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5-14-03 Beatings and salutations. I am in my new place which has been a lot more work than I was expecting so far. It is a nice apartment, but it's on the third floor and I'm sick of carrying everything I own up the stairs! More of the same tomorrow.... :P I got a couple of albums by Baby VOX (Korean) who I like a lot. They are keeping me company while I unpack. ;) Zbrush has been resting largely unused on my hard drive for a couple of weeks. I am still psyched about it, but all in due time...

4-10-03 Sorry for the state of affairs. The site went down last weekend and I haven't gotten around to restoring all of the content. I may reconsider my hosting if it happens again, but I'm happy with it for now. I'll try to get all of the content reposted soon. I will be getting a full version of Zbrush shortly, so expect some cool 3D stuff in the future. Not much happening. I caught a little Azumanga Daiyo, it is very funny. I like "Osaka". ^_^

03-28-03 I just got Morbus Gravis I, Morbus Gravis II, and Creatura, the first three books of the Druuna series by Paolo Eleuteri Serpieri. They are very cool erotic/sci-fi stories. His artwork is unbeleivable. He is truly a masterful illustrator. I recently wrote a bunch more reviews for Amazon.com, including; the Balloonists, Devil Lady: The Becoming, Sakura Diaries, and Video Girl Ai. Check them out on my review page.

03-05-03 Just a quick post because it has been a while. I have been going a little Ebay crazy recently. I decided to fill in the holes in my Transformers comic collection from the 80's. I have done very well so far and I'm only missing about 5 comics. I should have them all within the next few days. I was house sitting for my folks for a week and a half and have not been able to work on my computer as much as I have wanted. I have been in the process of transfering these pages to a different host (no banners! yay!) and registering domains. The transfer is more or less complete but I will be doing a lot more work on the pages soon, esp my gallery which I'm adding an adult section to. Other than that I'm doing a little translating for RPGone's translation of the Slayers RPG (and playing DOAX of course ^_^:).

02-09-03 I got an 80G hard drive for my PC recently. I have been ripping cds to it for a while today. I'm listening to the Misfits right now. I'm feeling kinda unmotivated. I guess I thought that writing for a bit might make me feel better. I'm feeling somehow uneasy. I recently figured out that the Japanese word for that is "fuuan". I think it is a fairly soothing word for "uncomfortable". Maybe it is supposed to make you feel better when you say it.

I think I have felt good becasue I have felt that I had people to support me, but now that I may be able to support myself better, I'm beginning to feel very alone again. I don't think that anyone has ever really understood me. I think that this is partially because I have never tried to be understood. But who would understand me? I don't think there is anyone.

1-22-03 Posting infrequently again as usual. :P I'm finally employed again (yay!). I'm doing technical support for a local ISP which is not too bad. Haven't been drawing much lately, but then again I have a 14 page comic in the works so I can't say not at all. ;) Not sure what I'm going to do with it yet, but I will probably show it around Comike this summer. I'm becoming a little more comfortable with the direction my works are taking but I'm still not sure how I feel about them. Tackling a more ambitious painting may help, but I have a feeling I will not be satisfied with my work until I'm drawing a lot more frequently. Who knows when this will happen?

On another note, DOAX is out today! I have not played it yet but I will within the hour. Very high hopes for it, I think it will be a lot of fun to look at as well as play. ^_^; For anyone who is interested, Wacom has a really cool LCD display/graphics tablet out called the Cintiq. There is a 15 and an 18 inch version. I really want one, but I'm not sure if I will get one soon or not. Lots of bills to pay. :(

10-24-02 Couple of months since my last post. I'm still about as depressed, but not dwelling on it quite so much. At some point in between then and now, I had a job, yet I find myself unemployed once more. *sigh* Oh well.

