A Good Day

We recently celebrated Skeezix's one-month birthday with some of his very favorite things.

Forgotten Mistakes/Forbidden Sins

They can't all be good decisions, right? And, we are collectively learning that the Internet makes it pretty hard to keep out mistakes safely buried in the past. Thanks to Google, entirely too many people know about my undergraduate fascination with the Atari Lynx, my affinity for shore diving, and, yes, my brief acting turn in an erotic thriller.

It was 1998, I was living in New York, going to grad school. I was meeting a lot of interesting people, including some actors, directors, and production artists. One day, while sitting in my studio, staring at a blank piece of watercolor paper, I received a call from an acquaintance who needed bodies in a hurry. There wasn't much budget, there wasn't much time, and they were pretty much dragging in anyone who owed them a favor or, like myself, was naive enough to think of it as an adventure.

The movie was Forbidden Sins, starring Shannon Tweed. All you need to know about it can be gleaned from the IMDB's plot keywords: "Sex scene standing up," "Lesbian Scene," and "Nude woman murdered."

I was supposed to be an extra, milling around in the back of a police station. But, when an actor flaked out, I, being the right height for the blocking and already in schleppy-cop costume, was suddenly promoted the role of "Polygraph Technician." And so, a star was born. A star that shone all the brighter for shining so briefly.

A fair number of people have been stumbling across this little gem from my past lately, and asking me about it. To save everyone the trouble of renting this soft-porn turkey, I've lovingly adapted the entirety of my screen time into easily-digestible comics format, below. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Forbidden Sins.

That's right. Death by orgy, baby.

I'm just a Man.

Rossum's Rooms pt. 2

Oh, I'm working, alright, making little doll-house rooms and furniture for my stick figures. Soon... they will dance!

Say, we all know steampunk, right? And then there's clockpunk, for those who think the Victorian Era is too durned new-fangled. But what do you call retro science fiction that has more of a Twenties/Thirties vibe? Jazzpunk? Ragpunk? FutureModerne? Space Deco? There must be a term for this already, right?

Rossum's Rooms

Hey, the Internet's back on! Did I miss anything good?

Here's some preproduction art for the project I'm working on right now. These are the Differentiation Tanks. Things grow in them.

Internet, Internet, Burning Bright

What immortal html could frame thy fearful symmetry?

My William Blake story has been posted, cozied up in a warm blanket of intellectual inquiry, over at ImageTexT. I haven't had a chance to read the rest of the journal yet, myself, but I'm looking forward to it.

Fun Fact from the introduction: Bill Everett, creator of Namor the Sub-Mariner, was named after William Blake, and, apparently, a direct descendant. How perfect is that?

Valentines

A happy and love-soaked Valentine's Day to my own personal Sweetie!

And to all of you, as well.

The Gentlemen of Jamestown pt. 7

Last week, I burnt a bunch of stuff to a disc, so that I could post every day while in Canada. Guess which North American country that disc is in? Hurray for my brain! But, at least I can finish up the Jamestown story. Enjoy!

Also, it was recently observed that I apparently won't put out a new comic until people are done talking about the last one. Well, I ain't gotta get busy, quite yet. Hurray for reviews!

The Gentlemen of Jamestown pt. 6

Ha ha! I'm off to Canada first thing tomorrow morning! Ten glorious days in the same country as the lovely wife! The same city, even. Happy Thanksgiving to me! I'm so excited that I can't think of anything to say about this comics page. Maybe you could make up something yourself - some trivia about a weird period practice, or a tirade about how editors cramp your pristine artistic vision.

Toodle Loo!

The Gentlemen of Jamestown pt. 5

It's funny to think that, as far as these sailors knew, the passage to India could be right on the other side of that waterfall. Or, they could be barely 50 miles inland of a continent over 2000 miles wide. It's what outgoing Pentagon Poet Laurate Donald Rumsfeld would have referred to as a "known unkown."

Happy Birthday to my Grampa, Carl. On the off chance there's an afterlife, here's hoping you're playing bridge with Abraham Lincoln, or drinking scotch with Jesus. And that you have have internet access.

The Gentlemen of Jamestown pt. 4

Did I mention that this story was the result of a compromise between myself and the editors? Hence, enough exposition to choke something that you would think would have a hearty appetite for exposition, and the Cliff Notes staccato of the panel transitions.

