NEW BRUNSWICK IS THE SOURCE OF ALL MY POWER
So here I am, making a quickie clandestine snatch-n-grab over at Ole Man Cormier's house (no, not ME, you bastards -- the oldER one who spawned me!) and I gotta say that I found myself having a very interesting dream last night, of which I will jot down a very brief summary account.
I slept for at least 11 hours straight, which did not surprise me since I hadn't slept the night before when driving 12 hours with my buddy Pete to get to tiny St. Anselme, New Brunswick from Ottawa.
The dreams that ensued were more vivid than I remember experiencing in a long while, and the only one that matters to me and this entry is the last one (suffice it to say that all the others preceding it were like a freaky trip of sensory and bliss, including all the usual stimuli suspects -- adventure, epic, horror, feasting, war, school, and of course everyone's favorite... sex).
The last dream sequence, however, began with me 'waking up' and deciding to start the cleaning of the sheds early (this is why I am here in N.B., incidentally... to clean out my dad's sheds of all my junk -- all the books and music and papers and art and etc that has been piling up here since high school [almost 20 years ago!!!]).
In Real Time, I sifted through all my old keepsakes, finding all sorts of interesting memory and nostalgia tidbits. After a few 'hours' of this, I opened a storage tub to find two things: all my old D&D books (Dungeons & Dragons, for the very few of you who don't know it by its abbreviated handle), and a ream of scripts for (Naught-)Framed!!! (an attempted webcomic of mine, for those of you who had no idea I once had delusions of cartoonist talentry).
I first went through the D&D stuff, and found that I had a dozen dozen worlds and adventures I had written up that were just waiting to be played -- a fortuitous find considering I have been aching to get Mike, Meaghan, Shawn and Chantal to play sometimes soon. These volumes were UBER-detailed, like almost novel-worthy in length and -- as I found myself thinking -- in quality. Though I was keeping myself aware that I may be liking them more because I had written them, I thought they were quite good, and was getting almost flushed with excitement at the thought of reworking these raw gems into something grand.
But that was nothing compared to what I found when I opened my old comic strip sketchbooks... and discovered that I had more than a YEAR's worth of backlogged material for my current story that I had drawn but never yet put to the scanner.
This stuff was pristine. I mean, I was SHINING here. The first few pages were in my trademark toony/doodly style, but then I had started to pay hommage to different key artists in the comics field -- here was a story arc drawn like Eisner, there was some sweet rough Miller edge from his early days, here was Humberto Ramos to bring energy, and there shone some serious Sam Kieth just brimming with wicked expression.
And then I hit the COLOUR pages.
Oh yes, I had hit a point in the story where it had leapt from fantasy and wham bam back into 4-colour superhero in all its newsprint glory.
It looked superb. Simply superb.
At this point, I was absolutely RIGID with excitement. I couldn't believe the find; it was like I had been crazy to stop drawing in the first place, but at least all these prized plums would give me the inspiration and lead time needed for me to start again as if I had never left.
I packed all of it back in the three Cavendish French Fry boxes where they had been hiding, and loaded them up in our trailer. Then I went back to the sifting of the Stuff(tm). But now, you see, my brain couldn't shut itself off. New story arcs and plot twists and character impressions were literally pooping themsleves out of my head, and I found myself scrawling down as much as I could in an old found notebook which still had some pages left blank.
I was so happy to have come here to find these treasures.
And then, well, I woke up.
* * *
Of course, after the initial disappointment reaction to this realization that all of that was nothing more than a fancy of some sleeping synapses, I had breakfast, showered, and headed down to my dad's sheds.
And while I may not have found EVERYTHING my dreams were teasing me with...
...I still found something.
Who knew that New Brunswick was the Source of All My Power?
I slept for at least 11 hours straight, which did not surprise me since I hadn't slept the night before when driving 12 hours with my buddy Pete to get to tiny St. Anselme, New Brunswick from Ottawa.
The dreams that ensued were more vivid than I remember experiencing in a long while, and the only one that matters to me and this entry is the last one (suffice it to say that all the others preceding it were like a freaky trip of sensory and bliss, including all the usual stimuli suspects -- adventure, epic, horror, feasting, war, school, and of course everyone's favorite... sex).
The last dream sequence, however, began with me 'waking up' and deciding to start the cleaning of the sheds early (this is why I am here in N.B., incidentally... to clean out my dad's sheds of all my junk -- all the books and music and papers and art and etc that has been piling up here since high school [almost 20 years ago!!!]).
In Real Time, I sifted through all my old keepsakes, finding all sorts of interesting memory and nostalgia tidbits. After a few 'hours' of this, I opened a storage tub to find two things: all my old D&D books (Dungeons & Dragons, for the very few of you who don't know it by its abbreviated handle), and a ream of scripts for (Naught-)Framed!!! (an attempted webcomic of mine, for those of you who had no idea I once had delusions of cartoonist talentry).
I first went through the D&D stuff, and found that I had a dozen dozen worlds and adventures I had written up that were just waiting to be played -- a fortuitous find considering I have been aching to get Mike, Meaghan, Shawn and Chantal to play sometimes soon. These volumes were UBER-detailed, like almost novel-worthy in length and -- as I found myself thinking -- in quality. Though I was keeping myself aware that I may be liking them more because I had written them, I thought they were quite good, and was getting almost flushed with excitement at the thought of reworking these raw gems into something grand.
But that was nothing compared to what I found when I opened my old comic strip sketchbooks... and discovered that I had more than a YEAR's worth of backlogged material for my current story that I had drawn but never yet put to the scanner.
This stuff was pristine. I mean, I was SHINING here. The first few pages were in my trademark toony/doodly style, but then I had started to pay hommage to different key artists in the comics field -- here was a story arc drawn like Eisner, there was some sweet rough Miller edge from his early days, here was Humberto Ramos to bring energy, and there shone some serious Sam Kieth just brimming with wicked expression.
And then I hit the COLOUR pages.
Oh yes, I had hit a point in the story where it had leapt from fantasy and wham bam back into 4-colour superhero in all its newsprint glory.
It looked superb. Simply superb.
At this point, I was absolutely RIGID with excitement. I couldn't believe the find; it was like I had been crazy to stop drawing in the first place, but at least all these prized plums would give me the inspiration and lead time needed for me to start again as if I had never left.
I packed all of it back in the three Cavendish French Fry boxes where they had been hiding, and loaded them up in our trailer. Then I went back to the sifting of the Stuff(tm). But now, you see, my brain couldn't shut itself off. New story arcs and plot twists and character impressions were literally pooping themsleves out of my head, and I found myself scrawling down as much as I could in an old found notebook which still had some pages left blank.
I was so happy to have come here to find these treasures.
And then, well, I woke up.
* * *
Of course, after the initial disappointment reaction to this realization that all of that was nothing more than a fancy of some sleeping synapses, I had breakfast, showered, and headed down to my dad's sheds.
And while I may not have found EVERYTHING my dreams were teasing me with...
...I still found something.
Who knew that New Brunswick was the Source of All My Power?