What's with the Western Electric 202 with the E-1 seamed handset sitting atop the Good Book, you ask? Times are hard, so I'm hoping to hear from God very soon. Okay, this is not really the way it's done, but you get the point. By the way, since upgrading to fiber-optics, my subset no longer rings. Anyone out there like to donate a ring-booster?

THE COMICS

I know I already posted links to the comics I did for Zeros2Heroes Media, but they're dispersed throughout, so here's a quick clearinghouse of the links in case you're interested in perusing the work I did for them. They are presented in order of completion. 

Black Jack O'Breen

The West Was Lost

Dandelion Odyssey

I had no hand in writing or conceiving these stories. I'm just a hired gun, so all the interior and cover art is by yours truly (I didn't do the lettering or titles, however).

I wonder if other artists ever reach some point in life where they basically accept the likelihood of dying in poverty and obscurity, never able to earn a decent living doing what they do best –– assuming they have talent. Of course there are those who have sipped so long at the cistern of the self-esteem movement that they've become drunk with an overinflated sense of their own abilities. I don't think it's healthy to go through life without a little self-reflection and self-assessment, especially when it comes to how one plans on presenting one's abilities to a market that won't be as kind as their kindergarten teacher. When I was younger, I thought I could do anything that I put my mind to doing, art-wise, though I knew many things would present a challenge and might be quite time-consuming to achieve. I've since accepted certain limitations to what I can achieve –– not because I necessarily lack the talent, but because I lack the training. Some things simply require proper training to be done correctly, and being self-taught can only take you so far. I'm happy with what I've learned on my own, but I would really like to get some classical training. It could only help –– certainly wouldn't hurt. Sure, there are probably plenty of computer programs that I could learn that would make me far more marketable in certain industries, but I have no desire to be a 'technician'. I know that means I'll have to forego the good jobs that can be had with those skills, but I'd rather be a good artist than a good computer-geek. I'm not demeaning CG skills – I'm just expressing a personal preference for what I'd like to accomplish, not to mention that my learning-curve for CG programs is quite steep. Meanwhile, for the welfare of my wife and children, I'm doing one of those self-assessments about where my skills are and how much longer I can pursue art as a means of living. I'm not sure my career and the present economy can share an oxygen tank much longer. Something's got to give.

A brief note about the L.A. (Claremont) Comic Con: The Con was small, but it was a first-time effort, and done with little promotion, so all said, it wasn't a bad turn-out. I'm not sure it did much for me -- certainly not as far as my wallet is concerned -- but I was able to network a bit, which can always be helpful down the road. I also met and was able to chat a bit with Danny Miki and Dean White, both very talented, and both very nice persons. It's always encouraging to get feedback from other professionals.

As it will be a monthly event, I'll be attending in the future to monitor the growth and see how it develops. Hopefully it becomes a significant event for the community of Claremont and local shops. Only time will tell. Here's a small video-clip taken at the event. That's another artist, Rob Zailo, there at the table with me. I'm the one gesticulating, proving I have Latin blood coursing through my arms, from the elbows down. It also proves my old boss, Mr. Sherman, was correct after all: I can't talk and draw at the same time. 

Tomorrow's the mini-L.A. Comic Con at the Claremont Packing House. And I let myself get talked into participating. I anticipate being chained to a small card-table all day, trying to peddle my Sketchbooks, of which I still have boxes full. If I'm lucky I'll sell just enough to pay for my small space. It's not that I'm negative –– well, okay, I am naturally inclined toward skepticism, but I'm trying to have a glass-is-half-full kind of attitude. I suppose not having any expectations prevents disappointment should nothing materialize. On the other hand, it also makes any positive results that much more satisfying. I'll report back in a couple of days and let you know how it went.

Here's another Christmas doodle to put into your stocking. Some may be wondering why I don't do a nativity scene. I would love to do that, but here's why I don't: since these are only doodles for a blog, they need to be rather simple. A nativity scene would involve a stable, lots of animals, shepherds, and Joseph, Mary, and the baby Jesus in a manger . . . that's a whole lot of work just for a quick blog-sketch. A fat guy with a beard was just a whole lot easier, so please cut me some slack.

Hey, I just realized –– I haven't had any egg-nog yet. 

The Man With The Bag.mp3

LIGHTNING STRIKES TWICE

That's right, twice in one day –– what a bargain. Two for the price of none!

