Goodbye, 2008!

So, it is times like this that inevitable cause you to look back on the year that was and begin to focus your attention on the year to come. Quite frankly, I’m ready to get rid of 2008 and put it behind me. 2008 was pretty crappy. With the whole “economic downturn,” struggling with high gas prices, and constantly being reminded how mired in trouble our country is in, I’m ready to move on to the promise of a new year.
Things weren’t all bad. I’ve made massive strides in my comic book career, having more comics actually hit the shelves and several more projects in the works. Secret Invasion rocked comic book stores. Iron Man, The Dark Knight, and The Incredible Hulk ruled the box office. The New York Giants won the Super Bowl in February and then turned around the next season and won 12 games and is in the playoffs with a number one seed. Prison Break continued to prove why it is one of the best shows on television. And games like Tomb Raider: Underworld, Rock Band 2, and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed kept me glued to my XBOX 360.
Still, I am tired of struggling. I’m tired of living from paycheck to paycheck. It seems like things that Amy and I have done have kept up focusing on the future. Finally, I am hoping that 2009 will be the year when the future finally gets here. I can’t tell you how excited I am to finally have Amy and I advancing our careers. I am hoping that 2009 can see me making the conversion to writing full time.So please join me in ringing out the old and welcoming the new. So long, 2008. I cannot say that you will be missed. And for all my bloggers, as always, I hope the best of your past is the worst of your future. I’ll take a cup o’ kindness yet. See everyone next year!!!

Merry Christmas to Everyone!

I’m taking some time out of my day off to send along my annual holiday wishes to friends, co-workers and family so the time doesn’t slip away. I hope everyone has had a great year. We here at the Foley household are doing quite well and I figure now is the best time to get everyone caught up this year.
It seems like over the last few years, Amy and I have been focusing on our plan. We have been planning for our future. Well, finally, all those plans are paying off and we are focusing more on the future rather than the plan for the future. We are both making huge strides in our perspective careers. While 2008 was a bit of a struggle at times, I truly feel that 2009 is shaping up to be one of our best years to date.
Looking back on 2008, I think that I have officially slogged my way through my last year at my 9-to-5 job at Reasor’s. I love the people that I work with but the job itself is less than satisfying and, with each passing day, I find myself longing for my true path. It is steady, reliable work and I am guaranteed my paycheck every two weeks… but it is just not what I am destined to do.
My light at the end of the tunnel is Amy’s nursing school. She continues to dominate at school, making excellent grades and establishing lots of network contacts with her clinicals. And let’s face it. Gaining a job as a LPN is not going to be difficult. Amy has levels of compassion that I am not capable of and while she is still early in her planning, she wants to become a SANE nurse – that stands for Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner. I want you to think about the type of person that particular profession would take. Imagine a woman that has experience possibly the most traumatic experience of her life and Amy wants to be that kind and helpful hand of reassurance that says, “I’m going to help you through this and my what I am going to do for you will convict the man that did this to you.” That takes a special person. And I write stories involving muscle men in capes and spandex… Wow.
So she is on the downhill slope with her schooling. When this happens (I am going to say in April), I will either quit or cut back to two days a week at Reasor’s and focus on writing full time – which I will be able to do with her having the steady paycheck.
This dovetails me into my next segment. I believe that I have turned a major corner with my comic book career. Having hooked up with Campfire Comics and continuing to work with past companies like Arcana Studios and a surprise job from MVCreations this past year, I am continuing to write funny books for a living. I had the Penance: Trial of the Century comic released in stores this year. I am not certain on the sales but Internet buzz was really good for the story. I also had a script I was involved with released on a DVD that was sold at Wal-Mart. I remember walking through the store and seeing it on the shelves, saying, “My comic is on that DVD.” That is pretty frickin’ cool. And I could not be happier.
I think it is rare for people to find their true calling and it is even rarer to be able to make a living at it. So typing away doing stories, either costumed superheroes, sword-and-sorcery fantasy, adapting classic fiction, or presenting a modern retelling of ancient myths, this is the path that has chosen me and I could not be happier to walk it.
Despite being pressured by working a forty-hour workweek and trying to get my pages done while working, when I am writing, I am at my happiest. So if I drop off the grid every once in a while and if you don’t hear from me, it is probably because I am hip deep in a script. I cannot wait to tell everyone about the projects I have forthcoming.
The kids are all doing very well at Osage. I am happy to have everyone at the same school to save on gas prices. Alex (now 12-years-old) played basketball again this year and is continuing to excel at his drawing. I think we are going to post some of his work on eBay just to see if anything might happen. (Even if it sells for a dollar, he is officially paid as an artist!)
As he gets older Jason (10-years-old) becomes more and more like me everyday. (God help him.) He has struggled a bit this year with his anxiety attacks but we are using a double-headed attack to help him cope with this. What frustrates me the most is that he is ten. No kid his age should have anxiety.
Lauren (5-years-old) wakes up genuinely excited for school. When the kids were out of school with the ice storm, she was extremely disappointed. I tell her to hug her brothers hoping her exuberance will rub off on them. She has become quite girly overnight and is concerned with her hair and dressing up like a princess. She certainly thinks that she runs the household.
So that is the official report from the desk of Ryan. We have a good family life. I would be lying if I said I could be happier. We don’t have any problems a lottery win wouldn’t cure. Career-wise, I am on my way. Amy is right behind me. The kids are good. No serious health problems. The bills are paid. We aren’t starving and we have heat in the winter and cool in the summer. Only my nightmarish addiction to Marvel Legends Action Figures continue to torment the family causing an inevitable divorce or a massive sale on eBay about ten minutes after I am buried in the ground. But if that is the worst of the problems, we are doing pretty good.
My only real complaint is that this year has seen my relationships stretched with my friends because of distance and time. Life pulls everyone in different directions. It is an unfortunate side effect of life and career… but hopefully letters like this help me maintain my contact.
My mom used to say that Christmas loses its magic a little bit every year until you have children. And then when you have kids, it all comes rushing back. There are all sorts of presents under the tree. Amy is baking, filling the house with great smells. We watch movies like Elf, Fred Claus, The Grinch, Jingle All the Way, and Home Alone. The kids are bursting at the seams with excitement. Man, it is just a great time. There’s a lot of positive energy flowing around in the house and my biggest struggle is denying the kids the chance to open the presents early. I hope that you and your family are just as good and happy. Have a great holiday. Embrace the spirit of this wonderful season. And my ultimate wish for everyone getting this little note is the same as always:

