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[David Bird]

Aug 2:

I am returned, to grey skies and
human temperatures. Seems I
didn't escape unscathed, and may
have a touch of the Convention
Crud (which I've seen referred to
elsewhere as San Diego SARS),
probably the same crap that had
Zoe screaming for antibiotics over
Twitter a few days ago. Took six
doses of Clarityn before I realised
it might not be a flight-induced
allergy attack after all. I'm probably
pissing raw anti-histamine right now.

So here I am outside a pub, after
not enough sleep, reflecting a bit on
the mad eight days I just survived.

It has to be said, right off the bat,
that Avatar Press were fantastic.
Excellent flights, a limo from LAX
to my San Diego hotel, superb
security coverage -- I even had
security posted on me when I wanted
a post-talk drink outside the hotel
to recover -- a fine hotel room. The
Omni, by the way, is recommended
for its restaurant and service. And
there's nothing quite like all the
bar staff saying "hello, Warren"
when you walk in, even if your guests
start wondering if you're an alkie.
The schedule was exactly as
gruelling as I worried it'd be, and my
vision and my voice blew out, but
I was looked after very well.

And,Christ, the number of books I
signed. Thousands. And that's with
the number of books per visitor
pretty strictly capped. Apologies
to all those people who stuck out
their paw for a handshake, but I
learned at Heroes Con that shaking
the hand of every visitor is fatal --
by the Saturday at Heroes Con,
I was having to stick my hand in
sinks full of ice, it was so pulped. If
I'd done it at SD, I would have ended
up shaking the hands of some three
thousand people.

Barely got to see Templesmith and
a hundred other people I really
wanted to talk to: but when I wasn't
at the booth, I was in meetings, or,
when lucky, sleeping (which is how
I missed out on drinks with the Living
Dead Girls -- sorry, Amber and all).

The one question I was asked, I can
answer here: yeah, it'll be some
years before I go back. It would have
been better if my de-stressing pre-
con trip hadn't turned into a
Ballardian nightmare of flooded
England and motorway gridlock.
But, no, one San Diego a decade is
fine by me. It's just too much work
crammed into too short a time.

More later. For me, it's now more
Red Bull, a trip to the chemist's,
some food, and more sleep.

-- W

[David Bird]

Aug 3:

Have crawled to pub briefly in
defiance of San Diego SARS (now
in Hideous Green Foam stage). So
let's talk a little bit about
FREAKANGELS.

FREAKANGELS is a free online comic
debuting later this year, by myself
and artist Paul Duffield, via Avatar
Press. It's an open-ended, longform
story told in the equivalent of
five pages a week. I never got to
do weekly comics, unlike many of
my British peers, so this is fun for
me. We have a shitload of pages
already done, so there's a big
buffer in place.

I wanted to take a crack at something
open-ended in the webcomics mode,
and I've also been wanting to play
with steampunk styling. And also,
as has been my wont of late, I
wanted to do something British.

So welcome to Whitechapel, some
years from now, just barely above
ground in a flooded England. (I
pored over speculative floodmaps
to see what'd stay above water if
the Thames burst its barriers.)
Whitechapel is, among other things,
home to a clan of unrelated young
people with purple hair and purple
eyes: the Freakangels of the title.
And the Freakangels have a secret:
something bad is their fault.

Did you ever read The Midwich
Cuckoos (sp?)? Filmed as The Village
Of The Damned a few times. I
always wondered what those weird
psychic kids would be like if they'd
grown up to be disaffected teenagers
or twentysomethings.

Young, gifted and aimless, the
Freakangels gang have built some
kind of life for themselves in
Whitechapel -- one of them, KK,
even zooms around in a steam-
powered gyrocopter she built
herself. A life that starts to show
big cracks when a girl called Alice
from Manchester turns up with a
shotgun and a grievance, having
met the lost, prodigal last Freakangel,
who had very different ideas about
what they should do with themselves
and this flooded future England.

FREAKANGELS will debut sometime
in the autumn. Keep an eye on
www.freakangels.com , and add
yourself to the email alert system
there.

Oh, and to answera FAQ: DESOLATION
JONES isn't dead, just resting. We've
run into a few problems, but it'll be
back soon, and monthly.

[David Bird]

Aug 4:

William at Avatar is very excited. He has sent me an email in
which he tells me he is very excited. This is why:

BLACK SUMMER #2 initial orders are HIGHER than #1.

