Bearskinrug Articles

The Fifteen Collage

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 07:45:32 -0500

Ornithology Made Ornithillogical

Today I decided to kill birds.

I know what you're thinking. "Kevin, you'll need several stones to accomplish that!". But, being a scholar and a gentleman at the end of his rope with ants in his pants and an ear for idioms, I have come to understand that it is possible to kill several birds with one stone. This seems like an optimal strategy. Now, normally the birds I hunt are scattered across the forest. But today I realized I could just put all the birds in one tree, and then... I guess... throw the stone... at the tree?

Goddammit. I should never have started this analogy. Now you're all confused. SKETCHES! THE BIRDS ARE A METAPHOR FOR SKETCHES! I PUT A BUNCH OF SKETCHES SPREAD ACROSS SEVERAL PAGES ONTO ONE PAGE SO THEY CAN BE ENJOYED ALL AT ONCE! Jeezum Crow!

These particular sketches are from Sketchbook Fifteen, which dates from the Spring of 2006. Which explains all the out-of-date jokes in the collage. For instance, these days kung-fu masters don't all need to live at the Shaolin Monastery to train. Increased bandwidth capacity and video conferencing allows these masters to shatter bones and explode organs in the comfort of their own living room or office environment.

Regardless of their age, I'm hoping these simple sketches can provide entertainment, with a little courageous eye movement from you and commentary from me. Oh, and since I know you're already complaining the above image is way too small, I have provided a slightly larger version for you here. Enjoy!

Collage Commentary

This is scene from that movie where Mojo's family is captured by the Samurai overlords and he goes to the temple to train with a renowned kung-fu master and his first task is to fight off scores of students with only an ice cream cone but he accidentally eats the cone and thus learns that his true enemy is his own gluttony. Honestly, it was a horrible movie. I just did it for that Lead Gaffer credit!
This is the definition of the word Aposiopesis. I'll use it in a sentence. "So there I was, trapped by the Hippopotomas Queen when—"
Here we see a man drinking from a fire extinguisher, which is a horrible idea unless he just swallowed a fire, in which case it's a good idea. Unless it was a grease fire, which means he should be swallowing a blanket.
Back around the time of this sketchbook, I was taking a letterpress course (the same one these fine folks took). I drew my instructions for setting your type in the press bed. At least I think it's called the press bed. I didn't pay much attention. It was during this time that I learned that no matter the amount of interest I have in the subject, if you put me back in an educational environment, I resort to my schoolboy ways. I disregarded homework; I ignored the teacher and wasted my time doodling; I even called up Lois Hopper and asked her to the Junior Dance. This time she actually said yes, but then I was informed that the dance was 15 years ago and that I'm not allowed to date. Wives. Am I right, fellas?
One of the few things I did learn in that letterpress class is that Dan Mall is an unstoppable eating machine, and consequently wastes nearly 50% of his day actively putting food in his mouth. So I invented an amazing solution. You may have noticed Dan won the Nobel Prize for Greatness? All my doing.
This is just a fellow who is entirely hands. Even his feet are hands. You and five other friends can all greet him at the exact same time.
This is Lemburton Leigh. His only goal in life is to iron things. I didn't have enough room to fit in his name, but inside the "O" in Lemburton there's an iron. Other items of note that contain iron at their very center are the Earth, My Uncle Harlan's left tibia, and Tootsie Pops for robot trick-or-treaters.
Here's a little drawing trick from a professional illustrator. You can drastically cut down on the amount of human anatomy you need to draw if you always draw people standing in water. Up until college, every family Christmas Card I ever drew was set in a nativity scene that had mysteriously flooded.
Mojo's favorite pizza actual is pretty good, but you can't find many pizza places qualified enough to make it. Soviet judges are notoriously stingy with their 6.0's.
Science fiction writers are often exploring the ethical questions of the future. For instance, is it morally wrong to fall in love with a robot? I suspect it's fine, unless it's your neighbor's robot wife. That's double-coveting.
Wow, another opportunity for a coveting joke. Good job, Kev. Nothing fills the seats like Bible humor. Keep 'em coming, stupid.
This was the idea for a story where a man goes deep-sea diving only to find a gopher has stowed away in his suit. That's the end of the first act, and then it goes into this thing where the gopher is searching for his father. But in order to bring the father into the scene I had to have him trapped in a diving suit as well, and then suddenly I'm bringing in all these other woodland creatures to resolve the plot which means I have to have all of them trapped in a diving suit and then I got fifty characters to keep an eye on and half of them are just people in diving suits standing around and then it's like "What the hell, is this like an underwater wedding? Why are all these people diving here?" and before you know it this is a 750 page children's book. So I scrapped it. But I have this other idea which is pretty marketable — "Everyone Vomits".

