Trigger Warning

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I considered going dark: that is to say, getting the heck off the internet, or at least not posting anything so no one could see that I was on the internet. But instead, I’ve gone dark: in the sense of my hero, Gahan Wilson. The world is a scary place. In my human interactions, I strive to remain a beacon of beauty and love. But art…

In the wake of this cataclysmic election, I found myself added to a number of secret Facebook groups; if you have ever been involved in any sort of progressive activism, you probably know what I mean. People trying to support each other through a crushing blow, people preparing to mobilize for an assault on civil rights, people just trying to understand the world. In one of these groups, someone mentioned that the next 4 years is going to see the production of a lot of powerful art. Art is always more powerful when it’s motivated by something beyond beauty and love, although most people prefer not to confront that type of work until it’s absolutely necessary. Myself included. I try to stay light.

But there is darkness in the world. I know so many people right now suffocating under the pressure of the unknown. I know too many queer and trans people terrified about what their status will be in the near future, whether their gender markers will be honored, whether their marriages will still be legal. I’ve heard too many stories of children being bullied in schools, told that they’re not really Americans because they’re the wrong color, taunted about being deported. I know too many women frantic about the possibility of losing their reproductive rights, and who knows what other rights. And I know too many heterosexual white men who feel helpless at atrocities being committed in their names, against the people they love, in defense of values they can’t support.

So, for all my friends, I say: don’t hold that darkness in. It only consumes you from the inside. Don’t be afraid to be afraid. Don’t hide. Put it all in the light: fear, anger, sorrow. Whatever you have eating you, it doesn’t have to fester. You might think that it’s unfair to release your darkness in the world, to burden others with what scares you most, but what you find, when you do, is that you’re not alone, and that what vanquishes darkness is light.

Suicide jokes: appropriately inappropriate.

It’s been a rough day. So what?

Nope Nope Nope Nope

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I mean, right in the face. You know what I mean?

We’re having this little altercation with the city concerning the state of our yard even though we’re working on those stupid weeds. All. The. Time. So anyway I decided to tackle some amaranth and some kind of little tree growing in a very narrow space between the house and the neighbor’s wall, maybe 3 feet wide. And this lady is just hanging out with her massive abdomen right in my face, 4 feet off the ground in the middle of her 3 foot wide web.

After recovering my composure and documenting the event with my macro lens (and then gently relocating the dear thing in her massive home with the farthest end of my loppers and then hacking away at the weeds for 15 minutes) I determined that I had likely encountered a female banded garden spider. With a surprisingly large abdomen and distinctive stripes, it’s seems like an easy identification. They’re also prominent in the autumn. According to the internet, they probably won’t bite you unless you really tick them off, and that their bite is only mildly annoying if they do.

Higher res image hosted at imgur. 

E Pluribus Unum

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Of course, she did much more than most people, with much less than most people. 

Usually, my holiday bulletin boards are sort of cheerful and joy-themed, but last night, while considering my intentions, I decided that there was a message that everyone needed to hear. E pluribus unum; one nation, indivisible, a house divided against itself cannot stand; we are one. If we can’t find a way to come together, to heal the rifts between people that brought us the most polarizing and depressing election of my almost-42 years on this planet, we can’t expect to achieve much of anything.

After settling the theme of “unity,” I researched for a while and found a lot of wonderful quote, most of which were a bit sophisticated for my primary audience, a number of whom are still learning to read. This Helen Keller quote summed up the intention in words that your average 8-year-old can understand.

Before anything else, I had already decided I wanted to go font-heavy, to use fancy lettering, which takes 4 times as long, but used to be a mainstay of this genre for me. Once I had settled on the quote, I chose the typeface by searching “19th century fonts” and “victorian fonts.” These letters are based on  Longdon Decorative. I smoothed out a few of its peculiar bumps, but otherwise feel like this cut letters are pretty faithful representations.

No visual imagery really jumped to mind, except maybe hands, reaching or helping. Maybe I’ll go back tomorrow and add a picture if one comes to mind, but I doubt it. Had I more time, I could have come up with something, but I was already 45 minutes late to help the Girl with her report about Jane Goodall, plus getting sick due to the overwhelming stench of the laminating machine. Someone said that they might have changed the type of plastic used in this machine, because they’d actually relocated it to the next room and it still smelled twice as bad as when it was behind the library desk. My head still hurts from those noxious fumes. At any rate, it seemed important to have this bulletin board and this blog post available first thing Wednesday morning.

