Hey Now, Hey Now...

Sometimes, you just don't feel very happy.

Self Portrait(s), Hand(s)

This is the start of an idea I'd had a while ago. Apologies for the lack of a truly finished product, but I think it works interestingly as is. Note that the paper is blank.

Apologies as well for the lack of any real update. Life has been, as they say, interesting. Up, down, most points in between, it only proves the says "Changes aren't permanent, but change is". Also, "Expect the unexpected". Hopefully I will have something at least marginally artistically-inclined to post next time, or else I'll subject you to the oft-threatened written post. Perhaps about music. Or perhaps set to music.

Anyway, to the Land of Nod with me.

Music: "When The Day Met The Night" - Panic! At The Disco

One Little Victory

When it comes down to it, I think the little things are what make the strongest impact in our lives. To be sure, there are momentous, life-changing events, those ones that are marked down either on a calendar or in our hearts, those ones we always seem to associate with a date: beginnings, milestones, endings. These events most people recall most readily when discussing a particularly great or terrible time in their lives. For me, this year has been the kind of year punctuated by these dates, events marked in my mind and in my heart, and no doubt, in the years to come, I'll look at a calendar and begin a countdown to the anniversaries of those dates held so close to me, and the days will seem a bit more grey, life a bit more listless, time a bit more wearying. Those times will wear at me. Those times will be reminders (as if my life isn't a constant reminder) of all I've lost, of all we've lost, this past year, these past years. These events are like anchors in a soul, if not dragging one down, then certainly slowing him down, making it so terribly hard to move, to move on.

And then there are those events that will never appear on a calendar, never marked by milestones, nor celebrations, not noted by the date nor by some other sign so obvious. Instead, those events will be remembered and revered at the most inconspicuous times, triggered by the most minor of reminders, bringing out a feeling of light and life and love that just overwhelms that grey, listless and weary dreary existence. It reminds you that you are alive, and life, no matter how bad it can sometimes seem, is ALWAYS worth living. Where there is life, there is always hope. These little things, these ones that ultimately mean so much, can happen every day. It doesn't have to be much: it can be something as simple as having an unexpectedly deep conversation with your mom, spending a few minutes laughing with kids, of any age, or spending a weekend with your friends, just... watching TV, or going shopping, or going to a bake sale. Whatever! These little things will be those things you look back on, days or months or years later, and say to yourself "THAT'S when life got better for me."

I've spent this past year surrounded by death. What should've been a mental and emotional rebirth of sorts for me has instead been hammerblow after hammerblow to me, to my family, and to some of my oldest and dearest friends. I'd been so slowed down, so worn down, by all this death and loss, I hadn't even realized just what kind of toll it had taken on me. All those events marked on those calendars from now on, all those dates I'll dread to see coming up...

But now, finally, I've also seen all those events that get no marks on calendars, those little victories that take so much of the sting out of that loss and bring sweetness and joy back to life. I've finally seen and realized how important those are to me- just as important as all those losses I'm reminded of, I'll be looking back at those little victories and remind myself of all I have, and all I've gained.

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Crimebuster

I'm back.

So, here's the second part of my attempt to 'loosen up' my drawing. At this point, Sean had seen what I was doing/not doing, and told me to really loosen the drawing- to not try to hit the image right away, but to just let the pencil draw what it will, and find the shape in it- like a cloud(Sounds very Zen, I know). This time, I actually took to heart what he'd said, and so I think the results came out much better. After trying for more of the same with the first cloak, I really just let myself start drawing with the second... and ended up drawing a cross between Nite Owl and, in my opinion, myself. First, Nite Owl is a character from The Most Influential Graphic Novel of All Time, aka Watchmen, and second, it's a pudgy guy with glasses. Combine the two, and that's what you get. I'm really pleased with how he turned out, especially since I didn't know it was him until I was partway through. Somehow, I think I managed to capture a fair bit of emotion in him, through his pose and posture. Anyway, it was cool. Finished with a quick sketch of some superwoman-type and a REALLY vague sketch of a face from a DVD case. There's definitely more to come from this loosy-goosy style, to be sure.

The weekend was excellent, as always. Delightful company, wonderful weather (hey! No hurricanes!), fantastic food, unexpected and awesome conversations, and kids- who can ask for more? I also got to draw, if only a little bit. Which is fine, as I wasn't in the mood for much drawing. Also got to take plenty of pictures with the new phone, some of which I'll post here soon. There's probably some commentary to be had on the weekend in general, but we'll see what happens. I will say, that I was very fortunate to be able to get caught up with some good friends who I haven't seen since leaving- it did my heart good to see them, and made the mad dash to get down to MD by Wednesday night more than worth it. If only I could drive down there every other Thursday... Anyway, it was great to be there, and I can't wait to visit again.

