Something In the Air

Happy Birthday Pablo Picasso! Today, October 25, 2009 is the 298th day of the year there are 67 days remaining. Its amazing how quickly time slips through our fingers, isn't it? Well, with the winter settling in I wanted to take some time to talk about something that has always tickled my spine, which nearly always happens in the winter. I feel a spirit of curiousity, surrealism, whimsy, adventurousness, and nostalgia take hold of me. Well to be accurate, I think I should say that this feeling had been suppressed for quite some time, I believe in connection with my smoking habit. It has nearly been a year since I quit, and now I definitely feel those expectant shivers of inspiration arising.

It seems also as though this feeling has often accompanied being sick. Its a lot like a wriggly nervousness within your body, and a sudden awe-struckenness that precludes the experience of enjoyable things. It can at times be overwhelming and send you into inexplicable melancholy or weepiness. It can make you crave a soft embrace, or a long yearning gaze into the night sky. It often drives you into solitude, and finds annoyance with brash, overbearing attitudes or superficiality. It is probably the gayest thing you have ever felt.

LOL.

Take that for what you will, but it is quite real, and full of feverish ecstacy. I used to call this my inspirational mode, and now it has arisen.


This week I have Raymond Carver's Where I'm Calling From on loan from the library for the 2nd week. I have only read the first story. I picked up (on Saturday): Time Bandits (again), Girl in Hyacinth Blue by Susan Vreeland on audio cd, The original radio broadcasts of The Shadow on audio cd, and Invincible Ultimate Collection Volume 1. I had set down an audio cd of some novel about the last days of Pompei after seeing that it was an abridged version, but I may go back and pick it up. Maybe when Graham Greene's The Comedians comes in (and hopefully The Time Traveler's Wife with it!). This reinterest with full text novels, I suppose, was precipitated by reviewing my living social booklist and it comparing it to a friend's list.

John Carrera lovingly obsessed about these engravings and hand-made thousands of books. Better yet, he documented this process so that we may all fall in love with the craft of bookmaking all over again. The Pictorial Webster's is a masterpiece!

Pictorial Webster's: Inspiration to Completion from John Carrera on Vimeo.

This caricature map of 1914 Europe by Keith Thompson is just one example of the beauty of ostranenie.

I love these cut-out comics by Philippa Rice. My Cardboard Life is good clean fun.

I recently discovered GeGeGe No Kitaro, the book of Yokai Anatomy, and this awesome scroll through a drawn tweet. That's a three-for!

Okay I better stop for now because by now Sunday Afternoon has definitely come and gone. I'm sorry I keep getting these out late. I'll try to get things back up to speed soon. Have a happy Sunday and a great week!

Get outta mah hayd Chawles!

I've been sick. Bleh.

Do you remember Charley Parker? No not The Bird, who was one of the greatest to ever hold the sax, but the creator of Argon Zark! and host of Lines and Colors. Well thanks to Mr. Parker, I discovered a stream of classic illustrators I had never before heard of including: Arthur Rackham, Kay Nielsen, and yet another Charles, Charlie Robinson.

But it all started with Charles Vess. Sigh. Darkhorse is putting out a 200-page retrospective of Charles Vess' 30+ year career called Drawing Down the Moon. Check the link for the free preview. I highly recommend searching your local library for Stardust or Moonshadow, which are both equally excellent pieces of fantasy literature!

Hey Charles Xavier! I drew you. You know you love how I turned him into a flaming mohawk punkster in a suit.

Also I drew this random assortment of doodles, beginning with the far left femme bot. It was inspired by John Allison's tweet about Russian mail order bride spam bots. I then progressed to the skully guy, random guy with a polo shirt, then bald guy with bald heads orbiting him, dragon, then amazon with flowers by her feet.


Ray Frenden told me about Eric Carl's blog.

I stumbled upon daily scans, which has proven to be adequately entertaining and quirky. Man stumbleupon can do no wrong as far as I'm concerned. From daily scans I learned about Kaare Andrews and Spiderman: Reign. Neat stuff.

Oh yes, I also made a run to the library and picked up: Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo, the American remake of Funny Games, and Yukio Mishima's Patriotism. I also am taking a second crack at Raymond Carver's Where I'm Calling From, and a first crack at Comic Book Design by Gary Spencer Millidge. I've lately wondered if I might need to read more books that rely on words more than pictures to convey their meaning. I do consider myself something of a scholar of sequential image literature, but why must I be so exlusively interested? Holy Moley it's late, and I still need to get myself prepped for the coming week. Did I mention that I am back in a temporary job? Pretty cool people I work with, decent hours, and I'm allowed to listen to my zune all day. The unfortunate thing is the strain the work puts on my delicate artist's fingers. lol. I wonder how many artists truly had delicate hands. I'm sure a pictorial spread of artists hands would reveal a hetergenous mix of weathered phalanges.

