Glass Under My Skin

Transfer of Power

2009-12-17T21:16:00.002-05:00

I just transferd my blog over to my new webcomic site: Radiant Comics. Check over there for posts from now on.

Censored Again

2009-12-13T13:26:00.002-05:00

Last week I wrote about a new collection of pre-comics code Steve Ditko comic that I had been reading. "Strange Suspense: The Steve Ditko Archives Vol. 1" was it's name and it got me thinking about how censorship had effected the U.S. comics industry. I've been pondering that a bit more this week.

Less is more. Or is it? I have always heard, mostly in the also censored world of movies, that not showing something can be a more effective storytelling device than showing it. You know, first a gun is shown, than a shot is heard, and then a person falls to the ground. We never actually see a person shot. Or stabbed, punched, kicked, or whatever.

The viewer's imagination is supposed to fill in the blanks with its own horrible vision of the violent act that is somehow more effective than anything the filmmaker could come up with. I always, sort off, bought into this idea because I'm not much of a gore hound so, I guess, it played to my taste.

Now I see that idea is a total crock. First off is the fact that not everyone's imagination is particularly good. Half the audience may wince at the unshown act while it doesn't affect the other half at all because their imaginations don't scare them. Not showing something can't be relied on as an effective technique because it depends on the individual viewer.

Then there the basic fact is that we are visual animals. When we see things they can affect us and stick with us. When something horrible happens we tell children to look away. Often times people exclaim, "I wish I didn't see that". Our eyes are our main reality.

When the Allies in WW2 liberated the death camps they marched all the Germans they could find through them so they could see what they'd done. They didn't throw a curtain in front of the camps and describe what happened in them. They made people look. No one in their right mind would think not showing them was a more effective method.

I came to the conclusion that the "Not showing" method of story telling is purely because of a censorship. That idea is not invented except in a censored world. It's exists to help creators make the best of a censored creative environment.

I can see this in the Ditko book. He was doing things that would be censored a couple of years later but now they were just nonchalant ideas. They weren't exploitive or sensational; they just were. If a guy got stabbed then he ended up with a knife in him. If demons ate people than they might be seen eating people parts.

The violence was all "matter of fact" though. It was done with whatever emphasis the story demanded of it. They bloody, gory special effect of today, are partially at least, a response to being censored and not being able to show that stuff in the past. A lot of people find it fun to show what shouldn't be shown. But that also only exists in a censored environment.

I write all this because I wonder how many more ways of doing things, both in comics and movies, would have been invented without such censorship. Books which for the most part haven't been censored in this country have a million ways to deal with all sorts of story elements. It's no wonder books are usually respected more than movies or comics. They're not just stuck with gore or no gore.

Comics I Bought This Week: December 7, 2009

2009-12-10T19:55:00.000-05:00

I'm back from the comic shop this week and I got three new comics plus two hard cover collections:

Echo - 17

The Walking Dead - 68

Sergio Argonés: Groo - The Hogs of Horder -2

Tomb of Dracula Omnibus Volume 2

Shazam: The Monster Society of Evil (Not the original story but the Jeff Smith one)

And now for a review of something I've read recently.

"Fables: The Deluxe Edition Book One" by Bill Willingham, Lan Medina, Mark Buckingham, and Steve Leialoha

"Fables" is one of those comics that I have never read because I have a general prejudice against Vertigo Comics books as they usually aren't to my taste and I've always thought the "High Concept" premise of "Fables" was dumb. But I have some friends who like it and I actually enjoy the work of most of the creators involved so when this oversized hardcover came out I decided to buy it and give it a go.

I'm glad I did because "Fables" is a nice read. Not the greatest thing in the world but a solid, enjoyable, comic. I had heard that the first five issues of "Fables" were meant to be a mini series but it sold so well that the decision was made to continue it as an ongoing series. I found it interesting how that appeared to be played out by the storytelling styles of the two story arcs collected in this volume.

"Fables" is about a whole bunch of fictional characters from stories, fables, and fairy tales who were driven from their magical lands by "The Adversary" and now make their home in our human world. We humans know nothing of them and they aim to keep it that way. The first story arc is a murder mystery tale that takes place amongst the Fables who live in their own Manhattan housing community and the second story arc is a tale of Fable on Fable rebellion in upstate New York.

I found the storytelling style of the first story arc interesting. I wrote a piece some time ago about a lost comic book story telling style that I noticed when reading the 1954 comedy comic "Get Lost". Basically it's this: modern comic book story telling is all about what is going to happen next and this other (I have no name for it) style is all about what's happening right now.

The first "Fables" story arc is done in this "Lost" style. You're supposed to spend time with each panel. There are things going on in the moment that you will miss if you're only concerned about what is going to happen. The penciller, Lan Medina, draws all sorts of things happening at once in a single panel. It's all designed to slow you down and keep you in the moment. The plot holds less meaning than spending time in the moment of that world. I found it interesting as I hardly ever see this type of storytelling anymore.

With the second story arc we're back to a more conventional, plot driven, move you along story telling style. It was still well done but a departure from the first story. I enjoyed this second arc but I think I liked the first one better because it was unusual.

Overall I did find the whole fairy tale characters thing a little distracting. I think the story would work just as well with original characters but I understand the nature of the marketplace and how things get done. It's easier to pitch, "Staring all the fairy tale characters you already know who are alive and well and living in our world" than to try and explain who twenty new characters are to a tired editor and the public.

The bottom line is that this "Fables" book was good. Give it a read.

The Key to Grey

2009-12-06T14:23:00.002-05:00

For the last couple of days I've been reading a book I bought this week, "Strange Suspense: The Steve Ditko Archives Vol. 1". It's a collection of Ditko's early comic book work from 1953 to 1955. It's a collection of "Pre-Code" comics.

For those who don't know, the term "Pre-Code" means before the implementation of, in the late 1950's, the "The Comics Code Authority". The CCA was the industry's way of self-censoring before the government put them out of business.

Just like today when do-gooders crusade against video games, television, music, or movies that they think are ruining the children of America in the 50's the crusade was against comic books. And it was a very powerful and successful crusade that went all the way to congressional hearings. It nearly killed American comics.

A book I read this year, "Ten Cent Plague", chronicles the history of the war on comics and lays out it's human toll. People lost their jobs and never worked in the industry again. It's not a happy tale.

I bring this all up because I've never had a chance to read many of the pre-code horror and crime comics that lead to people being up in arms. I've read many EC Comics which are the most famous pre-code horror and crime offerings but they are actually well done, generally tasteful, and mainstream. They stick to the same general rules as any mainstream horror novel of the time. I never quite saw how people could be so against them. But it was a different era and there were plenty of other comics to be against.

I can see how these "Strange Suspense" stories could get people riled up. These comics aren't made for kids and there is some real grown up physically and psychologically scary stuff in there. It can be as simple as an innocent person trying to do right but suffering a horrible fate anyway to a guy getting stabbed and ending up laying there with a knife sticking out of him.

It's interesting to read these Ditko stories because everyone involved was making up their own rules on the fly. People had been reading comics since the late Thirties and comics had started growing up as kids grew into adults. New things were starting to happen. You can tell that the creators expected adults to be reading these stories. Or at least eighteen year olds. The CCA put an end to that.

The Comics Code basically said that good must always triumph and in a bloodless way. And that's how comics were made for decades. Those were the rules that everyone had to play by and though some good comics, even for grown-ups, can be made within those rules they narrow the scope of story telling and squelch creativity and growth.

That's what censorship does. Stifles things. In reading these comics I can see pre-censorship minds at work. They are using stuff to scare us that wasn't done post-censorship. Simple stuff but not kids stuff; ideas of hell, suffering, and monsters outside of any notion of human justice. Imagine how comics books could have grown, as the have in other parts of the world, if this censorship never happened.

Even today when the Comic's Code isn't much paid attention to it's effect lingers. Not in what isn't allowed but in the fact that creators may have rebelled against the code but they are not beyond it yet.

What I mean is that most of today's comics that are aimed at adults don't explore pre-code themes that were developing, as seen in these Ditko stories, but are still directly rebelling against what was not allowed for decades.

"Good must always triumph and in a bloodless way" has become "Good doesn't always triumph and it's bloody out there". That is how I'd describe most of the adult aimed superhero/adventure comics I read today. They can be bloody and sometimes the bad guys win. I never realized how much the comics code influenced even today's non-code books before reading this Ditko book. There was another sensibility starting to develop in the early Fifties that I didn't know existed. It made me see the sensibilities of today's creators in a new light.

It's not that today's comic books are on the wrong or bad path it's just that the path is a lot more narrow than it could have been. That's the effect of censorship even when it's less than what it used to be. It defined good and bad and those definitions are still with us. Even those who like "bad" are still basically using the same definition as the Comics Code. Comics would do well to get off that narrow path. If only others were allowed of it back in the 1950's.

Comics I Bought This Week: December 3, 2009

2009-12-03T19:46:00.000-05:00

I'm back from the comic shop this week and it was a big haul. I got seven new comics, a trade paperback collection, plus two hard cover collections:

G-Man: Cape Crisis - 2-4

Savage Dragon - 155

North 40 - 6

Glamourpuss - 10

GrimJack: The Manx Cat - 5

Elextropolis TPB

Marvel Masterworks: Deathlok

Strange Suspence: The Steve Ditko Archives Vol. 1

And now for a review of something I've read recently.

"Planetary" Numbers 1-27 plus two specials by Warren Ellis and John Cassaday

X-Files syndrome. That's what I call something that ends in such a bad way that you forget how good it once was. I've been reading "Planetary" since issue one and I really enjoyed it back then but have recently thought of it as suffering from X-Files Syndrome. Since the last issue of the series is finally out I figured I would give the whole series a read to see how it stands up.

I'm happy to report that it stands up very well. To summarize for those who don't know, "Planetary" is the story of a group of "Archeologists of the Unknown". The three main characters are all super-powered, have a vast organization behind them, and go out to figure out the secret history of our planet.

It's well done fun stuff that tries to link together popular fiction characters from the last hundred years or so. There are ghost stories, giant monster stories, crime stories, plus thinly veiled versions of Sherlock Holmes, Doc Savage, The Shadow, Tarzan, Dracula, and many others popping up now and again.

Also the story involves Planetary's struggle against "The Four". A thinly veiled version of the Fantastic Four who are evil and have been behind a lot of atrocities and crimes against humanity for forty years. They are massively powerful and everyone if the super secret world of Planetary is afraid of them. With good reason.

This is A list material. Good writing, good plots, good storytelling, good artwork, and good all around. So why did I think it suffered from X-Files Syndrome? One word. Late.

It took ten years to get out twenty seven issues. To get from issue twenty two to issue twenty seven took from March 2005 until October 2009. No story, no matter how good, can sustain any kind of quality with that schedule if you read them as they come out. The individual issues are paced pretty quickly and don't take long to read so reading one every few months or years is very unsatisfying. I found it hard to follow the story that way.

My friend John had the perfect description of what that type of schedule leads to. He asked me if I had read the last issue yet (since it just came out) and I said no. He then told me his critique of it which was, "I read it but I just couldn't seem to care". That totally summed up my feeling about "Planetary" the last few years. How can you care about a story when it is a year between issues? I'll accept that from my small press comics where everyone involved is struggling to make a go of things but this from some of comic's heavy hitters.

Anyway, I'm glad I read them all together because "Planetary" really is good. Sure I thought the resolution to the plot point with "The Four" was as dumb as dirt and the final issue had annoying time travel stuff in it but neither quibble was enough to ruin the overall story for me.

So if you've never read "Planetary" or have had it ruined for you by the infrequent schedule dig out your issues or wait for the new Absolute Editions and give it a read. It really is good from start to finish.

Glib and Glamour

2009-11-29T18:32:00.002-05:00

I just don't care about this blog today. I'm all blogged out. Y'see, I've been working on a site for my new web comic and for the last two days it's been a pain in the ass. But at least I've made some progress and that's better than when I tried before.

I decided, a few of months ago, to use something called "WordPress" to make my new site. It's blogging software that's widely used and seems to work fine for everybody else. A plugin for WordPress called "ComicPress" is specifically made for web comic sites. With the two I could combine my blog and web comic. I could also upload comics ahead of time and it would load them day by day. Easy to update is what I'm after.

That's why I rarely update my jaredosborn.com site. It's an html site that I made in a program called "Freeway" and it's just too much of a pain to update. The site is graphics heavy which makes it cumbersome to change things all the time. I want a different solution for my web comic.

When I first started implementing WordPress I knew I was getting off on the wrong foot by messing with it too close to bedtime. Never start doing work that gets your mind racing close to bedtime. You'll be too tired to work effectively plus won't be able to shut your mind down to sleep. But I messed around anyway. Couldn't get anything done. Couldn't sleep. Just as I suspected but I thought I could sneak one in.

The next time I tried it to get WordPress installed correctly I was full of confidence that things would be up and running shortly. And after a little while they were. Then I tried to get ComicPress up and running. Oh boy. Error after error. I had no idea what was going wrong.

I went on every help site, read lots of forum posts, scoured FAQs, and tried everything they said but I still couldn't get things to work properly. I must have tried to get ComicPress to work at least three different times. I just never could. Other people had sites up using it so it must work but I couldn't make it go. So I just left it for a month or two. I couldn't face it. I continued to make comic strips but I stopped figuring out how to post them.

On Friday I decided to start designing the site in Freeway. It would take more work to keep it running but at least I knew I could do it. I worked on some logos, basic designs, and got things going. Things went fine but at the end of the day I came to the conclusion that if I wanted the site to run smoothly I'd better give ComicPress another try. So I did.

Saturday morning bright and early (I'm a morning person, another reason I shouldn't have started near bedtime) I wiped everything clean from my server and database, downloaded the things I needed, and started again. A couple of hours later and much to my surprise I had ComicPress up and running. Shock of shocks.

The site still looks awful since I have to modify the basic design and haven't figured out how to do that properly yet but now I can upload and schedule strips and blogs. That's what I want to be able to do. Ugly and functional I can live with.

I haven't done much web design in my time but I finally figure out why there is so much bad web design out there. The "Web Safe" color palette that web designers work with has almost no neutral colors in it. Maybe just a couple.

Neutral colors are they key to color. They're not too bright, not to dull, not too white, and not too dark. They put all the other colors in context. The world has lots of neutral colors in it and they make bright colors brighter and dark colors darker. Web colors are mostly too bright or too dark. The reason half the web is designed with grey gunmetal and light blue colors are that they are as close to neutrals as you're going to get with web safe color. Who ever designed the web safe color palette was no artist.

So anyway that's why I'm tired of this whole blog thing. It's much easier to deal with when there is only creative work to do.

Comics I Bought This Week: November 25, 2009

2009-11-25T18:15:00.000-05:00

I'm back from the comic shop this week and I got one new comic plus a trade paperback collection:

Usagi Yojimbo -124

Incognito by Brubaker and Phillips

And now for a review of something I've read recently.

"The Lone Ranger Volume 3" by Brett Mathews and Sergio Cariello

This is the third volume of the Lone Ranger from Dynamite Entertainment and I've bought them all so obviously I like the series. That being said I think this is the strongest volume in the series. It kind of ended in the middle of a story but that didn't affect my enjoyment of it.

The origin part of the Lone Ranger's story is over and I find that a good thing because I'm tired of origin stories in general. Not that they can't be well done but they're all nearly the same. Now we move on to a story of the Lone Ranger and Tonto helping a lawman to track down a killer.

That's pretty much all there is to the plot because this book is more about the characters, who they are, and how they play off each other. The writer, Brett Mathews, did a nice job with this interplay. It was the peppiest script so far.

Sergio Cariello, once again, did a fine job on the artwork. His storytelling is good and his drawing is nice. He was helped out by a good coloring job by Marcelo Pinto. Both the color and the drawing set the mood very well.

Not much more to say other than I liked it. All three volumes of "The Lone Ranger" are solid tales of the western hero. Whether you like comics in general or westerns specifically "The Lone Ranger" is a good read.

Bending the Ending

2009-11-22T16:37:00.002-05:00

I'm always coming up with ideas of things to do. It's not easy but I like to. That's because I like to do things. But if there is one thing I've learned over the years it's that the rest of the world's idea of "Doing something" is not the same as mine.

To nutshell it: what most of the world thinks of as doing something I think of as having someone else do something to entertain you. Going to a concert is not doing anything in my eyes. Playing a guitar yourself would be doing something. Going out for diner is not doing anything to me. Cooking a meal would be doing something. Going to see a movie would not be doing something. Making your own movie would. And on and on.

This has always been a problem for me. Whenever someone says, "Hey, do you want to do something?" they mean a totally different thing than I do. Usually people don't like my idea of doing something because it takes effort. But to me the effort is what makes the doing. Let's pay some money, sit there, and enjoy the fruits of somebody else's effort has it's place but not when I actually want to do something. Yeah, yeah, I'm misunderstood.

But anyway that leads me into my latest idea for doing something. I occasionally make art cards. I occasionally buy them too. An art card is a small baseball card sized original piece of art. A sketch, a drawing, a painting, or whatever your medium is you make art on a 2.5 x 3.5 inch piece of paper. It's kind of neat and kind of fun.

What I want to do now is make a writing card. Instead of a piece of art it has a piece of writing on it. A sentence or two. Each card would be an original piece of writing as that would make each card distinct. An individual piece of writing art. This appeals to me because I've been writing short slogan-like pieces in conjunction with my artwork for years. I've always put words and pictures together. Writing an art card the slogan/sentence would be fun for me.

Except I'm not sure what form the writing card would take. I think it would be best if it was hand written by the writer but that immediately brings up questions of aesthetics. Should it be hand written neatly? Should one use calligraphy? Or maybe just nice script? All questions of design and soon I'm pretty far away from a writing card and back to an art card. So I'm a little stuck at this stage.

I think I'm going to have to try and design something for the cards. It might have to be something that looks undesigned so as to emphasize the writing. Unfortunately this is the hardest kind of design to do and not really a lot of fun. Fancy and elaborate is much more fun than stripped down and unobtrusive. That's why there is so much bad fancy and elaborate design out there.

The writing is actually the easy part for me. I like the micro writing form of just a couple of sentences. I wonder though if other people have ever made writing art cards. I can picture writers dashing off a few interesting sentences here and there to make cards but what would those sentences be about? I ask that question because a lot art cards feature famous characters. Batman, Superman, Darth Vader, Spider-Man, The Hulk, and just about every other pop culture character is who collectors want art cards of.

Would writers make a writing art card about Batman? I don't know. I don't think so. I think most writers can find something interesting to say in a few sentences but who could find something interesting to say about Luke Skywalker in two sentences? I'm not sure. And would fans care about a two sentence card about Superman?

I think fans of, say, Steven King would love a couple of sentence hand written card by him. He's famous for his writing so that's what people want from him. But writers of movies, comics, and TV are famous because of the characters they write. Their writing isn't famous; the pop culture character they write about is. Would anyone care if the current X-Men writer wrote a few lines about the X-Men on an art card? I don't know.

These thoughts have nothing to do with me making some writing art cards but they pop into my head. Anyway, I'm going to try and do something now.

Comics I Bought This Week: November 19, 2009

2009-11-19T19:53:00.000-05:00

I'm back from the comic shop this week and I got two new comics plus a hard cover collection:

Echo - 16

Dr. Horrible - 1

Hercules "Full Circle"

And now for a review of something I've read recently.

"The Invincible Iron Man: World's Most Wanted: Book 1" by Matt Fraction and Salvador Larrroca

This Iron Man volume can be summed up like I summed up "The Ultimates". It's alternately good and a train wreck. I blame Warren Ellis's writing for bringing "real" geo-politics to super hero comics. Except in Ellis's comics the geo-politics usually hinder things. It's tough to get things done in the real world. In Ellis-land the heroes were often thwarted by bureaucracy and politics.

In the current Marvel Universe Norman Osborn, the Green Goblin, is in charge of the US's national security. It defies believability and takes me out of the story sometimes. That and as the guy in charge Norman Osborn has no checks and balances on him. He just does whatever he wants even though if these were "real" geo-political stories he would lose his job in a day. At one point Norman Osborn decides to test a super hero's power so he orders an airliner shot down. It is shot down and he has to explain himself to no one. It's this kind of stuff that makes me put the book down in disbelief.

The rest of the story is pretty good. It's an "Us Against the World" tale as Tony Stark (Iron Man) has to go on the run because Norman Osborn has made him an outlaw. The "Us" refers to Tony Stark, his co-worker Pepper Potts, and Tony's ex-secuity chief Maria Hill. All sorts of chase scenes, fight scenes, and strategies go by at an entertaining pace.

The art was only so-so for me. It's that photo realistic type artwork that's been popular in mainstream super hero comics for a while now. It comes off as a little dead to me. Well executed by lifeless at times.

So there you go. When it was good it was good but when it was bad I had to put the book down out of sheer disbelief. But at least sometimes it was good. That's more than I can say about a lot of comics.

Not Bored But Board

2009-11-15T16:02:00.002-05:00

I bought a new drawing board this week. I think it might be the only drawing board that I've ever purchased in my entire life. That's quite odd when I think about it.

I've had two drawing boards that I've used for years and years. Decades and decades even. The first one is an actual board. It's about twenty two by fourteen inches and is a scrap piece of one inch plywood that I first used as a drawing board in junior high. I finally retired it this year as it has gotten too chipped and splintered over the last thirty years to be very useful. A long life for a piece of scrap wood.

The second drawing board I've had since High School. My mother got it for me. At a garage sale I think. At twenty four by twenty inches it's the bigger of the two and is still in use. It also came with a T-square and has slots underneath for storing the T-square. It always just got in the way and wasn't a very good T-square so it was tossed long ago. I don't think I own a T-square anymore since I've had a parallel rule on my drawing table since college. So much for T-squares.

I don't use a drawing board much these days for drawing. I generally prefer to stand and draw and do so at my drawing table most of the time. I use the drawing board mainly as a place to put my laptop as I sit and type or surf the internet. Sometimes I'll sit and draw but not too often. That's probably why I haven't gotten a new one in decades.

Over the years I have also had a couple of those ubiquitous art school twenty two by twenty six inch Masonite type drawing boards with the built in clips. I barely count those because I've never liked them and they don't stick around for long. They are way too thin to be used on anything but a table and have too much bounce back if put on an easel or across the arms of a chair. That and the die cut handle and top clips always manages to get in the way. Since they're cheap and every one semester art student has one there are plenty of them tucked away in closets and every so often someone gives me one.

My new drawing board is one of those white, super heavy, laminated, particle board drawing boards. It's not very portable. But that's okay because it will serve a totally different role than my old one. It's a big twenty four by thirty six inches and is going to be used on my easel. Y'see, I've got it in my head to do some big drawings. I have big paper. I've always had big paper. I buy it in twenty two by thirty inch sheets but I've rarely done drawings that big. Usually I cut the paper down to a smaller size before drawing on it.

I'm not even exactly sure what I want to draw. I just know I want it to be big. I could have cleared off my drawing table and dropped a big piece of paper on that but it's kind of hard to draw that way. An easel is definitely the way to go if you want to draw big. You can approach the drawing from better angles, literally, and see things a whole lot better.

When making one of my large paintings I've always drawn on the canvases which were on my easel so this really won't be new for me but it will be different. An underdrawing for a painting is preliminary. This will be a finished drawing. At least I think so. I haven't actually finished anything yet.

I'm may have to replace my easel one of these years because it's not very convenient when I have to move a painting up or down. It's an easel that I built myself right after I graduated college because I had no money for a store bought one. It has served me well since 1989 when I built it out of scrap wood. I designed it myself in a fit of inspiration and it is solid but a nice crank handle for moving a painting sitting on it up and down would be good.

This new heavy drawing will probably be more a pain to move up and down. The way I built the easel means that I have to loosen two wing nuts on the bottom beam that the painting sits on, move the beam and the painting up and then tighten the wing nuts. Not the most difficult thing in the world but not as easy as a crank handle that most professional store bought easels have. Turn the crank and the painting raises or lowers.

So there it is. My first new drawing board in a long time. Now I wonder when and what I'm going to draw.

Comics I Bought This Week: November 12, 2009

2009-11-12T19:43:00.001-05:00

I'm back from the comic shop this week and I got two new comics plus a magazine:

The Walking Dead - 67

Grim Jack "The Manx Cat" - 4

"Draw" #18 Fall 2009

And now for a review of something I've read recently.

Young Liars: Volume 2 "Maestro" by David Lapham

I'm a fan of David Lapham's work in general and liked volume one of "Young Liars" but this volume left me dazed and confused. Volume one was a complete self contained story that I thought didn't leave a whole lot of room for a sequel. But the series continues and here is the sequel.

Volume one started out with all the characters being fairly normal and then Lapham took them and us on a crazy ride. Volume two ups the ante by making things even crazier. For the first chapter it pretty much turned from a rock and roll crime story into an alien invasion sci-fi book. It was all a little bizarre.

"All a little confusing", is what sums up this volume for me. I'm still not even sure who the narrator was in the beginning of the book. And that's just one point. We have the same cast of rock and roll outcasts from the first volume but there are a lot of flashbacks and subterfuge going on. The plot changed focus/direction at least three times. I couldn't always get my bearings.

This volume is just plain crazy. Invading spider aliens, gunfights, and sexual betrayal, it has them all. I couldn't even mention all the strange goings on because I couldn't begin to describe them. What they all mean I'm not sure. If you're a fan of far out weird stuff check out this volume. I liked volume one better because it had a more coherent story but for sheer craziness this one wins.

Halloween Once Again

2009-11-08T14:20:00.002-05:00

Another year and another Halloween has passed us by. For the fifth year in a row I made my way into Manhattan for a photo journey around the Halloween parade. Me and a million other people.

I don't actually go to the parade because Sixth Avenue, the parade route, is way too crowded to move around on let alone take pictures. My friend Bunche and I usually walk down Seventh Avenue to Christopher Street taking photos as we go. Then we set up on the cross street and get our own parade as everyone in costume walks by us to get to Sixth Avenue.

This year is was a washout photo-wise. It was pouring rain most of the time we were out which made photography especially difficult. Of course most Halloweens have been bad for me photographicly. On a nice night, which the last four Halloweens were, photography is difficult at best. I wasn't really too disappointed that that I didn't get to take many photos. Almost all of my Halloween parade photos have been awful and useless.

I've taken many street photos in Manhattan over the years. Most of them just sit on my hard drive but some of them I make into finished photos. More of them get used as reference material for drawings. But in looking back at four years of Halloween parade photos I realized I never once made anything out of any of them. I have not one finished photo that involves any of my Halloween pics.

It's just a tough situation in which to take photos. Since it's dark out and I'm on a crowded street I have two choices. Use a flash or hand hold and get blurs from long exposures. Neither is a great choice as my results show. I tend to like the blurry hand held photos better but I don't need Halloween to take those. Halloween should be about taking interesting pictures of people in interesting costumes. Instead I get boring pictures. That's life. Everything can't be a critical success.

Aside from the photographic aspects of the trip I had a good time. I walked down Seventh Avenue with a few friends and we chatted and enjoyed the night. We were lucky that despite the rain it was an exceptionally warm night. It was in the high 50's and at that time of year it could have easily have been in the low 40's. That would have made for a miserable time. As it was I was quite warm despite being wet.

I was amazed at how crowded it was that night. It has gotten more crowded year by year but this year it was exceptional. Probably because Halloween fell on a Saturday night but I also think because of tourism. A lot of foreign languages can be heard in New York City on any given day but I hear more on Halloween than any other day. It could just be because everyone is on the streets that day but I think more and more people have been coming to New York from overseas just for Halloween. Lots of people like to play dress-up and Halloween in NYC affords them that opportunity.

The streets were so crowded that we couldn't even make it to our usual spot. The parade was on Sixth Avenue but Seventh Avenue was so crowded that people filled up the sidewalks and we couldn't get by onto the cross street. It was crazy crowded scene. Of course it didn't matter because it was pouring rain and I couldn't take picture anyway but, wow, that was a lot of people.

So there you go. Fun but no photos. Life is like that sometimes.

Comics I Bought This Week: November 5, 2009

2009-11-05T16:33:00.000-05:00

I'm back from the comic shop this week and I got four new comics plus a hard cover collection:

Buffy: Season 8 - 30

North 40 - 5

Savage Dragon - 154

Age of Bronze - 29

Marvel Premiere Classic: Hercules: Prince of Power

And now for a review of something I've read recently.

"The Goon: Fancy Pants Edition Volume 2 by Eric Powell

This volume collects a bunch of stories from "The Goon" comic that star the villain Dr. Alloy. I though it was going to be volume two of the Goon's collected comic but it's not. It's issues 2, 6, and 11-13. This is only the second Goon story I have read the first being the stand alone graphic novel "Chinatown".

I enjoyed "Chinatown" and I also enjoyed this volume. "The Goon" takes place in a strange 1930's type world populated by people and some monsters. The Goon is a big tough guy who runs some local rackets.

This volume is all about his run-ins with Dr. Alloy who is a mad scientist. He might be a villain or maybe just misunderstood but either way he creates problems for the Goon.

There is really not much too the stories they are just a bit of fun. The Goon runs around with his right hand man who is also a comedic side kick and solves his problems with his fists. The stories are kind of the day to day life of the Goon. He fights off some rivals, kicks zombies out of the neighborhood, and keeps old ladies safe from monsters. And puts up with Dr. Alloy's nonsense.

It's the art that makes "The Goon". Powell is a pretty good story teller and has an interesting art style. It's a half cartoony half "Realistic" style that relies on pencil shading and ink. The later issued have more pencil shading in them and he rightly keeps the color subdued so everything is clear. It's not an easy technique to pull off but he does.

So if you're looking for a light fun read that's pretty to look at give "The Goon" a try.

Red and Green

2009-11-01T17:41:00.001-05:00

As I write this Halloween isn't quite here yet. I've been working on my "Costume" today but it isn't done. I put costume in quotes because I'm not dressing up like anyone or anything. I'm just dressing up.

It all started two years ago when I decided to buy a zoot suit for Halloween. A real one too and not one of these Halloween zoot suits. I wore it on my annual photo safari down in Manhattan but it really didn't fit the bill. It looked too much like an actual suit. It wasn't outrageous enough. It's fairly well made and the color isn't crazy. It's a pleasant dark green. I almost went for the lime green one but thought that it screamed "Gag suit" too much.

So last year I decided to paint some designs on my zoot suit. I've painted coats before. It's nothing new to me but it was a real pain to paint on the fabric this suit was made of. This stuff is thin and stretchy. Especially compared to denim or canvas which are the two coat fabrics I'm used to painting on. It took a while.

Coming up with a design wasn't easy either. I ended up painting a large eye on the back, two small eyes on the front, a strange lightning bolt/swirl on one arm and an even stranger arm/eye combo on the other. I was happy with the paintings but the coat still didn't pull together like I wanted it to. It was a disjointed series of images instead of a complete visual package.

The coat only came together when I added some decorative elements. I painted about a one inch purple trim around the hem, sleeves, and up the front buttons and also added some flames coming up from the bottom of the coat and the end of the sleeves. That's what made it into something. After that it looked like I knew what I was doing.

It took me a better part of a week to paint the coat and I ran out of time and energy to do anything with the pants. I ended up wearing not the zoot suit pants but a pair of black pants that I decorated with rings of white tape running up from the ankles to the knee. It wasn't quite what I wanted but it had to do.