Once again I'm trying to attach some sort of value to drawing comics, or perhaps anything that I do. I suppose I don't feel like comics are void of worth, so much as I am personally, or the act of my drawing them somehow makes the institution invalid. I was watching Final Fantasy Unlimited, which happens to be a fairly entertaining anime based on the FF universe (summons, chocobos, etc.). Some of the characters and situations reminded me of ones I came up with for a particular story. I guess somehow it de-emphasizes them, like niether of us came up with anything so profound. Yet when followed through, they made a decent anime, or conversely, when discarded they made nothing. I think that ideas poorly followed through on still make bad stories, but maybe I just like drawing to hurt myself.

08-20-02 I have recently decided that I am a coward. I didn’t know what to make of this conclusion until I realized that I am afraid of feeling pain. I once heard the meaning of life described as: “To suffer and die”. I think this has a lot of merit. If this is the case, the only way to avoid pain is death. If I cannot accept death, maybe I can keep living a little longer if I can simply accept my own suffering. I think, in our pursuit of happiness, we find many shallow experiences since they do not hurt us, yet they bring us nothing but closer to death. I don’t want to suffer but neither do I want to die. Perhaps I can endure life as long as I know that the things that hurt me are those that keep me alive. This sounds like anguished teenage rambling but is probably more pertinent to me now than as a teenager. Whether it is a sign of maturity or immaturity I don’t know. It is how I feel.

08-04-02 I finally posted my romhack patch of the Slayers RPG for the SNES. It kind of a mixed bag. I pretty much took over where Robert Boyd left off. Seems he used the Romanji character set that was present in the ROM to begin with. I was able to expand significantly on his original hack, adding full battle menu translation (which was a pain), and many more monster/spell/item translations, as well as a dialog translation that spans the first dungeon and town. I began to get frustrated however realizing that this system was very limited. I was not able to successfully add a better font to the ROM, redirect pointers to the space I added (well, only kinda), or perform a script dump (actually I wouldn't even know where to start), and decided that it was just too simple a hack. Therefor I have posted the final results here as well as a copy of my character table so someone else can more easily continue where I left off, or hopefully make a completely diferent, more sophisticated hack. Good luck to you, I will be waiting see it.

07-14-02 Greetings folks. Life goes on. I am sitting up at 4:30 in the morning with a surly stint of insomnia. I just saw Hellsing for the first time and thought it was pretty cool. It's a lot like "Devil May Cry"-the-animation, but with a cooler badass, and a bustier female sidekick (both vampires). I mean, if you were a 2000 year old vampire, what else would there be to do aside from kill other, weaker, dumber, and totally egotistical creatures of the night? Perhaps turn cute, female police officers into your faithfull minions? The ending is non-conclusive, but the entertainment never really let's you down.

I'm kind of sick of everything right now. Not like I think I won't come around to something interesting in the future, but right now it all just kind of sucks eggs. I think my friendships are the only things I take comfort in, however small and fragile it may be. I think Masamune Shiro's art is very, very cool. I realized recently that my artwork is crappier than his by a wide margin. Not that this bothers me, but I find that it makes me question my cost-to-value ratio in terms of artistic realization. It just doesn't add up right now. If I can ever stabilize my bottom-line, perhaps this will begin to change. We'll see.

I think I find women in business attire/uniform to be particularrly compelling as artistic objects. As I paged through Blades 2 recently I realized that the book is organized not only by genre, but fashion as the two are closely related. The book begins with fantasy outfits, purely whimsical, but based on body armor, and clothing of simple function (such as the cloak). The outfits graduate to ethnic, especially Japanese and Chinese style costumes; then contemporary uniforms (police, military); fetish and bondage; and school/part-time uniforms (waitress).

We are taught to "not judge a book by it's cover". If this is a difficult practice to keep in our dailiy lives, it is probably more so in art. Art must be visually compelling. Though we may be able to give a real person a chance to reveal their true selves, an artistic character has no such affordance. A character with no complexities is boring, and a character who makes no strong visual statement has no basis from which to reveal it's complexities. In real life, making a bold visual statment by your appearance may be off-putting to others. In art we can be interested in the life of this strange character, without it threatening our sense of personal comfort and safety. In that way, I think I find this sort of powerful, motivated, sexy, determined sort of woman very interesting (Where perhaps I would not in "real" life?). Hmm...Something to think about anyway.