As far as yesterday's election: no, apparently we can't stop acting like jackasses, even for a day. Or, at least, not for the day that mattered. Every state with a discrimination amendment on the ballot passed it, except Arizona (Arizona? Who knew?). The good news is that Project: Gridlock seems to be underway. And there's still hopes that Aspirational Redneck, George Allen, has seen the end of his political ambitions.

The Gentlemen of Jamestown pt. 3

Let me attempt to use Jamestown's theme of poor leadership to segue into special Novemeber 7th plea: If you are in the United States, PLEASE, PLEASE GET OUT AND VOTE! And if you are in Tennessee, EXTRA-SPECIAL SUGAR-ON-TOP QUADRUPAL-PLUS PLEASE GET OUT AND VOTE! We just might actually have a shot acheiving the closest thing we have to a defense against the Bush Administration: bicameral gridlock.

Oh, and alsowise: Tennessee and several other states have these cute little amendments allowing the public to vote discrimination into the state constitution. Could we, as a country, stop acting like complete jackasses? Just for, like, a day?

The Gentlemen of Jamestown pt. 2

For most of the McGraw Hill stories I was left to my own devices when it came to research. The editorial team in charge of this story sent a Fed-Ex packet busting at the seams with over sixty pages of densely packed historical text on Jamestown. This was pretty overwhelming, and my first attempt at a story breakdown was just a mish-mash of too much information. So my mission here was to whittle away as much as I could, trying to find something that would work as a succinct story arc, and hopefully leaving enough room for moments of actual narrative interest amidst all the fact-slinging. Unfortunately, the editorial team really seemed to want all 60 pages of information explicitly stated in the six pages of comics I had to work with. Additionally, they were very suspicious of any information included in the story that wasn't from those sixty pages. Like, say, that Captain Newport only had one arm.

The result was a lot of compromise that left neither cartoonist nor editors happy. What the kids think of it, I have no idea.

The Gentlemen of Jamestown pt. 1

Here's a McGraw Hill story about the founding of the colony of Jamestown. I wish I'd had many more pages to tell this story, because there is a lot of it, and a lot of characters, and it is so over-the-top that it reads more like satire than history. Jamestown would be the perfect setting for an American Blackadder. Seriously. Rowan Atkinson plays John Smith.

Dirk Daring's Death-Defying Desert Deeds, pt. 7

I'd kind of written myself into a corner when I came to the end of this strip, because, by all rights, Dirk should be very, very dead from exposure. But then, in a flash of poppycock, their dire situation resolved itself in an almost plausible tale of resourcefulness. If Dirk grew a particularily thick beard, and wrapped himself in a parachute, and huddled tightly to a warm-blooded koala, and never moved from his place in front of the guano-fire, the maybe he'd survive a week.

But, you know, not really.

Dirk Daring's Death-Defying Desert Deeds, pt. 6

Okay, just to recap standard textbook editorial poilicy: shotguns, drunken Senators, and predatory fallout shelter salesmen are a big NO.

Brutal penguin savagings? Oh, YES. Yes, please. Please, more. More now!

Dirk Daring's Death-Defying Desert Deeds, pt. 5

The landscapes on this page were fun to draw.

Added onto the sidebar are some new student blogs. Please drop on by and check 'em out. Make comments. Send donations. Michele Duckworth actually graduated last semester, but I'm keeping her on the list, because she's got a residency over at MCA's graduate studios.

Dirk Daring's Death-Defying Desert Deeds, pt. 4

My main artistic goal with this story was to draw a man wearing a koala bear as a hat. I pretty much wrote the whole story around that. It wasn't quite the satisfying payoff I'd hoped.

Dirk Daring's Death-Defying Desert Deeds, pt. 3

Can you see where this is going? The pay-off may be more or less obvious depending on how thick of an Aussie accent you're reading Philbert's lines in.

Dirk Daring's Death-Defying Desert Deeds, pt. 2

All local lads like liberally loading ink-lined literature with alliteration. This simple strategem substitutes solving serious stumpers such as snappy, snazzy, and snoozeless storytelling. Politeness predicates paying attention to the plight of your periodical's patrons, however, who may plead that a piled-upon plentitude of poetic permutations outpaces patience, pleasing none.

Like so.