Today I finally did what I wanted to do last year and painted the zoot suit pants. I painted the purple trim around the cuff and then flames coming up to almost the knee. It's still drying so I haven't tried it on but I'm happy with it and it should pull the outfit together a little bit more.

It's still not quite complete though. I'd like to put a couple of large paintings of some kind on the front of the coat above the pockets but have no time to this year.

Instead I might look for some things to hang from it. I'll get some safety pins and put them across the front of the suit and hang some things from them. Only I don't know what. Ribbons, feathers, flowers, string, beads or whatever else I can find I guess.

Like I said the costume isn't anyone or anything in particular so when people ask me who I am I didn't have an answer for them. Boy does that make people uncomfortable so I started going with "I'm the all seeing Osiris" as my stock answer. It usually didn't help much but it beat having no answer at all. It's really more like how I'd dress everyday if I good. Ahhh, if only everyday were Halloween.

Comics I Bought This Week: October 29, 2009

2009-10-29T19:45:00.000-04:00

I'm back from the comic shop this week and I got one new comic plus a hard cover collection:

Sergio Argonés: Groo - The Hogs of Horder -1

EC Archives Frontline Combat Volume 1

And now for a review of something I've read recently.

"Desperadoes: Buffalo Dreams" by Jeff Mariotte and Alberto Dose

"Desperadoes" is a comic I've bought over the years. Usually I bought it in month to month comic book form. This is the first collected edition of it I've purchased not having read the comics. I never picked this story up on the stands probably because "Desperadoes" comics are a little hard to find. Or maybe because it was published by IDW (used to be Image) and their comics are $3.99 a pop. That's too much for me. Constantly starting each new story line with a new first issue doesn't make it easy to keep track of either. This "Desperadoes" series came out in 2007 but it took me until now to get it.

I'm struggling with things to say about "Desperados: Buffalo Dreams" because it's kind of mediocre. It's a western, and I like westerns, with some supernatural elements thrown in, which I don't like as much. The usual cast of cowboy, cowgirl, and outcast characters are all back but their adventures didn't much interest me this time around.

"Desperadoes" has never been a great series but this volume seemed weakest to me. There are a couple of plot points that annoyed me with their stupidity and the story was only moved along only with the help of supernatural intervention. Nothing rang true about this book for me.

The artwork was also only so-so as was the storytelling. But it was the coloring that let me down the most though. It laid down and died. The book would have been better off in black and white. The color made the artwork duller somehow. That's quite a feat.

I hate to beat up on "Desperadoes" because it has generally been a series that, while not great, I have enjoyed. After all I did continue to buy series after series as they were infrequently released. If you want to give this western series a try don't start with this volume. Pick one of the others. That's all I got for you.

Low Resolution Revolution

2009-10-25T17:14:00.002-04:00

I'm a collector of photography books. Well, I have a few of them anyway. It's not a very big collection. Especially compared to my comic book collection. They're not all in one place but I would guess I have about twenty photography books. Occasionally I pull one down and look at it.

One I recently took down off the shelf, a book I haven't looked at in years, I found especially interesting. It's"Digital Diaries" by Natacha Merritt. This book was controversial when it first came out in 2000 because it deals with sex. It was accused of being pornography and I can see why but I got nothing against pornography. It's no more evil than society at large.

"Digital Diaries" consists of Natacha Merritt taking pictures of herself in various stages of undress and also in various sexual acts. That's why it was accused of being porn or alternately "a young woman exploring her sexuality" blah blah blah. You know the drill. If your offended by such stuff stay away from this book.

What I found most interesting about the book looking back at it all these years later is how it turned out to be such a fleeting work that will never be duplicated. Digital photography back in 2000 was hardly what it is now. I got my first digital camera back in November of 2000 and that was only a three megapixel model. The one Merritt was using wasn't even that good.

It probably says somewhere in the book what camera she used by I don't really care. It was a low resolution one far from what any professional would use then or today. The pictures are blocky and full of jpeg artifacts. They are nothing like what we are used to now and this book would never be published today. If you read reviews of the book on Amazon, or some such, lots of people laughed at the quality of the photos. And for good reason.

But it's the quality of the photos that makes it interesting for me now. And it's not really the quality of the photos but the quality of the digital camera they were made on. The period of time where this was the state of the digital art was brief and I doubt many books were published using the digital photography of that time. What serious photographer would chose a low res camera that produced images much worse than his film camera to make a book? Not many I guess and no other books that I know of.

All photo books printed these days that are made from digital photographs are indistinguishable from film photography books. That's how far digital photography has come in such a short time. That's why we'll never see a book like this again. It's a time capsule.

Sure there might be some photographers who choose to work with a low res camera just like there are those who like cheap or toy cameras but that's a gimmick. Irony as a gimmick annoys me but that's just an aside. And low res cameras won't be easy to come by. There weren't really that many of them. More likely a photographer will res-down his photo on the computer to get that low res effect. That's what makes this book unique. The low res isn't an effect. It's a refection of the time. And most likely no one will publish a high end photo book of low resolution photos. That time has passed.

The photography in the book is actually pretty good. It's not everyone's cup of tea but I like it. A hot chick taking pictures of herself having sex yet trying to make something more out of it than dirty pictures is always an interesting subject. I'll take it over horses, dogs, or barns but then again I like portrait photography best in general.

The low res quality of the images makes them look like that are from some other time and place. Not quite the world we know but no one is trying to fool us into thinking they're from another time and place. They just are. They are from a brief moment when digital photography was a completely different beast than regular photography. Now the two are the same thing and we've forgotten they were ever so different. And as far as I can tell Natacha Merritt has pretty much been forgotten too. Freaky.

Comics I Bought This Week: October 22, 2009

2009-10-22T20:38:00.001-04:00

I'm back from the comic shop this week and I got one new comic plus a hard cover collection:

Ex Machina - 46

"The Goon: Fancy Pants Edition Volume 2

And now for a review of something I've read recently.

"Showcase Presents: Bat Lash"

This book reprints, in glorious black and white, a DC Comics series that I only know by reputation. As a matter of fact I only know it because of reading about it. It's a western from 1968 which is years before my time. And before my friends' time so it's a comic the we have never really discussed and we've discussed a lot of comics. This is also the first time it's being reprinted so that probably explains why I've never seen it.

I'm happy to say that this comic lives up to it's reputation. Especially the first five issues. It's written by Denny O'Neil and Sergio Argonés with art by Nick Cardy. Argonés' wild sense of humor and pacing is really apparent in these stories. I think that is the extra ingredient that makes them special.

Bat Lash is a western gunfighter character who I think was modeled to an extent after James Garner's "Maverick". I'm not that familiar with the TV show but from what I know of it I can guess there is a resemblance. But I am sure that "Maverick" didn't employ Argonés' unique talents and that is what sets Bat Lash apart.

Bat Lash is sort of a hippie cowboy who has a taste for culture and the good life and is not above doing some questionable things to get them. Hell, sometimes he just steals. He also chases the ladies around, quite successfully, and that also ends up getting into trouble. He doesn't seem to care if the ladies are married or have boyfriends.

Gunfights and dying (though sometimes he shoots guns out of people's hands) follow Bat Lash around through the breakneck plots. He claims to be a non-violent man but always ends up being violent. That's the main running gag. This comic reads like no other 1968 DC Comic that I know of.

In the last two issues of the seven issue series the tone turns serious. We get the origin of Bat Lash and learn why he's a definite outlaw (his outlaw status was a little murky before this) and get to see his darker more serious side. They are well done issues but didn't have the liveliness of the first five comics.

The volume is filled out by a couple of stories from 1978 and 1981 that are not by the original creative team. These are well done but don't have the sparkle of Bat Lash one through five. They are worth a look though.

The art throughout the book is top shelf. Nick Cardy did a masterful job on the first seven issues and Dan Spiegle nearly matched him with the last story. The middle story was by someone I have never heard of, George Moliterni, that was nonetheless also well drawn. It all looks good in black and white.

Bat Lash is one of those characters who shined for a brief moment thanks to the creative team involved. He's not an institution or a legend but has a handful of really good issues. Give them a read.

Blink and Miss It

2009-10-18T18:15:00.002-04:00

I need some inspiration. Because that sounds like a good idea. I'm usually not a "wait around for inspiration" kind of artist. I like to make art regularly and waiting around doesn't help me make it. Sometimes I get inspired but mostly I don't. The work itself is the inspiration. Doing work every day is much more helpful than inspiration.

But still I want some inspiration because it sounds like fun. It sounds like you get some of it and then, bam, you have a piece of great artwork. The art makes itself. I know it doesn't really work that way but I want it to.

Inspiration is really another word for excitement. You get excited about making something. Strangely enough the excitement can actually get in the way of things and be frustrating. Nothing will bring you down faster than getting all inspired by someone or something, trying to make a piece of art, and it coming out horribly. Man, that hurts. All that inspiration crashes down on you. Ouch. Still, I'll take the risk.

I think I want to start some large drawings. I've made large paintings but I don't think I've made any large drawings since college. I have plenty of twenty by thirty inch paper and thought I would use some of that. I'll need a bigger drawing board though.

Unfortunately I'm not sure what to draw. I usually draw no bigger than around 11x18 inches. I would then blow the drawings up for paintings but to make a finished drawing at a large size would be another thing entirely. I'm not sure what direction to go in.

I basically draw two different ways. The first way is influenced by surrealist automatic drawing. I try to pull images out of my head that are odd and unlike anything I've seen. It's drawing without a preconceived idea of what I'm going to draw. That's the way I create characters and worlds that are far out. I like drawing that way and think it suits me.

My second way of drawing is the traditional "think of something and then draw it" kind of drawing. Come up with an idea and then execute it. Often that type of drawing involves referencing things with photos and real life. The results can be as far out as my other drawing but the starting point is different. And it's usually a little more grounded in the "real" human figure. I'm not sure which way will work best for me with a large drawing. That's why I need some inspiration.

I've been doing a lot of pointless drawing lately. By pointless I mean that I have had no end in mind for it. Usually a drawing is a preliminary work. It's a step towards getting to a finished painting, print, photograph, or whatever. That's why drawing doesn't always get the respect of the others and also why it can be the most interesting. Especially to other artists. Drawings are often called the "guts" of a piece of art.

I've been making drawings with no idea if they were going to be finished works. I've been doing them because I've been in a period uncertainty about I want to do. Since I can't decide I may as well draw. That beats sitting around being frustrated.

It's that uncertainty that breeds the desire for inspiration. Uncertainty is in no way exciting and excitement blocks out uncertainty. That's why I want some of it. Now where do I find it?

Comics I Bought This Week: October 15, 2009

2009-10-15T20:15:00.000-04:00

I'm back from the comic shop this week and I got two new comics plus a hard cover collection:

The Walking Dead - 66

Strange tales - 2

Strange Tales Masterworks - 2

And now for a review of something I've read recently.

"Nova: Volumes 1-4, Annihilation Conquest, Knowhere, Secret Invasion, and Nova Corps" by Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning, and a bunch of different artists

A friend of mine hooked me up with these four volumes of "Nova" trade paperbacks to check out. I haven't read any Nova comics since I was a kid in the late 1970's. That original Nova series was one I always wanted to be good, because Nova looked real cool, but was pretty mediocre. It had excellent covers though. And a great tagline, "The Human Rocket".

These comics, from the last few years, were written by the writing team of Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning. I know these guys have been writing comics for a couple of decades now and I remember them as solid super hero writers but I can't remember the last thing I read by them. It's been that long since I've seen their work.

Each volume has different artist working on it but they are all pretty similar. I think Sean Chen's work in volume one is the strongest but there is really not a lot to complain about. As long as the modern over rendered super hero style is okay with you. It's done pretty well here.

The story picks up after something called "The Annihilation War" where all of the Nova Corps (yeah, basically the same thing as DC's Green Lantern Corps) were wiped out except our hero, Richard Rider, the Nova Prime. He has the Nova Corps' "Worldmind" in his head talking to him. Worldmind was the brains behind the Nova Cops and the repository of all their knowledge.

For the first two volumes Nova is flying around in deep space helping worlds deal with various emergencies related to the cosmic war that just ended. He's flying around putting out fires and having adventures all while trying to make up for the destroyed Nova Corps. It's entertaining stuff generally.

In volume three Nova returns to Earth to get involved with fighting the Skrulls in the big Marvel "Secret Invasion" crossover. I'm not much of a crossover fan and haven't read one since the 80's but for Nova's part the volume was pretty well done. In volume four the Worldmind rebuilds the Nova Corps to protect the galaxy but all the action still takes place on Earth.

All in all I enjoyed "Nova". I like the first two volumes best. They were good stories of cosmic adventure on far off worlds. The last two volumes were more Earth bound and still good but didn't have the sense of adventure of the first two. They were all much better than the boring old original run. So if you're in the mood for some fun, solidly done cosmic adventure check out "Nova".

Put it in Plastic

2009-10-11T17:38:00.003-04:00

This week's interesting new tool is a laminating machine. I've been meaning to get one for years and years but for some reason it took me until this week to actually get one. They are really not that expensive. This one cost me forty five bucks plus another fifteen for 8.5x11 inch laminating pouches. It's worked well the times I've used it so far.

I got the machine to make cards. Trading type cards that is. I created a fortune telling system a couple of years ago and when I made a prototype deck of cards I used hand burnished cold laminate to make the cards. That stuff was a bit of a pain. I had to place a piece of the plastic on the front of the card and a piece on the back and then burnish them down one by one being careful not to get air bubbles in the laminate. That took a bit of doing, maybe five minutes a page, and I had about a ten percent failure rate.

The laminating machine is much quicker and easier. Put the piece of paper I printed the cards on into the pouch and run it through the heated up laminating machine. Piece of pie. Takes all of thirty seconds. So far my failure rate has been zero percent and I don't expect it to climb higher.

I didn't have an exact project in mind when I bought the laminator this week so I tested it out with an old unfinished project. My "Moment in Time" cards. I came up with that idea last winter or so. I have a lot of Manhattan street photos that I have taken over the years. Some at public events and some right out on the street. I never make anything out of the vast majority of them so I decided to make trading cards out of some of them.

I like trading cards. Maybe it's nostalgia or maybe it's populism but trading cards were the artwork of childhood. They were something that every kid had and could hold in their hands and look at. I like their intimacy and their preciousness. Even though they were mass produced and not really precious if you were a kid your copy of the card could be precious to you.

Moments in time is the concept of my trading cards. I made up a template with that phrase written down the left hand side and the photo goes underneath it. On the back of the photo is a water design with the time and place the photo was taken plus a brief description written by me with a little bit of observation and a little bit of speculation about the stranger in the photo.

The project is about the fleeting instances of life that the camera catches. It's a pretty obvious concept but somehow the trading card format makes it come alive for me. I'm making them the slightly taller than baseball card/playing card size. It's a standard size but not the usual one. I also have a round corner punch to finish off the cards. Durable art that you can fit in your pocket. That's what appeals to me about this project. That and contemplating the nature of time.

Going back through the photos in itself is an exercise in contemplating the nature of time. I've only gone back to 2005 when I used to shoot at the Good Morning America Summer Concert Series in Bryant Park before work. These photos are all of strangers and not friends and family but they still get me wondering about the nature of time.Who is this person and where are they now?", is the general question that comes to mind. I haven't even gone back to some of my old 35mm street shots yet. That's back in time for you.

All of the photos I've made into cards so far (twenty four of them) have been summer shots. Everyone is in the sunshine and they all look warm and happy. At least that's what I read into them. I tend to guess at my subjects states of mind. That's another reason I've liked these moment in time cards. I get to make up stories. Always a fun thing to do.

Comics I Bought This Week: October 8, 2009

2009-10-08T20:34:00.002-04:00

I'm back from the comic shop this week and I got five new comics:

Buffy: Season 8 - 29

North 40 - 4

Savage Dragon - 153

Grim Jack "The Manx Cat" - 3

Planetary - 27 (Not a hoax! Not a dream!)

And now for a review of something I've read recently.

"Northlanders: The Cross and the Hammer" by Brian Wood and Ryan Kelly

This is the second "Northlander" collection to come out but it is not a continuation of volume one. Besides taking place at the time of the Vikings (around 1000 AD) they two volumes are unrelated. All new characters and an all new story line.

This volume takes place in Ireland during the Norse occupation. It's basically the tale of an Irishman, he may be an insurgent or he may be a madman, who is going around and killing some of the key Norse occupiers. A Viking lord who is sort of a crime scene specialist is sent to track and kill him. It's a violent story of the hunt and the chase.

It's also a very human story where it's hard to pick a side to sympathize with. Of course it's natural to side with the Irish insurgent/madman over their occupiers but both sides commit violence towards the other with remarkable frequency and aplomb. Just when I thought I was with one side or the other my allegiance would switch because of some act of violence. The violence was understandable though. The characters were not violent for violence's sake. They were doing what they thought was right and the enemy's lives were cheap.

Overall this was a very enjoyable volume of historical fiction. There was more violence and less politics then the first volume but I enjoyed both of them and look forward to more.

Games and More Games

2009-10-04T16:34:00.002-04:00

Football season is here and I am not one to be counting his chickens before they hatch. That's one thing a lot football fans love to do but I don't. You look at your favorite team's schedule (mine is the NY Giants) and figure out which games they should win. You can have them at 7-1 in a moment.

Fans of any give team are usually optimistic when looking ahead at the schedule. Maybe it's that if your team stinks there is no reason to look ahead but everyone I know who counts their chickens always counts in their team's favor. But if there is one thing I know about the Giants it's that some games that they should win they lose and some games they should lose they win. That's why they play them and why I don't schedule-guess.

I've actually been playing a video game lately. It's "Magic: The Gathering" for the X-Box 360. Sure it might not really count as a video game because it's a translation of an actual card game but it's the only reason I've had to turn on my X-Box in ages. Well, besides using it as my media center.

Magic: TG for the X-Box is a pretty good translation of the game. It's really only a small fraction of the vast trading card game but for a ten dollar download it's well done. The computer AI is alright. I've yet to play a human opponent on it though. I used to play the game all the time in the mid 90's with some of my buddies at lunchtime when we all worked together. It was a nice break in the workday and we had fun. It's fun to play again a little again.

Buying M:TG was also the first time I've spent money in the X-Box virtual marketplace. I've never bought anything before because unlike the iTunes store, where I buy games for my iPod, you can't spend cash at Microsoft's virtual marketplace. First you have to buy "Microsoft Points" and then you spend those points "Buying" things. Oh, and one point does not equal one dollar. Eight hundred point equals ten dollars.

So good luck figuring out how much something will actually cost you. Plus you could have points left over. You have to buy points in the increments that they sell them in. Those increments might be more than how many points what you want costs. It all reminds me way too much of Itchy and Scratchy dollars from an episode of "The Simpsons".

Speaking of the Simpsons their twenty first season opening show that Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg wrote was good. I'm one of the few people I know who still watches the show and that was a stand out episode.

There is still no new car for me yet but I'm feeling more mellow about that. Since I don't use one to commute their is no real hurry to get a new one. I think getting rid of my old car took a lot of stress away. It was twenty one years old (like the Simpsons) and a ticking time bomb of repair bills ready to go off. And I found out the right rear wheel was about to fall off. I was right not to trust it. I don't have the car repair skills to keep it running on the cheap and am glad it's gone. But what one should I buy and how much will it cost? Ahhh... the questions of modern life.

A video game I almost bought last week was Halo 3: ODST. By "almost bought" I mean I had the money in my hand and was at the store looking for the special edition (it comes with a X-Box 360 wireless controller) but the didn't have any for me since I didn't pre-order it. After I got home I read the reviews on the game and though they were good there were plenty of complaints that the game was short and not worth the money. Originally it was supposed to be released as an expansion pack but Microsoft decided to charge full price ($60) for it. I'll wait until next year when it's cheaper.

So that is some news that is all about games. Football and video. Too bad there is no good football video games anymore.

Comics I Bought This Week: October 1, 2009

2009-10-01T19:37:00.003-04:00

I'm back from the comic shop this week and I got three new comics plus a hard cover collection:

Glamourpuss -9

Usagi Yojimbo - 123

Echo - 15

Fables: The Deluxe Edition Book One

And now for a review of something I've read recently.

Asterios Polyp - By David Mazzucchelli

Asterios Polyp is the name of the lead character in this book. He is a professor of architecture and a famous "Paper Architect". That means that he has never actually had a building of his built but his designs are well regarded.

It took me a while to get into this book. One criticism that I've used before about other books is "Plenty of observation but no insight" and that is how the beginning of this book played out for me. And then Mazzucchelli gave us some insight and the book took a turn for the better. I ended up liking the book in the end.

It is a well done book but for the most part I found the characters fairly predictable. At least the two main ones, Asterios and his love interest/wife. The supporting characters were generally more interesting to me. I found the love interest character least interesting. Asterios got more interesting as the book went on but his love interest/wife never did. But the story is about Asterios so I guess that's understandable.

I also didn't quite see the ending coming so that was good.

Mazzucchelli was trying some different things with the art. Sometimes, such as in a discussion between Asterios and his wife, each would be drawn in a style that related to their feelings or arguments at that moment. I'm not sure if this was effective or not. Once again it seemed to work better for me at the end of the book and not so well at the beginning. I'm not sure if it's me or Mazzucchelli who is responsible for that. It could be I wasn't used to it. That's the way things are with new techniques. Overall I enjoyed the artwork and storytelling.

Despite its slow start I liked this book. It's the story of a man and how he found his way in the world. Twice. Each time he seems a little lucky but he makes use of his skills too. An interesting read. Give it a try.

What to read?

2009-09-27T16:43:00.002-04:00

What comic to read next? That is what I'm thinking about tonight. You think it would be an easy question to answer but somehow I make it complicated. I'll break it down into categories for you.

The first category is obvious. Get a comic from my new comic pile. Those are the latest ones I've purchased that I haven't cracked open yet. That pile isn't usually big. Tonight it has five comics in it. Sometimes I like to know I have some new comics to read so I don't want the pile to get down to zero. I don't buy very many of new comics so I don't want to read them all at once. It's a little way of having something to look forward to.

The second category is new graphic novels. Anything like the Rick Geary books or "George Sprott" by Seth that I might have lying around. They stand on their own and are not part of any series. They are new stories from a favorite author/artist. Sometimes I let these sit around for a little while too. It took me a few weeks to get to reading "George Sprott" because I enjoyed the idea of having a new book by Seth to read. They don't come out very often. I get to graphic novels by cartoonists I'm unfamiliar with quicker because I want to see if they are good. A strange little habit.

The third category is new collections of comics. Hard bound or trade paperback they are the way I read a lot of mainstream superhero stuff from Marvel or DC these days. I buy the latest Hercules series this way plus I've kept up with some of the Spider-Man books as they come out in collected form. "Young Liars" and "Criminal" are two other books I buy when they bind them all together. Sometimes when I want to check out what's been going on in a mainstream book the I don't regularly read so I grab a collected. Sometimes they sit on my shelf for a while because I'm not in the habit of reading the series. I have a few collected things I haven't read lined up. I could pick any one of them.

Category four is collections of old comics. Some of them I've read the originals before and some of them I haven't. I've got Creepies. Eeries, a volume of Herbie, a couple of Guardians of the Galaxy, and the Demon. That's just off the top of my head without looking. There always seems to be less of a rush to get to these. Maybe because, even if the printing is new, the comics are old. They've been around for decades. What's one more week? They can wait. Who's ever in a rush to read a twenty year old comic book?

The final category is, of course, all the comics that have been sitting on my shelf for years. The collection. Sure I've read them all before but some not for decades. I have plenty to pick and choose form. Too many some say. All sorts of genres and subject matter. I could pick for nostalgia, style, curiosity, artist, writer, character, or any other reason I can think of. I have a lot of comics. So what should I read?

Comics I Bought This Week: September 24, 2009

2009-09-24T20:20:00.000-04:00

I'm back from the comic shop this week and I got no new comics but I did get a hard cover collection:

The Incredible Hercules: Dark Reign

And now for a review of something I've read recently.

Agents of Atlas: Dark Reign by Jeff Parker and Various Artists

I picked this book up because of a friend's recommendation. Unfortunately I found it a bit of a disappointment. It just didn't make any sense to me. It's another one of those books that makes the 2009 Marvel Universe look like the 1999 Wildstorm Universe. I know that doesn't bother a lot of people because they didn't read Wildstorm books in 1999 but I did.

The Agents of Atlas are a group of heroes posing as villains while running an evil secret organization. What? That makes no sense. They are trying to make the world a better place by running an evil organization and "Fighting it from the inside". That's like trying to stop Josef Stallin by running the Communist party for him. I don't get it.

And who are the villains of the book? The U.S. government of course. Much like the Wildstorm Universe of 1999 there are now tons of evil "Black Ops" organizations secretly running the Marvel Universe U.S. government. Norman Osborn, the Green Goblin, is in charge of national security. What? Nobody has noticed that he was a super villain for fifty years? And he hire all his old thug super villains to work for the NSA. What? In our world the Feds don't want to hire you if you smoked pot in college but in the new Marvel Universe it's okay for super villains to be federal agents? It makes no sense to me.

And what do the Agents of Atlas do to change their evil organization from within? Nothing really. After all they have to pretend to be evil in order to run the thing. Am I the crazy one? The did sell Norman Osborn and the US government some guns that didn't work. Oh great, now US soldiers will get killed and taxes will go up to pay for these non-functioning guns. How is this fighting evil?

They do flash back to the 1950's Agents of Atlas all the time. At least in that part of the story the heroes were heroes and didn't senselessly run an evil organization.

But I've wasted enough time on this comic. The people who made it are not untalented and it is pretty well drawn and well written. It just doesn't overcome it's own flawed premise for me. "Changing the system from inside" stories rarely work for me and it doesn't here.

Word Pressed

2009-09-20T15:49:00.002-04:00

"I thought this was supposed to make things easier". That was the thought going through my head this week as I struggled to make a site for my new web comic. I already have a site for other artwork at jaredosborn.com and, though it was a lot of work, I didn't have much of a problem with. I used a program called "Freeway" to make it and it all went pretty well. But I rarely update the site because that is a lot of work. I am looking for something a bit different this time.

For my web comic site I decided to try out something called "Wordpress". It's blogging software that a person can install on his own site and the software manages the look and updating of your blog. It's supposed to make things fairly simple but it hasn't quite worked out that way for me yet.

The strength of Wordpress is its open source flexibility. Lots of people write their own code that works within the Wordpress software that changes the look of a blog. They are called themes and there are a lot of them to choose from. The theme am particularly interested in is called "Comicpress". It is specifically designed for web comic sites. There is a place to put everything I would need.

One of the problems with making a web comic site it that it has to be updated all the time. If you want to do a daily strip then a new one has to be posted everyday. Yeah, that's obvious but still has to be done. One of the good things about Comicpress is that you can automate the posting process. Upload the strip, tell it when to post, and then forget about it. You can upload all of your strips for the week at once.

Lots of web comics and blogs in general use Wordpress and the Comicpress theme so it must work. Just not for me quite yet. I managed to install Wordpress pretty easily. I picked the layout I want but the overall look of the page is still fairly ugly. I figured out how to change the layout around a bit but I don't know how to change the overall look of the page. Color, font, and background are all still a bit of a mystery right now.

I've been digging around for more themes and plugins to help me and some of them do but I'm really not much of a code guy. But, of course, that doesn't really matter when I can't even do the things I know how to do. I went to change some things and kept getting error messages. Error messages are no fun.

It's one thing to get error messages when I'm trying to change the look of the page but an entirely other level of frustration when I get error messages trying to upload the comics. I mean, that's the whole point of the site. How could that part not be working? I can upload the comics to anywhere on my server with my FTP program but somehow that doesn't matter. When I upload through Comicpress all I get is error messages. I have no idea why.

The worst error messages to get are ones that I know couldn't possibly be true. That one was "File name invalid". Now I'm no coder but I do know how to name a jpeg so it can be seen on the Web. It's not hard. Don't use any of the restricted keyboard symbols in the name. That's it. So how come every time I tried to load a strip it told me the name was invalid? I don't know but it sure was frustrating.

I had my FTP program open uploading and downloading stuff, was on Wordpress forums, my server's FAQ page, and any place else I could think of and it helped not in the least. I got a couple of minor things to work briefly but I still can't post my comics to the site. It's real annoying. Especially since it works for other people just fine.

So that's my web comic update. I've got plenty of the strips done. That's not the problem right now. It's the site build that's driving me crazy. But that was just my first day trying to figure it all out. Maybe a light bulb will come on during day two. Whenever that is.

Comics I Bought This Week: September 17, 2009

2009-09-17T20:01:00.001-04:00

I'm back from the comic shop this week and I got two new comics plus a book about comics:

The Walking Dead - 65

Ex Machina - 45

"Marvel Comics in the 1960's: An Issue by Issue Field Guide To a Pop Culture Phenomenon"

And now for a review of something I've read recently.

Mysterious the Unfathomable Issues 1-6 by Jeff Parker and Tom Fowler

One week I was picking up some new comic series that I had never read before. I do that from time to time to try and find something new. It was issue number two that I picked up and I liked it. I didn't see another issue until number four came out but I liked that one too so I tracked down the ones I missed.

"Mysterious the Unfathomable" is a book about a magician of the same name. He poses as a stage magician but his magic actually works. A lot of actual magicians do the same thing in the world of Mysterious. The book also stars his new assistant. A young woman named Ella.

I'd say the book was in the comedy/horror genre. It's drawn in kind of a big foot style but with more detail than is normal for that type of drawing. It's kind of Eisner-esque. I like the artwork. It's well drawn but sometimes the storytelling suffers because there is so much jammed into a panel. I get it though, the artist is trying to fill up the page with the world and it's creatures that he has created.

The horror angle mostly comes from the story. Mysterious gets involved in the affairs of some demons and bad guys from hell who want a piece of him. The demons may look a bit like Dr. Suess characters but they'll kill you and eat you just the same. There is definitely death and danger in this book.

Mysterious and some of his compatriots are not very exemplary people. He's not a bad guy but not quite a hero either. This is not a book about a heroic magician as we are all used to. It is a fun book though. It's not the greatest comic ever made but it's a good example of the craft. If you want to check out something a little different give Mysterious the Unfathomable a try.

TV TV

2009-09-13T20:28:00.002-04:00

I've been completely out of the movie loop lately. I haven't gone to the movies in ages nor have I been able to sit down and watch a movie at home. It's weird and I don't know why but I think it's because TV shows have gotten so much better and just out compete movies for my attention.

TV shows now all have plots and characters that develop over hours and hours of story time yet with each individual show telling its own small story. TV shows have become novels with each episode being a chapter in the book. No matter how long the movie it's always a short story in comparison.

The one thing movies have going for then is spectacle. The big screen and the loud sound. People love spectacle which is why so much movie time and money go into special effects. One of the first things out of my friends' mouths when describing a film is usually, "The effects were great". Or the opposite.

I've never cared about special effects. I don't know why but they never make or break a movie for me. Maybe I can't get into them and forget they're effects like my friends do. They are always just well crafted or poorly crafted effects to me. I prefer well crafted but they don't make me believe fantastical things better than poorly crafted ones. It's the writing and acting that make me believe. Not the ray guns.