DOKTOR SLEEPLESS #3 initial orders are HIGHER than #2.

Over 1000 CRECY sold in re-orders in the first week, with more "pouring in".

As far as I know, William did deep overprints on everything: your
local store CAN still get you BLACK SUMMER #0, BLACK SUMMER #1
and DOKTOR SLEEPLESS #1.

CRECY's overprint was especially deep because, as a graphic novella,
we wanted it to be a permanent shelf-life item for comics stores.

The long and short of this message being: it seems to be working.

-- W

[David Bird]

Aug 5:

Apparently no place is safe from Lohan :

"I have no idea what happened the fateful night that Ms Lohan
cracked the crust of stale, blood-flecked coke off her crotch
and said to her soon-to-be-ex-assistant while snorting cough
medicine up into her forebrain, 'shove your arm up there, girl.
I want to come on your elbow.' Because the very rich are not
like you and me..."

http://suicidegirls.com/news/culture/22049/



-- W

[David Bird]

Aug 5:

Did you grab one of the CROOKED LITTLE VEIN tattoos at San Diego?
Did you get a photo of yourself wearing it?

Send it to [url]crookedlittlevein@googlemail.com[/url] as an attachment by the
end of August 7. These photos will be scanned by experts, scientists
and perverts from a variety of different disciplines, and the owners of
the five favourite photos will each win a signed copy of CROOKED
LITTLE VEIN.

(So send it from an email address you actually check, because
HarperCollins will contact the winners on the email address you send
the photo from to get your details.)

– W

[David Bird]

Aug 6:

If anyone has a lead on a plug-in PalmOne foldaway keyboard
for a Treo 600, I'd appreciate it... Expansys and Amazon are
both out of stock, and I seem to have accidentally busted mine
last night...

-- W

http://www.warrenellis.com

For LiveJournal users, warrenellis.com republishes there at
http://syndicated.livejournal.com/warrenelliscom/

http://www.myspace.com/warrenellis

I seem to have reactivated my Facebook page,
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=500486523
possibly while trying to get the system to shut up. Pleased to note
they've finally made it a little easier to process friend requests, so I
may keep it a while.

http://www.the-engine.net/forum/ is still open, and I still stick the
occasional photo on http://www.flickr.com/photos/warrenellis/
(not as often as I used to, but Flickr now fails to correct unwrap
MMSed photos, and publishes my phone number to the web!).

And that's it. I'm on Twitter
http://twitter.com/warrenellis
but my tweets are automagically republished on warrenellis.com,
so only add me there if you really want me fresh on your phone,
as opposed to mildly sweaty on the web.

Otherwise, apart from one planned shift, and unless something
radically interesting happens before the end of the year, my web
presences are limited to the above.

-- W

[David Bird]

Aug 7:

Waiting on new keyboard to be
delivered -- z and x don't work on
this one, I have to press the letters
on the Treo keypad itself. It seems
this keyboard is no longer made, so
once I wear out the new one, I'll
have to -- sob -- upgrade from my
trusty, world-travelled Treo 600.
Which got mocked at San Diego for
being obsolete, but, really, it does
everything I need a handheld
internet device to do. I like the Palm
OS on this, it's simple and robust.
No way am I getting a Windows
Treo, I've had experience of the
Windows mobile OS in the past.

Announced today: mine and Chris
Sprouse's OCEAN has been optioned
for film by Hollywood Gang, which
includes Gianni Nunnari, producer
of 300. No, it has not made me rich.

I'm told that one other TV Option
Thing will be in the offing over the
next 6 weeks, but I've heard that
before.

Reviews for CROOKED LITTLE VEIN
are coming in still, and they're all
good. Most of them are getting
that I wanted to write a little black
book, rather than some revolutionary
magnum opus. No word on sales yet
beyond anecdotal stuff.

Still coughing up lumps of crap --
having to miss an industry do
and drinks with a zombie girl
because of it. Bah. But my family
are home now, and brought me
feuer-liqour (sp?) from Austria.
It comes with its own special matches.
I've had the weird pink schnapps
that you set alight, but this is new.
It pours at 50% vol, and you light it
to burn it down to 45% or 40% (it
comes with timings on the label).
One of the bottles is blue, which is...
Worrying? Interesting.