May the best of your past be the worst of your future…

Merry Christmas, everyone.

Birthdays, Weather, and Other Such Things…

I’ve been out of touch for a few days and there are a few things to catch my fellow bloggers up on.

The Birthday: On the 10th, I celebrated my 34th birthday. “Celebrated” is kind of a loosely used word. Because of a minor bout of food poisoning, I spent most of the morning on the couch under a mound of blankets and the second half… Well, you don’t have to stretch your imagination too far. And given how last year we were hit with a major ice storm that knocked out the power for a week, I’m on a real birthday cold streak.
And I have found that when dealing with birthdays and that second number eclipses the first, you tend to look back and wonder where the years have gone. But I’m not laboring or lamenting about it.

A Really Slow News Day: So clearly NewsOK.com (an offshoot of The Oklahoman) is experiencing a pretty slow news day on the 12th because of the article that was posted on the web and was available in that day's printed issue.
It was an article all about some no-talent hack that has bribed his way into the comic industry by blackmailing publishers with compromising pictures and committing nightmarish amounts of extortion and plagiarism.
Check it out... Click Here

Weather: I know. When you have resorted to talking about the weather, the party is pretty much over. But seriously, you guys. American humorist Will Rogers (who’s home town in about twenty-five miles from me) coined the phrase, “If you don’t like the weather in Oklahoma, wait five minutes and it will change.” On Sunday the 14th, we saw a record high of 75 degrees and then in the space of a few hours we were hit by sleet and freezing rain that left the roads hazardous to travel. The next day we saw highs that didn’t get out of the teens.
So the ice storm, if you can really call it that, has left the kids out of school for the last three days and Amy struggling with cabin fever. I can deal with staying in the house for days at a time but Amy can’t take it. And as one of my favorite novels once said, “The only thing worse than caging a kender, is being in a cage with a kender.”
Kind of the same deal. Thank goodness the schools opened back up and Amy was able to get out of the house.

