Oh my

I'll miss my self-imposed daily deadline unless I do something. Something.

My New Teacherly Response to All Technical Questions

"There's a thing you can hook up to a thing, but I don't care."
Also here's a rough for a future Arms and Ether strip. Not all that productive of a day, so far. I did get a foot-long sub, a mexican mocha, and a cupcake out of it though, so my middle-aged man physique is happy. UPDATE--and some fish and chips.
So. . . this ridiculous 6 minutes of drawing will make my life bearable when I sit down again to work on this strip. Weird, eh?

Everybody Digs Evan Carroll

It's images like this that keep me waking up every morning. Yes, it's "Starchild Support Group," by Evan Carroll.

Everybody Digs Bill Evans

And I'm everybody. You should be too. Also, here's a nice article on Evans' playing by Chuck Israels (who's playing bass in the video). I enjoyed checking out Israel's site. I was pleased to see he was not only alive but looking damn good having survived the meat grinder of the 50's - 70's music world--unlike Evans. Tears. As a teacher, I enjoyed reading Israel's "Unpopular Perspective On Jazz Education" article. Israels makes a point of asking students who their favorite musician is. He then goes on to say it's far better to have a lousy answer to this question (such as Kenny G) than none at all. The lousy answer will provide a conduit to further development. Amen. I'm shocked at how insensitive teachers can be to this idea. Liking something, anything, shows you have some passion and connection with what you're studying. Behind any decent artist is some goofy lined paper drawing of Howard the Duck he did in 9th grade. So fess up, and start liking stuff.

Okay, time to listen to more Bill Evans and the rest of those brilliant, humbling dudes.

Latest Arms and Ether!

After ftp difficulties, the latest Arms and Ether strip is up and running. Go and see it. Share the merriment. Arms and Ether will feature one more week of purile pants-less discussion, following which we will move into crude physical violence. . . just like human history.

Arms and Ether Monday is upon us

So I'll get the strip together to post. Until then, here's a daily drawing for a gray Sunday. Cool, now the washing machine is leaking. The disco hot spots hold no charm for you. It is the heat of the moment.
UPDATE: Curses, I'm shut out of ftp'ing to stupid temporary arms site. This could be trouble for an on-time Monday comic post! The horror!!

Extreme Makeover

Why would a fighting man go from forged iron to leather armor? Does the increased flexibility and freedom of manoeuvre outweigh the corresponding loss of "AC?" Nah, it just looks better graphically. Here's the easily enraged Pikelhaube (from an upcoming Arms and Ether strip) modeling both armor types. The red-brown has much stronger color contrast and visual "pop," so cut a wide swath when you see him coming.

It's about damn time--now with LINK!!!!

Let's get the party started. My main man, Evan Carroll finally started a blog. Bookmark it, follow it, whatever the hell it is you kids do nowadays. It's uncut and straight from the Golden Triangle. Do you need an in depth exploration of the heretofore unexplored connection between Demis Roussos and Robert Persig? Do you need messed up 3D/2D Bacon-esque animations of scrotal-headed nudes??? Of course you do. So don't delay. Taste the magic. Live the fantasy.

Midweek Preview

What fabulous fragment is this unearthed 'neath Chronos' bones? Tune in Monday, January 26, 2009 for the latest installment of Arms and Ether. Fanfare. Garlands. Dancing. Physiognomy.

Got some decent drawing done this morning after waking up from a nightmare at 5 a.m. Lots to think and draw about these days. Time to work up some Maya magic for class this afternoon. Need more coffee. Liquid courage.

Lots of ideas percolating for the "hard launch" Arms and Ether rollout. The button thing in yesterday's post has got me thinking about a far more phantasmagorical website. I'll burn in hellfire for it, but since I can do it, why not? I'm like Shatner or Anthony Hopkins in that way. Sure, I can act, but I can sing too! Holy @#$%^#$%&* I'd never actually SEEN the Shatner Rocket Man before. Go. Now. See. Believe.

God knows when the Arms and Ether "hard-launch" will happen, though. Realistically, I'm thinking summer, and why not? A rocket. . . man.

You're Number One

So click the stupid button.This is a demo for the Art 351 Interactive Studio Class. It shows how to create a toggle button using Actionscript 2.0. Here's the original flash file for download and deconstruction. I done commented it out purty good too. Here's a simplified .fla of just the door without the guy inside.

