Monday, August 31, 2009

New Spotlight Article on Starlin's Adam Warlock/The Magus Saga

With the reappearance of The Magus in the pages of Guardians of the Galaxy, the time seemed right to take a look back at Jim Starlin's saga of Adam Warlock and The Magus from the mid-seventies.

The first part of my spotlight article is up today:

http://cosmicbooknews.com/articles/csawm

Part two is here: http://www.cosmicbooknews.com/articles/csawm_2.

Enjoy!

Thursday, August 27, 2009

Big News In Vermont Politics!

Governor Jim Douglas (R) of Vermont announced today that he will not be running for another term in 2010. Shay Totten of Vermont's Seven Days wrote about the news on their blog BLURT this afternoon:

http://7d.blogs.com/blurt/2009/08/douglas-opts-out-in-10-political-reaction.html

This is big political news in Vermont. It also brought back some personal meories. When I was working on the radio in Montpelier during the past couple of years, I had the opportunity to record Public Service Announcements (PSAs) with several state officials. The Governor recorded a couple of PSAs with me. Never having met Governor Douglas, I didn't know what to expect when he came in for the first of these recording sessions. Jim Douglas turned out to be easy to work with. He came in fully prepared, nailed the read in in one or two takes... and he was remarkably funny! I had no idea that he had such a dry wit before I worked with him (though since then I have heard from some reporters, off the record, that he has some jokes he repeats from time to time...). All the same, he made the whole process simple, fast and enjoyable.

In our current cable news fed political culture, people on opposite political sides tend to demonize each other, or at the very least paint political opponents as somehow very different from themselves. I'm not a fan of Governor Douglas' politics, so meeting him and discovering that he was an okay guy (for a poltician... heh) was instructive. In a way, Jim Douglas put a human face on Republicans for me. Helped me remember there are good and bad people on every side.

I also had the opportunity to work on radio PSAs with Secretary of State Deb Markowitz and State Treasurer Jeb Spaulding, both very nice folks in their own right! It will be interesting to watch the developing political picture in the Green Mountain State over the next few months...

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Read The Complete RED HOT Preview Online Now!

I'm the creator and writer of the new comic
"Introducing... RED HOT!"
with killer art & letters from my creative partner Rhys ap Gwyn. Red Hot is a young super-powered hero trying to prove himself.

You can read our eight page preview issue free online:

http://www.drunkduck.com/Introducing_RED_HOT/

"Introducing... RED HOT!" is a three issue miniseries. The Preview Issue is the first eight pages of Issue One "Proof".

Rhys and I are putting out this preview to see if there's any interest in the character and the story... and judging by the page views and the feedback we've seen so far, there certainly is - Thanks for your Tweets and comments! The plan is to release the books through my Glow-in-the-Dark Radio Comics, though we may be going with a larger independent publisher. Can't say more about that just yet. If you get a chance to read the preview, be sure to stop back here and let me know what you think!

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Risk Management?

I've been thinking about risk management today. Normal risk management is required for daily life. It's a part of self preservation. But when risk management is taken to an extreme it causes a sort of psychotic paralysis in individuals. When risk management is exercised to an extreme degree on a larger scale, our culture and society suffers not only cultural paralysis but also societal degradation.

The corporation as an entity is supposed to practice risk management as an accepted best practice, though we did not seen investment banks reign in their own risks. Risk management does not seem to be practiced horizontally by corporations, but rather vertically, being dictated from the top down. This is backwards, of course, as the monetary savings gained through risk management applied at the lowest level in the corporation is small when compared to what could be saved by applying true risk management to upper level exchanges. The exception to this is in the health insurance industry, where extreme risk management at the lowest levels has proved highly profitable to health care industry executives.

Risk Management is killing our culture. Corporate risk management is killing the radio & record industries. Worse it's created the health care mess. When corporations try to monetize art, art pays the price. When corps decided to monetize health, the sick paid the price. People are risky. It's not that health insurance is evil, rather that the business model should not be applied to people and their health - it's immoral.

The Corporations' thought that risk costs money leads to attempts to minimize risk and maximize return. Problem is, this model fails with businesses based on successful risk like music. More basically? Corporations are experts at killing the Geese that Lay the Golden Eggs... One of the reasons corporations are so afraid of social media is the element of risk. Risk management may prevent Corps from embracing SM.

Upside Down Corporate Risk Management is hurting our society and is societally at the root of the health care crisis, the economic crash, and culturally at the root of the stagnation of the radio and music industries. It will also get in the way of Corporations adopting Social Media in a meaningful way. The real irony lies in the fact that these corporations are not applying the same degree of risk management to their executive moves, executive compensation and high-level financial transactions. "Do as I say, not as I do," seems to be the modus operandi of the current corporate elite.

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

New Column and New Comic Page Up!

Keeping busy this summer! Couple new things today...

You can check out a new free page from the eight page preview of "Introducing... RED HOT!" my new comic with artist Rhys ap Gwynn: http://www.drunkduck.com/Introducing_RED_HOT/

And my column on creating comics returns today, too! The eighth installment of "Mike Luoma's Making It Up!" is up over at Cosmic Book News:

http://cosmicbooknews.com/articles/mlmakingup8

Free reading!

If you read the column or check out the comic, be sure to send me an email and let me know what you think!

Mike

Wednesday, August 05, 2009

2 New RED HOT Pages up Today!

My FREE webcomic "Introducing... RED HOT!" has not one but TWO new pages up today!

Check it out here:

http://www.drunkduck.com/Introducing_RED_HOT/

Created and written by Mike Luoma, Art by Rhys ap Gwynn

How do you prove you're a hero?

Saturday, August 01, 2009