Bearskinrug Articles

Phaeton

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 15:06:39 -0500

My Baptismal Font

This week Veer released Phaeton, my first contribution to the world of fonts. I can now attend typographer soirées. If anyone is throwing one of these anytime soon, send me an invite. I'll wear my "I like my punctuation well-hung" shirt.

If you've ever made a font, you know how much work it is. Fortunately, I don't. Because I was lucky enough to have teamed up with Mr. Randy Jones in the creation of Phaeton, which made it significantly more fun and less stressful. It was a good match-up, because brains are like chewing gum.

I shall explain.

Yes, brains are like chewing gum. Chewed chewing gum to be exact. And the way you learn, is by throwing the chewing gum on the ground, and whatever filth sticks is "knowledge". Whereas I have been throwing my chewing gum hither and thither, with little regard for where it lands, Randy has been diligently rolling his in the dumpster outside All-You-Can-Eat Type Buffet.

Why don't I give you a little tour, and I'll explain things on the way. You drive.

What the Hell Is A Phaeton?

Most people don't realize this, but at one time, the way we think of cars today is how people thought of carriages. Meaning, there was just hundreds of different types of carriage, all with different names. People probably hung out on the corner, with a tin of snuff, admiring the new '02 Broughams, or reminiscing about the backseat of their old Box Jump-Seat where they first got a glimpse of Zelda Potter's sensuous elbows.

I mention this, because carriage lore seems to be one of the random pieces of filth stuck on my chewing gum. And as Randy and I went through the process of trying to decide what sort of font to pursue, I disentangled this particular hair from the bundle, and — Lo! — we both found it to be good. We chose the name Phaeton, for two reasons. One, the proportions of the Doctor's Phaeton were a nice inspiration for our letterforms, and two, it sounds much better than Child's Seat Drop-Front.

Cooking Delicious Hamburgevons

As with any successful team, Randy and I each had separate roles to play in the creation of the font, yet both of us were familiar enough with the other's contributions to offer advice, ensure a good exchange of materials, and just generally respect what the other was doing.

My role was essentially to create unique and legible forms, reminiscent of type from the bygone era of the carriage. Randy, an excellent letterform designer in his own right, was there to spot inconsistencies in the forms, fix problem areas, offer conceptual advice, and then translate them to an actual font.

His role, in my opinion is the difficult one. Don't tell him that.

The Filth of Forms

Years ago, I was required to take a Philosophy class. Honestly, very little from that class stuck in my gum. But one thing I do remember is Plato's concept of Forms, the concept that everything has this ideal form that exists... well, somewhere not here, and the world we live in is like some sort of cosmic diorama filled with imperfect copies of ideal trees, people, figs, monkeys, scratch n' sniff stickers, etc., etc.,

Which is an idea with some merit, at least when it comes to explaining why all these very different things...

...are all the letter "D". Inherently, we understand its ideal form and thus recognize all these outrageous variations.

And so we hit upon what I found to be the most difficult part of this whole process. You'd think I'd spend hours and hours laboring over the A's and B's and the 123's. Nope. I actually spent the most time on the characters I use with the least frequency, just trying to figure out just what the hell their ideal form is. I mean... how many people know what this is?

I certainly didn't know. And how could I be sure that making it look like this...

...didn't suddenly make it totally meaningless? And where do you place it in relation to the baseline? How small can it get? How big? So I'd have to spend a lot of time researching the history of characters, and divining their contemporary usage.

Oh - and in case you didn't know, this...

...is a "Q". It's used in words like "Quality!" Neat!

Catchwords If You Can

From the start, we knew we wanted the font to be not just pretty, but useful. And so we put a lot of time and thought into those rarely seen characters like I mention above, but also in the creation of catchwords, swash variants and ligatures.