02-27-02 I suppose it is time to abandon denial and face the new year. Been a while. I have been working on this and that, not the least of which is getting a job. I am looking forward to, and dreading my upcoming birthday. If nothing else I plan to drink a lot. ^_^ I recently purchased strategy guides for my favorite games, Soulcalibur and Monster Rancher 3. They have me itching to write fan fictions again, something I am perhaps feeling less shame about indulging in. I'd like to be doing more color artwork but it is just so damn time consuming. I hope these things will balance themselves out into a consistant working schedual in the near future but for now I'm not really sure what I will be concentrating on from moment to moment. I have been drawing but don't look for any new artwork yet. My most productive venture recently has been an AMV (Anime Music Video) for EVA to "Mutter" by Rammstein. Yes, it's pretty cool. My other credits include: Gunsmith Cats to "Sex on Wheelz" by My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult; Bubble Gum Crisis to "To Be With You in Heaven" by Scorpions; Lodoss War to "To Live is to Die" (abridged) by Metallica; Dragon Ball Z to "Wassup" dialog; and Ranma 1/2 (Ryoga) to "Wherever I may Roam" by Metallica. I have some other things on my plate but I won't spoil it for anyone. I do not have any good way to share these files right now so if someone wants to offer, be my guest. That's all for now.

12-8-01 Amazon finally posted my reviews. You can find a review link from now on under Clutter. Please check it for my lates reviews! I'll try to post when I update it. I may try to do something different with my must-see anime now, we'll see.

12-07-01 Finally getting around to posting one of my BLAME! translations. Check my Clutter section for the text file.

12-06-01 I have since beaten Halo, it is a great game, I really enjoyed it. I have been writing reviews recently and posting them to Amazon.com. Anime DVDs mostly. I am just sick of not being able to find good information about DVD's like the quality of the extras, or what content was edited, or what things were, or were not translated, and how well. Esp. since the access to reader reviews is one of the reasons I like shopping on Amazon. It sounds kind of fanboyish but I am beyond self-consciousness. I will try to link to them when they show up.

I have been receiving a steady stream of rejection letters of varying degrees of encouragment for the past several weeks. Somehow it really is good to just be getting it over with and getting on with trying to figure out myself as an artist. I think it just helps to disspel the Cinderella fantasy and let me concentrate on where I really want to go and what I should work on improving for myself. I guess it help brings home the fact that you can't please everyone, and shouldn't try. If I can at least please myself, hopefully I will find others who are in to that. It's worth a try at least.

11-21-01 I came, I played, I kicked ass. Hail Halo. It has kept me on my friends couch for the past several days. Still haven't beaten it, maybe this weeknd. I wrote a review for it which is available on GameFAQs, just follow the link.

11-12-01 I have been translating a little bit of Chobits. This is really the kind of story I would expect from Masakazu Katsura or Tetsuya Egawa. It is a male-adolescent-fantasy style romantic comedy about computers that look like girls. Very charming and funny. CLAMP is always surprizing, their range seems to have no bounds. Seems like I am always behind on what is being localized at any one time but I haven't seen this one yet. I am back to character designing.

It is such a strange thing. It's very rewarding, but very demanding. It's hard to get going but also hard to stop. I'm just not into it right now. This time it is fantasy again, though my sci-fi was really more fantasy than not. I stumbled on an art book for the Escaflowne movie on ebay (it was prohibitively expensive) which reminded me how fantastisc the character designs (I think by Nobuteru Yuki) were, though the movie itself was too dissapointing for fans of the series. Very cool designs anyway.