So, what do you think? Can we just try to love each other? And if that’s too much, maybe acceptance? Tolerance, at a bare minimum. Can’t we just tolerate one another?

The Sound of Printing part iii

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Imagine what I could get up to if i knew how to run animation software.

And now we present the stunning finale of “The Hills Are Alive with the Sound of Printing,” in which I have drawn, at my client’s request, 3 retro TVs displaying video clips I found on YouTube. Also, the Loony Toons finale design.With the client standing in for Porky Pig. It’s hard to believe how narrow television was in the past. Shows were tiny. I cut 1/3 off of each image.

If you want to see these commercials and hear the different versions of the jingle, they’re all in this YouTube playlist. Now all I have to do this week is create a holiday bulletin board, finish the Brother Wolf logo redesign, storyboard my Linda Addison collaboration, and get the cover for The Hermit together. And, of course, go vote. Just those things.

My holiday bulletin board will be on the theme of unity.

Diamond Flowers Mandala

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If you look at them too closely, flowers are really obscene.

Wow! I survived this weekend. Tomorrow, my feet will hurt, but walking in the All Souls Procession is always worth it. This week I will finish the Portage Printing comic and create my holiday bulletin board and then next weekend is my birthday celebration with Tucson friends, since I won’t be in Tucson on my actual birthday. It works out like that a lot, if I go to my parents’ for Thanksgiving. However, this will be my very last Chicago Thanksgiving, since the folks are finally retiring, and I will never again have to freeze myself in the Windy City in order to spend time with my family. Most likely I will again have to spend 6 hours stranded in O’hare because the weather is awful, but at least I won’t have to go outside.

I mean, I like Chicago. Between May and September.

Back to the Portage Printing comic. The last page is the easiest for layout, but is taking forever due to the fact that I started it in a style that involved drawing really realistic versions of pieces of audio-visual equipment, and page 3 involved 3 large old-fashioned televisions. But the TVs are almost done, and the images of what’s being shown on the TVs should be much easier.

The Sound of Printing part ii

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This is probably the most people who are actually supposed to look like real people that I’ve ever drawn into 1 comic. 

Page 2 of “The Hills Are Alive with the Sound of Printing.” Took a little extra time as I wasn’t 100% sure of what the client wanted in panels 1 and 3, partly because creative people in fits of inspiration tend to have atrocious handwriting, and partly because (as only realized much later) I only read 1/2 of the notes. Also, the panels got cluttered pretty quickly, so I had to figure out which graphic elements to ditch (mostly people’s feet; originally there were a number of cowboys boots in this comic). I also had to leave off the speaker on the sound booth in panel 2 because the sound booth is already tiny and I couldn’t make it look good. Just imagine that the technician’s voice is coming through a speaker. Still, after it seemed done and uploaded, I decided to go back and add some fringe on the singer’s shirt in panel 4. It didn’t seem flashy enough for cowboy couture.

I’m especially pleased with the little pop-out heart for the gospel singer. It was a perfect compromise when it became apparent that a box would take up too much space.

I learned several things in the course of drawing this comic. The first thing was what a steel guitar is. Apparently whatever I thought a steel guitar is was wrong, but luckily, I had The Man around to set me right. The second thing was that The Man knows way too much about music. I had to look up “Little GTO,” but when I asked him if he knew the song, he could just start singing it. That song is like 50 years old; it came out 10 years before he was born. Then he gave me a short lecture about GTOs. Because he also knows way too much about cars. Of course, I did look up the Hi-Lo’s and WMU’s Gold Company. This comic will be distributed in Portage, so its intended readers will already know that WMU is Kalamazoo’s Western Michigan University, where I earned my MFA, but did not hear of the Gold Company.

The Sound of Printing part i

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Those are some big speakers. I guess print shops are noisy places. You need big speakers.

Here’s something new: working for money. The printer who made my Bonnie Jo Campbell comics, Craig Vestal of Portage Printing, hired me to draw a promotional comic for his shop. He wrote the script and drew the thumbnails. This is the first page I’ve created from his notes.

I had just read a Smithsonian article about Wes Wilson, the designer who created the psychedelic-style concert posters in the 60s, and decided to draw the title in the same style as the original Sound of Music movie promotions, which has that groovy ’60s feel even though the movie is set during WWII. Craig sent me photos of all his classic stereo equipment and of the Brown Brothers.

