Okee-doke, two things to cover real quick: First off, I'm selling all of my PVC Justice Society and Justice League of America figures over on eBay. I sort of hate to get rid of them, but I just have no room to display them anywhere, and they've been sitting in a box for the last year and a half. SO! Wildcat, Green Lantern, Johnny Thunder, Dr.Mid-Nite, Aquaman, and a bunch of other figures all over on my eBay merchant space; if nothing else, they're neat figures, you ought to go over and check 'em out. I find the Spectre in particular to be a really nicely designed piece.

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Secondly, for you lovelorn and lost souls out there just looking for someone to answer all the big questions in your life, now you can check in with the wisdom of Deke Zibinski, bartender and co-owner of the Northside Tavern in Baltimore, MD. The truly excellent Wasted Words podcast is now accepting new questions for their Ask The Bartender segment, you can learn more here, and enter to win fabulous prizes (that is a blatant lie, there are no prizes). Says The Wasted Words website:

"Please send your question to info@wastedwords.net with the subject line “Ask the Bartender.” Be sure to include your name or something fake and clever, so that we can can attribute it on the air. You can also submit questions through the discussion board on the Wasted Words Facebook page."

And that's all. PS Wednesday Comics was amazing, wasn't it? And 'ta!

DC Comics is debuting today its Wednesday Comics project - a beautiful, full-color broadsheet comic weighing in at a whopping 14"x20" and featuring single-page adventures of some of the company's best-known and oddest characters, as illustrated by some really amazing artists, all under the auspices of the truly brilliant Mark Chiarello.

I'm going to be picking up my copy later today, and I'm looking forward to it immensely because I'm simply excited about how this thing is gonna look. Alongside that, though, it's a little heartbreaking, inasmuch as, in the project's early stages, I was evidently under consideration to take part. My Little Batman samples had attracted the attention of an assistant editor over at DC, who brought me to Mark Chiarello's attention, and unfortunately, in the long run, I was ultimately passed over for stronger talents. I can't disagree, I'm not even in the same class as the artists currently assigned to the project, much less better than any of them. Correct decisions all around, frankly (and I got to walk away from it with some really flattering and kind words from Chiarello, which is 'be still my beating heart' kind of stuff). Still, it would have been amazing to have been part of this, and even more amazing to work under Chiarello, whom I honestly believe is a bonafide design and graphics genius.

Still, I was thinking about it, and I realized that I could (and probably would) spend twelve consecutive weeks eating my liver out every Wednesday, OR I could instead get caught up in the spirit of the thing. It's a great idea for a comic, and even though I can't participate directly, I can participate alongside it. So, I've decided to try, over the next twelve weeks, to come up with a new comic strip every Wednesday. I say "try" because I am currently still unemployed and job-hunting, which takes up a goodly amount of time, and also working on some other projects, illustrations and comics. I also say this because I only decided to do this last Sunday evening, and lord knows how my enthusiasm will wane, but still ...

At the very least, I figured I can finally wrap up the story arc I left unfinished over in Jeremy a couple of years back, where Jeremy has decided to run away from home (Lead-up strips here and here).

So, yes, the goal is six new Jeremy strips a-a-a-a-and six not-Jeremy comic strips over the next twelve weeks. Awesome, right? Right, and therefore, without further ado ...


( Read more... )

I had another one of those dreams last night, about an imaginary comic book. This time around it was some weird Western affair, all cowboys in strange costumes - I don't know if you've ever read any of those old Marvel Western comics they were putting out around the same time that super-heroes were getting popular again, but all the villains in them are crazy: Cowboys wearing deep sea diver helmets, desperadoes in little green alien masks (!!), badmen on flying horses or skeleton horses or horses that appeared to be on fire. Strange, inspired, genre-busting stuff.

So I had a dream about a comic book in the weird western vein, and I cannot tell you for the life of my about most of the characters who appeared in this four-color phantasm, they rushed by in droves; I recall one fellow who dressed like a normal cowboy, except for a wizard's hat, and another gunslinger who wore a mask made to look like a realistic horse's head, then rode around on his horse under the sobriquet The Centaur (!!), cowpokes with bat's wings, robot cowboys, des-mer-adoes, the whole nine bizarre yards and then some.

