The Thirteenth Hour Podcast #252 and Like a Hood Ornament 12: Welcome back Jeremy, Max, and Antonio – Nirvana Pilot Yume Redux and Fragments of the Past (Part 2/2)

Episode #252 and Like a Hood Ornament 12: Welcome back Jeremy, Max, and Antonio – Nirvana Pilot Yume Redux and Fragments of the Past (Part 2/2)

https://archive.org/download/podcast-252/Podcast%20252.mp3

On this week’s show, my brother, Jeremy, and I continue the conversation with European game developer team Dev9k (Massimiliano ‘Haematinon’ Nigro and Antonio Scacchetti), who, aside from last week, were last on the show in episode 123.  At the time, they had recently released the 80s anime / Skyroads inspired video game, Nirvana Pilot Yume, for the PC.  Today, we’re mostly discussing Massimiliano’s recent fantasy art book, Fragments of the Past, including how his world came to be, how he did his illustrations, how myth holds up a mirror to reality, and the extensive role historical research had in the creation of the world in the story.

Below are some pictures from the book.  According to Max, aside from the research entailed, the paintings, on average, took about a week to do.

The beautiful poem that Max reads at the end of the show, “The Last Fragment” is here.  The imagery reminds be a lot of the poem “Kubla Khan” by Samuel Coleridge (about Xanadu).

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In the intro, I discuss a few segments from The Smithsonian Book of Flight by Walter Boyne, where Hermes, the Greek messenger of the Gods, was often featured in the golden age of aviation when it came to flight. Here’s an art deco painting from the book showing Hermes leading zeppelins and airplanes into the future:

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I’ve also been meaning to do this for weeks given the name of this segment of the podcast (“Like a Hood Ornament”) but never got around to having a segment on actual art deco hood ornaments from the era that tie Greek mythology (Icarus, perhaps?) to flight.  Here are some reputedly from a late 1920s Cadillac LaSalle.  You can find these on Etsy as well as auction sites.

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There are now Thirteenth Hour toys!  If you’d like to pick up one of these glow in the dark figures for yourself, feel free to email me or go to the Etsy store I set up (https://www.etsy.com/shop/ThirteenthHourStudio) and get them there.

If you haven’t checked out “Arcade Days,” the song and video Jeff Finley, Brent Simon, and I finished one year ago, click on the link below to do so!

You can find more pictures and preview clips of “Arcade Days” on IG as well as this podcast’s FB page.

Empty Hands, the synth EP soundtrack to the novella, Empty Hands, is now out for streaming on Bandcamp.  

empty hands ep cover_edited-2.jpg

Stay tuned.  Follow along on Spotify!  There is also a growing extended Thirteenth Hour playlist on Spotify with a growing number of retro 80s songs.

Check it out!

As always, thanks for listening!

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The Thirteenth Hour Podcast #108: Chad Derdowski, Author/Illustrator of Fortune Favors the Bold, Part 2 of 2

Episode #108: Chad Derdowski, Author/Illustrator of Fortune Favors the Bold, Part 2 of 2

https://archive.org/download/Podcast108_201709/Podcast%20108.mp3

Today, we conclude our 2 part conversation with author and illustrator Chad Derdowski, who came on the show last week to talk about his book, Fortune Favors the Bold: The Saga of the Scissorwulf.  This episode picks up right after Chad did a short reading from one of the story lines from the book, which if you missed last week’s show, is essentially a tongue-firmly-planted-in-cheek R rated Choose Your Own Adventure style with a Conan style hero:

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And if you’d like Chad to do a personal reading for you, perhaps in the same faux-English accent, follow the links below to get a copy of the book for yourself, write a review on Amazon, and send proof to Chad on Instagram.  Just for podcast listeners and until the end of September 2017!

Much of today’s episode touches on Chad’s creative process.  If you’ve ever wanted to create a book (or something similarly creative), but have gotten forestalled along the way, you may find quite a bit of motivation in this week’s show.  Speaking of which, here’s a link to the book, Write or Wrong: A Writer’s Guide to Creating Comics, Chad was referring to by Dirk Manning.

Image result for fortune favors the bold chad derdowski

Get a copy of your own by clicking here or on the cover above: https://www.createspace.com/6289426

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fortunefavors_the_bold/

FB: https://www.facebook.com/TheScissorwulf/?ref=br_rs

GR: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32842665-fortune-favors-the-bold?from_search=true

Amazon: http://amzn.to/2wnHPfV

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Between Two Worlds, the synth EP follow up to Long Ago Not So Far Away is now out for streaming on Bandcamp.  

The bonus track, called “Flight of the Cloudrider” has a 80s movie mashup music video (see if you can identify all the movies!) which is available on youtube.   This app was largely created with the iphone app Auxy.

between 2 worlds EP cover 2

 

Stay tuned.  Follow along on Spotify!  There is also a growing extended Thirteenth Hour playlist on Spotify with a growing number of retro 80s songs.

Check it out!

As always, thanks for listening!  Next week, Brent Simon!

