awakening

okay...

i have lots of friends who are storytellers. many of them--most of them--like to tell their stories as comics, using that very unique art form that marries words and pictures together to tell as story that unfolds before a reader in a way unlike any other medium. they love comics and stories and are moved to present them to you in a stream of balloons and panels. i know that i am driven to tell my stories that way.

in the past, i've done my best to pimp my friends' efforts as much as i can. as i've said regarding our own book, it's a tough market out there and many smaller books just don't have a chance to even be noticed on the racks. i've made sure to tell you--and show you--a preview of my pal, kelly yates' amber atoms knowing that kelly has spent years developing and writing and illustrating her adventures simply out of his love for comics and his desire to tell her story. i've sent you all over to our boy, scott weinstein's site for after school agent because i've seen the blood, sweat, and tears that scott (and chris) have put into the books and how very much scott just needs to tell the story of gordon's adventures.

well, here's a chance again, for me to tell you about a friend of mine, his wickedly creepy book, and how you can help support another "little guy."

my friend, nick tapalansky, is, by day, the manager at a nearby barnes and noble.
that's nice. plus, he made sure to keep the first perhapanauts trades in stock.
thanks, nick.

at night, however, he writes this darkly powerful, eerily compelling horror narrative called AWAKENING.
i won't tell you much about the story because i don't want to inadvertently give something away. i will say, if you like horror, check it out--i think you'll dig it.



also know that nick and his artist-partner, alex eckman-lawn, are working on a chilling two-part perhapanauts back-up story featuring mg and big and will be published in perhapanauts no's 9 and 10!

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as i mentioned in passing the other day, i'm going to be making a concerted effort in this blog to focus a bit more on the creepy and the cryptid, the spooky and the strange. this is, after all, the perhapa-blog and it should have at least a little paranormal content each week. right?

with that in mind, i'll be posting (and linking to) some of the stranger things i find in my travels around the shadowier parts of the web and maybe see what kind of bizarre things we can find under those rocks. here, just to start out with something slightly familiar, is a story culled from one of my favorite places --YOUR TRUE TALES over at paranormal@about.com. if this whets your appetite for the unexplained, head on over there and check out some of the other creepy tales. there's a new batch posted every month! (i especially like the one entiteld, "three tall beings.")

Freaky Doppelganger Experience
BY Steven M..
By Stephen Wagner, About.com

This weird incident happened to me in mid-November of 2008. I lived in a very little town named Palatka, Florida, and there is not much to this town, but what happened to me blew me away. I thought maybe my friends were playing a sick game with me or maybe they were drunk, but what they showed me was even more impossible for my mind to take in.

As I was talking to my friends on my cellphone from my lunch break at work, they said I just went into a bar where they were. I told them I was at work, but they didn't believe me. So they decided to follow the person they said was me and take a cell phone picture. Sure enough, if you would have held a mirror up to me, the picture they showed me was shocking, because "I" was sitting at the bar waving at them with a beer in my hand.

Then it really got weird. My friend was sitting there and said to me, if "I" am in front of them now, then how am I speaking to them on the phone? I told them the same thing, but by the time they turned back around to the bar area, they said "I" was gone -- but "I" left the barkeep a tip. They tried to find out what happened, but the barkeep stated that they never saw "me" leave the bar that night. To this day, my friends are still freaked out by that.

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i also eluded the other day to the fact that we will be featuring more actual perhapanauts news and updates here on the blog as well--and we will--but i didn't mean to make it sound like we had big news to announce here today. (brian kinda read it that way and i'm sorry brian.) i will say that, aside from the news above about nick and alex's perhapanauts back-up, we also have an awesome cover by comics legend and my pal, JIM STARLIN! and inked by another comics legend and also my pal, TERRY AUSTIN! after a few minor setbacks (ie; work and life) craig is back to work finishing up perhapanauts no.6--which will also feature stories by scott weinstein and leanne hannah and me and jason armstrong!--and we'll have more about that--like the cover--next week! you won't want to miss it!

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'nother picture of that baby elephant



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and now here,
your
"five for friday"

1. what is the name of the little dog listening to the phonograph in the famous RCA logo?

2. and what is the name of the painting that that image is taken from?

3. what popular american sitcom was based on the uk hit series "til death us do part?"

4. who played chandler's father on "friends?"

5. which superhero is seen or referenced in every episode of "seinfeld?"




smell ya later!
todd