But, amidst the faceless dozens, there were three which stood out - cover features, the lot of them: First off, a crimefighting barber called THE BARBER, all handlebar mustache and tightly coiffed hair, he carried a six-gun, a razor and a pair of shears, and kept the peace in this little town where he maintained a modest barber shop. Secondly, a guy I imagine was called THE EXECUTIONER, who dressed in the manner of a medieval executioner - shirtless, black hood, gloves - and whose shtick was that he had a rifle which more resembled a harpoon gun, and which rather than bullets shot AXES, and he would shoot these axes at his opponents and cut their heads clean off.

BUT THE BEST OF ALL OF THESE was a gunslinger who I don't think I dreamt a name for, and who rode around masked, and wearing a short black cloak which hung to just below his waist. When he'd get in a gunfight, he'd throw back the cloak to reveal A BELT OF DYNAMITE STRAPPED TO HIS MIDSECTION. He was SUCH A GODDAMN BADASS that he'd go into gunfights wearing a belt of live dynamite, knowing that he could outshoot even guys who'd only need to nick him to make him explode. Plus, HE WAS OKAY WITH GETTING EXPLODED! No quiet bed-death for this guy!

Man! Of all the comics I've dreamt up, I honestly wish this one were real more than any other before it. And that it had swearing in it. Explodin' Deadwood!

(Most'a what you're about to read originally appeared on my Flickr account, and is cross-posting. Bear with me. For some reason, I am a-going on here) ...

I like the idea that the thumbnail of this image will appear in all my friends' "Recent Uploads", and the first thing they're likely to think - what with the descriptive text and the details of the peeling not visible at that scale - is that I went tits over tee-bar at seventy on a Harley out on the 90.

What's going on is that, on July 3rd, my girl and I participated in a "Zombie Night" down in Seattle's Fremont district. Attending this thing was a big question mark for me - for one thing, zombies are pretty played out. On the other hand, hanging out and having fun are not. On the other other hand, part of the purpose of the evening was to try to set a new Guinness Book World Record for ... um ... largest zombie gathering in history.

That is a dour hand, to my mind; I hate World Records that are dingy and stupid and vain like that. "Biggest chainsaw sculpture of a dinosaur", "Most waffles cooked on a single waffle iron". I like the world records that are, you know, architectural and engineering marvels, wonders of nature, humans excelling in their disciplines, whether mental or physical. These novelty records are kind of wankery.

ON THE OTHER HAND: That's just the way I feel. There are a lot of people who are going to be able to point to the Guinness Book and say, man, you know what? I was there. I was somewhere that made it into Guinness. I shared that experience. They can tell their kids "You were there too, as a tiny zombie baby. So was Daffodil, our old Golden Retriever. You remember Daffodil? Daffodil was there, too."

So, what I am saying is that I participated and registered in the totally kind of douchey novelty World Record-keeping, because who'm I to not help someone have a little kicky fun in their lives? No sweat off my teeth, as it were, to help someone else have some guilt-free giggles. This is an attitude I need to further cultivate ...

More on the next photo!

Left: Pretty much as good as I get with making zombie faces. Enjoy the multiple band-aids. That's my idea of a joke.

SO ANYWAY. Kate (my girl) sent me an email, about a week before, with all the details for the big zombie event. I didn't really commit to doing it or not doing it - see my earlier sentiment about zombies being played out, fun not being played out, etc.

What sort of changed my mind was the fact that they were going to be hosting a huge group Thriller dance. I am coming up on 38 years old, and I have never, in my entire life, ever before learned a choreography. I guess not everybody does, but still, it seemed like something I ought to try, just once. I like learning new things, and I've never taught myself to follow some sort of disciplined, physical performance (I mean, I took tap dance classes ... in second and third grades. I don't think those count. Neither do all the Jiu Jitsu classes from junior high and high school. Basically, nothing I've ever learned while I was in school counts, and I stand by that proclamation).

My girl, being a professional dancer, has, of course, done a thousand choreographies in her lifetime, and was a huge help. I started learning the dance steps on Thursday, the day before the get-together. We spent more than two hours practicing the first half of the dance moves, then took a break to head into Seattle and grab some dinner, then came back around 11:00, whereupon I sat down and worked my way through the next half of the remaining section.