More information coming soon. Keep in touch. Only one week to Christmas!

Taking A Little Extra Time for a Good Belly Laugh…

I love to laugh. I know a lot of people might say that but it seems like not everyone lives it. Laughter is very important to me and just as important I like to make people laugh. I think laughter is infectious that can change the entire atmosphere of a location. This brings us to my “Quotes of the Week.”
At my job, I have a clipboard hanging up when you walk in the department that I place a quote for my fellow employees. I’ve been doing it for well over a year now. Often, the quotes can be insightful. I have quoted Mother Theresa and Dr. Martin Luther King. Sometimes, they are topical relating to the season or current events. But when possible, I like to use humorous quotes.
Jack Handey, Demetri Martin and Lewis Black are great sources for quotes. But I found an anonymous quote that was a perfect follow up for Mother Theresa. And the first time I read it, I peed a little bit. I now humbly present that quote for you. Spread it around, use it as you see fit…
“I hope when I die, I go peacefully in my sleep like my Grandfather. Not screaming, like the passengers in his car.”

Cashin’ Checks and Giggling All The Way to the Bank

I have often talked about how I giggle like a little girl every time I cash a comic book paycheck. I feel like I am playing with the house’s money. I think, “I can’t believe they pay me for this…” But some recent events have put some things into perspective for me. So stay with me as I take you on a magical journey down a yellow brick road. But be forewarned. Much like Dorothy’s path, it is a bit of a winding road…
In Mick Foley’s book Foley is Good, he talks about the unprecedented number of people that never pick up a book again after they get out of education. It is actually quite disgusting. Think of this, if a book sells a million copies, it is a superstar best seller. If a movie only sells a million tickets, it is a flop. For someone to read a 700-page book, it can be quite intimidating. This is why I am so impressed with kids who read the last four books of the Harry Potter series. So if reading a 700-page book can be intimidating, imagine writing one… Now I will scale it back a little bit.
Over the last few months, I have been writing 80-page graphic novels. That is it is 80 pages of art. The scripts for these books usually run close to 100 pages of type, not counting character profiles and visual guides for my artist. I love to type on the computer but I prefer to edit from a hard copy. So when I edit during my lunch hour at my 9-to-5 job, I walk into the break room at my work and drop the hard copy on the table. Many people – especially the high school kids – are tremendously put off by the size of the script. Most people are intimidated to read a 100-page script, much less write one.
And because of that, I realize that what I do is pretty darn special… because not everyone can do what I do. I am not saying that my job is hard because it does come rather easily to me. Could anyone write comics? With the right training and mentoring, it is possible but I cannot see a person doing it for a living unless they truly love it. Holding yourself at that keyboard is something that is done out of love. And if your heart isn’t in it, you shouldn’t be.
My mom used to always complain about how much professional athletes are paid. However, I could put every single person in the state of Oklahoma on a football field and say, “Tackle New York Giants’ running back Brandon Jacobs and I will pay you $500,000.” Yeah, tackle this 264-lbs freight train. How many could do it? Not many. Which is why they should get paid the big bucks. And I won’t even talk about athletes contributions to the economy… Still, if you can do something that not a lot of people can do, you should be compensated financially for it.
Now, just to prove my point, let’s take it in a different direction. I work right now in a job at my local grocery store. I don’t make minimum wage but I like to call it “minimal wage.” I’ve worked in the place for a while and occasionally you work with these employees that think, “This place would fall apart without me.” At one time, in my youth, I thought I was that employee. But the truth is it wouldn’t. Right now, if you think you might be this employee, sorry, you are not. With or without you, the show will go on.
I like to say that it is just a grocery store. It is not a nuclear missile silo. We are not making heart and lung machines. And as movie producer Les Grossman once said, “A nutless monkey could do your job. Seriously. A nutless monkey.” We had a new employee come in and she was trained in a week. She has now been involved for three months and is doing an excellent job. The translation is that I could be easily replaced. I freely admit it. So I probably should not be paid a tremendous amount of money.
Of course, when I see how much money the company makes with so little compensation for its employees… Well, it doesn’t really inspire me to work very hard. With an hourly wage and no profit sharing, I get paid the same if we have 200 customers an hour or 2. And I think this is a major downfall for many companies. I am smart enough to recognize this problem but I am not intelligent enough to fix the problem or suggest a way to improve the American business landscape. I write stories involving muscle guys in spandex and capes. But sometimes just acknowledging a problem is the first step…

