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Today I received my rejection letter from zuda comics regarding my webcomic submission. It was your basic "thanks for submitting" sort of thing. If I hadn't already received about ten million of them in my somewhat short illustration career I would be upset, luckily at this point in my career rejection letters are about as "fresh and new" as the high top fade.

Because I am completely incapable of simply leaving the story hanging I've decided to go ahead and update it and continue the story when I get the time.

Click the link above if you're interested or possibly just bored and give it a read.

Steve!

One word: YAHOO!!!

After three months of striking, the writers have finally reached a deal with studios. I'm so thrilled everyone will be back to work soon. Anyone else ready to have annoying reality TV like "The Moment of Truth" disappear?

What favorite show of yours was hit by the strike? I miss Pushing Daisies, Housewives and Grey's.

Those who know me will know that I am a huge fan of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. I'd been trying to get tickets for the last two years, and finally, last June I think it was, I was successful in nabbing two tickets for January 31st, 2008.

But then came the Writers' Strike, and I've been angsting back and forth about attending - kinda like this:



In the end, I did a Jewish thing. I went, but felt REALLY guilty about it.

I spoke to the people on the picket line about the strike, and what we can do to help.



Here's an interesting piece of data. When you buy the Daily Show on iTunes for $1.99, Viacom gets $1.45.
The writers', on the other hand, get a big fat ZERO.

Bear Stearns wrote recently that "the impact of accepting the writers' proposal is largely negligible - less than 1% of annual earnings per share for the media companies.

Here's an explanation of the issues involved by the striking Daily Show writers - it's worth watching to remind yourself of why we miss these guys so much.



Help the Daily Show writers by calling Viacom executives and tell them to come back to the table and give the writers a fair share of the content they've created.

Numbers:

Sumner Redstone (Owner, Viacom) 212 975 4321
Phillipe Dauman (CEO, Viacom) 212 258 6000

You can also go to http://www.strikeswag.com to buy a t-shirt. Profits go to the WGA Union Solidarity Fund.

Now can I just have a brief fangirl moment?



You're not allowed to take any photos in the studio, but this was in the holding room outside. I was really psyched because Rob Riggle was the "reporter" in last night's show - he and John Oliver are my favorite of the current reporters. They also have a stand-up guy to warm up the crowd before the taping - last night it was Paul Mecurio, who was both extremely funny and extremely raunchy. After listening to him I understood why you aren't welcome at a Daily Show taping unless you're 18.

Jon Stewart answered a few questions before the taping and spoke briefly afterwards. He's funny off the cuff, as you might expect. I'd seen him do his stand-up routine two years ago, and laughed so hard my face hurt - it was right after Scooter Libby was indicted and he did this hilarious riff about how a guy named "Scooter" might do in prison.

Anyway, I still feel conflicted about having gone, but was told by one of the striking writers that I'm not a scab - I'd only be a scab if I wrote for the Daily Show (in my dreams, maybe) and went back to work.
I do plan to try to get tickets again for when the strike is over - I hope that the studios give the writers their fair share SOON!

Say you want to a web-based multimedia story that blends video, audio, and text content. There's no textbook for this kind of writing. There's not even an industry standard for the best way to do it. Where do you look for advice? 

Journalist Paul Grabowicz has an unorthodox idea, urging writers to look towards videogames for guidance on how to reach the webby masses. Check it out:

"[A]t the Online News Association conference last month, the panelists discussed how much text can be included in a game - a topic my students and I have been grappling with in our Remembering 7th Street video game project ... the Using Serious Games to Engage Readers panel cautioned against including long textual entries in games because they tend to turn off game players."

How can a $100 million grant to help poets be so so so controversial? The surreal politics of bringing poetry to the masses is outlined in this New York Times article. 

Finally, in WGA strike news, Phil Alden Robinson has a short video about the defining moments in 20th Century screenwriter organization. For a darkly funny look at a 'zine produced during the last writers' strike, the Dead Frog blog has the scoop on Army Man. (Thanks, Papercuts)

Thousands and thousands of writers are really stressed out right now... 

Over at The Hufffington Post, Rachel Sklar has a brilliant roundup of all the web videos, blog posts, articles, and speeches created by striking WGA members. Follow her links and send some love to screenwriters of the world:

"see our Writers' Strike Opinion Page!... see this video featuring various showrunners from Lost, ER, Family Guy, Scrubs, The Shield, King of the Hill and The Office stepping up for their writers; Garry Marshall — creator of Happy Days, The Odd Couple, Mork & Mindy and Laverne & Shirley — giving some perspective on his fifth strike; and "Buffy" creator Joss Whedon, who explains that it's not about more money but a fair share when the studios make more money"

This strike is happening, in part, because it's really hard to scrape together a living as writer in an economy rocked by online media--we all end up doing too much work to compensate. If you feel swamped, read Urban Muse's post about how to beat writing burnout. 

Finally, even writers with dayjobs struggle to keep balanced. Last night podcasting author Felicia Sullivan interviewed Jeffrey Yamaguchi about his book, Working For The Man. Follow this link to the interview (click here and press play on the player on the right-hand corner). Around 20 minutes in, the pair discuss the fine art of writing your novel on the dayjob clock.

How are we going to pay writers ten years from now?

Nobody knows--there's no standard industry price to pay a writer for a blog post, a web video, or a podcast. As these forms multiply, it's becoming harder and harder for writers to get a fair wage for these new products.

That's one of the big reasons why the Writers Guild of America is striking in Hollywood right now. This video from the Guild explains, complete with cast members from the brilliantly written (and now halted by the strike) show, The Office. (Thanks to TV Decoder for the link)

If you want more funny and dark context on the strike, Steve Bryant passes along the mysterious videos of Alex Perez: Scab Writer. Finally, think about this quote from the story, "Penny-A-Worder" by Cornell Woolrich--a reflection on the self-destructive joy of writing for the vicious pulp fiction industry in the 1930's.

Is this how we will be living in ten years, chained to metaphorical typewriters?

"The story flowed like a torrent.  The margin bell chimed almost staccato, the roller turned with almost piston-like continuity, the pages sprang up almost like blobs of batter from a pancake skillet.  The beer kept rising in the glass and, contradictorily, steadily falling lower.  The cigarettes gave up their ghosts, long thing gray ghosts, in good cause; the mortality rate was terrible."