Curse Of The Mummy

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 09:04:17 -0500

Going Nuts About Nuts

Here's the situation I've found myself in for the last few days. Halloween is fast approaching. I greatly enjoy posting holiday-themed comics. So I sat down to think of a good Halloween comic. Now, I've been doing these for a couple years now. The easy ideas have all come and gone. Thinking up a new one is getting difficult. And I want to do a one-off, which are a more challenging to construct than a multi-panel comic. But, I persevere, and come up with one idea that gives me a chuckle. And yet, I hesitate to post it.

The problem is the kind of joke it is. It is a filthy joke, and I am trying to quit the filthy joke.

Now, I'm not some sort of prude. I've made my share of filthy jokes, and worked extensively in the related sub-genres. The Bathroom Joke. The Sex Joke. My core competency was Genital-Focused Humor, with brief forays into Micturational Studies, Lampooned Copulation, and a fellowship in the Theory of Excremental Delight. And I was happy there, for a time.

But as I've gotten older, and sought to hone my craft, I've found these genres to be less and less fulfilling. There's nothing challenging about a filthy joke. There will always be someone who finds it funny, not for anything special I impart, but merely because they will always laugh at the subject matter. It's the comedy equivalent of feeding a squirrel a nut. No matter what nut you give it, no matter the quality, no matter how it's prepared, the squirrel will take it. These days, what I want to do is feed a squirrel a steak. That is the true challenge.

So.

Here I am... sitting on a perfectly fine joke. I've shown it to Kim. She laughed. And that's not an easy task these days, since we've been married long enough that she no longer has to pretend I'm delightful and witty. But this joke... it's a nut. It's definitely a nut. And no amount of polish can turn this baby into a sirloin. And the squirrels are hungry, for they are always hungry.

I'm...

I'm sorry...

I'm just not strong enough.

The Spoils Of Neglect

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 14:37:53 -0500

People Who Live In Glass Houses...

There's no question about it. This is an classic example of poor parenting. But then again, who am I to point fingers? As parent of this very site, I have fallen behind in its feeding schedule. And now, to make up for my negligence, I will have to force feed it multiple project updates at once. This is good news for those of you interested in the abridged adventures of man who — hour after hour, day after day — sits very still while his hand moves very fast.

Hmmm. That was poorly phrased. When I referenced my hand moving fast, I was referencing the act of drawing, not the act of self-satisfaction. Which isn't to say I don't find drawing equally if not more self-satisfying. It's really hard to beat.

That was also poorly phrased.

Biggest Apple

A couple months ago, good friend and fellow Wodehouse enthusiast Kirk Peterson commissioned me to do the masthead for the next incarnation of his blog, www.biggestapple.net. The idea was to draw up an apple in its natural environment. So I drew a majestic orchard, as pictured above. Later, he pointed out that what I drew didn't look like an orchard at all. And apples don't have bodies. He requested I change it. We quarreled. There was a struggle. I killed him, and hired an exact double to pose as Kirk, and no one has been the wiser! Keep it under your cap, friend!

Mental Notes

Mr. Stephen Anderson has thought of an excellent tool for helping the average man create something quite above-average. A few weeks ago he began promoting Mental Notes, a set of cards tying psychological insights to design practices. Looking to perhaps increase the amount of profane content, he asked if I could do an illustration to accompany each card. I turned the job down. We quarreled. Stephen killed me and replaced me with a more cooperative double. And if I do say so myself, a more handsome and athletic one. That old Kevin's back was a mess. And he quarreled with everyone.