So while I couldn't bring myself to sit down and watch any movies lately I did just sit and watch all of season three of the TV show "Dexter". It's a show I never thought I'd get into because I found the concept so dumb. It's about a serial killer who's victims are other serial killers. Sounded dumb and unbelievable to me but the writers and actors pulled it off.

Dexter works for the police as a lab tech/blood spatter expert so he has access to police expertise and can learn of killers who have escaped the reach of the law. Plus a policeman adopted him as a child, recognized the signs of a young sociopath killer and gave him a code to live by. Dexter only kills those who deserve it, covers his tracks, and tries to act normal even if he is not. All that makes the show believable to me and I never expected it to be.

Another show I just sat through was season four of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia". This was my second time around with these thirteen episodes and they are funnier than any movie I've seen in years. The show stars four people you've never heard of and Danny DeVito. They own and run a bar in Philly but that's not what the show is about. The show is about whatever funny, absurd and tasteless hijinks the cast gets into any given week. The characters have bad judgement, limited social skills, aren't as bright as they think they are, and don't let common sense get in the way of hatching a plan.

If I were to go into the plots and shenanigans that go on in this show I would never be able to do them justice. Suffice it to say that they're funny. If you don't like absurd and tasteless humor brought to you by characters with little redeeming social value than stay away from this one. But if you like funny then this show is funny. It's the show that makes me laugh out loud to like I was a little kid.

Those are just the two of the shows I've been watching lately instead of bothering with any movies. I also managed to track down some copies of an old yet to be released on DVD TV show that was a favorite of mine. "Two Guys and a Girl". I got some grainy low res copies that were better than nothing and watched an episode or two at a time all summer long. The show held up pretty well. Better than any silly "Tranformers" movie that I will never watch. And now that football season has started who needs movies? Not me.

Comics I Bought This Week: September 10, 2009

2009-09-10T20:37:00.002-04:00

I'm back from the comic shop this week and I only got one new thing:

Love and Rockets: New Stories - 2

And now for a review of something I've read recently.

Captain Marvel Masterworks Volume 3 by Jim Starlin and others

This volume reprints the Jim Starlin drawn and plotted Captain Marvel comics from 1973-1974. These were some of my favorites when I was a kid so it's nice to have a new hardcover printing of them. They came out a few years before I started collecting comics so I never bought them off of the racks but borrowed a friend's copies (probably in 1979 or so). It was always one complete story to me.

Even years after they came out these stories had a big impact on me. They were the first time that I read comics that had a real far-out "cosmic" plot that was epic in scope. It starts our with Captain Marvel being a regular super hero and ends up with him being some sort of special cosmic protector. It also starts out with Thanos being a typical strong armed super villain and ends up with him being a mad god.

I've known people ten or more years younger than me who find these comics too old fashioned for them. They like Starlin's "Infinity Gauntlet" Thanos stories better than these. I find those stories a pale imitation of these issues. I guess it matters which ones you discovered first and how old you were when you read them.

The one old fashioned thing about these stories is the amount of recapping that's done. When these were first printed the comic came out bimonthly. That's eight weeks between issues and it was always assumed that each issue might be someone's first so they'd do a quick recap to catch people up. There is a lot of plot going on in these comics so there is a lot to recap. Every two issues or so we get a recap. These are actually well done and integrated into the story but to a modern comic reader they are out of place. We barely get a story these days and never a recap.

One of the reasons I like these issues is that you can see Starlin's work growing by leaps and bounds issue to issue. He was just starting out back then and his artwork and writing grow as issues pass. He gets more and more ambitious and it's fun to watch.

I still like these comics. I think they hold up well and that is not nostalgia talking. The artwork is nice and I enjoy the story line. There is a reason it's such a famous run of comics. Starlin took the Lee/Kirby cosmic "Galactus Trilogy" story and ran with it a little further. He added some 1970's acid trip mysticism to it and made it his own. Fun stuff.

I must say I was even impressed with the three Wayne Boring drawn issues that started out this volume. Captain Marvel wasn't a well respected comic before Starlin took over and I expected nothing from these three issues but they were okay. I've never been a big fan of Boring's Superman but he can draw well and tell a story. I was well prepared to skip those three issues but I didn't.

So if you're a Starlin fan or are just curious about the antecedents of a lot of today's comic book cosmic epics check out this volume of Captain Marvel. It's still a favorite of mine. Now I have to read Stalin's original "Warlock" run.

Contemplative

2009-09-06T18:13:00.002-04:00

I'm kinda burnt out this weekend. All week I've been working on a photograph of a friends' wedding plus doing a bit of paying work. I got it all done but it took a while. The photo was especially tough for some reason. Between the two things I ended up working ten to twelve hour days all week. It's not like I haven't done that before but somehow it's tougher with fewer projects to work on.

I've worked that many hours countless times before but usually I'm switching between three or maybe more projects. I can burn out on one and move to the next. That is unless it's paying work that has to be done. Somehow it's less taxing working a few projects rather than on one or two things that have to be done no matter what. My brain gets in more of a rut. I don't like brain ruts.

I think I've got that big photo done. I'll have to look at it again next week because I'm too burnt out on it right now to see it clearly. That happens when I work on something intensely for a long time. I cease to see it as it is. Especially at the end of working on something. I'll put a piece away for a week and then look at it again to see if it needs any finishing touches. Sometimes it does and sometimes not.

What to work on next is always the question I have. Shopping for a new car sure has cut into my personal art time and that task has yet to be finished but I still want to get things done. I've been working on my web comic strip and will continue to the best that I can but I also have to work on getting the site it's going to appear on up. That's no where near as interesting as working on the strip itself. But it has to be done.

I have more photos I want to work on. I recently made a masked street photo and want to do some more of them plus I have another large photo collage, like the one I just made of my friends' wedding, to finish up but I'm a little burnt out on photography right now.

I recently started a cover recreation but didn't finish it. For some reason I wanted to recreate an old golden age cover by Alex Schomburg. I was doing a pretty good job of it. I remade all of the logos and trade dress on the computer and traced/re-penciled the cover art. I printed the rebuilt cover out in blue line to ink it but got bored with the whole shebang about halfway through inking it. It's still sitting there undone. Maybe I'll finish it and maybe I won't. I don't know yet.

I also have handful of "Covers to comics that have never existed" that I have yet to finish. Those are the pieces I do that look like old comic book covers. They are all originals and not recreations of anything but I haven't mustered up the interest to actually finish one of them all summer. Weird.

Another thing I want to start is a t-shirt store. One of those online ones where I would post designs and the web site would make the shirts if anyone actually orders one. I started one of these stores years ago but barely did anything with it. The money to be made on such a site is miniscule and wasn't worth the time spent but for some reason I want to give it a go again. I'll have to crunch the numbers and prove to myself all over again that it's a waste of time. We'll see. It could be fun to make t-shirt designs.

I have to do some drawings for a group of paintings I've been meaning to start. I stretched many canvases early in the year and never quite started what I wanted to paint on them. I painted and finished other things but somehow never these particular ones. I'll have to see if I can get them going.

I could also start some more of my new dark charcoal drawings. They only take a few hours to do and maybe would fit better into my shopping for a car time frame but I still don't have a real handle on them yet. They are a work in progress as far as a genre of work for me.

So that's it. Once again I am wrestling with the eternal question of what to do next. Isn't everyone?

Comics I Bought This Week: September 3, 2009

2009-09-03T20:27:00.001-04:00

I'm back from the comic shop this week and I got five new comics plus a hard cover collection:

Buffy Season 8 - 28

North 40 - 3

Savage Dragon - 152

Grim Jack "The Manx Cat" - 2

Strange Tales - 1

"The Invincible Iron Man: World's Most Wanted Book 1"

And now for a review of something I've read recently.

Conan Volume 7 "Cimmeria" by Tim Truman, Richard Corben, and Tomas Giorello

This is now my second favorite volume of the Dark Horse published Conan comics. The first is Volume 0 "Born on the Battlefield" and this is a close second. It's the best of the Tim Truman written Conan comics.

It's a story about nostalgia and going home. Plus blood and guts sword fights too. There are two plots going on. The first is about Conan returning to his home village in Cimmeria (drawn by Tomas Giorello) and the second is about Conan's grandfather (drawn by Richard Corben). Y'see along the way home people are telling Conan stories about his grandfather who also was one of the few individuals to leave Cimmeria and go adventuring.

The artwork on the book is very good and the story well told. I like Corben's art a bit better than Giorello's but that's to be expected. Corbrn is an old master. Still Giorello's work was pretty good.

The whole tone of the book is dripping with nostalgia as Conan goes home again to see all those he hasn't seen in three years or so. Some things have changed and some things have remained the same.

Stories about his adventures have made their way back to his village so he is a bit of a local celebrity. Of course the way home isn't an easy one and he has to fight his way through the mountains as he runs into all manners of sword and sorcery.

The tales of Conan's grandfather are also nicely done. They contrast with Conan's own life as his grandfather came home and settled down after his adventures. We as readers already know that Conan is never going back to Cimmeria again. He never goes home and settles down. It's a nice read all around.

So if your a Conan fan or a fan of good comics pick up this volume of Conan's tales. It's a good one.

Inside Insight

2009-08-30T16:03:00.001-04:00

Some nights I wish I had something to say but I just don't. I've got nothing but nothing. No insight and not even it's lesser cousin observation. That's been one of my criticisms of some comics about "real life" that I've read lately, "Lots of observation but little insight".

There is nothing wrong with observation. Seeing the things that people do in a clear way can be quite interesting. Observation isn't always easy either. A person's own prejudices and perspective can distort his vision of things and make his observations reflect inward instead of outward. It's not an easy thing to see clearly. My criticism may slight observation more than I mean to.

Still the "clear sight" part of things is the lead up for me. It's what gets me pondering on why things are the way they are and why people act or behave as they do. I find it fun to try and figure such things out. Sometimes things can be figured out and sometimes not. Most time not I would say. But it's still fun to try.

That is why I got nothing. When I write I like it to be about something. I like it to be about ideas. I generally don't like to write much about my personal life because I find it boring. It's pretty much the same as everybody else's personal life. I have no greet insights into love, life, family, or money. Occasionally I'll have some small insight into one of the above topics and might write something about it but in general if I'm broke, flush with cash, heart broken, happy, directionless, embarrassed, pleased, or melancholy I'm feeling or thinking the exact same things that any other human being would in those states.

The idealess state I'm in now is certainly not unique but is the realm of fewer people. You have to be a person who comes up with ideas in the first place in order to experience an idealess state. Or maybe this is the natural state for people who don't come up with ideas? I'm not sure.

I've always hated the "Writer with writer's block" clichéd stories that get written when a writer allegedly has writer's block. They are always the same, "Oh no, I have writer's block and can't write anything how terrible; oh look I've written a whole story about having writer's block; aren't I clever". Beside I don't have writer's block I just have no interesting insights to write about.

I don't think I've ever had writer's block. Maybe because I've never been a professional writer of any sort. There are sometimes I can write and sometimes that I can't but it doesn't matter if I have nothing at any given time. If I can't write than I don't. If I give it a day or two I'll be able to come up with something.

I'm an artist more than a writer anyway. That's what I spend most of my time doing. And there is no such thing as artist's block. An artist can always make a bad piece of art. It's easy. That's the difference. When writers say they have writer's block no words come at all. The blank piece of paper never gets filled. The tap is turned off. As an artist the tap is never turned off. You might make bad drawing after bad drawing but that's something.

In making a drawing, which is how a lot of art gets started, you can just make a line on a piece of paper. That line changes the context of the whole piece of paper. The next line can be in response to the first which changes the context again. It's easy to start a drawing. Not so easy to make it interesting and finish it but easy to start. Hence no artist's block

Writing is different. Words really exist in a space in our heads. Writing words on a piece of paper doesn't always help. They can look out of context and meaningless on the page if they're not right in that space in our head. A paragraph isn't like a drawing. Each new word might not put the ones before it into some new context but obscure them and make them meaningless. Or the words might not be there at all. Hence the writer's block.

Both are marks on paper and a person would look almost the same doing each activity but there are totally different things going on inside the head of the person who's doing them. Two different forms of abstract thought. I wonder where each comes from? I'm not sure and wish I had some insight into it. But that's life. Can't always get what you want.

Anyway I got nothing tonight. No insight into the world. It's all a blank. Yawn.

Comics I Bought This Week: August 27, 2009

2009-08-28T18:28:00.001-04:00

I'm back from the comic shop this week and I got two new comic plus a soft cover collection:

Usagi Yojimbo - 122

Rex Mundi Vol 2 - 19

Showcase Presents: Bat Lash

And now for a review of something I've read recently.

"Mister X: Condemed" by Dean Motter

Having read the "Mister X Archives" a little while ago I was looking forward to this four issue mini series. And much like the archive this series is a mixed bag.

Mister X is a mysterious figure and no one is really sure of his identity. Or if he's sane. He runs around in this future Art Deco city trying to fix things because the architecture may be driving everyone insane. That's the basic Mister X story.

In this series we have a mayoral election, a serial killer, and urban renewal gone crazy. It all expresses itself in a mystery. Unfortunately the mystery is: what the heck is going on in this comic? It just doesn't make a lot of sense sometimes. I had a hard time following the story. And I just read the archive so I was filled in on all the background material. I feel sorry for a new reader.

The art was a bit disappointing too. Dean Motter was one of the driving forces behind the original Mister X series. He didn't draw them but he drew a lot of the promotional material of the series. That was some well designed good stuff. The art in this comic is up and down. Sometimes Motter's sense of design shines and sometimes we get page after page of people against blank backgrounds.

The biggest problem I had was with the lettering. It was not up to snuff. It looked a bit amateurish. I didn't like a lot of the balloon placements, balloon shapes or balloon tails. It all looked a little rushed.

I hate to be bashing "Mister X" because it's a comic I've always liked despite it's unevenness of quality. It was always a bit different and usually tried to do well by it's readers. It has always been a flawed creation. Much like the character himself. But still I've enjoyed it. Give it a try is you like comics that are a bit different.

Up in Down Time

2009-08-23T17:10:00.002-04:00

So what is happening you ask? Well I'm just kicking through some of my unread comics today. That and running my fantasy football league's slow motion e-mail draft. Neither is particularly exciting to write about but that is par for this end of August course. It's hot and not much is going on.

I have been looking into buying a new car this week. That's a challenge in and off itself. I've never bought a new car before so the process is unknown to me. I'm alternately nervous and looking forward to the challenge. Nervous will not win I can assure you. I'll have to go out to a dealership and test drive some stuff.

The car I'm driving right now is a 1988 Ford Escort. I got it from my grandmother five or six years ago and though it still has only 40,000 miles on it I just don't trust it anymore. It hasn't broken down in a year but every time it does that's $500 out the window. And it usually stops running about once a year. Things always need to be fixed during NY state inspection time too. I don't drive it very far for fear it will break down. Nervousness wins out in this case and I hate that. What good is a car that you can't drive?

The twenty one year old Escort also has the bad habit of not starting on some days. Ninety nine days out of a hundred it starts up fine. The hundredth day it refuses to. It will start up the following day though. But you never know when it won't run. Since I only start my car up about every second day maybe it's even forty nine days out of fifty. Either way doesn't fill me with confidence.

The Escort was the first car I ever owned. How I got to be in my late thirties, living in the suburbs, and not owning a car is a wonder in itself. The Escort has served me well but it's time I replace it. After all I don't trust it to bring me places anymore. And I feel like going places.

Where you ask? I have no idea. Maybe just joyriding. Everybody goes joyriding when they first get a car. I never really did. Understandable since I got my first car in my late thirties and it wasn't a "long distance" one. I can't do any joyriding now since every time I turn the key I wonder if the car will start. And in the winter, let me tell you, that's when I really don't trust the old car. Not that it's run any worse in the winter but the thought of breaking down on a twenty degree night will keep me from driving anywhere. Those are the thoughts that will keep a person locked up.

I'd especially like to get out on days like these. I got nothing going on (besides the draft and that is an unusual occurrence) no paying work to do, no plans, and am too burnt out to make any of my own art. That's a fine time to get the hell out of here and go for a joyride. But not quite yet.

The thing about new cars is that they are freakin' expensive. I can only afford the very low end of new cars and that is $16,000. And of course that has to be financed because who has that kind of cash lying around. That's another thing I'm learning about, financing. Interest on a car loan specifically.

It turns out that when they lend you money at 7% that's not really 7%. It's 7% a year on what you owe them. If I borrow $100 and pay you back 7% then I give you $107. Right? Not when borrowing from a bank over time. That 7% ends up being about 25% of the original amount over it's lifetime. Yikes! No wonder banks have been so eager to loan before the crash. They can make a fortune in interest.

The advantage I have going in to the dealership is not much money and not much credit. I'm a hard person to talk into doing something he doesn't want to do and talking me into spending money I don't have is nearly impossible. Plus with nearly no credit history they are not going to want to talk me into spending more than I want to. Not in this environment.

So that's the dullness of my life today. My head is filled with thoughts of car buying instead of thoughts of making art or some such. No wonder I want to get out and go for a ride.

Comics I Bought This Week: August 20, 2009

2009-08-20T19:42:00.002-04:00

I'm back from the comic shop this week and I got two new comics plus a hard cover collection:

G-Man: Cape Crisis - 1

Ex Machina - 44

Eerie Archives Volume 2

And now for a review of something I've read recently.

"George Sprott 1894-1975" by Seth.

Seth is one of my favorite cartoonists and I've liked almost everything he's done. So I was excited to see he had this new book coming out. Part of it was serialized in the New York Times magazine but since I'm not a NYT reader I had no idea it was there.

Nobody embraces the past like Seth does. He likes to examine the past and, at least through his characters, thinks everything was better in the past. This book is the examination of the life of a fictional Canadian small time TV host.

The story is written in the present but looks back on George Sprott's last day alive in 1975. From that starting point it also looks back at Sprott's life from childhood to seminary school to "Arctic Adventurer" to publisher to lecturer to TV show host. It's a long life and a long journey.

I've read interviews where Seth says his work is all about feeling. I agree with that. His stories are not about plot, character development, or thrills. They are usually about the fleeting feelings one has in life. And our fleeting thoughts about them.

George Sprott is not a particularly thoughtful man but even he, at age eighty one, wonders who he is and where he came from. What happened to the thirty year old George? He can barely even remember the 20 year old seminary school George. Where did he go? He sure remembers the girl who broke his heart when he was twenty but she doesn't really exist anymore either. Where does any of the past go? And then George goes right on existing in the present day. Until he doesn't one day.

Seth doesn't make your ordinary escapist comics. This is also not ordinary in its size. "George Sprott" is an 11x14 inch hardcover. I'm not sure how many pages, it looks like about 100 (just looked on Amazon they say ninety six) but there is plenty to see and read in this book.

I also like Seth's artwork a lot. He's got a simple lined cartoony style that is very effective. He knows how to say something with one line and make it the right line. That's very hard to do.

So here was I book that I was excited to get and it didn't let me down. It's beautifully presented and made me a bit sad at times. It got me contemplating the nature of the past and time in general. Good stuff. Give it a read.

Video Game Blues

2009-08-16T15:49:00.000-04:00

I’ve pretty much had it with video games. There are very few that can hold my attention these days. Most are awful excuses for games that they want sixty dollars for. Even the ones that get good reviews I find are bad. Case in point: Gears of War.

I rarely spend more than twenty dollars for a game these days and thirty dollars is the exceptional high end for me. I no longer have any need for getting the newest games as soon as they come out. Been burned too many times for that. But I really wanted a new game because I played the excellent Halo 3 all they way through on it’s hardest setting and was hooked on video games again.

I checked all the review sites for the highest rated games that were sort off like Halo. I know no two games are the same but I just wanted something similar. I settled on Gears of War because is got such great reviews and looked like fun. I even payed thirty five dollars for a used copy of it. That’s how much I wanted a good new game.

It started out okay in the very beginning. The weapons were fun and the controls interesting. I don’t give a crap about the story in any video game so I ignored that here too. The first learning missions were okay. I had a good felling. Then it all came crashing down.

Gears of War is a squad based game. That means that along with you are three other guys in your squad that the computer controls. Non Player Characters (NPCs) is the old role playing lingo for them. A problem throughout video game history has been the fact that computer controlled characters are dumb and often more a hinderance than a help. But this is a new modern game with load of programers and processing power to make thing right. Right?

Wrong. The NPCs were dumb as dirt. At least once we got to this one spot. It was in a town. In the center of the town was a fountain or some such. It was circular and offered very little cover. Enemies could attack it from every which way. So where do my NPCs go? Right t0 the center of the fountain. Dumb asses.

After a frustrating few times of trying to make a stand there I decided to take a different tact. The enemies you have to fight come out of holes that magically appear in the ground. If you don’t throw a grenade down the hole more and more enemies keep coming out of it. I decided to try and take out the holes while my squad made their suicidal stand.

After trying this about a million times and blowing up hole after hole as my character died time after time I couldn’t take it anymore. I realized with all this technology, programing, and fancy graphics the game came down to throwing a grenade into a hole over and over again. Not much of a game.

And the fact that enemies came out of holes in the ground was annoying on its own. That is such a shortcut video game cliché. The enemy generator was a concept that worked fine in Gauntlet back in 1985 but come on. Come up with something new. If the terrain was thought out well (as in Halo 3) there is no need for randomly place enemy generators.

So then and there I gave up on Gears of War. I had no interest in repetitively throwing grenades into holes. I haven’t even tried to find a good console game since. And this happened last fall.

I did just pick up the John Madden Football 09 Anniversary Edition. I’m a New York Giants fan and wanted this just because it was the one that was released the year after the Giants won the Super Bowl. I wanted their Super Bowl roster. I waited until now to get it because it is twenty five dollars instead of sixty. No way is a Madden game worth sixty bucks.

I’m glad I did wait too because I find the game nearly unplayable. It’s pretty awful. To start with the play diagrams are practically unreadable. I have never seen football diagrams in a video game take up so little screen real estate. Maybe it’s readable in high def but on my regular 27 inch TV each play diagram is about four inches square. And the game plays as horribly as all Madden games have for a decade now. Makes me wonder why I wanted it.

The only good game I’ve played in while has been Advance Wars (whatever number) for the Nintendo DS. I played that one to death this past winter. All the Advance Wars games have been good so I knew I couldn’t go wrong with that one.

It’s a good thing that my iPod touch has become such a good gaming platform. It’s the only thing I’ve been playing lately. There are a lot of cheap games for it and some good ones. Plenty of crappy ones too but who cares if they are just a couple of bucks a piece. And there are actually games to be had. Not just fancy graphics with very little thought put into gameplay.

And yet I still miss the good console games. I’m sure there are some of them out there. I like the Call of Duty and Halo games but they are few in number and hard to find. Maybe I’ll give Fallout 3 a try if it ever comes down to a reasonable price. Until then I’ll continue with the iPod games.

Comics I Bought This Week: August 14, 2009

2009-08-14T12:50:00.002-04:00

I'm back from a Friday trip to the comic shop this week and I got 2 new comics plus a hard cover collection:

Grimjack - "The Minx Cat" - 1

The Walking Dead - 64

The Incredible Hercules "Smash of the Titans"

And I just noticed that my copy of "G-Man: Cape Crisis" didn't come in. I'll have to inquire next week.

And now for a review of something I've read recently.

Creepy Archives Volume 2 by Various

First off I'm in awe of a lot of the art in this book. That doesn't happen to me very often. The artists, Reed Crandall, Gray Morrow, John Severin, Alex Toth, Angelo Torres, Steve Ditko, George Tuska, and others do an excellent job here. Their skill is amazing.

I'm not an "everything was better in the past" kind of guy and there are plenty of talented artists working in comics today but there is something special about the art in theses Creepy comics. It's in black and white but the artists use that to add lush rendering and washes to the artwork.

Plus I'm amazed at the sheer variety of things that all the different artists can draw well. Since the stories are horror tales that generally involve bad things happening to real people everyday items as well as the fantastic are rendered in beautiful detail. And suits. One thing that most artists these days don't draw well is guys in suits. Almost every artist here handles drawing an ordinary man in a sport coat masterfully. It's rare to see this many great comic book artists in one book.

The writing was also good in this volume. It's a step up from volume one. Archie Goodwin takes over the editing and a lot of the writing chores and makes more of the stories than Volume one's more formulaic "Twist Ending" stories. Jay Taycee (Johnny Craig) also writes a couple of good tales that stood out for me in this issue.

As much as I like Volume One I'm much happier with this volume. As I've only read a handful of Creepy issues in my life I'm looking forward to reading more of these archive collections. Good show.

Publicly Transported

2009-08-09T17:56:00.002-04:00

I went into New York City today. Into the borough of Manhattan specifically. I live in the New York suburbs of NYC. I'm about forty miles north of Midtown Manhattan. That's not a long distance to drive but in public transportation miles it is.

I could drive into NYC but I don't do that too often. According to Google maps it would take me fifty four minutes to drive there. Or an hour and forty minutes with traffic. When is there no traffic in NYC you ask? I'd say between 3 AM and 6 AM. In other words there is always traffic. Whenever I've driven in to Midtown it has take at least an hour and a half.

Parking is another reason I generally don't drive into the city. It's not easy to find unless you have a budget for it. If you got fifty bucks there are plenty of parking garages. I guess you would have to do lots of driving to lots of places in Manhattan in order to learn the ins and outs of free parking on the street. Sure I've done it but it can't be counted on.

I also have a very old car. If it breaks down I prefer it to break down locally. Who wants to be stuck on the West Side Highway in the middle of the day or night? Not me. And that highway can give quite a battering to my car. It's not the smoothest of rides.

So for the past twenty years I've been taking public transport into NYC. Since I'm on the west side of the Hudson River than means busses. They tore the trains out sometime in the 1950's when Robert Moses thought if he built enough roads they would never get clogged up. Boy did he learn a lesson along with the rest of us.

For all the years before I got a car I used to take the bus that came closest to my house. Unfortunately that bus took a solid two hours to get me into Manhattan. It was a local as are all the buses that run during non-commuter weekday hours and weekends. That was a long time to cover the forty miles I wanted to go. A commuter bus covered that distance in about an hour forty, which isn't that much better, but they don't run on Saturdays.

After I got my car I would drive ten miles to the mall in Nanuet NY. More buses ran from there than from my closest stop and it only took an hour and twenty minutes to cover the thirty miles from Nanuet to Manhattan. A fifteen minute ride saved me from forty minutes on the bus. Of course add half an hour onto all these bus times in case of traffic. Or rain. Or sun glare. Or whatever. You get the point.

There were always two buses an hour running from the Nanuet Mall. That is until last month when the budget cuts hit. Now there is only one bus an hour. As you can imaging things are more crowded and annoying. Especially when crowds are in the Port Authority bus terminal waiting for busses that don't show up. That happens often enough but now instead of the next one being along in half an hour there will be an hour wait. Things can get crowded.

All this lead me to trying out a New Jersey Transit train. When I said there were no trains on my side of the Hudson that wasn't exactly accurate. There is no longer a NY west side passenger line but the freight lines are still there. Plus there are a few trains that go along the New Jersey part of the Hudson River. I had only taken these trains a couple of times decades ago. They took a long time and didn't go directly into Manhattan. You had to take them into Hoboken and then take another train into lower Manhattan.

Recently NJ finished their Secaucus Transfer Station. Now you can take a train from Nanuet to Seacaucus and then catch a second train from Secaucus to Penn Station in Midtown Manhattan. All that takes about an hour and twenty minutes. Down from an hour and a half (or more) and about the same time as the bus. I never took that route because trains run only about once an hour. Of course that's what they cut the bus schedule to so same difference now.

I'm not sure if I like the train any better. I generally like trains better than busses because busses get stuck in traffic a lot more easily. But this train ride has a transfer in it and that doesn't make things easier. Maybe it's because the train ride is new to me but it was more tense. On the bus I put my headphones on and zone out. Sometimes I nap and sometimes I don't but there is nothing to do until I get off at Port Authority. With the train I had to pay attention. What stop is this? Are we at Secaucus yet? What platform is the train on? Gotta make the connection. Wait for the connecting train. Is it here yet? Trying to catch and waiting for two trains is no fun. Twice the anxiety.

And then there is Penn Station itself. Oy! What a mess. Port Authority Bus terminal is no pleasure palace but it gets the job done. Here is how you catch a bus at the PA. Find out you bus's route number and then find out what gate it leaves from. It left from the same gate last week and will leave from the same gate next week. Now go up to that gate and wait with a few hundred other people. Off peak and on the weekends don't expect people to know how to line up properly. They really just mill around in sort of lines. Plus the gates are big and there are usually about four bus routes for each gate. When your bus shows up don't be surprised to see people ignore the lines and rush it. It's also amazing how many people rush the wrong bus. Keep a calm head and you'll get on eventually.

Penn Station on the other hand was designed by idiots who I don't think realized that people were going to have to use the building. Either the Long Island Railroad or NJ Transit here is how you catch a train at Penn. First you wait in a giant "Waiting Room" that is really just the big disordered hallways outside of the tracks. There are digital signs everywhere with train number and destinations on them. What track will your train be on? That is what you and thousands of others are waiting to see posted. Ten minutes before the train is scheduled to leave a track number is posted. That is the cue for the three or four hundred people who are waiting for that train to hurry to its track. The track is accessed by an entrance hallway/staircase that is two people wide! It's a near stampede for every train. Who designed that crazy place? No one designed it. I think it just happened.

So though I have no love for the bus I didn't find a better way in the train. I still might take it again but I'm not sure. All I know is that it sure is a lot of time and effort to cover thirty miles.

Comics I Bought This Week: August 6, 2009

2009-08-06T18:58:00.001-04:00

I'm back from the comic shop this week and I got five new comics plus a hard cover collection:

Savage Dragon - 151

Buffy Season Eight - 27

Echo - 14

North 40 -1&2

Agents of Atlas "Dark Reign" (HC)

And now for a review of something I've read recently.

Invincible Ultimate Collection Volume 4 by Robert Kirkman and Ryan Ottley

It's been a long time coming this fourth "Ultimate" volume of "Invincible". I think it was originally supposed to be out in June of '08 but finally came out in May of '09. I'm glad it's finally here because I haven't been buying this book month to month or even trade to trade. I've been buying these oversized hardcover editions. I like 'em.

I obviously also like "Invincible" since this is the fourth volume I've purchased and this one is as good as the rest. It's a fun super hero book. There are lots of fights, characters, and plot twists but much like Spider-man is really about Peter Parker "Invincible" is really about Mark Grayson.

Mark is your typical college age kid who is trying to balance being a super hero who is on call with some government agency with having a real life. In the middle of doing whatever he can be called on to stop a bank robbery or fly into space to stop an alien invasion. He never knows and neither do we.

This volume finds Mark contemplating his future at his college, wondering if his being a super hero is fair to his girlfriend, worrying about his mom and new little brother, and trying not to get killed by all sorts of menaces. The books reads pretty fast but is still filled with stuff. Kirkman love to give us a page or two of foreshadowing or some long range plot element each issue.

The art is top shelf also. Ryan Ottley can draw well, tell a good story, and design imaginative characters. A triple threat. Bill Crabtree also does an excellent job with the coloring. Rus Wooton does a nice job with the lettering so it's an really good team all around.

