The Sad Circus by the Sea

One Day We Shall Celebrate Something

Been Busy. You know?

The above picture is by Talia Felix and it is my favorite so far of the collection that Jhonen has been reaping of me as a ham obsessed monster. You may remember the conversation. Though there have been perhaps more ambitious and certainly more disturbing pictures, Talia's illustration best represents me when I am writing ShutterBox, ham and all.

Segue .

Speaking of ShutterBox, we have informed our dear editor at Tokyopop that we'll be turning in our final pages for Book Four by this Friday, the third of November, leaving only our edits and repairs and the Castle Tour Section for the back of the book to be turned in by November the thirteenth. We begin Book Five on December the first, although the script for that instalment is already half written. ShutterBox Book Four is four months late and I don't know when exactly it will be released (I'll let you know). This makes sense when I consider that we lost two months last November and October moving old ladies into rest homes TWICE, that last February Tavisha came down with the most virulent and debilitating flue I have ever seen (although we love Katsucon, we don't love its plague, and I don't think we can risk attending again next year), and that, finally, I accidentally erased my entire computer last April, destroying at final count, thirty two pages of finished work. That gobsuck bastard called Superstition tells me that this year was the Year of the Dog, and that I, having been born in the Year of the Dog, should have benefited from my canine affiliation. LIES! This is why I love cats more than dogs. They don't lie. They just cut you. Nevertheless, I would like to ask whatever Zodiac freakbeast is in charge of next year to kindly take a jump and leave the fate of ShutterBox Book Five to us.

Today is our twelfth wedding anniversary. PRAISE US!

-Rikki

(LiveJournal version of entry here: http://rikkisimons.livejournal.com/19421.html)

51 Million Snickets

©Brent Helquist

Lemony's absurdism pwns all book market preconceptions.

Without a doubt, despite all evidence for the marketability of delightful doom, this is still the most difficult concept to sell to agents, managers, publishers, and editors in the American YA and childrens' book market:

"In Lemony Snicket books, if there's ever a happy part, there's always a bad thing following, whereas in other books, it's usually a bad thing followed by a good thing," she says.

And yet:

That is exactly what Mrs Lee's daughter Alex, 9, likes about them.

And despite that agents, managers, publishers, and editors tell writers that kids and young adults don't want to read absurdist, dreary, gothic comedies, 51 million copies of an absurdist, dreary, gothic comedy have sold. It reminds me of when on ZIM, Jhonen was told by executives that kids don't like robots or speceships. You see, when presumptive humans are involved, the absurdist view is the only view that makes any sense in the universe.

Save me from intolerance of ambiguity.

-Rikki

(LiveJournal version of entry here: http://rikkisimons.livejournal.com/19025.html)

Super Ham-Collider

Click here to try to understand. But you can't understand, can you? NO!!!

Rikki Simons: "And the hams pay the ultimate price for their hubris." Possibly the greatest philosophical statement ever made.
Jhnen V: that's where the people cry
Rikki Simons: Because they know. They finally understand what has only been hinted thus far. Even in Lebanon, the Israelis climb from their tanks and hug Hezbolla and together they weep and repeat, "And the hams pay the ultimate price for their hubris."
Jhnen V: goddamn...this will break the heart of the EARTH itself.
Rikki Simons: Take THAT Roland Emmerich!
Rikki Simons: I must rest now. I feel my ham juices begin to seep from me. They must not reach Zero Point Hamenergy or I lose containment. Good night, fellow ham traveller.

-Haminal Rikki