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.

Gods! Finally! Herodotus Toy First Draft!

Here's the Herodotus toy. I'm going to print out the beta tonight. As I said, I'll make high res versions for the web site after they've "gone gold."
I think this Papercraft stuff is that "supplementary dimension of folding" that Deleuze and Guattari were talking about.
For folks in the class, it took me 1 hour 20 minutes to cut this thing out. Crank up Pandora, or get some friends and sit around and gossip while you do it. T'is fun.

Herodotus Papercraft & Ware vs. Clowes Depress-Off

Well, here's Arms & Ether's Herodotus. . . as a paper toy design. Still haven't put it into an actual template yet. Tomorrow, I suppose. Also, who's the more depressed comic artist Ware or Clowes?

Punk-assed Perspective Procrastination

Miles Inada, Portrait d'un Punkass de Perspective, c 1763

Because I'm not Piranesi or Jack Kirby, perspective can get me down--especially when I'm not in proper fighting trim. It's called being a perspective punk-ass. So, I'm still not done with the latest Arms and Ether. I have to draw a. . . table. . . and . . . a computer. . . impossible! Weak. Fail. Etc.
Oh, and I also don't want to pay the @#$%ing bills which I've been putting off. !@#$%

Saw Derf on a documentary about Jeffery Dahmer with whom Derf went to Jr. High and High School. Crazy. I'm going to check out the comic he did on his experience with Dahmer, My Friend Dahmer. You should probably check it out too.

Papercraft Realized--Molo to the Fore

Here's 3D Molo--off the page and . . . into your hearts? No, no. I'm sure that's not it.

Papercraft First Stab

My first attempt at this Papercraft bidnit. We'll be using this as an assignment in our Digital Media Foundations class this fall. The above is a lo-res version, I'll make a high-res available when I refine the design. Here's a link to the blank template at cubeecraft. And here's a link to 8-Bit Ghost's post on Papercraft.

Dan Clowes

panels excerpted from Dan Clowes, The Happy Fisherman

Read Dan Clowes' stuff again last night. I'd kind of forgotten how good he is. Jeez. Depressing for me, but good for you. Pick up anything of his you can get your hands on. The more the merrier. "The Happy Fisherman" (see image above) changed me forever and is available in the Twentieth Century Eightball collection. He's just pure quality.

On a stupid note, here he is doing a commercial for Apple that is actually pretty damn funny if you are condemned to making comics.

Bad Ratio

Okay, drew on Arms & Ether for 8 minutes, then spent 21 minutes scanning and writing followed by a one hour break to take coffee to my lady and play Freecell. Work to GoofOff ratio = 29/60 or about 1:2. Well, you have to start someplace.

And let's not get into the "work" vs. hard-core work distinction.

On the up side, though, feel a new project coming on. . .

Through The Leaden Atmosphere

It's slow, painful going getting back to makin' stuff. Ugh. I'm very quick to give up, no clear focus, and my concentration is way, way down. Boo hoo. Whinge. I've put in a grand total of 36 minutes (over the last 2 days) on the latest Arms and Ether. Yes!

Yay For Squire

Shouldn't we all be Mods?



and here are the lyrics if you get obsessed with this song as I did. Damn, those guys were really freaking good. Just bought l'album. How had I not heard of them? They even did a cover of September Gurls. Weird.

Squire
WALKING DOWN THE KINGS ROAD

Walking down the King's Road with some friends of mine
The streets are crowded, its a sign of the times
Walking down the King's Road with some friends of mine
The shops are busy, they've got Saturday on their mind

Well I was just thinking how it used to be...
I'm gonna take a look at Carnaby Street!

Well I was walking down the King's Road
Just about to turn around
Well I was walking down the King's Road
Just about to turn around

In The Chelsea Drugstore with some friends of mine
Saw Mr. Jimmy still standing in line
In The Chelsea Drugstore with some friends of mine
Mini skirts, dolly birds and Radio Caroline

Well I was just thinking how it used to be...
I'm gonna take a look at Carnaby Street!

Well I was walking down The King's Road
Just about to turn around

BTW, Chords are: A G for the verses and D E for the chorus-y bits

Pinball, Comics, Deleuze, Hedges

This olden 6 Million Dollar Man pinball playfield I bought offa' e-bay arrived today. I wonder how long I'll be able to enjoy it before someone makes a crappy remake of the show. Time to draw an Arms and Ether and work my way out of my summer funk and estivation.



