it's all about the leatha

I hardly ever draw girls, so here's a drawing of Xena Warrior Princess to balance it out. I used to like this show a lot.



I did a Command+F for the word "break" on the Xena wikipedia episode summary page, because I was looking for the episode where Xena gets put on a cross and has her legs broken. I couldn't find it but the word "break" comes up about a million times in 1 of 2 incarnations: "break the curse" or "break out of jail." That's how you know it's a good show.

Anyway, what am I even remembering with this leg breaking thing? Is it a backstory? When I googled "Xena on the cross" all I got was a lot of fanfiction and women's studies essays. That is also how you know it's a good show.

Christmas spirit.

My family and I celebrate Christmas, but it's the secular American Christmas built around Santa, trees, lights, cookies and capitalism. Little babies in mangers have never really been a big part of our festivities, but with all the stress of the holiday season, I've been getting some mileage outta my personal favorite expletive.


Stress aside, any holiday that makes the world look like a lite brite is OK by me.

This weeks hallway show is Mel Gibson. Road Warriors is the only movie he was in that I like or care about.



Make a Mel, tape it up.

I was searching for reference pictures for this weeks hallway show, and instead of typing in Jason Alexander for some reason I typed in Lloyd Alexander by mistake, a guy who wrote some fantasy books I read in middle school.


He looks like this


which btw is exactly what I want my future husband to look like.

The problem with growing up on Fantasy and Science Fiction (and if it was published before 2000 and involved some sort of fantastical quest, magic, outer space, dystopian society, or all of the above, I've probably read it, bottom line) is that I feel like a huge failure if I'm not having some sort of crazy adventure. I can't get a real job, or have a home, or fall in love, until I've done all the first parts of the story, which is having a quest and nearly dying 50 times. I'm on the brink, and ready to have an adventure, and it's time, and all I need is a little cash, but what if I'm just being a crazy person and I should use the resources I have here instead of going gallivanting off into parts unknown?

Here's a drawing I did at work, to prove that I still can do things like this/"SHOW 'EM." I had to scan it a bunch of times because it's big. It's of this pretty cool wooden sculpture on the 2nd floor Promenade. From the front he looks like a ghoul but that drawing spot was taken already.


I made it in about 2 hours in between talking to this super annoying kid who was listening to Christian hardcore way too loud and singing along and wanted to show me his portfolio/draw me AND talking to this super awesome 79 year old man who in 2004/2005 WALKED ("I went through 6 pairs of shoes!") from LA to New York. He told me that and I 100% totally believe him. His name was Leonard and I talked to him for a while and he kept making me laugh and WE REALLY CONNECTED OK.

This post has way too much of me crushing on old guys. SICK. I'm not usually into that.

I feel ya buddy.

This week's hallway show is Steve Buscemi.


Make a Steve, tape it up.

My mother brought home these typing gloves for me today; our house is freezing because heat doesn't grow on trees. Unfortunately they just isolate my exposed fingertips and make them feel even colder. Not helpful. They're easier to type in than my usual winter solution though, which is regular gloves and a lot of mashed keyboard typos.


BRRRRRRRR.

wah.

Here's a fact about me: I really love text messages. I think they are the sonnets of the digital age. I've had this phone for about 3 years, the inbox holds 100 messages, and it is always full. Every once and a while I go through and weed some out to make room for new ones, until I had 3 years worth of only the GEMS, from a few really great people I know. The other day I was trying to delete my drafts box, and instead I deleted my entire carefully compiled inbox.

Maybe because I was already in the pit but I am REALLY :( about it.

Sentimental.

Yeah so I dropped the ball on this every day posting thing. Holiday weekend and I may have started the pity party a couple days ahead of schedule. It's a real rager. I'll maybe dig myself out of the pit tomorrow. Until then here's a picture of a dog/caterpillar that I saw once.

The second drawing in my series of charming space men:
this week's hallway show is Billy Dee Williams.



Make a Lando, tape it up

world wide what?

Can someone please explain the internet to me? And don't give me any crap. I've read a million pages about it but my brain can't wrap itself around it. It's like trying to imagine eternity or the face of god. Plus way too many, like, vocab words. And acronyms.

Nice diagram, asshole.

I know (ok actually just found this out in the last couple weeks) that information on websites is stored on giant underground computers, and that's what you're paying for when you buy hosting space, you're paying a company to store your website information on a big underground computer. I am barely ok with this concept because I get that I'm loading information somewhere. I don't really understand what the INTERNET part is. Like, how information even goes anywhere. I can understand telephones and televisions kind of. Or not really understand them but I BELIEVE in them. I believe in radio waves. Is it the same?

This is a picture of the internet, according to google images.

Just walk away

Lord Humungus you are my idol. I also need the gazoleen I KNOW HOW U FEEL.

good snack

get ready

Here's a drawing of my dog.


She is immortal and probably the highlander.

AYYYYYYY. Henry Winkler this week at the hallway show.
Make a Fonzie, tape it up.

My neighborhood has a lot of trees, which makes it gorgeous in October and a pain in the ass in November. We have a pretty small yard but since it's surrounded by trees it gets seriously buried. This year filled up 56 yard waste bags in the front yard alone. THE WORST! I hate those bags. They are way too tall and way too skinny.

