I have decided to switch to tumblr because I like it better! Therefore this blog is now old and my new blog is here: http://daleberan.tumblr.com/

My hope is that enough people start illustrating ST:TNG_S8, it will  generate some interest for Star Trek on the internet and they will bring back the show. For those of you who don’t know, it was tragically cut short after seven season and four movies, though we had all hoped to see it run until the end of time.

This was inspired by John Allison’s awesome ST:TNG_S8 illustration– which was actually commissioned by the author. Much like Joan of Arc, I was commissioned by god alone.

Hello All,

A new Time Picnickers page is up this week. And another should go up by the end of the month. My first Occupy Comic is in Occupy Comix #1. You can read the issue free here. I also added a donate button to the site if for some perverse reason you want to encourage me to keep making comics. All funds go to patch the tattered holes in my clothing, sprightly songs about orphans and chimneys, and the search for my motivations– though not necessarily in that order.

Well, this comic is now outdated. As I’m sure you know, Zuccotti Park has been raided in a para-military style assault in the early hours of Tuesday morning. This time around, the city accused the protesters not of harboring suspicious packages, but of possessing an Iraq-like hoard of imaginary secret weapons. According to the city’s legal papers, the city is pretty darned sure the protesters have weapons because the police saw “discarded mace” after 700 protesters were arrested (and some maced) on the Brooklyn bridge on October 5th.

They also alleged that “makeshift weapons… such as cardboard tubes with metal pipes inside” have been observed in the park. To shed some light on this second allegation I’ll quote from the NLG’s Know Your Rights! Pamphlet, “Police will seize signs on wooden sticks, metal and pvc piping; it’s OK to attach signs to cardboard tubing.” In other words, the law has hedged protesters into only using cardboard tubes. But in the terrified imaginations of those writing the legal brief, even the (com)pliant cardboard tubes, if one digs deep enough, must conceal, like all unknowns, hidden dangers. As I write this now, protesters are being unconstitutionally removed from the park for yet a third time.

I just sold a science fiction short story, Drowned by Molly Ann Friday, to the Machine of Death anthology series. There is an interesting caveat however: I am not quite exactly sure when or where the story will appear!

The first Machine of Death book was wildly successful. And the second volume (to which I submitted) received almost 2000 submissions out of which only 30(ish?) were accepted. Editorial triumvirate  North, Bennardo, and Malki ! said they didn’t know if my story would fit into Machine of Death Vol. 2. But if it didn’t, they wanted to publish it by some means which they would figure out soon. The length is a problem. If I recall, the editors requested stories roughly between 200-7,500 words. So knowing that it’s always charming (not exasperating) to people when I break the rules but only slightly, I sent them one which was about 8,060 words (to give non-writers some idea, my entire novel– albeit a short novel– is 51,000 words– so this story is roughly 1/6th the size.)

I’m very pleased with the story and I’m excited to share it with you in whatever form it eventually takes.  Naturally, I feel tremendously lucky to be chosen out of such a prodigious number of writers. I have suggested to the editors that the story take the shape of a mighty eagle, descending a mountaintop, clutching an irrefutable golden scroll– as it originally appeared to me in my vision– but have yet to hear back.

Here’s a word “death cloud” of all the submissions for Vol. 2. As you can see– if winds are right– we could take out the entire eastern seaboard:

In recent days, I’ve been enjoying reading those stories that didn’t make the cut. A lot of folks have been posting them on their blogs and linking them via twitter.

You can also read the first volume of stories as a free ebook.

I must thank my Dates Worse Than Facebook Group for urging me to send in a submission. They already know they’re awesome but I’ll just remind them here again.

Here’s a comic I wrote about Occupy Wall Street. It’s drawn by Cricket. There’s a new page of Time Picnickers coming in a few days I just have to uh… draw it.

After I wrote this comic I saw Ted Rall did one on a very similar theme. Ted actually found a better quote in the N.Y. Times to exemplify “Juke-Think”. But you know, after they put up the pay-wall, I just can’t find the heart to Firefox>>Tools>>Private Browsing. That’s right, I said it, the Op-Ed  pages are not even worth turning off your cookies!

Ted also has a good article about generation Y (Is that really what we’re called?) here.

Addendum: How could I forget GM’s hilarious aborted ads and public twitter apology for it’s “reality sucks… but luckily the GM college discount doesn’t” anti-bike campaign from earlier this month?

All of this is via Bike Snob

That’s right, if you’re on a bike, photoshopped women with burnished cheeks will laugh at you. Ready to buy a truck? It’s only um… I can’t read the fine print. I’m sure it’s up there, and of course gas isn’t all that cheap, and well, there’s the financing plan which is like another 5-10% on 20-25K. But it’ll be monthly payments and at least all your friends will know you’re cool now cause you have that sort of enormous truck that GM swore they would stop making when the government bailed them out of bankruptcy a few years ago because the things proved intensely hated and unpopu– Whooops….

