Blog . Eli Duke . Com

a friend of mine at work is somewhat of a comic creator. when i first met him, and he modestly told me about his hobby, i thought to myself, “cool, like what kind? self-made, photocopied stuff?” and then he pulled out a copy of his latest book (The Mourning Star) and i was very impressed. it is his first book he’s had “officially” published, and it looked very professional.

he’s been selling a few of them around the office, and i picked up one just a few days ago. it is wonderful. it’s indie and black ‘n white, but don’t let that fool you: the characters and story are awesome and lovable and amazing. i’m very proud him.

the really exciting part is that just the other day he found out from his publisher that he has been nominated for an Eisner Award! for those of you that don’t know, that’s a fucking really big deal. it’s like getting nominated for an academy award after only being in one movie. he’s going to comic-con in july, and i’ve got my fingers crossed for him.

so do yourself a favor and let your local shop know that you want to buy a copy of The Mourning Star by Kazimir Strzepek, you won’t regret it.

about 7 months ago, i undertook a HUGE project. at the time i couldn’t really have even begun to imagine ever being done with said project. honestly, i had no idea what this feeling right now would feel like. it’s awesome! the project: flickr.

beginning in may 2002 i started taking digital pictures. since then, i’ve had 4 different cameras and taken about 12,000 photos. i used to use iPhoto, but the earlier versions couldn’t really handle more than a few thousand photos at a time, so i started making my own dvd backups. that was great and all, but those backup photos were buried and no one ever saw them. i wanted to do something with them, but i wasn’t quite sure what.

last fall, peter was blogging (complaining?) about having to “pay for everything” these days. in that particular instance, he was talking about the $25/year charge for the pro flickr account. i talked him straight, he ended up going pro with the whole thing, and in the process i convinced myself that it was time.

at that exact moment (2pm on October 29th, 2006) i pulled out my credit card, paid for a pro account, and started uploading my photos. i had so many in front of me but i knew that a journey of uploading 12,000 photos begins with uploading one.

seven months later, after skimming a few thousand off the top, the grand total is just a shade under 10 grand (9,531). i’m totally current and this feeling is wonderful. enjoy!

flickr.com/photos/elisfanclub

and it all came to me the other night while i was lying down waiting to fall asleep. i’m not sure exactly where it came from, but it was the phrase “did does doing” that got it going. i think i also stumbled upon some sort of tag line (that you may have heard before): “if nothing changes, nothing changes.”

i was thinking about other languages and that got me thinking about all the different verbs and forms of verbs that we have completely memorized. it takes us fractions of a second to retrieve a single form of a single verb to fit in exactly with what we want to say at that exact moment. amazing.

and for some reason, the verb “to do” was the one i was focusing on: did, does, doing. that about cuts it, right? he did something in the past, he does something in the present, and he’s doing something in the future. or something like that.

anyhoo, i imagined it would be very braff (which is a new descriptor [kind a like, "funny"] that i’ve invented), but directed at a larger audience. the basic plot line is this: a child grows into a young man who then grows into an old man, but, in reality, doesn’t change: instead he just does the same things in different ways.

the movie would show him making similar mistakes, achieving similar successes, but being so damn human in the process that you can’t help but wish him the best.