"Welcome to the Party, Pal!"

Well, it’s most of the way though summer, so you know what that means, right? It means I’m sitting home wishing I’d have made it to Comic-Con. Sigh. Aw, that’s all right. Just a tough transition. You get so used to it. That happens when you do it, year after year, for fifteen years without a break! Guess my break was kind of overdue, huh? At least I’m glad that everyone else had to take a break this year, too. That makes me feel a little better. Plus, Tony’s photos and video and emails helped create the virtual experience. He even emailed a photo of the inside walls of Dick’s Last Resort. He thought of everything. Ah, well. Next year, gents. Let’s see if we can ALL make it happen and make the anniversary a great one!

Well, by the time this gets put up, unless something went really wrong (like me getting ill again), I will have gone to my first concert since about 1993 – a multiple-band show that includes Judas Priest, Whitesnake and Tesla. The last two bands on that list are ones I was actually a fan of back in my body perm days. The first one? Not so much. I think there was just a slight generational cutoff between heavy metal and hard rock. I was not a heavy metal guy. Bands like Judas Priest, Metallica, Iron Maiden, Ozzy? I found them all quite goofy. The guys I’m going to this concert with, however? They thought that stuff was awesome! These guys were all seniors when I was a sophomore. They caught the tail end of the metal-is-cool thing. The hilarious part is that they’re all middle-aged professionals now – one a dentist, one an airline pilot, the other an accountant (it sounds like I’m making that up, like it’s a badly clichéd screenplay, doesn’t it?). Two of them are fathers. Two pretty religious. But all, apparently, all keen on reliving their head-banging youth. Like I said…I expect a good blog out of it. That, or a bad screenplay… Either way, you’ll hear all about it.

This Time Around

Got just the one thing for you this time, as I’ve been busy with other stuff. I recently joined the whole Twitter experience. I don’t know if you’ve checked it out or not, but if you’re like me, you’ve heard quite a bit about it (especially in regards to the Iran elections). I hadn’t seen much point in trying it, because it basically sounded like just another way to accomplish what I was already doing with Facebook updates – this is, just throwing in reports throughout the day of what I’m up to. It occurred to me, though, that not everyone I know is on Facebook, and therefore can’t see my profile, so I figured I’d check it out. I started a page. I knew up front that I didn’t want to take the time to do updates on two different pages (Facebook and Twitter) every day, but luckily, I found that there’s an application in Facebook that integrates your Twitter updates (or “tweets”, as they call them) into your Facebook account, turning them into Facebook updates. Cool…no replication. So I had a Twitter page, and had it set up so that as soon as I typed in a “tweet”, it would automatically post on the old FB, so a-tweeting I did go. My page, by the way, can be found at:

http://www.twitter.com/oconnellmd

The main reason Twitter is a draw is the whole “followers” thing. This is where the fun comes in. You can “follow” someone’s Twitter page, so that whenever they type a new “tweet”, it shows up on your home page. Yes, this is nice if you want to know what your aunt Marjorie had for breakfast. But in Twitter, just as in real life…celebrities are just more interesting. There are a lot of celebs (and more everyday) that are on Twitter. And that kind of stuff is actually quite fascinating, and sometimes really entertaining. For example, John Favreau is a big Twitter guy, and has been Twittering many times a day right from the set of “Iron Man 2”, also taking and posting up pics from time to time. Thanks to following him, I knew the exact moment when principal photography officially wrapped. And later that night got to see pics Fav put up from the wrap party. I also started following Nathan Fillion (Captain Reynolds of “Firefly”, don’t ya know, but obviously best known (snicker) to us as Dr. Horrible’s nemesis, Captain Hammer), and this was right at a time when he was visiting France, so updates and pics were much fun. Also, just recently, he started filming season 2 of “Castle”, and so I knew right when that began. In one really fun post, he was actually tweeting while being filmed – guess he was in a scene where he was supposed to be texting.