Here was yet another place where Randy was like some sort of typographic messiah. I initially only drew up the english catchwords. Randy translated and created all the foreign language variants. And while I did draw up swash variants on all sorts of characters, Randy had to select and refine the ones that would actually work, and then create similar variants for all the lowercase, and the ligatures. This was happening early this year, around the same time I destroyed my back, and only got two hours a sleep a day while daily doses of oxycodone removed any capacity for quality assurance. So make sure you thank Randy, or else you'd be using these catchwords:

Vignettes

Of course, being a guy who draws stuff, one of the things I couldn't resist doing was including some vignettes, to help reinforce the general feel of the era, but also to honor some of the nineteenth-century's most famous individuals:

Okay, so, none of these people are real. But if they were, then you couldn't make up stuff about them without leaving yourself open to some sort of slander suit. That's the beauty of fiction. You can lie all you want!

And so ends my tour of Phaeton, though I have to say I didn't even get to share half of what I wanted. But the thing is, what excites me about creating a font, is finally getting a chance to make building blocks for other artist's creative endeavors. So I've tried not to burden you with my thoughts on its usage, or my intentions. I'm waiting to see what you do with it. So go on. 'Git.

Throw your gum in Phaeton.

Dirty

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 18:30:27 -0500

Vices Bring Us (or Two Wood Boards With Glue In The Middle) Closer Together

I am a fan of the martini.

It was not always this way. After reaching the momentous age of twenty-one, when an American youth can finally admit that they've been drinking for years, my father — an avid martini drinker — mixed me my first gin and vermouth apératif.

I did not like it. And I gave it a good 3 or 4 hours worth of effort. I could have sucked down 170 or 180 schnapps incarnations in that time. Sure, I'd have died, but I guarantee my fructose-saturated corpse wouldn't have been scowling like a gargoyle.

The problem, as I see it, was that I had yet to develop a taste for the bitter things in life. But, years later, having come to embrace bitterness, in both the "beverage" sense and the "success of others" sense, I was primed to re-experience the martini.

The catalyst was my love of olives. The martini, for me, was primarily an olive delivery system. So naturally I gravitated towards what is termed the "Dirty Martini", or, as is aptly demonstrated in the comic above by the Mojo The Sock Monkey Eight-Panel Players, a martini with olive juice added. And maybe some trash.

Today, I thought I'd share with anyone who's interested my Dirty Martini recipe. Of course, I only encourage those of my readers who are of the proper legal age to partake in this recipe. Should you be underage, I'd recommend you have a Virgin Dirty Martini, which is really just olive juice, some ice cubes, and — to help properly mimic gin's subtle notes of chemical bitterness — three or four pinches of earwax.

So, without further ado, I present:

A Kevin Cornell Dirty Martini

1 glass without any holes or cracks (preferably empty)
2 jiggers (3 oz.) of Gin
1/4 oz. of Extra Dry Vermouth (approximate)
3-85 jalapeño-stuffed olives
1/4 oz. of olive juice (approximate)
Frozen water, cubed or chipped or what have you

The Glass

The most important ingredient to your martini is the glass, without which you'd be forced to mix the martini in your mouth, which hardly bespeaks of class, and is only slightly more acceptable than mixing the drink in a bellybutton. The traditional martini glass has no place in my recipe. I find that its extreme top-heaviness leaves one prone to spills, and one should try and not make a spectacle of oneself should one wish to move onto a second martini without one's wife noticing. Also, I feel a little too dainty holding the traditional glass. I stopped wearing lingerie for similar reasons.¹

So, I specifically opt for a "rocks" glass, sometimes called a tumbler. At home, my specific glass is a sophisticated little number incorporating one glass inside of another, separated by a vacuum. It's a triumph of science. I keep meaning to write science a letter offering my hearty congratulations.

The Liquors

In the past decade or so, the martini found itself to be the Cinderella of cocktails. Suddenly every little bird and mouse and fawn was swooping in and adding bits of this and changing bits of that until finally the only thing that made the drink a martini was that it was in a martini glass. The repercussion of all this fluttering, bleating, swoop-swappery is that now, when ordering a martini, I must specifically ask for the traditional liquor — gin — to avoid being served that boorish, utilitarian usurper vodka.