11-07-01 I spent practically all day writing a letter to Yuu Watase. My Japanese got quite a workout today! I must admit I am a Japanese wimp. My portfolio is all printed up so I stuck a copy in for her too. I just saw the DVD for Ayashi no Ceres and she addressed her American fans directly in a video clip. I just thought this was so considerate. From sitting at her panel at a con, to her address on Ceres, I can tell she really wants to know her American fans. I hope this means she doesn't mind getting our fanmail too. ^_^ I also pretty much (tried to) asked her what it was like for her starting out drawing comics. I guess I am looking for some encouragement as sad as it sounds, maybe she will have some good advice. It goes in the mail to VIZ tommorow. They were nice enough to respond promptly to my email as to where to send my letter. Very pleasent to deal with unlike Pioneer who played dumb for several emails as to why the Mihoshi Special does not appear anywhere in the Tenchi Muyo OVA DVD box-set, even though it comes right after ep. 7 on tape 4 of the OAV Collection VHS tapes. (They will NEVER live this down ^_^). I should have started a petition or something...

Many happenings on my gallery page. Please visit it for a more detailed description of the updates. BTW: My portfolio came out pretty good. I made 20 copies, it wasn't exactly cheap (or on time) but it looks a lot nicer than my color printer and the typesetting I had them do came out well. I hope I am not the only one that thinks so. ^_^

10-7-01 I am very excited that Yukito Kishiro is taking a hiyatus from Aqua Knight (currently being localized by VIZ comics) and returning to his abandoned Gunnm series. It is picking up where he had intended to continue with the story in outer space, but had eneded it abruptly, apparently for personal reasons. It sounds like the unplanned ending needs to be "rewritten" to accomodate the continuing story, but that sounds fine to me. It is currenly being published in Ultra Jump that was his old home for Aqua Knight, rather than Business Jump where Gunnm originally appeared. or more info check his page Yukitopia.

Writing, even on such shallow topics (no offence) as I do has a settling effect on an oversaturated mind such as my own. Perhaps I can make a habit out of it. We will see. For now anyone who views this page (god help you) will have to bear with my cathartic ramblings. Apologies in advance ^_^;

That said...Speaking of Japanese comics, Ryusuke Mita has a new(er) series called Rubikura out which is quite cool looking. I got my hands on the second volume. I have not even attempted to translate this in any way, well...just the first page. I seems pretty chalenging and my Japanese is not getting any better. Still I encourage anyone to check it out and for someone to PLEASE pick up his wonderful comics (Dragon Half, Darkhaired-Captured, Aitenmyou no Monogatari, and Rubikura) and release them in the states... before I do!

Now that my new computer is functioning well, I am working once again on coming up with my own title. Aside from finishing up some very old pages and working on some color work for portfolio/submission purposes I have not gotten very far on a story of my own. I have been leaning toward a sci-fi setting, though I may do something more fantasy or horror or a combination thereof. Writing has never been my strong suit and is proving to be a real challenge. I think that if I keep things simple I will be able to move forward. What to do with my story is another chalenge. I have been reading up on self publishing and trying to get a handle on what I would really have on my hands were I to go that path. The other choice would be to publish through a company that will deal with creator owned properties, or simply try to get a job working on an established property. I think I'll take whatever I can get but we'll see. Hopefully some sort of submissions will start next week!

10-6-01 Posted some comic pages to my gallery. ^_^

10-1-01 Just posted pictures of my models under Clutter.

10-1-01 Just the beginning of some big updates to my page. I reverted back to my old-fasioned, hand-coded HTML. Much better. Also posted a wallpaper I did of Omoikane, the computer from Nadeisico. I'd like to do some funky icons or cursors or something for it, but all in good time. I finished my 08th Mobile Suit GM and Cutey Honey models finally. I have photos of those that will be up shortly. I have also put together a brand new computer which is very rockin. I am running Win2000 on an 800Mhz PIII, with an MSI board at 133FSB and 768M of RAM. This is my "business" computer while I take some time off to devote to my dreams of writing and illustrating. Wish me luck...more to come.

6-7-01 I am slipping back into bad habits here. ^_^ What can I say? I have been playing Phantasy Star Online and it is just really bad and addictive. I have a 45ish level HUnewearl named after an anime character they resemble somewhat, and they kick a little booty.