THE ENGINE will close a little before midnight UK time
on August 31 2007.

The first year was about getting creators together and facilitating
conversations that didn't have anywhere else to go. The second
year was about just providing people with an interesting place to
talk. Two years is enough. Time to move on.

So you've got three weeks to mine out the place for the data you
need, exchange contact details and all that.

I've informed Andrew, the host, of my intent -- it's up to him whether
or not the Engine remains as a static archive, though I've told him it's
not necessary. The search function has always been a bit weird, so
I'll be opening a thread for you to help each other find what you need.

http://engine.ning.com will remain open -- in fact, I'll add a forum
function to it for those of you who want to stay together and stay talking.

At this time, I have to extend my thanks both to Andrew, and to my
team of moderators, who took a lot of crap for no reward at all: Jessica,
Maddie, Rachel, Ariana, Victoria, Melinda and Lauren made it a better
place for me, and for all of you. Also, I have to thank Charity, who did
the initial design and installation, Brian for providing the Engine marks
and logos, and Billy Gray for early mechanics and troubleshooting.

As for me: well, as ever, there's a plan. I won't be out of the online
community game for long. News on that will follow later in the month.

Thank you all. It's been fun.

- W

[David Bird]

Aug 8:

* People keep asking me this, for
some reason: the Sunday Hangover
at Suicide Girls is FREE. You don't
have to be a member to read it.
You'd think people would just look...

* Rantz Hoseley is talking about
launching a post-ENGINE message
board for comics creators. Keep
an eye on the ENGINE over the next
couple of weeks if you're interested.

* Laurenn asked me yesterday if
I was going to activate one of the
private community systems I have
in test-bed status. And, you know,
I'm not sure I am. Convenient as it
would be for me to have my friends
and acquaintances using one place
so I can keep track of them...it
doesn't really work that way
anymore. Twitter keeps me advised
on Kelly Sue, Laurenn, Tom, Zo, Wil
and a few others. Veen keeps in
touch via a PSP. A bunch of people
are so MySpace addicted that they
only message me through there.
Years ago, I managed to put a lot
of my friends on to a private board,
and it was a lot of fun, but I'm not
sure it's feasible now.

* The next public board, which I
hinted at in the ENGINE closure
announcement, will be a lot different
to the ENGINE. Also, it'll use a
different message board system.
I realise a lot of people found the
ENGINE system difficult, if not
ugly -- because all you kids have
been brought up on flavours of
phpBB, which is hideous and shot
through with security flaws -- but
it had an incredibly rich, powerful
back-end for moderation and
controls, which were vital for a thing
like the Engine. The new thing,
which I'll announce in a month or so
for those interested, is built on
Lussumo Vanilla, a much lighter and
faster system. (The one we used
for diepunyhumans.com 2.0.)

[David Bird]

Aug 9:

* Going to dig out my keys to the
DOKTOR SLEEPLESS wiki today and
see if I can work out what's going
on there.

* Have also created and hidden a
DOK community-style website. Not
a new message board per se, not
the new online community I was
talking about earlier.

* Will also lean on Avatar next
week in re: SCIENCE BITCH t-shirts
to go with the SCIENCE BASTARD Ts.

* Spacebar doesn't work properly
on new keyboard. Bah.

* The comics business goes to
Wizard World Chicago this weekend.
I am not. In fact, I have no more con
appearances scheduled, anywhere.
This is an immensely pleasant
prospect, post-San Diego. Very
tempting to just take a couple of
years off shows entirely, though
I doubt it'll happen.

* Have set the Apparat Novella
for December. Have decided to
try and get one done for March as
well, aiming for 3 to 4 a year. The
second one's historical too. The 3rd
would have to be different...

* Am doing a PA in Second Life
today -- details on website.

[David Bird]

Aug 12:

Was checking my traps before bed and tripped over this,
which I set up months ago but forgot to do anything with.

http://clubofmars.ning.com/

It's basically just a social network. Less function on it
than the Engine.ning page. I remember thinking it might
be interesting to have a very basic social network system
behind Bad Signal, let people see who else is on the
Signal etc etc.

So, you know, use it, don't use it, whatever. It's your own
person Fuckster/MySpack/Fecesbook. The Club of Mars.

(The title came to me while thinking about The Club of
Rome, I think. Or maybe the Club Of Budapest.
Whichever one had Peter Ustinov as a member. Maybe
both.)