I have one really minor gripe with the lettering. Whenever there is computer generated lettering that is integrated with the art, such as the lettering on the Dean's office door or especially the sign outside the Pentagon, it doesn't like right and stands out like a sore thumb. I'm not sure if it is the letterer or artist doing this but I suspect it's not the letterer. It's just a tiny annoying thing though.

So if you're a super hero fan and are not picking up "Invincible" I have to ask you, "Why?". It's fun stuff.

Party Farty

2009-08-02T18:10:00.002-04:00

I'm a bit tired today. I threw my annual backyard party yesterday. I was, of course, up late because who can sleep right after throwing an party? I'm usually in bed by 11:30 PM -ish but last night that was more like 1:30 AM-ish. Being a morning person I was up at my normal 7 AM. I just can't sleep late. Hence my sleepiness. I'll be taking a nap later on. I'm pro-nap.

I often spend the afternoon after my party watching a movie or two. I normally don't sit down and watch movies or TV. I'll often have the TV on as I'm drawing, painting, or working. I listen to the TV more than I watch it. Maybe once every week or two I'll actually sit down and watch a movie. But the day after my party I'm extra tired so all I have the energy for is sitting and watching.

Throwing a party is a much different experience than attending one. That's because you have things to do. You are throwing a party after all. You have to keep things organized, bring stuff out, answer queries, and clean up a bit as you go. Plus socialize with everyone. When attending a party you're just hanging out with whoever. That's a little breezier.

My friends are pretty easy to throw a party for. We've all known each other for a long time and have all thrown and attended many parties together. My friend Bunche is usually at my event. He will come up early and cook stuff (pulled pork, ribs chicken, whatever he feels like) and then man the grill for a while. He couldn't make it this year but I have a lot of friend who can grill well. Anyone who wants to takes a turn grilling up some, burgers, dogs, chicken, and sausage. Things went smoothly as the charcoal burned all day and I was free to run around and host.

It's always amazing to me the irrational thoughts that go through one's mind when hosting a party. The first is "Will anyone show up"? It doesn't matter that you know people will show up. You will still think that. Every host does. This is my fifteenth or sixteenth annual party and I have about the same number of people show up every year. Around thirty plus. And still the "Will anyone show up"? thought enters my head every year. I can pretty much ignore it but it still exists.

The second irrational though is, "Will there be enough food"? We all know this one. Every host at every party fears running out of food. It's truly universal. Often the fear is verbalized. Usually at parties my friends and I have attended or thrown there is a ton of food left over. Guests bring food with them and the host usually overestimates the amount of food for fear of running out. I have plenty of stores nearby and can always run out and get more food at a moments notice so running out of stuff is not really a problem. But still the thought enters my head. You can't stop irrationality. It has a mind of its own.

The third irrational thought is "Are my guests having fun"? Everyone is clearly hanging out with their friends and having a good time but that doesn't stop this though from entering your head. If you are an attendee of the party and you're having fun and this thought never enters you mind. As a matter of fact throwing a party is the only time this thought will ever enter your brain. I've heard many a party host nervously ask a guest if everyone is having a good time. Yet if a group of friends are out at diner, hanging in the park, or at a night spot this question never enters anyones' mind. You have to be hosting a party and think yourself responsible for your guests' enjoyment for this thought to be thunk.

I think I had about the right amount of food this year. There were some leftovers but not a ton of them. That's good. There have been some years when I could have thrown another party the next day with all the leftovers. That's a little bit too much to deal with.

Drinks are a funny thing too. When we were all in out twenties a lot of my friends were big drinkers. Cases and cases of beer were drunk at my party. Then sometime in our early thirties everyone's beer consumption went way down. But their beer purchasing didn't. I'd end up with cases and cases of beer after the party. It took three or four years for things to adjust themselves.

Drinks have changed a bit more now that a lot of my friends are entering their forties. Plenty of juice boxes for the kids and lots of soft drinks left over. Now it's the bottles of water that always run out first. Everybody drinks less sweet soft drinks than before and more water. That hasn't quite adjusted itself yet.

A lot of my friends help with the clean up at the end of the night. packing food up, bringing things inside, folding up chairs, and bringing things into he kitchen. This always helps make the night a little earlier. Of course I'll always be up late anyway because who can sleep after throwing a party? Now I'm back to the beginning. maybe I'll go lay down.

Comics I Bought This Week: July 30, 2009

2009-07-30T21:36:00.002-04:00

I'm back from the comic shop this week and I got two new comics, a trade paperback collection plus a hard cover collection:

Glamourpuss -8

Fear Agent - 27

Lone Ranger Volume 3 (HC)

Northlanders Volume 2 "The Cross and the Hammer" (TPB)

And now for a review of something I've read recently.

"The Mice Templar: The Prophecy" by Bryan J.L. Glass and Michael Avon Oeming

I had read some good things about "The Mice Templar" but was still hesitant to pick it up. I'm not sure if it's because the name is a bad pun or because Mickey Mouse has made me prejudice against mouse stories in general. Either way the trade paperback collection of it came out on a slow week at the comic shop so I decided to give it a try.

The world of "The Mice Templar" is pretty interesting. They give it some nice backstory with myths and legends based on our own but different enough to make the mice's world unique.

It's also a quest, coming of age, fulfilling a prophecy story. I'm usually not a prophecy fan and the other elements can become clichéd pretty fast but Glass and Oeming play with the expectations of such stories in such a way as to make it fresher than I expected.

The story also had more breadth and depth than I anticipated. They create a world filled with history, legend, gods, and danger. All based on the natural world without mankind on the scene. It owes a lot to the world of fantasy novels, as is stated in the afterword, with animals playing the parts of various orcs, goblins, trolls, or whatever fantasy races that we are used to seeing.

Oeming's art in the book is very nice and I especially like the coloring by Wil Quintana. They do a good job of visualizing the world of the mice and the other creatures.

The only complaint I have about the art is that in the first issue, when there is a whole town full of mice, I was a little confused because I had a hard time telling all the mice apart. It's tough to make them all distinct. They're mice after all. I mention this only because if I had only purchased the first issue I might have stopped there. So if you've only read the first issue pick up the rest because the confusion ends quickly.

So I have to say that "The Mice Templar: The Prophecy" lives up to its reputation as a good comic. I'm glad I picked it up despite my own prejudices. Give it a try.

Ramblings at the Gate

2009-07-26T17:24:00.002-04:00

It's a pensive evening and I'm sitting around thinking about nothing. How is that? I'm not sure. It's a cool, crisp, and a bit rainy July evening that is perfect for letting the mind drift into new places. But somehow it's not. Hmmm...

I want to write a couple of more comics strips tonight but I'm not sure if I'll get to it. I've been writing and illustrating about five strips a week in advance of setting up a web site to display them. I've been putting off setting up the website because it's something I don't enjoy too much.

It really is a lot of work making a functional and good looking web site. It involves a lot of moving things over an eighth of an inch and contemplating how it looks there as opposed to there. Endless minutia and endless contemplation of boring-ass gradients. It really is dull stuff. It's much more interesting making the strips. Plus the website probably doesn't even matter. Who's ever going to see it?

For me the joy in making anything is the making of it. The odds of any creative endeavor making anyone money or bringing them fame is slim to none. If that is your expectation then prepare to be disappointed. And most of us get disappointed. So I enjoy the act of adding something to the world. Even if the world doesn't know it.

Of course I generally don't care what the world knows. It matters to me more what I know. That's what I'm in charge of. Plus the world cares about way too many things that I don't care about. Mostly pop culture stuff. I have no interest in the latest hit movie, song, or TV show. I can find my own things of that nature to like. It's pretty easy. They broadcast them right into our homes.

Now I'm rambling. Where was I? Contemplating the nature of contemplating? That's little odd.

I was just contemplating the NFL's announcement that next year they are moving the NFL draft to prime time. I'm against the idea. It ruins the good time my friends and I have on draft day.

For the last few years we'd hang out on a spring Saturday afternoon (the draft continued on Sunday but we were done with it by then) while the NFL draft was going on and have some pizza and shoot the breeze. It was an oasis of football in the off season and an excuse to get together and hang out. Not a ton of "Watching the draft" really went on because there is not much to watch.

Next year the draft will be on a Thursday night at 8 PM. They want to get a bigger TV audience but I think it will be a smaller audience. No one will be getting together on a Thursday night and consequently anyone who watches the draft will actually have to watch the draft. You really don't want to do that. The draft is long and boring. And I'm one of the people who likes it.

I think there is no way that as many people will be interested in the draft on a Thursday and Friday night. A Saturday afternoon is one thing but after a long day at work who wants to sit by themselves and be bored by talking heads killing time between draft picks? Bad move NFL. Way to spoil my good time.

I'm in the mood for some video game football now. Too bad there are no football games I like. I'm not a Madden fan which is the last of the officially licensed NFL games since Electronic Arts payed for the exclusive rights to use NFL players and teams. I still have my older NFL 2K games and do like them okay but they are far from perfect. I want to play a near perfect NFL football video game. Sucks for me that it doesn't exist. Such is life.

I'll sign off now before I ramble on any more about another topic completely unrelated to anything that has gone before. It's that kind of night. Think I'll write those comic strips now. Maybe I can pull something out of my brain.

Comics I Bought This Week: July 23, 2009

2009-07-23T19:23:00.001-04:00

I'm back from the comic shop this week and I got one new comic plus a hard cover collection:

Captain America - 601 (I bought this because of the excellent Gene Colan art printed from his pencils)

Creepy Archives Volume 4

And now for a review of something I've read recently.

"Young Liars Volume 1: Daydream Believer" by David Lapham

Here is a series that I didn't even know existed until about issue five. I usually buy Lapham's stuff but missed out on this one until now. Probably because it's a Vertigo comic. I'm used to ignoring Vertigo comics because I don't care much for them.

To summarize this volume all I have to say is, "Boy does David Lapham write some messed up comic books". Messed up in a good way. Dysfunctional people, murder, drugs, mayhem, and madness fill this book in a way that only Lapham can pull off.

Gerard Way, in his introduction, said "I hated the characters as soon as I met them. I just knew it was only a matter of time before I loved them." That pretty much hits the nail on the head.

What is weird though is that the characters don't get any more lovable as the story goes on. They are all still screw-ups behaving badly. They just get more human as the story goes on. We learn about why they act as they do, how their bad actions haunt them, and how their regret doesn't matter because they still can't control things.

The basic story revolves around Sadie and Danny. Before the story started Sadie was shot and now has a bullet lodged in her brain. It's going to kill her sooner or later but meanwhile she has lost her impulse control. Danny is the boy from Sadie's home town who loves her but isn't loved back. He watches out for Sadie and is a bit of a sap but is really a bit crazy too. He is more trouble than he seems.

A transvestite, a too skinny ex-model, a rock 'n roll groupie, and a ne-er-do-well rich kid round out the cast. The rest of the plot is too crazy and convoluted to go into but it's good. This might be the most fantastic plot that Lapham's come up with. It stretches believability at times but clearly that's what he's after. There is a lot of craziness going on.

I'm glad I finally got around to reading this one. I enjoyed it a lot and think I liked it better than "Silverfish" which was the last thing of his I read. Give it a read if you're a Lapham fan or a fan of comics about messed up people getting into too much trouble. Just don't expect to find any redemption.

Lookin' in Books

2009-07-19T17:46:00.002-04:00

I’m looking in my books. My drawing books that is. Books in which I’ve made drawings not printed books of other’s drawings. This would be a lot less confusing if I just called them sketchbooks but I’m not really a sketcher. I make drawings in marker and try not to always think of what I’m drawing as I draw. I try to pull odd things out of the back of my mind and let them come through in the drawing.

I do this in my five by seven inch sketchbook. I make from six to eight drawings on a page. I draw a box in the upper left hand side and then draw within the box. Since composition is my strongest natural talent I find it easier to draw inside a box. By defining the edges of a drawing I have an easier time fitting all the elements together. I make a drawing in the first box and then draw a second box beside it. Then move down a row and repeat until the page if filled with drawings.

This is the basis for most of the imagery in my art. I’ve been working this way for about ten years now and have nine sketchbooks filled with my little drawings. When I want to start something new I’ll grab one of the books from my shelf and thumb through it and look for something that interests me.

What’s weird about that way of working is that I don’t always remember each individual drawing. Looking through the books can be quite a surprise. A lot of the drawings I do remember and some of them I even know I will be making into something bigger as I finish the little drawing but may of them are unfamiliar.

I am sometimes surprised at which drawings interest me years later. Occasionally a drawing that I have passed by for years because I didn’t think it was very good will catch my eye. I see something different in it than I’ve ever seen before and I work it into something new.

So that is what I was just doing before. Thumbing through one of my books. Book number seven to be exact. I’m currently drawing in book number ten. Some of the time I flip through the book I’m currently drawing in and some of the time I flip through an older book.

The current book often has the most unknown drawings in it. Even though a page of drawings might only be two weeks old I haven’t gone back and looked at the page a second time. And since I’m often trying to draw with out much use of my conscious mind I can easily forget a drawing after completing it. The older book I’ve gone through many time and certain drawing become familiar.

Sometimes I come up empty looking through my sketchbooks. I don’t always want to do drawings based on far out imagery. I do come up with idea for pictures the normal way. Think of things I want to draw ahead of time and then go draw them. Most of the time I prefer not to work this way though. I find it a little tedious. I don’t know why. I used to work that way all the time.

I also recycle my images every now and again. If there is a particular face or body that I liked I will sometimes redraw it for another medium. I may have made a painting of something and then I redraw it and make a print. Or a watercolor painting to an acrylic painting. It can be an interesting process of transformation.

Some images only work for me in one medium. Or at least adapt themselves well in one medium. My most dense and complex images are usually in my prints. I make my prints on the computer which is quite adept at complexity. To make a painting of the same complexity would take more time than I would care to spend on it. Plus I don’t think needless complexity would help my painting. Needless complexity is right at home on a computer.

So that is what I’m doing tonight. Looking through my drawing books and searching for an image that I think I can turn into a piece of art. Or at least an image that interests me. I’ve also been looking through my computer scans of drawings I’ve made. Often I’ll pull an image out of my drawing book and work it up into a more finished drawing and then do nothing with it. Nothing but scan it into the computer to sit and wait. Sometime later it might get made into something. Or maybe not. At least I’ve given myself lots of choices.

Comics I Bought This Week: July 16, 2009

2009-07-16T19:00:00.002-04:00

I'm back from the comic shop this week and I got two new comics plus a hard cover collection:

Creepy - 1 (The new Dark Horse series)

The Walking Dead - 63

Guardians of the Galaxy - The Power of Starhawk

And now for a review of something I've read recently.

"Hulk: Red and Green Volume 2" by Jeph Loeb, Art Adams, Frank Cho, and Herb Trimpe.

I'll tell you right off of the bat that I bought this book for the artwork. I wasn't that fond of Volume One but it had been years since I bought any Art Adams drawn comics and I wanted to see what his latest stuff was like. Plus Frank Cho is a good artist and there is some Herb Trimpe thrown in. A nice mix.

This is a thin volume of comics and the writing is even thinner. It seems that they've dispensed with any plot whatsoever and now super heroes just show up to fight the Hulk out of nowhere. There is nothing else going on in this comic. Even less then in Volume One and that's hard to believe.

I was even a little disappointed in the artwork. Not because it wasn't drawn well but because the fights weren't even interesting. I have to blame the writer for that because clearly no plot was written except, "Page One: Fight scene. Page Two: Fight scene. Page Three: Fight scene etc." Overall this book was a let down.

One other thing this book made me realize. I hate the Sentry. Even more specifically I hate the idea that a centerpiece hero in the Marvel Universe is a straight up rip-off of Superman. That's as cheap as it gets. Marvel isn't some small outfit with no heroes of their own so they have to do their "take" on Superman. The long time Marvel Comics fans that I know always liked Marvel comics because we didn't have to put of with the likes of Superman and his storytelling flaws. It's annoying turn of events.

The problem with Superman has always been that he is so powerful that it's hard to find a problem he can't solve easily. On a team book he is especially trouble. Why would anyone need Green Arrow or Batman when Superman is around? The upside of Superman is that he is Superman, world famous character with lots of fans who want to see him. He means something to people.

The Sentry has all the downside of Superman without the upside. I've read two Hulk stories with the Sentry in them and both times the writer had to come up with a reason for the Sentry not to save the day. And no one is rushing out to buy a Sentry book like they would a Superman book. He means nothing to people. The Sentry is a storytelling anchor and Marvel should get rid of him. That's my rant for the day.

Cars at One Six Four

2009-07-12T16:04:00.002-04:00

I'm building a new book case. Some knotty pine, wood screws, and three coats of white paint. I've built a lot of shelves and book cases for my comic book/book collection and here comes another. It's going into my laundry room in a spot that held my collection of Matchbox/Johnny Lightning/Hot Wheels cars. They have been moved into the garage above the work bench. I haven't bought any 1:64 scale cars in years now.

I like collecting things but as a freelance artist don't always have a lot of money. Therefore I certainly can't can't collect expensive things. Expensive doesn't mean better or more interesting anyway. There are plenty of cheap things in this world worthy of collecting.

I started collecting Matchbox cars in the late 1990's. They were just a dollar and there were a lot of fun makes and models. I say "Matchbox Cars" but there are plenty of different brands to buy. Plus they don't take up a whole lot of room. At least at first.

I probably have a few hundred cars now. That's where I stopped. I keep then in little plastic cabinets that have a lot of drawers. The kind of cabinets that are made for holding various types of screws, nails, little tools, or whatever in a workshop. They work great for little cars too. I have six of those cabinets. That's too many.

I stopped getting any new cars around the year 2000. I remember getting some new millennium special edition ones but not much after that. What made me stop you ask? Money and space. Those two oh so important elements.

The cars were getting more and more expensive. Not huge money of course but the toy companies were making more and more "Collector" cars at $2.99 - $4.99 a pop. I liked them. Some were much better than the basic one dollar car. As nice as they were getting two or three cars for ten bucks is a lot different than getting two or three for three bucks. Cheap suddenly isn't cheap. I could've be getting comic books with that money.

And space to put toy cars isn't always easy to find. Each year Hot Wheels and Matchbox put out new cars for the year. There are forty or so cars in their dollar line. That plus another ten buck will get you a case to put them in. Only a hundred dollars a year. Not bad. But then what do you do?

I collected two years worth of cars and had four cases but said to my self, "How long can this go on?". In five years I'd have ten cases. In Ten years twenty cases. Did I want that many? The answer was, of course, no. I don't like toy cars that much. I much prefer to collect comic books.

I couldn't see spending and more of my limited resources on toy cars. I'd rather spend my money on comic books and support the industry that I had worked in for many years. They are of much more use to me as a fan, a professional, and an artist.

I still like my toy cars. At least some of them. I keep a couple of them on my drawing table and rotate them for others whenever I feel like it. But I could probably get rid of about 90% of them and never know the difference. But where do you get rid of toy cars? Who wants them? A problem for another day. For now they'll sit in the garage.

Matchbox cars are cheap but they are not the cheapest thing I've ever collected. Those would be little plastic football helmets. It was 1996. I remember that because in December 1995 I bought my first computer ever. It set me back about five grand and I was more broke than I had ever been before. Sure I was still getting my regular comics but I wanted something new to collect. Toys, games, cards, they were all too expensive.

I was at the toy store one day and I noticed a bubblegum machine filled with those little plastic NFL helmets. I hadn't noticed them since I was a kid. And they were only a quarter per random helmet. I started getting a couple of them whenever I had the urge to collect something. It was fun. Until a few months later when the price raised to fifty cents a helmet. Too much dough. Plus I had most of them already. Fun while it lasted.

In the early 1990's I used to collect action figures. I don't have a lot of them left though. I gave them away. They also took up too much room. Most of them were crappy anyway. I never wanted to spend that much on an action figures so I used to collect the ones that were in the sale bin. Those are usually not the most desirable ones but some were okay. They eventually took up too much space and I gave them away bit by bit. Threw some out even. Those were the really crappy ones.

So that's a story of collecting for you. Some of us just love collecting things. The key is not to let them overwhelm you. If they start to then get rid of stuff and build more shelves. Shelves are your friend.

Comics I Bought This Week: July 10, 2009

2009-07-10T17:49:00.001-04:00

I'm back from a Friday trip to the comic shop this week and I got 2 new comics plus a hard cover collection:

Ex Machina Special -4 (I somehow missed this one the week it came out.)

Wednesday Comics - 1 (Printed on tabloid size newsprint to remind us of comic strips of old. From DC Comics.)

Warlock Archives Volume 2 (The Jim Starlin stuff.)

And now for a review of something I've read recently.

"The Starman Omnibus Volume 2" by James Robinson, Tony Harris, and Others

Once again I'm glad that there is a plethora of collections of comics that are old favorites that I never though would get the deluxe hardcover treatment or stuff that I never got a chance to read but now can. It's a golden age of comic book and comic strip collections.

"Starman" falls into the "Never got a chance to read" for me. I know people who liked it when it was new but somehow I never gave it a try. I read "The Starman Omnibus Volume 1" and like it so now here comes volume two. Guess what? I liked this volume too.

It's interesting reading "Starman" all these years later. Though there are many good artists working on the book it's James Robinson's writing that sets it apart. "Starman" is not your typical superhero. As a matter of fact I'm not quite sure what his super powers even are.

Starman is just an ordinary guy who has an energy rod that allows him to fly and shoot energy blasts (which frequently miss their target). He has no super strength or invulnerability so villains with automatic weapons are frequently a challenge to him. But this comic is really not about superhero battles.

"Starman" is about not only living life as a superhero but just living life. It's more about conversation and the people in Starman's life than about giant super battles. There is also a sense of history in the book since Starman is about the third or fourth hero to carry that name. Stories pop up about the old Starman and The Justice Society superheroes that he used to hang out with. Connections are everywhere.

It's also interesting to read what good writing was before the "decompressed" style that is the norm now took over. There are lots of balloons and lots of ideas in "Starman". It's overwritten by today's standards but it's not. Most stuff is underwritten today if you ask me.

"Starman" was also written before the "write four to six issue story arcs for the trade paperback collection" routine that we are burdened with today. The story evolves at it's own pace and has a much more natural feel than a lot of stories I've read.

So if you haven't given "Starman" a try yet go ahead and grab a volume. I think the third one is just about out and I'll be getting that one too.

What I Got!

2009-07-05T18:49:00.002-04:00

Ahhh… collecting things. Isn’t it fun?. I just found some comic books at an online comic shop and ordered them. About thirty comics. The vast majority of them were under a buck so the whole shipment cost me under fifty dollars. A good chunk of change but not a ton.

I really didn’t need any of the comics. They aren’t ones I was dying to read. I was just filling in some holes in obscure comic series that normally I can't find anywhere. I bought two issues of “The Masked Man” that I have been missing for decades.

“Masked Man” is a series from 1984-1988 published by Eclipse comics. It was kind of a tribute to Eisner’s “The Spirit”. I remember liking it but haven’t read it since then. I’ve been missing two of the twelve issues since the Eighties and have never seen any issues of the series anywhere. I’m sure demand for them is not high so no dealer is going to drag out his issues to bring to a comic con. Not that I’ve been to a comic con in a decade.

I also bought the last issue of “Usagi Yojimbo” that I’ve been missing. It’s “Space Usagi” Volume 2 Number 1. The one time I did this same thing, sometime last year, I ordered this comic but they sent me “Space Usagi” Volume 3 Number 1. It gets a bit confusing sometimes. Hopefully I’ll get the right comic this time and complete my Usagi Collection. Of course I still need the comics he appeared in before he had his own book.

A few recent things were in the order too. Like a couple of issues of “Fear Agent” that I missed. Most books that I buy month to month I never miss an issue but sometimes I pick up on a book a little late or maybe money is tight and it doesn’t quite make the cut for a little while. “Fear Agent” was one of those books. I started with it late, picked it up for a while, dropped it, and then picked it up again. I still am missing a couple of issues but they are cheaper then when they were new. If you can track ‘em down.

It was a little annoying ordering from this online shop. Only because I missed putting an issue in my order. I thought I did but I didn’t. I e-mailed them and got a response that since the web site used an automated ordering system they couldn’t add things to my order. That seems a little crazy to me. When a sales system is so inflexible that is loses sales I have to say that is a big flaw.

I haven’t bought any back issues of comic book in a while. There are so many collected editions of old comics being published that there is no need to hunt down back issues. I especially like the oversized hardcovers of stuff that’s been coming out. I’m not a huge trade paperback fan. I prefer the hardcovers. Often, but not always, they’re printed better and if they are bound well they are easier to read that TPBs.

I still like actual comic books though. I like their periodical nature. Waiting until next month to see the next part of the story is part of the fun of comics. I buy the individual issues of all of the small press stuff that I read regularly but nothing from Marvel or DC. If I want some mainstream super hero stuff I’ll usually by a collected edition. There are too many ads and not enough story in a regular Marvel or DC Comic for me.

I’ll often buy the collected edition of the small press stuff I like too. Not only to support my favorite cartoonists but also to lend out. For some reason I find comic book fans are more likely to read something new that they can borrow if it is in book form. I don’t know why. They’re comic book fans and read individual comic books but would rather not be bothered with something new unless it’s collected. Weird. Regular people won’t read a comic at all but might read a collected edition.

The collected editions are fairly cheap on a per issue basis. A comic costs three or even four dollars an issue now. For twenty two pages of story. That’s expensive. A two hundred page collected edition is going to run you twenty five to thirty dollars. Plus I get a thirty percent discount on collected editions at my local comic shop. A powerful incentive to get collected editions. Of course that also means buying a lot of "comics" at once. The downside of collected editions if you’re just trying stuff out.

I’ve already started digging through the database of my comic collection to see what other obscure comics I am missing. Maybe I’ll put in another order soon or maybe I won’t. Let’s face it these aren’t comics I’m dying to read right now. I’ve been missing them for a lot of years and have been in no rush to find them. Still it is fun to fill in holes in the collection after all these years. And most of the ones I need are cheap.

Comics I Bought This Week: July 2, 2009

2009-07-02T19:10:00.000-04:00

I'm back from the comic shop this week and I got three new comics plus a hard cover collection:

Savage Dragon - 150

Buffy Season 8 - 26

Echo -13

"Spider-Man: Election Day"

And now for a review of something I've read recently.

"Herbie Archives Volume 2 " by Shane O'Shea and Ogden Whitney

This volume reprints "Herbie" issues six through fourteen from 1964-1966. These are all comics I've never read since this is the first time I know of that "Herbie" has been collected or reprinted. I've known it by reputation and by one or two issues that have been reprinted but this is the first time I've been able to read the whole series.

I don't have much to say about volume two of "Herbie" that I didn't say about volume one. It's a unique comic. Herbie is a "Fat little nothing" to his always disappointed father but unknown to his family Herbie has all sorts of magical and super powers. His powers are completely unexplained except some of them are related to the magic lollipops he eats.

These stories are all a bit crazy. Plots can go anywhere they want and the unexpected is always popping up. Herbie travels through time and space effortlessly and is always meeting famous people of the past and present. President Johnson and Adlai Stevenson show up in this one. Not to mention Herbie give a Christmas present to Cassius Clay.

This volume is also notable for the first appearance of Herbie's super hero identity "The Fat Fury". Exactly why Herbie would need a super hero identity is a mystery to me but one day a super villain was terrorizing the town so Herbie decided to become a super hero. Before that Herbie just went adventuring in his regular clothes.

Herbie is also very well known among all the famous people, mythical characters, historical figures, and animals that he meets but no one knows who the Fat Fury is. Just another one of the weird things about this comic.

I could go on all day recounting the strange goings on in this comic but it's best if you read it for yourself. Check it out.

A Picture Says...

2009-06-28T18:44:00.002-04:00

It has been one rainy June. As a matter of fact a lot of the spring has been wet. But the temperature has been mild and the grass has grown long. Though the rain has stopped me from getting into Manhattan and taking street pictures as I like to do but has left me with plenty of time to contemplate buying a new camera.

I usually have two cameras at any give time. A pocketable one and a bigger more sophisticated model. The first big one I ever had was the Olympus OM-G (35mm SLR) which I got back in college. The spring of 1985 I think. I used that one for many years. It’s in a closet somewhere around here now. Good camera.

I didn’t start carrying a pocketable camera for many years after I got my big camera. It was sometime in the early 90’s that I bought a 35mm Olympus Stylus pocket sized camera. I liked that camera. It was not as small as today’s pocketable cameras but it was small enough that I carried it everywhere. My first one was stolen out of my coat pocket in a NYC bar one evening. I usually didn’t carry it in my coat pocket and for sure never did after that. Damned theives. I replaced it though.

Last year I replaced my old pocketable camera (now digital) with a Nikon Coolpix S60. The only reason I wanted that one is the touch screen. I wanted to try that out. It’s been interesting for me to use a camera that meters and focuses where you touch it on screen. Good stuff.

My larger camera is the Nikon Coolpix 8800. I bought it in 2005 and it’s an eight megapixel camera. The Coolpix S60 is a ten megapixel camera. I hate it when my small camera passes my big camera in megapixels. That’s when I start thinking about a new big camera.

I’ve been looking on-line at the latest cameras. There is a lot to choose from. I have stayed away from digital SLRs because I insist on a live view LCD screen. I never want to look through a camera’s view finder again. And I like to shoot at waist level and odd angles so I like the LCD to swivel. The one thing I don’t like about my S60 is that its LCD doesn’t swivel. But that would be hard to do with a touch screen.

These days there are some SLRs (or 4/3 systems) with live view swivel LCD screens. I’ve been checking out some of these but nothing has jumped out at me. They are expensive too. And not as compact as my Coolpix 8800 and other “prosumer” digital cameras.

I take camera reviews with a grain of salt. Whether by amateurs on sites like Amazon or professionals on camera web sites I have no idea what a person’s picture making skill might be. That is an important piece of information that’s missing. Both of my current cameras got mediocre reviews but I like them both. As a matter of fact I like every camera I’ve ever used. I’m sure they exist but I’ve never had a bad camera.

That is because my picture making skills are pretty well developed. After all I draw and paint most of the time so making a picture with a camera is easy compared to making one out of thin air. No insult to the photographic profession but it’s true. That is why there are a lot more photographers than artists.

My background as an artist effects the way I make photos too. I’m less demanding of my camera because my skill is not in taking the picture but in what I make out of it after the picture is taken. A real photographer’s photographer takes total control of his camera and the picture is made in his planning plus knowledge of what his camera can do. There might be some post production work or there might not be. That’s not the kind of photographer I am. To me the photo is raw material for making something interesting.

So advice in a photo review doesn’t always ring true to me. There are some good ones but only about one in three I’d say. And some people just expect their camera to do everything. And do it instantly. One of the criticisms of the Coolpix 8800 was that the zoom was slow. Compared to what? Who knows. And it had one of the biggest zooms in its class at the time so of course it was slower than cameras with zooms half its size. Lots of critics don’t make sense to me.

I’m still not even sure if I really want to replace my Coolpix 8800 yet. Sure there are bigger zooms out there today and more megapixels but I haven’t decided if it’s really worth it. Money is tight these days and even though the cameras I’ve been looking at are cheaper than my Coolpix 8800 was they are still not cheap. It always comes down to money, doesn’t it?

Comics I Bought This Week: June 25, 2009

2009-06-25T19:51:00.001-04:00

I'm back from the comic shop this week and I got one new comic plus a trade paperback collection:

Usagi Yojimbo - 121

"The Mice Templar: The Prophecy"

And now for a review of something I've read recently.

