RETURN OF THE BLOGGY THING

It’s been a month since I last posted a new bloggy thing for your amusement and edification.  That’s because my computer went boom on January 2, because I was hanging out in Los Angeles from January 9-18 and because it took me until January 28 to get my new computer  - the Devil Machine 2014 - to work to my satisfaction.  I hope you missed me because I have been crawling the walls with my mad need to blog, blog, blog.

I’ll be writing extensively about my Los Angeles trip, though I may write about other stuff every other day or so to give you a break from the online equivalent of my vacation slides.  To give you the short version, my bestie Bob Ingersoll and I had a terrific time. We had Disneyland fun and got to spend time with some of our all-time favorite people.

My trip to Los Angeles was made possible by some good fortune on my part and the amazing travel expertise of Ingersoll.  The man is far more than a fine writer, a canny educator of the ways comic books get the law wrong, a upstanding former public defender and walking albino nightlight.  I will praise him frequently in the course of writing about my L.A. adventure.

This month will see the return of such popular features as “Rawhide Wednesday” and my online garage sales.  You’ll also get the usual mix of book, comics and movie reviews with the occasional dollop of political and social commentary.  If you wish me to review a book, comic or movie of yours, send them to me at:

Tony Isabella
840 Damon Drive
Medina, OH 44256

I can’t/won’t review items from PDFs or online sources.  I’m an old dog set in my ways...and my ways include having review items on my desk while I review them.  With movies, I watch them on my pretty big flatscreen TV and take notes.  This is how I roll.

Next month brings the start of my writing about a month in comics history that’s very important to me.  While there will be a great many bloggy things that begin with this history, I won’t be writing about it every day.  I expect it will take the entire year to get through everything I can to say about that month.

Near the end of 2013, I thought I would be able to devote much of my time to working on creator-owned projects.  I have an incredibly long bucket list of things I want to write before I kick that old bucket.  Last time I checked, there were over 160 ideas waiting for my attention.  I can’t wait to get started on them.

However...

My bucket list nest egg took hits from unexpected expenses as the new year kicked off.  Because of this, I wouldn’t be at all adverse  to paying gigs. 

This isn’t remotely a desperate situation.  I have paying gigs on my desk.  I expect I’ll continue to assist newspaper cartoonists by providing them with gags, plots and scripts.  I’m just saying that if you have a paying gig that would be challenging enough to be fun for me and relatively stress-free - I would last maybe a week with the kind of micro-managing editors they have at some publishers - then I could be the writer of your dreams.  Start the conversation by e-mailing me.

I’m still going to be working on my bucket list.  It’s going to be an exciting year for me.

Convention appearances?  At present, the only comics convention on my schedule is the Akron Comic-Con closer to the end of the year.  If you’re a convention promoter who would like to have me appear at his/her event, and if you can cover my hotel and travel expenses, I’m interested.  Only May is off the table on account of I have a few family obligations that month.

Store appearances? I don’t have any scheduled at this time, but I would certainly consider them if you can cover my hotel and travel expenses.

School or library appearances? I’ll be a guest speaker at a near-future meeting of an area university’s comics club, but that’s the only such appearance on my schedule.  I’ll post information on that appearance soon and, as with convention and store appearances, I am open to appearing at other schools and libraries.

That covers the basics, which is something I like to do whenever I return to the bloggy thing from an extended absence.  I’ll be back tomorrow with a bloggy I wrote in January but never posted because of my computer going boom and then start my Los Angeles report on Monday.  Stay tuned for more fun.

© 2014 Tony Isabella