R.I.P. Andy Hallet

 

From CBC News:

Andy Hallett, who portrayed a charming, karaoke-singing demon on the Buffy the Vampire Slayer spin-off show Angel, has died at the age of 33.

Hallett was rushed to Cedars-Sinai Medical Centre in Los Angeles on Sunday after suffering breathing problems. He died there, following a five-year battle with congestive heart disease, his agent, Pat Brady, said Tuesday.

Born in Osterville, Mass., Hallett moved to Los Angeles at the age of 23. He worked as a messenger at a talent agency and eventually scored a job as an assistant to the wife of Buffy and Angel creator Joss Whedon.

After seeing Hallett perform karaoke, Whedon asked the lanky young man to audition for a new character on Angel, which starred David Boreanaz as the titular brooding vampire with a soul.

Described by his father as "a very gregarious, happy young man," Hallett became a fan favourite on the show as Lorne, the red-horned, green-skinned, lounge lizard-inspired owner of a demon karaoke bar.

Lorne, who could deduce elements of the future for those he heard sing, soon joined Angel 's group of do-gooders. The show ended in 2004.

According to Brady, Hallett was diagnosed with his heart condition as the show came to an end and had been in and out of hospital over the past five years.

The actor is survived by his parents, Dave and Lori Hallett.

Thoughts about the Masters

I did a bit of thinking about my Masters while I was away in Sydney.

The first thing is that I'm going to dump the current research topic and replace it with:

Transgendered Art: looking at the altered self
An investigation into both art that focuses on altered and variant genders, and art created by transgendered persons, with a focus on comics and illustrative works.

This makes better sense when my work is two graphic novels that are directly related to Transgender concepts and themes. It'll also be easier to research (I had no idea about methodology for the previous topic), maintain and present.

The second thing is in organising my research and time at university. I have two graphic novels and a research paper to do. It seems clear to me now that staying home to do these is problematic. There are too many distraction and issues here to do this properly. So, what I will do is go to university at least three days each week, and each day will be devoted to one of the above.

I stand a better chance of completing them if I do this, I know I will. And I know I need to start doing this now.

Comics for TINA

The other thing is that I need to do for the masters is create and publish some comics for This Is Not Art.

The past few years I've either not had the money, or not had the material to do this. It was difficult to do anything while I did my Honours as I was focussed on that instead. Most of my comic output has been as Web Comics. However, for my Masters I need to play around with different techniques for the two Graphic Novels before I start creating the artwork for them (this year is all research and scripting) in Black and White.

So with that in mind I think I need to do two things for TINA later this year:

1. Produce a 7th issue of Hypergraphia in paper copy; and
2. transfer and reformat several of my web comics into B&W paper format.

The theme I have for Hypergraphia is "Frustrations & Lamentations" and will include stories about Pegasus, driving, and coping with dickheads (among others). I did a prototype cover for the next issue a while ago (March last year!), and this will be incorporated into a new cover. More "art as therapy" and more's the better for it.

The web comics I have in mind for colour to B&W reformat are Floods and Storms (24 pages) and Second Life Crisis (7 pages) and perhaps PART 1 of Tales of the Galli (varied number of pages). Altogether I think that will keep me busy until October - especially as I'll still be researching/scripting three days a week and do my regular web comics as well.

We'll see how that goes.

Writer's Block: How Soon Is Now?

[Error: unknown template qotd]I'll be selfish here and wish for cheap and reliable teleportation. I know that it won't happen, because there are lots of technical problems that have to be resolved first. There's also potential moral problems, which anyone whose seen The Prestige might know about.