Sunday, March 29, 2009

Week #10 Puppies and Kittens Calendar

A simple enough sort of post-ironic, cognitive dissonance kind of idea. What I want to do is make a simple calendar with pictures of puppies and kittens at play just like the ones you see at any bookstore. Below each picture will be some text in large sort of white bubbly letters. But instead of saying something cute like “Hang in there” it will say a disturbing fact from the modern world like “One in twelve people worldwide is malnourished, including 160 million children under the age of 5”.

A simple enough idea which I may get around to doing some day. I think it would be a pretty hilarious thing to have around and just sell at Mishap events. Or maybe even try and sell them at a few independent book/gift stores. If anyone else out there likes the idea and wants to do it I’m down with that. You can even say you thought of it yourself.

Monday, March 23, 2009

Week #9-Mishap Poetry Contest

A few years back I’d started writing taking my poetry more seriously. I’d started submitting it to contests and magazines all over the country. I noticed after a while that so many of the contests seemed like sort of scams where everybody would send there entry fee and the people who won would get a small amount of that money as a prize but most of it would just go straight into the pockets of the people running the contests.

It occurred t me that it would be interesting to have a contest where you got a little more back if you won. Where the money sent as an entry fee really went to something real. Me and Ryan Beebe of the Gomorrans came up with an idea to have a poetry contest where the top five winners get there poems recorded as songs on an album we then released and sent out to all the entrants. We could try and do like one a year.

I’ve always really dug poems put to music like Elvis Costello’s “drunk man’s praise for sobriety” and the one Ryan did a while back from the Emily Dickinson Poem “My life closed twice”. I think it would be a really good way to bridge the gap between the literary hipsters and the music hipsters.

In modern times I guess music doesn’t really exist in a physical form as much so it would probably make more sense to make it a website rather than a CD. I’m still into the idea of CD’s so I may just want to make a few for sentimental reasons if we ever do this thing.

This idea came to me and Ryan about four years ago and we never really progressed with it. Writing about it now it actually seems like a pretty cool idea. If anyone out there wants to partner up with me on it all I’d need is like one persons help to get this thing going.

Monday, March 16, 2009

Week #8 Hero Story-Wolverine Comic

As anyone reading this probably already knows I’m a total dork. This idea really does point that out better than most things. This ones more for the uber-geeks out there, if you’re not into comics it will probably be partially incoherent.

It’s an idea for a Wolverine comic that I’ve had in my head for a while. It’s not something I could really execute since it kinda’ needs star Wolverine who is a property of Marvel Comics but it would satisfy me just to get the idea out there.

The basic concept is that Wolverine is sent on a mission by a collection of Marvel’s magical experts, Dr. Strange, Dr. Doom maybe even Brother Voodoo. They send him to China to a sacred monastery hidden in an Oasis in the heart of the Gobi desert. He is told to assassinate the Monk who runs the monastery.

Once in china he meets up his enemy from Japan the Silver Samaria who tells him that the mystics sent him to aid Wolverine on his mission. Probably we’ll meet the Silver Samaria when he saves Wolverine form some Hand assassins or something. Wolverine reluctantly travels with him across china.

I haven’t really come up with any details here in the middle there probably needs to be a couple more events.

In a forest on there way to the Gobi Logan and The Samaria find a small village of elf like people. These peoples entire life span is only one year each. Allowing them to breed and adapt faster than humans and giving them a totally different outlook on life and death.

When we meet this village they are being threatened by a terrible creature that devours life force. It eats away peoples life a year at a time. The Silver Samaria ends up giving his life to satiate the creature, knowing that one of him will save forty of the villagers. In thanks for saving there village the elf like people send there warrior princess, who lives for much longer than the others, to travel with Logan.

Once they get to the edge of the desert they are led to the monastery by some sort of wacky guide I haven’t thought of yet.

As they get closer to the Oasis they start to notice strange things. The Hand Ninja’s that attack them don’t dissolve like they usually do, Logan’s wounds aren’t healing quite as quick and the blossoms that usually close at night remain open.

Once at the monastery Logan finally learns the reason he’s been sent to kill this monk. The monk has been engaging in rituals to stop the cycle of life and death. Nothing will die and nothing will be born, people will stop aging, cells will stop splitting. His rituals have already begun and there effects can be seen emanating from the location of the monastery.

After a brief fight with the Monk, and a bunch of expository dialogue where we learn what his plans are, the monk uses his magic to fatally wound the elf princess. She lies broken nearly dead but unable to die due to the monk's magics. Wolverine is thrown into a blind fury slashing away at the monk with abandon. When he comes back to his senses he’s surprised to find that the monk stays dead and the elf is allowed to die as well.

As wolverine is about to head out, carrying the body of his friend back to her people, Dr. Strange shows up. He explains to Wolverine that it had to be him who went of this mission because he is himself a dichotomy of life and death. A man who can never die but is responsible for taking and saving the lives of so many others.

Not much anyone can help me with on this one. Unless someone wants to draw it with me and send it Marvel as a submission. I suppose if someone really liked it we could just change the characters and make it our own.

Monday, March 9, 2009

Week #7 12 Angry Batmen-Play

Alright, this one’s kinda’ a throw away, although it’s a really good idea that someone should do sometime. It would be truly genius. It’s an idea for a play I came up with James Call of the Missing Teens.

The Idea is simple, we want to put on a production of the play 12 Angry Men by Reginald Rose played entirely straight but with all the actors dressed as Batman.

That’s it that’s my idea for this week. I can’t do much better. I opened a super awesome play this weekend called “The Short and Happy Life”. If anyone’s reading this you should go see that, it’s pretty much one of the best projects I’ve ever been involved with.