http://search.deviantart.com/?q=by:thegothamite&section=today deviantART RSS for by:thegothamite en-us Copyright 2009, deviantART.com Mon, 30 Nov 2009 04:17:54 PST deviantART.com http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss http://s.deviantart.com/minish/widgets/apple-touch-icon-precomposed.png http://thegothamite.deviantart.com/journal/27988524/ http://thegothamite.deviantart.com/journal/27988524/ Tue, 27 Oct 2009 02:04:16 PDT Wednesday nights will never be the same again.
It’s a high octane fight to the finish for 14 guys who all have what it takes to become the next BAR-ONE Man, but only one will emerge as the winner.Write something about The Bar-One Manhunt.

That's the schpiel. I'm working on this show. It's going to e huge. Any South African guys out there who think they have what it takes, go to [link] and enter now - entries close 9 November. Also, become a fan on our Facebook page here: [link]

]]> ~thegothamite http://thegothamite.deviantart.com/journal/25265913/ http://thegothamite.deviantart.com/journal/25265913/ Fri, 12 Jun 2009 02:30:09 PDT
The last story I told in my journal - [link] - had a bit of a supernatural flavour to it. I'm going to stick with that theme this week - largely because I like the genre.

I was about 7 years old and I had always had a wild imagination - who would've thought that I might one day make a living from it? While imagination is by no means a bad thing, it does lend itself to quite a few circumstances that are not always comforting - like my fear of the dark as a child. Everyday shapes, shadows and objects became demonic creatures waiting to devour me when the lights went off. I remember the darkness having a kind of suffocating quality when I was that age - a stifling hotness even on a cold night.

I've always struggled to get to sleep. I still do today. As a child, when I slept over at a friend's house, I would always end up lying there, listening to my friend breathing the heavy breaths of slumber while I hoped that the Sandman might sprinkle some grit in my eyes soon. It was the same when I was alone in my room. My parents would go to bed way after my bedtime and I would lie in the dark waiting for my eyes to close. This was a night like most others in that respect. I could hear my father snoring, which was a strange comfort to me because it meant that he was there. The dark was making its ghostly, ghoulish shapes as it always did and I was trying very hard, both to be brave and to get to sleep. There was something more intense about the darkness that night. The shapes in the cupboard seemed to loom larger and I felt even more vulnerable alone in my little wooden single bed, protected by nothing but a duvet and thin summer pyjamas - I think they had aeroplanes on them if I recall correctly.

I closed my eyes tight, shivering a little from the usual irrational fear that something might come out of the darkness and swallow me whole. If sleep would not bring itself to me, perhaps I could force it to come. I found myself slowly drifting off sometime late that night. My father had already been snoring for an hour or two and the relief and triumph I felt at my imminent slumber was like Christmas morning. Sadly, it was short lived. I felt a sudden tightness around my legs as if something were wrapped around them. I opened my eyes and gingerly pulled back the covers. I could not believe what I saw - there, as plain as day, wrapping itself around me was what could only be described as a plasticine serpent - at least it looked like plasticine. It was olive green and smooth all over with no scales or any discerning marks at all. It had no head or face that I could see and it coiled it's thick, smooth body slowly further and further up my body. I tried for several seconds to scream but nothing came out. When I eventually did get my vocal chords working, my mother came rushing into the room and switched the light on. The plasticine serpent had disappeared and she comforted me, trying to convince me that there had never been anything there.

I don't remember what happened after that. I must have slept somehow - perhaps I knew that it was over. I do know that for a good few years after this incident, I had to sleep with a light on and would often call my mother or father in the middle of the night, terrified of what might be waiting for me in the dark.

This may well have been something I dreamt or even something my imagination somehow made real in my mind - which was quite young at the time. I don't know if it was real. Recounting the tale now, it sounds quite ridiculous. I do know how real it felt to me and even though this happened about 25 years ago, I remember the details of it vividly, almost photographically.