Now, those with refined palettes often have specific brands of gin they prefer. I won't pretend to be able to tell much of a difference, at least not when the whole thing is a vehicle for olive delivery, so I just take whatever comes to mind first. I won't say what brand I have at home, I'll merely mention that it comes in a large enough bottle to be considered a "jug". Let that be your guide.

The only other liquor in my martini would be a hint of dry vermouth. Bartenders have told me that if I'm going to be having a dirty martini, there's no point in my adding the vermouth, as the olive juice performs a similar role as a foil for gin. However, at the end of my life, as I lay on my deathbed, I'd rather not have my last words be "I wish I drank more vermouth". Doing this now helps me avoid such a fate.

The Olive

When I speak of olives, I am of course speaking of the green olive. The black olive, while delicious, has no place in a martini. It's too mild, lacking the grotesque bitterness I crave. However, that doesn't mean that the green olive swims by its lonesome within my gin-splashed glass. For you see, while fluttering, bleating, swoop-swappery has damaged the martini in general, it has only benefitted the green olive.

Today's modern green-olive-on-the-go can not only contain the traditional pimento, but a variety of foodstuffs: sun-dried tomatoes, garlic, or, best of all, the jalapeño pepper. Hear me now — the olive of choice in a Kevin Cornell Dirty Martini is a jalapeño-stuffed olive. Let no one tell you different! Unless they're holding your kids ransom or something. Then, just do as they demand. I don't want it on my damn conscience that your family was fed to dugongs because you were too stubborn to reconsider my olive preferences, you ass!

The Juice

And we finally arrive at the most important ingredient. Just as I prefer jalapeño-stuffed olives, I prefer the juice said olives have been marinating in. Opening a completely different jar of un-jalapeñoed olives just for the juice smacks of craziness. The only situation I can think of where it might be worth getting a whole different jar would be if you were using habanero-stuffed olives. I've used a couple of these before, and let me tell you the habanero must be used sparingly. Your body will thank you, if "not rupturing in an explosion of salt and brimstone" can be interpreted as the body communicating its gratefulness.

And the rest...

Some other important ingredients I'll leave up to you. The ice for instance. I won't make unrealistic demands on your ice trays. If they cube, let them cube. It's their nature.

In terms of shaking or stirring, I prefer to stir my martinis, but only because I hate dirtying up a shaker (by which I mean, getting filth on it, rather than olive juice, which would be part of the filth, but these sort of semantics are only worth discussing after martini number two). The olives may be place in the drink, or skewered if you prefer it so. Tiny swords or fancy toothpicks do seem to be the common option, but I will say that a tiny sword seems a little dated, and to appear contemporary a tiny rocket launcher or submachine gun might be more appropriate.

Enjoy!

Footnotes

¹Just to clarify, I was wearing it when I worked out. Lace is one of man's most breathable fabrics. I got the idea from this workout video I saw online: "Sally Gets Pumped".

Mojo And The Proposal

Tue, 09 Jun 2009 10:00:00 -0500

Picnic, Thou Art Easily Crashed

If you were to create a list of things Mojo has ruined, I think you'd find a lot of picnics on there. The picnic is an inherently fragile endeavor, being easily ruined by so many disaster scenarios. Rainclouds. Dust Storms. Fire Ants. Ice Ants. Quicksand. Mayonnaise spoilage. And natural predators. Of both man and sandwich. Mojo being the latter, unless a man just happens to dress up as a sandwich and dance around in front of him a little.

Heed my words: Mojo has to work a lot harder to ruin your picnic if you're eating indoors. You might even get two or three hours of pleasant conversation before he finds a way in. Or if you just have to be outside, at least get behind a fence or a tent or in a locked car. Either way, it's only a matter of time. We're talking about someone who managed to find his way inside a fully-deployed space shuttle.