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The Thirteenth Hour Podcast #107: Chad Derdowski, Author/Illustrator of Fortune Favors the Bold, Part 1 of 2

Episode #107: Chad Derdowski, Author/Illustrator of Fortune Favors the Bold, Part 1 of 2

https://archive.org/download/Podcast107_201708/Podcast%20107.mp3

In this week’s episode, author and illustrator Chad Derdowski comes on the show for a two part episode to talk about his book, Fortune Favors the Bold: The Saga of the Scissorwulf, a blast to read and even more entertaining to learn about.  It’s basically an R rated Choose-Your-Own-Adventure-style book  with lots of references that former children of the 80s will well appreciate.  If you want a Cliff’s Notes version of the podcast, the main hero, the Scissorwulf is basically as follows:

 = 1uefrazetta-thebarbarian Warduke from Dungeons and Dragons by MassimoAtlas + Darkwolf (Fire and Ice)... + 

Scissorwulf = Conan (by Frank Frazetta here) + Warduke (from D and D, redrawn on deviantart by MassimoAtlas) + Darkwolf (From Fire and Ice, drawn by Frank Frazetta) + Jack Burton (from Big Trouble in Little China)

And Fortune Favors the Bold is basically a mix of HP Lovecraft, comedic parody, pulp men’s fiction, comic book, and Choose Your Own Adventure all mixed in one (plus probably a few other references I’m missing):

AstonishingTales25.jpg + GEORGE GROSS - Nightmare in New York (Executioner 7) by Don Pendleton - 1971 Pinnacle Books + Related image + Image result for hp lovecraft + Image result for shaun of the dead + Image result for choose your own adventure

Chad also does a reading of one of the storylines in the book, so you get a preview of the writing and the beginnings of one of the adventures.

Image result for fire and ice frazetta darkwolf

Dark wolf says: stay tuned for more 80s references next week in Part 2!

Image result for fortune favors the bold chad derdowski

Get a copy of your own by clicking here or on the cover above: https://www.createspace.com/6289426

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fortunefavors_the_bold/

FB: https://www.facebook.com/TheScissorwulf/?ref=br_rs

GR: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32842665-fortune-favors-the-bold?from_search=true

Amazon: http://amzn.to/2wnHPfV

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Between Two Worlds, the synth EP follow up to Long Ago Not So Far Away is now out for streaming on Bandcamp.  

The bonus track, called “Flight of the Cloudrider” has a 80s movie mashup music video (see if you can identify all the movies!) which is available on youtube.   This app was largely created with the iphone app Auxy.

between 2 worlds EP cover 2

 

Stay tuned.  Follow along on Spotify!  There is also a growing extended Thirteenth Hour playlist on Spotify with a growing number of retro 80s songs.

Check it out!

As always, thanks for listening!  To be continued …

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The Thirteenth Hour Podcast #105: Author/Illustrator Missy Sheldrake Returns Part 2 of 2

Episode #105: Author and Illustrator Missy Sheldrake Interview #2 Part 2 of 2

https://archive.org/download/Podcast105_201708/Podcast%20105.mp3

Today, fantasy author Missy Sheldrake returns in part 2 of her interview as we catch up on all the things she’s been up to this past year (find her first interview here).

We spend the first part of this episode talking about podcasting, which Missy was thinking about doing.  Indie author Angela Chrysler (who came on the show back on episode #35) has been doing a youtube storytime reading series.  Putting shows on youtube would probably be one of the easiest way to put out a podcast.  If you are interested in learning more, here is also a quick start guide on producing a podcast quickly and without spending a lot of money that I put together here.

We also talked about making the transition to doing live events and a recent cover commission Missy did for one of her fellow authors, Christina McMullen.  There is a time lapse video of how she created the picture here.

A Space Girl From Earth Kindle Cover.jpg

We talk about our fantasy art influences and bemoan the loss of old-school hand painted covers in favor of the emphasis on hyper realistic, photorealistic digital photo covers that all end up looking the same.

Case in point/aside – take this movie poster/cover for the 80s scifi movie Solarbabies and a more generic photo cover to the right:

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Anyway … follow Missy on Instagram gallery for more pictures and updates on her illustrations.  I’m sure we’ll see more as she works on her fifth book in her Keeper of the Wellspring series.

There’s also a fun little easter egg for those who stick around until the end of this episode!

 

Click on the banner below to learn more about the series on Amazon.  If you haven’t read them yet, Missy let me know that this week, on 8/16/17, the first book, Call of Kythshire, is free, so take the chance to grab a copy!


Thanks again, Missy, for coming on the show, and good luck writing book #5!

Website: http://missysheldrake.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/missysheldrake

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/m_sheldrake/

Tumblr: http://etsyfairydawn.tumblr.com/

FB: https://www.facebook.com/MissySheldrake/and https://www.facebook.com/muralsbymissy

GR: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/13672249.Missy_Sheldrake?from_search=true&search_version=service

Amazon: www.amazon.com/dp/B00UVLQWGY

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Between Two Worlds, the synth EP follow up to Long Ago Not So Far Away is now out for streaming on Bandcamp.  

The bonus track, called “Flight of the Cloudrider” has a 80s movie mashup music video (see if you can identify all the movies!) which is available on youtube.   This app was largely created with the iphone app Auxy.

between 2 worlds EP cover 2

 

Stay tuned.  Follow along on Spotify!  There is also a growing extended Thirteenth Hour playlist on Spotify with a growing number of retro 80s songs and movie soundtracks from that era.

Check it out!

As always, thanks for listening!

