March Clinical Depression-ness, Continued!

Hey folks. I haven't had the opportunity to update in a while (partly thanks to an until-yesterday lack of Internet brought on by changing apartments-- damn you Time Warner Cable!) but here's a quick rundown of some items of note.

Esteemed former Jest editor Frank Santopadre, who shepherded the magazine/ website over its last year or so of existence, set up a meeting with a few writers over at MAD Magazine, to see if we could wrangle a little freelance work. So I don't want to jinx it, but keep your fingers crossed-- I may soon be making some 12 to 16 year-old boys laugh. Oh, and by the way, the MAD offices are exactly how Bart Simpson imagined them, with people jumping around on pogo sticks, and Alfred E. Newman yelling "Get me Kaputnik and Fonebone. I want to see their drawings for 'New Kids on the Bleech!' And where's my fershluggen partrami sandwiches?!"

Also, the first episode of Captains in Space should be online by this time next week, if not earlier. I know I promised it to you by early March, but it took a little longer because of some special effects issues, and just ironing out some related details for our "pilot" episode. Now that the initial work has been done, our esteemed director Fed says that the other episodes should take less time to put together. So check back next week, and I should have the link for you.

Please, Kill Me!

So I sent some pitches to MAD Magazine a while back, one of which they liked; and I did a little back and forth with them on a couple of drafts. Anyway, ultimately they decided that they didn't want to use the piece, but they liked what I'd done and wanted to give me something for my work, so they're going to pay me a $100 "kill fee." Cool. This is the first time I've been paid for writing something that didn't get published (well, that's not true-- I think Jest may have paid me for a piece that didn't get published because they folded before they could use it, but at least they intended to use it). Anyway, what a cool move on MAD Magazine's part. And I'm still hoping to write something sometime that they'll actually print, so stay tuned.

I was going to make a joke about never getting paid for nothing before... but, sadly, I'm familiar with the joys of unemployment checks. All things considered, I'd rather be paid to not get published.