There was a blackout. Did you hear? It sucked my balls. The only thing that made me feel better about being one of the last people to get his power back was that my friend's Alex and Kristen also didn't have power the whole time either. That may sound mean, but I can guarantee they'd say the same thing about me.

If friday was the Blackout of 2003, saturday was the Big Wedding Suit Odyssey of 2003. It was a long day, but happily it ended with me getting an awesome suit and a cool shirt and tie to go along with it. It is very slim fitting though, so there isn't much room in it for me to gain weight, so I had to start running again. I don't want it to look like my pants are too tight on the day of my wedding, because then people will think I bought the suit a few years ago or something rather than specially for the big occasion.

Yesterday, amongst other things I watched a little bit of some wedding show on Lifetime, the Network for Women. It was all about three brides of different ages and their weddings. One of the brides was 30-something year old Kathy Griffith from "Suddenly Susan" and "Celebrity Mole". Being that she is a comedienne, she was being all funny the whole time. Like, when the priest asked if anyone knew any reason these two shouldn't be wed she made a big hammy angry face at the crowd and everyone laughed. Then when she said her vows she was being all funny too, like "I'm so glad I found you... 'cos God knows I looked..." and she made another face, and everyone laughed again.

I hope I am not as annoying as that on my wedding day.

I left work a little early last night because there was an Epic Heroclix Battle planned. I was very excited about it, I wrapped all my Gabagool! 5 stuff on saturday and was looking forward to some serious gaming action. And I was not disappointed. I fell asleep last night thinking of Energy Explosion combinations and adding Perplex to Long Range Combat Expert... If you don't know what I'm talking about, then there's no use explaining it, 'Clix is a world unto itself...

It was pretty intense last night though, I am okay waiting a week or so before the next round of the ongoing war we are all engaged in...

Speaking of ongoing things, I was defeated the other day in my never ending Quest to Eat the Weirdest Things I can Find On the Menu. I went to a very tasty brunch place on sunday and everyone ordered Bloody Mary's. They had all kinds of different mixes you could get, so I opted for one that came with all kinds of pickled vegetables in it. It was very strange, it had pickled brussel sprouts, turnips, green beans, everything. The people at the table next to me even leant over to peer wondrously at it and ask it's origin. Anyway, I couldn't drink it, but it was more about having vodka in the morning than all the pickled things. Not a huge deal, I know, but I felt defeated...

New interview with me and Radtke posted at this site called comicsreaders.com

I am the guy at the top of the photo in case you weren't sure. Radtke is the one at the bottom with the red shirt and red face.

Whitey at Optical Sloth reviewed the SPX anthology. He seemed to dig it. Plus he mentioned my name.

Have decided to only print 1000 copies of Gabagool! 5, even though the cost of doing 2000 is a difference of 150 dollars. I think it's unlikely that I'd sell over 1000 copies of the comic before it's time to collect it all up and make an awesome Hedo Dogs graphic novel, so why pay more and have more copies of the comic going unsold?

Did our engagement shoot last night. I tried my hardest to look casual and relaxed, but it's hard to pose in the middle of the street and not feel a little self conscious. Also: my hair is too long, and didn't look good.

Psyched to get the latest comic off to the printer tomorrow. Frees me up to relax for five minutes before coming under fire to get the invites GOCCO-ed up and sent out.

Been working on the cover for Gabagool! #5 (2).

A near complete image of it is viewable here

Productive meeting with the wedding DJ last night (www.djshakey.com). She is a nice person. We were concerned about when we should play the traditional Jewish music and when we should play the traditional Scottish music. Talking it over with the DJ cleared it all up.

We will do the Jewish stuff first. This is good because more people are going to expect it, and also it requires more physical effort on our guests behalf. I need them earlier in the night when they are still capable of hoisting me and Aliza on chairs and running us around, and then possibly doing the same to the folks. At some point there will also be the circle dance (The Hora).

I wonder how my family will do with all this? Hopefully there will be enough Jewish people there to tell them what's going on and which direction to dance around in a circle and so forth.

Then later in the night when my family has had enough to drink there will hopefully be some Scottish dancing too. I have been to weddings with my family where this has been pulled off, so I am hoping to see it at my own wedding too.

In an effort to be better prepared for this whole thing (spiritually I mean) I have finally started reading my book on The New Jewish Wedding. So far I have discovered two things:

1) There's one tradition called yichud where the bride and groom go and spend ten minutes by themselves after the ceremony. I like the sound of this a lot. I understand that we're supposed to be worrying about getting our photos done at that point, but I think that can wait a few minutes.

2) There's actually not that much that's required to be done for a wedding to actually be a legitimate Jewish wedding. I think all you really need is some witnesses and I have to give my bride a gift worth more than a dime. She has to give me something too, but I can't remember what. It might be something like she has to promise to tend my sheep or my goats or something. Or maybe that's the ketubah...

Obviously I have only started reading the book, so things are still a little sketchy...

I was a fool to not start re-numbering Gabagool! once it went legit!

