James Vance (1953-2017)

I guess it's okay now to report sadly that Kings in Disguise and later Omaha the Cat Dancer writer Jim Vance passed away June 5, after a long and difficult battle with cancer.

Jim and Kate Worley were married about 10 years when she passed away in 2004. At that time she and I, with agent Denis Kitchen, were negotiating on a new publication of Omaha the Cat Dancer with 150 new pages to complete the story. Jim took up the writing duties using Kate's copious notes, and we worked hard together, while he also worked on the Kings sequel, On the Ropes. Both were finished in 2013 and Omaha's final volume debuted at the 2013 San Diego Comicon.

Jim's wife Jodi Berg has looked after Jim during this time and and her daughter Kaitlyn and Jim and Kate's children Jake and Sarah are now in her care and doing remarkably considering they all have fought to overcome disabiities.

There is a GoFundMe project being started for Jo and "her" children to save their house. Please go there and read more about the amazing story, and consider a donation.

GOFUNDME FOR VANCE FAMILY MORTGAGE

Please follow the link and read the story.

Happy Birthday, Kate Worley

Kate would have been 59 last Thursday. She was a tall and hard-to-miss fixture in Minneapolis fandom, and in the music circle, and in Shockwave Radio.

Here is a photo from fanac.org showing some soon-to-be famous faces: (from left) Kate Worley, Emma Bull, Jerry Boyajian, Steven Brust.

Happy birthday, Kate.

Omaha waits while Nellie Tools Up

Omaha 

Omaha fans are waiting for Omaha material old and new to appear here, but that's going to have to wait.

What I'm waiting for, is for Jim Vance and Jo to give me the keys to the omahathecatdancer.com site so that either it can be updated or I can move some material to my site and add links. Due to health reasons, there hasn't been any update on the "Omaha" official site since 2008. So visitors there may not even know that the story was finished, and the full set of Omaha is available from NBM Publications.
When Jim and Jo get better, they'll get back to me, and we'll talk about what to do with the Omaha web presence. As I said before, I do intend to have sketches, pages, and unavailable material up for viewing and eventually, for sale. But there's still a lot of work to do before any of that is possible.
Meantime, the "Cat Dancing with Omaha" yahoo group is still active (although there havent been any posts for a while). Sign up if you're not a member.
In the meantime, the entire Omaha the Cat Dancer Picture Disk is on my site available for listening.

Nellie

Meanwhile, Nellie and the Drummers, idle for 12 years, are hard at work on their new album, "Backstage Musical."
Between 2004 when I completed two numbers for the new album, and now, I've had to upgrade my computer and all my software. Additionally, the more ambitious project I'm beginning requires better instruments and better equipment, so I invested a little money I didn't previously have, into big band and orchestra instruments and an upgrade for my Digital Audio Workstation. Nellie's voice works just fine the way it is.
Watch the Nellie section of my website for developments, and new tracks as they are finished.

A New Period Begins

Yes, it's pretty much a new period in my life.

With Omaha the Cat Dancer finally finished, I'm retired. Now it's time to start cleaning up the mess online.

This blog has never been kept up, and it's likely that it will be closed down after I make some progress on my new site, at reedwalleromaha.com.

The Omaha the Cat Dancer Yahoo group has been closed, Mark is finally used up, and I can't do anything with it myself, because of confusion with my Yahoo account. Oh well, it has served its purpose.

Likewise I lost control of this blog when Blogspot switched to Google and i couldn't get logged in here either.

Then all my online files, such as blog images and Nellie and the Drummers music and my Furry Sex Panel video, all got erased when Consolidated Communications (who bought Enventis, who bought Hickorytech my ISP) decided to discontinue offering personal web space two weeks ago.

So I am starting my own website for the first time in 15 years. There I hope to be able to offer my artwork for sale, records and memorabilia, the Nellie and the Drummers music, and just generally be present. But mostly just for fun.

I will be contacting Jim Vance and see if he would like some help in bringing omahathecatdancer.com back up to date.

Cyberpunk Nostalgia

It's time for a little cyberpunk nostalgia.

This link now works again!

The Cowboy Hacker Queen!

This song was created for Nellie's first album in 1999, when cyberpunk was still fun, and the mix of digital 3D animation, computer generated audio, and vintage pop music was a novelty. Having the Andrews Sisters do a cyberpunk ballad seemed like a natural.

Be sure and check out the entire Nellie albums on my website HERE!

Contact information

It's been pointed out that I'm a hard person to get hold of. For those looking for me, I can be emailed at rwaller@hickorytech.net

There.

Omaha merchandise, sketches available

Okay, I'm on eBay and in celebration of Omaha being finished and my 65th birthday today, I have been offering a few A/Ps of the "Afternoon of a Feline" serigraph from 1994 and the Shakers Omaha the Cat Dancer Picture Disc from 1988. Other items may become available as i continue to dig through the piles of stuff in  my house.