As part of the end of summer, I've been reading through Jessica Abel and Matt Madden's Drawing Words & Writing Pictures, which I'll use as an optional text for the comics class this fall. The book is well written and smartly organized with many practical steps and suggestions. Abel & Madden are strong but not hopelessly intimidating comic draftsmen (do you hear me, Zombie Winsor McKay?) So, it's a nice book--lots of information in one place. Hats off, you two.

Until, I get something going, check out Warren's post on the Sokal hoax, if you dare.

Sad Sack, Misreading, and The Anxiety of Influence

After reading Derf's swell Punk Rock and Trailer Parks (here's a link to my post, and another link to a nice interview), I started thinking about why I was drawn to his work. I mentioned the Don Martin vibe, but the more I thought, the more I found myself thinking about the Sad Sack work of Fred Rhoads and George Baker. Derf's work definitely has a 'Sack vibe, and so I got to thinking about how much I loved those Sad Sack comics in the 70's. I haven's seen any since then, as they don't seem to have gotten the glamorous retro love as of yet. I will posit Sad Sack as an eery harbinger of Arms and Ether. Weird military types, and lots of beat-downs. Compare the above strip by Fred Rhoads with my 21st century effort. (I know, Rhoads kicks my ass.)
Anyhow, hooray, and here's a link to a blog that gets into some of the deeper nuances of Sad Sack. Okay, back to work.

Dig Some Derf

Just finished Derf's Punk Rock and Trailer Parks which I thoroughly enjoyed. Here's Derf's website: derfcity.com. (Hey, kinda like Inadaville!). Thoroughly dig his Don Martin-inspired visual style. The writing is also top notch as is his musical taste. And finally. . . OHIO. Check out his weekly strip, The City.

Football: The Song

God, I cannot get this out of my head. Damn you, Matt Lucas (Arsenal fan, btw). Apparently, I have an endless hunger for literal songs about sports. "Another time, a player got fouled, and everybody booed very loud."



A few more Matt Lucas turns as George Dawes, the drumming baby.

Pop Muzak

I want music to lift me up into shimmering veils of electric Godhead so that I feel like a cross between Liberace and Thor. Some of my friends go in for a dark, heavy gothic trance, but not me. I'm already inclined to dank, moronic funks, so I don't really need that tendency reinforced by my music. So, when Third Eye Blind's hatefully popular Semi-Charmed Kind of Life came up on Pandora while Sam and I were listening, I had that, "Oh, hell yeah, turn it up" reaction. I then taught it to him on the guitar (3 chords!), and when we went to get the lyrics I had that, "Oh yeah, the song is entirely about getting all kinds of @#$%ed up on crystal meth and having all kinds of spectacular, explicitly described sex," reaction. So I did the, "yeah, I'm not really sure what that means. . . hmmm" and then we went back to "Swing Swing" by the All American Rejects. I know, I know, but Sam listens to Husker Du and the Ramones as well as 4th-generation bubble gum punk. I've always believed you can like The Beatles and The Monkees.

For kids music the way it actually should be done, check dis ultra-hip early 70's Sesame Street Roosevelt Franklin. I had this album as a young 'un, and darned if it didn't give me soul.



"A-B, you know I got that together." RF, y'all's just a stone-cold bad-ass.

Got to get with it

A New Season

Denilson, keep on livin' the dream, baby. . .

Arsenal with a 6-1 demolition of Everton at Goodison Park. Wow.

Before today's kick-off, I'd decided to carry a new attitude into this season's football spectating. Influenced by many hours of off-season "research" (bottom-feeding web surfing after 1:00 a.m.), and this magnificent interview with "The Professor," I propose the following spectating manifesto:

1. Dare to dream and let the agony fall where it may. The fun in watching is in not knowing what's going to happen on any given day and giving in to that excitement. Turn the t.v. on early, get some snacks, put on the over-priced team gear, and yell at flickering images of people far, far away from you.

2. Denilson. I'm into you, now. My main issues with him last season were a) his lack of defensive aggression (craziness, intensity, desperation, bite), b) his non-imposing physical stature on a team that could use a bit of it here and there, and c) he didn't seem to offer too much going forward to make up for his lack of defensive splendor. In other words, he felt like a space-waster. Not necessarily negative, but not anything positive either. This excellent post from Untold Arsenal helped me get a clue, filling in some holes in my tactical understanding, and answering the "Why on earth, would Wenger play this guy?" question, that I knew had to have a clear answer. Of course, Denilson ends up scoring a beautiful goal to open the scoring today. Luckily, I had made a public declaration of my revised attitude to my family before kickoff. Sam will vouch for this. Julie didn't really care what I was on about at that moment (rightfully so, of course), so she may or may not.