"The Amazing Spider-Man: Death and Dating" by Various

This volume of Spider-Man was a tough decision for me. I've generally liked the Dan Slott written Spideys that have come out but not the other writers' stuff. Previous volumes have been all Slott or all whoever else they got writing Spidey. Not this one though. We get two Mark Waid, one Marc Guggenheim, one Roger Stern, and three Dan Slot issues.

Waid is a pretty good writer and I haven't read and Spidey by him yet but his issues were drawn by Marcos Martin who's artwork I'm not thrilled by. I've also liked Roger Stern's writing in the past and his story was drawn by Lee Weeks. That's a plus. Mike McKone drew the rest of the book but I don't really have an opinion about his work one way or the other.

As I was weighing if I should buy this volume or not what put me over the top was the Shocker. He is one of the first Spider-Man villains I remember and though he was never very interesting nostalgia got the better of me. I loved in whatever Spider-Man issue that was all those years ago when the Shocker was blacking out whole city blocks just so he could spell out his name in skyscrapers when seen from above. That's my crazy kind of villain.

But enough of my decision making process. The stories in this volume weren't too bad. This book is like a random sampling of current Spider-Man issues. There is no big story line happening in here. We get one and two issue stories of Peter Parker living his life and Spider-Man battling a few low end villains. It was kind of refreshing not to have to read an "event" driven super hero comic.

So there is not much to say. There is a variety of writers and artists working on this comic but it all hangs together pretty well. Nothing spectacular but I'm glad I ended up buying it because it was an enjoyable read. Pick it up if you want a sampling of the talent that has been bringing us Spider-man lately.

Chain Lightning

2009-06-21T17:40:00.002-04:00

Things that will make you go blind: Making chain mail.

Once upon a time I got it into my head to make chain mail. My cousin George had made small piece and it looked cool. One day soon after I was bored and decided I wanted to figure out how to make it and I had the internet to tell me that it's really not hard.

What you need is some 16 gauge steel wire, a quarter inch dowel, and wire cutters. First you wrap the steel wire tightly around the dowel. When you are done with this the wire looks like a spring. You pull the wire off the dowel and snip it with the cutters at the top of each loop. This is how you make all the little metal rings that you need to weave together. You'll need a lot of them.

Weaving it all together is the hardest part. You have to follow a pattern where each ring is looped through four others on each side of it. That can be a little tricky but you can get the hang of it. It's almost like knitting. Or weaving.

But what drives you blind is that it is all close up work. I'm used to close up work being that I draw and paint but there is a difference. When drawing or painting I move in and out of the work. I have to step back every now and again to get an overall look and then move in close to work on details. The key to avoiding eye strain in not to concentrate on the details for too long. I stare off into the distance as a matter of habit. It's good to have a window to work by.

The problem with making chain mail is that there is no moving in and out of it. It's pure detail work. Up close and making sure that every ring attaches correctly. Make a mistake and you have to go back. Plus they are little quarter inch across rings. Not easy to work with.

With chain mail you also can't work by feel. My mother knits and crochets but doesn't have to be looking at all the little loops she's making. When the needles are flying along it's all done by feel. You can move your vision in and out. Looking sometimes to make sure things are going as they should and then not looking as you make a bunch of loops of yarn. With chain mail you have to watch every ring go into place. Up close and personal.

I ended up making two pieces of chain mail. Both were about three inch wide bracelets. Not very big in the grand scheme of things. The first was an all steel model but with the second I got fancy and used brass to make some of the rings. This way I had two colors to work with. I just gotta have color. That was a mistake.

Since brass is considerably softer than steel the brass rings pulled apart. Soon after I finished the bracelet some of the brass rings bent open a little and the rings connected to them slipped out of place. Rings started shifting everywhere and the thing became a mess. So if you want to make your own my advice is to stick with steel.

But I gave up making chain mail after those two small bracelets. It was too demanding on my eyes. They hurt right now just thinking about it. And though I have all the patience in the world when making art I have no such patience for making craft. That and I had no real reason to make anything out of chain mail. I was satisfied with figuring out how to make those small bits of chain mail.

About a year after I made this chain mail a coworker of mine expressed an interest in learning to make chain mail. He wanted a chain shirt to wear to a Renaissance festival he frequented, was a hands on crafty guy, and so was looking to make his own. I warned him off telling of my chain mail experience and of how long it would take to make and entire shirt. After all it took me a few hours to make each bracelet.

He ended up abandoning his quest to make chain mail and found a nice chain mail shirt on Ebay for a very reasonable price. Neither of us even knew that such chain mail shirts could be found so easily. Or so cheaply. I think he paid about eighty bucks for the thing in 2002 or so. He was quite happy not to have spent many hours figuring out how to make a chain mail shirt. Or to make himself go blind. I like not going blind.

Comics I Bought This Week: June 18, 2009

2009-06-18T18:29:00.000-04:00

I'm back from the comic shop this week and I got twelve new comics plus a hard cover collection:

Fear Agent 13-20 (some on sale back issues)

Mysterious the Unfathomable - 6

Ex Machina - 43

The Trial of Thor - 1

Rex Mundi - 18

The Starman Omnibus Volume 3

And now for a review of something I've read recently.

"The Incredible Hercules - Love and War" with writing by Fred Pak and Fred Van Lente and art by Clayton Henry and Salva Espin

I forgot I bought this book. I bought the hardcover collection when it came out, put it on the shelf next to the other Hercules volumes and promptly forgot about it. I saw the softcover copy in my local comic shop and couldn't remember purchasing the hardcover one. I went home to look on my shelf and there it was. Weird.

Much like the other Hercules volumes this book is fun. In this book we get more of the Marvel Universe versions of Greek gods. They are a violent and dysfunctional family and this current run of Hercules brings them more to life than any Marvel version I've seen before.

In this story we also get Marvel's version of the Amazons. I'm not sure if they've appeared before but here they are mythical super warriors who don't like Hercules or men in general for that matter.

What follows is a pretty decent super hero/Greek god adventure. This may have even been the best of the Hercules volumes. They are not great or insightful stories but they are fun ones. The art is solid and so is the coloring. So if you're in the mood for a fun comic check this one out.

A Chair Full of Woe

2009-06-14T17:16:00.002-04:00

So far I don’t like my new drafting chair. It may be a lemon. I wish I could have fixed my old drafting chair but alas in this disposable world of ours that was not to be. My old chair was really good. I bought it sometime in the early Nineties and it lasted me about fifteen years. I paid a lot of money for it. Four hundred dollars as I remember. An especially big sum for me back then.

The chair was by Martin Universal Designs and was solid and reliable. I usually work standing and only sit about ten to twenty percent of the time. That means I need a drafting chair for its height. A regular desk chair is way too short. That chair could adjust the seat height and pitch, the chair back height and angle. I even paid the extra money for adjustable arms. It was a good chair. Too bad it’s gone.

What finally broke on it was a weight bearing bolt under the seat. The seat pitched back and forth freely without that bolt to steady it. If it was a regular bolt I could have replaced it easily but it was a specialty bolt. It had a hole in the middle of it for a lever to pass through and was threaded in a couple of places to secure it. Not a common item.

I searched the internet in vain for drafting chair parts. I only found a couple of places that had exorbitantly priced parts for chairs. And none of them were even the part I needed. I remembered the art supply store Sam Flax used to fix drafting chairs but that was in the Nineties. And that was also in Manhattan. Plus the store closed. Not much help to me.

So I made the decision to get a new chair. I bought the last one at Pearl Paint in Paramus NJ all those years ago but I didn’t want to go over there to get one this time. The internet offers a wider variety of things these days and competitive pricing. Art supplies are notoriously over priced. I’ve been trying to save some money and didn’t want to spend a lot on a new chair. But my aching back said I better get one fast.

I searched high and low on the internet and discovered that drafting chairs are in pretty short supply these days. I guess that not a lot of drafting at an old fashioned drafting table gets done these days. Everything is done on computer and in a lower computer chair. The height is not necessary.

I also discovered that the quality of drafting chairs, much like other pieces of drafting equipment, had diminished over the years. I could tell just by the pictures. Sure you can buy a $1000 high end drafting chair but the quality $300-$400 dollar ones, like my old one, were no where to be seen. Plenty of places has $200 chairs for $400 dollars but I’m no dummy. I can comparison shop. It’s easy on the internet.

My back was hurting from standing too much and I was in dismay from not being able to find a good chair. I checked a few local office supply stores but they had nothing good. So I hit the internet again. This time I was able to find a couple of places that sold chairs by Martin Universal Designs. They made my old chair that I liked so much so I decided to get one of these new ones. I could tell it wasn’t as good as my old one because the seat didn’t have tilt control. But few I saw did. As a matter of fact I don’t remember any.

One site had the chair priced lowest at about $140 with a small amount for shipping. Since it was the same manufacturer as my old chair I decided to order it. Even if it was of lesser quality. After all, most of the drafting chairs these days were of lesser quality.

The chair arrived a couple of days later and I easily assembled it. I was clearly of lesser quality than my old one (and didn’t have the same part I needed to repair the old one) but I hoped it would do. Unfortunately as soon as I put it together and went to adjust the angle of the back a lever came right off in my hand. A bad weld that didn’t hold.

A vice-grip wrench used instead of the lever made a suitable replacement and I was able to adjust the back to my liking. Still I was perturbed. A brand new chair should not have bad welds like that. I paid good money for it.

I went back on the web site and wend through their “broken product complaint” section and sent them a message about the problem. I did as I was told and described the part that was broken including the part number. And then didn’t hear back for three weeks.

I was annoyed but my aching back needed the chair, which was perfectly sit-able despite the broken lever, and I was also anxious about how I would return the whole chair. You see once those pneumatic tubes snap into place they don’t came apart. I couldn’t disassemble the chair to put it in the box to return it.

I finally heard from the returns department and they wanted pictures of what was broken. Being an artist/graphics guy/photographer this was easy for me. I worked up a photo with text and arrows describing my problem. And then I didn’t hear back. Annoying but the chair was still sit-able. My back liked it.

This week a new problem with the chair emerged. The pneumatic tube which sits in the middle of the base of the chair is not supposed to go all the way to the ground. But guess what. Now it does. It, in fact, dropped lower than the wheels. I had to pound on the base of the chair with great force to get it to move a bit so that the tube wasn’t dragging the floor. Now after sitting in it for a few days it’s back to the floor.

So today I called the place about this lemon of a chair. I spoke to a very nice woman about my problem and she ended up passing everything on to the returns department which she said was in a bit of disarray since they just expanded (nice to hear of new hirings though). That’s why I may have fallen through the cracks. I’m supposed to hear back from them soon. We’ll have to see. The chair is still sit-able but I don’t know for how long. I sure miss my old reliable chair.

Comics I Bought This Week: June 11, 2009

2009-06-11T20:01:00.000-04:00

I'm back from the comic shop this week and I got four new comics plus two trade paperbacks and a hard cover collection. Quite a haul this week:

Mysterious the Unfathomable - 3

Walking Dead - 62

Savage Dragon - 149

Buffy Season Eight Tales of the Vampires - 1

Young Liars Volume 1 - "Daydream Believer"

Young Liars Volume 2 - "Maestro"

Conan Volume 7 "Cimmeria"

And now for a review of something I've read recently.

"Apocalypse Nerd" Issues 1-6 by Peter Bagge

I read this series as it came out a couple of years ago but this is the first time I've sat down and read all the issues together.

"Apocalypse Nerd" has a fairly simple premise. A couple of buddies, one a computer guy (the nerd of the title) and the other a kind of fringe low level drug dealer loser, are coming home from camping in the mountains outside of Seattle when they find out the city has been nuked. The rest of the comic is them trying to survive out in the post apocalyptic woods.

This comic is the definition of dark comedy. It might, in fact, just be dark. Sure it's drawn in Bagge's comical style and there are jokes in it but some of the things our protagonists due to survive are downright disturbing.

This comic is filled with death, destruction, anarchy, and jokes. Reading it all together it reminded me a little of "The Walking Dead". It had that same dramatic but depressing quality without the zombies. And more comedy.

These comics also have backup stories unrelated to the main stories. The backups are about the USA's founding fathers and are played for comedy but Bagge is clearly a fan of history.

The stories are all about the personal and political differences between the various characters who formed our country. There is not much awe and reverence to be found here. I am also a history fan so I recognized most of the interpersonal conflicts he was writing about and he does a good job with them.

"Apocalypse Nerd" was definitely my favorite thing that Peter Bagge has done in a while. Not that he's done a lot. The backups are a lot of fun if you're a history buff but beware how dark the main story is. It's good though.

A Question of Movies

2009-06-07T17:24:00.002-04:00

Here is a question I've always wondered about the answer to. Why are so many of the critics "Best Movies Ever" such downers? Seriously. Look at all the lists. At least half of most lists are depressing films.

I'd define a downer as any movie I would watch and then say to myself (who else would listen), "The world sure is a screwed up place". It doesn't have to be as depressing as the 1984 version of 1984 and it can even have exciting parts but over all it points out how screwed up life is.

The Godfather and The Godfather Part II are both downers. Sure they're great movies but depressing. You don't put them on for a pick me up. They take an emotional commitment to watch.

Citizen Kane - downer.

Casablanca - downer despite the slightly hopeful ending.

Lawrence of Arabia - downer that is epic in scope but still a downer.

Raging Bull - downer. Even chooses to use black and white so it's extra depressing.

Sunset Boulevard - downer. The story is told by a dead man. Classic downer move.

Gone with the Wind - I've never seen it but it take place during the U.S. Civil War on a busted up southern plantation doesn't it? That has to be a downer. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Chinatown - downer. Everyone is corrupt!

There are plenty more on critics "Best Films" lists but those are ones that dominate top ten lists. At least when the public gets to vote "Star Wars" and "Raiders of the Lost Ark" can break into the top ten. Not my favorites but at least they are fun and not downers.

Could you imagine if the "Best Of" lists in other areas were dominated by downers. If someone's "Top Ten" song list was dominated by depressing songs we would all think there was something wrong with them. A top ten list of blues songs has fewer downers than a top ten list of movies.

How about a top ten list of TV shows? I would guess three to five shows on anyone's list would be comedies. What top TV show list doesn't have I Love Lucy, M.A.S.H., Cheers, Seinfeld, or your favorite comedy on it? Comedies are rarely high on critics "Best Movies Ever" lists unless it's a Marx Brothers movie from eighty years ago. Sometimes they sneak on.

Even the dramas on TV are usually less depressing than any of the movies I've mentioned. I don't like medical dramas but lots of people do and as depressing as they may get they are equally hopeful. If not more so.

If someone's top ten paintings, pieces of art, or just general images are depressing we'd sign them up for psychiatrist. Just ask all those Goth kids who like to wear black and display images that remind us of death. Who doesn't think they're a little nutty. But film critics; they get a pass.

I think it's because film critics were for so long wanting films to be taken seriously and treated as art that they wanted no frivolity in their "Best Of" lists. It's part of film critic culture now. In order for a film critic to be taken seriously he has to talk about serious films that take themselves seriously. Humor need not apply.

I think we need a name for this syndrome. And we have to get these critics some psychological help. They're looking pretty depressed to me.

This line of thinking had me reevaluating my favorite movies too. Not that I have an actual list but I took of my serious critic dark tinted glasses. Now if the discussion comes up I pick "Smokey and the Bandit" as the best movie ever. There’s a fun film romp that always entertains me.

Comics I Bought This Week: June 4, 2009

2009-06-04T19:50:00.002-04:00

I'm back from the comic shop this week and I got no new comics but I did get a hard cover collection:

"Hulk: Red and Green" Volume 2

And now for a review of something I've read recently.

"The Invincible Iron Man: Five Nightmares" by Matt Fraction and Salvdore Larrocca

I haven't checked in on any "Iron Man" comics in a long while. I've liked Matt Fraction's writing on "Iron Fist" so I decided to check out his work in this collection.

This relaunch of Iron Man ties the book in more closely with the movie but since the movie was pretty close to the old Iron Man comics I've read it really didn't take a lot. Tony Stark (Iron Man's alter ego) is the head of Marvel's spy agency and still running his own giant technology company. The son of a former Iron Man enemy decides he wants to kill Tony Stark and his company.

The first few issues of this story were a little bleak. That's when the villain of the piece, Ezekiel Stane, starts his campaign of super terrorism against the world. He sends guy out to blow themselves and others up with super bombs. Stark isn't sure how to stop him. But eventually he does and that's the story.

I generally liked the story. It was a downer at first and had a little too much "The world isn't the same old man" stuff in it for my taste but I liked the plot and script.

I found the artwork just so-so. Some of it was good but some of it fell flat. Once again the coloring let me down. The colorists were going for a illustrative realism and it didn't work. Muddy skin tones and "realism" where it wasn't called for by the pencils bogged it down for me. Not horrible artwork but not A level either.

All in all this was an okay book. I enjoyed the writing more then the art but they played together pretty well. Check it out if you want to catch up on the world of Tony Stark.

Parked in the Park

2009-05-31T15:53:00.002-04:00

I hit Bryant Park in NYC yesterday for the first time all year. I’ve wanted to get down there before now but the weather and my schedule didn’t allow it. It’s a small well kept park in the center of Midtown Manhattan and one of the things I like about it is that it has tables and chairs. Not the most comfortable tables and chairs but I can work at them. I can’t work on a typical park bench. Or picnic table.

I like to head into the city and work in the park every now and then just to get out of the house and work among the crowds. I take a local bus into the city that takes way too long. It takes an hour and twenty minutes to go twenty five miles. And now they just cut back on the bus schedule and raised prices. The new schedule has only one bus every hour. I might end up like everyone else and drive into the city. What is the point of slow and inefficient public transport? To get us to buy new cars and gasoline I would guess.

Figuring out what I was going to work on in the park was what I was having trouble with. I could just sit there and draw, as I have done before, but I find that a bit dull. I sometimes need more than a black marker or pencil when I’m in the park. I was also thinking about bringing some of the new tools I had purchased recently: markers, brush markers, and colored pencils.

I haven’t done much with these new tools since I bought them. I haven’t sussed out any kind of style or working method for them. I’ve worked with the same tools years ago and can still do what I used to do with them but that doesn’t interest me. I want to do something new with them. I also like to work with the surface of a piece of art and all of those tools go on flat and offer no surface. That could be the problem.

On Saturday morning I finally decided to bring my set of gouache paints. I used them in the park last year and enjoyed it. But I had no idea what to work on. I pulled out a big stack of half finished little (five by seven inch) gouache paintings to rummage through to see if anything interested me. Half finished stuff can give you an idea of in what direction to go.

I came across a few paintings of faces that I liked. I have no idea when I did them since they are undated. They are in a style that I only used for these three paintings. Sort of a mixing of transparent and opaque gouache in a painting that owed much to drawing and mark making. There was no modeling as I often do but color laid next to color. Plus no underdrawing. It was all spontaneously done with the brush. I packed up my paints and paper and headed to the park.

There were many people in the park that day since it was sunny and about eighty degrees. People were sunning themselves all over. Except on the lawn. The lawn was closed that morning. People respect the lawn being closed at Bryant Park. When the lawn is closed (usually after a good rain, a good dew, or if it’s been re-sodded) they put up a red rope that’s about a foot off the ground with “The lawn is resting” signs every now and again and every one stays off it. I find that a little amazing. When the lawn finally opened at 4 PM lots of people laid out their blankets and and basked in the sunshine.

I found myself a spot on the shady side of the park. It was less crowded than the sunny side and I like the shade anyway. My fair skin isn’t a fan of strong sunlight. Plus the shady side was busy enough for me.

I decided to do some drawing first because the improvised nature of the paintings I did originally was nice but hard to sustain. When dealing with painting a face there is only so much to be improvised. I lightly drew two sketches of faces on two sheets of five by seven inch watercolor paper. I still wanted to keep the painting free and open like the others so I left a lot of decisions to be made with the paint. Then I painted them.

It’s fun to work out in the open every now and again. It’s less comfortable and there are more distractions but sometimes distractions are a good thing. Most people leave me alone as I paint anyway. A few come up to see what I’m working on and that’s okay. The park is about interaction with other people.

Lots of people from other places are in the park. Being that Bryant Park is just off of Times Square you can hear lots of different accents and languages spoken. It’s a good place for tourists to take a break and have a seat for a little while as well as for locals to sun themselves. Or read a book.

The paintings came out alright. Not the best I have ever done but okay. I wouldn’t expect them to be the best since painting on those little tables while sitting in those little chairs isn’t easy. Still it is enjoyable. I even got a chance to indulge my photography habit as, after I painted, I went around the park taking pictures of people and things. Always fun. Of course that also leads me to believe I need a new camera. But that’s a whole other story.

Comics I Bought This Week: May 28, 2009

2009-05-28T20:53:00.003-04:00

I'm back from the comic shop this week and I got two new comics plus a hard cover collection:

Usagi Yojimbo - 120

Glamourpuss - 7

DC Comics Classics Library - Roots of the Swamp Thing

And now for a review of something I've read recently.

"The Grave Robber's Daughter" by Richard Sala

I haven't read much of Richard Sala's work. I have the first two issues of "Delphine" and like those but I think that's about it. "The Grave Robber's Daughter" is a digest size comic and I think it has been reformatted from some other size. The panels in the beginning part of the story seem oddly layed out on the page.

Never the less the story seems to work pretty well. I think Sala's art is stronger in "Delphine" but it's okay here and is nicest in the second half of the book when more imagination is called for.

The story is about a woman, Judy Drood, who's car breaks down near an empty town that holds a strange carnival filled with teenagers and clowns.

It's supposed to be a scary and creepy story and succeeds pretty well on that account but it's a bit different in that Judy Drood is rarely scared as the story is told.

It turns out that Judy Drood is teenage hard boiled detective character who can handle herself well. I didn't know this going in. It was nice to see a character unafraid of "scary" clowns. I never got the scary clown thing. They're clowns. How is it that people are afraid of them?

"The Grave Robber's Daughter" was a short read but a fun one. I'm going to have to track down some more of Sala's work. Including "Delphine" issue three which I think is out.

The End of the TV Season

2009-05-24T22:35:00.002-04:00

Summer is nearly upon us and most TV shows have ended or are about to end for the year. I, like a lot of people, don’t watch much live TV anymore. I still watch but everything is recorded and time shifted. That means I get to watch what I want, when I want. I sure like it that way. Here is a recap of the shows I watched this season.

Law and Order - A show I still like after all these years. The cast changes all the time but this show is not about the characters’ personal lives. It’s about the cases. The formula it uses every week is relentless but a great example of how to use a formula. Law and Order: Criminal Intent is actually my favorite of the three shows and Law and Order: Special Victims Unit is my least favorite. I have a bunch of SVUs I still haven’t watched and I don’t know if I even will.

Life - A series that I enjoyed but it has now been cancelled after two seasons. Life is about a cop who was framed for murder, sent to jail for life, cleared after having spent twelve years behind bars, and now is a cop again. He’s a homicide detective so he goes around solving cases and trying to figure out who framed him. It had one of the best season/series ending shows. Too bad it’s gone.

How I Met Your Mother - A sit-com I’ve liked for its whole run. The lead character, Josh Radnor, is a little whiney and annoying but not always. The supporting cast is the show’s strength. Alyson Hannigan, Jason Segel, and Neil Patrick Harris are standouts and get into lots of funny shenanigans. Cobie Smulders, who basically plays “The hot chick”, does a good job with what she is given but kind of has the least to do. How I Met Your Mother is a consistently funny show.

Big Bang Theory - I was ambivalent about the first season of this show but have really liked the second. Once they got rid of the annoying “Nerd has a crush on the hot popular girl” plot line things got funnier. Less moping around and more comedy is a recipe I can embrace. A solid funny season.

Battlestar Galactica - Here is a show I watched only because it was a favorite of so many people I know. It’s okay but not great by any stretch of the imagination. I thought that this, its final season, was the worst season of the show. The series ending episode was awful. It did so little to hold my attention that I actually started doing my taxes in the middle of the episode. There’s a bad sign for you.

Bones - Another cop/detective/mystery/find the killer show. I like that genre. This one is different because it involves scientists. The characters are pretty good and there is lots of scientific jargon. Maybe not the best season of it and I didn’t like the season ender but overall a solid show. I’l continue to watch it.

Burn Notice - My favorite new show that I discovered this year, its second season. It’s the story of a spy who’s been “Burned” i.e. fired and told to stay put in Miami or he’ll be killed. He goes around helping people in trouble, trying to find out why he was burned, showing us spy tricks of the trade, and being a bad ass. And he has a hot girlfriend. All in all a fun show.

Castle - A new show starring Nathan Fillion and another cop show. Fillion plays a famous crime novelist who is following around a NYC detective to get material for his next book. A fun show. Fillion plays the charming rogue well.

Doll House - The latest Joss Whedon show. It’s about secret underground programable people. The show started slowly got a bit better but was never really good. It’s okay. It’s coming back for another season so I’ll see how it is then.

Lost - This season started a bit slow and was annoying but finished strong. Anytime time travel is introduced to any story things can go very wrong. It almost did here but then they straightened things out a bit. I ended up really enjoying the second half of the season.

Mentalist - Another new cop show and another cop show that I like. A trend is appearing. The Mentalist is a former fake psychic who uses his powers of observation to help the cops solve crimes. He’s also the king of charm.

My Name is Earl - I think this was Earl’s funniest season ever. It’s a show about small town goof balls as opposed to TV’s usual big city goof balls. Another solid sit-com. I hear it might be cancelled which would be a shame.

The Office - A sit-com about medium sized city goof balls. This was I show I didn’t start watching until season two or three because I never thought I’d like it. I was wrong. It’s a funny show about all the weird characters that you’d find in the workplace. Well, their workplace at least. It was another funny season and shows no signs of weakening.

Everybody Hates Chris - I always enjoyed this show even if it was never a favorite. The cast is really good. I especially like Terry Crews who plays Chris’ father. This is a show that I also hear is cancelled. Too bad because it was good.

The Simpsons - A lot of people I know don’t watch this show anymore but I do. I think it is still funny and people just grow tired of things. Even good things.

Comics I Bought This Week: May 21, 2009

2009-05-21T20:03:00.001-04:00

I'm back from the comic shop this week and I got five new comics plus a hard cover collection:

Mysterious the Unfathomable - 1

Mysterious the Unfathomable - 2 (Crap! I already have issue 2. It's issue 3 I need. Found that out when I got home.)

Mysterious the Unfathomable - 5

Ex Machina - 42

G-Man "Learning to Fly" (Digest size comic)

Creepy Archives Volume - 3

And now for a review of something I've read recently.

"100%" by Paul Pope

I've been a bit ambivalent about Paul Pope's stuff. I never liked his "THB" comic but enjoyed "Heavy Liquid". I never bothered with his "Batman: Year 100" because I don't care much to read another Batman story. I almost bought "100%" back when it was serialized in 2002. But at six issues for six bucks a piece I decided I would rather wait for a collected edition. It took DC long enough to publish one.

It's tough to describe "100%" concisely. It's a romantic sci-fi story of some sort. It's about life and love in the year 2050 on the island of Manhattan. Life isn't really all that different than it is now. There are different gadgets and people have different attitudes but things are recognizable.

I've also been ambivalent about Paul Pope's art. It has alway seemed a little too rushed to me. It has a lot of influence from Japanese comics in it. He does some stuff I like and some stuff I don't like.

This book contains his best artwork I've seen to date. I came to realize upon reading this that Paul Pope has a tremendous mark making ability. Mark making is the vocabulary of lines that an artist puts on paper to describe things.

Most comic artists don't have many marks in their vocabulary. Many have one, two, or three marks that they build everything out of. All of that scritch-scratchy, crosshatched, early 90's, Jim Lee, Todd McFarlane, Rob Leifeld style art is built without a wide variety of marks.

It's not necessarily better to have a wide variety of marks at your disposal but it is unusual for comics. And Paul Pope uses them well. His backgrounds can be lush and moody, filled up with all manner of marks, even if they don't mean anything literal. Though he wears his influences on his sleeve his stuff is fairly unique in the comic world.

I'm glad they finally put this out in a collected edition and I got a chance to read it. If you're in the mood for a lush, dreamy, sci-fi romance then check this one out.

Boxed In

2009-05-17T16:26:00.002-04:00

Building boxes takes a long time. Even if they’re not really fancy boxes. That’s my observation for the week. I have these two cabinets that hold a lot of my paper and drawings on paper. And I have a lot of drawings. It’s tough to keep them neat and organized in such a fashion that they’re useful. Most of my drawings are on bristol which is a heavy paper. When piled up it gets cumbersome. Especially since the paper the drawings are on are six or so different sizes.

So I decided I needed some storage boxes to put the drawings in. Put some order in the growing chaos. I already have a lot of drawings in boxes. They are old cardboard stat paper boxes that were always lying around at an old job of mine. They are a few different sizes and do a good job. But they were already in use so I needed some new ones.

I know of some art supply places that sell storage boxes for art. I’ve sampled a couple of boxes from such places ant they are pretty nice. But at about fifteen dollars a box they can get pricey quickly. Time or money. That’s what it always comes down too. Which do I have more of. If I had more money than time I would buy the boxes. But right now I have more time than money. So I decided to make some of my own.

I hit the local art supply store and bought three sheets of thirty two by forty inch mat board. At eight dollars a sheet it would cost less than buying boxes but there was a lot of work to be done. First I had to decide what sizes I needed and how to cut them so I could get the most boxes out of the mat board.

I basically needed three different size boxes. One to fit eleven by seventeen inch paper, one to fit nine by twelve inch paper, and one to fit five and a half by eleven inch paper. These are the three sizes of paper I use most.

I used Adobe Illustrator to figure out how to cut the boxes out of the mat board. I made a Illustrator box the size of the board and then made a bunch of Illustrator boxes the sizes I need to cut out. It was then a like a puzzle moving around all the little boxes until I figured out the maximum amount of boxes I could cut out of my three sheets.

Then I drew my pattern that I made in Illustrator onto my mat board. I used an X-Acto knife and metal ruler to cut the board and then scored the board with the X-Acto where I wanted to fold the board. After that I folded the box and taped the edges with paper tape to hold it together.

That sounds easy enough and pretty much is. When you’re making one box. I was making about ten boxes. Plus they all had lids which were made the exact same way as the bottom of the box that I just described. The lid is slightly larger though. So it fits on.

It took me most of the day to make all those boxes. I knew it would and I had the time but it wasn’t easy. It would have cost me about $150 to buy storage boxes and they wouldn’t have been the exact sizes I wanted so I’m glad I built them but at about box number six I was wondering what the hell I was doing this for. Then I got my second wind and trudged on through.

After that I had to pull everything out of the cabinets and put the drawings in the boxes. That took a while too. Longer than I thought it would but not nearly as long as making the boxes. I was also having trouble organizing the drawings. Besides by size that is. So I decided to save the organizing for another day and just put them in the boxes. That’s where things are right now.

It’s a lot of work making boxes and those were only made out of mat board. I can’t imagine making them out of wood or some such. My level of craftsmanship isn’t that high. I’m glad I did it though.

One of the good things about a project like that is that there is a tangible goal to meet. I’m used to dealing with making art where seeing the right answer among the wrong ones is really hard. And a lot of the time I am unsure if I have succeeded. It’s often a struggle without a tangible goal at the end.