If you're interested in a set of your own, you can pre-order them at getmentalnotes.com, at a fine discount. Need more incentive? I guarantee that at least one of the cards will have a picture of a firetruck. A FIRETRUCK! How can you turn that down!?

The Superest Book

The Superest book continues its inexorable march to publication. Matt and I recently received our "galley" copies, which are sort of a test book, printed and bound without the cover attached. It has nothing to do with the popular ship design of the ancient world. Unless these books were bound by Phoenician slaves to the ominous doom-doom-doom beat of a kettle drum. Obviously, much of the world of publishing remains a mystery to me. More on the book to come in the following weeks. I believe it should be out for the gift-giving season, but don't quote me on that.

Blue Collar

Now, diligent readers may have already be aware of this, but I've recently put together some illustrations for a new agency based out of Oregon, called Blue Collar. I encourage you to check out their site, hire them, and reap their creativity. Or, at the very least, enjoy their stop-motion animation intro.

Speaking of which, if you're a fan of stop-motion, like me, take my advice. Increase your blink rate to 24 times a second. The whole world will be like your own personal Peter Gabriel video!

Maisonneuve

This year, I had the good fortune to be contacted by Maisonneuve magazine, and asked to contribute a set of illustrations in the style of the Signal Flares work I did for the good folks at Coudal a couple years ago. If you've never read an issue of Maisonneuve, you're missing out on some great reading. As entertainment goes, I'd say it's "High" to "Super-high" on the notch scale. What the hell, let's just say "Top". Top-notch!

Conversational Fodder

So, hopefully that gives you some things to talk about at the next dinner party you have with my parents. They'll be all like, "So what's Kevin doing these days?" And you can say, "I don't really know. Something about self-satisfying Phoenician slaves? I don't know. I was just skimming the article for a Mojo comic." And then my Mom will be like, "Oh, a Momo comic, what are those?" And you'll just sort of smile and nod, and take another swedish meatball, and say, "Ooopsy-doops! I think my date needs me..."

Then you'll probably sneak upstairs to the bedroom to grab your coat, and laugh at my high-school picture. Dammit! I told them to take that down.

You know, back then, that was a cool haircut.

Beach Battle

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 10:29:10 -0500

Sandcastles In The Air

As the summer months fade like ghosts from our minds, I decided to, like some sort of EPA malcontent, shut down the ghost containment facility and unleash summer memories upon the world.

Which is an elaborate way of saying... this comic is from the summer. Though in truth, I actually had to redraw and recolor it this week for posting, since the original was hastily scrawled in my sketchbook while lounging on the beach, and the last frame wasn't even drawn, only written.

This is not just my comic however. It was written by myself, and Mssrs. Sutter and Dalkner*. As the archives can attest to, every so often the three of us (or Mr. Weychert) collaborate on a comic, and more often than not I've shared the results.

Hopefully, you were busy raking leaves when you read this comic, or doing some other Fall activity. I truly believe that is really the only way to experience the most enchanting aspects of the seasons — while in the middle of a completely different season. It's very hard to walk out of the house during fall and say "Ooh — I appreciate Fall". You're probably distracted by the dampness, or the increased schoolbus traffic, or bizarre, slimy mushrooms growing in places you don't want them. But mere months ago, in the midst of the heat and humidity of summer, if you walked outside and it was cool and crisp and fragrant, then you probably thought "Oooh! I miss Fall." You probably wished you had a mushroom just then, to hurl at a group of children boarding a schoolbus.

So, I hope this comic has brought back those summer memories for you. Or, if you're in Australia, think of this as a vision of the future, and consider Sutter, Pete and I some trio of far-seeing Shakespearian witches. Which isn't that far from the truth since we all pitched in on that cauldron. And that house landed on Pete.

*Whoops! Mr. Ian Corey also deserves a writing credit! Sorry Ian!

Monstrous Potential

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 06:38:35 -0500

Home Invasion

A couple of days ago, I had the strangest experience.