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The Thirteenth Hour Podcast #104: Author/Illustrator Missy Sheldrake Returns Part 1 of 2

Episode #104: Author and Illustrator Missy Sheldrake Interview #2 Part 1 of 2

https://archive.org/download/Podcast104_201708/Podcast%20104.mp3

In this week’s episode, fantasy author Missy Sheldrake comes back to the show to catch us up on all the things she’s been up to this past year (find her first interview here).  We spend much of this episode talking about the creative process, how writing takes on a life of its own, illustrating books, and what a shame it is that books for former children tend not to have pictures anymore.

Here are some screenshots from Missy’s Instagram gallery, where she posts pictures of works in process:

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This progression is of her character Tib, who was introduced in Call of Sunteri.

guild 0

guild 2

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This guild portrait is the one we’re referring to in the podcast (the one that took 59 hours).  Click on the picture above to go to the actual post on IG.

Click on the banner below to learn more about the series on Amazon.  If you haven’t read them yet, Missy let me know that on 8/16/17, the first book, Call of Kythshire, is free, so take the chance to grab a copy!

 


Thanks again, Missy, for coming on the show, and good luck writing book #5!

Website: http://missysheldrake.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/missysheldrake

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/m_sheldrake/

Tumblr: http://etsyfairydawn.tumblr.com/

FB: https://www.facebook.com/MissySheldrake/and https://www.facebook.com/muralsbymissy

GR: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/13672249.Missy_Sheldrake?from_search=true&search_version=service

Amazon: www.amazon.com/dp/B00UVLQWGY

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Between Two Worlds, the synth EP follow up to Long Ago Not So Far Away is now out for streaming on Bandcamp.  Podcast listeners can still download the album until 8/10 (minus the bonus track) here http://bit.ly/2txyAaM  (access code is on episode 100 at ~31:30).  

The bonus track, called “Flight of the Cloudrider” has a 80s movie mashup music video (see if you can identify all the movies!) which is available on youtube.   This app was largely created with the iphone app Auxy.

between 2 worlds EP cover 2

 

Stay tuned.  Follow along on Spotify!  There is also a growing extended Thirteenth Hour playlist on Spotify with a growing number of retro 80s songs.

Check it out!

As always, thanks for listening!

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The Thirteenth Hour Podcast #52: Storytime Reading of St. George and the Dragon 

Episode #52: Storytime Reading of St. George and the Dragon

https://archive.org/download/13thHrEps16On/Podcast%2052.mp3

This week, we’re reading an illustrated adaptation of the first part of Edmund Spenser’s Faerie Queen – the tale of St. George and the Dragon.  The one we’re reading from was illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman (check out a tribute and bio on this blog) and penned by Margaret Hodges.  You can find a copy online at retailers like Amazon or you local library.  There are a few pictures and excerpts includes below.  I’d recommend any of the books written and illustrated by this duo if you enjoy fairy tales and/or fantasy art.

The tale is an abridged version for children of the original, which was a lengthy poem.  You can find a summary of the original Faerie Queen tale and a commentary here.  It’s more adult oriented than this version and has more overt allegorical/religious/moral overtones as opposed to this one, which reads more like a traditional fairy tale and mirrors the end of the original poem, a summary of which you can find here.

Personally, I have always wondered why everyone had it in for the dragon, who also fought a good fight, and I kind of felt bad for him.  Here he was minding his own business and … well, I guess that kind of flips the story on its head, doesn’t it.  Maybe someone one day can rewrite the tale from the dragon’s point of view.

But that’s neither here nor there.  Anyhow, I posted a few pictures from the book on Instagram before from the book, which you can find here:

https://instagram.com/p/BDx0pE7Mg4y/

https://instagram.com/p/BDqIyd5sg7d/

Here are some others:

It’s also in these pages that we learn that the name George means “Plow the Earth” and “Fight the Good Fight.”  Georges of the world, take note and take heart.  You have a fine lineage.

As always, thanks for listening!

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The Thirteenth Hour Podcast #50: Reading of Robert Browning’s Poem “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came”

Episode #50: Storytime Reading of Robert Browning’s Poem “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came”

https://archive.org/download/13thHrEps16On/Podcast%2050.mp3

Last week, we read the Old English fairy tale, “Childe Roland.”  This week, I’m reading aloud the Robert Browning poem, “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came” which was the inspiration for Stephen King’s Dark Tower series.  It’s quite different from the fairy tale and from King’s books, though it shares the dark psychological bent he gave his long magnus opus.  I found it a difficult poem to read.  Couldn’t quite get into a good rhythm, so there are parts that seem more staccato than I would have liked.  It seemed more like one of those works that tries to evoke a series of feelings and images rather than telling a narrative tale.  It reminded me of the Coleridge poem, “Kubla Khan” (In Xanadu did Kubla Khan / A stately pleasure-dome decree …).  

You can find an interpretation of Browning’s poem on Sparknotes.  One of the takeaways of the poem is there is always sacrifice in the single minded devotion to a goal and sometimes that leads to some culture shock when others can’t quite understand what the goal was all for.  Logan from The Thirteenth Hour figures that at the end of his own long quest, as mentioned here.

Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came, by Thomas Moran (clicking on the picture takes you to the Wikipedia entry to this poem).

If you don’t know the story of Roland a la Stephen King, I highly recommend reading them or listening to the audio books (which are excellent).  The first novel, The Gunslinger, has a great opening line.  Below are some pictures from the novels in the series.