With making boxes I set out to make some boxes and in the end have ten boxes to show for it. I’ve reached a tangible goal. Ten boxes asked for and ten boxes made. They stay together and they are the right size. And the craftsmanship isn’t half bad. Mission accomplished. It’s good to reach a goal. Even if it isn’t a magnificent one.

So that’s the story of building boxes. Not too exciting, not too spectacular, but just one of those things in life that has to get finished. It’s good to get things finished.

Comics I Bought This Week: May 14, 2009

2009-05-14T20:14:00.001-04:00

I'm back from the comic shop this week and I got four new comics plus a hard cover collection:

Echo - 12

Savage Dragon - 148

The Walking Dead - 61

Jack Staff - 20

Invincible Ultimate Collection Volume 4

And now for a review of something I've read recently.

"Red Hulk" Volume -1 by Jeph Loeb and Ed McGuinness

A brief snapshot of my recent Hulk reading. "Planet Hulk" I liked because it was fun but it wasn't great and "World War Hulk" I didn't like and found it no fun. Then I was waiting for Marvel to relaunch Hulk in a new book because Hercules had taken over Hulk's old book. But they never did. The did start a "Red Hulk" series though. Turns out that is the new Hulk series. Weird.

Anyway "Red Hulk" is pretty short on plot and long on fight scenes. The basic plot is this: A Hulk that is colored red shows up. No one knows who he is but he kills the Abomination and then gets into fights with a lot of the big guns in the Marvel Universe and beats them up. It's up to the good old Green Hulk to stop him.

There is a mystery going on about who the Red Hulk might be but it's barely touched on. The plot is paper thin and just there to string together fight scenes. Almost all of the "plot twists" are just someone new showing up to fight the Red Hulk. But I do give it points for the fight scenes being fun.

Unfortunately they could have been more fun. Ed McGuiness's art let me down a bit in the storytelling department. He can draw well enough and illustration-wise it was fine but he made it hard to follow things at times. The fights didn't always have the impact they could have had because sometimes I was confused at what was going on. I've seen worse storytelling but I've also seen better.

All in all it was a solid Hulk comic. Not great by any stretch of the imagination but it was fun. Besides "World War Hulk" I've been enjoying some Hulk collections, both new and old, lately and this one fits right in with them. So if you're in the mood for cover to cover Hulk fights check this one out.

And this week...

2009-05-10T17:48:00.002-04:00

What's been happening? I ask myself that sometimes. Sometimes I even answer myself.

I got a flat tire on my new bicycle last week. The first flat tire I've gotten in a long time. I ordered a new tube for it but I also went out and bought a patch kit. It's been so long since my last flat that the glue went bad in my old patch kit. I wasn't even sure how well the patch would hold on these new high pressure tires on my bike. That’s why I hedged my bet and ordered a new tube.

Even though it's been a long time since I patched a tire everything came out okay in the end. I followed the instructions, which were as I remembered them, and the tire has held air just fine. My lack of confidence in my bike tire patching skills turned out to be unjustified. I have the new tube sitting on the shelf just in case.

I had to lock a groundhog out of his hiding hole under my front steps this week. They are your basic concrete steps that critters in the suburbs sometimes dig under to make hiding holes. A skunk crawled under there once and died. Not pleasant.

Last year a small groundhog starting hiding there whenever he thought he was in danger. This year the groundhog is bigger and hiding there again. That would have been okay with me except he started digging. A little at first but then I came home to find a big pile of dirt on my front walk. Enough was enough. Sorry dude.

I got myself a spare piece of 1x12 pine and some stakes (old and battered stretcher strips that I had lying around), put the board in front of the hole (which was on the side of the steps), drove the stakes in next to the board, and nailed the stakes into the board. Like a little billboard blocking the hole.

I didn't close the hole on the other side of the steps just then in case the groundhog was in there but I did lean a second piece of pine against the hole. If the critter was in there he could push the piece of wood aside and leave. But he wasn't in there.

I happened to be looking out the front window a little later when I saw the groundhog arrive. He looked confused as he went to the unsecured board side and couldn't get in and then went to the staked in side and also couldn't get it. It then quickly ran across the street and dove into another hiding place it had in a rock wall. I haven't seen him in the front yard since. And I secured the other side.

On the creative front I've been working on my first oil painting in quite a while. I've worked mostly on small 8"x10" canvases in acrylic paint recently but wanted to get back to bigger canvases in oil. It's going okay so far. It’s a different type of painting than I do in acrylic. I like the way oil paint holds its surface and texture. It does that better than acrylic.

Since I work larger in oil than I do in acrylic it’s more time consuming. Oil paint takes more of a commitment from me. That time consumption was why I started working smaller and in acrylic in the first place. I wanted to paint and explore more images in a shorter period of time. Instead of one image a week I wanted to make six. I enjoyed that for a while but now I want to spend some time with one image and get it just so.

This week I finished twenty five comic strips in the web comic series that I've been working on forever. The comic is as yet unnamed and about the tenth different concept I've tried but this is the first one where I've gotten it to where I like it. It’s still a work in progress but I’m happier to have made more headway on it than any of my previous attempts at a web comic.

I am going to make a web site for it but that is still to come. I want to get more strips done and have a lot to figure out in how to present it. I need to find an easy way to post and update the site once I get it up. Otherwise I’ll never update it and what would be the point of that? Still after so many web comic false starts I'm amazed I got this much done.

One final though this week has to do with women’s fashion. What the heck is up with shaving your eyebrows and then drawing a line in with an eyebrow pencil? I know it’s nothing new and women have been doing it for ages but I don’t get it. I can understand tweezing an eyebrow to get a shape you want but drawing an eyebrow on your face? That would be like shaving your head and then drawing hair on your bald dome. Some things I just don’t get.

Comics I Bought This Week: May 7, 2009

2009-05-07T19:56:00.002-04:00

I'm back from the comic shop this week and I got one new comic plus a hard cover collection:

Buffy Season Eight - 25

Spider-Man - "Death and Dating"

And now for a review of something I've read recently.

"Hotel Harbor View" by Natsuo Sekikawa and Jiroh Taniguchi

Here is something I decided to pull down off of my shelf and read. "Hotel Harbor View" was originally published in 1990 by Viz. I remember liking it then but haven't picked it up since. It's a Japanese graphic novel from before the time when every Japanese comic was a toy or card game tie-in.

"Hotel Harbor View" is a melancholy book about life and death as told through the tales of a couple of people who are doomed to die as someone has been hired to kill them. Though the story involves a hit woman it's not really about killing or the mechanics of killing that we often see in fiction. It's going for a film noir vibe and there is sex and violence but it's not a typical hitman story.

It's the storytelling that is the star here. The script is sparse but effective and relies on the visuals to tell most of the tale. From setting the mood to slowing down time the artist, Jiroh Taniguchi, uses a variety of angles, panel shapes, close ups, medium shots, and establishing shots to really clarify what is going on in an interesting way.

I'm glad I hung on to this obscure graphic novel. There really isn't a lot of comics like it out there. There is really not a lot to say about it besides that it is good. It's a comic that doesn't aspire to grandness but is about a feeling. A sadness with the world. But "Hotel Harbor View" isn't a downer. It doesn't leave you thinking that the world is a really screwed up place. It leaves you thinking that those people are a little sad and that's just the way of things. Give it a read if you can find it.

Marked As Such

2009-05-03T16:11:00.002-04:00

I've got no tattoos. I almost don't even understand the concept. Or at least my mind never goes to the "contemplating a tattoo" place. Sure I understand it's people decorating their bodies but it's just not a thought of mine. Someone would have to see a picture and like it so much that they decide to permanently paint it on their body. Or they would have to decide they want a picture permanently painted on their body and then go out and find a picture they liked enough to do that with. Neither of those streams of thought have ever entered my mind.

I'm not against tattoos in any way. Most of them I've seen are pretty well done and generally attractive. Some people even have whole thematic concepts going on as tattoos blend and merge across their whole bodies. That takes some thought and dedication. Neither of which I have ever had in relation to tattoos.

Maybe it has to do with the fact that I'm an artist. I'm most interested in whatever piece I'm working on right now. Pieces I've finished hold less interest for me. So I might grow disinterested in any tattoo I would get as soon as it was finished. This could also be the reason that so many others get more and more tattoos. But I know plenty of artists who have tattoos. Could have nothing to do with it.

I don't decorate myself in general. No ring, earrings, bracelets, or jewelry. Sometimes I wear a watch but that's not decoration in my book. It's a tool for telling time easily when I need to.

I think the no jewelry thing started for me when I was a kid. I got the usual kid jewelry presents every now and again. A gold-ish chain with a cross on it, some leather or charm bracelet, or a small trinket ring. They were a chore to keep track of and not lose or break. Every gold chain I ever wore was broken in a pickup football game or wrestling match that happened around the neighborhood.

Jewelry became a burden. Anyone who gave me a present of jewelry when I was a kid was giving me a bit of responsibility that I didn't want. There was no upside for me. Eventually I stopped wearing anything I was given, not that it was ever a lot of jewelry, and just put in in my sock drawer. That way I always knew where it was if someone asked and it was never going to get lost. Or worn.

Piercing is another thing that passes me by. Probably because of my aversion to wearing jewelry in general. Piercing is an easy way to keep track of your jewelry though. Just affix it to your skin.

But once again the thought process that leads to getting a piercing has never entered my mind. You have to like a piece of jewelry so much that you want to punch a hole in your skin and attach it to yourself. Or you have to want to attach jewelry to yourself by punching a hole in your skin and then find some jewelry you like enough to attach. I don't even know how to get to that place.

Jewelry, tattoos, and piercings are really old ways of decorating the human bodies. They have been going on for thousands of years. I wonder what the future of human body decoration will bring? Computer chips embedded in the skin to change color on demand?

Imagine a programable tattoo. Nanobots crawling all over your skin and making a new design whenever you want. They could change the taste, smell, or even sound of the skin. Press someone's knee and the smell of strawberries is emitted along with their favorite tune.

I don't think and of those computer controlled ideas have the level of commitment of a tattoo. I'm sure there are a lot of people who mark their lives as pre and post whatever their tattoos are. But computerized jewelry could offer a wider variety of things than you average jewelry collection. I think I'm going to enjoy the future.

Comics I Bought: April 30, 2009

2009-04-30T20:19:00.001-04:00

I'm back from the comic shop this week and I got no new comics. But I did get a hard cover collection:

Guardians of the Galaxy - "Earth Shall Overcome"

And now for a review of something I've read recently.

Jack Kirby's The Losers by Jack Kirby

Here is yet another 1970's Jack Kirby comic that I had never read before. I'm really glad these are being collected and reprinted. Even if they are only being printed on newsprint.

"The Losers" are a group of four American soldiers in World War Two. They are called the Losers because their missions are always getting fouled up. They get the job done in the end but it seem to always be done the hard way.

I can't sing the praises of Kirby's 1970's work enough and this is no exception. I didn't know what to expect from a Kirby war book and what I got was different from most other war books I've read.

It's non stop action from cover to cover but there is always a sense of dread. The enemy, both Japanese and German, are always shown as formidable and usually outnumber our four heroes as they struggle for survival. The Losers are also not immune to injury as they can get shot up pretty badly in any given issue which helps heighten the feeling of constant danger.

The odds are stacked against them, their missions go wrong, and even the guys on their own side think they're bad luck but The Losers never stop fighting. Usually they only have a small part to play in some larger battle but they eventually get their part done.

The enemy characters seem even more fleshed out than the Losers. Sometimes we get to spend a couple of pages with the enemy and get to know them slightly but the Losers are almost always on a mission or running for their lives. There is little time to get to know them. But still you empathize with them. They are you and me.

So once again Kirby hits one out of the park. The man could just make good comics. The Losers is no exception.

Write Now

2009-04-26T19:17:00.002-04:00

I'm looking for something to write about tonight and so far I have nothing. Some nights are like that. I say nights because that is, mostly, when I write. I'm a morning person so that is a little opposite for me. Well maybe not since it makes sense that I'd write at night. After all I have to work during the day like everyone else so when else would I write?

Yet I think that I might write better at night. That's the opposite part. I draw and do everything else better between the hours of 8 AM to 2 PM. Once the clock hits 3 PM my concentration isn't what it once was. I'm better after 6 PM and can make my way through stuff then if I have to but after 10 PM I'm nearly useless.

I've never pulled an "all-nighter" in my life. They are just counter productive for me. I don't gain any time on a deadline staying up late. I mess things up and make mistakes when I'm tired. I've always been better off going to bed and getting some rest.

All that does make it a little odd that I think I write better at night. Maybe it's the quiet. All my other work, whether I'm drawing or on the computer, I do amongst noise. I'll have music, the TV, the radio, a podcast, or something on to listen to. But for writing I need some quiet to hear the words in my head.

Isn't it odd that to see lines on a paper when I'm drawing I prefer to listen to things? Sometimes the quiet gets in the way of my concentration when I'm doing that. If it's too quiet my mind starts to wander away. It drifts outside of the confines of the paper I'm drawing on and I can't get anything done. I daydream instead of draw.

Yet when I'm writing I have to turn all the noise off. It doesn't have to be dead quiet but I don't want any music or voices in the room with me. The words in my head don't come if there are other people talking. Even music that is all instrumental is no good. I can write through it easier than if there were vocals but still that makes it hard to concentrate.

It could also be the dim lights at night that help my writing. When drawing I need all the light I can get. I like working in front of a window with the world going by outside. It helps my concentration. But when I write everything visual becomes a distraction. The TV being on, even with it muted, becomes too much of a distraction when I try to write. At night when the blinds are closed I can write easier.

I've been learning to touch type recently and that has been a huge distraction. I can see why people never bother to learn to touch type once they're past school age. It's real real slow when you start out. People who learn to touch type in school probably aren't trying to concentrate on writing as they're learning to touch type. It's two different tasks at once.

I've been doing it for a few weeks and I'm up to only twelve words a minute. That is way slower than my brain is going as I write. I'm probably three times as fast as that when hunting and pecking. I keep switching between the styles of typing because the my touch type slowness is frustrating and impeding my writing.

Since the writing in the main purpose of my typing I have to go back to hunting and pecking at times when my brain wants to speed up. I also notice that though my writing is better at night my touch typing gets worse the later it gets. It's a weird situation but I still haven't given up on touch typing. Maybe someday my speed will increase but not yet.

I looked up on the internet how to touch type and one site said that a person should be up to speed in about a week but I took that with a grain of salt. Unless that is a week of typing six hours a day I doubt anyone would be up to their eventual full speed of touch typing in their spare time.

So that's the state of writing with me.

Comics I Bought: April 23, 2009

2009-04-23T19:43:00.002-04:00

I'm back from the comic shop this week and I got four new comics plus a hard cover collection:

The X-Files - 6

Mr. X: Condemned - 4

Ex Machina - 41

Savage Dragon - 147

100% Paul Pope - Hard Cover Collection

And now for a review of something I've read recently.

Angel: After The Fall Volume 2: First Night by Joss Whedon, Brian Lynch, and Various artists

They really should have made this the first volume. I'll say that right off the bat. Instead they had the first volume of the story start months after this one. Weird. It was a storytelling choice but I think the wrong one.

To recap: the Angel TV show ended with a big battle about to start. A cliffhanger. Then the comic series started months later (in story time) with the whole city Los Angeles transported to hell. Things had been happening off camera for a while and we were thrown into the middle. Volume 1 wasn't well executed and was confusing.

I liked this volume much better than the first. It's a thin volume made up of short stories. Each story tells what happened to an individual character on their first night in hell. Each story is also drawn by a different artist. There are a wide variety of styles but they all work together pretty well. The variety of art is one of this collection's strengths.

"First Night" is mostly about the set up information you need to understand volume one. Why didn't it come out before volume one? I don't know. Except that's the way Whedon wanted it.

There is not much else to say about this book. It was pretty good and I enjoyed it but there is no real story here. It's all the same story over and over. What happened to so and so on the first night L.A. got sent to hell? It was all variations on a theme. Not a bad thing but not a lot to talk about. It's the specifics of each person's story that make them interesting.

I would say that this volume, like the first, is for Angel fans only. I liked it better than the first but I still can't see it appealing to a general comics fan. And if you want to check out some Angel comics I'd start with Volume 2.

Spring Football Fever

2009-04-19T16:43:00.003-04:00

The NFL draft is almost here. It starts on Saturday the 25th. An oasis of football in the middle of the off season. Unfortunately it's not that exciting an event. A list of college players names really. And draftees often don't end up doing well in the pros no matter how high they were drafted. But it gives all teams hope and us fans something to do for a day. Even if that day is just filled with a list of names.

I have another off season football source now. Since I changed from cable TV to satellite TV I actually have the NFL network. I can get a fix of football 24/7. Well, almost. Most of the NFL network is pretty uneventful. Some of the news and commentary shows are good but there is not always a lot of things to talk about in the off season. There is more than there used to be but football news isn't football.

The NFL network covered the NFL scouting combines thoroughly. The problem is that is not an event that demands to be covered thoroughly. It's a bunch of college athletes running, jumping, and going through football drills. It's hardly riveting television. The forty time that a player runs at the combine might be important to the player and the scouts but hold little excitement for me.

The combine is also a little disturbing in it's resemblance to a slave auction. We get to see players poked and prodded at little like cattle. Of course I haven't seen a real slave auction but this is kind of how they look on TV or in the movies. That can be a little strange. It reminds me of Spartacus. Such is the life of a wannabe pro athlete.

There are also a lot of "Top Ten" specials on the NFL network. Top Ten Nicknames, Top Ten Characters, Top Ten Draft Steals, Top Ten Trades, and Top Ten You Get the Idea. These shows can be entertaining but there is too much padding in them. Too much what's coming up, what has gone before, and repeated footage. An hour show has about forty minutes of stuff in it. Throw commercials in and these shows are tough to sit through.

I like the highlight package "America's Game" that they show on NFL network. They are the same ones that you can buy on iTunes and are well done. They highlight Super Bowl teams of the past and tell the tale of their championship year. There is also a series called "Missing Rings" about really good teams that didn't win the Super Bowl. That's a interesting show.

I haven't been able to get into the replays that the NFL network broadcasts of recent games. I find them too edited. It ruins the flow of the game for me. Sometimes plays start and end too abruptly. Plus it seems like the game is edited around the commercials. The game used to exist because of the drama on the field and now it exists to show commercials. Something is backwards about it.

There is this weird thing the NFL network does. It's called "As it Happened" or something similar. They show you the good plays of any given Sunday as they happened in real time. If there were six games on at once they show you which game had the most exciting play at that moment. They start with a play from game three and then switch to game six and then to game four. It's a really weird way to watch football. I'm not sure if I like it or not. It's just plain strange.

So that's my take on the NFL network. There isn't really a ton for them to do in the off season. We got two weeks of Jay Cutler trade speculation this year. Not terribly compelling television but the talking heads were glad to have that to talk about. They really have to vamp to fill time in the off season. But here comes the draft.

Comics I Bought: April 16, 2009

2009-04-16T20:42:00.002-04:00

I'm back from the comic shop this week and I got three new comics plus a hard cover collection:

Rex Mundi Vol 2- 17

The Walking Dead - 60

Mysterious the Unfathomable - 4

Herbie Archives Volume 3

And now for a review of something I've read recently.

Astonishing Tales 25-36 starring Deathlok the Demolisher by Rich Buckler, Doug Moench, Bill Mantlo and others

These comics hit the stands in 1974-1976. I probably got them in about 1978 or 1979 and they were a favorite of mine during my teenage years. But I hadn't read them in over twenty years before now and sometimes comics I remember fondly don't hold up well when read in adulthood.

I'm happy to report that these hold up pretty well. Deathlok is mainly the work of Rich Buckler. He plots and pencils most of the issues. Doug Moench is the scripter for the first six issues and then Bill Mantlo takes over that task. There are a variety of inker/finishers on the book. The lettering is also notable for having an early, hand lettered, computer type font.

Deathlok takes place in the then future of 1990. It's a dystopian future where an unnamed war has been going on for ten years. Deathlok is a cyborg built to change the balance of power in that war. He was supposed to just be a machine but part of a man's brain, who died five years before, was used to run the cyborg. When Deathlok is turned on everyone is surprised that there is a person in there (some say the movie Robocop swiped a lot of stuff from Deathlok).

Deathlok breaks free, wanders off on his own, and tries to find his way in the world after being dead for five years and then coming back in a monstrous body. All this on a wrecked island of Manhattan.

The whole series has a fairly modern feel to it. There is a lot of military stuff going on and they don't shy away from killing and maiming. There are few, if any, thought balloons to be found in the Moench issues but there is an internal running dialogue between Deathlok's human and computer selves. This is in captions much like the first person narration that is inescapable in today's comics.

I liked the Moench scripted issues best. I think he captured the pissed off, mixed up, crazy, hopelessness of waking up five years after you've died to find yourself trapped in a monster's body with a constant computer voice in your head. There was a directionlessness to these issues that rang true to me.

The Bill Mantlo scripted issues were still pretty good but were a little more conventional. The plot went in a little more conventional direction too. Deathlok lost a little of his despair any agony at being alive but I'm not sure how much longer that could be kept up. That has always been the achilles heel of most Deathlok revival series. Sooner or later he has to accept that he is alive again and begin to live but that also negates what makes him interesting. Some characters weren't meant to continue.

I was happy to read these issues again after all these years. They hold up well. They are a lot different than most 1970's Marvel comics. I hope Marvel reprints these in a nice hardcover book one of these days. I think the original issues are still the only place these can be found.

Shone Like the Sun

2009-04-12T16:36:00.002-04:00

I am a sucker for TV shows about unsolved mysteries. Historical mysteries, crime mysteries, astronomical mysteries, zoological mysteries, and even, on occasion, supernatural mysteries. I bring this up because I have been watching what is probably the best of these shows. "Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World".

I like the thirteen episode series because it is the most straightforward and scientific. They cover a variety of subjects and have a lot of eyewitness stories but don't spend much time on wacky speculation. They lets stories be stories and facts be facts. Sometimes they overlap and sometimes they don't. Arthur C. Clarke will let you know when he has doubts.

I also like the style of "Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World". Being that it was made in 1980 or so there is some solid film making. It was before the MTV age of fifty edits a minute and people talking over beds of music for no reason. They put a camera on a storyteller and let him tell a story with subtle camera movements and thought out reframing. They make it easy for you to pay attention.

I was a fan of the Leonard Nimoy narrated "In Search Of..." series when I was a kid in the 1970's. That was a continuing series and therefore much more hit and miss that the Arthur C. Clarke one. "In Search Of" was much less scientific but not always so and was often entertaining in its wackiness. There was a one on past lives that made me laugh even when I was twelve. And I wish I could see the one about finding out if plants scream. Some mysteries are bigger than others.

For some reason the "In Search Of..." episode that I still love best is the spirit photography one. It's filled with people in the 1970's going around to all sorts of places and taking photographs in hopes of a ghost showing up in one. The people are so ernest too. They really think they are taking spirits' pictures.

There are three brothers in the episode who use a Polaroid camera to take their photos. They go to a graveyard, take a pic next to a grave, wait a minute before peeling the Polaroid film, and then hope a ghost shows up in the photo. That looks like a pleasant way to spend an afternoon. If I ever go ghost hunting I want that same type of Polaroid camera. It seems the most appropriate.

The mystery type shows that I like the least are the U.F.O shows. They are all exactly the same. The same story over and over with no corroborating evidence. Yeah yeah, I know, the government is keeping all the evidence under wraps. Yawn. There has been no new information on any U.F.O. TV show since the 1970's. The same crap over and over. I can't take it. U.F.O.s go away.

Another thing I can't take are some of these newer hour long unsolved mystery shows (and TV documentaries in general) with a lot of padding in them. When the show starts they give a preview of what they are about to show, as they go to commercial they give a preview of what is coming up after the commercial, and when they come back from commercial they recap what they've already shown you and give a preview of what's coming up. It's repetitive and annoying. I don't need to know what you're going to show me. Just show me.

I always liked the actual show called "Unsolved Mysteries" hosted by Robert Stack where viewers could call in and help solve whatever was unknown. There was a lot of crime stuff on that show that eventually got solved and they would hit you with an update in a later edition. Sometimes we got closure on their stories.

A fairly new type of show is the "Ghost Hunter" type show. A group of people go out with all sorts of equipment and try to find ghosts. Needless to say they never find anything. The only show of this type I like is the first season (2002) of the British TV series "Most Haunted". It was a lean half hour of the host and crew mostly did nothing but scare themselves late at night. They never found any ghosts but it was entertaining. The next season the show became an hour long and was dull and padded. I think the show is still on the air today.

Yep, I've seen all these type of shows. All that conspiracy stuff that was in "The DaVinci Code" was old news to me. There had been quite a few shows about it. There were many more "The DaVinci Code" conspiracy shows after the book was a hit. None of them added much to what I already had seen but a couple were okay.

One day I hope to see a show where they finally find Atlantis. Wouldn't that be fun?

Comics I Bought: April 9, 2009

2009-04-09T20:55:00.000-04:00

I'm back from the comic shop this week and I got one new comic plus a hard cover collection:

Echo - 11

Hulk - Red Hulk Volume 1

And now for a review of something I've read recently.

Giant Size Hulk by Various People

Giant Size Hulk is a hardcover collection of a few Hulk specials that came out in 2008. This book is tinged with nostalgia for me. Besides a bunch of new stories there are some older stories from the 1970's. The whole thing is clearly supposed to bring back memories of the giant sized comics of the 1960's and 1970's.

Much like those comics this one is a mixed bag. The stories are all self contained but link together thematically. We get a Thundra story as she takes on the Hulk and a Thundra story from the 1970's as she takes on the Fantastic Four.

There were two stories that stood out to me. A John Byrne drawn Hulk annual from the 1970's and the last story in the book. A Hulk versus Hercules story from last year. The rest of the stuff was alright but not spectacular. But that's okay.

Part of the fun of annuals was variety and volume . You never knew what you were get but you knew you were going to get a lot of it. An annual with one good story a mediocre one and some reprints was always a lot of fun.

This fun was taken out of annuals sometime in the 1980's when the variety was taken away. Instead of many stories you got just one and odds were it was going to be mediocre. It was the end of an era.

So that is why this Giant Size Hulk book is tinged with nostalgia for me. It harkens back to a fun format of a bygone era. So even if it wasn't a collection of great comics it was still a fun collection. Some good stories, some mediocre ones, and some solid reprints. For some reason that recipe still works for me.

The Fatigue of Faces

2009-04-05T17:11:00.002-04:00

Six weeks. That's how long it took me to get step one done on my web comic. Hmmm... maybe it wasn't really step one; maybe it was step one in the drawing of it. Either way it was a tough step.

What this step included was character design and and character illustration. I decided to take a whole different approach to drawing a strip than is normal for a comic. I don't have the time to draw a daily strip so I'm going with a different approach. A cut, paste, and manipulate approach.

I started with the characters faces. I drew six different views of a character's face, scanned them in, and colored each of the faces in Illustrator. I then drew three different poses for said character, scanned them in, and colored each in Illustrator. I then put each head variation on each body variation. I did this for four characters. That's a lot of heads and bodies to draw, color, and bring together.

To help with the construction of the eventual strip I had to pay special attention to characters' eyes and mouths. I made these separate from the faces so that I could manipulate them when putting together a strip. I can change the expression on the characters' faces by changing the mouths and eyes a bit. I don't want to endlessly draw each character's face over and over for each new strip. I couldn't do it. At least not for free.

Having the characters look at each other as they interact in the strip is important so I constructed the eyes in such a way as to be able to change the way the eyeball is looking. This took some more time but will save time in the future. That's what this was all about. Saving me time in the future.

It was tough sledding though. I'm not a fan of character design and working on only the nuts and bolts of the strip with no finished product in sight was hard for me. One of the reasons I like making art is because I like to finish things. Finishing a piece is often the most satisfying part and slogging through all the stuff you have to do to get to finish something is what stops most people from ever finishing anything.

After I finished the first two characters I almost gave up and threw in the towel. My strip is about conversation and is mostly talking heads so visually it's tough to do something interesting. I grabbed a few of the strips I had written and tried to use my two finished characters to make the dialogue come to life. I couldn't. It looked awful. All of the variation I had drawn into the characters was negated by the sameness of each panel.

I was frustrated and nearly gave up at this point but I left things for a few hours and then came back to it to try again. I abandoned my ideas of literal storytelling with the pictures and concentrated on making the strip look good. I varied the sizes and positions of my two speakers with no regard for how they were literally moving around on the stage. The dialogue was literal enough without the staging having to be so too. I put together a couple of strips with looser staging.

That seemed to pull things together for me. That and changing the characters' expressions a bit more. It took me weeks to get those two characters finished so seeing a couple of strips nearly finished and generally to my liking gave me the motivation I needed to get the other two characters done. Two men and two women. They have no names yet. And so far the men have on weird masks and the women weird hats. That makes things more interesting for me.

The best character I designed was the last one. That's because I built her in Adobe Illustrator. Illustrator is a vector graphics program which uses points to make a line (sorta like connect the dots). When I scan my art and bring it into Illustrator it uses thousands of points to make the lines in my artwork.

The same line that Illustrator's "Autotracing" makes with twenty points an actual person can make with two. So I made a character's head with the minimal number of points I could. That's cool because now I can use that basic head and manipulate a few points to make a new character. Wider jaw - shift these two points, bump in the nose - shift this point, and on and on. Once again this is all about saving work in the future.

Now I'm tired of working so much now to save me work in the future. The characters are well under way and I can start finishing some strips. I still have no idea what it's called or where I'm going to post it but I'll cross those bridges when I come to them. Right now I want to finish a couple of paintings and then a couple of strips. I haven't gotten to finish anything is six weeks and that is fatiguing.

Comics I Bought: April 2, 2009

2009-04-02T20:01:00.001-04:00

I'm back from the comic shop this week and I got three new comics plus a hard cover collection:

Buffy Season 8 - 24

Glamourpuss - 6

Savage Dragon - 146

Invincible Ironman: The Five Nightmares

And now for a review of something I've read recently.

Spider-Man: "New Ways To Die" Mostly by Dan Slott, John Romita Jr., and Klaus Janson

These Spider-Man hardcover books have been coming out fast and furious since the whole line was merged into one monthly comic. I haven't liked every one of them and I haven't bought every one of them. They've been up and down. I bought this one because I liked Dan Slott's work on some other volumes. JR Jr. on the art didn't hurt either.

This was an up volume. Fun stuff. Spidey faces off against Norman Osborn and the Thunderbolts. I'm a little annoyed at this new Marvel Universe where outright villains are openly running the US government. It makes things a little less believable for me and a little too much like the Wildstorm Universe. But I went with it.

This is classic Spidey stuff with Aunt May, Harry Osborn, a newsroom, and things not going Spidey's way. There are lots of fights with the Thunderbolts, lots of Spidey fighting hurt, and a new super villain. The Anti-Venom. Or is he a hero? Time will tell.

The artwork by Romita and Janson was, of course, good. Those two always do a nice job and this was no exception.

My only complaint is with the aforementioned villains in powerful government jobs with no oversight. It's a world with no government checks and balances and no detectives to track down wrong doing. Every day there are a million cop shows on TV. We all know how detectives work but apparently (an overused word but appropriate here) there are none on the job in the Marvel Universe.

