hellomightydog

I gave Bayou to my mom.

Here's the color version of that flyer I posted last week:



I think I like it better in black and white. Ah well.

But let's talk about something more important. The sluggy vs. chicken man contest! Here are the entries / winners:

1. i_boy gets the Collaborative Sequential Art award! Why, together we've practically made a damn comic. Here's his entry:


2. holly_bees gets the Best Interpretive Character Design award! FUCK THE SOURCE MATERIAL. MAKE IT YOUR OWN.


3. 8bit gets the Beverage Out of Nose award! It should be of note the piece is called Battleground: Prom.


I love em. What do you guys want as prizes?

Here's a show flyer I've been working on. They wanted black and white ('cause that's how metal bands do, I guess) but I'm making a pretty rad color version of it right now! Ha! Metal. They wanted monsters attacking a city. I'll bet they weren't expecting Sluggy and Chicken Man!

SLUGGY VS. CHICKEN MAN

Draw your own sluggy vs. chicken man battle and post it here! Winner gets...something! Go!

I sometimes wonder if I'm "hurting" myself by being selective of the technologies I use. If I'm denying myspace and twitter in favor of facebook / livejournal, am I, as an artist, hurting my chances of establishing notoriety? Plenty of successful artists have censured publicity / promotion, but I am not J.D. Salinger. Especially since I am using one over the other. Also: why fight the trend? What is the benefit of fighting the current? Some kind of imaginary cool that I've invented?

Not that I don't have enough to do, but I want to get back in the mode of doing "a drawing a day" type thing.

I mailed some pieces to the_woodshed for the art show he had last weekend. They're a part of a larger installation-thing I'm working on. I guess I could just do daily sketches for that, like this:



...but I think I want to have something else cooking on the back burner. I guess I'm looking for small finished pieces I can "collect" for something later.

Throw some suggestions my way involving themes (please)!

Also, a coworker found this mug shot on thesmokinggun.com. The text practically added itself.

Shannon went out of town and I took care of her cat, Clover. Well, she took care of me and my LJ comments.


This is my mom on the dock at her place.


Vaughan and Ryan at Mellow Mushroom. I met up with them after the bike ride with Steve and Eric Garcia. Mike and Mallory were there too.


This is Clover doing her best impression of a burrito.


I visited Jon in Orlando.


Before we hit Jax for her Derby bout, Shannon and I went to Steinhatchee. One of the derby girls hooked us up with a free marina cabin for the night. She also paid for our dinner and 4-5 games of pool.


This is the view from the front porch of the cabin.


This is the view from inside the cabin.


I sketched a little before the derby bout. These are character concepts for a show flyer.


They had a standup Donky Kong machine. I still can't get past board two.

A few months ago, my hard drive bit the dust. I had a lot of important things backed-up, but a few items slipped through the cracks. One of which was a graphic novel I'd been writing. I have an older copy stored on my work laptop, but since the crash, I haven't opened it, fearful of discovering what little remains of my work.

It's almost time, though. I know I'm going to open it soon, maybe even today, and thinking about it has prompted a reinvigorated interest in good writing as well as an awareness of intent. There are two things I've "discovered" that promote my interest during the intake of media. It seems obviously silly when I type them out.

1. I like it when as a viewer/reader I'm dropped in the middle of a situation and my brain has to work to figure things out. This mirrors my attraction to conceptual art (not concept art), where there is a relationship between artist and audience. A shared understanding is created when both sides contribute, which is a more valuable payoff than "look at what I have made". The most engaging art is participatory.

2. Change has to occur to prevent the work from becoming stale. Like I said, this is obvious, but I need to write it out because I don't think I've ever successfully done it. In this rule subtlety is crucial. I've had a habit of setting up problems for my characters to work against and react to, but it's always right out front in big bold letters.

I just need to keep this stuff in mind.

Today feels like a Monday because I was out of town for a few days. I went to Orlando with Tamar and saw Jon, Morgan, Justin Peterson, and Animal Collective. I did not get to see Dav or Aaron. I bought some lamps. Tonight I'm going to some city an hour south of here with Shannon, then it's off to Jacksonville to watch her zip around a rollerskate track and to meet her mom. There were a lot of places I wanted to visit this summer and I have a suspicion I'm not going to see any of them. Hmf.

EDIT: I opened the script. I only lost 2/25 pages. YES.

Steve Bauer, Eric Garcia and I completed the St. Marks Trail on bicycles. 32 miles! We stopped at the Riverside Cafe and ate lunch and talked about near death experiences.

-Facebook Ad

I've been on hold with JC Penny for an hour and a half now. I think I'm going to give in and call back tomorrow.