But, I suppose my warning wouldn't have helped this couple anyway. If there's one thing Mojo can spoil faster than a picnic, it's a romantic moment. I can't tell you how many empty boxes of chocolate I've accidentally given Kim. Oh wait, I can. Two. And one empty box of freeze-dried Neapolitan ice cream. Though Mojo was the one who stole that for me in the first place.

Shirt Stake

While we're on the subject of nature, clouds, and orbiting high above the globe, if you're interested in someday wearing the above bio-spherrific design on your chest, feel free to read further in my portfolio section. Or you could go straight to the horse's mouth. Either way you'll have to be one of those nerdy internet types who click on things to go look at other things. What a nerd you are.

Whomp First

Wed, 27 May 2009 08:07:23 -0500

An Ambidextrous Comic

Contrary to the axiom, when confronted with conflict you don't have to choose between "shooting first" or asking a question. You have so many other options available. For instance, you could think of a joke to diffuse the situation. That's the beauty of humor. One moment, you're in terrible danger, and the next minute you and your foe are laughing in fits, arms around each other's shoulders, all conflict forgotten. Consider that next time you gun down that mountain lion in your living room, hmmm?

Subtext

Wed, 13 May 2009 06:57:35 -0500

Behind the Words

At first glance, one might think the above comic is a pretty straightforward reconstruction of a humorous fight in an ailing marriage. But you'd be wrong. You see, through the magic of subtext — by reading between the lines, watching their body language and evaluating just where the conversation goes against where it could go — we can deduce that this is actually an argument between brother and sister, and it's much more gross than it is funny.

Lately, I've been paying more and more attention to my interactions with people, and I've really started to notice how little I concentrate on what they are actually saying. Instead, I get my conversation cues almost entirely from subtext. And so, while before I'd place most of the blame for my poor conversation skills on my tendency to be easily distracted, I now have to admit that this near-total reliance on subtext is probably just as responsible.

Par example, here's a conversation between two normal people:

Rutherford: What a most fantastical day out today, hmmm?
Lexington: Oh rather! Why I believe I spotted a bluebird.
Rutherford: You don't say? Building a nest? Scarfing worms?
Lexington: Haha — no, this fine fellow was just resting on a branch, singing his little avian heart out.
Rutherford: Mating season, don't you know?
Lexington: Quite!
Rutherford: Quite.

Now, replace one of these people with me and you get:

Rutherford: What a most fantastical day out today, hmmm?
Kevin: (thinking Oh, he's trying to talk about the weather - that means he wants to talk but doesn't really know anything about me so he has to talk about something safe. Well, maybe I should mention something interesting about myself) I once broke my thumb while I was in a cast for a broken arm.
Rutherford: Oh... my... well... that's unfortunate.
Kevin: (thinking Uh oh. This seems to have made him uncomfortable. Maybe he's hurt himself before and it was traumatic, and now I've dredged up terrible memories. I better change the subject to something more lighthearted) You know what I enjoy? A nice bath.
Rutherford: Yes, well... a bath can be terribly exhilarating. Invigorates the constitution. Weather too.
Kevin: (thinking Aha! He seems to like baths! We can talk about baths!) You know the only problem with a bath is when you need to rinse your hair and you don't want to dunk your head in the water because it's all filthy so you have to put your head under the faucet but you can't bend forward very well so you end up hitting the back of your head on the faucet. Don't you hate that?
Rutherford: Oh, hum — quite. Ah! I believe I see my good friend Lexington. Tah!

Heheh... that was actually a pretty fun exercise... Hey! Let's replace Rutherford with another me!

Kevin: Hi Kevin! How was your day?
Kevin: I met a guy named Rutherford. He likes baths.
Kevin: Hey — don't forget you have a doctor's appointment at noon today.
Kevin: Ughh... You know what I hate about the doctor?
Kevin: Yes. So this Rutherford guy... how'd you meet him?
Kevin: We were in a comedy sketch together. I made him uncomfortable.
Kevin: The back rubs?
Kevin: NO. I don't do that anymore.
Kevin: Well... good. We can't afford another settlement.

