http://www.somethingpositive.net/sp07032008.shtml

If there are any problems with the comic or website, or if you have any questions, comments, or complaints you would like to address directly to Randy, please email him at choochoobear@gmail.com.

(To those who regularly read this blog, greetings and apologies.  This is a required introduction blog entry for

brigits_flame so please ignore this brief interruption.  Thanks.)

 

Hi, I'm Sailor Jim Johnston!

Who is Sailor Jim and how did he come about? (Good Question . . . and one my VA shrink would love to answer!)

Let's start with Jim Johnston and work our way up to Sailor Jim Johnston.

Jim is fifty years old, retired and living on a small farm in the midst of the Big Thicket area of Texas, in a town that shall remain nameless (out of fear of his neighbors beating the hell out of him for making fun of them in his writing). In the years after he was medically retired from the Coast Guard, he's delivered pizza, repaired magazines and books at a university library, been an office manager for one Louisiana state office and a benefits counselor for another, done night auditing at two different motels, manned a telephone technical assistance line for a cell phone company and a telephone account rep line for a Virginia electric company, helped Hurricane Rita victims repair houses, and even spent a tax season working at for the IRS.

While working at the university library, he discovered that he was a writer.  He'd always been a storyteller, cadging beers with unlikely tales for years in the military, but had never written any of them down.  Then, one day when he was very bored, he wrote a little article about working in a university library for an internet magazine.  It was later published by a paper magazine, College & Undergraduate Libraries magazine, as were several others ... then the editor asked if he wanted to be the humor columnist. Whereas the pay sucked (being non-existent), how many people can honestly state that they were an internationally read columnist? It was a serious ego stroke, gave him something to casually drop during parties, and was well worth the effort of trying to find humor in working at a university library.

At the same time, he was regularly sharing his little bits of silliness with his friends at alt.callahans under the nom-de-web of Sailor Jim and collecting rejection slips from some of the finest publications the world knows ... as a matter of fact, rejecting one of Sailor Jim's odd little stories has almost become the very definition of a fine publication.  Y'see, he'd gotten the bug and now wanted to become a paid author.  Alas, it's never happened and his rejection slip collection is the envy of any hack writer in the world.

However, several of his fans at alt.callahans decided that they actually wanted to pay ten bucks for a paperback collection of his posts, instead of copying them free from the web and sticking them in a two buck binder. The end result was Naked Through the Snow and Other Bits of Silliness, published by Quaternion Press Publishing House and still available through the publisher even now.  (Or, if you insist, you can buy a used copy from this guy for $177.38 ... why he's charging that much for a book you can pick up new from the publisher for only $12.60 is something I'll never understand.)

A free "please don't sue me for using some of your extremely copyrighted characters" copy to Spider Robinson, author of the excellent series of Callahan's books (that Sailor Jim regularly plagiarized characters from) resulted in the following:

I've been slowly working my way through NAKED THROUGH THE SNOW as deadline pressures allow--I've been keeping it in the bathroom, in other words--and I am very impressed. You're welcome to borrow my bar and tender anytime. It's the most consistently interesting and entertaining nonfiction book I've read in a long time. You are one of the world's great storytellers--and it seems Fate, sensing this, has punished you with an amazing life, to supply material. I've read several chapters aloud to Jeanne, and she's enjoyed them as much as I have. (Then she makes me put the book down and go back to work. You are a textbook example of why I dare not hang out in alt.callahans: that way lies bankruptcy.) My highest professional compliments, and thanks from both of us for sending us a signed copy of NAKED THROUGH THE SNOW. I'm proud to have played a part, however peripheral and faint, in its creation and publication. I hope it sells a million copies and brings you a thousand new friends.

Which amazed and terrified him so badly, he didn't write anything for almost half a year.

In addition to this, Sailor Jim has been, in no particular order, a stand-up comic, magician, juggler, impressionist, photographer, programmer, yeoman, coxswain, boatswain, helmsman, killer, drug addict, alcoholic, smoker, mental ward prisoner and superhero.

Of these varied roles, he still tells jokes, takes pictures, writes, does the occasional coin trick, will nervously juggle three of anything he can get his hands on, still suffers mental problems and has an occasionally has a drink.  He is also still in no particular order.

He is, and has been for better than twenty-five years, married to a woman of angelic compassion and understanding named Dian Marie Mullins and has been the willing slave to an endless series of cats.

Junk currently cluttering the vestry at my internet church:

How to brand yourself with a laser printer.

A job that I haven’t announced here yet.

Kicking off the month’s self-portrait thread.

