Monkeys, shown here eating popsicles,

My Make-up for the July 3rd "Red, White and Dead" Zombie Walk/Thriller Dance in Fremont

2009-07-04T10:11:58Z

My Make-up for the July 3rd "Red, White and Dead" Zombie Walk/Thriller Dance in Fremont
Originally uploaded by CalamityJon.

(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 ...

========
AND NOW YOU ARE ON MY LIVEJOURNAL, HELLO!
========

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 ...

President Dog

2009-07-03T17:23:58Z

President Dog
Originally uploaded by CalamityJon.

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."

Oh my god, are you watching the news? Turn on the news now!

2009-07-03T17:12:54Z

calamityjon @ 2009-07-02T10:31:00

2009-07-02T17:31:45Z

A Special Bulletin To All Our Ships At Sea ...

2009-07-01T17:56:22Z

This Just In!

2009-06-30T19:51:50Z

Jeremy by Marc Palm

2009-06-29T19:56:33Z

Jeremy by Marc Palm
Originally uploaded by CalamityJon.

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 ...

Breaking News!

2009-06-29T18:34:47Z

And Friday.

2009-06-26T08:51:32Z

Last one for now...

2009-06-26T00:15:02Z

Side A - American Quartet - Marry A Yiddish Boy

Side B - American Quartet - Yiddisha Nightingale

(Right-Click, Save As)

Thursday.

2009-06-25T16:40:17Z

calamityjon @ 2009-06-24T11:29:00

2009-06-24T18:29:54Z

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)

It's Time You Learned The True Facts About Ronald Reagan

2009-06-24T17:44:56Z

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.

It's Wednesday, or so it seems.

2009-06-24T17:05:53Z

calamityjon @ 2009-06-23T12:34:00

2009-06-23T19:34:51Z

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...

Cigar Box Planters Update

2009-06-23T17:15:37Z

Cigar Box Planters Update
Originally uploaded by CalamityJon.

Checking in on my cigar box planters, which I set up on May 3, and which were featured on a neat site called Apartment Therapy. They called my patio 'inviting'. I'm super-proud of that).

I'm pleased to say that the plants are growing healthy and abundant. The cigar boxes are holding up ... for the most part (check the individual photos for details). I'm most impressed with how well the Pineapple Sage is doing, it's growing like crazy.

Anyway, my nice wee plants in nice wee cigar boxes, they're coming along just beautifully. I think I'll build a coupla more.

The pineapple sage is growing gangbusters, lush and verdant. The cigar box agrees with it. Haven't tried cooking with the leaves, yet, as I want to make sure it's good and acclimated to the planter before I start tearing off pieces of it. So, I don't know if it's absorbed any flavor from the cedar box, or any laminating chemicals or what-have-you in the box. We'll see.

The Scotch Moss is demolishing the cigar box, it's growing so quickly that it's split the seams on all four sides. Where the box is still attached, it's holding just fine, so I think what I may do is move it to a new box and see if a little extra room makes a difference.

Still, it's really rewarding to see it growing so abundantly...

Now it's Tuesday.

2009-06-23T09:48:32Z

Fremont Solstice Parade

2009-06-22T18:08:27Z

Fremont Solstice Parade
Originally uploaded by CalamityJon.

On Saturday, my girl was in the Fremont Solstice Parade, an annual tradition for freaks and weirdos to brush the dust off their copious tubes of body paint and start stapling crepe paper to their little red wagons in preparation for a colorful hike through Seattle's most infamously goofy neighborhood.

Kate drummed for a belly dance troupe, one whose theme was blue waters and who were joined by their very own Poseidon on their journey.

The vast majority of the participants in the Parade are the naked bicyclists (of whom there are many in this photoset, so be forewarned. And as a friend said, some of them commit the ultimate party foul by bicycling naked while standing up), but even among those folks were still a few who went above and beyond the call of duty.

Anyway, beyond those folks, there were a lot of folks who went out of their way to impress. Among the cooler participants photographed in this set, you will see:
- A portable Shakespeare In The Park
- Minotaurs
- A Big Elephant Puppet
- Acrobats and Hula Hoopers
- A 'scape from Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights

a-a-a-a-and then conversely

- The Pro-Weed gang not really being able to focus long enough to build something that would hold together. "Man, do we need to, like, make an a-frame for this or ... or ... shit, what was I saying?"

And a lot more besides that over in the set itself, which you can visit here. Plus there's a naked Wolverine in there, and I woulda linked him up but you can all see his dingus in the photo and everything. Last year, the photos I took of the naked ladies who covered theyselfs in Hershey's chocolate syrup (I'll be honest, the smell was effin' heinous) have ended up being my mostest favorited photos ever on Flickr. I have a sneaking suspicion that, this year, naked Wolverine is gonna take the cake.