Okay - now let's replace one of me with a Tyrannosaurus Rex:

Kevin: Hi—
Tyrannosaurus Rex: CHOMP! RAAAAAWWWWRRRRRR!

Haha! That was grody! Anyway... where was I? Oh yes. Subtext.

Subtext...

I forget how this was supposed to finish.

Okay, this time, we'll put Rutherford back in, but make the Tyrannosaurus six-inches tall:

Rutherford: What a most fantas—
Tinyosaurus Rex: CHOMP!
Rutherford: I say... you're a cheeky little fellow, aren't you?

Concept Art(icle)

Tue, 28 Apr 2009 03:00:00 -0500

Like Law But With Less Bars and More Drinking Yourself To Oblivion

Being an Illustrator is similar to being a Lawyer. What's that you say? No... Illustrators don't "thrive on the misfortune of others". What I mean to say is... uh... no, we don't "melt when doused in water"... no, we don't "suck human blood", either. Wow... you people really hate lawyers!

What I mean to say, is in the same way that there are Estate Lawyers, or Criminal Law Attorneys, or Divorce Attorneys, there are specialized types of Illustrators. Illustration is such a broad market that people usually have a concentration. They become Children's Book Illustrators, Medical Illustrators, or Editorial Illustrators. Or the Only Guy Allowed To Paint A Bottle of Coke.

Given the choice, I always thought it would be nice to be a concept artist. I really enjoy that process of bringing the unreal to reality. Plus, I'm the sort of artist who works better loose than tight. I prefer not to draw from reference, or do complex modeling to put a picture together. Rather, I just sort of put marks on the page until those marks look like something. It's like... putting together a puzzle. As you can imagine, this leads to a lot of erasing, and a lot of wrong lines. In concept art — art that's explorative in nature — this sort of effect doesn't hurt the finished product all that much.

To my great luck, I currently have three jobs that require a decent amount of concept art. And since these are the jobs that are taking precious time away from this site, I thought it only fair that they give a little something back.

The Nebulous Frontier

This first job is for an esteemed colleague's videogame. This particular game is future-iffic, as you can probably tell from this spaceship and the main article image. Before this, I rarely drew anything from the genre of Science Fiction, and I have to say it was pretty fun. It's always nice when you find these little pockets of "new" things that you've never drawn before. It's like discovering drawing all over again. Perhaps I'll try out Romance Novels next. I just happen to have the perfect model in mind. The chicks find him irresistable.

The Dim Ages

This next job takes place in a sort of... Middle Ages setting. I'd call it a "Fantasy" setting, but there will be no Unicorns. Or Decicorns. Or any other sort of corn for that matter. I've really just had it with corn. I'm sure you all agree.

Most of what I've concepted so far are buildings and certain characters. Of all these jobs, this one is probably the most in-depth, and will soon be taking up my life in a similar fashion that Benjamin Button did. So look out for more art, and possibly my heart attack.

It's Only Raining Dogs

As you've probably guessed, this last job requires dogs. I can't divulge much about this project, but I can make up a lie for you.

It seems all three of these dogs are Supreme Court Justices, but one of them is in bed with Big Tobacco. There's this massive cover-up, and at the end, when the guilty dog is revealed, the authorities whack him really hard on the fanny with a rolled-up U.S. Constitution.

Actually... this isn't too bad a story. Justice, Play Dead!, I'd call it.

Spread In Twenty

Fri, 10 Apr 2009 09:00:00 -0500

A Call To Simpler Times

Sometime last year, I decided to take a break from intensively drawn and painted sketchbooks and get back to more of a crude, quick-and-dirty book. I even got a Moleskine Notebook rather than the normal sketchbook, the notebook being comprised of thinnner, less-expensive paper to emphasize the "I just need to get this stuff out of my head and onto something made of pulp" look of the book.