Trying some new stuff out. Trying to use less line to get loose. If anything, this was a great exercise to just try some different things with silhouettes...they're definitely some of the more visually interesting characters I've drawn (though I'm sure they've all be drawn before. toppy looks like a down-and-out Stewie from Family Guy.) I seriously should've started with silhouette exercises years ago. What the hell. At least I'm still learning! I hope I never get satisfied with my drawings.

gonna give a cat a pill
gonna eat a nice meal

Last night at midnight I was jussssssssssst about to sleep when I was woken with the request of going to 80s night at the Engine Room. Ain't gonna say no to a girl on her birthday. So we headed out. I ran into a bunch of cool people. You know. Old friends from college. Danced a little. Drank two cokes. Talked about the business of art. Ran into a friend / "client" and happened to have a logo I'd been working on earlier.

I also did a little bit of drawing this weekend. The tiniest bit of pen work. Fuck. On average, I worked on art waaaaaaaaay more than usual this weekend, but it's not enough. I've got al ot of stuff I want to work on but I'm having a hard tiem cementing the order. The longer I wait for a lot of it, the better it will be because (let's face it) experience compounds.

I met up with an old professor this morning on campus. He really liked me, I guess. He told me I had the best paper in the class, which is hilarious, because I essentially just wrote him a letter about why he'd be interested in Daniel Johnston. I read my friends papers and they were all official papers with MLA CITATIONS and PROFESSIONAL LANGUAGE. Art school. Funny.

I gave him a comic and paid him for a DVD of his work that he sold me. I felt kind of weird buying it...I guess it's probably how my friends feel when I try to hawk my art / centaurs t-shirts on them. He told me that he wants to give me a bunch of other DVD's of his stuff and that'd be free...one of which I've seen, "Why We Must Vote For Bush," which he recorded before the 2004 election. It's a brilliantly sarcastic 15 minute satire which he recorded solely to drop off at the GOP. I wish I could've seen their faces.

Here's a video of his (Jim Roche). I'm afraid his work gets lost in the doldrums of youTube, but keep in mind this is from the late 80s.



Towards the end of our talk, he lamented that he was there to meet with the department chair, and that there were questions of his value as an instructor to students. Friends that took his sculpture class described it to me as a "disaster", but I can tell you that Jim Roche was incredibly motivational to me. For the two years I was at FSU, I was discouraged from making comics or even cultivating a style. A lot of art teachers tell you that you have to learn the tenants of drawing before you can even think about style. I think this is an important thing to hear, yes, but it's never, ever, ever all you need to know about improving yourself as an artist. Style is voice. If your voice is boring and monotonous no one is going to bother to listen to your fucking message. Even an awkward, misformed, unfinished voice is going to be interesting.

I guess it's a good thing I got some Jim Roche time when I did. I had a lot of questions about the business of art, the artist's intention, etc. and he answered them all. It really bums me out that someone who has the same questions next semester might not get the kick they need to work with the confidence that I have now.

Also, I tried showing Wizard People, Dear Reader to Shannon last night and she couldn't appreciate it because she doesn't know anything about Harry Potter. I was reeeeeeeeeally hoping this would actually help. I mean, come on!

"Harry prepared breakfast magic free and labor intensive."

How is that not goddamn hilarious.

Man, I have been having an awful time drawing lately. I don't know if it's a lack of practice thing or just a funk...but my lines are all wrong! I'm supposed to have been DONE with a logo for a local infoshop WEEKS ago. I crapped out this little sketch (which I like):



but i'm having a really hard time translating it into an actual drawing. I've tried everything! Pencil! Paper! Pen! Photoshop! Nothin's stickin'.

BOOM! ORBISON!



What a talented guy. SUCK IT AMERICAN IDOL. YOU CAN'T MESS.

I bought a gym membership tonight. I used to be able to ride 10 miles / no problem. Tonight, 5. What gives, body? You act like I've neglected you for three months.

Acrylic on canvas
$15 OBO

+ Seeing my dad, helping my grandparents out around the house
+ Swimming, PF Chang's, First Watch with friends (thanks for the drink, Luc!)
+ Thinking about late summer / early fall camping trips
+ Not identifying with Morrisey
+ Sleeping in with Shannon

- Being late to work because of sleeping in with Shannon
- Losing at Tetris
- Eating shitty food
- Missing Tallahassee
- Walking into Lowe's and immediately falling prey to the temptation of conspicuous consumption
- Putting off my food co-op membership

At my job, I can listen to my coworkers talk about an activity for a course we're developing wherein by pressing the left and right keys on the keyboard, you roll a child (which is on fire) until it's out. But there are piles of dry leaves and broken glass around him that you are supposed to avoid.


That's awesome.