Okay, so there was a little commentary on the weekend. Sorry.

More to come!

Music: "Tonight and the Rest of My Life" - Nina Gordon

2k1cen digital boy

Sunset

Nope, no drawing today. The long weekend made for a short week... so to speak. It was a fun and eventful weekend, with plenty of twists and turns. Mainly, I was able to spend plenty of time with my family AND my other family, the Weavers. Best of all, on Monday both families got together for some good food, fun games, and great company, courtesy of Clan Weaver. My nephew Kevin dropped by Saturday night (from 6 hours away) to spend a little time with the family and to pick up some equipment: He's studying to become a diesel mechanic, just like his grandfather. Needless to say, we're all very pleased and proud of him. No doubt Dad is smiling down on him... Also, I was able to help out my niece Emily with some drawing tips. Drawing runs in the family! It's only a matter of time before she's set up on DeviantArt!

Oh yeah- I got myself an HDTV.

And a PS3.

It's good to be gainfully employed ;)

One of the things I'm really looking forward to is hooking up the computer to the TV, so I can finally work in a scale large enough so I don't have to keep zooming in and out to look at the picture in Photoshop. Well, that's the plan, at least.

Anyway, that's my weekend. And, that's why there's no drawings to post here today. That doesn't mean there are no drawings coming, though. Thanks to some drawing time during the weekend, I hope to have something posted mmmaybe this Friday. We'll see.
Here's a hint:

"In Blackest Night".

I know- what a rubbish hint ;)

Music: "Analog Kid" - Rush

Angelic?

It's only a matter of time before I'm posting to LOLCAT.com. God help me. But seriously, isn't she cute? This is shortly before she pounced on me while I was trying to sleep. Then, seeing I was awake, came up to my face to be petted. Angelic, indeed.

Yeah, I know, it's not "art". I have a few things in mind, honestly- I just need the time to get to work on them.

Really.

In other news- the new Coldplay CD is amazing. It's a very different sound from the last couple they've put out, though they're all distinctly Coldplay. Most of this one seems to be a meditation on death, but it's surprisingly cheerful. Also, my living room now looks mostly livable, and it took me a month to finish the last book I picked up. It was only 400 pages. That's depressing. And there's a fly in my office the size of a small bird, to judge the sound. It must be destroyed.

That's it.

Music: "De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da" - The Police

In Action How Like an Angel...

I'm such a slacker.

Even when I was taking a class for the sheer pleasure of taking it, with no pressure upon me to do anything more than show up (if I felt like it!), I still waited until the last minute to do my work. I do so strive for consistency.

It was Winter back when I was taking my watercolor class, and as we wound our way toward the end of our sessions, each class would have fewer and fewer attendees. Until finally, at the next to last class, there were only four of us, not counting our teacher. For the final class, the teacher decided that we could have a mini art show, and we would all bring in all of our various projects we work on in our free time, in addition to the two projects we had done in class.

Wait, all our projects? You mean, stuff we did on our own?

Crap.

Yeah, I know- what the hell's the point in taking a class if you're never going to use it(College excepted- that is the point)? But it was tough to get going on any watercolor projects on my own. Back then, my artistic mojo was pretty badly damaged, and just painting the couple projects we had was a huge drain on my mental resources. So I'd really never gotten around to coming up with my own paintings.

Crap.

Well, thanks to the internet, I found some fairly awesome photos I thought would make for good paintings, and on Sunday I started drawing them.

Class was Tuesday. Plenty of time.

I actually finished two of the three pictures, and had partially completed this one, by the time class had rolled around. All was well. When I got there, only two other people made it in, plus the teacher. We had fun looking at each other's paintings, noting the progress we'd made, and chatted while we worked on those pictures we hadn't finished. This was the one I worked on that night. The others thought I was crazy for trying to paint it- it was a landscape class, and this was no landscape, not to mention my paper was covered in pencil marks.

But it is not I who am crazy. It is I who am mad.

I finished it, as you can see. The actual photo was of a statue of an angel somewhere in Italy (see how good my note-taking skills are). It was probably way beyond my skill level at the time, but I'm still pretty pleased with the results. The large portion of thanks for that goes to the magnificent photographer. The angle of the image, I think, is critical to the impact of it. I changed a number of things in it, mostly to suit the colors and the texture of the image.