All in all, it's been a refreshing change. For one thing, now I no longer have to hold a meeting with my brain to decide whether some new bit of information is worth sacrificing page space. Meetings with my brain are time-consuming and stressful, because he spends so much time at the beginning of the meeting talking about his weekend, and about how slow his neural synapses are in this weather.

But let's talk less about my brain and more about Beach Ranger Ferd.

I created Beach Ranger Ferd about two years ago (I think?) for a webcomic experiment¹ I was doing with Sutter and some other humor-laden friends. Essentially, each person took a different day to advance the story, which was a fun and intriguing approach, but it led to a lot of disagreement on how to treat the characters. For instance, barely a week after creating Ferd, he was killed off. This made developing his character harder. But it did free him up for work like the comic above.

The other side of this spread most prominently features Jeff Washington, Middle Management Monster, a character I created a long time ago², back when I had a real job. One of the things I liked the most about Jeff Washington was that he always seemed pretty overworked. Even being a creature of depthless horror doesn't free you from the stress of delegating responsibility, and delivering the unsavory mandates of the executive office.

Stan (coincidentally pictured on this page as well) was a fan of Jeff Washington. I think because I never drew Jeff with a closed mouth, leading Stan to believe his mouth hung open all the time, and when you stood near him you'd just get blasted with these hot, heavy breaths:

Footnotes

¹This comic shall remain unnamed here, mainly because it took us a while to work out the kinks, so it's difficult for the reader to get into, and I believe with just a few changes it can be more presentable, so I don't want to spoil it now. That being said, I'm sure someone will link to it anyway and make me look like a Jerk. Well... maybe my capitalization is a little harsh. Let's assume I'm a lowercase jerk.

²Jeff Washington is featured on a few pages in 100 Bearskinrug One-Offs. Specifically pages 7, 30, 51, 73, 98, 99 (by a guest draweree), and 101. And hey, Stabby McKnife is number 116...

Sigh.

You know what's a great feeling? When your art makes someone else so much more money than it could ever make you.

Okay... now I'm a capitalized Jerk.

Game Show

Wed, 25 Mar 2009 13:00:00 -0500

A Show-Stopping Show-Starting Idea

I've never been a fan of game shows. Something about them just doesn't appeal to me. When I was growing up, my mom watched Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune every night, and — being a kid and being obligated to watch as much TV as I could cram in — I'd watch as well. I suppose I kind of got into Jeopardy, but I stopped watching after that day in fifth grade when I answered a teacher in the form of a question. That was embarrassing. Though not as embarrassing as in second grade when I accidentally addressed the teacher as "Mom". Really.

I do think that I could invent a pretty good game show if I put my mind to it. Though I'm not sure what genre of show I'd make. There's trivia game shows, where people show how smart they are. Then there's action game shows, where people do feats of daring to win money and prizes. I also feel like there's a third genre, where people show how stupid they are, which then makes the viewer feel better about themselves. But perhaps I don't need to pick a genre... perhaps I can just combine all three.

For instance, how about a show where people are paid X amount of dollars to ruin public sporting events? Like, for $2000, you have to streak across the outfield during a Major League Baseball game. Or for a new car, you have to tackle the mascot at a basketball game, or better yet, you have to break into the announcer booth and steal the microphone, and recite 20 seconds of poetry. And then the final round would be winning $1,000,000 dollars or so, to crash the Olympics, and somehow trick them into letting you on the winner's stand to get a gold medal.

The possibilities here are endless. And what's more, it would finally give me a reason to watch sports again. I'm a little tired of having nothing to talk about with 95% of the American public.

North By Northeast

Fri, 13 Mar 2009 07:00:00 -0500

Spelunked Sketch Inspires Wretched Fest

This week, for the first time in two years, I find myself at home rather than attending South By Southwest. So, to make up for the education and camaraderie I'm missing in Austin, I decided to throw my own festival of learning here. I've rented out the fabulous "Abandoned Rat-Infested Mansion on Rydal Avenue" (pictured above), and convinced one of the nation's foremost authorities on Keynote Addresses to give the keynote address. I'll also be doing a presentation on Sunday entitled, "Making The Most of Misfortune: Escaping Into Lunacy." Afterwards I'll be signing breasts and volunteering in the dunk booth. The first 100 attendees get a free breast signing!