I'll spare you the details of what exactly was murderously sore the following morning. Still, after running a few errands and picking up some important supplies for the makeup (see next photo for details), I came back, and we spent another couple of hours working on the choreography for the remaining steps, and then running through the whole deal a couple of times until my cramps and fatigue encouraged me to become a Bitchy Betty about the whole thing, and we camped out in our respective bathrooms to shower, get dressed, and start fleshing out (har har) our creature makeup.

By the way, I didn't mention it up there, but I should point out now: There is something - rather understandably, possibly even predictably - both wonderful and humiliating about undertaking something with your loved one with which she possesses almost limitless experience and expertise and with which you possess zuh-eeee-roh comparable experience. I've always admired and respected Kate's dancing, I've always loved learning how to tell the good dancers from the bad (or at least less experienced) dancers, and I've always loved learning the history and the depth of her discipline, but, before these last two days, I have never had the opportunity to experience firsthand the gulf between my wife's capability as a professional and, basically, mine as a guy who sometimes comes out of the bathroom before bedtime in just his underwear and a tee-shirt and does sassy dances for her entertainment across the living room (We have a jovial life). ANYWAY, what this comes down to is this: You know how great it is to watch an expert ply his or her craft? Okay, imagine you are getting to watch the inner workings and step-by-step designs of an absolute expert, while you are an absolute beginner, and that absolute expert is someone you've loved with all your heart for twenty-one years, and yet this is the first time you've found yourself in this situation?

Understandably, you fall in love all over again.

Okay, let's talk makeup techniques and how the evening actually went, NEXT PICTURE ...

Okay, let's take a moment to talk about the makeup. When I hit the theatrical supply store - and by the way, how odd is it that Redmond, Washington, of all places has a theatrical supply store? We only have, like, two bookstores and ZE-RO men's clothiers. Everything else is either British pantries and Teriyaki places - I knew that I could walk out of there with pre-fabricated latex appliances and "Realistic Gory Wounds" and other assorted festering gashes or bloody abscesses easily applied with some brand of Spirit Gum marketed under the brand name "Makeup Glue".*

(*Which, by the way, is not to insinuate that our theatrical supply store is lacking in any particular way - it's actually quite good, and the staff is both comfortingly knowledgeable about makeup techniques and pleasantly inviting of new knowledge. They have a pretty good supply in stock, although I felt strongly their lack of liquid latex. I had intended to render the wide, wondrous palette of my denuded pate as a series of mountainous, bloody crevasses and humourous valleys, but rather was relegated to the above muckings-about)

However, there is a part of me which refuses to buy anything wholesale - even if it's cheaper and easier - if there's a possibility of manufacturing it one's-self from household goods and a little classic proletarian craftiness. This is the part of me that's building a Flea Circus and a Coconut ventriloquist's dummy, if you must know. I call it "The Plastic Hassle Part of Me."

SO, ceasing my beating around assorted bushes, here's how my multitude of cranial and facial wounds were invented: Tracing paper, Elmer's Glue and grease paint. You crumple the tracing paper (tissue paper would work infinitely better, but I'd bought and cannibalized an ENORMOUS sheet of the stuff for another craft project of the "Plastic Hassle" variety earlier, and was eager to make some additional use of my mutilated investment), then give it a good but brief soaking, effectively moistening the torn strips of paper without soaking them to the point of dissolution.

Once moistened, work a liberal (by which I mean, in the spirit of the day, a "European Socialist Model") amount of Elmer's white glue onto both sides of the paper. The water will thin it out and help it coat the paper equally on both sides, inasmuch as Elmer's is water-soluble. Step whatever: Slap that shit on yo' head. For extra depth of wounds, allow the first layer to dry and then slap additionally another layer or two on the existing layer. Make sure to let them dry between slappings.

I realize, at this point, you will resemble the victim of some sort of sheet-based bukkake, but that's because the color needs be added. Using any sort of flat applicator, you'll want to apply a coat of clown white to the dried, crinkled tracing paper, and following that and using a brush of some sort, you'll add red, black and brown greasepaints to the textured areas of yo' haid. I wish I could give you better advice about HOW to apply the colors, but a lot of it, for my part, was instinctive - I've spent about twenty-eight years of my life learning how to paint and how to color, so most of my knowledge is more reflex than it is intellectual. I will tell you that I went:

RED - for the thickest portions of the texturing
BLACK - for the areas surrounding the red
BROWN - for the areas leading into flesh.