So for my te... ]]> ~thegothamite http://thegothamite.deviantart.com/journal/25120902/ http://thegothamite.deviantart.com/journal/25120902/ Thu, 04 Jun 2009 07:52:57 PDT
Anyway, there I was, making a meagre living as a retail 'May I help you monkey', selling cameras and other odds and ends, spending my days standing, staring into space, watching the clock and hoping against hope that one day I might actually feel happy about going into work. It was a sunny winter day around lunchtime and the store was quiet as it was on most weekdays, when suddenly I noticed an unusual presence in the store. He stood in the warm light of the doorway, an oddly shaped shadow blocking out our normal view of the Centurion Lake which the store overlooked. He sauntered in, smiling broadly to reveal a set of unkempt teeth beneath a long beard and moustache. His head was topped by a turban and he wore a silk shirt in a pinkish colour with smart blue trousers. He greeted us all, the staff at work, in a happy, salesman-like voice marked by a strong Hindi accent. 'Hello, happy people... healthy people,' or something along those lines. 'I am fortune teller. I read for you your future for special price today, special price.'

The strange repetition he made use of in just about every sentence he uttered gave him an air of humility and servitude somehow, and myself and my friend Cheryl, the girl who managed the cash and the counter in the store, thought we'd humour him. So we took the would be mystic to the back of the store and took our turns having him look at our palms. His vision of our futures was, as I suspected, suspiciously bright. 'You will be a wealthy man, happy man...' he said as he held my hand in his strangely gnarled digits. 'You will live long, make money have a family, happy man, healthy man.' Cheryl and I each handed him a crisp fifty buck bill and smiled dryly at each other, thinking that this made a rather entertaining change from our normal 'May I help you?' days. Before he turned to leave us, he turned to me and held out his hand. 'Keep this, he said, revealing a small yellow bead in his palm. 'It is so that I can find you if you need me.' I took the bead from him, thinking that it was nothing more than another part of his fortune telling fakery and I put it in my trouser pocket.

The man in the turban turned to go and as he walked out of the store, our store manager, Craig returned from a trip to one of the other shops in the centre. He looked suspiciously at the man as he walked out the door and approached Cheryl and I with a stern look on his face. 'What was that?' he said with a surprising amount of tension in his voice. 'Just a fortune teller,' I said. 'I think he was a bit of a conman but it was fun'. The tension in Craig's voice became more tangible as he shook his finger at Cheryl and I saying, 'I never want to see him in our store again! Those guys are dangerous. They bring bad things!' I agreed - to placate him - a little stunned by what I felt was rather a large overreaction to a harmless charlatan, and we went about our day as normal.

That night I went to bed - late as I often do, being something of an insomniac - but found it even harder than normal to get to sleep. There was something in the air that was making me uneasy. I had put the little yellow bead on my bedside table and thought nothing of it. I was in need of a good night's rest. It had been a long week in retail. Eventually I found myself drifting into that place somehwere between sleep and waking, but just before my eyes fell closed I was startled awake by a sight that made me cold all over. Hovering above my chest (and I swear, this is true - I really am perfectly sane) was a spiral of black smoke, probably about 30 centimetres high. It spun over my chest like a tiny black tornado. Having had experiences in my life before, which I shall not go into here, I was not as terrified by the sight as I may once have been, and took a deep breath, summoned up the courage to speak and screamed out something along the lines of 'Leave me alone! Go away!'

The tiny black tornado disappeared and I had an uneasy night wondering if it might come back. The next morning I considered the little yellow bead and our strange visitor in the turban. Could they perhaps have had something to do with the strange apparition that appeared to me the night before? I didn't want to take any chances, so I picked up the bead and threw it out of my bedroom window into the garden.