At least last time they tried this, America was rich, the auto reigned supreme, and they were clearly high:

Last week, Mayor Bloomberg had dismissed the protests in Zuccotti Park as a weather related thing and said the protesters could stay as long as they pleased, assuming in his motherly way that they’ll just sort of get it out their system. Then we could all return to that most sublime of all states, business as usual.

But just three days later Bloomberg changed his mind after receiving a letter from Brookfield Management citing (I swear to god) suspicious packages. He decided to clean out the park using a method that I’ve always found effective for hard to remove embarrassing stains: the pre-dawn raid. He gave the protestors, I think, about 12 hours notice. The protestors could return, he claimed, just not with sleeping bags and camping equipment or what a federal judge might call “their constitutionally protected means of expression”.

I biked down there early on October 14 when the raid was scheduled. All the streets were dark and empty and I wasn’t sure how many people would arrive to stand with the protesters. But a few blocks away from the park, I heard an enormous roar and smiled. The park was jam packed, filled to the brim with supporters.  Unlike previous visits, after entering the crowd, I couldn’t really move from my spot. There were too many people.

Here are the photos:

The General Assembly tells us to all link arms around the perimeter:

But at the 11th hour the mass-arrest is called off. The cleaning has been “postponed” since the management company believes it can “come to an arrangement” with the protesters. This message doesn’t come from Bloomberg but rather from the “deputy mayor”, as if Bloomberg himself is off attending to more important affairs and can’t be bothered with scheduling errors, or really, errors of any sort. Cheers break out, a brass band springs from the crowd, playing raucous celebratory New Orleans style jazz:

Police officers have lined the park with barricades that morning and so it is difficult to move around. It is impossible for all of us to stay in the park and protest. People spread out to march north and south  in celebration. Here officers line the north side of the park. Behind them is “Ground Zero”.  A new office tower rises, half-finished, beside the hole. Behind it, in the mist somewhere, is the equally half-baked “Freedom Tower”.

The threat diminished, immediately a girl falls asleep in a barrel:

Turning around from the girl in the barrel, I see Hipster Cop and less stylish police higher ups huddled in discussion. I hope they are thinking of joining the protests soon.

The infamous sign:

One of the numerous bronzes in the city dedicated to the shackled spirit:

Reporting…

And here come the sweepers! Wheeeee…..

Walking back from the arrests on Maiden Lane, a police officer ducks as I photograph him. Later I learn just how ignoble the scene was. The N.Y.P.D. had run over an observer with the National Lawyer’s Guild with their scooter, then left it parked on his leg as he pursued someone else! Yikes!

On my way back home, quite far away from the protests, beneath the Williamsburg bridge, police officers are chatting, and tending to a man with a bloodied head as he sits on the edge of a paddy wagon. You can see him getting arrested in the scooter video. At first, I thought the badge hanging around his neck was a press pass, but perhaps it identifies him as an observer for the N.L.G.

Here’s a pic of Marie-Antoinette from earlier in the week:

Many people think the protests are ridiculous or gross, perceiving the thing as a pile of dirty kids camping in an otherwise nice park. But in fact, the opposite is true. That place was ridiculous and gross before the protesters got there. It existed as a sort of barren marble sepulcher. Business men would line up to eat their lunch on the stone slab that marked the entrance, never really wanting to go inside. Nothing was there unless you count the McDonalds and the Bank of America ATM. Like most of midtown and the financial district, it existed as a middle-nowhere, a means to get to and from work. You only lingered there if you were forced to, if you had nowhere else to go. The protesters have done nothing but civilize it. Now there’s art, discussion, and lectures by the world’s leading intellectuals, all for free. Here’s some photographs of the library from early last week:

Dearest Readers,

I’ve begun a new comic! It’s here and yes it is about gourmands who travel through time searching for fresh ingredients. Scripted out it looks to be very long. But not to worry! I plan on a updating every week for the next few months. This I swear! I’m working on two books at the moment, editing Dates Worse Than Fate for publication (of some sort) and I’m about halfway through a second book, a science fiction novel entitled (working) The Savage Twins. Here’s the first few pages from when I started the second book as a comic then decided I preferred to put it in novel form. So there you go! More free comics (albeit ones you will only be able to finish in novel form some time in the indefinite future)! Also, as a sign of my loosening grip on my own priorities/moral compass, I’ve joined twitter!

Hey Bros and Broettes,

I’ve made a website for my novel where you can read some excerpts. It is here!