THE 52 WEEKS PROJECT (Responses)

[s.eidson]

My sympathies for your struggle. I have to ask, are the cat and the goldfish a nod to Dr. Seuss?

[gregthings]

Indeed. You are only the second person to catch that.

[tony g. brown]

dude, would that boy be considered a 27 point buck?  i'm getting my gun now!.

by the way, i picked up your akira piece, i'll mail the check tomorrow, (today for you).

that whole story is beautiful, even if it is a truncated version of the manga.  by the way, i have some of Steve Oliff's color pages from the Epic version of Akira that marvel put out. man that guy can color, even if they are on xerox copies.

[tony g. brown]

go ahead greg, put up a great drawing of a horse and wow the masses.  EASY!! why don't you pick something hard to make beautiful, like a patch of grass, eh, ya know, like Durer. let's see if your really worth all this high falutin' praise you get.

 just kidding,  wonderful drawing, as usual.

[gregthings]

Sorry... I cannot help it. Leaves of grass soon to follow... but first, a monkey a boy and chair of wood!

[tony g. brown]

Leaves of Grass!?

Now i know you are officially a New Englander.  Get back to your roots brother, go south and give me some ZZ Top, hahaha.

[gregthings]

Suck it Guaraldi I can do both! Don't frapadoodle with Uncle Walt! 

AND... I can claim the proud distinction of having shoe-polished the ELiminator when I was ten. (ZZ Top's drummer lived three blocks from me in Houston. 

[tony g. brown]

greg ruth, shoe polish boy, that should be your next pic. 

i'm just ribbin you.  man, i wished zz top lived 3 blocks from me when i grew up, instead i just had tumble weeds and hayseeds.

[Neil]

Wow, that Joan of Arc image is astonishing!!  I thought it was a photo when I first saw it as a thumbnail.  It's amazing what you can do with those brushes, Greg.

[gregthings]

Thanks Neil... I just hold the brush, and she does the rest.

I could sit in front of that film all day and draw it frame by frame. It's an absolute orgy of the most gorgeous black and white portraits! I find I'm strangely addicted to it- even now fighting the urge not to have it on in the studio on this cold rainy day while I apply edits to the Jack London book.... hmmmmm.....

[Duhville]

I think you hit the nail on the head with the Caesar portrait. The fact that he himself is a statue in the portrait is a great idea.

[andip.]

i once again noticed how i love your little anecdotes to your drawings. they´re always really thoughtful and entertaining!
(i mean, i don´t have to say that the frankenstein drawing once again is excellent  )

[gregthings]

Thanks for the Caesar love, Duhville- I'm glad you picked up on the statue thing. At this point it seems absurd to think of him in any other context other than a marbleized ediface... we only see him as a man through the lens of his myth.

Thanks also Andip for the Franky kudos- I'm still sort of editing that particular note, but should have the final version ready for monday's mailing. I hope. It's actually from a friendly argument Allen Spiegel and I had while we were in a pitch meeting at Penguin this last month when we all noticed a lot of the books I was pitching surrounded naughty children or villainous characters.

[tony g. brown]

haha,  i can totally see allen telling you in his passive way 'sure if that's the direction you want to go, then that's fine...' eyebrows slightly raised, head slightly cocked to one side, silent judgement.

so what, are all your stories about kids. well yeah, who do you think controls your life right now, it ain't your wife and it certainly hasn't been you for a looong time.   

'let's hear for the kids
let's hear it for the babies'

...old '80s pop song.

[gregthings]

heh... well that sounds like someone else. Allen and I never seem to keep our selves to ourselves, no matter where we may be. I think the editor we were seeing thought it was amusing... hope so at least.

I just think there's so much rich ground in kids characters- whatever they may be they're still nascent humans, so there's a lot of intrigue and drama built into the system. Shawna Gore pointed out that most or all of my books have revolved around kids since way back to the earliest Matrix story, and even Sudden Gravity. Which was a shocker to me... so I guess it's always been baked in the cake. Or I have a lot of childhood issues I'm working through... which is more likely the situation.