Anyway, the Fremont Solstice Parade. Lots of great things to see there (and in the photoset), and although I admit that I spent most of the parade rolling my eyes, I also try to keep in mind that some of these people put a lot of time and energy into their costumes and floats, and that before I judge anyone, I should recall that I draw comic books.

Fremont Sosltice Parade Photoset

It's Monday

2009-06-22T17:15:45Z

Art fo' sale, cheap!

2009-06-18T20:02:42Z

Hey there!

We closed out the Drift show (journalled here and here) at Cafe Racer last night - half of my twenty-five pieces sold, which is nice. On the other hand, I've got another dozen unpurchased pieces sitting here at my left hand. Any takers? I sold these quick illos for five bucks apiece, I'd be more than happy to sell them for ~~eight or nine times that much~~ the same amount here, plus, say, two bucks per order to cover shipping? Any takers?

(sold)

(I actually have TWO of these illustrations for sale, I liked it so much the first time)

(I actually sold this set, but I did another that basically looks identical)

I actually have a couple that I didn't scan, maybe later. These all come in at 6x8 inches, on packaging roll paper, and tell you what, I'll take limited commissions of more five-buck packaging paper pieces. Five bucks (plus two bucks shipping per order) on the same paper at this size, black, white and gray markers, providing the subject is:
- A robot
- A foodstuff, canned, cartoned or otherwise (I enjoy drawing food)
- A cityscape
- A bottle with something written on it
- A pie, your choice of comical extrapolation -OR- with a surprise comical extrapolation
- Household appliances, dinnerware, hardware or lightbulbs. I also enjoy drawing those.
- A Satellite of Love. I can't think of what to draw for any other Lou Reed song, sorry.

Drop a line in comments to reserve a piece or to request a commish, I'll take payments through Paypal at jon@ape-law.com, or I'll send you my address if you gotta send cashes or checks or what-have-you. There y'go, thanks folks.

The Violin-Uke

2009-06-11T18:48:04Z

Violin-Uke
Originally uploaded by CalamityJon.

Found this at the nearby Value Village (while I was shopping for loose banjo and guitar necks for cigar box variants of each, so it was quite a crafty old timey musicy day). A bow-and-sting instrument which also apparently went by the name of Ukelin (under other manufacturer), and had some popularity in the 30s.

It's apparently a bear-and-a-half to tune the durn thing, so it may end up being a wall piece. Still, I bought a cheap violin bow off of eBay last night and will give it a try when it arrives. Keeping in mind that I've got a six-string guitar that's tuned to something like High F over Q-Sharp, with a soupcon of cats yelling, there's every chance I isn't going to make this thing work.

Anyway, if nothing else, it's a great companion piece to my old Blue Comet banjo, which I ought to get hung up on the wall since I've got the inclination...

calamityjon @ 2009-06-09T20:16:00

2009-06-10T03:16:13Z

So far, today, I've inked one page of Jeremy and both penciled and inked two pages of Zayde Todt.If you don't know what these things are, don't worry, no one else does either.

These three pages are engineered to create a continuing scene. Originally, it was a single page, but I had so much fun drawing the tree branches that I wanted an additional opportunity to draw a few more pages' worth of it. I realized that the text for the first three pages could be spread over five, increasing the initial tension, and ... well, giving me a chance to draw more trees.

Sometimes folks ask me if I've ever been interested in working for Marvel or DC, and the answer is, you know, sure, but there are a coupla reasons I'm happy I don't. The first is that I really couldn't manage a monthly pace, to be perfectly honest, but the other is that you just don't have the freedom to, for an example, decide at the last minute to add two establishing pages to the beginning of the book when you've already got the whole thing scripted and laid out and the first page finished and about twelve pages penciled. I'm either too creative or too undisciplined (if not a little bit - or even a lot - of both) to work under an editor. Who'm I kidding, I'm too undisciplined. Still, I enjoyed drawing these trees.

The image is wide, so it's behind a cut, or you can see each of the pages in detail: Page One, Page Two, Page Three ...

Okay, that's probably it for sneak peeks, until I finish the book, or until I do another page that I think is awesome, which means probably another sneak peek in like a week.

calamityjon @ 2009-06-09T00:11:00

2009-06-09T07:11:38Z

There's a new Fiend File entry over at monstermanual, The TRUE PEOPLE of The PHANTOM PLAIN of OT TAARU.

I've been struggling with the design of this guy since December (on and off, anyway), as you can sort of see from this first go at getting him put together. Anyway, this is #13, meaning we're on the way out of the 24 planned monsters. I think I'd like to wrap this up over the next couple of months, whether that's likely being a different topic. I'd kind of like to put a bow on the thing after two intermittent years of playing with the designs ...