A note about this scan- the colors you see are actually much sharper and darker here than on the actual paper itself. Watercolors do not lend themselves to scanning.

Finally, a note on my Dad: my sense of timing is as acute as ever. He came home late Tuesday night, I believe muttering something about "never tell me the odds" and is doing now doing well at home. Thanks to all who've kept him in their thoughts and/or prayers. Believe me, it's all appreciated. And thanks to all of you for taking this detour into very non-artistic places. Don't worry, I'll be resuming the goofy art, bad puns, and rambling postings before you kno-

Oh, right. Too late!

Cheers everyone! Have a good weekend.

Music. hmmm... so many angel-themed tunes to choose... "Angel" by Aerosmith? "Send Me an Angel" by the Scorpions? Nah. I'll go with the one I always think of when I think of angels and music (which, I admit, is not frequently):

Music: "Animate" - Rush

Grindhouse

I'm going to step away from the previous few posts(don't worry; the R/evolutionaries will return) and step back in with the results of a recent artistic adventure...

Thanks to the urgings of a couple of friends (Thanks, Kelly! Thanks, Dave!), I decided to try to spark some spontaneity and creativity by going somewhere to sit and watch people and hopefully do some drawing. So, where should I go? where else but a coffee shop! (Go back and read the title; it's okay to groan.)

Luckily for me, Dave had previously found this sweet coffee shop in the middle of Westminster that wasn't called $tarbuck$, and it seemed like a great location: plenty of seating, wide open spaces, and tasty coffee (or in my case, tea). So, one night after work, I stopped in with the intent to watch people, and do some drawing. It was perfect.

Well, almost perfect, except for three things.

1) there were about 6 people in the shop, 2 of whom were the help, hiding behind their counter, and 1 was me.

2) I picked a seat that was so low to the ground that everything in my line of sight was a friggin' chair.

3) I couldn't think of a damned thing to draw.

I decided to give it a go anyway. I pulled out the tools of the trade (sketchpad, pencil case (actually eyeglass case, co-opted for this), and mp3 player), set the player to 'random', and just started to see what I would draw. I was kind of nervous; I wanted this to be successful; I wanted to be creative, to keep the juices flowing; I wanted to look cool, and have hot coffee shop girls come up and start talking to me about drawing. You know, the important things.

So luckily, 2 of the occupants of the shop were working on homework or a project of some sort, and relatively stationary, so I tried to do my best to sketch them in action (or inaction, as it were). I quickly realized that 1)sitting down does not equate to sitting still and 2)I'm rubbish at drawing quickly. So I was left with a lot of half-started people, and ill-drawn ones at that. I gave up and moved on to the other target, a woman who, though alone, was evidently nursing 2 cups of coffee. But she was lost in thought, and thus mostly still. I tried to approach the drawing a little differently from the other attempts, and instead of building the drawing from the inside out, tried to get down the outside first, and hope to have it all make sense and look like a person. (most of the time, an artist drawing a person will build the frame first, then layer on basic shapes, and refine those into a physical person. In artistic circles, this is known as "the Marvel Way".) This went reasonably well, in that she looks like a person nursing two cups of something which may be coffee.

having conquered living subjects (read: gave up cause they kept moving), I tried my hand at still life. Or a plaster face up on the wall. The less said about it, the better.

I did some other drawings after that, but I'm mil- saving those for other posts.

The picture above was scanned in, adjusted for visibility, and kellered over in PS.

In other news, which is really about this anyway, the creative center of my mind is evidently working; I've a few ideas for things to draw here. Hopefully the 'get off your lazy ass and do something about it' center of my mind doesn't malfunction before I can realize those drawrings.

Have a good weekend, and I'll see you next week.

Music: "Ordinary" - The Alternate Routes

Mayhem and Milestones

This is Mistress Mayhem... or Mayhem, as she'll be better known (reporters can be lazy, and the full name distressed concerned parents...). Mayhem is a natural fighter, brilliant tactician, and the emotional heart of the group (which is easy when The Knight's Blade can be too intense and the Captain apparently has no emotions).