From that point, there's a lot of mopping, repainting, re-applying, and mopping again. After that, a quick dose of baby powder (Ideally, made from real babies) and another coat of Elmer's over pretty much the majority of the face and head (the drying Elmer's will both protect the existing paint and such, and also will dry in such a way on exposed skin as to make it wrinkle and crease).

Yeesh. After all of that, I haven't yet talked about the actual Thriller Dance and Zombie Night! Good gravy! I think I'll leave that for my Livejournal - in the meantime, please note that this photo represents me about twenty pounds lighter than I was in February, following four months of strict diet and exercise, and yet I still bet that no sweet young ladies will find themselves swooning over this photo, as much as large, hairy bears of the West Coast will. That's okay. I find Bears to be comforting sorts of fellows, and after all, I have my one sweet young thing to swoon over me, if'n I need as much as that. Swoon away, Bears.

Okay, to my Livejournal, where I'll finish this Great American Goddamn Novel of Greasepaint and Four-Counts ...

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AND NOW YOU ARE ON MY LIVEJOURNAL, HELLO!
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After having written that interminable and seemingly unending volume of errata and tat (Thus, "erratat") about the preparation for the performance, I suddenly find myself at a certain dearth of appreciable content to provide inre: the actual performance, and the experience of the Zombie Night, itself.

So here's what I can recall, amid the haze of spasming hamstrings and pulsing calves which define my late Friday night at 1:30 in the morning (at present time of this stage of writing): We made it to Fremont at half after seven, with at least an hour to kill before the official start time of the Thriller Dance - following our preparation, the single event for which we were making any effort to show. The streets of Fremont were impossibly populated with the endless spawn of a thousand decent gags and a million ounces of fake blood: Zombie derby girls, zombie shark attack victims (who raised more questions than they answered), zombie dogs, zombie babies, zombie homeless people, zombie tennis players, zombie brides, zombie bananas, zombie contortionists - frankly, an assortment of zombies as rich as ever the imagination allowed and displayed as far as the eye could see.

Some forty-five minutes or so late - as these things are wont to go, great and expansive expectations coupled with underwhelming preparation, no one who ever runs anything they describe unlaughingly as a "flash mob" manages to provide enough volunteer organizers or port-a-potties - we finally got around to actually performing, for the first time, the Thriller dance. I was electric, a primed rocket of mid-80s choreography so packed to the gills with preparation that I'd been unable to cease from performing snippets of the dance during the quiet minutes of anticipation - my girl and I attracted stray groups of uneducated zombies, eager to learn the dance from our expert steps, on and off through the tick-tocks of patient expectation. Pied Pipers, of a sort, were we.

When the dance was finally unveiled, we were left bereft on an island of preparation; the instructor, unconcerned for accuracy, failed to negotiate with the crowd as to whether the dance in which she tutored them was to be mirrored or translated from her posture - i.e, when she said "step this way", did she mean to go left, as she did, or go right, as would be the student facing her? No answer was given from the stage. The natural human instinct to mimic meant that the audience - seemingly to an undead man of them apiece uneducated in the ways of the choreography - danced opposite to Kate's and my steps. We'd learned the motions from the original video and the instructor who'd most acknowledged them, the crowd learned their steps from an instructor who placed little value (honestly, she said as much) on determining right from left. Unsurprisingly, the dancing zombie mass fell into chaos.

During the event's instructor's leading tutorial, I noticed, there was an intriguing and amusing event taking place: Whomever in the crowd stood AHEAD of my girl, halfway as we were among the body of volunteer performers, acted out the individual steps as they were taught from the instructor on the dais far removed, reversed. Whomever stood behind my girl acted them out in proper alignment, inasmuch as every eye who could spy her watched my girl go through the zombie motions and based their actions on hers.

This was a theme of the night; when the instructor announced that we were to give the actual choreography that fabled old college try, Kate and I moved to a largely abandoned stretch of parking lot far to the south of the mish-moshed calamity of misdirected dancers. While the dance began, and some moved left while others moved right, Kate and I performed the dance as the original dancers did - for her, with equal agility and expertise, for me, with the clumsy leadfooted and breathless asthma of a fat man doing his best.