Doctor Mojo

Thu, 26 Feb 2009 09:08:11 -0500

A Summarized Version of Today's Article

[ Paragraph One: The Author is still getting his ass kicked by his herniated disc, and would rather not spend time writing.]

[Paragraph Two: Right now, the Author wouldn't mind being the protagonist of the above comic, and having absorbent stuffing instead of a spine.]

[Paragraph Three: In the above comic, I suppose the antagonist is the sandwich. Which the Author also wouldn't mind having.]

Toll House

Fri, 13 Feb 2009 16:01:38 -0500

The Gift of Gables

I put together this drawing for my brother-in-law this Christmas, for our Secret Santa. I imagine it to be a forgotten toll house, perched precariously on a cliff, barely clinging to a decrepit bridge no one crosses anymore. Of course, that's only what I think. Some people like to imagine it's a sunshine-filled bed and breakfast where cookie recipes are lovingly created. These people don't necessarily lack imagination. It's just that their imagination is hungry.

Infestation

Fri, 30 Jan 2009 11:37:56 -0500

Salvaging Scrap

Working on The Superest book these past few weeks, I've produced quite a lot of scrap paper. I doodled this little sequence on two pieces trimmed away from a watercolor. It depicts a scene from my favorite fable, "The Tortoise and the Hare". This is after the race, when all the Tortoise fans riot, and attempt to loot the homes of the more upper-class giants.

Dracula Retires

Tue, 20 Jan 2009 05:35:27 -0500

Curse of the Sciatic Nerve

This past several days I've had very similar habits to a vampire. Sleeping all day. Up at night. Sporting an ashen, almost chalky complexion. Of course, all these new habits were the result of throwing out my back, rather than mythic immortal androgyny. And while the live-wire buzz of a pinched nerve is no picnic, the real downside has been that it's nearly impossible to draw while I lay on my back. But luckily I'm able to stand again, so I can only assume the rest of my life will soon return to normal — which is good because I can't keep drinking all this blood. It's staining my crowns.

Mer Old Maid

Fri, 09 Jan 2009 06:58:51 -0500

Fluff Kerfuffle

Once again, I find myself entering production on not just one but two books as I enter January. And since my petition to have Earth's rotation slowed to 30 hours has fallen on deaf ears, it looks like I'll just need to find other areas in which to save time. So I'm taking the advice of one Santos Maria J., who suggests that I just share art every now and then, instead of taking days and days to write fluff. Granted, he didn't actually say "don't write fluff". I just added that now. This is the kind of fluff he's not talking about, I guess.

So today I thought I'd share a painting I that I started this summer, and then forgot about. This image was actually re-purposed numerous times. Initially it was a vector design for a t-shirt, but after thinking it would actually make a pretty nice painting, I abandoned the vector version and put brush to board. Then, in the midst of working on the painting, I decided it would be a pretty good image for a promo card. However, as months passed by and I was still only half-done, I abandoned the promo card idea.

Sometime around August I had worked and reworked this image so many times that I finally reached my threshold of despair and disgust and hid it away. Until now. Because by now I've forgotten all the things that bothered me. Let that be a lesson to you... just because you hate every single stroke you put down in a painting doesn't mean it's not working. It probably just doesn't look how you intended it to look.

For the full view of this painting, check it out in the gallery section.

Resolve

Wed, 31 Dec 2008 09:00:00 -0500

An Ambidextrous Comic

I think in the New Year, I resolve to finally investigate that horrible wailing sound in the attic. I may need to call up that house inspector again and have him take a look.

Although, when I think about it... I don't think I ever wrote him a check for his services.

And... I actually don't remember him giving me the results of the inspection.

You know what? I think he might have gone out of business. I know he abandoned his van, because it's been in our driveway for about a month now.