The picture disks are up now and can be found here:
OMAHA PICTURE DISK offer on eBay

I'm including a one-off CD-ROM of the digitally remastered version of the album with an extra track.
The serigraph is not available this month due to eBay listing restrictions, but I will put some up again in September.

Anyone making queries about sketches or about original Omaha pages, email me or watch this blog.

San Diego and Beyond

Okay, it looks like I'll have a little time to write, finally.

San Diego Comicon was quite an experience. I hadn't been out of my village for nearly 10 years, and though I was working with Jim Vance on completing the book, it was going at a snail's pace and seemed like working in the coal mine, except for the encouragement of the people on the Cat Dancing With Omaha Yahoo group, who kept us going.

My health has never been good, but at my age things pile up, and before I could venture forward to speak or appear in public, I had to have major dental work done. With no health coverage that was a problem, but I made a deal with my employer, and I got fitted with a full upper denture, only 3 weeks before San Diego. Adjusting to the new appliance was difficult and required several radical changes of diet while I adapted, and those dietary changes were not easy for me either because of my frail digestive system, the result of my colon cancer. But somehow I got myself operating and with some financial help from a fan/collector (you know who you are!) I flew out to San Diego and spent 3 days in the middle of something wilder than anything I've ever seen before.

After fighting my way through a Super Bowl sized crowd 8-10 blocks from the sumptuous Horton Grand Hotel and down the street, weaving my way between gigantic multi-story promotional booths for game companies and TV shows, lugging 40 lbs. of artwork and books, I found my way to the Convention Center, and finally to the NBM booth, and was welcomed by Terry Nantier and his gang.

Here are some photos taken by NBM photographer Justin Brandon at San Diego.



Reed Waller signing and visiting, with Terry Nantier

Reed and Rick Geary sketching (back: Terry Nantier, booth mgr. Patrick Turner)

Over the weekend I only had time to do about half a dozen sketches, I was so busy talking with fans. It was gratifying to see so many people glad to see me and eager to express their appreciation for Omaha, their sorrow over the loss of Kate, and their gratitude to Jim Vance and me for completing it. Though many visitors weren't even aware that we'd done the job, and the premiere appearance of the final volume of Omaha was a complete surprise to them!

It was exciting to emerge from obscurity to be recognized as an Old Pro. But it was also spooky and strange to be there by myself, after so many years of sitting in the hot seat sketching while Kate did all the talking for the two of us.

Terry warned me not to expect to be "the center of attention," since SDCC had changed quite a bit since the Old Days. I had to laugh. As if we were ever the center of attention. "If there's even 50 people there who remember Omaha, I'll be happy," I said. 

I certainly got my wish. All weekend I was kept busy visiting with fans, telling stories, listening to stories, hearing about what kind of impact Omaha had on some people's lives during a time of profound social change.

On Saturday I wove my way through the buildings to the marina, to be interviewed for Comic Book Resources TV.  The video, plus audio interviews with me, Jim Vance, and Denis Kitchen, and Jim's deeply moving introduction to the final volume can all be found by visiting the Omaha home page at NBM. Please check this out!

It took me six months to recover from the ordeal, but it was worth it. Now I'm going to try to catch up on this blog, and begin to repay my old debts.

Back in Commission

Okay, it's been eight years since I published a blog post. Once Jim and I actually got working on the new Omaha pages, I had precious little energy to do this, and whatever comments or communication I had went straight to the members of the "Cat-Dancing-With-OMAHA™" Yahoo Group.

Now, the project has been completed at last! The final volume, Vol. 8 of The Complete Omaha from NBM, is at press and copies will be available at the San Diego Comicon.

And so will I!

Yep, i'm gonna be there, thanks to NBM and my employer at the NRHEG Star Eagle newspaper where I work. I will be at the NBM booth signing, doing sketches, selling whatever merchandise I can drag along, and probably some original Omaha pages, plus visiting with fans. I'm a little old for this sort of thing and have never done it on my own before, but I'm game, and it's going to be an interesting experience.

Thanks to everyone for supporting Jim and me all these years, and still caring.

Omaha Lives!

Okay, many of you have already seen the NBM fall catalog, so you know that Omaha the Cat Dancer™ has been signed with NBM Publications, and will be reprinted in its entirety starting with Volume 1 in October, and a new volume released quarterly after that.

Jim Vance and I have agreed to produce 120 pages of new material finishing the story from Kate's outline. This new material will first be published in 15-page installments in NBM's Sizzle, a Euro-centered adults-only comics magazine, starting with issue #28 this November. Omaha will be on the cover.

Once the story is wrapped up in Sizzle, NBM will collect the new episodes into a final volume, and the entire series will be available in a uniform edition.