All in all I enjoyed this book. I'm always up for a good Spider-Man story.

Inky

2009-03-29T17:27:00.002-04:00

I was thinking about ink today. It's an important part of my drawing. Since a lot of my work comes out of a comic book tradition I use a pencil and ink method of working. That means that first I draw something with a pencil and then go over the pencil drawing with ink. That way of working originates with the fact that it is easier to consistently mass reproduce a black ink line as opposed to a grey pencil one. Hence a comic book or strip is usually reproduced from an ink line. I say usually because due to new technology and better printing these days comics can be made from a pencil line.

I first started learning to use ink back in my college days. I can't even remember what brand it was. It was probably whatever I could get my hands on. I remember soon after college I decided to get a nice big bottle of ink. I think it was a liter. I didn't look at the label closely enough though and ended up buying non-waterproof ink. At the time I had only ever seen waterproof ink and didn't even know to check.

The way I found out it was non-waterproof ink was because of my hand making stamps. As I inked my hand was resting on the paper. Just like as if you were writing. Except to draw in ink I have to spin the paper all around and work from different angles. This means my hand can often rest on areas I have put ink on. This doesn't matter with waterproof ink but with non-waterproof ink it does. The moisture from my hand (it must have been summer) picked up the non-waterproof ink and each time I put my hand back on the paper I made a little stamp of the ridges on the side of my hand.

Needless to say I was a bit stunned when I looked down at the paper and saw the mess I was making. The tough part was that I had to continue using that ink for a while. I spent about thirty bucks on the giant bottle and being that I was just out of school I didn't have the money to replace it. I carefully placed a scrap piece of paper under my hand as I inked so the moisture from my hand wouldn't touch the ink. Eventually I got some more waterproof ink. I still have most of that non-waterproof ink left.

Something I used to have to be concerned about was how well the ink resisted lifting up when erased over. Since the pencil then ink method leaves a lot of stray pencil marks on the page you have to run an eraser over the whole page after you are done and the ink is dry. Thus erasing the pencil marks and leaving the ink marks. Except when you do this some inks go from black to grey. It's usually not a problem but sometimes it is. So any ink I would try out would have to be given an eraser test. If it lightened too much then out it would go.

Luckily because of the advent of computers and 13"x19" home printers I haven't had to worry about the eraser test in about ten years. Now instead of inking over my pencils I scan my pencils in and then print them out on a separate piece of bristol (paper) in non-photo blue line. This way I can ink and not have to worry about erasing anything. Good show!

Higgings T-100 Drafting Film Ink was my ink choice for years. It had a nice consistency, was a matte black, came off the brush well, and did great on the eraser test. I liked it. So off course it's hard to find now. I'm not even sure if they still make it. I don't think much drafting is done on film anymore. I used to buy bottles of it every time I saw them but haven't seen them in a while. I've seen bottle of it on some obscure web sites but the main web sites that I buy art supplies from no longer carry it. And they carry tons of stuff.

So I'm always looking for new black India ink to try. I've tried all the varieties of Higgins brand ink and none thrill me. Higgins Black Magic is the best but T-100 was much better. I tried some Dick Blick Black Cat ink recently but I found it a little thin and not as dense as I'd like.

A lot of people find many varieties of ink too thin. That is fairly easy to fix. Leave the cap off of it and let some of the water evaporate out. That can take a bit of time so some people boil their ink. I haven't tried this. Usually I leave the cap off. That's what I did with the Black Cat ink to make it more to my liking. I also recently did that with some Liquidtex acrylic black ink. It needed less evaporation than the Black Cat ink so I liked it better.

I did find a new brand of ink a few weeks ago that I like. Sennelier India Ink. It's dense and flows well. No evaporation needed. Though it was a small bottle of it I bought. I notice that sometimes the small bottles need no evaporation while the larger bottle of the same ink do. Must be physics or something.

Different inks have different odors but the Sennelier ink definitely has a familiar one This ink smells like the airbrush paint that I used to use in college and not any other ink. I wonder what gives it that smell?

Those are the thoughts I've been thinking about ink lately. From density to smell. I cover it all!

Comics I Bought: March 26, 2009

2009-03-26T18:58:00.002-04:00

I'm back from the comic shop this week and I got two new comics plus a hard cover collection:

Usagi Yojimbo - 119

Mini Marvels: Secret Invasion

Jack Kirby's The Losers

And now for a review of something I've read recently.

All Star Superman Volume 2 by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely

I bought the first issue of this "All Star Superman" when it came out but didn't like it very much. I bought one other issue, can't remember which, after that because a friend recommended it. I thought the second issue I bought much better than the first. So when this collection of issues six through twelve came out I thought I'd give it a try. I wish I didn't.

Mark Waid's intro to this book lavishes praise on it like its greatness is unbounded. I guess that's what an intro is supposed to do but I don't get it. First off I was disappointed with the art. Frank Quitely has been the exception to my dislike of the "No line weight" style of art but not here.

First off this is printed from his pencils and not inked. It claims to have been "Digitally inked" by the colorist but that usually just means changing a few sliders in Photoshop to darken the pencils. That's what it looks like here.

I don't always mind comic art reproduced directly from uninked pencils but it takes a different thought process on the part of the penciler. A penciler usually doesn't think about every mark he puts on the paper. That's the inker's job. So when comics are made directly from pencils the artist has to think about the marks he's making as finished art.

In this book Quitely's no line weight style is disintegrating into a spidery mess. It's tough to see what's going on sometimes because all of the lines he has drawn are thin and blend together. The dark coloring doesn't help clear things up either.

Quitely also doesn't seem to be interested in drawing backgrounds either. Because he hardly draws any. All of the scenes in the Daily Planet take place in nearly empty brown rooms. Emptiness is the main feature of every background in this book. It doesn't do a good job at defining a sense of place. Overall it was not a good job by an artist I usually like.

I have less criticism for the writing because I've never been a fan of Grant Morrison's writing. A lot of people love his stuff but I don't. I find this particular book redundant. It's just like a lot of other Superman stories I've read. When Superman was on Bizzaro World it took him way too many pages to figure out that if he told the Bizarros to do the opposite of what he wanted them to do then they would do what he wanted them to do. Isn't that revelation in every Bizarro story?

I could go on and on about what I didn't like with the writing but it would be pointless. Morrison's writing just passes me by for whatever reason. Sometimes I understand why people like a particular thing and I don't and sometimes I'm at a complete loss as to why something is popular. It's one of those mysteries to me. I don't get it. All I know is I found this volume disappointing.

But to end on a positive note the one part of the writing I did like was the return of "Mad Scientist" Lex Luthor. I never liked the "Businessman Kingpin Ripoff" Lex Luthor that has been the norm in Superman since the John Byrne relaunch days. That's my tow cents for what it's worth.

Nostalgia of What Kind?

2009-03-22T20:30:00.002-04:00

So I finally bought a new monitor this week. I went with the Dell UltraSharp twenty seven inch one. It's big and takes some getting used to but I like it so far. It gives me a lot of room to work. But one unexpected thing came with it. A strange sense of nostalgia.

The nostalgia actually isn't directly related to the new screen. It's related in a more roundabout way. Y'see the new screen is a high resolution one. That means that all of my desktop pictures (wallpapers) are too low res to display properly on it. I like to change background pictures fairly often so because of the new monitor I need a whole new set of pictures.

Sometimes I use my own photos as backgrounds and sometimes I find things on the internet. I gave a quick look on the web but didn't see anything I liked. So I decided to look through some of my own photos.

I like to take candid shots. When I worked in NYC I would to get in to the city early on summer Fridays. Good Morning America would put on a concert in Bryant Park featuring whatever pop star was out promoting that week. I would use the opportunity to walk among the crowd and take pictures of people. The performers too but I usually found the crowd more interesting.

It was a challenging environment in which to take pictures. People were constantly milling about and angles and compositions would be gone in an instant. Plus I had to be inconspicuous as I snapped so as not to ruin the candid nature of what I was after. Luckily there was a concert going on to distract everyone.

This all took place in the summers of 2004 and 2005. I worked with the photos back then but haven't looked at them much since. There are some good ones and, due to the nature of candid photography, lots of bad ones. It was this Bryant Park set that I decided to mine for possible desktop backgrounds.

Photography is a strange medium. It captures life like images and all over detail almost effortlessly. It freezes moments in time like nothing else. As a consequence it leaves the person looking at the photo with a whole lot of things to make sense of. And it opens up the imagination to create all sorts of stories.

What does that look mean? Fleeting glances become forever trapped in a photo. Who is this stranger I am taking a picture of? Their clothes, their food, their drink, their hair, their bags, and everything else around them in a photo tells a story. A story to be filled in by the viewer.

And that is what I do as I look at these pictures. I fill in stories. I can't help it. It's how my mind works. But what was funny to me was the nostalgia I had for these stories about these people in pictures. People I don't even know. I was wondering who they were even as they now looked familiar to me because I had worked on these photos back in 2005.

Some of them showed up in a few pictures. They were most familiar. Subjects I liked so I tried a few times to get a good photo. I failed more than I succeeded but all of the photos add to the story.

Some of the people who worked the event were there every week so I have multiple picture of them in different outfits and such. They have the most expansive stories as I look through the photos. But I don't really know them at all. Not a name to be found among them. Yet they are familiar to me and I feel a sense of nostalgia as if I knew them in the past. Strange.

I have no name for this weird type of nostalgia that looking through photos of strangers I took picture of years ago has brought upon me. I don't know them or their real stories. Just the ones that came into my head then and now. I guess we did share some good times in Bryant Park listening to live music but not really. I bet the French have a name for this type of nostalgia. They're good at naming such things.

Comics I Bought: March 19, 2009

2009-03-19T19:32:00.001-04:00

I'm back from the comic shop this week and I got two new comic plus a hard cover collection:

Age of Bronze - 28

The X-Files - 5

Starman Omnibus - 2

And now for a review of something I've read recently.

Criminal Volume 3 "The Dead and the Dying" by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips

I have to wonder why I even buy these "Criminal" volumes. I don't have any fascination with crime or criminals, besides the fact that crime is a natural to spin a story around, nor do I have any sympathy for the characters in "Criminal". They're generally repulsive and uninteresting. None of it sticks with me either. As soon as I've put down a volume of "Criminal" I no longer remember it.

Yet I have bought this volume. And the next one. Somehow I still like them despite the fact that I'm not interested in the subject matter. It must be the craftsmanship. Brubaker is a good writer and Phillips is a good artist. As I'm actually reading the story I enjoy how well it's told. I feel little sympathy for the characters and nothing about the world is revealed to me by the stories but still they're well done.

This volume of "Criminal" is different from the first two in that it tells three self contained but interrelated stories. Each chapter stands on its own yet each adds to the other. We get three stories.

The first is about a boxer with a criminal father. He's trying to stay straight but keeps getting drawn into underworld activities. He's not happy about it but sees no way out.

The second story is about a veteran returning home. He used to be a small time criminal but wants to go strait too. Circumstances won't let him and he embraces his criminal nature. Trouble ensues.

The third story is the tale of a woman wronged and how it messed her up. She was a love interest of the guy in the first story but then his more powerful criminal buddy stole her away. That didn't end well for her.

None of these stories are "Pick me ups" and there are no lessons to be learned here so you better like miserable people doing miserable things if you're going to read this book. It is well done but still I have to wonder why I read these. Decide for yourself.

Bike Me

2009-03-15T17:50:00.002-04:00

Last October as I was coming around a corner on my bicycle it shimmied on me in a weird way. My seat was suddenly unstable beneath me. I stopped, got off, and inspected my bike. I thought that maybe the front derailleur had come loose but it was tight. I got back on for a test ride and it was still shaky.

When I got off the second time I was finally able to suss out what went wrong. Some welds on the frame broke. The bottom of the tube that is under the seat was no longer properly attached. That's the part right between the pedals. Since that metal tube sat in a larger joint connecting it to the other tubes it only wobbled a fraction of an inch. But the bike was still unrideable.

Being that my bike was twenty years old I decided it would be best to replace it. I can fix just about anything on a bike but I can't weld a frame. And after that many years what other welds were ready to go?

October is about the end of my biking season so I decided to wait and save up some money for a new one rather than rush out and get one on credit. That and I had no idea where to get a new bike. The couple of local bike shops I used to frequent are long gone.

I checked on the internet throughout the winter but I really wanted to buy locally. So I checked on the internet again for local bike shops. They were some shops a couple of towns away and among them the closest had a bad internet review that scared me off. A decided to try the second one.

All I have to say about that shop is, "Boy has biking changed in twenty years". I'm somewhere between a casual rider and an enthusiast. I ride for exercise and because I like it. I ride three days a week for about forty five minutes. I think my course is fourteen miles. Plenty of big hills in it. There used to be plenty of bikes for people like me. Not anymore. Now everyone is supposed to be Lance Armstrong.

I noticed a lot of high prices as I looked for bikes on the internet. I saved up six hundred dollars for my new bike and I didn't even want to spend that much. As I looked around the shop I was in sticker shock. $1500, $1800, and $2500? It's a bicycle not a motorcycle. I soon found out that their bikes started at $850.

Bicycle parts are better made and more expensive now I was told. I'm not quite sure how much better they could be than my old bike which lasted me twenty years. If a part wore out I just replaced it. It rode fine. I wasn't racing anyone but I could go fast.

Back to the internet it was. I ended up getting a an internet sale only bike for about $430. It claims to use all the same parts as the more expensive bike shop bikes but sells directly to the consumer and so passes the savings on.

One of the reasons I wanted to shop locally is that I didn't want to put the bike together and tune it myself. Any bike that I would have to have shipped to me I would also have to put together myself. That's how it goes with bike buying.

My Dad first taught me how to assemble a bike when I was about eight and I have taken bikes apart and put them together a lot of time since but I haven't wanted to do that much recently. I'm getting old I guess. But I also didn't have the money (nor would I have wanted to spend it) for the bike shop bike so that was that.

So now I have my bike and I am in the process of putting it together. It's more of a pain in the ass now because new bikes are needlessly complicated. Gear shifters are no longer mounted on the handlebar stem but have been moved to the brakes.

Instead of depressing the breaks you push sideways on the brake handle to upshift and there is a little thumb lever on the brake handle that downshifts. Sound like a recipe for disaster to me but we'll see. I'm almost tempted to strip the new bike down to the frame and put all my old parts on it.

I already put my old pedals on because the new ones have built in toe clips and straps. Once again I'm not pretending I'm in the Tour de France. I'm on a road with cars, deer, people, and whatever. Getting my feet off the pedals quickly and efficiently has been essential on more than one occasion. I've tried toe clips. They put the fear of Zeus in me.

I haven't finished my tuning of the bike because I decided to spend the rest of the money I had saved on a bike repair stand. That will make things easier on me and thats how I want them. It should arrive sometime in the next week or so.

I couldn't even ride my bike yet if I wanted to. Another thing that has changed is the tire valves. Bike tires now use some fancy new French valve. My air pump doesn't fit it. I had to order a new air pump for thirty bucks. Even with the extra expenses I'm still way under the bike shop price though. Sometime you have to do it yourself.

Comics I Bought: March 5, 2009

2009-03-12T19:46:00.002-04:00

I'm back from the comic shop this week and I got one new comic plus a hard cover collection:

The Walking Dead - 59

Eerie Archives Volume 1

And now for a review of something I've read recently.

"Mister X - The Archives" by Dean Motter and others

Though I have thirteen out of the fourteen issues of "Mister X" that are collected in this hardcover volume I haven't read them in a really long time. At least not all of them. I'm not even sure if I read the last five issues or so before now.

As I remember it "Mister X" was one of the books I really liked when it first came out. It was stylish, interesting, and different. Plus the Hernandez brothers were drawing it. But they were gone in four issues and then we got an issue drawn by Klaus Shonefeld followed by the one named cartoonist Seth taking over the art chores.

"Mister X" also came out infrequently. It took about four years to come out with the fourteen issues by which time I was done with it. I didn't even buy the final few issues of the series (minus issue 13) until a decade later when I saw them in the bargain bin at my local comic shop. I don't think I ever even read them.

I remember "Mister X" taking a serious nose dive in quality when Seth took over the art. Ironically enough he is now one of my favorite cartoonists. His books, "It's a Good Life if You Don't Weaken", "Wimbledon Green", and "Clyde Fans" are among my favorites of all time.

So how much did the book resemble my memory of it? Well, it was a little better and a little worse than I remember. I have read the Hernandez brothers issues since I first bought them and they hold up fine. Those guys are just plain talented and they tell the story of Mister X well.

Mister X is the architect of Radiant City which was built without his final approval. Mister X was pioneering something called "Psychetecture" except it was corrupted in the final build of the city and now people are being driven crazy. Mister X is back to try and fix things. Except he's a bit crazy too. There is a whole cast of characters involved in all sorts of plots as Mister X tries to go about his business.

What surprised me was that there were a few good issues after Seth took over the art. He certainly wasn't as good, at the time, as the Herandez brothers but he was trying. There was talent and imagination in the art. As a matter of fact there were five good issues that he drew. It was his sixth issue, number 11 (the only one he drew the cover of) that fell off the quality cliff. I remember now that that was the last issue I read when the series originally came out.

I don't know what happened but issues eleven through fourteen are nowhere near as good as the rest. I know how hard it is to put out a small independent comic and it looks like they could no longer give "Mister X" their full attention but they tried to finish up the story anyway.

The last issue of the collection, fourteen, even comes with an introduction by Dean Motter apologizing for disappointing us with the quality of the final issue. It had "a lackluster script and earnest but inadequate fill-in art" and I think that's an apt description. An ignoble end for an interesting series.

I was happy to see this archive volume of "Mister X". I'm glad so many comics are getting bound in hardcover collections these days. Especially ones that, ten years ago, I never would have thought would see print again. "Mister X" falls into that category.

"Mister X" was better than I remembered it in that there were ten good issues of it. I didn't remember most of the issues Seth drew being as good as they are. But they are good. The Hernandez brothers issues are still the best ones but not the only good ones.

It's a little worse than I remember because when this book fell off of the cliff it fell far. This is my first time reading the last couple of really bad issues that end this collection so that made it worse than I expected. Still it was worth it though. "Mister X" remains a book high on originality in it's visuals and concepts. Check it out for yourself.

Character Design Madness

2009-03-08T17:57:00.002-04:00

I hate character design. That's my opening for this week. I find it tedious and annoying. But that is what I've working on in regards to my still unnamed web comic. It's a bit of a slog for me and the going is never as fast as I want it to be.

Don't get me wrong. I love drawing all sorts of new characters. Faces are one of my favorite things to draw and I got a million of them in my head. I am always drawing new faces and "characters". I've been complemented on the wide variety of interesting people that I draw and think I'm pretty good at that sort of thing.

But here is the thing. Making an interesting drawing of a character is not character design. Making an interesting drawing of a character is making a interesting drawing. In character design you have to take that "interesting drawing" and turn it into six "interesting drawings" that you will use to make a wide variety of drawings. That is not an easy task.

In character design you have to visualize and draw the character in three dimensions. You need a front view, back view, three quarters view, side view, looking up, looking down, and plenty more. You need to know, or be able to figure out, what the character will look like from any angle. It's a lot of work. I've known people (and envied them) who are good at character design and like to do it but I'm not one of them. For me it's a big pain.

To further hinder me my drawing tends to be two dimensional. I'm not usually interested in trying to render some real world object in a three dimensional way. Instead I'm using marks on paper to create a world or character that make sense in the confines of a two dimensional rectangle. A completely different type of "realism". Plus creating something in two dimensions often doesn't translate well into three dimensions. It can be apples and oranges.

My usual method of drawing works against me too. I often use a surrealist automatic drawing method. That is where I draw with no preconceived notion of what I want to draw. I see where the drawing leads me and go in that direction. That is how I can come up with the unusual drawings that I like. With normal illustrative drawing, which is character design's category, you have to visualize what you are going to draw before you draw it. It's in your head and then you get it down on paper. I'm not used to that any more.

So I've spent a lot of last week asking myself, "What does this character look like from the side?" followed by "Does this look right?". Usually I ask myself, "What the heck am I drawing?" followed by "Does this line make the drawing more interesting?". It's a totally different mind set with different problems and solutions.

I've been trying to bring the two mind sets together. I wasted a lot of my time drawing a bunch of characters in a "realistic" illustrative fashion. I referenced things and figured it all out in three dimensions and ended up being completely bored with the drawings. Now I've been trying to bring in some of my interesting two dimension drawing techniques into the three dimensional character design. It's kind of tricky. And a bit frustrating. And laborious.

But at least I now have some character designs that don't bore me to death. I have a long way to go on them and some of them may have to be abandoned but I think I'm on the right path. Man this takes a lot of work. But if the character designs bore me imagine how an audience would feel about them.

Comics I Bought: March 5, 2009

2009-03-05T19:31:00.003-05:00

I'm back from the comic shop this week and I got two new comic plus a hard cover collection:

Echo - 10

Buffy Season Eight - 22

The Incredible Hercules "Love and War"

And now for a review of something I've read recently.

"Charley's War 17 October 1916 - 21 February 1917" By Pat Mills and Joe Coloquhoun

This is the third volume in the "Charley's War" series of books collecting the series of four page comics that first appeared in the British magazine "Battle Picture Weekly " in the early Eighties. I had to look that up on the internet because I've never heard of this series before and that info wasn't printed in this volume.

This is an excellent comic. Though I never read the first two volumes the third stands on its own very well. Charley is a sixteen year old British Tommy who lied about his age to join the army. It's World War One and the battle of the Somme is going on.

I've never seen trench warfare depicted so vividly and viciously. I know that the trenches of WWI were hell but that is really brought to life here. Since this is told from an English point of view the Germans are the villains, and there are villainous Germans, but the real evil is the madness of war. Especially the madness of trench warfare. You do not want to be stuck in the trenches of WWI.

Though the writing on this book is certainly good it is the artist who is the star. I've never heard of Joe Coloquhoun before but his art shines on. His art (like many others of his generation born 1926) looks like it was influenced by the old school illustrative comic strips of the 1930's. Pages are jam packed with lots of figures and lush backgrounds. His story telling is dynamite and he brings things to life. Mud, muck, blood, death, fear, and heroism are all nicely illustrated.

In the last part of the book Charley gets to head home for a while and we get a glimpse of the dangers of life on the home front. Certainly not as intense as the parts about the trenches the story is still very interesting and well done. Munitions factory explosions and German zeppelin attacks are constant dangers in London.

I liked this book a lot. I'm going to have to track down the other volumes. I suggest you do the same.

CRT and LCD

2009-03-01T18:17:00.002-05:00

I bought a new computer last year. An Apple Mac Pro. I make my living on that machine and it was time for a new one. But I still haven't upgraded my monitor yet. I haven't entered the world of LCD monitors and am still working on my trusty old nineteen inch CRT monitor. Since they include the part of CRT screen that you can't actually see in such measurements it's really a seventeen inch screen. It's a NEC Multisync 95.

I can't remember what brand my first monitor was. I got it in 1995 and it was a seventeen inch (fifteen really) CRT that cost me around $700. That ran nicely until 2001 when it died on me. That's when I purchased the NEC model.

The NEC model was really supposed to be a stop gap monitor. I hadn't planned on replacing my monitor before it stopped working and therefor had no money saved up for a new one. That's how I usually do things. If I plan on replacing something I save up.

Monitor prices had come down a lot from 1995 to 2001 and LCD monitors were just starting to appear at nearly affordable prices. I looked around at all sorts of different monitors and was trying to decide what to buy. There were plenty of cheap CRTs but there were also some nice specialty graphics monitors. They were also CRTs but were priced at around $700. Comparable LCD monitors were about $900 at the time.

I was in a bit of a quandary. Buy a big (twenty one inch I think) graphics monitor for $700, a newfangled LCD one for $900, or take my chances with a cheaper and smaller non-graphics CRT monitor? I ended up going for the cheapest route. I figured even at only seventeen inches that was two inches bigger than I was used to. Plus the NEC was about $250. That is considerably cheaper. I figured I could make due with it until LCDs came down in price.

Now, eight years later, I'm still using the damn thing. I never thought the color on it was quite as rich as my original monitor but that never held me back. I can't believe the thing is still running. But it is. And I'm still looking to replace it.

I've wanted a new LCD monitor for about three years now. But one of the questions I always ask myself before buying an expensive new piece of equipment is "What will this allow me to do that I can't do now?". The answer with a new monitor is "Nothing". I'll have more room to work but that's it. Other things have always gotten purchased before it.

Another factor is that the LCD monitors that I would like to buy are freaking expensive. And the cheap crappy LCD monitors of today are so much worse than the cheap crappy CRT monitors of yesterday. A $250 LCD monitor is not as good as my $250 CRT monitor from 2001. It has to do with viewing angles, color reproduction, contrast, and such things but come down to the fact that I need a graphics LCD monitor.

Apple makes some really nice ones but they are pricey. I'd love their big thirty inch monitor but not for $1800. And the new twenty four inch one is $900. Plus that one has a connector that is different for the connector on my computer that I just bought last September. Annoying.

Dell also makes some nice graphics monitors that are cheaper for the size than the Apple ones but I'm still looking at spending a large chunk of change. I'd like an Apple monitor because of the color management capabilities it has, all Apple monitors can be calibrated exactly the same so a document's color will look consistent across all of them, but I have never actually run into anyone using this capability. Clearly it's not essential for me.

So I wait some more. Apple hasn't refreshed their line of monitors in years. The twenty four inch one that came out last fall was made to run in conjunction with their laptops and not their towers. Hence the different connector. There keep being rumors of them updating the line but those rumors haven't come true.

I think this might be the year I finally get a new monitor but I'm not sure. After all my stop gap monitor is still running strong as it comes up on its eighth birthday.

Comics I Bought: February 26, 2009

2009-02-26T19:32:00.002-05:00

I'm back from the comic shop this week and I got four new comics plus a hard cover collection:

Usagi Yojimbo - 118

Savage Dragon - 145

Mr. X: Condemned - 3

Fear Agent - 26

Creepy Archives Volume 2

And now for a review of something I've read recently.

"The Astonishing X-Men Volume 2" By Joss Whedon and John Cassaday

I was ambivalent about the fist volume "The Astonishing X-Men" and now here comes volume two reprinting issues 12-24 of the series. And guess what. I'm still ambivalent. This book is like the little girl with the little curl right in the middle of her forehead...

I'm a long time comic book reader. I haven't been reading the X-Men with any regularity since the late Eighties but I have a passing knowledge of things that have happened in the world of the mutants. And I'm a hardcore comic reader. Still I had almost no idea what was going on in the beginning of this book. And I read the previous twelve issues! A casual reader would put this down all confused.

Characters are introduced into the story and not even named. The plot of the first few issues is so incomprehensible that I still don't know what happened. Either the X-Men were attacked by the Hellfire club or they weren't. The reason for this confusion is the development of "mind powers" in the Marvel universe.

In the old days super heroes and villains with psychic powers could move things with their minds, force others to bend to their will (which usually made the victim fight much less effectively than if he were fighting for himself), see things, or cause their victims to feel some pain in their heads.

Not anymore. Due to power creep now psychics can pretty much do anything. They can basically change reality for any number of people. They can even make people behave how they want them to by "implanting" some wacky psychic instructions at any time in the past and the person will have no memory of it. Psychics are basically walking plot devices now.

So the first part of the book has two psychics and the X-Men weaving intricate plans. Or maybe none of it happened. I don't know because they kept explaining plot twists by saying it was all in someone's head. A psychic did it.

After that part of the story abruptly ends the X-Men go off into space and the book gets better for a while. Not great but there are some good plot and script moments. And the story generally makes sense even though it involves a prophesy. I usually hate stories with prophesies in them.

The art is generally pretty good though I have to say I've seen Cassaday do better. Maybe it was my general over all confusion with the story and it wasn't his fault but the art seemed off in places. Could just be me.

Oh, and I thought the ending was dumb.

So there you go. Some good stuff and some bad stuff. Just like the first volume. No, I think this volume was more incomprehensible.

More Web Comic Stuff?

2009-02-22T16:28:00.002-05:00

I can't seem to escape this idea that I want to make a web comic. I've already worked on and given up on many ideas for a web comic. Mainly because they are too much work for too little reward. Make that no reward. But making comics is just in my bones. I can't quite stop thinking up stuff.

Since the web comics I've made so far are akin to color Sunday strips I thought I would try for a something more along the lines of a the more simple black and white daily strip. The problem with that is that I don't have much to say in that form. Most daily comic strips, wether on the web or in print, are gag a day strips. I hate gag a day strips. I generally find them dull and relentlessly similar to one and other.

I actually should be more kind to gag a day strips. There have been great ones; Peanuts, Calvin and Hobbes, and Doonesbury are my favorite three. It's just that gag a day has been the dominant comic strip form for decades now and there are so many bad ones. And believe me if I were to do a gag a day strip it would just add to the dreck. I can't write gags any better than all the other guys out there doing it badly. And at least they like to write gags. I'd probably do it worse than the dreck that's out there.

So that leaves me with the other dominant form of the comic strip. The adventure story. There aren't many of these left and I can't think of a good one currently running. Maybe there is one but I don't know of it. The heyday of the adventure strip happened before I was born. It doesn't matter anyway because an adventure strip is way too much work for me. An adventure strip takes at least three times as long to draw as a gag a day strip.

With neither predominant form of comic strips looking like they will have anything to do with me I languished. I put aside any notion of web comics until this week. I decided to give it a go based on some dialogues I've been writing. No gag and no plot just two people talking. For some reason I like writing two people talking. I try to make it interesting and humorous but there is no gag or joke. I don't know what to call them.

This week I decided to write a dialogue as a comic strip. It consisted of making four panels and then writing what the two people were saying to each other in word balloons. The writing went well. I made a few strips but then, of course, the problem comes with drawing them.

There is a reason most web comics are so badly drawn. It's a lot of time consuming work to draw them well. And very few are getting paid for that time. So I tried to come up with a style I could draw quickly in. My strip is about dialogue so it's really all talking heads but I can't just draw it that way. I've got to vary things up. That takes even more time.

I ended up drawing two strips and though I did them quickly it was not quickly enough for me. And I found drawing it so literally boring and I didn't even like the drawings in the end. The kiss of death again. Ouch. So now I'm going to try something new.

I'm going to draw a few more strips to see what they look like. Then I'm going to try and suss out where I am going with it visually and work up a book of poses for the characters. A lot of web comics guys cut and paste poses or panels over and over but that is not quite what I have in mind. I'm looking for a bit more variety and a lot less obviousness.

There is no getting around that I am doing a strip based on dialogues so there is no need for exotic locales or action sequences. There is a limited number of ways that I can draw two people talking to each other. I'm going to try and find a number of talking poses and use them as a starting point for my drawing. I'll draw some varied heads and faces and see if I can tie it all together into a finished strip.

Y'know it could be that I have a hard time working in a linear fashion these days. Pencil, ink, and color. Pencil, ink, and color. Pencil, ink, and color. A lot of times I want to do things out of order. I'll have to build up something of a backlog. That way I can work on whatever part I feel like at the time.