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The beginning of The Gunslinger

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Susannah Dean takes aim with Roland’s revolver, by Ned Dameron.

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Jake Chambers and Oy on the attack, by Michael Whelan.

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Jake and Roland at the clearing at the end of the path, by Michael Whelan.

As always, thanks for listening!

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  • QR code email signup Signup for the mailing list for a free special edition podcast and a demo copy of The Thirteenth Hour!
  • Follow The Thirteenth Hour’s instagram pages: @the13thhr and @the13thhr.ost for your daily weekday dose of ninjas, martial arts bits, archery, flips, breakdancing action figures, fantasy art, 80s music, movies, and occasional pictures or songs from The Thirteenth Hour books.
  • Website: https://13thhr.wordpress.com
  • Book trailer: http://bit.ly/1VhJhXY
  • Interested in reading and reviewing The Thirteenth Hour for a free book?  Just email me at writejoshuablum@gmail.com for more details!

The Thirteenth Hour Podcast #46: Storytime – Prince Nautilus Reading

Episode #46: Children’s Book Storytime Reading – Prince Nautilus (A Modern Fairy Tale)

https://archive.org/download/13thHrEps16On/Podcast%2046.mp3

On this week’s episode, I recorded a story I read to my daughter, Prince Nautilus, written by Laura Krauss Melmed and illustrated by Henri Sorensen.  We recently found it for sale in a small bookstore while traveling and decided to explore this modern fairy tale, which takes elements of classic tales and puts a few modern spins on them.  You can’t see the wonderful illustrations in the podcast, obviously, though I did attempt to describe them to my daughter (since that’s what you do with toddlers).  I’m not sure if the book is still in print, but you can find used copies on retailers like Amazon or Abebooks.

Prince Nautilus: Melmed, Laura Krauss; Sorensen, Henri

Like the storytime format?  Let me know (see email address below), and I’ll do more in the future.

Next week, stay tuned for the start of a massive 2 part interview on martial arts, gymnastics, breakdancing, learning new skills, and more with one of my best friends from college.

As always, thanks for listening!

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  • QR code email signup Signup for the mailing list for a free special edition podcast and a demo copy of The Thirteenth Hour!
  • Follow The Thirteenth Hour’s instagram pages: @the13thhr and @the13thhr.ost for your daily weekday dose of ninjas, martial arts bits, archery, flips, breakdancing action figures, fantasy art, 80s music, movies, and occasional pictures or songs from The Thirteenth Hour books.
  • Website: https://13thhr.wordpress.com
  • Book trailer: http://bit.ly/1VhJhXY
  • Interested in reading and reviewing The Thirteenth Hour for a free book?  Just email me at writejoshuablum@gmail.com for more details!

The Thirteenth Hour Podcast #43: Guest Author Interview with Fantasy Author/Illustrator Missy Sheldrake

Episode #43: Author and Illustrator Missy Sheldrake Interview – Digital Art, Fairies, Fantasy Writing, and a Hidden Benefit to Video Gaming  

https://archive.org/download/13thHrEps16On/Podcast%2043.mp3

In this week’s episode, fantasy author Missy Sheldrake joins the show, so fairy tale fans, authors, and illustrators sit back, relax, and enjoy the one hour plus show!  Missy is unique in that she’s one of the few authors out there who also creates her own covers (see them below) and illustrates her novels.

You’ll find out more in the podcast, but early elements of the series actually came from this game:

(Missy definitely got her money’s worth out of this game, since she got not only a book series from it but a husband and a job – who says playing video games doesn’t pay??? 🙂

Her creations aren’t just 2D – some are sculptures.  Check out her page for a gallery of hand-crafted fairies.

Check out some of her books featuring the fairy world she created below:

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Books 1 and 2 in the series (click on the covers to go to the Amazon pages).

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You can download this short story (which takes place after book 2) for free on Amazon.

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Book 3 is coming this month – click on the image above to check out the pre-order page on Amazon.

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Illustration for Call of Sunteri available on amazon.com and createspace.com

Digitally created illustrations that Missy did in the Call of Kythsire (first 5) and Call of Sunteri (last one).  Click on the pictures to go to Missy’s illustrations page.

Thanks again, Missy, for coming on the show, and good luck with the new release!  Learn more about her work below:

Website: http://missysheldrake.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/missysheldrake

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/m_sheldrake/

Tumblr: http://etsyfairydawn.tumblr.com/

FB: https://www.facebook.com/MissySheldrake/and https://www.facebook.com/muralsbymissy

GR: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/13672249.Missy_Sheldrake?from_search=true&search_version=service

Amazon: www.amazon.com/dp/B00UVLQWGY

As always, thanks for listening!

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  • QR code email signup Signup for the mailing list for a free special edition podcast and a demo copy of The Thirteenth Hour!
  • Follow The Thirteenth Hour’s instagram pages: @the13thhr and @the13thhr.ost for your daily weekday dose of ninjas, martial arts bits, archery, flips, breakdancing action figures, fantasy art, 80s music, movies, and occasional pictures or songs from The Thirteenth Hour books.
  • Website: https://13thhr.wordpress.com
  • Book trailer: http://bit.ly/1VhJhXY
  • Interested in reading and reviewing The Thirteenth Hour for a free book?  Just email me at writejoshuablum@gmail.com for more details!