I want to thank all the members of the "Cat-Dancing-With-OMAHA™" Yahoo group, for their unwavering support during the 2+ years of painful negotiations, the tragedy of Kate's death, my slow attempts to regain my drawing skills after 10 years of retirement, and Jim's and my determination to keep the story alive. Thank you, one and all.

Okay, Let's Try This Again

In December, after waiting for nearly two years, I finally gave agent Denis Kitchen the word to tell Les Humanoides to either come through or not. They didn't. There will be no publication deal with them. After backpedaling considerably in Deceember, they finally simply failed to come up with acceptable terms, and we had to cancel the negotiations.

Jim and I asked Denis to hunt for an alternative publisher for the Omaha project, since we were now committed to finish the work out of loyalty to Kate. Denis promptly found us another prospect, less lucrative but at least geniune, and negotiations began with them. This process was delayed by, among other things, the passing of comics great Will Eisner, whom Denis represented.

A proposal is currently being worked on that would provide a full reprint series of the Omaha material and, of course, the new material to be created by Jim and me. The good news is, we are probably going to be allotted more pages than LesH was going to give us, so it will be possible to finish off the story the way Kate wanted to, without having to cut secondary characters from the denouement. (It is likely that, if the original deal had gone through, CeeCee, the band, and others may have simply faded from the story due to length.)

On April 24, I was a guest at the MCBA spring comicon at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds, the same people who put on the fall show I went to last year. My former assistant Diana Green (now a graphic arts/media instructor in the Twin Cities) escorted me there and we made the appearance with mixed feelings. Last fall, appearing at the con was enjoyable, because I had friends I hadn't seen for years, and news for them, good (about the Omaha deal) and sad (about Kate). However, six months later, with really no progress and no change, it was kind of a hollow feeling to make an appearance among working artists and writers for a long-dead title that *may* soon reappear. Some fans were there despite the lack of advance warning, and were supportive as always, but I don't think I'm going to make another convention appearance until I have something to report, or better yet, until I am actually drawing a live comic again. I hope that will be soon.

No News

As you've probably already guessed if you read this page, the "soon-to-come final word" from LesH has been neither soon to come, nor final. I'm not betraying any confidences by saying that we still don't know the score, but Jim and I have decided to begin work on the new Omaha material as our schedules permit, so that we have some actual product to show either LesH or another publisher, if it comes to that. So my studio has become a busy place. Beginning work on the new pages is currently taking a back seat, though, to my getting all my outstanding commissions done and shipped in time for the holidays.

With brush in hand...

We are awaiting a soon-to-come final word from Les Humanoides ... will we be able to continue with them, or will we have to look somewhere else?

I went last weekend to the MCBA Fall Comicon in St. Paul. This was my first public appearance in seven years. I was a late addition to the guest list, so I expected to have some time to set up before greeting anyone, but in fact, the Omaha fans were waiting for me.

I greeted the fans as best I could, told them the story, and took brush in hand and began to draw, no computer assistance, no net, nothing but me and my precious characters and the Bristol board, and it was scary, and it was good.

I heard a lot of "It's really good to see you again," a lot of "I'm so glad you're continuing," a lot of "I have always loved Omaha..."

It was humbling, and it felt so good.

It became easier as I continued to draw throughout the weekend. But at the end, it became difficult again, as I became once again involved with what I was doing, and sometimes my heart ached terribly as I painted the familiar lines of these figures that are so much a part of my life, and Kate's, and Jim's too.

It was a wonderful little convention, and I got to talk to old friends, Chas Truog, Gordon Purcell, my beloved former apprentice Diana Green, charter Vootie member Tim Fay, Kitchen Sink compatriot Mark Schultz (briefly), Joel Thingvall, Greg Ketter and Alan Payne. I stayed Friday night with Chris Conroy and Sue Grandys, who have supported me as friends all these years.

I guess I'm back now, for better or worse.

Kate Sings Again

Well, I had to do something to help bring in a few bucks to keep me and Jim afloat until LesH stop stalling and give us that contract. Jim has finished several pages of the new Omaha material, and they're great, and I'm drawing them .. but nobody has offered to pay us for them yet, so other work has to take the front seat.

Anyway, I did a digital restore job on the master tape for the 1988 picture disk album "Omaha The Cat Dancer" by The Shakers (me, Kate, Nate Bucklin, Allan Standish, +David Emerson and others). I wanted as good a version of this music as possible to listen to while I was re-learning how to draw comics the Omaha way. So I've ripped the results to .MP3 and put the disk up for download at my store, just for the fans.

Jim and I are having a bittersweet-but-pleasant time working on Omaha together. I just hope that we can finish this project in such a way as to do Kate the honor she deserves.

What can I do for Kate's family?