And something like a dozen threads about me at Chicago that I can’t bring myself to look at yet.

• And now I go up, and then I come down. See you on the other side. #
• back in my local pub. Mission accomplished. #
• Today is ASTONISHING X-MEN #25 day in the USA. And so to bed. #

http://www.somethingpositive.net/sp07022008.shtml

If there are any problems with the comic or website, or if you have any questions, comments, or complaints you would like to address directly to Randy, please email him at choochoobear@gmail.com.

That cover quote from the Lansing State Journal reads: "May be destined to become one of the great underground classics of the twenty-first century." I got my copies of the book today, and the first two pages are nothing but review pullquotes (they really did like that book in Canada). $13.95 in American pesos, $14.95 in Canadian mountie pelts.

The orange on the snake is much more vivid and toxic on the printed version. Once again, all props to designer Will Staehle.

1. The Razor’s Edge, 2. this nameless fear, 3. Untitled, 4. Little Medusa,, 5. commissions, 6. Giving the Finger, 7. Faces of Sunset book, 8. IMG_3280.JPG

http://www.somethingpositive.net/sp06202008.shtml

If there are any problems with the comic or website, or if you have any questions, comments, or complaints you would like to address directly to Randy, please email him at choochoobear@gmail.com.

And here I am in the local pub, with a bitch of an allergy attack, watching light rain freckle the ground. Five hours’ sleep on the plane, but my vision’s already starting to fuck with me a bit. Waiting for the allergy meds to kick in, and then I’ll head home and sleep for a few hours before taking my family out to dinner.

Did I mention Andy Hurley from Fall Out Boy came by the Chicago show to hang out? What a nice guy. And, as a non-drinker, hugely amused by my progressively getting more smashed during my Friday night gig. Which was extraordinarily well attended, by the way. In lieu of a new talk — once again, no time to write one — I read from CROOKED LITTLE VEIN for the first time, and, thank God, everyone laughed in the right places. After that. it was supposed to be about an hour and forty five minutes of Q & A, taking us up to the midnight point. We overran by an hour. It’s as close to stand-up comedy as anything, and I had to laugh when Ariana said afterwards, ”you’ve got some new material, then?” Anyway, it seemed to go down pretty well. Amusing to see how often I was misquoted in the next day’s reviews.

Vision’s packing up. To bed with me.

http://www.somethingpositive.net/sp07012008.shtml

If there are any problems with the comic or website, or if you have any questions, comments, or complaints you would like to address directly to Randy, please email him at choochoobear@gmail.com.

Cleared check-in and security at Chicago O’Hare in five minutes total. It’s a gorgeous day out there. And now I’m in the BA lounge, catching up on mail for an hour before I board my plane home. Despite the really monstrous number of hours that convention business took — more than San Diego — this has probably been my easiest show in years. I’m sad that I didn’t get to see so many people — the hours really were insane — but I’m in better shape post-show than I’ve been in years. (Touch wood — Jacen Burrows did get a dose of convention crud, and I’m a bit sniffly today. You can bathe in hand sanitiser and still run reasonably good odds of catching something simply because you’re being breathed upon by a thousand people a day.)

Time for another drink, before I have to stand up and then go up and then come down. Time for another drink, take in the light, watch the big machines, and think.

Not a bad day.

http://www.somethingpositive.net/sp06189008.shtml

If there are any problems with the comic or website, or if you have any questions, comments, or complaints you would like to address directly to Randy, please email him at choochoobear@gmail.com.

WANTED, the movie based on the graphic novel by Mark Millar and JG Jones, made a shitload of money. Which means Mark has the money to basically grow his own Jesus in the dungeon of his new castle now. This makes me immensely happy. Nice one, squire.

http://www.somethingpositive.net/sp06182008.shtml

If there are any problems with the comic or website, or if you have any questions, comments, or complaints you would like to address directly to Randy, please email him at choochoobear@gmail.com.

http://www.somethingpositive.net/sp06172008.shtml

If there are any problems with the comic or website, or if you have any questions, comments, or complaints you would like to address directly to Randy, please email him at choochoobear@gmail.com.