A Bad Dude

R.I.P. Shigeo Fukuda, who designed the above poster. That's how you do it. Damn, brother, props to you. And Victory! That image is going straight into the Arms and Ether source file--and the tattoo file as well.

Just got done watching the inaugural which was surreal. Sam and I stayed home from school to check it out. Yes inspiring and all, but I wanted more. I wanted to hear that fatuous PA announcer saying, "And now, to depict in song the twisted complexities facing our great nation, is R Kelly, singing "Trapped In The Closet." Cue reaction shots and close ups, etc. Other notes:

1. I liked the awkward moments, Obama and Roberts cocking up the oath. Michelle Obama looking kind of ticked off for some reason. The gnarly Dick Cheney being wheeled around was pretty cool too.

2. Brokaw, please! Mistaking Michelle's brother, Craig Robinson, for Obama's assistant, Reggie Love, and then, claiming that Craig was sporting a Princeton scarf. Craig is coaching the orange and black Oregon State Beavers, dude. Give us timber-fed hicks some love.

3. The Obama girls were the cutest damn things. I felt like a total media sucker. Awwww, etc. But what can you do? My heart is not made of steel!

4. Also, I cannot resist that damn Simple Gifts hymn. @#$%in' Shakers. And Yo-Yo Ma, that was some majestic joy of music shiz you broke out on us, brother. They could have been playing that at a tractor pull and I'm wiping away the tears.

I am indeed, a political animal

Monday

A brief post in honor of the long-lost snow that has been so blow-torched from our lands this weekend. Farewell. Return with your ghosts, your stars and your bearded pumpkins. . . I love you. . .

And thanks for any and all Arms and Ether comments. I'm still collecting them, so keep 'em coming. As they come in, I add them to the Feedbag post. One comment I had in conversation was "don't you want to find a way to tie all this stuff (blog, strip, etc) together?" A good question. The answer is yes, but feels complicated--I'm hoping for an organic evolution in that direction. But what comes from mere hope? More later, obviously.

Time to pass out. Fighting off a lil' sinus infection and the 9-year-olds, pizza and ice cream cake have taken their toll. Tomorrow is Sam's actual 9th birthday (groovy) and L'inauguration. Let's get it on.

Latest Arms and Ether is up!

Ta-rah. Getting ideas together for site redesign too. As usual, I'd appreciate any feedback on Arms and Ether you may care to give. Sam's 9th birthday party is tomorrow--yay! Otherwise, phew, I'm a little tired. Oh, and the Namecheap.com webhosting is setting me back $5.88 a month or $70.00/year. Seems like a decent enough deal. I still haven't moved the site over yet, however.

No More Write

Make Draws.

Got FavIcon working for Arms and Ether so you'll have a lovely little mini Hateball icon when you bookmark Arms and Ether.

Other thoughts:
1. Create more ostentatious Arms & Ether sidebar for the site. Did it!
2. Going to start the process of transferring the site to a properly hosted site. I'm going with Namecheap. Price seemed reasonable. I'll let you know how it goes.

Did You Know?

This is The Prime Mover?

Promise Me Son, Not To Do The Things I Done

Oh, I done @#$%'ed up and ordered a billion bidnit cards with a typo on 'em. (Marvellous is NOT the way you spell marvelous, in case anyone was living under that misconception.) I'm a Gambler, and this time I reckon I lost. And uh, sometimes you've got to fight to be a man. And whatever else Kenny Rogers has said over the years. On the up side, the quality of the printing at vistaprint.com was very high. I was pleased and will order corrected cards from them tonight. In the meantime, I'll just use the above image for my business card. Urgh. I probably forgot to take out all of the "liberal arts suck" and "higher education, my ass," passages in my promotion packet as well. By Yog-Sothoth's bubbles, I'll be back though, bigger and better than before!

As a teacher, I'd have to say this qualifies as a "teachable moment." Here's a more tedious and belabored account over on one of my teaching blogs.

On the plus side, I think I finally got my URL to "stick." So try typing in "http://www.armsandether.com" and let me know if it works. Strike that, actually. I'm going to set up some straight up URL hosting. You picked a fine time to leave me, Lucille.

Feedbag

I'm going to be posting folks' feedback on Arms & Ether here, so I can reflect on it all at once when I start the serious re-design work in the coming weeks. So comment here, or email any and all suggestions. Keep it coming and thanks!