Diamond has just agreed to take me on and distribute the book, but the fact that the first issue is a #4 is hurting me. Stores aren't going to want to start buying a new series on the fourth issue, and there are no issues 1 through 3 that I can sell (unless Diamind is itching to get into the mini-comics biz). There are a few options, but the whole thing has given me a massive headache.

But still, it's great news that Diamond has picked up Gabagool! If all goes smoothly there'll be a listing in the October issue of Previews, and soon after that I will be able to quit my job and make a living off of the funny-books...

If I want to get Gabagool! #5 printed up in time to take it SPX I have to have it finished by the end of next week. This is probably possible, but I am a little nervous about it. However, worrying over something like that isn't going to stop me from playing HeroClix tonight with my buddies (Chris "Gabagool!" Radtke, Alex "Box Office Poison" Robinson, and Dave "Eep" Mazure - check out all their fine comics, I endorse them all). I can't not play, I still haven't used the promotional Superman that Aliza picked up for me at the Wizard offices.

I spent this past weekend in a remote cabin at a bachelor party of a friend of mine. The best thing we did: Paintball. It was so awesome. But hard work too. I am in reasonably good shape, but I was sweating and out of breath the whole time. Also, the paintball pellets hurt, and I have two large yellow bruises on my leg now from the game.

I told my pal Gary "Gazbot" Gretsky about the game. He is a player, and has been trying to get me to play in the past. I could see wheels turning in his head as he asked me whether or not I would like my own paintball gun. I'm taking this to mean he's thinking it might make a good wedding gift. I think it would be a swell gift. Aliza on the other hand... didn't really seem to appreciate the concept in the same way that I do... I think the bruises on my body look sexy, like I am some kind of warrior. She doesn't get it though, she just makes dissaproving sounds and forces me to rub cream on them before I go to bed at night.

I ate a real jellyfish last night. The whole thing. It was kind of gross, but I wanted to prove that I could do it.

Aliza had a jumbo shrimp that not only wasn't cooked, but had it's still alive severed head sitting next to it's body on her plate. She had to make the waitress take the twitching head away. Ugh, that was stomach turning.

For dessert we went to a place up the street and I had a cream puff and felt better.

The SPX anthology came out yesterday. I was so excited about it two weeks ago, but when I got to the store my enthusiasm faded. I think it was because they only had one copy available. I preferred the idea of someone else buying it than me taking it home just to look at my story again, so I left the store without it.

I'll get it another week, I am sure that they'll order more.

Instead I got Blankets and am working my way through it. I think it is very well crafted. I'll have to finish it up and digest it a bit though before I can determine my final thoughts on it.

Aliza had a meeting with Wizard magazine yesterday for non-comics related purposes. She just talked me up the whole time and gave them copies of my comics. She's so great. In return they gave her a promotional Superman heroclix toy.

Aliza recently discovered a site called "Fresh Direct", where you can order your groceries online and have them delivered to your apartment. It's really great and convenient because they come whenever's best for you, so we've been having them come late at night, so we can be home with no hassles. Our last order got screwed up though (our fault) and we ended up with 12 giant bottles of water, 3 six packs of soda, and 3 cartons of milk. The milk is the worrisome one, 'cos how am I supposed to drink all that milk before it goes bad? I don't wake up in time to have any coffee or cereal in the morning, and I can't run home at lunchtime to drink some milk. My only option is to eat a lot of cereal for dinner, which is okay with me, because that's what I used to do in my olden single days when I wasn't eating out every night and getting soft.

This weekend I am going to a bachelor party, so I will be able to practice being vulgar and enjoying strippers and stuff like that.

The coolest thing about this upcoming weekend will be the paintball. I am looking forward to that, though I anticipate not doing very well. I know from my spotty forays into the sporting world that I'm not all that agile or quick on my feet. I imagine I will just get hit a lot out of nowhere and have to lie down and act dead until my team finishes up. I imagine that's how things would be if I was in an actual war too, so I am glad I never joined the army like I briefly thought about doing after I graduated high school.

Oh, Print Gocco, how I love thee. You are so easy to use, and you will save me so much money on my wedding invitations... Yes, for a mere 118 dollars, I bought my own little silk-screening machine, and now I don't have to stress about paying for any fancy printer to do the work for me. Nay, all I have to do now is buy the paper, and Print Gocco will take care of the rest...

I have got 3 and half more pages to go and then the next chapter of the Hedonism epic is finished. Once I realized I was almost done with it, I got depressed. I think because I know I am going to have to start doing all the tiresome back-end book prouction stuff again, and Gabagool! #4 is still sitting around in boxes waiting to be sold. I feel like the books will do well at SPX, but without real distribution this whole project is going to quickly become stupid. Luckily for me, my depression made it hard for me to do all that much drawing yesterday, thus delaying the inevitable, expensive, and perhaps ill-advised production part of the process.

Sometimes when I get the urge to promote Gabagool!, I'll post stuff on message boards and hope that I'll get a little feedback. Yesterday I discovered a site called nerdnyc.com, which caters to Nerds in the New York area. This is basically my target audience. I posted a thread here and they all seemed to love it. This is much better feedback than I ever get on the stuffy comics forums. NERDNYC RULEZ!!