Since you're here, let me tell you- this drawing was cake. I mean it. It's kinda scary how easily this came together. Up until about 8:30 or so, I had no idea what was getting posted tonight. I was completely expecting to half-ass a sketch or something, or dig out a scrap of something I scanned in a while ago. But no. I'd been thinking about this character for a while now, in terms of pose and such- I was completely stuck on what to do. I had all kinds of reference poses, but none of them really worked. Then 8:30 rolls around. Pencil, check. Paper, check. Inspiration via bolt from the blue, check. It took me about 30 minutes or so to go from first non-photo blue layout to finished pencils, then another 15 to ink. Went beautifully. I was a little scared, it all worked out so well. Then I started erasing. That's when the friggin' erasers started smearing the non-photo blue lead and pulling up the ink! sonofa... So instead of getting all pissed and dejected, I stopped, re-inked it, and carefully erased random pencil lines (luckily, since the drawing came freakishly easy, there weren't lots of linebits to clean up). Scanned it in, and colored it. I opted not to do anything too funky with it in terms of the coloring, mostly because the really clean lines lend themselves to the simple colors and lack of textures. So yeah, I'm very pleased by how well it turned out.

Also of note: this marks my official 100th post to this blog. I knew it was coming up for a little while now, and I had all kinds of plans to put up some crazy-complicated picture I spent days working on, that would melt your eyes with the complete coolness of it. However, life (and the other posts) got in the way. And I'm glad. I was able to put more into the regular posts, and as a result, got more out of them. And, with how much I enjoyed this sketch, it seems like a wholly appropriate post.

It's pretty hard to believe that I've actually posted to this thing 100 times. When I started posting, I was about overflowing with sketches, and ideas for sketches, and ideas for posts and writing, I thought I'd never be able to get them all down. Well, it's been quite a roller coaster ride for me since those first posts. I've run completely out of drawings, out of time, out of ideas, out of patience. And, I've since drawn more drawings, made more time, found more ideas, and taught myself more patience. This site has really been the kick in the metaphorical ass that I've needed. It's been so much fun to re-discover this long-buried passion for art and creation, and it's been a complete joy to be able to share it with you. I plan on sticking around on here for as long as I can, and I hope this blog continues to be a pleasant stop on your travels through the web. Thanks for stopping by to visit, whether it's your first time, or your hundredth time.

-Steve

Music: "Dreamline" - Rush

...and the road goes ever on...

The Age of Bronze

For those of you looking for a discourse on Eric Shanower's epic comic book, sorry, wrong place. However, if you're looking for a picture of the Man of Bronze, then you've come to the right place... though I'm no James Bama.

If you've just read the above paragraph going "wha huh?!?", don't worry about it. "The Man of Bronze" is no comic character. That's a reference to one of the most famous pulp fiction characters in America, Doc Savage. Don't worry, I'll explain a little below.

Pulp Fiction is the name given to a series of stories written back in the early decades of the 20th century, most of which appeared in cheap nickel and dime magazines printed on cheap, or 'pulpy' paper. They covered all genres of fiction, but the most popular were the action-adventure/mystery ones. Characters such as The Shadow, Buck Rogers, and The Spider either made their debuts in the pulps or became best-known for appearing in the pulps. Doc Savage was one of those characters. He was kind of a "renaissance man of action", if you will. He was trained to the peak of physical perfection from childhood, with a finely-honed genius, and a group of assistants to cover all manner of expertise. Imagine Batman with guns and a special forces team, and you kind of get the idea. All filtered through the 30's mindset, of course, so you can imagine the kinds of stories and characterizations you'd get. Oh- he's called "the Man of Bronze" because his skin is supposed to be a deep bronze. Like George Hamilton, but bigger. Also- James Bama was the artist who painted the book covers of Doc Savage back in the 70's- he gave doc a crazy deep widow's peak, which is the image most folks think of when they think of Doc.

The pulps are long since gone, but the characters still live on, both in their own adventures (either reprints of the pulps, or movies, or TV shows) and in their intellectual offspring -comic books owe a huge debt to the pulps, as do the larger-than-life action heroes of the movies. Indiana Jones is a Pulp Hero.

I discovered Doc Savage books quite a while ago, entirely accidentally. I picked up a couple of them at a used book fair, thinking they were about a completely different character (Savage? Samson? Who can tell the difference at age 11?). I read them anyway, and was pretty much hooked. The stories are filled with great action, fun characters, and crazy cliffhangers with narrow escapes. Completely politically incorrect, but that's half the fun. Anyway, there you go. Go to Wikipedia to read up on Pulp Fiction and Doc Savage.