The next night I arrived back from work and went over to the... ]]> ~thegothamite http://thegothamite.deviantart.com/journal/21135716/ http://thegothamite.deviantart.com/journal/21135716/ Fri, 24 Oct 2008 05:38:43 PDT
[link]

]]> ~thegothamite http://thegothamite.deviantart.com/journal/21091110/ http://thegothamite.deviantart.com/journal/21091110/ Tue, 21 Oct 2008 07:23:13 PDT
What a year! I left children’s television behind to enter the world of copywriting for a ‘Communications’ company – I use the term ‘Communications’ loosely, as they have turned out not to be particularly good at communicating with their staff. I won’t mention names here for fear of reprisal, since I’m still here until the end of October, but let’s just say that despite the payraise, it hasn’t been all it was cracked up to be.

And so (he says, starting a sentence with a conjunction – bad copywriting), I am leaving the not so wonderful world of corporate copywriting and moving into a big ‘above the line’ advertising and media agency (way more up my alley). I’m so looking forward to doing TV again, and experimenting with other mediums like radio and print, that I could almost PLATZ (Look it up – it’s a South Africanism).

I haven’t done nearly as much drawing as I would have liked this year, and am not much closer to finishing my comic than I was this time last year. As a working schmoe and a capitalist, the paying work has sadly taken precedence. Honestly, I’ve also just been so disenchanted with the day job that there’s been a serious lack of motivation. Yes, it’s no excuse, but it’s been a difficult year for other reasons as well; ones which my friends are aware of. I shan’t bore hapless readers here with details though.

Where is whole ‘journal journey’ leading? Who knows? I just thought it was time for an update. I’ll end off with a brief rundown of my plan for 2009:

1.Win awards for great advertising and TV, and build up a killer portfolio.
2.Finish my damn comic already!
3.Submit my damn comic already!
4.Sell lots of comics already!
5.Travel.
6.Find some semblance of normalcy and stability… (I won’t go into that).

And with that (another conjunction), I’ll wish everyone who actually takes the time to read this a Happy festive season and a fantastic New Year – since I’m unlikely to update this journal before 2009.

Thanks for reading!
(I haven't copy checked this, so please ignore any typos)

]]> ~thegothamite http://thegothamite.deviantart.com/journal/15676064/ http://thegothamite.deviantart.com/journal/15676064/ Mon, 26 Nov 2007 08:26:35 PST
The closest thing I could find in the mood icons on Dev-art to describe how I'm feeling at the moment was "gloomy". It may not be 100% accurate, but I suppose that's par for the course with pre-set web icons. It's been a long year, and there's less than a month to go until I'm on holiday. It's a nice long one too. I have a break from the 14th of December till the 7th of January.

Here's a little retrospective. I'll try and keep it less philosophical for the sake of mass appeal (well, at least for the sake of the few people who might bother to read this. If you've gotten this far, thanks for bearing with me). The day job has taken its toll. Working in kid's TV has it upsides and its downsides. At the moment, it's a non-stop bombardment of pre-records, which essentially means lots more writing. It's hard to keep the ideas flowing when you're churning the scripts out like a production line. Somewhow I've managed, and the countdown is on till the december holidays. I can't help but wonder where all this is leading. I won't go into detail on that point. Those who know me will know what I mean.

My drawing has improved over the last year, partly due to the volume of work i had to produce for one client in particular, and partly due to the input of other artists who offered some constructive crits. Thanks to

[link]
[link]
[link]
[link]

I posted their links. I don't know how to post their little deviant icon thingees. Anyway, these are all people who at some stage have taken the time to comment on my work, and who's critiscism has been a big help.

Sean Izaakse ([link]) and I are a week away from finishing off our first round of comic courses. We covered everything from a little bit of the history of mainstream comics to script, pencilling, inking, and lettering. It's been fun, though quite a bit of extra work with putting together notes. We managed to get 7 people to take part this time around, and perhaps next time there'll be more. Hopefully word of mouth and my appearance on TV will generate a bit more interest. Oh, yes that. I was interviewed (funnily enough by the channel that I work for as a scriptwriter) about creating comics for an insert they're doing on comic books (My idea, of course). I hope that it gets at least some people in this country to pop into a comic book store. That would be really cool. We hope to do another round of courses sometime in January.

