Seek the headwaters of the river of pain

Got a lot on my mindgrapes, more than I expected to. I’m just a little black raincloud, hovering over the honey tree. Stuff has been sneaking up on me. Tricksie feelings of Ways About Things hiding and falling out of every closet I open up.

Going to do some State of the State assessment tonight and find out what condition my condition is in, in the best ways I know how. Friendohs, beer, maybe some World Cup or something on the television. Get a feeling of security and normalcy while my wheels are turning. Send vibes and I’ll catch you on the flip!

Talk nerdy to me: Art of the Nerd

‘Nam-native Beetle-Bailey ear-necklace update: I still suck.

But seeing me hunched over and going through a ream of paper trying to do studies inspired kidlet to grab one of her own most recent “commissioned pieces,” the last assigned coloring project she had before school ended. Speaking of Jurassic Park and bloodthirsty drawings:

When she first brought it home, knowing what a girly-girl she can often be, I asked naively, “Is your T. Rex a girl dinosaur? With lipstick and fingernails?” She gave me a long-suffering, how-sad-that-my-mother-is-Grimace-from-Ronald-McDonaldland expression and said, “Mommy. Tyrannosaurus Rex was a killer. That is blood.”

Check. It was already all cut out so we put it on a couple popsicle sticks so she could use him as part of her various paper puppet shows.

Think about it: wouldn’t every single puppet show you’ve ever seen have been improved by the introduction of a tyrannosaur? It’s like a recipe for Imaginary Awesome and you just kicked it up a notch. T. Rexes are truly the paprika in the potato salad of the toybox.

So I was trying my hand yet again at drawing Beetle. The problem is I want his shirt open to display the necklace to best advantage as well as convey how unhinged he’s become, but both the open shirt and his chest itself are giving me trouble as far as drawing them as simply but representatively as possible, and I can only imagine my plan for his right hand to be flashing a peace sign will also end in tears. Meanwhile, kidlet, like I said, went and fetched her T. Rex puppet.

She made “Blarrrghhh, Gahrrrrr, Rawrrrrr” kind of noises at me from the other side of the table, kneeling so only the puppet showed and, when that did not sufficiently distract me, she snuck up beside me and pounced, pretending the dinosaur was biting my hand (very convincing flesh-tearing noises accompanied this move), and I said, “You’re very scary, but I’m kind of in the middle of this. Why don’t you go eat a Barbie? We can play later. Promise.”

First the T. Rex turned his cap backward, then they started the arm-wrestling. If you do not understand this humorous reference and you want to get in on the cheesey action flick joke, rent Over the Top (Menahem Golan, 1987). Don’t necessarily buy it though, heh.

Kidlet danced the dinosaur away, making stomping noises with her feet to simulate his weight stalking out of the room, then stuck the puppet back around the corner and said loudly in a deep, ominous voice, “You haven’t seen the last of Tyrannosaurus Rex!!”

I said, “I’m pretty sure I have, actually.” Extinction is a bitch. But the whole exchange cracked me up and lightened my mood. She’s so wonderful. I don’t know where she came from but I’m damned lucky she’s here.

Lastly, the best thing I have ever seen, a comic panel that never fails to cheer me up:

via

Everything is right in that picture. Especially how psyched the tyrannosaur pilot looks. I told you: they are the paprika in the recipe of AWESOME!

William Blake Month: Art of the Nude (Naked Beauty and no view of Money)

Artist being attacked by editors and creditors, photographed by Andre de Dienes.

Where any view of Money exists Art cannot be carried on
but War only.

Art can never exist without
Naked Beauty displayed.

(William Blake, excerpt from notes on “Laocoön.”)

Daily Batman — I’m a populist by day and a revolutionary by night

“Being naked approaches being revolutionary; going barefoot is mere populism.”

(John Updike, “Going Barefoot.” On the Vineyard.)

So I am a populist by day and a revolutionary by night. I’ll take it.

All apologies

Where is this afternoon going? Super-sorry. I know I’ve been poo about posting up the usual shenanigans today — no Blake, no Girl of Summer, no Batman, like practically nothing at all yet — but I was fully absorbed in a project this morning. Must’ve been all this Vietnam talk lately, but I basically woke up today with only one goal on my mind:

Draw Beetle Bailey with a necklace of human ears.

Reference image.

Not in a funny way. In a dark and serious, satirical but sad way, like to make a point.

Way harder than it sounds, as it turns out. Reminds me of this great idea I had a few months back for a single-panel comic of a rat in hawaiian shirt and boater hat with a little cane and tiny specs, standing upright, top legs like arms spread grandly, saying, “Welcome — to Thoracic Park!” And the rat-John Hammond saying this was to be inside a rotting human rib cage along with little precious mousey-rat versions of Doctors Sattler, Grant, and Malcolm, and it would have been wonderful (is there a name for what’s wrong with me?) but for the ass-huge stumbling block of my complete inability to transfer the idea in as effective a way as I’d hoped from mind to paper. Blocked it fifteen different ways and it never gelled.

It’s the end of the world as we know it. Did You Know?

Looks like that’s going to be the story with Beetle going Apocalypse Now-style native. Another for the Fail tray. I’m going to try a little more later today. Keep you posted.

I hate it when my ambition oustrips my art skills. Blarg.

Flashback Friday — Hot Man Bein’ Hot of the Day: Donal Logue

Originally posted with a few less pictures on September 29, 2009 at 4:58 pm.

A confession: I ♥ Irish boys. I don't care if they are actually, legitimately from Ireland in their own generation or of some murky Irish extraction and descent — it's like I have a natural magnetic draw to them.

“My Mom, she’s from Ireland, coached tennis in Nigeria when she was a Missionary and turned me on to it when I was young.

La la la, “from Ireland,” la la la, “missionary,” la la la, “turned on.” That’s what I heard. Heyo!

The Tao of Steve (Jenniphr Goodman, 2000). Please note Guinness harp tattoo.

The first role in which I ever saw Donal Logue (that I knew of at the time) was as sexy genius mathematician Gunter Janek in the film Sneakers (Phil Alden Robinson, 1992), who is first shown giving a lecture but later ends up banging a hot slavic blonde chick on a desk in grainy but glorious black and white. Wowee! I, too, flip for geeks, and did from the earliest age, so I hella dug that scene (I’m kind of a voyeur from way back; try to think of it as a charmingly quaint quality rather than a creepy one) and I am not ashamed to admit that it stuck with me for years. Here he is as Gunter Janek rocking a number theory lecture on codebreaking:

Liberated Negative Space o’ the Day: The Shining edition

All due respect, little dude, but your dad is in kind of a “mood” and I’m pretty sure now is hella not the time to start writing on the walls.

Danny isn’t here, Mrs. Torrance. The Shining (Stanley Kubrick, 1980).