Forty Three

1. Lordy, here it is. I'm 43. It's not an age you really think about much, so I guess I won't.

2. Since I'm doing a lot of online demo videos this quarter, I feel like Bob Ross.

3. I spent a lot of yesterday with my pal, Warren Hedges, whose birthday is also November 9. We are team-teaching a class, had lunch, and then he came and gave a talk to my comic book/picture book class. We said that it's our birthday tradition to celebrate by going around together and lecturing to people.

4. Should have an Arms and Ether up by Friday. Looks like the Herodotus toy will be coming at you live.

5. Yeah, numbered lists. Quality meats. I'll try catching up with everything today. AND I MEAN EVERYTHING. As it turns out, there's a whole lot of rhythm going 'round. There will be links. There will be a spiritual and artistic awakenings. There will be naps too. And tasty snacks.

New Arms and Ether with Download-able 3D Molo Toy

Uh oh. Molo's up late, eating Cheetos, and turning to . . . the internet. It doesn't work out for him, but maybe it will work out for you! This week's strip features a download-able 3D paper toy, perfect for cutting out 'round the fire. . . Whatever. Anyhow, read it, click it, and weep in this week's Arms and Ether. And damnit, can't we be Germanic and make "downloadable" an official word? The hyphen thing is really pretty weak.

Arms and Ether is a bit late, but

. . . in the meantime, celebrate the free lovin' with an image from a Digital Media Foundations demo I did today! A new Arms and Ether should be up tomorrow, so plan your day accordingly.

Walking Down The King's Road

Oh my. Walk cycle. Moving background. Sleaze.

New Arms & Ether - Romantic Comedy

It's non-stop action when the Mighty (mightily sensitive) Majax returns to reclaim what's rightfully his - - his naked trembling in the face of the majesty of the existential sublime! Also. . . Pikelhaube camouflages his body with the sky(?)

So, head over to Arms & Ether to get the 4 panels that'll help you get over the #$%^ing bull@#$^ of that @#$%^ing Arsenal v. West Ham game. @#$%^

Majax on Deck

Majax is on his way with a new sword based on the mercifully simple-to-draw Roman gladius. Anyhow, Majax, the sensitive family-man star of the first Arms and Ether comic book, is loosening up for his debut in this week's Arms and Ether strip. If you're lucky, it'll be up by tomorrow evening. Imagine the betterment of your weekend!

UPDATE FRIDAY NIGHT 12:30 A.M. Well it's "tomorrow evening" and I'm getting my ass kicked by this strip. !@#$. I've lost the simple structural understanding of the characters I thought I'd finally grasped. !@#$%. Tired. Cranky. Complain.

UPDATE FRIDAY NIGHT 1:30 A.M. !#$%^. I think I have to give up for the night. I've got the black and white line work more or less done. Grrrrrr. Not happy. But, I'll @#$ around with color tomorrow, hopefully with a bit more intelligence and perspective. 

#@$%^@ it. Here's some more 2nd Generation Mod music.

Hommage to An Obscure Japanese Picture Book

Working through some Flash stuff for my Art 351 class next quarter so I made a cat. I envy that cat.

Publicity Photo Redux

Always keep an artist photo handy.

New Arms & Ether with Downloadable 3D Hateball!

Megaleos is back and he's created a 3D Hateball toy for you to download. What are you waiting for? Head over to Arms and Ether to see the latest strip and to download your very own little black ball of hate. Therapeutic rainy day fun for nimble-handed obsessive-compulsives.

Megaleos Sketchbook Thrills

I'm doing lots of other junk (video demos for my classes over at the Comics and Animation blog) but here's some sketch-funk just the same. Trying to internalize the fundamental aspects of Megaleos via short crappy sketches.

Chugging Around

A beautiful, beautiful day in Ashland town. Still haven't hit my full stride, but things are going in a good direction. I can live happily with all of that, thanks for asking. Here's David Simon on The Wire in the London Times. (below) And, here's something out of the daily pile. (above)
p.s. From the "Why 42-year old men (almost 43!) shouldn't play console games" file. I got spanked by Meta Ridley (???) last night after a ludicrous 30 minutes of pushing a little button in front of a television set. If I'm going to dick around on the Wii, I should at least be able to beat up on some bosses. Spiritual poverty.

Hateball enters the 3D realm!

Okay, here's Hateball! Now I can use these to help compose my carefully crafted strips. Har har.

Hateball 3D Mock-up

I'll print him out and do a test assemble today. I will, gol-darnit.

Ludicrousness

Things have been busy on the school front, so the Comics & Animation Blog I keep for my classes has been a bustlin' -- so has the Digital Media Foundations Wiki I work on with Dennis & Warren. Clap clap. So to show I haven't been a complete failure in doing some of my own work, here are some sketchbook scans from last Thursday's Drink n' Draw. Yay. Then to bed with me. Right. Sure.

UPDATE: Actually, it's 3:30 now, but I just finished the Hateball toy. I'm going to have the first three toys to download over at Arms and Ether by the end of the week.

Sketchinesse -- Papercraft Charles Burns-Style! -- Hignite's In The Studio

Above are some sketches I did at the opening campus meetings last week. Exciting stuff! It is nice to draw from observation, though. Must do more.

More inspirational TNT from Charles Burns, courtesy of Todd Hignite's outstanding book, In The Studio which features extensive interviews with Brunetti, Burns, Clowes, Crumb, Jaime Hernandez, Panter, Seth, Spiegelman, and Ware. For anyone interested in these artists, In The Studio is a must read.

Charles Burns, Paper Theater, c 1990
from In The Studio, by Todd Hignite, 2006 Yale University Press

The book gives fantastic insight on the creative process and how each artists' work is formed by specific influences. It's nice to see how varied and wacky artists' inspirational sources are. Check out Clowes' response to Basil Gogos' cover for Screen Thrills Illustrated below. If you click on the image you can read Clowes' description of the massive impact Gogos' illustration had on his creative psyche. Buy Hignite's book, you won't be sorry.

Page from, In The Studio, by Todd Hignite, 2006 Yale University Press

Jefferson Treatment Notes

Chris Ware, Rocket Sam Paper Toy, 1996

Jefferson theater
paper toys containing Mulder's ashes for people to release
guns of the dead (toy armada)
A paper theater
sculpture
wistful
high school football lights at night - full moon
the fleeting world
yay

Chris Ware, how did you know that I'd name my son Sam? Get out of my head, you bastard.

Arms & Ether is BACK!

After a 3.5 month hiatus, this week's Arms and Ether features an in-depth consideration of the role of FreeCell in any thinking artist's life. !@#$ it's 2:30. Awesome. @!#$% you, world.

Also, I added one of those url redirect pages to the old jeffnet url. I'm so proud of myself. (not really--that's the sarcasm) But if you ever need to do a redirect page, here's some code that seems to work okay.

Alexis Time

Alexis de Tocqueville's Tenfold Emanation by Miles

Collage concept art for the State of Jefferson project I'm working on with Evan Carroll and Warren Hedges.

Arms & Ether Figures! Collect Them All!

Who doesn't need a 3D Herodotus? Now to finish the dang Arms & Ether strip I started last week. Embarrassing. No. Need to sleep a bit before first day of class. . . shucks.