Oh yeah- the picture... This actually was never intended to be a Doc Savage pic. I originally drew it after watching an animated movie that featured Superman, among others, drawn in a very clean, distinctive style. Wanting to get the feel for that style, but not draw superman, I decided to make a retro-style superhero. It was a pretty quick sketch- he looked more like a wrestler than a superhero. But, when I started working on the coloring, I ended up going with a deeper skin tone than I normally use. I took a look at it, and the general look of the character, and decided it was going to be Doc Savage. So, the skin got properly colored, gave him blondish hair, and made his outfit a little more doc-like. Then, once it was all colored, I decided to make it look like it were an old photo (thinking on it now, I could've gone really crazy and given it fake distressing. But I didn't). I don't know how well the web-based jpeg reproduces the image, but I'm terribly pleased with the results of the coloring. I'm finding I'm getting as much pleasure out of coloring the pictures as I am drawing them- sometimes moreso. Figures- 30 years later, and I'm back to playing with crayons...

Anyway, there you go. A little something to make up for the lack of an update Friday and Monday's pseudo-update.

Cheers!

Music: "Gladiator Waltz" - Hans Zimmer

Digital Dreaming

I was about to head to bed last night after a frustrating night of bad drawing- ideas would come and go, nothing was feeling right to draw, and what did make it to the page was hardly worth mentioning- and an hour or so of surfing the net, checking out www.deviantart.com, which is normally always good to get me excited about drawing. Not last night; nope, last night was all about making me feel like nothing I was drawing was worth the paper it was printed on. Let me tell you, times like that really make me want to pick up the pencil again. And break it.

So yeah, I was still frustrating myself by looking through these artists' pages, and my internet radio was playing on- it's a channel called 'Coffeehouse', which I guess is meant to be a mix of new music and classic rock- all the cool stuff that gets played in a coffeehouse, I should imagine. So I'm looking at this art, and thinking yeah, that's pretty cool, I'll never be doing anything like that, when the radio starts playing some different music. I'm not even sure what it started out playing, but it was good- really good. Nothing up-tempo, or 'feel-good' or whatever, but just good music. Another song comes on, and I'm turning on Photoshop, bringing up a blank page, and taking out the stylus, and drawing the above.

I know it doesn't look like much- hell, it really isn't much- but it's something new for me. The above is the first picture I've worked, start to finish, in Photoshop. No big thing for these folks on Deviantart, mind you, but pretty big for me. I've really been hesitant to look at digital art as art- The fact that someone could conceivably create the Mona Lisa entirely in a computer, without ever touching a tube of paint, never sat well with me. However, as I've come to use tools like Photoshop and the Wacom tablet more and more, I've finally realized that they're just tools- they are all there to help the artist convey whatever is inside his or her mind to the rest of the world. Whether it's via pencil, paint, or pixel, it's all art. And alliterative, evidently.

One thing I've learned about this experience is I still think analog- I sketched out the figure just as I would on paper, moving in just the same fashion- hence all the jagged little lines. It feels a lot like when I first started putting these pictures up on the web for folks to peruse- I know there's so much I can do with these programs, but I'll only learn through practice.

Oh- the music I was listening to led me to the picture above. Music is great for helping me find out what I'm supposed to draw.

That's all for now.

Music: "Girl in the War" - Josh Ritter

Flash at Last!

Happy New Year!!! What better way to start off the new year by revisiting some left over business from last year.

When we last left Flash Gordon, he had been forced through a series of changes in a quest to fit the ideas of an internet blogger's dream of creating the ultimate Flash Gordon homage. He had been taken from 80's camp action hero to retro 40's comic strip icon to an overweight man in lycra. What new terror has befallen our would-be hero? Keep reading...

Alright. If you're gonna read, you might as well read the whole thing. Art first. So, after trying to fit my idea of "Flash" into what's gone before (attempts one and two), and hitting close to my idea of what I wanted to do with the him from a character level(attempt 3), I shelved the idea for a while, until I went back to the 'burgh for Thanksgiving. One of the great things about driving back to PA is it gives me time to think. Okay, if you know me, you know that's not always a good thing. But a lot of times it gives me the chance to think about fun stuff like movies, comics, books, and drawing- usually some combination of all of them. On this drive back, it finally occurred to me to ditch everything I'd done before and strike off in a new direction. Well, actually an old direction. See, I knew what kind of story arc I wanted Flash to have, and I knew exactly what kind of story I wanted to see this Flash in (I'll get to that shortly, promise). But until that drive, I didn't know what he should really look like. Then it hit me. I took his look back to the 30's and 40's, but not the comic strip. I pulled from the pulp heroes of the day- Doc Savage, G-8, John Carter of Mars, et cetera, and threw in a hefty dose of retro-futurism. The future, according to the past. Canvas and brass instead of rubber and steel, or plastic and polycarbonate. Bingo. At last, I had a hero that would fit right in with the craziness I had in mind. The drawing pretty much came out fully-formed from my initial imagining of this new Flash. Once I decided he would have a space helmet with a fancy-looking collar (note the bit attached to the upper right of the lightning bolt speakerbox; that's an O2 gauge for the wearer), the rest kinda just spilled out. The lines are a bit harder than what I sometimes do; this usually happens when I'm juiced about getting something out of my head and onto the paper.