3. Last year, I had a romantic belief in what Arsenal could do. I was fired-up by the youth movement, and thought, "Yeah, screw all those cranks. Prove them wrong. Win with kids." My optimism was remorselessly torn down by the reality of the season, but this summer, I found that optimism creeping back up again, with the added "ahh, but they're also a year-better!" Several have also pointed out that the season just wasn't even close to being "bad" as far as bad seasons go. This wasn't Newcastle or Tottenham. . . This ties into 4.

4. Arsenal has fucking good-ass, miraculous soccer players playing for the best manager in the world. A nice quote from a column in the Guardian via Arseblog,
". . . you want me to tear my hair out now, when I've got Fábregas and Arshavin in front of me; and Wilshere and Vela sitting in the wings?"
I've been having a blast playing parents vs kids soccer on Sundays with Sam and his buddies from the Ashland Soccer Club. The experience of actually playing the game again is always humbling (even against 9 year olds). When I came back from the game last week, I saw checked out the Emirates Cup Arsenal vs. Rangers highlights and had to pick my jaw off the floor. Those guys are unbelievable.

5. Arsene Wenger is the man. From the Daily News interview:

What is difficult for me is not that clubs have more money. We try to go a different way that, for me, is respectable. Briefly, these are the basics. I thought: ‘We are building a stadium, so I will get young players in early so I do not find myself exposed on the transfer market without the money to compete with the others. I build a team, and we compensate by creating a style of play, by creating a culture at the club because the boy comes in at 16 or 17 and when they go out they have a supplement of soul, of love for the club, because they have been educated together.

The people you meet at college from 16 to 20, often those are the relationships in life that keep going. That, I think, will give us strength that other clubs will not have.’ And, so far, we have flirted with success. Not last year because we were never in the race for the championship, but before and certainly in 2006 when we were in the Champions League final. The team looks to me to be growing and gelling and being close to it, but at the moment they do not get credit for what they produce and like every team who has not won they still doubt whether they can win.

Inada's Interviews with Professional Athletes, Coaches and Managers - Part I: Pitino

I've been taking a break from the daily summer grind of drawing and "creativity" to conduct a series of interviews with professional sports figures regarding the difficulties they experience off the field, away from the white-hot glare of the madding public. In this first conversation, Rick Pitino opens up about his recent explorations of sexual relationships outside of the church-sanctioned limitations of marriage and the imperfect ironic choices facing middle aged men in the public sphere. I found much to admire in his frank articulation of the poignant conflict between desire and responsibility. Here's Pitino, unedited and from the heart:

"I'd like to say I regret my sexual encounters, but in all honesty, how could I? They are so much the color and apex of my life's experience. And yet, I do feel regret at times for being so caught up in the maelstrom of a public life and the broad sweep of popular athletics. In contrast to the noisy pageantry of big-time college basketball, I've also experienced clear moments of understanding and peace spontaneously emerging from solitude and reflection. I long for more of those experiences, but of course, such moments are as transitory as any others, aren't they? So you may criticize my sexual explorations, but I would ask, if we're not living to better answer our deepest questions as fully as we can, what are we really doing with our short time on this earth? If I have any true regrets, they center around failing to live unconditionally in that un-graspable vivid vibration between past and future, all and nothing, heaven and hell. So, if you must judge me harshly in order to take some meager pleasure from your own untested fidelity to family, morals, and domestic bonds, don't forget to shed a tear and raise a glass to the distant memory of how the sun blazed brightly in your very soul when once you met the eyes and felt the secret touch of a beautiful stranger."

slow magic returning

hot clouds in the summer sky

Back to School

Urkh. Me go teach in morning. Me make self portrait as beast in Maya. Here design.

Lay it down, Professor

If I were a football manager, I'd like to be able to say this kind of thing:

The sums can appear shocking, but they are the result of a calculation carried out by the investor. It is necessary to disregard moral judgment and to question the profitability of the operation.

This was Wenger's take on the recent spate of Real Madrid signings. Hell yeah.

Okay. I'll start putting up some actual stuff instead of more Arsene Wenger pictures. He just fits a certain angle of my Super Ego so well. That could be a key to watching sports, actually. It's a chance for that judgmental, Nobodaddy in your head to run wild. "That was a horrible play." "How did you let that guy get past you?" etc. etc. And managers are fantastic manifestations of people you try to impress in your mind. Jose Mourinho showed up in my brother's dreams. I imagine Sir Alex, Tom Landry, and Joe Torre are out maurading the dreamscape as well.