Working on an artist’s statement for grad school… That seems to be the first step, even as a prerequisite for getting letters of recommendation. It’s very difficult to find any kind of unifying theme in what I’ve been working on. I suppose that in itself could be spun into some kind of coherent whole, but the phrasing - Aye, there’s the rub. In the mean time, brainstorming them on a sheet of paper will suffice. I have a few ideas, but I don’t want to spill the beans just yet for fear of seeming unforgivably haughty… But I suppose any artist’s statement worth the electrons expended to write it needs to exercise its creator’s command of culture to the utmost…
Working on a comic for some film producers in Australia at the moment, as well as illustrations for SparkNotes, and Ex Occultus for St. James. All in all, my time is well-occupied.
Been a little under the weather this past week, but it seems to have crested and I should be back to my regular ebullient self before too long.
Just got a big new scanner that’ll let me digitize things that were previously too big, so a couple paintings and drawings have been put up. Go check ‘em out.
It’s pretty much true (Maybe I can make a costume out of them later! Beep boop I am a robot…) and I’m thinking that’s the title for this thing I squeezed out this morning during breakfast. I was playing around with making hexagons on the computer, and a tool that lets you erase only specific line segments, and liked the pattern I created enough that I colored it in:
I will probably put it in the Digital section later, but I just wanted to get it up.
Just a blog sonar ping to confirm my existence. This blog has a deadman switch that will cause it to explode if I don’t post every so often (I’m guessing, I dunno how this works).
I had a great holiday season and 2010 is looking up both career and personal-wise. I’m very busy, and I hope I stay that way. Also thinking about giving up some different kind of vice or indulgence every month and then pitching a graphic novel about it at the end of the year.
I am also growing an enormous beard, because it is cold outside, and I want to see how big it gets by springtime. I have not shaved since November 1st, except for my neck and some trimming, and I will post pictures before I shave it off.
Just uploaded some of the pages I’ve been doing for Saint James Comics to the Comics (!) section, so go check them out to see a bit of a different style. I removed the dialog as a courtesy and so that you’ll go check out their site (it’s cool!)
Did a stand up comedy set at a nearby establishment last night, and someone was there taping it, so if I get ahold of that footage I’ll put it up here. I don’t know if I “killed,” but it was a low-energy night for everyone and I did pretty well, considering.
In other news, this is very impressive and you should watch it:
If anyone ever tells you that you can’t painfully injure yourself while pooping, they’re mistaken. Sorely mistaken. (Wordplay!)
I brought up Elvis, however, to also serve as a segue into another, very different blast from the past:
I was organizing my art files earlier, and found this old, old, old drawing I did in perhaps 5th grade, showing my drawing fixation from around the ages of 9 to 12, which was centered around massive cartoon battles between Gary Larson-style lemmings and incompetent little robots with laser guns for hands:
This was essentially all I drew between 3rd and 6th grades. I had an art teacher who loved the idea, though, calling me, in my report card, the “Heironymus Bosch of the 5th grade” and encouraged me do a massive poster in this style for the centerpiece of the Parents’ Night exhibit, which was a really great idea if you wanted my friends’ parents to forbid me to come over. Every once in a while, I look back fondly on these characters and think about using them again. There’s something refreshingly basic and silly and honest about them, a certain something that makes me think that Modern Me is occasionally trying too hard.
Then, a few months ago, I saw “Superjail!,” and it all came flooding back - This is exactly what my little friends and I used to sit around and draw on massive sheets of paper. We rarely achieved the levels of blood and gore that Superjail! casually enjoys, but the simple, zoomed-out “schematic” look full of incidental detail and improvisation hits all the same notes, and for me it was like hearing a once-favorite song I hadn’t thought about in years. As an example, here’s a compilation of the opening sequences, demonstrating that sensibility:
There is a certain type of kid who should see “Superjail!” Not that you should show it to them - you as a responsible adult would get in trouble - but they should find a way to watch it some late night after their parents have gone to bed and they’ve build a couch fort in the living room. There’s something childlike yet illicit about it: It’s the TV equivalent of the older boys asking you if you want to go see a dead body. It’s the kind of thing being talked about in this essay, or in this book.
Maybe that’s all self-justification for my liking something that’s ultimately frivolous, just because, somewhat worryingly, it makes me feel all nostalgic and gooey. But there’s something to be said for reconnecting with that little kid who was just drawing lemmings and robots without any thought of whether it was good or not - Just drawing for the sake of drawing - for “fun”, that unassailable fortress of sincerity - the very act lending it an authenticity that disintegrates into ash as soon as it becomes something calculated.
…The irony, of course, being that this entire post boils down to “don’t overthink things.” I’m going to take my own advice and get back to work, and draw with my gut instead of my head.
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