(I'm going to bed now.)

Aug 13:

* 130 people joined the Club of
Mars overnight: or, 1% of the Bad
Signal readership. Which, for a
Sunday night, ain't bad at all.
Amused to note that Suicide Girl
Loe was in within about five mins of
sending the Signal. One guy even
tunneled into the system through
the Dubai firewalls around Ning. (I
activated the blog function, but
not the forum function, so people
could talk without the system turning
into a monster that'd require
moderation.) Nice to see people
adding photos to the viewer, too. I
like to see who's on the Signal, and it
might be interesting for you too to
see who else is on the Signal.

http://clubofmars.ning.com

* The Engine lurches into its last
couple of weeks. I might start some
weird threads on there later, to
try and make the final days a little
less dull.

* And for those following all that,
on Aug 30 or thereabouts I should
be able to announce where I'll be
setting up shop next. It's built, and
I'm going to spend the next couple
of weeks roadtesting it.

* In between, of course, writing all
these fucking comics, and writing
LISTENER, Novel #2. Which I'm
currently pulling apart in my head.
William Morrow were angling for a
longer novel, but I'd originally
intended to continue working in the
stripped-back style of CROOKED
LITTLE VEIN. With some perspective,
finally, on CLV, I'm going back and
opening up the first 14000 words
of LISTENER, writing longer and
letting the thing take some time.

[David Bird]

August 13:

http://www.newsarama.com/Chicago_07/Ringo.html
According to this, my friend Mike Wieringo died on Sunday
of a heart attack.

We were set to do a book together this year, something we've
been intending to do for a few years. Things had finally come t
ogether, and...

The first thing I said upon seeing this was "No."

I'm going to miss you, Mike. And so will everyone else.

-- Warren Ellis

[David Bird]

Aug 14:

Severe weather warnings in place
again. The wind just yanked the
umbrella out from my table here
in the pub's Smoking Compound and
deposited it in the back of the
Chinese take-away next door.

Lost most of yesterday to just
sitting and thinking. Poor bloody
Mike. Molly at Marvel said everyone
up there was shaken to bits
yesterday. At some point I'm going
to have to deal with the structural
stuff, having our book binned and
all that. But not yet.

380 people on the Club of Mars this
morning. Go on, let me look at you.
Watching people join and wander
around was one of the very few
things that amused me yesterday.

Today, I'll try and start those
threads on the Engine I talked about
yesterday.

Great, here comes the rain.

Supposed to record a podcast with
BoingBoing later. Voice is still a bit
fucked, so this should be interesting.

Just noticed the date. My Emusic
subscription refreshes on the 16th,
and I still have 76 downloads to use
up. I love Emusic, but they're slow
to rip the new stuff I want (which
is why I also use Bleep, Rough Trade
and Tunetribe). Usually, it's not a
big problem. But 76 downloads left
out of a monthly 90?

The wind's just dumped out the
ashtray. Time to go batten down
the hatches.

[David Bird]

In a couple of weeks time (the 30th, actually) I am going on vacation, so someone else will have to pick up the slack with these posts.

[David Bird]

Aug 16:

* This sitting-outside-in-the-
smoking-compound shit is getting
old. It's cold and rainy every day,
and the wind keeps dumping the
ashtray out.

* My US comics convention
appearance for 2008 seems to be
locked already. It's not San Diego,
no.

* Note about San Diego: I wasn't
trying to be a dickhead when I
wouldn't shake your hand. At Heroes
Con last year, I shook hands with
everyone, as everyone stuck
their hand out, and by Saturday I
was in fucking agony and having to
ice my hand down in the hotel. I
must've shaken hands with five or
six hundred people by that point,
as well as signing thousands of books
with that hand, and it was pulp.
Given that my signing schedule at
San Diego was something like four
times as bad, we made the decision
to disallow handshakes in order to
save my hand. So now I'm reading
that I'm a "douche" for not shaking
hands.

* And I still caught the San Diego
SARS. So consider that revenge!

* An alternative forum to The
Engine has been raised by Rantz
Hoseley:
http://www.panelandpixel.com/forum

-- W

[Keb]

In a couple of weeks time (the 30th, actually) I am going on vacation, so someone else will have to pick up the slack with these posts.

I don't subscribe.

Where are you headed?