When I was out at dinner last night, a mutual friend told me that the cartoonist that's lined up to draw a story for Gabagool! #5 has changed some of Chris's and my dialogue to "make it funnier". While I bristled at the idea that someone could make the script "funnier", I really didn't care that the dialogue had been tweaked. In fact, I didn't realize that it had, even though I'd seen the offending page at MoCCA. I was just happy to see the comic coming out and looking good. I don't usually ever get to see someone else drawing from my script, and it was a lot of fun to do so, even if they do think they can make it better, which they can't, it's already perfect.

There is a thread on the comics journal message board about the death of the pamphlet comic book. This is relevant to me, because I have been wrestling with what seems to be the best way to release this Hedo story. I like coming out with the issues, because it makes it easier for me to have new things at each convention, but I feel like perhaps it's not so good for me in the long run since it costs so much money to print up the comics. Maybe I should save it all and come out with a collection, releasing it as an "Original Graphic Novel", or OGN. But that would mean no new material for a while, which is lame. Also, I enjoy the comic book format because it's a lot of fun to do the short back-ups. I dunno, I'm not sure which is the right way to move forward.

Went to the beach again this weekend. I got no color at all, because I wisely used some sunscreen for babies which is super-powerful. I like to maintain my crisp paper whiteness. I may look like something that's been living on the bottom of the ocean all it's life, but at least I'm not going to get prematurely wrinkly. At this rate, by the time I'm in my forties I'll still have the soft smooth skin of an acne-free fifteen year old, and I'll still get carded at bars and stuff, and then make jokes to the bouncers about how flattered I am.

It is fucking freezing in this office! It's terrible. It is cranked up so's I've been on the edge of getting sick from the cold for over a week now. I had to go into the bathroom and put on an undershirt which I'd packed up for my Jersey weekend. That means I'm going to be short an item of clothing on sunday and have to come back to the city topless, because I can't be wearing soiled apparel.

In other news: I drew a bit last night, so I feel ok.

Went to dinner way up on 111th street last night. Interesting to go that far up town. I rarely venture above 59th street too much, and even then I don't get up much past the 80's.

Did not do any drawing last night. I feel terrible about it, especially since I won't be able to draw again until maybe sunday. It sucks too, because the pages I'm working on at the moment are coming out extra-good. Not just my normal level of competent drawing - but above and beyond! I am at the point when the main characters are just chekcing into their room at the Hedonism resort and having a look round. This is when the story gets interesting because now I get to draw all kinds of cool background characters and nudity and debauchery. The sequence before this was a scene in a van, which is harder to draw and harder to get excited about. Soon I'll get to draw drugs, and then I'll know I'm having a good time.

I had heard rumors that the SPX anthology was going to be shipping this week, so I actually left the Carnegie Hall area during work hours and went down to Jim Hanley's on 33rd. I looked around and discovered that the anthology was nowhere to be found. Sadly, I learned it ships next week instead. I was duped...

Obviously the reason I was so excited to get the book was because I am in it. Technically it is my first published work, so for that reason it is exciting to me. Normally I don't buy anthologies though, because usually there are too many "eh" comics in them. I don't even know if I've read all of the previous SPX anthologies that come out. One thing I did pick up and look at in the store was a book called "Kramer's Ergot #4". It looks pretty impressive, and I've heard good things, so I just might have to break my rule this one time.

Tomorrow we are going to see the New York Philharmonic in Central Park, and we have seats since a friend of ours works for the parks department. Apparently this is a sweet deal, 'cos supposedly it is hard to get a seat at this thing. I've never heard of this Philharmonic in the park thing, but I am willing to give it a try.

I came up with a joke recently about how people in England are all living in newly re-modeled homes with fancy modernist designs because all that seems to be on BBC America are shows about people in England re-doing their houses for cheap, but I don't think it plays out that well. You kind of have to had been watching as much BBC America as me, and specifically watching the BBC America shows that I've been watching. I think I will have to keep the joke to myself for the time being.

Went to the beach on saturday. It was actually very nice, although the beach is not my natural habitat. I burn way too easily, so I have to get totally slathered up with sunblock, which just makes me feel greasy. I did a good job of covering up this time though, I have two small patches of sunburn, one on my ankle and one on my hip.

Upon returning from the beach and reflecting a bit, I have decided it's finally time to go to a dermatologist and find out the official State of My Skin Union.

Things of note about the beach:

1) Long Beach actually wasn't that far away, and it wasn't completely packed like I assumed it would be.

2) There were naked people there.

3) I need to start working out again. Not only am I pasty, but I am getting doughy. This is not a good look. I know that I am allowed to let myself go now that I am getting hitched, but I think I'd like to try and hold on as long as possible.

In case I slack off again, here are my upcoming plans: Friday: Meet the wedding cantor. Saturday: Go to the scottish florist and sit quietly and politely as Aliza talks to her about flowers. Saturday afternoon: drive down to Jersey and hopefully go to the beach again.

New review of Gabagool! #4 at comicreaders.com