ULTRAIST STUDIOS

Dave Sim quote:

“I’m tempted to use Larry Bird’s line when someone asked why he was such a good basketball player and he said, ‘The amount of time I practice, I should be good.’” *

-

Dave Sim quotes:

“Principles of Comic Store Reality.
1) Successful comic books immediately go up in dollar value in the aftermarket
2) The most successful comic books continue to go up in value in the aftermarket while less successful comic books level off or decline in value
3) Fewer and fewer comic books are in either category these days
4) Virtually all comic books in either category are from Marvel (and, as Mr. Boyle puts it, DC to a lesser degree)” *

“I had been hearing a lot about incentive editions of comic books: basically if a retailer orders x number of copies of a new comic book, they get one limited edition copy of the same comic book with a different cover—essentially a rare collectible. Now, automatically most people are going to shut down having read that. That isn’t a luxury I have, given that I have to figure out how to break what I see as a monolithic, largely unassailable and completely understandable indifference to independent comics in today’s market. Just putting my secret project out there and hoping for the best falls under the heading of Wishful Thinking. To me, it makes more sense to deal with Reality. And, right now, a Comic Store Reality is incentive editions of “hot” comics.” *

“But it doesn’t work for independents or, at least, the track record for independents isn’t nearly as good because there isn’t built-in cachet—or the perception of built-in cachet—in order to get store owners to risk investment capital in ordering what they see as “too many copies”. The key is that the incentive book has to go up in value immediately in order to offset even the possibility of losing money “over-ordering” books.” *

-

Denis Leary quote:

“Life sucks, get a fucking helmet.” *

-

Dick Dale quotes:

“Get smart. Forget about trying to be the big man, and be ‘famous’ as one calls it on the cover of Rolling Stone. Become a business person, and market your product the proper way and you will make a hundred times more money and you’ll be powerful and strong within yourself, PLUS you will own EVERYTHING.”

“Go in there and play for nothing at first, and if you start drawing people, then work out a deal to get paid. And then, you know, don’t be so egotistical that you don’t want to do free gigs. Do the free gigs so that you’ll build up a following and I mean, you know, you can make, once you get going, you can do a thousand dollars a night, just in t-shirts or your records.” *

-

Alan Moore quote:

“This stuff that you are dealing with – words, language, writing – this is dangerous, it is magical, treat it as if it was radioactive. Don’t doubt that for a moment. As far as I know, the last figures I heard quoted, nine out of every ten writers will have mental problems at some point during their life. Sixty percent of that ninety percent – which I think works out at roughly fifty percent of all writers – will have their lives altered and affected – seriously affected – by those mental problems. I think what that translates to is - nine out of ten crack up, five out of ten go mad. It’s like, miners get black lung, writers go bonkers. This is a real occupational hazard.” *

-

Alan Moore quote:

“Any form of art is propaganda. It is propaganda for a state of mind rather than a nation-state but it is propaganda nonetheless, and it’s best if you accept that and understand what you’re doing and be honest about it: you are trying to change the mind of your target audience. You are trying to change their perceptions, you are trying to stop them from seeing things how they see things and start them seeing things the way you see things. The ethics of that we could debate all night but basically, the thing is, I can, so I will. I’m aware of how words can change people’s minds, can change the way people think. So are all of the advertisers, so are all of the politicians, so are all of the people who run our lives. They’re not pulling any punches – I would say that it is beholden unto any writer to equally not pull any punches, on the other side. If you believe something, if you believe something is right or something is wrong then yeah, try and convince other people. Spread the idea around like a designer virus. Make it so that other people will repeat it.” *

-

Chuck Palahniuk quote:

Q. “Do you ever wonder whether you’ve taken a story or book too far?”

Chuck. “That’s when I know I’ve taken it far enough.” *

.

Alan Moore quote:

“As to whether I ever thought I’d gone too far: Yes, a couple of times I thought ‘is this going too far’ but then I thought, well, if I didn’t think that at least a couple of times during the narrative, then it probably isn’t going far enough.” *

-

Robert McKee quotes:

“When we peek behind the grinning mask of comic cynicism, we find a frustrated idealist. The comic sensibility wants the world to be perfect, but when it looks around, it finds greed, corruption, lunacy. The result is an angry and depressed artist.”

“Comedy is at heart an angry, antisocial art. To solve the problem of weak comedy, therefore, the writer first asks: What am I angry about? He finds that aspect of society that heats his blood and goes on an assault.” *

-

Chuck Palahniuk quote:

Q. “Give us the scenario where you are stuck. You know, where you know where the story wants to go, but it’s not fleshed out the way you thought or something…“

Chuck. “Okay, let me ask you a question first. Do you ever go into the bathroom, sit on the toilet when you don’t need to take a shit? Do you? Do you ever just sit there when you are like, completely empty, and you sit there and push? No, you don’t. You go eat something. And then you live your life. And then what happens, happens. And it’s the same thing with writing. It’s like, if I don’t have an idea that I’m not absolutely terrified of losing, then I don’t bother to write.” *

-

Another Dave Sim quote: