Superman so you can use the character, and then come see me'.

It was great to see John just enjoying sitting back to gab about dinosaur comics or whatever else came up. We left late and tired, but happy to have made the trip.

For the film, one of the best aspects of the day though, was just getting comfortable with John in the car. On this tour, we're going to be doing a lot of driving together, so good if we're able to feel really comfortable and open around each other.

On the tech side, I realize I've got about three hours of battery life, which means I need to either get more batteries, or find a car adapter.

We'll see!

I'll try to keep posting, but I've got a crazy busy week, and then it's off to Tennessee this weekend, so.......who knows. Cheers.