We were allowed, as a group, two opportunities to perform the whole dance, and on the second opportunity, I retired and allowed Kate to perform the Thriller dance in singular expertise and perfection: I did this for two reasons, the first being that I had a cramp the size of an insidious coconut made of bile and hate stuck to the side of my abdomen, and also because I wanted to step away from the obvious tilting of viewfinders made by hundreds in the crowd in the direction of my wife; the audience, gathered on the bounds of a cordoned-off parking lot, loved her.

I counted off steps, offscreen of most viewfinders, vocally - I was proving, in my juvenile shallowness, to myself and any in earshot, that I'd learned the dance well enough, even if my bulk prevented me from indulging in its performance more than a single time. I was doing this because it was the only way to allow the audience of dozens upon dozens whom Kate had attracted to indulge in her act without having to endure my fat frame in their home movies and photos, and yet, despite that, to still dance with her. I had rather grown addicted to dancing with her. I'd had one single taste of what it meant to be the ribbon tied to the tail of her kite, and I hated to be bereft of it, even if it was largely due to the lack of care of my physical health to which I'd committed myself over - let's say - the last 38 years.

(I'm being a tetch high-falutin' in my parley, and I hope you'll forgive it the complexity of its syntax - I only speak like this when I find myself touched by spirits and ethers far above the concordance of my vulgar being. I speak like this when I feel elevated by beauty. I kinda speak like this when I talk about my girl. Ain't that a thing?)

Anyway.

The Thriller portion of the evening ended, and I believe from there it descended into some sort of zombie costume contest, and from there a cramped showing of Shaun of the Dead against the wall of a warehouse, viewed from the comforts of an asphalt parking lot. As for Kate and I, we'd had it - I had puckered almost every inch of my sun-facing skin with Elmer's white glue, but three hours of patient waiting and eager dancing had done the additional job of turning my lips to wide, violet raisins. We signed up on the official documents, adding ourselves to the roster of willing participants in the novelty circus of zombies, and from there admired a lovely and happy baby - of which I feel there are strangely few of in the world, and therefore we chose to extend every kindness to his father, holding the registry for him to sign and inviting him to cut in line ahead of us - and then abdicated with terrific ferocity and weary determination.

In brief, from that point, there was gelato: Coconut, pistachio and pear for my girl, chocolate (they were out of stracciata) and strawberry/jalapeno (don't judge me, it's not loss and envy of my former home in the Sonoran Desert, it's merely a delicious combination of flavorful tinctures which complement one another with rarefied expertise, thank you) for me. Following that came what I believe was a mile and what Kate believes was a quarter of a mile walk back to our car, uphill, nevertheless seemingly endlessly, through tired leg muscles and wearied spirits, and then a stop at 7-11 for a bottle of water as large as the femur of any of the Titans of Greek Myth and as many caffeinated beverages as my beefy, exhausted arms could carry. Girls, whom high schoolers would consider the apex of feminine beauty but whom wiser men would consider 'trying too hard' stared in uncomprehending disgust at my appliances of decay and blood, which, later, rested unceremoniously in the brown paper trashbag under my bathroom sink.

And so we came home, whereupon I promised a plentiful chicken dinner (PS - I delivered) and pledged to myself that I wanted nothing except to read comic books (PS - I did no such thing, being largely bereft of my medium of preference) until my aching limbs dragged me to sleep - and yet, instead, I wrote this, penning the last letters long after my girl has succumbed to sleep and, furthermore, the hour has grown long beyond reason.

I wish that I could say that, following the example of this moment, I expected to find myself invariably through whatever other opportunities presented themselves indulging in any array of outre performance art upon the wild streets of cultivated Seattle for my intemporary delight, but the truth is this: It's whatever allows me to dance alongside my girl again that'll drag me out of my occasional yet seemingly persistent hermitage to sample the wonders of this city I otherwise have immediately learned to love so well. And with that, devoid of tattered ornaments of torn, sticky flesh, I think I'll choose to join her in a well-deserved slumber which I suspect will see us asleep until the evening sun, on the day following, chooses to set ...

My wife and I don't own a dog, so we certainly don't have any particular need for a tin container for Milk-Bones, BUT --- we found this at Value Village and were sorely tickled by how much like an official portrait of elected office this picture resembles. We call him President Dog.