This is page 1 of 3. I don’t know what number comic this is, but apparently Craig has hired a number of artists to create a quantity of comics detailing the history of his shop. Clever. Comics are the best.

I can’t believe it’s an insomnia comic

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No, seriously, though, I can’t believe it. Did I write this? I don’t remember writing this.

No sleep 2 nights in a row? You know what that means. Insomnia comics! Somehow, in the fog of sleeplessness, the confusion of juggling 3 projects, and the haze of constant low grade worry surrounding a delightful variety of life issues and unfinished business, this comic spewed forth from my brain. I was literally writing something else, an article that was supposed to get filed last Wednesday, and then somehow I started making this comic. My mind and fingers started making this comic without me.

Best guess, it only took about 45 minutes start to finish. I really don’t remember, but the clock seems to line up that way. In this state, it probably would have been 4 hours had I decided to hand letter it.

 

Shamrock Window Mandala

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It’s good luck. I swear!

I studied French for about 8 years total in middle school, high school, and college. I don’t speak French, or understand French when other people speak it, but I used to be able to read and write and French, and I did make a pretty decent effort to learn it for eight years. Pretty early on in my studies, I was taught the word rosace, which translates to “rose window.” As a child, I found it perplexing that I was being taught to say in French a word that I didn’t know in English.

Now I know what a rose window is, although, with the exception of possibly one or two cathedral tours in Europe, I’ve never had the opportunity to use it. A rose window is a type of mandala, of course, a large, expensive, and easily breakable mandala. But this isn’t a rose window. It’s a shamrock window. Less costly, more durable.

Today I sent out the comics books for which people have paid, so if you bought a comic from me, you should expect it Thursday. Then the Fox took me out for sushi and to the see the National Live Theater Frankenstein with Benedict Cumberbatch, which is a really smashing bit of acting and highly recommended if you have the chance.

Happy Halloween!

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Sadly, I will be eating sushi and watching Frankenstein with the Fox during trick or treat, so the children of our fair city will be missing out on this flaming pumpkin action this year. 

Behold! The Ultragorgon!

No, it isn’t a confused tribute to Stranger Things, but rather to something that actually happened in the ’80s: The Jim Henson Hour. In this episode, “Monster Maker,” a kid visits a puppet shop and sees this half-finished dragon puppet, the ultragorgon, which later comes to life and teaches him things (bad things, I seem to recollect). The ultragorgon is massive. In real life, it took 8 puppeteers to animate him. Looking back, I don’t really remember The Jim Henson Hour and seemed to recall this as being associated with his previous project, The Storyteller. Much like Jim Henson, that project was wonderful, and ended way too soon. The Jim Henson Hour wasn’t terribly successful, and the network pulled the plug on it instead of giving him a chance to get it right, and Henson died about a year later. But “Monster Maker,” as a stand alone story, is a lot of fun.

I loved the design of the dragon, and thought it could be adapted to other things, so I’ve had the picture for a while, and when I decided to make the most elaborate jack-o’-lantern I’ve ever made, I pulled it out. It’s not really an exact match or anything, but it did come out pretty interesting for a misshaped pumpkin with a face cut into it. The nose was originally more complex but I accidentally punched it out. Oh well. You always have to do the smaller details first. Once you’ve made big cuts, you don’t want to mess with what’s left or you can knock the pieces out. The eyes are nice, and the ridges at the top of the head and down the center of the face. You can’t really see the horns that wrap around the side The thing about pumpkin carving is that you only do it once a year. If we did it once a month I bet I’d be much better at it.

Tn the right you can also see the edges of the cat pumpkin that the Girl carved mostly by herself, after spending 45 minutes staring at her pumpkin and talking about what she wanted to carve. She accidentally punched her whole design out, so The Man had to pin it back in with toothpicks. You can also see a bit of the Boy’s “derp” pumpkin. I guess it was supposed to look goofy but actually it looks worried and scared. It reminds me of my paternal grandmother, whose catchphrase was, “Oy vey, I was so worried.”

Next year, I will allot myself more than 90 minutes to carve a pumpkin, and get better tools, and work in a spot that isn’t completely full of flies, and I will make the greatest dragon face pumpkin the world has ever seen.