* The easiest one that I tend to appreciate a lot is a "back to the beginning of the series" button. I tend to be the reader who likes to start at the very beginning and see the progression/evolution of the series.
The second idea is purely aesthic. It might be a good way of introducing a newcomer to the site by having the cast of characters(or the "main" characters that appear the most) stationed on the sides of the site(in the very light gray area). The immediate examples that I can think of are Chris Sanders' banner on Kiskaloo and the top banner on the online Maakies. You wouldn't even necessarily need to redraw the characters---you could just pull some of the cast from previously drawn strips and collage them together.

* I am enjoying the comic (both of them!!!!!!) but the layout is as rough as the dude's delicious garbage is small. The left-sided infobar is distracting, as is the closeness of repetition the A&E logo... Maybe drop all that junk down below? Just peeking out of the bottom of the page?

Φ Run more white space in between title of comic and the border

Φ Center the strip

Φ Be rid of gray background

* One thing I felt funny on was the side bar, I like the slanting, sideways text...but something about their size and position felt funny to me, mabye their placement in the long gray box (shrugs) I dont know, the site is awesome

New Arms & Ether!

There's a new Arms and Ether strip out today. My god, that makes a grand total of two strips. . . and they're linked together (gasp!). Check it out here: armsandether.com. Tell your friends. Also, I'd appreciate ANY feedback folks have on the early stages of the design of the site, things you'd like to see, busted links, etc. As I said, I'm aiming for a "hard" launch by Feb 1. Though. . . I may be reconsidering that date. I think I might just CTFO and get some momentum going with the strips--focus on the actual creative process for a while and find that groove.

Also, click the image to take an idiotic stroll past the French Folke factory. It was a class demo, okay? So don't get so huffy.

Finally thanks to the 8Bit Ghost for his web help. If you haven't been by lately, he's got Hugo, Big Jim and a post about his wonderful/horrible "dotcom-mobile."

Procrastination-right?

I'm not the only one who procrastinates. Molo does it too. Check out armsandether.com tomorrow for the latest Arms and Ether strip. Now, uh, back to that promotion application.

Sweet God! The NEXT Arms & Ether strip is coming Monday!

Yes, people. Four (4) panels of full-color poignant hilarity are coming your way on Monday, January 12th at 8:00 a.m!!! Mark your calendars, take the day off from work, dress up or disrobe, light the fireworks and have a party.

In the meantime I make snail's pace progress on promotion papers. . .

Makin' Lists and Makin' Love (I loves me some Brad Neely)

As I write this post title, I think fondly of Brad Neely's life-changing animations and comics. I think in particular of his music video, Kenny Winker sings "Making Love" in which tri-corner hat-clad Kenny sings "There's a ton of shit we've got to do before we can make love." Admire. Gush. But alas, when I went to post the video for your viewing pleasure, I find it has vanished from the internets as a result of the economic downturn. Super Deluxe.com, the hosting site, is no more. Apparently, Neely is putting the videos up on his own site which will take some doing. Sigh. In the meantime, go check out his stuff, it will make you happier than you are now. I assure you. Soldier on, Brad Neely. Keep the tri-corner hat squarely in the public eye.

To tide us over, here's one of Neely's first animations that got all viral a while ago--Washington.

My list for the weekend:
1. Finish sixth Arms and Ether strip --starring Megaleos and Ginger Childe!
2. Fix Arms and Ether url issues.
3. Apply for promotion to "full" professor (college teaching guy who has eaten too many tacos in his time).
4. Make further allusions to "Taco Time," one of the planet's great restaurants.
5. Insulate The Shack.
6. Prepare Monday DMF lecture.
7. Prepare for other classes and review student blogz.
8. Keep fiddling with my online stuff. Cleaning up post labels--that kind of thing
9. Put together SOU Art Dept. Web material.

And then. . . only then. . .

Is Rassty

I did this as a throw-away demo drawing for the Interactive Studio class yesterday, but he wormed his way into my heart. Meet Rassty. Here's to his health and refinement.

Kim DeMarco

A very cool blog keeping up to date on the Finer side o' the Arts by Kim DeMarco-illustrator and professor type.

