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.

This beast is a destroyer of worlds.

David Weidman

I just ordered this book like, 2 days ago, and it came in the mail this morning. FAST DELIVERY!


This guy's great! I'm really inspired. I love the combination of shapes and lines and bold and delicate. The book is really nice too, the paper is glossy but not too glossy, and a perfect weight.

Here are some scans! I got pretty excitable as soon as I cracked it open.

WHOA!

WHOA!

WHOA!

WHOA!

WHOA!

Yesterday I did this thing where I made a journal drawing for every waking hour of the day. It was fun until the end of the day when I was sick of drawing and just watching tv for hours and didn't know how to document that.

It's not exactly adventure land over here, but I was awake for 16 hours.

Enough fooling around!

Here is a painting I made as a 2009 re-do illustration for "The Walking Char" story I posted last time.
This lady is too old for adventures, but I wouldn't mind a trip that's for sure.

Do you like to trave?

In lieu of new art, I would like to share two stories I found in a notebook in my parents' basement. I really have no concept of how old I was when I did them, I am estimating first or second grade. My spelling hasn't really improved since then.

I have transcribed the text below if there is any difficulty in legibility. Please note on the illustration for "Dangoros Pino (And Alafed)" that in addition to Alfred's plight, there is a mouse-sized parallel story simultaneously happening. It's pretty complex.



"Dangoros Pino (And Alafed)
Once there was a boy his name was Alafred. Alafred loved to play the peano. But one day the peano wasnet wroking so thay had to get a new one. This pino was not like any other, it was a dangorus pino. Whene the day that the pino came in the boy started right away. Bat this pino bit off your fingers if you played it. Snap! It was to late. Poor, poor Alafred."



(left)
"THE WALKING CHAR
Once there was a old wowen who sold old chars to old people. There was one char that nobody had looked at for a long time. One day a old, I mean VERY old women came to were they sold the old chars and looked at that one char that nobody had look at for along time. She looked at it and then she said "I by it!" She took it home. When she got home she sat down in it. Then all of a sudden it grew a mouth and said "I love to trave, dont you?" Then whith out a warning it started to walk. It walked and walked and walked. faster and faster and faster it went. Be-fore she new it she was arond the word and back, but it did not stop. on and on and on thay went but still no stopping. Thay never did stop, they never will. THE END By Nikki"

BONUS MATERIAL (right)
These are probably the greatest lines of verse I can ever hope to write.

"Me oh my what can I do? Someones bene murdered and I don't know who!"

"Mr. Migoo went poo poo and Mrs Migoo poo poo with winny the poo a piglet too and roo went poo with piglet to and winny the poo and Mrs Migoo and Mr Migoo thay all went poo poo!"

Summer!

Man, I was so good at blogging and then summer happened and I stopped completely. BAD. I love summer though. Everything is better in summer. Everything but blogging.

Here are some things I've done!

I moved back in to my parents house. This is their dog, Abby. She is a horrible monster incapable of love.



I bought this picture from CCS illustration fellow Ben Cloutier, it's probably my favorite piece anyone made all year. My favorite part is the nose. It is really inspiring to me. Noses are a really useful body part, but they are weird looking and hard to draw. I really enjoy different artists' different nose interpretations.



Another thing I did was I fixed up and painted my parents' mailbox.



This was their old mailbox.



That's not the actual before-picture, it just looked like that, with wood bits falling off it, except standing upright. The mailbox in the picture was their mailbox before the current one, it's just lying there in the yard still for some reason. It's a little bit w.t. But whatever.

I also painted my old bedroom this beeeeeautiful blue color.


I'm going to keep all the furniture on that one side.

It was blue before, but uglier. Also it had this dragon on the wall that I drew when I was in the 8th grade. I was really big into dragons.



I also had to paint the ceiling, because it used to be black, courtesy of back when I was sad circa 2001. Painting a ceiling is the worst thing. Michelangelo probably painted the Sistine Chapel and was like "SO NOT WORTH IT" the whole time. I had to put 4 coats on it.

Instead of drawing, I've been trying to sew. I don't really know how to sew. But I am trying to learn. We have an old sewing machine, which I used to know how to work, but it has been malfuctioning. There are all kinds of knobs on it that you are supposed to turn to set it up with the right tension and stitch length and whatever, and I have no idea what they mean really. I've just been turning them randomly for years and it's worked out, but this time it didn't work out. So I've been doing it all by hand. That's fine because it's a nice activity to do while watching tv/internet-tv.

I made this little handbag, as a practice for a bigger version that will be more useful to me. A purse is only useful to me if I can fit everything I own inside it. I was halfway done with the bigger version when I got frustrated with some construction issues and had to take a break and make a small one first.



I also got a job working at the DIA, which I start on the 19th. COOL. I have less than a week of lazing to go. I've almost got my act together. I have a bunch of fun ideas for summer projects which I will start soon so get pumped.

HELLO!

I'm graduated! Real world, hello nice to meet you. The student show opens today. I'm so excited, it's finally here. Everything is done and ready and now I've just got to pick out my party dress.



Anyone coming over here from seeing my wall, welcome! If you're interested in my books, look to the right sidebar, where it says "SHOP" there is a link to Lulu where you can find "Dating Advice for Monsters" and "The Hallway show", and Etsy, where you can find "Inertia: A Zombie Story", and eventually some other goodies.

Senior wall hanging!
I'm not finished yet, but I will be tomorrow.

Here's a picture that's on there.


Swine flu/bird flu/salmonella/west nile/e coli/SARS

Also I made this blog into my website again, after a few weeks of having an ugly fake website somewhere else. To the right are links to my gallery and my store. Look at me taking advantage of established resources. The gallery is Flikr and the store is Lulu. I also made an Etsy but I have to find my camera cord before I can list anything on there. Build your own website, for dummies and lazies and CRAFTIES. I'm crafty. I should run a seminar.