Anyway, the only other thing to add is that without the color, this guy basically looks a lot like Tom Waits or Ron Perlman. Hard not to think about that as I'm spending the coupla hours it requires to color these things ...

calamityjon @ 2009-06-08T13:43:00

2009-06-08T20:43:48Z

I haven't been writing much - if anything, I suppose - about all the things I've been doing over the last few weeks. With warm and sunny weather the rule rather than the exception lately, and employed or not, I've spent more time out of the house than in.

Specifically, on Sunday, Adam Watson made arrangements for a grand picnic at the Arboretum off of Lake Washington, off in some rarely-traveled plateau overlooking rolling hills in verdant descent, above hidden cottonwood trees who loosed snowy fluff from unseen arbors, placidly drifting and luminescent in their whiteness. Also there was fried chicken.

The purpose of the picnic - besides getting out and recharging in Seattle's seldom-seen sunshine - was to meet visiting combination cartoonist/entomologist/temporary Australian Ainsley S and cartoonist, wonder-baker and recent Seattleite¹ Rosie Dee. I'm happy to report that both are wonderful - and better yet, funny and fascinating - persons of awesomeness. Ainsley even thought enough of us to supply the party with an additional person of awesomeness, her friend Katrina, who enhanced the charm of the scene with impromptu knitting all of a sudden.

¹"...of love ..."

Also in attendance were Dalton Webb and his girl Darcy, my girl Kate, our friend Stevie VanBrokendonglehurstenpants, and more importantly than that, the aforementioned fried chicken, plus fresh baked cookies, those garlic-and-ham sandwiches I make (and for which I gotta write down the recipe at some point), green tea ice cream, and, courtesy of Rosie, some goddamn excellent cupcakes. I mean, goddamn excellent folks, a type of excellent best expressed by the term "goddamn".

I'm an advocate of tiny cupcakes- I don't groove on the large size ones which are packed with their frosting-covered shoulders shoved up against one another in the thin plastic safe deposit boxes at Safeway - and these ones were indeed tiny, as well as freshly warm from the over and topped with some sort of amazing homemade honey frosting. I'll trust Rosie to sometime share the recipe, but more than anything I feel I can express the sentiment ... in ~~song~~ art!

They really were that awesome. As a matter of fact, everything was awesome about day - the food, the weather and the company. However, I got deadlines and I can't really be bothered to draw all of them leaping in the air with little pink squiggles comin' out of 'em at all angles. Suffice it to say, great day and I hope there'll be a few more picnics before the end of Summer. Also more cupcakes.

=============================

Hey, on an unrelated note (D#), I have recently redesigned my website. It's apparently fubared in Chrome, but seems to finally work fine in IE 7 and FF. Have a butcher's and let me know if you run into any problems (and here's a screenshot of the old site, if you'd like to see what changed)

Protip: I got it!

2009-06-01T20:39:57Z

I just got back from the supermarket, where Tommy Tutone saved me six bits off the cost of a diet soda. The supermarket in question is one of those places where they run a "Preferred Member Club" scheme - or some damn thing - for card-carrying shoppers, and for which you can claim club benefits if you've got a phone number that's been registered with the food-pimping finks.

As an aside, I've got a general hate-on for those things, largely because I can remember when all it took to buy a can of peas was a handful of coins, rather than a handful of coins and a personal secret. For literally thousands of years, the barter system operated unabated and uncomplicated in its means of exchanging goods and services and tender for one another, but now it's like we're living in this increasingly absurd fairy tale world where we can't cross bridges until we answer riddles. "Sure, an' I'll sell you these all-beef hot dogs for five dollars, or it'll be two packs for six if ye can answer me riddle - me first is in river, but not in canoe, when I hold your lover's face, she cannae see mine, so what's me name? Ooh, turr turr tu turr ..."

Worse yet is the inappropriateness of even asking for this info, try paring it down to a person-to-person communication without the mitigation of an impersonal form. Cashier all ringing you up, "Okay, that's two boxes of cereal, a can of tuna, loaf of bread ... that'll be $10.15, oh, and by the way, where do you live and how much do you make in a year?" Fuckin' madness, that.

So anyway, I don't fill those things out, but I'm more than happy to get their "member prices" (i.e. not marked up beyond all reason), because all of these hokum savings clubs let you use phone numbers as your ID, and every one of these I've ever encountered acknowledges "Area Code + 867-5309." There is apparently a nationwide network of wiseasses who've been registering 867-5309 as the phone number for just about any service which requires a phone number (it's not a functional exchange in most cities, as I understand it) ... myself included.

There even used to be a website which documented all the places where 867-5309 worked - I miss it, because it might've given me ideas as to where to use it, and also because I love it when the wiseass who registered the number gets extra clever and, upon checking out, the cashier thanks "Mister Tutone" or "Mister Jenny", after reading the surname on the display.

So anyway, 867-5309, more than just a catchy song but also a handy protip to get around the frustrating business of signing away your personal info just to save fifteen cents on a can of peas. Use it and enjoy!