Here's a claw hand I created out of a broom and a rake to get the leaves in after the bag was half full and you couldn't tip it over any more. I don't know how other people do it, but this is basically the least efficient process ever.


Anyway, the trees are finally bare so today was the last day of yard work THANK GOD.

e.g. scooters, vacation, fall

I am never going to get any dates at this rate.

Here's another thing I eat a lot of that's terrible for me. Spider dogs and mustard: THE BEST!

Memories

Inspiration

I kind of blew it with the drawing I had planned for today, so in order to keep up appearences here's a picture by a painter/author/illustrator that I really like named Maira Kalman. She makes a lot of paintings with words on them. A picture with a caption is my favorite thing to look at.

Week two of the Hallway Show rebirth. Check it out!


Make a Gaga, tape it up.

KIRK THIS IS THE ONE WITH THE ALIEN BABY.

Damn it Bill you handsome son of a bitch. Sorry you're a joke now.

Abby LOVES all the squirrels in our yard. Shut up Abby.

Paper shoes at the DIA.




+gel pens.

HEY KIDS

Starfleet.

Have you even been like, sitting on the couch watching internet TV or whatever, and suddenly you just feel overwhelmed with sorrow because you cannot even BUHLIEVE how badly you want to be a member of Starfleet having space adventures right now? Because it is NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN. Starfleet is imaginary.


The Gorn: not my problem.

Being poor for the rest of my life is fine because instant noodles is my 3rd favorite food. Extra glutamates, please!

The hallway show returns

The Hallway Show is back! Check it out HERE. Thanks, internet, for making it all possible. This is gonna be great.

Make a Danny, tape it up.

FALL

October is the fun fall month and now November is here to be cold and full of yard waste.

Here's some sharks I made.

Last week I took a solo tour of the west coast, to which I have never been in adult memory. It was super great! I was gone for 9 days and went to San Francisco, Seattle, and Portland. Those are places I am thinking about moving to. I basically just wandered around and pretended I lived there. Also I was a business woman a little bit. By which I mean I went to APE and tons of book stores and bought a lot of really cool looking crap. I said to each city, OK city I am ready to fall in love with you so show me what you got.

This is San Francisco. I'm in a forest.

Puget Sound, how do you even exist.

OK so this wasn't the #1 best thing about Portland, but look at how great their fire hydrants are.

I made this portfolio and dropped it off at Chronicle Books headquarters for their design fellowship (which I want so bad it hurts my heart) when I was in San Francisco.


I really have to restrain myself from writing desperately clingy notes to Chronicle telling it how good we would be together.

BABY I CAN LOVE ENOUGH FOR BOTH OF US.

volcano care instructions

Put a baby in it.

BLAH BLAH BLAH

This past Saturday I was doing some dallying in Cass Corridor at the annual Dally in the Alley festival, and I randomly met the graphics editor for a big time Detroit newspaper. It's a small town. I asked him for some advice about finding work in the field, and he goes: "There's nothing. Learn video editing."

WAH WAH.

Some good news is my book Inertia: A Zombie Story is now available at Leopold's Books, a super cool new bookstore that just opened in Detroit, on the first floor of the Park Shelton, next to Paris Crepes. The store is really small, but it's all indie comics and small press stuff, and McSweeney's and other books with nice pictures in them, and hiply designed covers. They're looking for local books and zines to sell on consignment, so spread the word.

I don't really have any cool new drawings. Just more lions. BUT. A coworker recently turned me onto the new Sharpie Pen, which was a terrific surprise. They don't bleed like the old Sharpie finetip, and they don't catch on the paper like a Micron tends to. I'm going to go buy 80 of them. And then jab them in my eye.

I went to the Secretary of State today to register my NEW CAR. Well, "new" is a relative term. It's been sitting in the driveway all weekend without plates, taunting me. I'm so excited to drive it. My new tentative 5 year plan is to move into the car's cargo area and become a nomad. All I need is a hotplate that can plug into the cigarette lighter. DREAM LIFE.

Here are some sketchbook strangers. It was big time napsville at the S.o.S.

It was his best hat.

COME ON DOWN

Last night our power went out at about 10:30 pm. At the time I was about 30 minutes into a really good drawing groove that I had been struggling to get into all day. I had drunk about 80 cups of tea in preparation for drawing all night, I had This American Life playing on my computer, and the house was finally quiet. And then the power went out! Crud, right? So I packed up my pencils and lassoed Joe and we went to Ram's Horn, where we split a burger and fries and I drew this lady.


Ram's Horn is always a good idea.

Somerset bags!

The Somerset bags with my design are now out! They are a reusable shopping bag, and are available at Living Green Design at Somerset Mall, next to Saks 5th Avenue. They're $15, and 10 of those dollars goes to CCS or something.




Cool!

I'm trying this thing with my computer where I save things in folders with descriptive file names, instead of just all on my desktop with names like "thissucks83djh88." It's working pretty good, but it's not meshing very well with my old system. It's going to take a while to integrate them.

Here's a lion. I've been drawing lions a lot.