Speaking of booty, I can’t stop thinking that Skuld’s behind looks a little masculine in the picture I posted on my Gallery. May see some similar pictures in the future as I try to work this out.

5-9-01 Been a while on an update, not-much and much going on at the same time. I posted an update to the Gallery I worked on this past weekend. Got a chance to play Bombad Racing for the PS2. Not a game I would buy really, but a lot of fun to play against friends for a weekend. Courses were fun but a little annoying, some could have been bigger, some smaller. Some characters seems like they just sucked, I played Sebulba

I got a chance to borrow William Gibson’s follow-up to Idoru , All Tomorrow’s Parties. I will try to post an opinion if I manage to sit down and read it. I have started reading a comic called Thieves & Kings. I am quite impressed so far. Though the simple, psudo-anime style characters are a little under-whelming, the backgrounds are really painstakingly done and the story is very enjoyable; sort of half story-book/half comic book. Recommended.

4-22-01 I am not sure how I feel right now. I just got Rammstein’s new album, damn is it cool. More of what we have seen before but a little more of the melodic synth and some quiet parts mixed in. Very good combination. I have been listening to some other stuff too, the Misfits and Danzig and some older Metalica. It kind of makes me want to play music again, but not now, maybe later. Added a much needed border to the CG banner I made previously. Thinking of some other fan art type projects, and working on a story that is keeping me busy. I’d really like to start making some money with my artwork, just something simple to start, I’ll have to see.

4-14-01 I cannot afford therapy, therefore I listen to Pantera! I just got their new album and remembered why I like this band. When I become so depressed that I begin visibly sucking the life from my surroundings at least I know that there is one person more angry at the world than myself, Philip Anselmo. Updated the gallery with some quick sketches. Trying not to be frustrated with them, yeah, they’re ok. More later.

4-6-01 If anyone wants to get copies of Blame! or any other Japanese comics I suggest Boston’s own Sasuga Books. I am visiting some friends this weekend, hopefully I will be able to scan and post a couple pictures I have done. I am reailizing that I have not had a very good attitude towards art, particularly my own, for quite some time. I hope that by realizing this, I can work to change it, this will be my goal for the time-being anyway.

I know, it’s starting to sound like a load of crap but I really am still translating. Maybe I will post a really, really rough draft, just to prove that I am not making it up. I still am not quite all of the way though the book however, and even once I am there are still some untranslated sentences and shameless guess work.

3-31-01 My translation for Blame #3 is coming right along. As they say, finished the first 90%, now to start the last 90%. I still need to get someone who knows some Japanese to proof read for me, as well as tweaking certain “made up” words and trying to make sure there is some consistency of speech among characters.

I did a drawing for a contest that CG shrines is having just to get me drawing. I would post it but I can’t. More accurately, I do not at the moment, have any imaging software that is worth a damn. Maybe some other time, right now I am just angry at the world.

3-26-01 I have forgotten to mention, for quite some time now, an addition to my gallery. I posted a sketch I was preparing to color of a character from a comic I started about 2 years ago. The sketch is about a year old so I suppose that is why I am somewhat unthrilled by it. I just happened to have it on my ftp space and though I may as well link to it.

I have been a translating-fool recently. Though I am beginning to feel like a fool for starting this in the first place. Still I intend to finish at least Vol 2-3 of Blame!, and likely the first since I was almost finished with it when I quit a while back. My eyes and hands are not holding up well, plus I am remembering how little Japanese I actually know! Still I am half-way through with Vol 2 and a little less than half-way on 3. Now I will have to post them. I am committed (committable?). ^_^;

3-18-01 Just a quick update because it has been a while. I picked up a couple of comics recently, BLAME! (or Blamu!) Vol. 3 and Bastard!! Vol. 21 (guess I like comics with exclamation points). I am,still working on my translation for Blame!, though others have already translated further than I. I started Bastard, realizing that it is a lot easier to translate something with furigana. Maybe I will post something if I ever finish? I also have Vol .19-20. Don’t get your hopes up though.

