Shut Up And Listen 41 Christmas Is Here So, the burning question in everyone’s mind is: what did Chad get for Christmas? It’s not? Oh. Can I tell you anyway? What was that? Come over here and say that, fuckhead! Security! Alright, anyone else got any objections? Good. I awoke at six on Christmas after going to sleep at two. My mom was up at seven, my dad up at five and my sisters up at seven-thirty. By five-to-eight, it was all over and done with. Oh, it was beautiful. The giving, the getting, the mauling of wrapping paper. Just beautiful. I was lucky enough to receive a scanner—which, although I’ve used to scan in some stuff, I’ve been too lazy to post any of it except for a couple things and I don’t feel like making new pages and writing code right now. Maybe next week, but until then you can see what I look like in real life. I know, scary, but it had to happen eventually, right? I can be seen at this link. That’s my cat, Izzy, by the way, with me. What else did I get? Conker’s Bad Fur Day for the N64, some CDs—two Radiohead albums, but I’ve bought another since (their live album), the Barenaked Ladies’ greatest hits and Big Shiny Tunes 6 (a compilation of rock that’s put out annually), some books—Fear And Loathing: On The Campaign Trail ’72 by Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, the Psi Corps trilogy by J. Gregory Keyes, and Triangle: Imzadi 2 by Peter David, clothes, some cash (spent $100 bucks at the comic shop), and more tootsies rolls than a person can possibly eat (okay, I’ve almost eaten half of them). How was your Christmas? Oh? Cool! Yeah? Yeah, families can suck. Well, now that is out of the way, we can proceed with the feature presentation. Year-End Special Part 1 It’s the end of the year and I decided to reflect on some things that have happened in a fashion that is akin to my regular style. So, to begin things with some style, I present . . . The Top Ten People/Things That Have Pissed Me Off This Year 10) Fat chicks in tight shirts. 9) Vice-Principals. 8) School. 7) Lunchbox and his summer problems (every goddamn day, man! Christ!). 6) America in general. 5) The cancellation of X-Man, DC Comics and Todd McFarlane (separate things, but I’m trying to limit all the comic things to one spot). 4) Chicks. 3) My comic “career.” 2) The world in general. And the number one thing that has pissed me off this year was: My sister Brett! Next is stuff that I cut from the column for reasons that are not always obvious (okay, I’m making them up, so if they suck . . . I’m sorry), but sometimes it had to be done. Shut Up And Listen: The Director’s Cut Outtake #1: So, I had that dream again last night. Didn’t I tell you about that? The one where I’m naked with Queen Victoria look-alikes? Yeah. The strange thing is, I don’t find it disturbing at all. I find myself liking the dream. Weird. Outtake #2: I like George Bush. That guy is the best President since Nixon. Bush rules! Outtake #3: So, I asked out The Girl today and she said no. I told all my friends that she wasn’t at the store to save face. You know, somehow it’s better to not do it than to look like a fucking pussy that got rejected by a chick he really likes. Fuck, though. Fuck, fuck, fuck! FUCK! Outtake #4: Damn, I should have thought this outtake idea through a bit more. I’ve run out of ideas already. Ah well. Okay, so that didn’t pan out. Now, I think I’ll just ramble on about a few things that have happened that I’ve thought were cool. Cool Events Of The Year (in no particular order) Cool Event #1: Running this site. You have no idea the pleasure I get from doing this site. You think I’m doing it for you people? Shit no! I do this for myself, first and foremost. I love the fact that people are reading it, but the lack of people at certain times has never stopped me from still doing it. My favourite memories of the site were the three or four times that I got e-mails out of the blue by people I didn’t know, telling me they liked my shit. Or those nice little messages in my guestbook. Or the instant messages demanding where my column was. At times like that I realized that my selfish little enterprise was entertaining others and that is the greatest feeling a writer can get. Thanks a lot. And the interviews with comic writers. I respect and admire these people and they let me ask them what kind of underwear they wear. How fucking cool is that? I know, a lot of people in the “real world” wouldn’t get that, but every time I got a response saying send the questions or getting the answers back, I got this little charge. My favourite interview was with Sean Twist, a person most of you have no idea about, but that’s okay. Cool Event #2: Almost getting published numerous times. I have never been rejected as a writer. I’ve tried three times and all three times, they said “Sure!” But then they all fell apart in some way or another (I don’t feel like going into details again here, they’re all in the archives of the columns) and I’m back here. I’m even proud of some the shit I wrote. Bomb for instance, was written for the Moron with the instructions of write a story about a cop who defuses bombs and call it “Bomb.” So, what did I do? I wrote a story about kids blowing each other up. I wrote a story about obsession. I wrote a story about the way things are and how we’re all fuck-ups. I wrote a story where one scene hinged on a swearword. After Sol taught me how to take an 88-page story and make it an 18-page story in a week. It’s easier than you’d think. The historical fiction I wrote taught me that, well, Canada did better in the War of 1812 than I thought and I knew we whooped those American’s asses. And I also learned that nothing is a sure thing and that people are shit. I knew they were, but when you don’t have the decency to answer an e-mail and just say that things aren’t going to happen, then well, you’re a fuckhead. There were only really two bad things that came out of this though: telling Troy that this shit wasn’t happening as he was involved, and telling my mom that this shit wasn’t happening (oh, and to all my friends who made jokes about this when it first started and shit like that, I won’t forget it). Cool Event #3: Let Me Tell You. My column on comics has been a lot of fun. I know, a lot of the people who read this column might not read that one, and that’s okay. That column has been a lot of fun because I’ve gotten to talk about something that I love a lot and have fun with it. It’s started some great debates (Deadman still sucks) and has made me think about what I say before I say it a few times. It also taught me, along with this column, that writing something about something every week is hard. It’s very fucking hard. Cool Event #4: The new breed of friends aka the guys I’ve met online. I’ve made some good friends there. People I can really talk to about stuff in my life and in comics—it always seems to come down to that, doesn’t it? There have been some very bad moments with them (I still hate your brother, Karl), but it’s been good for the most part. Cool Event #5: Talking to comic creators. And I mean outside of interviews. Mark Millar called me a “cheeky monkey” and I was never more proud—I’m told it means that I’m bold. Doselle Young made sure that my name got into print along with many others on the dedication page of The Monarchy: Bullets Over Babylon trade paperback—which I bought today and made my mom proud again. Mark Waid e-mailed me in response to a letter I sent to Wizard. Tom Peyer apologized for calling me by the wrong name. These guys all made me want to get into comics even more. So, that’s part one of the year-end special. It will be continued in this week’s Let Me Tell You, which will be in its usual place on Tuesday and deals with this year in comics. Then back here next week where I talk more about the year. Happy New Year to all!