Okay, okay- all the rest of this entry is about my ideas for the story, and Flash's character. You can stop reading now and just check out the new poll on the right. Of course it's about Flash, but at least you're saving yourself eye strain.

Still here? Thanks.

See, my brilliant idea for what direction to take the plot of Flash Gordon really isn't anything fancy. In fact, it's about as basic as it gets. Take the lyrics for the song... and make them the story. Brilliant, right?

What do you mean, 'no'? My thought is, so many of these updatings of old movies and comics and characters either turn into cynical and dark reflections of the original premise, or worse yet, play on the concept for laughs and high camp value. So I thought, screw that- what's wrong with having a hero who's not jaded, who's not a goofball? What's wrong with having a story that's fun, thrilling, and exciting, and isn't either played for laughs or made to satisfy the audience's bloodlust? So, that's where I'm going with the story. I want Flash Gordon to be the kind of story everyone can get into. Why the Queen song, then? Well, the lines they use are so bombastic, so over-the-top, they play perfectly towards this idea of... a 'pure' action story- if that makes sense. It probably doesn't, but you're still reading, right? I mean, check it out:

"Saviour of the Universe"- that's a pretty tall order to fill. But nothing builds heroism like adversity, right?

"He'll save every one of us"- another Everest-sized task; but, what if he did?

"King of the Impossible"- well if he can save the universe, and everyone, he'd pretty much have to be the King of the impossible.

So the idea would be to essentially make these lines the central theme of the story (movie, really, that's how I'm thinking of it). What if there was a story where the entire universe was at stake, trillions of lives hanging in the balance, and one man rose to meet that challenge?

Yeah, I know; even I think it's crazy. I imagine it being some insane conglomeration of "The Incredibles" plus "Sky Captain" plus "Star Wars". It sounds nuts, I know... But it'd be a hell of a movie.

Alright, still awake? That was my idea for the conceit of the movie, and the basic direction I'd take it. Flash himself ended up being a little more... complex. With the story's idea being so straightforward, I kind of wondered what kind of man would be able to make that over-the-top action work without being a bland, cardboard-cutout of an action hero. So, here's what I came up with (Thanks to Sci-Fi channel for being the only people to actually give Flash a real first name; I mean, could you imagine your parents naming you 'Flash'? geez...)

Stephen Gordon is a man adrift. He is an average man, of average looks (pleasing but not handsome), with average intelligence, working at an average job. Stephen was quite the dreamer in high school and college- he dreamed of doing so many things, anything but getting that business degree (how boring! But it was the only thing is father would pay for). He wanted to be someone others looked up to, someone others wanted to emulate. He wanted to be a visionary, a superstar athlete, a man of letters and arts. He wanted to be it all.

Unfortunately, his short attention span often got in the way of his dreams; Stephen rarely followed through on any of his plans. This wouldn't be so bad, if not for the fact that he had a tendency to announce his plans to the world at large long before they ever came to fruition. This constant barrage of ideas and daydreams that burned brightly, but briefly, led to his nickname, “Flash”- short for “flash in the pan”, once folks got to know him.

Stephen used to have dreams of making a difference in the world. Once out of college and into the real world, however, there was no time and no place for him to make a difference. Reality got in the way.

All that has changed now. Thrust into a new reality beyond his wildest imaginings, Stephen Gordon realized that on the bizarre world of Mongo, he is finally free of the burdens and limitations of his past. For the first time in his life, he is truly free. He can finally live up to the ideal vision of himself he long ago abandoned. And perhaps, in the insane, impossible, dreamlike world of Mongo, he has finally found the place to make his dreams real.

Stephen Gordon is gone.

Long live Flash.

Music: "Bring Me to Life" - Evanescence