"My fellow dogs, in this time of great national hardship ... woof."

Pretty much every Wednesday, I find myself (by some incomprehensible circumstances) in Seattle proper for the weekly meeting of the Friends of the Nib, as fine a group of cartoonists, artists and (as they say) personalities as you'll find this side of the Mississippi.

Nibster Marc Palm revealed, some time ago, that back when I was doing Jeremy as a webcomic, he had submitted a piece of fan art. A week-and-a-half ago, he blew my mind by bringing the original in for me to see, and furthermore damn near brought me unbidden joy by letting me have the original.This is up in the studio now.

One of the things which used to drive me crazy about the guest art in Jeremy is that folks were consistently coming up with really great gags I had never before considered, and then having seen them undertaken by someone else, I could never use. Jeremy losing his arm down the toilet is ... it's just amazing. I could have gotten three strips out of that, but I never would have thought of it. Batting the joke, and me, out of the park - Marc Palm.

By the way, enjoy that lovely crosshatching, and the depth on display in the bathroom in the background. Just lovely ...

Side A - American Quartet - Marry A Yiddish Boy

Side B - American Quartet - Yiddisha Nightingale

(Right-Click, Save As)

Another couple of recordings from the scratchy artifacts of yesteryear, specifically for you Polka fans out there. It's the world-famous Frank Novak and His Polkateers (Gasp! Eee! They're my favorites!)

Side A - Stop Polka

Side B - Showin' Off Polka

(Right-Click, Save As)

I found this very important document down by the dumpsters detailing the biography of Ronald Reagan. I think it's important that you all absorb its message.




After divorcing Jane Wraymom, Ronald Reagan started to accomplish political needs. Soon after World War II, Ronald's brother told him to run for office, but not yet president. When Ronald met Nancy daves, they *started dating. A year later Patricia Ann Reagan was born. During WWII World War ii Ronald was doing doing war movies. But after he became Ppresident of the Scekn Screen Actors Guild. In 1958. Ronald's son, Ronald Prescott is born. Later on Ronald decided he would become a Republican. Ronald campais campaigned for governor of California. Then yet again the elected Ronald in 1970. The satisfaction got Ronald.

Additional notes:
*Dated and married
Then A PUNCH IN THE NUTS! Wap! DUH!

Educational, that. I am pretty impressed that he could spell "governor" and "California", those'uns are kind of hard.

Speaking of things I found in and around the garbage, someone in my apartment complex recently had an accident (which is to say, of the "Oh no, honey-y-y-y" variety and not the "Look out, look out, look out, vroooom, aaaaaaaaah" variety. I was taking out the garbage when I noticed that unmistakable smell of human waste coming from the dumpster. Lo and behold, upon opening it, there was a shit-stained comforter resting on top of all the garbage.

And I will tell you what immediately ran through my mind at the moment, and which stays with me today; that adjective whomps the tar out of that noun. Like, that could be the most comforting thing in the universe, but the prefix "shit-stained" makes it not all that comfortable, really. It's now a shit-stained discomforter.

Early last year, I went with my girl for the first time out to Whidby Island, where we found ourselves in deep admiration for the thrift stores in the place. i came home with a small collection of very old albums, including one which had been a pair of contemporary hymns recorded by a Bible Study group of prisoners in the 1930s (As my pal Justin said, the album that was made for me).

Some time after that, Kate visited the same thrift store on her own and surprised me with a huge parcel of these old shellacs and recordings from the 1930s. I've been slowly getting them ripped to mp3, and cleaned up as best as possible given their age, the original recording quality and the fact that they were stored without sleeves, in big stacks, in wooden crates. The results aren't CD quality, I'm afraid, but they're as good as I could get them with the software available to me and my relatively low level of skill in editing them.

So anyway, I thought I'd share them, a couple at a time. First up, the Comedian Harmonists with a pair of Deutscher ditties. I also made a neat ol' label you can use as Album art, if'n you choose to download these things ...



Side A - Muss I Denn, Muss I Denn Zum Stadtleiten Hinaus (Must I Leave This Town?)
Side B - Am Brunnen Vor Dem Tore (The Garden Fountain)
(Right-click, Save As)

There's a start. Let me know what you think, I'll upload a coupla more tomorrow...