Woof! Wow. Been a while since I updated this blog. I sincerely hope you haven’t been using this site as your primary news source. Did you know there was a pandemic? Blimey.
Over the next few weeks – ideally ahead of August, when I’ll be participating in the Burbank Comedy Festival – I hope to get this website entirely revamped to serve as a proper, decent hub for all of my nonsense. Until then… hello! And sorry.
I updated the Deadlong page with a little background info on the comic and a single-panel preview. If you’ve read the recent Deadlong post over on the Jump Leads website then there’s not really anything new there. I just wanted to flesh the page out a little.
With the .com domain sort of imploding I’ve had to move the site over to a .net domain instead, which has involved a fresh install of WordPress and a bit of tricky jiggery-pokery to get the old posts moved over here, but they’re all there. Go on, scroll down a bit and have a look. I won’t mind.
Some of the old posts, like this look at Russell T Davies’ occasionally clunky writing, will have missing images. Not much I can do about that right now, but I’ll have a go at fixing it later in the week.
But anyway, I’ve taken this opportunity to reinvent the site a little. I’ve given my Resume a bit of a polish, and I’ve added a page about the SoulGeek Singles Nights that I co-host with Dino (they’re great fun, by the way – if you’re ever in the area, feel free to pop by). I’m sure I’ll think of more stuff to add, but for now this seems like a good start.
2012 is going to be a busy year for me. Between PortsCenter, the Jump Leads audioplays I’ve been putting off for far too long, and a handful of other projects, this is the year I try to break out of my rut and do my own thing. Whether or not I’m able to make a success of it is entirely on me.
Wish me luck.
I’ve added four short pieces to my portfolio, each between two and three pages long (I guess you’d call them skits or sketches). Feel free to check them out.
Also, part three of Boomer’s Day Off has been live now for about a week, but I’ve not been in a position to properly promote it. Here it is:
I wrote the first draft of Typecast back in 2007 when I had planned to produce it using Lionhead Studios’ game, The Movies. I recently re-discovered the script and thought that the concept still held up well, so I spent some time revising and updating it. This is it.
I’ll be adding more stuff to my portfolio in the next few days. This is probably the longest script you can expect to see on the site that doesn’t start with the words “Jump Leads” in the title.
BenPaddon.com is effectively done. All I need to do is get my writing portfolio online (which should be done this week) and get some photos up (which will be done… er… later) and we’re done. Thanks to SupSuper, my Web Gorilla, for making the site work based on my crude design and layout ideas. You should all head over to his blog (and his Twitter page) and moan at him until he starts blogging regularly again. Or not. It’s up to you, really.
I’m really excited about this site – it’s a brand new way for me to talk about what I’m up to. Which means, if I want to be blogging regularly, I need to be actively doing things. If that isn’t an incentive to get my arse into gear I don’t know what is.
I’ve spent a lot of time over the past two weeks writing outlines and pilots for two sitcoms, which I intend to pitch later in the year. Before the end of March I hope to have an additional six ideas down, and possibly a seventh – that being another attempt to get Jump Leads onto television. I’m going to try pitching Jump Leads as an animated series, I think. If nothing else, pitching science fiction is already incredibly difficult, but I’m sort-of married to JjAR’s brilliant character and set design for the comic. I’d love to see it realised on the tellybox.
I’ve spent a fair bit of time talking to people about my idea for a comedy that almost, but not quite, parodies “Vampire with a Heart Of Gold” media such as Twilight, Interview with the Vampire, Angel, Moonlight etc., and everybody agrees I have a fantastic premise but a wobbly story. So I think I shall be scrapping the story and trying to build something new from the ground up. I fear that may take a while, though. I might find myself drawing charts and boxes and things in the near future. I see a late night expedition to a coffee shop, my sleepy frame drooping wearily over a notepad and a laptop, desperating trying to claw a half-decent story out of this idea. If I can’t find one, I might do well to just drop the idea entirely, or give it to another writer who might be able to do it justice. Pity really, as I really like the character I’ve come up with. His name is Jobe. He’s a bastard. Probably the biggest bastard I’ve ever written. Shame.
Right, I’m going to go away and do something unproductive. I wonder if I can top my Rock Band high score on the bass-line for Muse’ “Hysteria”…
The site is probably about 80-90% done. It’s almost where I want it to be, only it’s… well, not there yet. SupSuper, my brilliant web gorilla, is diligantly working on it.
I’ve done everything I need to do save for properly set up the Photos page, and that’s because I don’t have any photos yet. Hopefully I’ll be able to get some taken in a couple of weeks.
Writer, Actor, and not-when-anyone-else-is-within-earshot Nerdcore Rapper Ben Paddon has a great many fingers in a delicious assortment of pies. He is the co-creator and Head Writer of British scifi-comedy comic series Jump Leads, the co-founder of political blog But, Sir…, the asshole behind Game Journalists Are Incompetent Fuckwits, and the Editor-in-Chief for SoulGeek Webcomics.
Ben has an assortment of skills. He is an expert harp player, a fantastic dancer (particularly tap), a professional fencer, and an accomplished liar.