Okay, that enough for now. Sorry so late today. I love you.

Double Drivel

Welcome back for round 2!!

http://www.corrieweb.nl/amazon/historicax14.htm

Dueling Dames is a pretty awesome record of women of yore who threw down the white gloves.



Speaking of duels, the votes have been tallied and the final battle in Monsieur Boivin's series is here.

Hulu continues to envelop the universe by hosting complete serials including all 152 episodes of Fist of the Northstar! Whaaaaaaat? In all reality Hokuto no Ken translates into something more like fist of the big dipper, but whatevs dude . . . Eighties babies remember what we remember. Besides would you really feel intimidated by somebody called Fist of the Big Dipper----I mean aside from the homoerotic connotations?

I should have left that one alone.

Well, I'm pretty much out of things to say and it's now Monday, so I'll see y'all next Sunday.

Tardy in the USA

Hathbanger - Party in the USA/Party and Bullshit


It cracks me up how well this goes together. Reminds me of 90's era Mariah Carrey R&B/Rap crossovers.

So a happy Sunday to everybody. I'm going to really have to eat my hat on this one. I got my sleeping cycle really mixed up Saturday and made two failed attempts to stay up late enought to correct them. Add to that I am physically sore and exhausted from a new temp job and you have the scheduling disaster that is my life this weekend. 5pm and I haven't bought my groceries, done my laundry, nor scribed the SAN you all wait so patiently through the week for!

So bear with me while I try to scrawl something passable.

This first is a preview of an illo I like to call Nicodemons, chronicling the joyously satiated goblins that come with a cigarette habit.


This other is the preview of a sketch I did on a whim based on a short story my bestfriend wrote about a mutual friend of ours. It was called Paper Monsters, and boy it was the shi-


I have another forthcoming page of random doodles further demonstrating the return of my mojo, yet paradoxically illustrating my poor sense of anatomy, composition, and restraint. I promise to post that one and perhaps others tonight when all the living life stuff has been squared away. So you know what that makes today? Double Post Sunday! Yaaaaay!

But before I go anywhere I have to share the extraordinary musical gift in Danielasings:





I'd say that's amazing for a girl whose still in highschool!

Magical Thinking

10-4 good buddy! I just had to say that.

I hope you all are enjoying your Sunday wherever you are. Another Sunday being unemployed makes me want to bury my face in my pillow, kick my feet around, and force myself into sleep until Monday. But that would just be a terrible way to be, and I can't let that happen. Y'know, for the children's sake.

Take a ride with me.

America Now by Brad Neely



Mameshiba!


Yes these are great, I know! Magical, no? Y'know I've heard that term magical thinking thrown around here and there for a few years and just never took much stock in what it meant. My initial assessment is that it is used by rationalists and skeptics to indicate a type of everyday psychosis which may or may not be harmful to someone's well being. For instance, does it serve me good or bad to believe a series of minor mishaps can make a day of important decisions disastrous? Should I put off the decision, or charge headlong in optimistic defiance? Would stronger optimism have prevented or lessened the impact of the mishaps? Trying to rationalize around our behavior & what we should expect of ourselves seems a lot like trying to cut one's own hair. It might be possible to do it right, but then again we can't make our eyes orbit our head independently.

Hmmmmmm . . .

So my wonderful announcement of the weekend is that I overcome a bout of nervousness and met one of my internet crushes, Kina Grannis!



And let me tell you, she is just as sweet and wonderful in person as she seems over the internet. I've never known another rising celebrity to be as personable as she is. From the personalized shout outs and messages she creatively works into her videos, to her constant contact with fans through Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, and Youtube, this is one phenomenal woman! She remembered me from twitter right off the bat, which contributed to the beet-red hue in my goofball smiling mug above. Oh, and I also fumbled with my Zi6 to take some video, but based on the excessive shaking and zip-panning I'm convinced I had a seizure while taking it. And my voice jumped two octaves while talking to her. You will never see this footage

I may start writing Kina Grannis facts (in the style of Chuck Norris facts) to the tune of: Kina Grannis' smile regularly disarms terrorist cells upon contact.

Also I have a few doodlies to share:







http://www.optimumwound.com/artist-michael-cho-on-putting-in-his-time-at-the-board.htm Michael Cho is a man worthy of acclaim.

I will be opening up a shop soon where you can buy original prints and other neat stuff. Until that launch I will be taking commission, and as always donations are greatly appreciated. Have a great Sunday everybody!