At The HorrorFest

Check it out, the guys from zoopy.com did a quick interview with me at the HorrorFest.

The Death of a Legend

I know this is a bit of a detachment from the regular crap on this blog, but bear with me.

I read this morning that Patrick Mynhardt died early yesterday.
The man was a living legend. An actor through and through and one of the best this country has ever seen. I did not know him personally, though I had the honour of reading opposite him for an audition a few months ago.

Many of you might know him better as Oom Schalk Lourens in theatre shows such as A Sip of Jerepigo, More Jerepigo, Just Jerepigo, Cold Stone Jug and Another Sip of Jerepigo all based upon Herman Charles Bosman's short stories. Others might remember from Vyfster or even Suburban Bliss.
Patrick was the Laurence Olivier of the SA stage. The man was a fucking legend.

And as all legends must go, Patrick died this morning in London where he was performing his Boy From Bethulie one-man-show.
As someone said, "he died with his boots on."

After studying at Rhodes University in Grahamstown, he joined the National Theatre Organisation in 1953 as an actor and started touring the country, according to his website, PatrickMynhardt.com. In 1954, he left for London where he trained at the Central School of Drama.

Performing on stage and for the BBC in Britain, he worked with such luminaries as Peter Sellers, Burt Lancaster, Anthony Quinn, Richard Harris, Peter O'Toole, Michael Caine and Judi Dench. At the end of 1960 he returned to South Africa.

In a 2002 interview with SouthAfrica.info he said he had no plans to retire. "Retire? What would I do? I can do nothing but talk shit," he said.

He added: "I just wanted to be a wonderful actor. Forget about regrets. If you've achieved your great desire in life, what else matters?"

- Mail & Guardian Online

I salute you sir, it was an honour to have known your work.
All hail the king.

The Coming Horror

So the HorrorFest starts tomorrow and I must admit I am really looking forward to it. Paul's managed to organised some awesome movies this year.
Particularly I'm looking forward to watching Alien on the big screen for the first time ever.
Many of us have seen the Ridley Scott classic so many times but most of us grew up with it on video. This will be my first time on the big screen.
I can't wait.

Of course the really exciting thing will be doing our first ever Cover Signing sessions on Saturday when our Issue 4 & 5 cover artists, Jesca and Vincent join us at the festival.
Issue 5 actually arrived today from the printers and it is really beautiful.
We were a little worried because we've completely re-designed the layout of the mag and I had no idea what it would look like printed. So huge relief all round. It really does look great.
If you haven't seen them already check out these sneak-peeks of the interior:

Bone Fire by Evan Morris with illustrations by Vincent Sammy

Hungry Whispers by David de Beer with illustrations by Kobus Faber

Auburn House by Stewart Langdon with illustrations by Nicolas Rix

Anyway... absolutely exhausted so I gotta go get some reading done and then sleep.
More tomorrow

Issue 5 - The Infinite Deadline

Wow...
Issue 5 is done and was signed off this morning.
It was, without a doubt, the hardest deadline we've pulled to date. A combination of dozens of stories to go through, awesome art to commission and a complete overhaul of the design and layout pushed this one a lot longer than we expected.

We were hoping to finish it off by Monday or maybe Tuesday at the latest... I finally delivered the pdfs to the printer at 11am on Thursday morning, having done 23 hours straight.

It kinda turned into the never-ending deadline.
We're used to pulling all-nighters on the final night of deadline - what we weren't expecting was the final night to go on for four days.

As a result I've got myself completely sick. My head hurts, my nose is blocked and for some strange reason I can't actually hear out of my right ear - which is infuriating and makes me feel like a tool whenever I'm talking to people.
And V has a week's worth of deadlines to catch up on for the other 3 publications she writes for, so she hasn't actually stopped working - she just put down her pen from Something Wicked and went straight into the 6-odd articles she was supposed to submit this week.... sheesh.

But... Was it worth it?
I think so. I did the ritualistic hanging up of the new cover on the wall next to the other 4 and it looks good. The new layout, I think, looks absolutely gorgeous. The logo, too, looks good and we've got some beautiful art and fiction - so...hopefully it was worth it.

We launch it next week Saturday at the HorrorFest and hopefully people will turn up. It's always a little petrifying doing an event like this 'cause you just don't know if anyone will show up.
I've invited some of the artists and writers of Issue 5 to join us and sign some copies so it should be a fun day.
Afterwards we'll stick around and watch some Horror Movies at the fest.

I was thinking of getting some Champagne or something - I don't know - it is our one year anniversary, we really should do something special but I don't know how well Champagne will go down in 30 degree Cape Town heat... any suggestions?

Meanwhile, here's a little pic our good friend and Something Wicked alumni, Digby C Young took of V and I on the first night of the four-night deadline.
The reason I'm on the couch is because my incredibly comfortable 500 buck office chair was beginning to screw up my back so I moved down there for the last few days. (I'm back at my desk now, in case you're wondering).

rAge - Gaming Convention 2007

Wow...it's been an insane couple of weeks.
I seem to always start these blogs with those lines...
Anyway.

We've been travelling again, this time just up to Joburg for 12 days for rAge, the biggest gaming convention in SA, which was held from the 28th to the 30th of September.

We had an absolute blast there, though it was utterly exhausting. So many people, so little time.
Thanks to our friends at Comic Worx and AnimeWorx we managed to obtain a last minute table from which to plug our wares. And plug we did.

We sold a ton of our new T-Shirts and sold-out of all the Issue 1 stock we took with us, (we have less than 20 left so buy yours now!!!)

We'd also like to thank all the subscribers, fans and artists who popped down to say hello - we always love meeting our fans and artists.

Artist Joe Doe popped in and surprised both Vianne and I by offering us two of her original artworks.
Wow, what an amazing gift - we were completely blown away.

Artist Joe Doe and Vianne at rAge



For those of you who couldn't make it, remember we'll be at the HorrorFest at Labia on Orange from the 26th of October with a brand new Issue 5 - Our One Year Anniversary Issue . And to commemorate the even we've asked Issue 1 cover artist Vincent Sammy to do our Issue 5 cover.

Wait till you see it!!!

Meanwhile enjoy some more of our pics from rAge:Lauren from Mephisto

Robyn - proud owner of an Issue 4 T-Shirt by Jesca Marisa