3-14-01 You must check this out. Akira is being remastered by Pioneer with a new dub and enhanced video/audio, plus a DVD release scheduled for July 2001. Check out details at Akira 2001.

3-13-01 In case anyone has looked at the source code for this web page, I edited it in Word , which is why it is so messed up looking. I will go back and rewrite the whole thing manually at some point but this will do for now.

I just played the Bouncer over the weekend. Very cool game. The story is not overly long, but since it is intended to be played through at least 3 times, this is a good thing. The vs. mode is fun and the characters are good. It was great fun for the weekend, plus there are still “better” endings to unlock. I finished off Zophar (the end boss) in Lunar 2, though now I am playing the epilog which seems to be it’s own new quest. The bromides you can get are cool and the story bits are happening at least but it’s still way too long. The end dungeon and boss took me at least 2 ½ hours!

3-5-01 Had a little time off today due to paranoia concerning the giant storm hitting the northeast apparently this evening. True to my word I spent most of the day playing Lunar 2.

As big a fan as I am of retro games, and let me tell you, I am a fan, Lunar 2 has been a disappointing experience so far. Not that it has been that far below my expectations, I think I am just not getting much out of this kind of game anymore. Any RPG that I have had to sink 30-40hrs of game play is just not worth the effort. I guess I am finally too jaded to care about a 40+hrs story. For now, I think I’ll stick to survival horror, for some reason I feel like shooting something.

3-4-01 I beat Fear Effect 2 last night, finally. It was actually an enjoyable and not overly-long experience, save for a couple of frustrating parts, namely the last battle. Now with an empty sense of accomplishment I move on to bigger things…Like beating Lunar 2.

I have been working the past couple of weekends on a story that a friend and I had started and let drop for about a year. I am not sure in what form it may appear on this web page in the future, but I would like to be able to update my gallery, so perhaps there will be some sketches or character designs soon. I have really run out of excuses not to be working like I ought to be, so please be patient a bit longer. I am slowly getting off my ass.

BTW: Aikawa Nanase has a NEW album since the one I just picked up, called Purana. I will review it when I get it, but I don’t know when this will be.

2-25-01 Yeah, yeah, I know, I have no excuses aside from the fact that I do not have access to my own computer right now and have ceased caring about the rest of the world. Since people apparently visit this page occasionally and it is supposed to be about ME, I will try to update with some new info now and again.

Thanks to the hospitality of a kind friend, I am now living, though not currently working, in Boston. Yes, I was recently laid-off from the company at which I was providing phone technical-support for what shall remain an unnamed software application. As is evident from my gallery I have been doing zero artwork recently (an exaggeration but not by much) so I will probably continue to look for work in the computer vein for now.

I just got Nanase Aikawa’s newer cd. Very cool. It is not quite as consistent as her last one but more so than her second and very polished. It really rocks

5-7-00 A major visual over-haul. Trying to bring my pages into the next millenium, touching on a bit of style sheets (CSS). Nothing fancy but it's nice for a change. ^_^

5-4-00: A quick post under clutter. A silly picture I took of a Dr. Slump impersonator when I visited Tokyo Tower a couple of years ago.

4-26-00: My first update in about 5 months. So much for updating my home page more often! I am trying to consolidate a bit. As much as I love my Battle Angel buttons I will have to get rid of them or find another use for them. I'm not sure how this page will end up looking but I'm going for more of a home-page feel to it, a little more of me.

Spring is in the air and my thoughts are turning to modeling. When the weather is nice enough I'll pull out the old paints and finish up the 8th Mobil Suit GM that I am working on. After that I have a Cutey Honey I'm doing for a friend. I'll try to post pictures at some point. I'm also looking at some vinyl and resin kits at Anime Plus. That should be enough to keep me occupied this summer anyway.

I am slowly building up my DVD collection. Stop by Amazon.com and check out my review of the endearing Japanese food-film Tampopo by Juzo Itami or my member page for this or any future reviews.

Page started sometime in 1995 or 1996

Page design and maintanence: Matthew J. La France