Your Star Will Glow Forever – Free x 48 hrs!

The illustrated children’s book, Your Star Will Glow Forever, that I wrote and illustrated this past fall as a Xmas gift for my daughter is now up for grabs on Amazon free:

http://amzn.to/1RzlrFI

This is a little essay about how the book was created:

http://marthareynoldswrites.com/2015/11/28/nov-28-meet-ri-author-joshua-blum/

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

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Now Available! Thirteenth Hour Throwing Cards – Instructional Kit and Handmade Training Cards

Now you, too, can throw playing cards like you favorite superpowered mutant.  Like I mentioned in this previous post, it’s not hard to learn to throw playing cards like Logan does in The Thirteenth Hour.  But it does help to know a little about the technique and have the right cards.

Wait no longer.  Thirteenth Hour throwing cards are now here.  You throw heavier, more rigid cards first in order to get the technique down, then work your way down to lighter cards until you;re throwing regular playing cards.  This kit is essentially a pair of “training wheels” to jump start your throwing while keeping your confidence up and frustration low.  They’re handmade and contain pictures from The Thirteenth Hour and come in different weights:

1.) laminated cards with Thirteenth Hour illustrations (weigh 5 g each) x 2
2.) unlaminated cards with Thirteenth Hour illustrations (weigh 3 g each) x 3
3.) regular playing cards (weigh 1 g each) x 3

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So you start with #1, then go to #2 when you have the throw down, then go to #3 when #2 is too easy.  At that point, you’ll be able to use a regular deck of playing cards you can find anywhere.

Comes with a set of instructions showing the basic throw and grip variations.

You can get them on the eBay store here or on my Square online store here.

UPDATE (2/15/16): Well, the first time I posted these on eBay, they were removed since eBay doesn’t allow weapons to be sold, and I guess “throwing cards” were flagged as potential implements of destruction.  It probably goes without staying, but I’ll paraphrase what’s said on the packaging on the cards themselves:

These aren’t intended as weapons!  Even in the book, Logan uses them as a distraction.  The idea that could you could seriously injure someone from thrown paper playing cards is not without its legends (see the original post for a book by magician Ricky Jay about it), but if you have any doubts, check out this Mythbusters episode where the myth of the lethal throwing card gets busted.  Ricky Jay actually makes a cameo as well).  However, you should still exercise caution, since if you get really good, you can cause small paper cuts, and walls and doors may get chipped.  That said, these are primarily novelty items.  If you’re seriously looking at them as a way of defending yourself, I wish I could say different, but there are many, many more effective ways!!  Throwing cards for self defense is probably best left in the realm of fantasy unless done for distraction, like Logan did in the book.  Of course, a handful or dirt or some coins to the face would do the same with much less practice, too.

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This clip, posted on Instagram and on the Youtube channel, shows the creation of the drawing used for the label:

ezgif.com-video-to-gif

UPDATE (2/18/16): There’s now a video showing the cards in action!

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The Thirteenth Hour Podcast #20: “Children’s” Literature

Episode #20: “Children’s” Literature

https://archive.org/download/13thHrEps16On/13th%20hr%2020.mp3

I’m deviating from the previous episodes today to talk about a few books generally classified as “children’s” literature, though in reality, they can probably be enjoyed as adults as well.  While not directly related to The Thirteenth Hour, they were books I enjoyed as a child, which influenced my love of reading, and later, or writing and creating stories.

The following links all go to Goodreads.  I also used the cover illustrations for the versions of the books as I remembered them, though there are updated covers now that make these ones look dated in comparison.  It just goes to show that these things are cyclical, and what’s popular and fashionable in one era may not be twenty years from now.

The Chronicles of Narnia

The cover for the fourth book in the Chronicles of Narnia series, The Silver Chair, which is different from the photorealistic covers fashionable in today’s books but still striking in my opinion.

A Wrinkle in Time

My Teacher is An Alien

The Girl with the Silver Eyes

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Happy holidays and best wishes for the new year!

As always, thanks for listening!

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thunderclap 13th hr picture_edited-1

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The Evolution of a Thirteenth Hour Illustration

Inspiration is an odd thing.  The muse comes, I find, at the oddest of times.  Sometimes she stays for fleeting moments; other times, she lingers for days.

When I was writing the passage below for The Thirteenth Hour, I thought it needed an accompanying image:

“… I’ll always remember the time we spent on those lonely strips of land. The night sky was beautiful there. I’d looked up at the night sky all my life, but this was the first time I really saw it. Looking up and seeing only a lifeless void of blackness whose only light came from tiny perforations in the alabaster mantle may seem frightening and lonely. And it was, at first. But it was comforting, too, because the sky, the open space, the wild terrain, it only accepted, it never asked me to be anything other than what I was. I felt that if I could just capture the feeling of those nights, bottle it, and store it in a safe place inside myself, I could ration it out to last the rest of my life, to erase the turmoil of the last year.”