Saying “Au Revoir” to Work, Free Time and the Family…

Ah the national obsession that has become video games. My family is a gaming household. I freely admit it. Nintendo Wii. Nintendo DS. Nintendo Game Cube. And that is just my kids. I have my occasional PC game but I am a die-hard XBOX 360 fan. And like all gamers, there are certain series that capture your attention. Everyone has a different one but there is always that one game – that one series – that captivates, mesmerizes, and leaves you salivating outside the steps of the local Game Stop, stalking employees.
For me, that game is TOMB RAIDER.
November saw the release of TOMB RAIDER UNDERWORLD, which is the eighth game in the series and the third for the XBOX 360 console. Needless to say, this has been consuming a lot of my free time. A lot. I mean a lot. So much so that I have gotten the stare.
You all know it. The temperature on the other end of the couch drops a few degrees. You can feel the two glowing pinpricks of red light that were once eyes burning pure hatred into the side of your neck. There is that sharp, dissatisfied exhale of breath. And it is always at the point where you have to make a death-defying leap on your motorcycle or when a nasty, giant spider is bearing down on you. And the cold, emotionally detached voice says, “Are you going to play that game all night?”
But this game is frickin’ intense as Lara smooth calls the situation, “I need Thor’s hammer to kill a god…” And she doesn’t understand why this consumes my life so. For those of you out there that are uninitiated, check the links at the bottom and I think you will understand the obsession.
Gotta go. More caverns to explore. More monsters to fight. More tombs to raid.

Official Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9l3tfRfLXw
Game Play Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVIk8B9XdG4

Family Traditions & Gearing Up for the Next Holiday

It is strange what can spark memories and trigger emotions. I have always felt that my “first” family always seemed a little too fancy for me. On Thanksgiving, my mom would set the table with full place settings, cloth napkins, and even the little ring holders for said napkins. It was always nice if a bit much but I always came away saying that it is better to be able to fit in with either the cloth napkin crowd or the paper towel crowd when necessary. My mom always held this dream of these Norman Rockwellian holiday experiences… and I was always afraid that it would fall short and she would be disappointed…
My mom has been gone for several years now and my “first” family is now scattered to the winds. So I have taken my wife’s family as my “second” family. The gatherings are always loud and crowded but there is also a lot of laughter and jokes. It is a downhome, family atmosphere. But because of the size of the gatherings, it is very hard for everyone to sit down together. So it is more paper plates and plastic forks and lots and lots of food. It is a great atmosphere…
And yet, this year, I find myself longing for that community that comes from everyone sitting around the table together. My mom would always do the cheesy, cliché passing around the table where everyone would say what they are thankful for. And while I felt that the cloth napkins and dining together was too fancy (at the time), for some reason this year, I find myself missing that. Strange.
I’ve always said that if I won the lottery, I would build a small “community center” like the town of Adair has that would have a full kitchen, bath facilities, and enough space to allow big communal meetings without impinging on anyone’s home. (This would double as the place to play the weekly poker game too.) I think that would be a really nice thing to have…
Still, I am feeling good about this year. I do have a lot to be thankful for. We are probably now close to 80% done with our Christmas shopping, I didn’t gorge myself too much, and leftovers were minimal (so I am not eating turkey for a week and a half). I did have to work in the morning but I just kept telling myself that this is the last year that I have to do it.
I hope everyone else had a great Thanksgiving. Just think, Christmas is only 24 days away…