The Sun Rises - Work List Part 1

And the dust is settling after the chaos of getting the first Arms and Ether strip on-line and getting classes rolling again. I'm more or less caught up on sleep, so now to get some kind of a working-groove going. I'd like to do a "hard-launch" for Arms and Ether on February 1. Here's some of what I'll need for such a launch:

1. Strips. At least eight published so it's worth people's time to check it out. I'll also need at least four strips "in the can" in case I take ill or take up serious substance abuse.
2. An email "subscription list" and way to subscribe.
2.5 Some goofy prizes for subscribing to the list.
3. An announcement via email/facebook/etc.
4. More understanding of how Facebook works i/r/t giving clear access to this thing, announcing, etc.
5. Look into My Space for an Arms and Ether page?
6. figure out how to get my URL to stick.
7. figure out how to make a little URL icon thing.
8. Get the web site spiffed up.
8.5 Figure out best way to do the website. . .
9. Finish the damn Miles Inada site.
10. Get the original Arms and Ether comic book up in a better format and integrate it into the new site.
11. Have hard copies of the original Arms and Ether comic available for people to buy. (cheap!)

So that's a big list. Got to do it without becoming a bad human being, ungrateful son, feckless husband, deadbeat dad, useless teacher, a-hole friend, etc. . . Yes we can! And it's not as bad a list as
1. Conquer Russia.
2. Cure self of terminal disease.
3. Re-attach head.
4. etc.

BTW this is one of those practice what I preach kind of posts. I'm having my students use blogs as a way to get their act together, define a creative project, delineate research goals, n' all that.

Softe Launche complete

Okay, she's away. The first Arms and Ether strip is up. Type in armsandether.com and you'll end up there. I still need to figure out how to make that url more grounded in reality instead of just forwarding to my crunky default url. Site is still fugly too. But it's a SOFT LAUNCH okay? It's for me to get the hang of this. Changes will be made over the next month or so. I would appreciate any feedback people have on the site. Don't be gentle. Direct is good. I'll be keeping track of all suggestions as I work towards a HARD LAUNCH (in about a month, I'm guessing.)

Also, got the store up at cafe press. Hence the shirt above. I ordered some of my own stuff to see if the quality at cafepress is at all decent. Fingers crossed.

Softe Launche

Okay, I'm going to soft launch Arms and Ether tonight. Winter break is at an end, and I'll be danged it if I won't have one entire 4-panel comic up online to show for it. I'll make another post ce soir when the first strip is live. I'm thinking when I have 5- 10 strips up, I'll go for a harder launch. Making a bunch of noise about having one strip up is like having a big concert where your band plays one song.

I just got done ordering business cards from vistaprint.com. That's the business card image above. I don't know if vistaprint is any good or not--if they're great or horrible, I'll let the interwebs know. Now that I look at the card design, it'll probably be a disaster--type too small, etc. Sigh.

Also teaching begins tomorrow. Hooray for winter quarter, right?

A Desperate Plea

Screw my stuff. But for the love of anything holy in this world, do the following:

1. Buy Tony Millionaire books. The gentler souls (like me) should buy his picture books. They're beautiful.
2. The rougher, more cynical among you (like me) should buy his Maakies collections. I was laughing til the tears rolled last night.
3. Go read Maakies on line.
4. The lazier among you (like me) should watch this pilot for the Drinky Crow show. This intro is also quite uplifting. The Drinky Crow show is now on Adult Swim here. It looks like it's done in 3D with 2D texturing and funky compositing. It's a cool look.

Oh yeah, still shooting for Monday for the Arms and Ether launch.

Quaking Before Reality

Feel like crud again, so, I'm going to bed early. Lame. I'm shooting for a Monday launch of Arms and Ether, so, I truly hope I wake up full of POWER tomorrow. A lot needs to happen between now and Monday. Here are some warts and all piece of junk drawings I've done trying to get a handle on how to draw Megaleos, an Arms and Ether character. Check out the horrible arms in the second drawing--withered, yet puffy. They don't fit with the shoulders, they're anatomically incorrect, AND lack gesture, etc. Anyhow, this is an example of the crap I have to do before I can get anything that looks marginally okay. It's painful, because when I set out to do these drawings, I think I'm a better draughtsman than I am. "Okay, this is going to be awesome. Oh my God, it's terrible. I quit." Got to work on my mental game. A bit less ego would be handy.