Two stories I meant to include in the online fiction section took longer than others to track down, but they are now up. First, a goofy early effort, “The Random Man” (written several years before its 1984 publication date) and then the last story I wrote about games before plunging full-time into the game industry, “Total Conversion.” Enjoy, if you can. Or dare.
It is Kalifornia’s day to be free (on Kindle).
For one day (I think), The Orchid Eater in its new Kindle edition is free. This was partly inadvertent, but you may be the benefactor of my incompetence.
Meanwhile, I might as well do one-day freebies on the other two, in subsequent days. Just to make the accident look deliberate.
A good place to start is “Where Is The Friend’s Home?” followed by the other two films in this elliptical trilogy.
On Independence Day, here’s a link to my alt-history story concerning The War Thereof: “His Powder’d Wig, His Crown of Thornes.” That’s all I got.
In early 1996, I was desperately looking for something to do. I had always wanted to take a shot at an ongoing comic. I had no idea, practically, how to proceed. I got as far as the concept of a petshop called Mr. Pet and run by its eponymous owner. It had to be simple enough that I could draw it. I still think the basic set-up, following the daily lives of all the pets in the shop, and Mr. Pet himself, would have generated good gags for years. I drew a few, posted here, and right around then I got my big break in the game industry. I still think about Mr. Pet from time to time, and today I was happy to discover the few old strips I sat down and finished on May 17, 1996.
I am slowly gathering and organizing my papers to donate to a special collection. Over the years, sporadically, I have carried pocket sized notebooks; most recently plain manila Moleskines, but I think the habit started here:
Then there was the time I got quoted in Entertainment Weekly:
Why not make a special collection truly special?
After hearing me talk about David Fincher’s abandoned animated “400 Boys” project (part of an attempt to revive Heavy Metal as a 3D feature) on The Outer Dark podcast (listen in for the full story), Anya Martin of that very same podcast contacted Raymond Swanland and managed to get permission to post two pieces of concept art. There’s an image of HiLo confronting one of the 400 Boys, and then a promotional image featuring a Galrog. Since I own the property on which these images are based, I’m going to see if I can help get permission to display the rest of Raymond’s wonderful work on this project. If nothing else, it would be nice to be able to run the images alongside the story, even if only online.