But, alas, by the time the words were written, the muse had flittered away and stayed on extended sabbatical (at last as far as this image was concerned) for years.  A few weeks ago, however, she returned long enough for me to draft a picture, which eventually became the colorized image you see at the end of the post.  I documented a few steps along the way:

2015-10-01 13.45.55

Before the muse took off for good, I sketched this scene by hand in pencil.  I was trying to capture a vast landscape under a blanket of stars.  Like a Chinese landscape painting, small human figures are present to show how small they are in the grand scheme of this universe of empty wilderness.
2015-10-01 14.52.14

At this point, I have inked the outlines of landscape features such as the Milky Way band, the moon, and the ocean, preferring to stipple in shadows, sand, and other small details with the point of the pen.

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And now, the coloring process has begun.  Although I have begun using computers to make the drawing process easier, I still prefer drawing and coloring the initial print by hand (in this case using colored pencils).
star

The colors have now been laid out.  However, there are some details lacking, and the picture is still too light for it to be realistically happening at night.  So now, it’s time to scan the image and work on it digitally.

starlight This is the final image, doctored and detailed with Photoshop Elements. Although it is still brighter than it would be during a real night, there’s enough darkness to convey it’s night while still retaining the details of the beach and its sole inhabitants.

If you enjoyed this post, I’ll have more in the future.  Thanks, as always, for reading.

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Work in Progress – New Thirteenth Hour Drawing

Today, I started work on a new picture of Logan from the The Thirteenth Hour flying on Lightning (and doing a backflip while in the air).  I meant to do something like this some time back and even had some very similar mockup animations I created for a The Thirteenth Hour video game I was planning to make (but sadly did not get finished).  This is going back at least ten years, and not surprisingly given how long everything has taken, I’m finally getting to it now 🙂  Not quite done yet – did the hand drawing and coloring today and will do some touching up on the computer.  After sitting sketching, erasing, and coloring much of the day, I must say my shoulders are sore 🙂
2015-09-27 20.16.34  If you’re subscribed to the mailing list (below), you’ll get an advanced copy when it’s done!

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The Thirteenth Hour Version 2.0 Update for Kindle is Here!

The second edition Kindle updates for The Thirteenth Hour are now live!  See this post for additional details about the updates.  You can update your copy of the book to version 2.0 by going to the Kindle Manage Your Devices page:

www.amazon.com/myk

Thanks to everyone who purchased a first edition copy!  And many thanks to everyone who provided feedback along the way!

Stay tuned for additional work in the near future (short stories set in the same world as The Thirteenth Hour are coming soon!).

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The Thirteenth Hour is Getting Patched!

After a long week of editing, I’m relieved and proud to say that the second edition of The Thirteenth Hour should be live in the next few days.  Naturally, after I had finished the first edition, I ended up going through and finding a number of areas that I wanted to change.  I also wanted to incorporate some suggestions I’d received from people who were kind enough to read the book early on.

While important, most were not very interesting to write about at length (unless you like formatting and editing documents) – some areas where the spacing wasn’t quite right, a few areas with missing words, some sections that needed to be edited for brevity and/or internal consistency, and a bunch of grammatical corrections to make sure tense, number, and punctuation were as correct as I could get them.  I ended up doing two simultaneous edits – one for Kindle and another for the printed Createspace edition, which had different formatting.

It was a very tedious process, but I did learn something that will be helpful in the future. I discovered that I can’t catch little mistakes like this on a computer screen.  Despite trying to train myself to do more and more on a computer screen in order to save some trees, there’s nothing like paper.  So, I sacrificed one of my printed books to mark up.  There seems to be something about old fashioned paper and red marker that really brings out the crud (even more so than reading out loud, a previous editing trick I tried).  I guess I’m old school in that way.

I did a few tweaks to the pictures as well, including drawing two new pictures to the previously blank “Part 1” and “Part 2” pages of the first edition, like this one of Logan zooming up, up, and away on his flying hoverboard, Lightning.

logan lightning part2 pic

There was a picture I omitted from the first edition because something about it didn’t quite look right.  Like the picture above, I was aiming for a silhouette, like an old woodcut or illustration you might see in a children’s book from the 1950s.  It was of the two main characters, Aurora and Logan, and Aurora is kissing Logan goodbye as he leaves the orphanage they grew up in for the Army.  In this part of the book, Logan hasn’t quite hit his last growth spurt yet and is still shorter than Aurora.  He ends up growing a lot over the next year and a half, but in the original drawing (c. 1998, on the left below), I always thought I drew him too small to be believable given his age, and he seems a little too stiff, like he’s on trial or something.  So for the updated 2015 version (on the right), I made him a bit taller, but more slouched and ganglier, less confident.  He’s the same guy who later becomes the daring flying man in the picture above, so he eventually fills out in body and spirit, but at this point in the story, he’s still more boy and man, which is what I was trying to convey all along.

Angels voices part 1 picture comparisonSo this was the fun part of editing.  Hopefully, people who purchased the original on Kindle will be able to re-sync their devices and get the new updates, just like a software patch for a game.  I’m still learning how Amazon does this myself, but they discuss it on their Kindle publishing page.  I’ll be looking forward to seeing them in person myself!

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Influences Behind the Thirteenth Hour Part 1: Books

There are no new ideas, really.  But we do take things in our experience and make them our own by changing or tweaking a little here or there.