• 10am. Last day of show begins. I’m just a sort of bag of pain at this point. Recharging, then out to begin signing books. Showtime, folks. #
• Rain in Rosemont, thank god. Recharging in hotel, back on the front lines in 20 mins. Nearly there. Have signed approx one godzillion books #
• And I’m done. These are the red pisshole-y eyes of done. Thousands of comic books defaced by the shaky hand of DONE. End of show. #

5  sparrabeth icons (from Potc, with Johnny & Keira)
15  Rosamund Pike Icons
2 Johnny Depp Icons
12 Pride & Prejudice Icons (Rosamund Pike & Keira Knightley)
15  Eva Longoria Icons
7 kirsten Dunst icons
28 Sarah Michelle Gellar icons
+
1 welcome banner: Emma Watson & Rupert Grint
1 friends only banner: seth green & Sarah Michelle Gellar
2 info banners: Sienna Miller & Keira Knightley from "the Edge of Love", Emma Watson
4 headers/banners: Johnny Depp & Rosamund Pike from "The Libertine",Sarah Michelle Gellar & Michelle TRachtemberg, Jennifer Morrison, Sienna Miller & Keira Knightley
1 wallpaper sparrabeth

Cover art by Felipe Massafera:

http://www.somethingpositive.net/sp06162008.shtml

If there are any problems with the comic or website, or if you have any questions, comments, or complaints you would like to address directly to Randy, please email him at choochoobear@gmail.com.

• i do not know why i am awake #
• i cannot feel most of my body. was onstage for 3.5 hrs last night. #
• insert fork in comickybook writer, for he is done for the day. And no, I cannot feel my arms, why do you ask? #
• Good people in the signing lines today, though. Many of them were even sober. #

This post may have SPOILER images for season 5....

House season 5 ... shooting  episode  titled 'BIRTHMARS' . LA, Fox Studios June 16th 2008

Seriously, I’m not sure what day it is. Yesterday I signed for six hours and did at least an hour’s press and then was onstage for three and a half hours and this morning i cannot brain or use many of my bodily… bits. Cannot remember words or operate speech or some parts of head. Must start signing again in 40 mins or so. May be late. Legs not completely obeying commands yet.

What day is it?

• Back at Mission Control. I have whisky. #
• New FREAKANGELS: http://www.freakangels.com/?p=43 #
• Friday signing 1 down. Can still see and move. Result. #
• @irisseale - no, I am not going to start licking people in the signing line. I would end up with mange. #
• @fallenbutterfly - Signing just gets really tiring. I’ve done half of my 5-hr stint today, about to do press, then taking for 2.5 hrs tnite. #

Am awake way too early, barely alive, but my love for you is such that I bring you free comics even in these last moments of my life: FREAKANGELS 0018.

• Put my hand out the window. Sun seared flesh off my bones. Fuck you, Rosemont. I stay indoors and cheat your death rays. #
• Chicago Day 2: http://www.warrenellis.com/?p=6080 #
• sitting down at avatar booth for signing hell 1 #
• never met so many people called todd in my life #
• gggaaaahhh #
• death approches on sweaty paws #

I have to start doing press in about forty minutes. Got about five hours sleep and then just laid there in bed until noon, wondering if I’d turned into the guy from The Diving Bell And The Butterfly, only able to communicate by pressing the channel-change button on the remote. "Look how angrily he seems to mash that button when CNN Headline News comes on. Is he trying to tell us something? Look… I think he’s spelling out a sentence by flicking from MSNBC to that crappy Matthew Perry movie and back again."

Went out to dinner with William and Ariana last night at a remote and relatively ancient steakhouse, which was offering dinners-for-two for $39 to celebrate their 39th year in business. Across the road, next to the Des Plaines Chamber Of Commerce, were stores called THE BAREFOOT HAWAIIAN and REBEL’S TROPHYS (sic). The air’s like soup. I stuck my arm out of the window earlier. First, my flesh took on the consistency and moistness of crushed watermelon. And then it caught fire anyway.

American news is as bad as ever. Top stories — Washington DC residents can buy monstrous rhino-killing handguns again (CNN actually called the overturned ban "unAmerican") and some nutbag in Iowa has built his own personal levee around his floodbound house (and is nonetheless sending his wife and kid out to work across the water while he stays to guard the threshold. And fish). Penetrating reportage: "Where did all the sand for the levee come from?" "Well… I bought it."

I also think I hallucinated a show called CASH CAB, where a cab driver appears to abduct New Yorkers and ask them gameshow questions. If they get the questions right, the ceiling of the cab lights up, the cabbie gives them cash money, and they leave the cab, where local criminals are lying in wait for them because let’s face it it’s not hard to spot the Cash Cab when it’s lit up like a 70’s disco floor inside. If they fail the quiz, the Cash Cabbie dumps them on wasteground in Brooklyn in the middle of the night to get sexually assaulted and skinned. I’m pretty sure I made this show up during some early morning fugue episode. I mean, The Discovery Channel would never fund something like that. Right?