See, I was just sitting at my computer, working, when I heard this tip-tapping outside my office door. Slow, plodding footsteps. But not the kind of sound a shoe would make. The footfall of a bare foot. With clawed feet. Coming closer. Closer. I stopped working. I looked up at the door.

And there it was. A monster!

Or so I imagined. It turned out to actually be a slowly skulking Ernie. And, of course, I know monsters don't exist, so it's not like I actually thought there would be one. Hehe.

And yet.

I just couldn't stop seeing this monster. I looked down the hallway, and imagined it in my living room, just standing there, looking around, its yellowy eyes wandering the walls, until they settled slowly on the hallway. On me. Our eyes lock — it sees me. Terrifying!

When I was a kid, this is what my nightmares were like. Things didn't eat me, hit me, bite me, serve me subpeonas, or anything. They did nothing, which for some reason is infinitely more scary to me. The potential monstering that exists in that moment is much more frighting than the kinetic monstering that goes on afterwards.

But, I'm an adult now, or at least a guy who pretends to be one so he can drink. So this big blue vision didn't send me crying into my parent's bed like the old days, no sir. Anyway, that's like a 45-minute drive.

Instead, I decided to share my experience, and capture the beast on paper, so that later on I would be able to better explain to Kim that, not only am I hallucinating, but that those hallucinations are funded entirely by the Children's Television Workshop.

And so it was done. But having trapped this monster on paper, to my surprise, another appeared! Again, I netted the terrifying beast:

And still they kept coming. Ernie, alerted to an invader in the house, rushed to my aid!

Dammit. That's going to leave a messy stain.

Of course, while these little exercises are fun, they don't really capture the seed of fear from which they're born. There's something about translating the images in my mind to the page. They lose their power. My fears turn to farce. Which is actually a handy trick, and one I wish I had learned when I was a kid.

As I've mentioned before, one of my tactics for dealing with the monsters outside my window was to tear open the curtains and press my face against the glass in gesture of open defiance, and at the same time, open surrender. It worked poorly to calm my fears, and I have to imagine it might have done more harm than good. I suspect one or two of my neighbors came to fear waking up in the middle of the night to see that creepy Cornell kid mashing his face up against the window and screaming silently. I was probably their monster.

This is an interesting notion, especially on the cusp of a startling realization I had the other day. That indeed (a) I am a monster, and (b) so are you.

Going Public

I was having one of those moments where I was comparing myself to others, and falling short in every category. Now, this isn't necessarily some activity I do consciously. It's not like I have a whiteboard with everyone I've ever met listed on it. Well, actually I do have that. But that's just a simple listing of social security numbers and mother's maiden names. Anyway, this self-comparing... it's an unconscious thing you do. While you're washing dishes or picking your nose or something. Just a little exercise your mind goes through to help keep humanity from returning to divine-right monarchy.

So, like I said, my brain enacts this self-evaluation game. And I have to say I hate when it does that, because it takes away from precious brainpower I need for unitasking, and it always makes me feel like crap about myself. But luckily, this day, I finally had a life-changing epiphany. There I was, comparing myself to several much taller, stronger, smarter, and nicer people when I suddenly realized — boof! bam! — I'm playing the game all wrong!

See, I was thinking about the private me. The me no one ever sees, to whose every deep dark secret I am privy. The one who hurls curses at pots and pans and wet tupperware, who callously jokes about a monster crushing his dog, who teeter-totters between fantasies of violent retribution or indomitable sexual conquest. Essentially, a monster.

But the public Kevin. He's a different guy. Polite. Accomodating. Empathetic. Just the sort of well-behaved individual he needs to be so that he can get along with others. That's how society works. We all trade in a little of our selfish, aggressive, and otherwise beastly characteristics so that we can have jobs, friends, families and significant others. And for the most part, everyone is like this... there's a public version. And a private version.

The problem was, I was playing the comparison game and comparing the private me to the public everyone else. And you'll always look really bad when you make that comparison. And the worst part is, because you never really get to know the private versions of other people, the game is pretty much rigged from the start.