In the process of editing The Thirteenth Hour, I tried to reverse engineer where the various ideas making up the book came from (or contributed in some way, served as inspiration, or broadened my horizons).  This first in a series of several posts will look at what I came up with so far.  I’ve included links to goodreads and other sites where appropriate:

Books:

I read a lot as a kid, and while I always wanted to like fantasy books became they had cool covers, I always had trouble getting into them – the obscure name with a zillion consonants, the fact they they often just plopped you in the middle with little to no explanation of the backstory, the fact that it was usually impossible to find the first book in the series, leading you to have to to figure it out on your own, etc).  Some of those gripes are a thing of the past given you can find pretty much anything on the internet, but at the time, it was frustrating.  So I found myself gravitating to the ones that weren’t necessarily pure fantasy, were a little more user-friendly, and ideally, didn’t necessarily take themselves too seriously.  I’ve also listed some picture books, non-fantasy novels, and comics that I grew up reading that influenced the art and writing style in The Thirteenth Hour.

The Neverending Story by Michael Ende – probably the first fantasy style novel that I was able to successfully read.  The hardcover edition I read was printed in red and green text depending on which character’s story it was, which influenced me to do something similar with the text of The Thirteenth Hour.  I was about nine when I read it, and remember feeling very proud after finishing it – not only was it over 400 pages long, it was housed in the adult part of the library.  But it was also a book for grown ups that had pictures (the beginning of each chapter was adorned with a montage-style picture of the chapter’s contents), which blew my mind at the time, and has forever biased me to novels that also have illustrations.  It was also one of the many stories of the time that used the guise of a young protagonist getting sucked into the world of a story to advance the plot).

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams – my mother started reading this story to my brother and I when I was about twelve or so.  I ended up finishing the rest of the series on my own and always enjoyed the irreverent, dry humor of the book, which probably influenced the narrative of The Thirteenth Hour in some underlying ways).

Lost in Place by Mark Salzman – a memoir, actually, of author Mark Salzman’s childhood.  Probably one of my favorite books of all time because of the irreverent, honest writing style.  I read it as a teenager and particularly delighted at his descriptions of his martial arts training and his youthful obsessions to be an astronaut and kung fu monk, all of which I could relate to.  The writing style probably influenced me giving Logan from The Thirteenth Hour a similar voice).

The Teddy Bear Habit by James Lincoln Collier – I think I had to read this book in the sixth? grade.  I remember it being hilarious, and although it’s a product of the times (written in the 60s with lots of period slang throughout), that didn’t really seem to matter.  It’s a funny story, and the part I recall most fondly is the narrator, who’s a twelve year old but has the perspective of an adult.  Like the proceeding books on this list, the style influenced the first-person narrated sections of The Thirteenth Hour.

Mrs Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by Robert O’Brien – I think this was another one we had to read for school, but like The Teddy Bear Habit, it was a good choice.  This book also used the premise of a parallel world operating right under our noses (in this case, one of animals), which was (apparently) a common theme of a lot of stuff I liked then.  Like all those works, that idea probably influenced the creation of the world of dreams in The Thirteenth Hour.

Saint George and the Dragon by Margaret Hodges, illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman – a wonderfully illustrated and written version of the St. George tale.  We had a bunch of books illustrated by Ms. Hyman (see below for another example) when I was growing up, and the artwork probably influenced how I drew some of the scenes in The Thirteenth Hour.

Swan Lake by Margot Fonteyn/Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman – see above.

Bone comics by Jeff Smith – my brother had a few magazines when he was a kid (I think they were called Disney Adventures) that had a serialized version of the first few parts of this comic.  I later checked out a few volumes from the local library but never actually got around to finishing the rest of the story (it’s on my to do list).  But I really enjoyed the inked black and white art, probably one of the influencing factors behind the stylized, semi-cartoony look I gave the characters in The Thirteenth Hour.  Plus, this was the probably first time I’d seem a fantasy comic done in a graphic novel form.  I flirted with the idea of making The Thirteenth Hour into a comic, and even had some comic-esque scenes that I drew, but in the end shelved those for another day.  I think the only one that made it into the book was a frame where Logan is telling Aurora to run (and you can see the word bubble).

Logan with beardWM

Archie comics – my brother also had a ton of Archie comics which I’d occasionally read.  I don’t recall the stories being terribly engaging (except for one where Archie meets the Punisher – see the link!), but I did like the stylized way the characters were drawn.  I even tried tracing, then copying, a few to get the hang of drawing cartoons.  (I remember having a lot of trouble with eyes and noses and found it easier to make them look acceptable the way they were drawn in these comics rather than in a more photo-realistic way).  So, like Bone above, it influenced the art in The Thirteenth Hour.

Logan pushupsWM

Speaking of art, it took years, but I finally figured out that although fantasy novels were always a kind of plus minus experience for me, with a few key exceptions, what I really liked were the covers.  In other words – fantasy art.  There, it was all spelled out, so to speak – the entire story in one picture.  If you, too, enjoy pictures of surreal landscapes, dragons, and the like, check out the great fantasy art on deviantart.  The Thirteenth Hour has its own page there.

In the next post, I’ll transition entirely to visual media with movies and television programs that influenced The Thirteenth Hour.

 

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-Website: 13thhr.wordpress.com

-Art: 13thhr.deviantart.com/gallery

-Book Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpcIUpwTiFY

-Free itunes podcast of the book: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-thirteenth-hour-audio/id955932074

-Read free excerpts at https://medium.com/@13thhr/in-the-army-now-852af0d0afc0 and the book’s amazon site.