I think I'll even try out a couple of 3D programs I have that are designed to help artists draw stuff. You can quickly work up 3D reference figures in them and use the figures in the same way you would use reference photos. Since the strip I'm working on is not photo realistic I'm not sure how much it would help me but I want to try it out.

Once again I have no idea if this will ever amount to anything. But I am enjoying writing the dialogues. And that is something.

Comics I Bought: February 19, 2009

2009-02-19T19:55:00.002-05:00

I'm back from the comic shop this week and I got four new comics plus a graphic novel:

The X-Files -4

Rex Mundi Vol 2 - 16

Mysterius The Unfathomable - 2 (First issue for me. I thought I'd give it a try)

Solomon Kane - 5 (Another first issue for me. I thought I'd give it a try)

Chronicles of Some Made (A 2008 Xeric Award Winer. Thought I'd give it a try. That's my theme for the week.)

And now for a review of something I've read recently.

"The Devil Dinosaur Omnibus" By Jack Kirby

I said it before and I'll say it again: 1970's Jack Kirby comics are my favorite Jack Kirby comics. And it's amazing how many of them I've never read. Such as "Devil Dinosaur".

This is a collection of the original nine issue series published by Marvel Comics in 1978. The introduction says it originated as a pitch for an animated series that never happened. This comic sure is fun non the less.

Being that this was my first time reading these I never knew Devil Dinosaur had a little origin story. I always thought he was a regular dinosaur except he was red. But no. As a youngster he was almost killed by some man-apes, driven into a volcano, turned red by the volcano, saved by Moon Boy, and made faster, stronger and smarter than other dinosaurs.

Kirby mixes and matches everything in his telling of tales from long before the dawn of man. Different species of early ape-men, such as Moon Boy's Small-Folk and the fearsome Killer-Folk, exist side by side with all sorts of dinosaurs. And everybody is striving to survive.

Oh, and the people can talk but the dinosaurs can't.

Much like a lot of comics of old there is more story in one issue than in six of most modern comics. Devil (he doesn't have the last name "Dinosaur" anywhere in the book except the title) and Moon Boy try to keep peace in the valley in which they live. They have to take on, Killer-Folk, Dino-Riders, other dinosaurs, space aliens, giant spiders, giant ants, a "Demon Tree" (the aliens left behind computer), and a witch.

Evert issue has a well told story and lots of Jack Kirby action. No gritty reality here but lots of imagination. None of Kirby's 1970's books lasted many issues but writers are still mining concepts he created in them for today's comics. I don't know if his 1970's work was ahead of its time, after its time, beside its time, or kitty corner to its time but I do know that all these years later they are real good.

Not everybody is a 1970's Kirby fan though. Someday I'll write down my thoughts on why a lot of people are left cold by it but not today. Today I'm happy to have gotten to read another good collection of Jack Kirby comics that I had never read before.

More Odds and Ends

2009-02-15T19:13:00.002-05:00

I just opened up the lid of my year old air freshener that is only supposed to last three months. It's of those cheapo things that has a big wick sticking into some sort of smelly oil. It doesn't really freshen the air in any way but it makes the room smell sweet for a little while.

The reason this air freshener is only supposed to last a few months is that is says, in the instructions, to throw the lid away. Yes, it actually says to unscrew the cap and toss it in the trash. Why anyone would do this is beyond me. I kept my cap so I could turn the air freshener off.

The problem with scented air fresheners, beside the fact that sometimes I don't want to smell them, is that eventually your nose gets use to them and you can't smell them. They may as well not be there. Where is the point in that? So I like to cap mine after a while and save it for later. Since the cap isn't off twenty four seven it lasts a lot longer than three months. I think I'll cap it now though. It's giving me a headache.

Last night I had a hamburger for diner. I had it a different way than usual since I'm big on new ways to eat the same old stuff. I had it on a toasted and buttered roll with hot sauce. It was good.

I was in Wisconsin once and butter on top of a hamburger was one of the ways they served them there. It was at a famous hamburger joint the name of which escapes me now. They had a lot of different ways that I had never heard of to serve a hamburger. Even the famous hamburger joints in Manhattan I've been to didn't have all these different kinds of Wisconsin burgers. And the Manhattan joints have a wide variety of burgers.

My variation on the butter burger was good. The difference was that I buttered the roll and not the burger. And of course I added hot sauce. Now I'm not going to tell you it was better than the Wisconsin burger joint's one, because it wasn't, but at least it hit the spot for me. I was looking for something different and I got it.

I tried a new genre of video game on my Nintendo DS this week. It was a "Seek and Find" type mystery game. There really is no point to the mystery except to use it as a framing sequence for the seek and find stuff. What you have to do is find a picture of some small object amongst a whole lot of small objects on a bigger picture.

It wasn't the most challenging game in the world but after "Advance Wars: Days of Ruin" it was refreshing to have something not so challenging. The game keeps your eyes nimble as you are constantly moving them around while scanning the picture for the objects on the list. It reminded me of doing the find the hidden pictures puzzles in "Highlights" magazine when I was a kid. Who didn't love those?

My computer went a little crazy on me this week. On Sunday night I noticed that the sound coming from my Harmon Kardon Soundstick speakers was muffled. On Monday morning it was still happening so I ran through all of my trouble shooting procedures. From a Safe Boot to running Disk Utility to booting from an install disc nothing that I did would fix it. So I gave up and went for a ride on my stationary bike. When my exercise was done I came back, restarted my machine, and everything was fine. I have no idea why. The mystery of computers.

One more food related thing from this week. It has to do with potato knishes. I haven't had a knish in a little while but had one this week. I always have my knishes with mustard and usually a little cheese too. Cheddar or Pepper Jack are my usuals but this week I had one with Mozzarella. I think I have a new favorite now. I slice open the knish and put mustard on one side and the cheese on the other. Then it goes in the microwave for a minute before the two haves are reunited. The creamy texture and taste of the Mozzarella just went so well with the potato knish. Good stuff.

Comics I Bought: February 12, 2009

2009-02-12T20:24:00.002-05:00

I'm back from the comic shop this week and I got one new comic plus a hard cover collection:

Walking Dead - 58

All Star Superman Volume 2

And now for a review of something I've read recently.

"The Lone Ranger Volume 2: Lines Not Crossed" by Brett Matthews and Sergio Cariello

I'm a fan of westerns more than I'm a fan of the Lone Ranger. I remember watching the TV show (from the 1950's) when I was a kid (in the 1970's) and I think there were a couple of Lone Ranger movies or TV movies since then but only that 1950's TV show left an impression. I remember it being a fun, straight forward kids TV western. Nothing really special for me.

I picked up the first volume of "The Lone Ranger" because it was a western and enjoyed it. Now here comes the second volume. I liked this one even more. It could be because I've grown tired of "origin stories" and volume two has none of that compared to volume one or it could be that the storytellers are finding their groove.

I like the characterizations in this book. The Lone Ranger is a man haunted by the killing of his brother and trying to deal with that by getting some measure of justice while upholding law and order. All while wearing an outlaw's mask. It's a kind of madness but he doesn't want it to be that. He just hasn't quite worked it out yet.

Tonto is the voice of reason trying to balance the Lone Ranger out. Tonto keeps his own counsel but seems to be hanging around because he thinks it's the right thing to do.

The Lone Ranger's sister in law and young nephew are still around too. I like this because it grounds him a bit. He's not a lone seeker of vengeance hiding out on roof tops talking to his own inner narrator like we've seen so many times before. He seems much more human than that.

The art is done by Sergio Cariello who I worked with many years ago in the Marvel Bullpen. This is the best stuff I've seen him do and his storytelling is very good. He deserves more credit in the advertising of the book because I never see his name mentioned in the ads. John Cassaday's name is in all the ads for drawing the covers but Sergio's interior art is what makes the book.

The colorist, Marcelo Pinto, also does a top notch job. I'm used to complaining about coloring in comics but not here. Marcello knows how to use a muted palette, when to brighten things up a notch, and best of all how to color "dark" without muddying things up. The color makes the line work even better. I wish that happened more in comics these days.

So if you're looking for a good comic, western or not, check out volume two in this Lone Ranger series.

Table It

2009-02-08T17:46:00.003-05:00

This week I added drawers. What a fun thing. To modify things. To make them better. Or at least to make them suit my needs better. Where I've added drawers is underneath the surface of my drawing table.

I've modified my drawing table quite a bit over the years. I originally bought it way back in about 1991. It wasn't the best table I have ever seen. It's basic structure seems a little needlessly complicated and it has always annoyed me that I have to undo two wing nuts to change the angle of the table. A classic drawing table has one big wheel on the left side that you loosen to change the table's angle. That is a little easier than the two wing nut method.

For some reason the store I bought this at (Pearl Paint in NJ) didn't have any tables in the classic big wheel style. I got this one because it was the best one they had. It has served me well over the years but it is not an example of outstanding craftsmanship. It's solid and stays together but is hardly inspiring as a piece of furniture.

The first modification I made was to add a side tray to the table. That is a typical drawing table accouterment and nearly everyone I know gets one when they buy a table. The side tray screws on to one side of the table and has lots of little sections and wells to stick pens, pencils, erasers, and everything else in. It's essential. Without it there's no place to pile up your crap except the table top.

The second immediate modification I mad to my drawing table was to jack it up. I work standing up and tables are built for sitting down. It wasn't tall enough. So I built a platform out of two by fours for the table to sit on. Then it was tall enough.

I also made the platform serve another purpose. It holds the barbell I used to use for curls. The barbell sits at nearly ground level across the bottom front of my table. It keeps the weights out of the way and anchors my drawing table very nicely. I don't exercise with that barbell any more since I switched over to all dumbbells but it's tucked away and not bothering anyone. And bump into the table all you want. It has seventy five pounds keeping it in place.

They other modifications I made to my drawing table mainly have to do with expanding the side tray. I've used wire, screws, and even tape to attach extra penholders and things onto the side of my side tray. Who can have enough penholders? My side tray is about twice as big as when I bought it. I have about fifty different pens, pencils, and markers sticking up out of it.

I also built a small platform for the left side of my drawing table. This holds my jars of water that I clean my brushes in as I work. It's much smaller than the side tray since it's main purpose is specific rather than the general "Holds everything" nature of the side tray.

I even built a little extension off of the top edge of my drawing table that holds a small plant.

My latest modification is one that's been rolling around my brain for years. Since there is space immediately underneath the surface of the drawing table and since I stand at it and don't sit then there is room for drawers. I always looked at the space and thought I could use it constructively.

What finally motivated me was the ever shrinking size of the work space I had on top of my drawing table. It was constantly being cluttered up with drawings and papers in general. Every so often I'd clean it off but I usually had no place for the stuff to go.

Sometimes I have ten or twenty drawings piled up that I had worked on in the last couple of weeks. Some would get past the drawing stage and be made into something but plenty wouldn't. Either way I needed them handy to look at. Tucking them away wasn't the answer even though that did clear off my drawing surface. Easy access drawers close by were the answer.

I searched out how to stick some drawers up under my drawing table. Turns out it was easy. I found a place on the internet that made "Add a Drawer" kits. They are made to go underneath any old work table. First you assemble the drawer and then you screw the top of it into the table's underside. It was easy. It all took only a couple of hours to install.

The drawers were also a nice size for what I needed. They are twelve by eighteen inches plus about four inches tall. Since I work on a lot of eleven by seventeen inch paper (or smaller) they fit in the drawers neatly. I have two drawers side by side underneath my table.

So now I've reclaimed my drawing table's surface space while still having a lot of drawings at my finger tips. Another modification that makes life a little easier. That's what it's about. If only the rest of life were as simple.

Comics I Bought: February 5, 2009

2009-02-05T19:47:00.001-05:00

I'm back from the comic shop this week and I got two new comics plus a magazine:

Buffy Season Eight - 22

Echo - 9

Back Issue Magazine - 32

And now for a review of something I've read recently.

"Ultra: Seven Days" by The Luna Brothers

The first thing I picked up by the Luna Brothers was the survival horror book "Girls". I liked it so I thought I would give some of their work previous to that a read. This is one of them.

Some comics are up my alley and some are not. Unfortunately this is one that is not. "Ultra: Seven Days" takes place in a world where super heroes are stars much like Hollywood actors are in our world. They work for private corporations (normal ones not evil corporations), are on call to do good, fight crime, plus they have lucrative endorsements so image and marketing are important. This is the story of one of those super heroes, a woman named Ultra, and her trials and tribulations. Plus two of her friends.

This book is not bad. It's just that I don't care one whit about the lives of celebrities. As a matter of fact I go out of my way to avoid hearing about them. I don't read any gossip or pop culture magazines. I never watch any of those TV shows that are all about celebrities or read any websites about them. I find celebrity gossip tedious. I don't know any of them so why should I care who they are seen with?

That is the biggest problem I have with the book and it's just my taste. The story is well told and the dialogue is snappy. I'm not a huge fan of the Luna Brothers' art (especially the coloring) and I find their no line weight style boring but they have talent and originality that I do appreciate.

So if you're not as put off by celebrity culture as I am and are interested to see it crossed with super hero culture then check out this book. The Luna Brothers do a better job than most at making comics even if their style isn't always to my taste.

Albums and Pictures of Things

2009-02-02T08:28:00.003-05:00

Album art. That's one of the things I was doing this week. That is, I was making my own album art. It was the final step in getting my iPod Touch to look exactly as I wanted it to.

I've written before on making playlists (à la mix tapes) in iTunes (or whatever program you prefer). It's how I like to listen to music these days. I even copied the MP3s of my music in my playlists so that I could enter new information into the songs' metadata and give them my playlist name as the album they belong to. That keeps things from getting messed up.

The one thing I overlooked after I set up my thirty-some playlists was album art. Since all of the songs on my playlists now stated that the album they belonged to was the name of my playlist rather than an actual album the original album art that was attached to each song disappeared. Poof! Into the ether.

There was still album art associated with each song but is was a nearly random default piece that attached itself to my playlist named albums. Each of my playlists had a piece of art attached to it from some actual album art in my collection. My playlist "Rolled and Landed (don't ask me what it means even I don't know) had a James McMurtry album cover attached to it. It was confusing.

Since it took so much work for me to get my playlists up to snuff I was tired of dealing with them. Random art from other albums was okay with me. Also making an album cover takes a while. More time than I wanted to spend. But then, unbeknownst to me, my brain was working on the problem. And interesting way to make a quick album cover hit me. Google images.

In case you've never used Google images before it's just like a regular web search at Google (or whatever your favorite search site is) except you hit the "Images" link and it just shows you pictures instead of web sites. Lots and lots of pictures.

So I would put the name of my playlist into Google images and see what sort of images it found. Sometimes the results would be literal, such as for my "One Wolf" playlist, and sometimes anything could happen, such as for my "Phineas Flatters Us" playlist.

Lots and lots of choices. And since the images were only going to be seen on screen low resolution images were fine. I'd pick an image, open up Photoshop, and add the name of the playlist in type. No fancy type work. Just basic. I kept things simple and got things done.

As I said before it takes a lot of work to make a real album cover. Or at least it should. I have seen plenty that were badly cranked out. But thanks to random images on the internet I was able to make a low res album cover that was interesting enough for me (and I'm fairly picky) in about five to maybe ten minutes (for the couple of stubborn ones).

I'm generally pretty fast with graphics on the computer (it is my profession) but it was the vast number of images out in cyberspace that made this little project of mine go so fast. There were so many interesting choices that I was bound to find something. And quickly. Image, type, choose font, and it's done.

This isn't a method that would work for commercial purposes. The images are property of whoever their copyright holders are and someone would need permission to, say, put them on the cover of "Time" magazine but for a guy making album covers that almost no one will ever see but himself it's a great method. I knocked out thirty something album covers in an evening.

So now my iPod Touch is looking real cool. It's loaded with all of my playlists and when I flip it into "Cover Flow" view I no longer get a useless collection of album covers that don't even relate to my playlists. I get a series of album covers with interesting images on them that also state the name of my playlist. They're useful now.

The images can surprise me too. I made them so fast and furiously that I don't even remember what some of them look like. So as I flip through my playlists in Cover Flow view I say, "Oh look at that cool album art" as if some one else put it there. Gotta love album art.

Comics I Bought: January 29, 2009

2009-01-29T19:41:00.001-05:00

I'm back from the comic shop this week and I got four new comics plus a trade paperback collection:

Usagi Yojimbo - 117

Savage Dragon - 144

Mr. X: Condemned - 2

Glamourpuss - 5

Criminal - Volume 4 -"Bad Night" (Hey I never got Volume 3!)

And now for a review of something I've read recently.

"Bottomless Belly Button" by Dash Shaw

The publishers notes on Amazon tell me this book is 720 pages. There are no page numbers in the book so I'll have to take their word for it since I'm not going to count them. So this is a big book. But not quite as big as it seems since it uses the alternative comics "one or two panels on a page surrounded by lots of white" style (not on every page but on some) that I've noticed cropping up in the last few years. Usually in these large page count black and white comics.

I wonder if this style would be analogous to a "page turner" in the world of text books? The type of best seller that has short chapters and short paragraphs. You literally have to turn the pages faster in this book during the sections when there is only one or two panels on a page. I'm not sure what this stylistic choice means besides padding the page count. At half it's length it's still a long story anyway.

Anyway this book is about a family consisting of two grandparents, three of their children, one daughter in law, and two grandchildren getting together, for a few days, in the grandparents' house because the grandparents have announced that they are getting divorced. I'd say that the book deals with the family's reaction to this news but most of them have no reaction. One son is really upset and the rest are not very disturbed by it.

This book is along the lines of the "slice of life" indie comic that has popped up recently. Ordinary people with no special insight muddling through. I generally like slice of life stuff but it can also get tedious. Muddling through can be quite dull. This one wasn't too dull though. I generally enjoyed it.

I'd describe the art style as "not searching for perfection but getting the job done" indie style. What I mean by that is that the drawing isn't very pretty but that's not what the artist is going for. He wants to tell a story. And to tell a 700 page independent comic story (for little money I guess) he can't worry about making a pretty drawing. He just has to draw.

So the drawing is no frills but Shaw finds interesting ways to tell the story and keep us into it. He has a novel approach to certain hard to draw things such as wind. When he thinks wind in the background is important to the story he draws dotted lines to represent the wind but also letters the word "wind" right among the dotted lines. Kind of literal sound effects.

Overall I liked this volume. There was no great insight in it but it got me thinking about the nature of family. I think that's what it wanted to do. So if you're into a slice of life story and want to explore the dynamics of a family check this one out.

One Foot Two Foot

2009-01-25T15:35:00.002-05:00

I ordered some new shoes this week. I have short, wide, and tall feet that are hard to fit. I used to dread going shoe shopping because out of every ten pairs that were supposed to be my size maybe one pair would fit me. Then, years ago, I found these Northfield Oxford shoes. They fit great and I have been buying them ever since. They are about a hundred dollars a pair plus I have to get insoles for then since they don't have enough padding for me. So cheap they're not.

But this little piece of writing isn't about my shoes. My shoes just got me thinking about shoes in general. One observation, that has been made numerous times, is that women like shoes a lot more than men do. Cue all the shoe shopping references from "Sex and the City".

A second observation is that a bunch of guy I used to work with were concerned with how a woman's feet (and shoes) looked. They were by no means foot fetishists but a woman had to have pretty feet for these guys to be interested in her. This was foreign to me.

I'd also like to point out that these guys were ten to fifteen years younger than me. I mention this because none of my friends, who are my age (40-ish), have ever mentioned anything about a woman's feet in any of our "guys sitting around talking about chicks" discussions. I mean never. And women are a common topic among men.

This brings me too the thought I had about a woman's footwear and its relationship to the world. I think women's feet and shoes have become a form of sexual expression. They always were to some extent but now it's mainstream. It's linked to women in the workplace.

With men and women working together all the time the subject of what is appropriate and what is not always comes up. In our society men are usually the aggressors and women usually are the ones who dress sexy to get a man's attention. But that dynamic doesn't always work in the office. A man can get into trouble for being too forward with a woman and a woman can get in trouble for dressing too sexy. These are the pitfalls of the modern office.

I think that the interest in the sexiness of women's feet and shoes has grown up to compensate for this. If a bunch of guys are overheard talking about a woman's tit's or ass at work then there is a chance that they could get into some real trouble. If they talk about a women's sexy shoes there is almost no chance of a reprimand. It's not a hot button.

Women also have almost no chance of getting in trouble from their shoes. A woman could wear a top that is too low cut or a skirt that is too tight and be told to dress more appropriately but no one will ever mention her shoes. She could come to work in five inch spiked stripper heels and as long as she is wearing a conservative grey suit she won't get into trouble.

So there is my though about shoes for the week. Not that women haven't always used shoes to express their sexuality but because of the rules of the work place shoes and feet have taken on a new life as a safe and mainstream expression of sexuality.

I just never know where my thoughts are going to take me.

Comics I Bought: January 22, 2009

2009-01-22T17:37:00.001-05:00

I'm back from the comic shop this week and I got two new comics plus a hard cover collection:

Stormwatch Post Human Division - 18

The X-Files -3

"Spider-Man - New Ways To Die"

And now for a review of something I've read recently.

The Immortal Iron Fist - Volume Three "The Book of the Iron Fist" - by Matt Fraction, Ed Brubaker, and a whole bunch of artists.

I enjoyed the first two volumes of Iron Fist but I was a little skeptical going in to this one. Y'see this volume collects some of the one shot issues and extras that were not really part of the first two volume story arc. A collection like that is usually a mixed bad. And this one was.

It started out strong. As a matter of fact the first half of the book was some of the best stuff to come out of this Iron Fist relaunch. The stories concern Iron Fists of the past. We get three stories set in three different locations and time periods. They are historical adventure tales. Not quite super hero stuff but not so far removed from it either.

The second half of the book was not so interesting. We get a "Day in the Life" type story with Danny Rand (Iron Fist). It's not that it was terrible but it really didn't hold my attention. It didn't seem to have much to say. Someone else might like it better but I found it to be the definition of "filler material".

The book is rounded out with a reprint of the original two issue Iron Fist origin story from the 1970's. They are solid issues that I had read recently in the Essential Iron Fist volume. Not too much to complain about there except the coloring.

Almost all of the current issues of Iron Fist are nicely colored but these old stories have terrible coloring. They were re-colored badly. The original 1970's coloring was better than this crap. All the color is grayed out and murky plus lots of airbrush technique was used on art that was never meant to have it.

Back in the 1970's the inker used to add shadow and shading to the line art not the colorist. So when that type of art is colored with shading it makes a mess of things. And boy does it here. The storytelling is ruined so badly by the coloring that it's impossible to read. I wish they had re-colored it in a 1970's style. It would have suited the story better.

So there you have it. Half of the book is excellent, a quarter is okay, and a quarter is a decent 1970's story ruined by modern coloring. A mixed bag as I expected. You make the call.

Stocked Up

2009-01-18T16:02:00.002-05:00

This week I restocked some art supplies that I was running low on and bought some new things to try out. I finally got a new roll of canvas. I'd been out of canvas for a while. I only used small pre-stretched canvases last year and my large roll of canvas was completely gone. I don't think I stretched any of my own canvases all last year. I don't know why. Except it's easier to buy small (8"x11" or 11"x14") canvases than to stretch my own. With bigger canvases it easier (i.e. cheaper) to stretch my own.

I ordered a bunch of stretcher strips too. Those are the four pieces of wood that make up the rectangle that you stretch the canvas over. Since I had some ideas for what I want to paint I bought specific size stretcher strips. Some long and some short. Since I bought all these supplies from a web site I couldn't inspect the stretcher strips and one of the longer ones (38") is useless. It's bowed about half an inch and will not square up. That's the chance you take with pine. It costs less than four dollars so it's not worth returning but now I have to replace it. Luckily it's one of the few things I ordered that I should be able to get at a local store.

The temperature around these parts dropped into the single digits (Fahrenheit) last week and that lead to a strange thing happening with my order. I bought a bottle of ink along with everything else and when I opened my box full of supplies I noticed something was amiss with the ink.

At first the bottle looked like it had a black cork sticking out of it. This looked odd because corks aren't used on ink bottles. And corks aren't black. Then the cork broke off of the top of the bottle. I didn't quite no what was going on and expected the ink to spill all over everything but it didn't. Y'see the cork was the ink.

It took these supplies a few days to get to me and they must not have been kept anyplace heated because the ink was frozen solid. It also expanded as it froze and broke the plastic cap right off of the top of the bottle. The frozen ink "cork" was sticking about an inch above the top of the bottle. The bottle was only about four inches tall so that was some impressive expansion. The bottle was also wrapped in bubble wrap so that made for an even more odd sight.

Things would have been much worse if the ink was liquid when it spilled. All of the paper I had in the order would have been ruined. I'm glad it was just an ink bottle cap that got destroyed.

I bought a few of other things that I haven't used in a long time that were in that box. I got some marker sets. I haven't used magic markers, except for single color drawing (usually black) in a long time. Back in my school days I was pretty adept with markers. I enjoyed using them. I'm looking forward to trying out some of these new archival type markers that they have nowadays. I got a set of 24 brush markers and a set of 12 basic design type markers. We'll see if they do anything for me anymore.

Colored pencils were among the other things in the order. I don't think I've used colored pencils since 1988. I was never a big fan of them either. As a matter of fact I don't know why I ordered them. I'm not sure what I'm going to make with colored pencils. They are some kind of oil based pencil and maybe I just thought the set looked cool in the catalog. I am a sucker for sets of things.

I also found a good container. I mix some of my acrylic paint in these little plastic jars with lids called cubbies. They're airtight and the paint lasts a long time in them. I have a lot of them with various colors of paint inside. I've been keeping the cubbies in cardboard boxes but that is getting cumbersome. I've been looking for a more durable box to put them in. I ordered the ArtBin 900IDS storage container and it is just what I wanted. Now I need four more of them. Who doesn't love storage containers?

My order of art supplies came in four packages spread out over the end of the week. The one with the most fun stuff in it (markers, colored pencils, ink) was the last package delivered. I guess they were building up some suspense. I also got some boring old gesso and workable fixatif at a local store so I'm well supplied for the moment. That always feels good.

Comics I Bought: January 15, 2009

2009-01-15T20:29:00.001-05:00

I'm back from the comic shop this week and I got no new comics. Another slow week. I did get a hard cover collection:

"Charley's War" by Pat Mills and Joe Colquhoun

And now for a review of something I've read recently.

Hulk "Heart of the Atom" - By a bunch of people.

This is a collection of Hulk stories that inspired the recent "Planet Hulk" story line. It all started in the early 1970's with a Harlan Ellison story in which the Hulk was shrunken down until he landed on a microscopic world. In that microscopic world he met a queen named Jarella who became the Hulk's girlfriend. By the end of the comic Hulk was back to full size and gone from Jarella's world. And that was just the first issue in this collection. You got a lot of plot in a 1970's comic.

Jarella only appeared in a few stories after that. One of them was from the mid Seventies and was one of the first Hulk stories that I ever read. So there is some nostalgia in this collection for me. The book end with a What If? story where the Hulk goes back to Jarella's world and becomes a king.

I really enjoyed this volume. Though the stories were never meant to make one big story arc they certainly do. Not in today's pre-planned six issue way but in an old fashioned Marvel Universe continuity way. They catch you up on what has gone before and point out what you need to know.

I hadn't realized how much I missed the old "Hulk Smash" version of the Hulk that I knew from childhood. I haven't read many Hulk stories since the late Eighties or so. I didn't read much of the Peter David run but read some of the Bruce Jones run. Whenever I'd read writers talking about the Hulk they'd always mention how hard it was to write the "Hulk Smash" version. They would always mention they found it limiting and were looking to write new takes on the character.

But in rereading these issue for the first time in twenty-some years I really had an appreciation for the good job the writers did. Harlan Ellison, Roy Thomas, Len Wein, Archie Goodwin, and Bill Mantlo all did an excellent job with the Hulk. And I think the "Hulk Smash" version of the Hulk is the most interesting despite his limited intellect and vocabulary. This volume made me reach that conclusion.

I'm glad I picked up this volume. Though the Hulk was one of my favorite comics during my childhood I haven't reread any of them in my adulthood. For some reason I didn't think they would hold up (probably listening to all the people who poo-pooed them for their "lack of sophistication") but they do hold up. I was content with my fond memories of my old Hulk issues but now I'm going to have to go back and reread some of them.

You Gotta Look

2009-01-11T17:34:00.003-05:00

I got a bunch of new comic book and strip collections for Christmas. One of them is "Get Lost" by Ross Andru and Mike Esposito. It's a collection of the only three issues of that title that were published in 1954. I had never heard of it before I read about this new printing but "Get Lost" was one of the many comics that hoped to ride the wave created by "Mad". It's a humor comic and even looks like the early issues of "Mad".

Last year I got "Mad Archive Volume 1" and when I read it I noticed an awkwardness to it. I couldn't quite quantify or describe it but it was there. Good stuff but I still found it clumsy some how. When I started reading "Get Lost" I noticed the same awkwardness. It was then that I realized what it was. A totally different type of storytelling than I was used to.

Comic book storytelling is basically designed to keep you moving forward. The artists and writers try to control where your eye looks and bring you to the important points in the story as it moves forward. They can alter the pace of the story as suits them but it's a relentless march to the last page. The epitome of this is Japanese comics that move forward so fast that sometimes it seems as if I'm just flipping pages. Like a page turning novel they are all about what happens next.

The gag-a-day comic strip has an even more simple storytelling structure. It's set-up, pause, joke. Three panels are all you need and it's all about getting to the gag in the last panel. I'm tired of that gag a day comic structure which explains why I don't like many comic strips these days. Of course it could also be that there aren't many good strips around. After all, I still love the classics: Calvin and Hobbes, Peanuts, and Doonesbury.

Even Mad Magazine, which I grew up reading in the 1970's, used a combination of these structures."Mad" had a lot of short strips that were of the set-up, pause, joke variety. It also had a lot of movie parodies. These parodies used the set-up, pause, joke structure within the context of a larger "Push you forward" story. The story of the movie it was mocking. Sometimes making fun of the plot of the movie was most important and sometimes the gags. Either way pushing you forward was paramount.

That is what makes the early "Mad" and "Get Lost" storytelling different. They are all about what is happening now. There is a story, or sometimes just general craziness, going on in the word balloons and overall main structure of the art but many panels also contains a lot of unrelated little stories i.e. gags. It is more related to single panel gag cartoons than gag-a-day comics or comic strips.

This type of storytelling is not about moving the reader relentlessly forward. It's about the reader pausing in the here and now to try and see all the sub-stories, sight gags, and funny drawings going on in each panel. This makes the overall story less important and awkward to read because it's interrupted so much. But it's also what makes this type of storytelling so different. The point isn't to keep reading until you get to the end. The point is to enjoy the humor of the "here and now" of each and every panel. The end be damned.

In the gag-a-day world of comic strips the first two panels are meaningless without the payoff of the third panel. In the world of "Get Lost" and early "Mad" nearly every panel exists on it's own with it's own jokes and funny drawings. Sometimes the point of a panel is just that it's a funny drawing. It doesn't matter what is going to happen next. What matters is that things are funny right now.

When I realized this as I was reading "Get Lost" I slowed down. I stopped paying so much attention to what was going to happen and paid more attention to what was happening. The next panel didn't mater so much. The awkwardness that I felt before was gone as I got into what the artists were trying to do.

I like it that there are new things to discover in old things.