A Healthy Trade-Off

Since then, I'm glad to say that my brain has initiated the comparison game very few times, and when it does, it doesn't get very far before I call foul and end it. I have to say, it's really been a nice change of pace to not beat myself up over every little imperfection. And really, if the only repercussion from stifling my brain's natural tendency to self-evaluate is a horrible Muppet-esque hallucination every now and then, well, I'll learn to live with that.

Unless... what's actually happening is that I'm suddenly able to see the private everyone else. And they're just hanging out in my house. Watching me. All the time.

You know what? I think I just might sneak out for a relaxing 45-minute drive. No reason.

MoZap!Jo And The Janitor

Thu, 13 Aug 2009 14:12:15 -0500

All Cleaning All The Time

Now, I know what you're thinking. My last post was about vacuum robots... what's going on? Is it just going to be cleaning jokes all the time from now on?

And the answer is... yes.

I recently sold the entire Bearskinrug Intellectual property to a prominent household cleaner manufacturer. All of us here are extremely excited about the prospect.

For years, we here at Bearskinrug have been just chomping at the bit to get a little corporate sponsorship, to help foot the bills.

And now, finally, we can deliver top quality Bearskinrug content on a thrice-daily basis, and all it cost was the occasional advertising message, subtly tucked into articles, rss feeds, merchandise, the logo, and my DNA.

I hope you enjoy the upcoming changes on BearZap!Rug, and we look forward to helping you meet both your humor and mildew removal needs!

Synthetic Sympathies

Mon, 27 Jul 2009 11:10:07 -0500

Edams Are From Mars, Roqueforts Are From Venus

A couple of weeks ago, I was at a party. Specifically, a cheese party. And at this joyous union of human and curd, I noticed that my gracious hostess owned a cleaning robot — a real one, unlike my fictionalized concoction in the above comic. You've probably seen these robot vacuums before. They look like a sort of over-sized high-tech hockey puck. If it turned out one of the exotic wheels of cheese at the party was from outer-space, you'd naturally assume the vacuum was their ship.

At one point during the night, the robot was activated, and the little guy cheerily began his cleaning regimen. Now, if you're unfamiliar with how these marvels of science work, they zip about the room, following a virtual map that they create as they go along. They "learn" the dimensions of the room and all the places that they can and can't get to. Dogs do something similar, but rather than cleaning, they just sort of seek out the best spot to eat the wall.

Anyway, as I was saying, the cheesewheel spaceship starts up. And he doesn't make it more than a couple of inches before he runs into the feet of a party-goer. And he stops, presumably making a little note for himself on his virtual map. He turns and toddles off another couple of inches. Bump. Another party-goer. Another little note for himself. Turn, bump, note. Turn, bump, note. And at this point, you can see he's really losing confidence. Turn, bump. Turn, bump. Is this the same room? Turn, bump. The obstacles are moving! Turn, bump. I've been abducted!

Now he's visibly panicked. After a few more frenetic bumps and turns he manages to scoot under the coffee table, where he spends the next couple of minutes hiding and emitting occasional mechanized whirs and hums, rising desperately in pitch. A robot scream.

This, of course, is the side of robotics we never expect. We hear the term "robot" and picture these efficient, super-smart machines that will outperform us at every turn. But when you really interact with a robot, they come off as kind of pitiful. Interacting with a robot is a lot more like accommodating an enfeebled grandparent or mentally-challenged sibling than matching wits with an equal. You go to Chuck E. Cheese, and the animatronic band is performing to a completely empty room. That's really sad when you think about it. They don't even realize that their entire fan base left. The Pizza Time Players should be back in the studio, mixing their next album, or maybe each working on a solo project, or trekking across India in hopes of finding inner peace with an animatronic guru. But instead they stand there tragically and obliviously rocking on. It breaks your heart. They will never ever get signed.

On the bright side of all this, the grim Terminator-style future where robots hunt us like mice seems like a scenario I will never experience . Even should deadly robots arise in my lifetime, I feel confident that they will have weaknesses not unlike the cheesewheel spaceship. I should be able to just tiptoe out of the room quietly, unnoticed, while it mercilessly blasts a sawed-off shotgun into my floor lamp over and over and over and over...

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.