Now on Tumblr

This site now has a companion Tumblr site at https://www.tumblr.com/blog/13thhr

One of the great things about Tumblr is that it provides an easy medium to share pictures.  There are a number of pictures from The Thirteenth Hour there with captions from the text as well as other fantasy art pics.

Here’s the latest one:

Logan fighting sea serpent updatedWM

An excerpt and picture from “The Thirteenth Hour.”  Done in pencil.

“…Suddenly, without warning, there was a gigantic eruption from the sea.  Water sprayed all over the deck, drenching us.  I ducked beside the cabin.  When I looked up, I almost lost control of my bladder.  I was looking into a gigantic eye.  Then I saw another one.  The head of a gigantic beast slowly rose from the water.  It had greenish–grey skin covered with what looked like linear, keloid–like scars.  Water slid off the smooth surface and slowly dripped back down to the ocean as the beast uncoiled, rising above the masts of the ship.  Its head reminded me of a snake, with dark, primeval eyes that seemed to convey the only thought filtering through a primitive nervous system – attack …”

http://13thhr.deviantart.com/art/Logan-fighting-sea-serpent-updatedWM-504527451

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-Website: 13thhr.wordpress.com

-Art: 13thhr.deviantart.com/gallery

-Book Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpcIUpwTiFY

-Free itunes podcast of the book: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-thirteenth-hour-audio/id955932074

-Read free excerpts at https://medium.com/@13thhr/in-the-army-now-852af0d0afc0 and the book’s amazon site.

Artwork Now on DeviantArt

I’ve uploaded a number of images from The Thirteenth Hour onto a profile page on Deviant Art, an online gallery.  You can find high resolution images there.  If you just want to see a slidehow of all the pics, click here.

If you’ve never been to Deviant Art before, it’s a great place to find fantasy (and other )art by aspiring artists!  Check out some of these great images below – click the links to find more works by these artists.

http://www.deviantart.com/art/The-ruined-dragon-504346176  “The ruined dragon” by SandraMJ

 

http://mirri.deviantart.com/art/Wild-horses-130098650  “Wild Horses” by Mirri

 

http://mirri.deviantart.com/art/To-space-504138559  “To space” by Mirri (the character on the right has a hoverboard just like Logan from The Thirteenth Hour!)

 

http://www.deviantart.com/art/Archer-371636362  “Archer” by brianvade II

 

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-Website: 13thhr.wordpress.com

-Art: 13thhr.deviantart.com/gallery

-Book Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpcIUpwTiFY

-Free itunes podcast of the book: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-thirteenth-hour-audio/id955932074

-Read free excerpts at https://medium.com/@13thhr/in-the-army-now-852af0d0afc0 and the book’s amazon site.

How “The Thirteenth Hour” Began

I wrote  the first draft of The Thirteenth Hour the summer after I graduated from high school.  Writing it took about two months.  I remember it being a kind of pressured process; I had all these ideas floating around in my head, and it was almost a relief to get them down on paper just so they were somewhere else.  I didn’t think about publishing it and can’t say I had a specific audience in mind other than myself – it was simply a story that I wanted to read but had never quite found.

While I was writing the first draft, I drew pictures in a sketchbook, some of which ultimately made their way into the finished version of the novel.  Because I had created a whole world in my head by that point, text alone didn’t seem like it would be enough.  Some of my favorite books as a child were those that had hand drawn pictures scattered throughout the pages, and I knew I wanted visuals to add to the text.  Actually, what I had really wanted was video – whole scenes that played out like movies with full motion and sound.

I envisioned a sort of book that could be read as any ordinary one – with a cover, paper pages, and so forth, but when it came time for the pictures, the reader could press a button on the page, and a whole movie would play out on a flexible LCD screen built right into the page.  Of course, nothing like that existed then (and still doesn’t, as far as I know), so I had to settle for static, drawn pictures.  Although there were people doing digital art at the time, for the most part, that was still pretty new, and I didn’t know much about it, so stuck to traditional pencil and pen on paper.  However, I did use a scanner, which was fairly new technology (at least for our family), to import my pictures into the text.

At the end of the summer, I printed the manuscript out double sided in book-sized pages, made a cover, and bound it so it looked like a book.  I remember it being under 200 pages.  I showed it to my family, my first test audience, who read it and suggested I publish it one day.  It would be years before I would seriously consider it, but at that moment, I was content to hold that finished product in my hands, knowing that it was something I had created.

As I’ve grown older, I’ve come to appreciate the satisfaction that comes from having your work look different at the end than it does in the beginning.  It’s not something that happens in a lot of work we as humans do, because frankly, sometimes, at the end of the day, there is no difference, or things look worse, and you wonder why you bothered.  But at the end of that summer, I didn’t really know all that yet.  I just knew that it was a great feeling to have finished something I had wanted to do for so long.  Of course, that was just the beginning, but it’s what carried me forward in all the iterations, editions, and additions that the book has had since then.

 

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-Website: 13thhr.wordpress.com

-Art: 13thhr.deviantart.com/gallery

-Book Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpcIUpwTiFY

-Free itunes podcast of the book: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-thirteenth-hour-audio/id955932074

-Read free excerpts at https://medium.com/@13thhr/in-the-army-now-852af0d0afc0 and the book’s amazon site.