This kind of thing is not like the vulgar, sensationalist celebrity-stalking of the supermarket tabloids. This is your favorite celeb letting you into their lives, giving you the information they want to instead of it being “stolen” from them by the scumbag paparazzi. It’s a really neat look inside the lives of celebs, and lets you get to know (and therefore like) them even more.

This all got me to thinking – if it was, say, 2008 (when Twitter was just starting to hit), how many super-heroes in the Forte world would have a Twitter page? And what would they have to say?

So I wanted to see what a Forte person’s page would look like. I originally thought of doing this for Dyna Girl, as she’s the publicity arm of the modern-day Forte team, a big blogger and fan club gal. But that’s been done with her. I wanted to explore someone else’s life, and someone else’s relationship with the fans. I decided on Nightsable.

Literally just before I was about to start this, I had a phone conversation with Aaron, who was working on a draft of an upcoming Dyna Girl story. I happened to mention the Twitter thing, and he let me know that, in his story, he established that Twitter in the Forte world is called “Chatter”. And instead of “tweets”, people call their entries “cheeps” (like, “a little bird told me”). Oh. Okay. Luckily, he caught me just before I started designing the web page, so I moved forward based on his continuity.

So what I created was Nightsable’s Chatter page. I went to painstaking lengths to build it to look as close as possible to a real Twitter page, even going so far as to obsess over which page background Nightsable would choose. I found the perfect one – purple, girly, and with little swirls on them that made me think of her teleportals. After the design was done, I got to work on content, and what you’ll be reading is a few days in the life of a Forte hero, and seeing how one hero interacts with her fans. You’ll also find out what life is like for someone who can teleport anywhere on the globe at will.

Now, if you’ve never done the Twitter thing before, I want to hip you to some things to know so that you’ll know how to properly read and enjoy this little experiment. This is important stuff…otherwise you’re just going to be scratching your head a lot.

1) READ FROM THE BOTTOM UP. On Twitter (and therefore on Chatter), the newest updates are at the top of the page. So to follow this “story”, you need to scroll all the way to the bottom and start reading your way up. Pay attention to the dates and times beneath the entries, so you’ll know what time of day we’re talking about and when one day ends and another begins.

2) KNOW WHAT THE “@” THINGS MEAN. When you’re reading a Twitter page, you’ll often see a line on someone’s page start with something like “@DynaGIrl”. What this means is that Nightsable has just responded to a “cheep” on Dyna Girl’s own Chatter page. When you’re reading someone’s page, you’ll see that response, but you won’t get the context unless you jump over to that other person’s page (Dyna Girl) and read what’s there. Since there IS no Dyna Girl page, in reality, you won’t be able to so that, of course. But you can kind of figure it out by Nightsable’s response. Nightsable will not only be responding to things on the pages of people she’s following, but also to fan comments made to her. When you see a non-super name (@MissMolly), that means she’s talking to a fan who said something. You, again, won’t be able to see what that fan said. You’ll pick up the rhythm, and it doesn’t happen all THAT often on this particular page.

3) THE LINKS DON’T WORK. It’s a fake page. There’s stuff that clearly looks like you should click on it, like a photo link she puts in one of her “cheeps”, but you won’t be able to see those. Also note: there’s a button at the bottom that says “More”. That’s what you’d normally use to see earlier “cheeps”. But in this case, those don’t really exist, so that button does nothing.

4) DON’T HURT YOUR EYES TRYING TO FIGURE OUT WHO SHE’S FOLLOWING. On a Twitter page, you can see the number of other people that a person is following, but you’ll also see a certain number of those others graphically represented with tiny little icons showing that person’s profile image. You would normally click on those to go to that person’s page. So, again trying to be authentic, I did that. I put a lot of thought into who would have a Chatter page and who wouldn’t in the Forte world. This is certainly not an all-inclusive list, and you don’t even get to see all 62 people Nightsable is following, but this is a nice sampling. Some of the icons you’ll be able to make out, some you won’t. Let me save you the trouble and spell them out for you here, left to right:

Anvil (Mist would make all Forge members have one, I figure, for PR reasons), Ashton Kutcher (our Earth's most-followed Twitter celeb, so I figured it's the same there and Nightsable would follow him), Chill, Captain Compass, Dyna Girl, Franklin Richards, Frenzy (NS's sister), Heroic City (the Seattle super-hero web site/blog established by Aaron in one of his stories), Import (specifically, "Import's Export", the Chatter page she has for her web radio show), The Nice Guy (I'm sure Nightsable's a fan...), Knights Unite (an organization fighting to make heroes legal in the U.K. again), La La Lingerie (my friend Summer's online lingerie store...figure Nightsable would keep up on the latest lingerie (henh!)), Maelstrom (of the Four Aces), Max, Mist, the Forte Museum, Nightshift, Paladin Magazine Online, Passport (NS's other sister), Johnny Quest, Seattle Post-Intelligencer (Dad’s paper), Stacy McKone (head gal under Electro Man at the Forte Museum and a pal of Forte), Tommy (imagine those great updates: "CAUGHT A FISH". "ATE THE FISH". "I LIKE FISH".), The Voice (the famed singing heartthrob of Armor Security) and Vortex (Nightsable's boyfriend and fellow Forte hero).

I had to include this legend because I knew you’d hate me for it otherwise. ..

So there you have it. Jump into Nightsable’s life, find out what’s happening with her and, by proxy, other Forte members and even some special guests. I hope you enjoy this alternative storytelling experiment.

And if you want to read an actual live fictional Twitter page I do daily, in case I haven’t shared this, you can check out what’s up with Jeff (The Nice Guy) anytime at:

http://www.twitter.com/NiceGuyJeff

Also – just a couple of new art pieces for you in the Forte 2000 Art Gallery .

The first is by pro artist Dean Yeagle. I’ll tell you up front – it’s a swipe, not a commission. I was looking at different artists online, came across this pro guy’s stuff, and, in one of his sketchbook scans, found one figure that made me go, “Oh, my God, that’s Dyna Girl!”. Totally reminded me of her. And it also made me think of one of those great commission moments that K.C. and I have both had to deal with over the years. It looked, to me, like I commissioned his art, sent him all the reference links, and told him (as I usually do with artists if I don’t have something specific in mind) to go ahead and just do whatever kind of shot of her he wanted. And then I (hypothetically) got it back, and he’d decided to do a shot of Dyna in her underwear. As K.C. knows, this kind of thing really happens. Something about that made me laugh, and the head portion of it looked just so D.G., I decided to swipe it and use it in the gallery. Just don’t tell Dean Yeagle. And if it comes off a little too cheesecake, just know this – Aaron tells me Jeni happened to see that shot, and instead of being offended by it, she felt it was “cute”. So we don’t have to feel like pervs. We have a woman’s opinion on our side.

Second – I got A.T. to draw! Yes, Mr. Thompson did some art. We’ve been getting together for some “creative time” of late (we’re working on a screenplay idea together), and he brought his art stuff last time. Seriously, I don’t think he’s drawn anything in YEARS. I encouraged him to not draw anything that he felt he “had” to…just to have fun, just draw stuff that sounded like fun to him. Lucky for me, he decided to do a face shot of Nightsable, based on a Jewel Staite photo he was looking at (as Jewel is the photo reference for Nightsable). I sure hope he gets in this mood more often!

Well, that’s all for this time, and that’s all for summertime. Guess we’ll do this again in the fall. When, of course, the weather will still feel like summer here. We’ll see what new Forte fun I can whip up next time. Enjoy the rest of the summer, gang!

Next Time...On "The 'F' Word"...

Well, that’s all for this time, and that’s all for summertime. Guess we’ll do this again in the fall. When, of course, the weather will still feel like summer here. We’ll see what new Forte fun I can whip up next time. Enjoy the rest of the summer, gang!

Michael O’Connell
The Ayatolla of Forte...uh...olla....