I seem to have had a lot of projects on the go this year that have taken up quite a lot of time, and thus far paid very little. I think for the most part, they should pay off next year. If not, well at least I tried. My first two published books (Though not quite in the comic book genre) will be hitting shelves in December. Watch this space for updates on how that goes.

That's about all I can think of to say right now. Thanks to the people who've taken the time to browse through my gallery. See you all on the web!

J.

]]> ~thegothamite http://thegothamite.deviantart.com/journal/12600397/ http://thegothamite.deviantart.com/journal/12600397/ Sun, 15 Apr 2007 02:39:31 PDT
So for now, I'm going to let the sun stream in through my study window, and enjoy the cool breeze coming in through the kitchen door.

You've got to love Sundays.

]]> ~thegothamite http://thegothamite.deviantart.com/journal/12332728/ http://thegothamite.deviantart.com/journal/12332728/ Mon, 26 Mar 2007 06:58:24 PDT
I kind of like to ease my way into the week. I get into the office, take a look at what I have to do for the week, have a cup of coffee, take a slightly more in depth look at what I have to do for the week, think about having more coffee, panic, realizing that the day is half over and I haven't accomplished anything, get just enough work done to put an end to the panic for now, and go home.

I'll generally try and find new and exciting ways to procrastinate, like say... updating my Deviantart journal.

My day job is going along steadily. I've just finished filming a series of five minute shows, each focusing on a certain range of toys. I really had a lot of fun with it. Spiderman particularly was great, and my research on that one was minimal. I actually saved it for last as kind of a fanboy reward for finishing the other shows. (I'm such a geek) My research entails "playing" with the toys, ie: seeing how the features work, and highlighting the good stuff, and creating a five minute show around each toy. The show's called "Prima Playpad". Check out [link] for more info. It's a tough job, but...

In the evenings, I'm still plugging away at the "undisclosed book" for an "undisclosed publisher" that I'm illustrating. It's getting there, but it feels like it's really going slowly. I do think that once this book's coloured and out there, that it'll be some of my better work to date. it's the second book I've done for this publisher, and both have really taught me a lot. When you have to produce 40 or so pages of full colour illustrations within an allocated deadline, it really teaches you about discipline, and also that sometimes even if you're not 100% happy with a picture you need to move on and just do better next time, cause there just isn't time to do it over. On the other hand, I think it's a perpetual state of mind for an artist not to be happy with their work. my friends who have similar passions may agree, so lets just keep trying; shall we?

Thanks for taking time out of your busy schedules to read, skim, or glance at my ramblings. I suppose I'd better stop procrastinating now.

Cheers.

]]> ~thegothamite http://thegothamite.deviantart.com/journal/12075205/ http://thegothamite.deviantart.com/journal/12075205/ Mon, 05 Mar 2007 23:46:23 PST
Here's a bit about who I am and what I do:

I live in Johannesburg/Gauteng South Africa. By day, I write scripts for a children's television channel. We produce a fairly basic magazine program between cartoons and do a live morning show on Saturdays. TV is very interesting so far, and it's a field that I'd like to explore other aspects of.

By night, I'm an illustrator/ armchair vigilante. I'm currently working on my second book for a local publisher who plans to distribute locally and in a couple of International markets. It's been fun, but I'm really feeling the need to work on my own stories, and I've decided that that's what I'm going to do when I'm done with this book. I feel now more than ever, that I have it in me to produce stories and art good enough for the American or European comics markets, and it's very frustrating not having the time to get those ideas onto paper, so by the end of the year, Dark Horse, Image, and maybe even DC and Marvel better be ready for me! Or maybe I should get my ass in gear and get ready for them. We'll see.

And here's my forwarded joke of the week:

Q: What did c:\DARTHVADER say to c:\DARTHVADER\LUKESKYWALKER? A: Luke, I am your folder.

So that's me. If there's anyone out there who cares welcome to my journal.

See you online. Keep the comic book faith.

]]> ~thegothamite