Flowers are not being accepted. Those wishing to donate money to the family can send via PayPal to Jim at jim1vance@aol.com .

Cards of sympathy, or whatever you might think of, can be sent to Jim at:
James Vance
323 S Yorktown
Tulsa OK, 74104

Farewell Kate

As you may or may not have already read, Kate Worley passed away June 6, 2004. She is survived by her husband James Vance, son Jacob, and daughter Sarah, as well as two sisters, a brother and several nieces and nephews. You can read or leave condolences, talk with other Omaha fans, and find out the answers to your questions at the CAT-DANCING-WITH-OMAHA yahoo group (see button on sidebar).

I'm not ready to talk about this in depth. So instead I will talk about Omaha.

In spite of the difficulty of our separation many years ago, Kate and I gradually tried to make peace, and were finally talking comfortably, and by the time the inquiries started to come about whether Omaha could be finished, we were both excited at the prospect of picking up our unfinished business and doing more of the work that made us what we are. At this moment I have two pages written by Kate only a few weeks ago, sitting on my drawing table in the midst of being inked.

If the Omaha project contract does in fact go through in spite of Kate's passing, the writing work will be concluded by James Vance, with my assistance, from the copious notes that Kate has left in preparation for the story's completion. Jim is not only Kate's spouse, he is also probably the only other writer working in comics who has a voice anything like Kate's. It will not be easy for us to complete this highly personal work, after all the heartbreak and trouble associated with it over the years, and now this sadness. But it's something that needs to be done, now, and I hope that Les Humanoides will give us an opportunity to do so.

Back to Holding Breath

The news is not good. After a short period of stability, just long enough for her to start getting some strength back and think about writing, Kate's cancer has flared up again. She is back in rad and chemo as of today, and more treatments. This despite the increased risks of repeated radiation to the spinal column, but there's really no choice. For those desiring to send well wishes, I will post pertinent information on the cat dancing Yahoo group.

I am hoping, as I know you all are, that things go well, and Kate has some more time with us, Omaha or no Omaha.

Back In the Comic Biz!

The negotiations to begin the production of the new issue of the Omaha series are close to completion, and Kate is working now on the outlines for the 92 pages of NEW material we will be doing to complete the story arc. Kate says she will have this outline to me and Denis by next week. WOW! Now I REALLY have to get the lead out, vacuum the studio, buy a ton of new bristol board, clean off the hard drive, and get ready to go back to work after eight years of sitting on my butt.

I want to thank all the fans who have ordered commissioned drawings from me, without which practice I don't think I'd be able to face this prospect realistically. Now that everything "Omaha" is going to crash priority, expect fast turnaround on the sketches, and lots of news as it breaks, here and on the Yahoo group.

What I have done in the last four months, is (a) develop computer character models for the Omaha characters (only Omaha and Chuck are currently at working versions), (b) get back into drawing and brush rendering practice, (c) re-read the series for content and style .. you know, I almost forgot how good Kate was ...

I'm excited all over again at the possibility that this book may finally find its audience now that popular taste has caught up with what Kate and I were doing twenty years ago. That's what I'm hoping for, anyway. No matter what, it's going to feel really great to be doing Omaha pages again, and have new deadlines to be terrified by.

Omaha and CGI

Back in 1980 when the first news of Apple Computer was starting to break, I was envisioning a situation where I could interactively create and manipulate standing sets and characters for a computer-assisted comic book series. This was when I was halfway through the process of drawing the first Omaha comic.

I was able to realize some of this by 1986 when Kate and I finally broke down and bought a PC, and I did some of the set design and virtual background photography on the PC in a primitive "My House" sort of interior design program. The state of desktop software was not to the point where it was practical to try to design and pose characters, but it helped to be able to rotate and print wireframe models of the apartment and the Tabey mansion.

Fast forwards to 1995 .. Omaha is over, but at the same time, I had had a year of computer graphics training at the technical school, had acquired a Mac, and had been introduced to a new piece of software called Poser. At that point it was a simple fast program for posing virtual artists manikins. This program helped me produce a computer colored and partly rendered book, Tumbling Boxes, in 1996.

In the intervening years I've done virtually no drawing but a lot of CGI work, including third party modelmaking, and now I hope that these contemporary skills will help me realize my original intention of using the computer to help maintain a coherent universe for the comic characters, without any visible signs of "computer" stuff being done. We'll see.

Back in the Art Biz

In order to generate capital, and get back in practice, I'm offering to sell Omaha™ commissioned drawings once again! That's right, I'm drawing again. And you can place orders via PayPal from my STORE PAGE, which you see on the sidebar.

Temporary home?

I'm still new at this blog thing, and it's altogether possible that I may stop updating this and instead, reactivate my homepage at Winternet. We'll see how i feel.