I forgot to mention in the last post that you might be noticing the absence of the 'flooglemop' title to the site. Well, I'm keeping the domain-name and it still directs users to my homepage, but I've decided to act somewhat professional and just use my name. Fortunately I secured the domain first, beating that other fellow who spends his time in an institution that pays homage to narcoleptic apes. I also managed to top him on Google –– see, it pays to blog and network.

So why ditch 'flooglemop' and go with my name? It started at the San Diego Con in '07 when I met artist, Lee Moyer. He noted I should be using my name in my email address for professional reasons. So I made that change, but I couldn't as easily change the name of the site because it was already designed and I just didn't want to go back and do more work. But here's why I originally didn't use my name: I thought if I did that, it would come off as a bit narcissistic. I have no aspirations to personal fame, and I thought it may have appeared as if I had an inflated ego. But after perusing other artists' sites, I realized that that was just part of business. Name-recognition also helps appropriate gigs, and I figured I'd had enough of obscurity, "obscurity" being an albatross that still hangs across my neck. Hopefully that explains the name change.

Touching on another subject, I read through the Dave Steven's book the other night. Despite the guy's talent and experiences, I wouldn't trade places with him for all the bullets in Baghdad. There's something sad about the whole thing. Not just because he died, but he seemed so alone or something, his friends notwithstanding. I guess family means the world to me, and having reached the age he did without a wife and children seems too much of a waste for my taste. The entire thing left me a bit depressed. It was a good reminder that fame isn't all it's made to be. 

Pinch yourself - this is four days in a row now. It must be Christmas. And what better gift could I give you than updated content?

Actually, the site has been slightly tweaked, but you probably won't notice -- other than all the glitches and apparent slices/patches that are visible. I'm hoping those get repaired eventually -- "eventually" being an equivocal term, it's meaning entirely dependent on whom you ask. Be that as it may, I also added a Storyboard section in the Design gallery.It probably should have gone in the Illustration gallery, but I ran out of space for another tab. Logistics and all, you know how it is. Incidentally, storyboards are usually quite rough by nature, so it's not really "pretty" stuff. But it is what it is. 

I didn't want to post without some image, so I threw this Christmas-card together in about twenty minutes -- not too bad for a quick sketch. Why a girl? I figured you'd all had it up to your pointy ears with elves by now. 

THREE'S THE CHARM

I'm on a roll. This is the third day in a row posting. Must be something in the deodorant.

Anyway, I can't imagine why anyone would be interested –– perhaps you've had a hankering to burgle my home and need to case the joint, in which case, here's a photo of part of my studio so you don't stumble and fall over while prowling around in the dark. This may not be the best angle. I'll post another picture when the opportunity presents itself. If you're really good I'll post the blueprints to house's ductwork, just in case you choose to crawl in "Mission Impossible" style.

So this is where the manual labor takes place, where the blood, sweat, and tears are shed, where barrels of java are consumed, and where I take naps. The computer stuff is on the other wall, to the left of this area. As you can see, this was a closet, but I took the doors off and it happened that everything fit just right -- like it was meant to be there. Ooohh-Aahh.

Yeah, this is my own little creative world of imagination. It's easy being a hermit if you can tailor your surroundings to include a mug-warmer.

THE UGLY DUCKLING

This was the very last panel I drew for an eight-page comic I recently completed. In all honesty, it was a throwaway panel, insofar as I put little thought, planning, or care into it. I just wanted to draw something--anything--to get through the thing. Although I try to give my all no matter what I do, the truth of it is that when I'm not getting paid well it's difficult to spend more time than necessary on something. I just can't afford to spend all day on something when I have bigger fish to fry. 

So here I was, finishing up this quick ugly-duckling-doodle of a panel, and after it was done I looked at it and it struck some chord in me, and I can't quite figure why. It is, after all, very cartoony (which is what the art-director wanted), and there's nothing great about it at all. Like I said, it's a throwaway drawing. But I can't help but take some great pleasure in it, though it's not a feeling I expect anyone else to share. I'm certain most everyone is looking at it and thinking it's a throwaway panel also. Maybe it's the fact that I'd be hard-pressed to create something this cartoony if asked to do so, so getting this result by accident is what I find so charming about it. I don't expect anyone else to understand what I'm babbling about, so this is largely an insider's conversation (between me, myself, and I). Yeah, okay, so you're not impressed with it either, but that's my point. 'Why am I finding pleasure in the mundane' is what I'm wondering. It's one of those "surprised by joy" moments C.S. Lewis wrote about. Those rare moments when the most mundane thing provokes a great swelling of joy to rise within you, for no apparent reason. I'm not speaking about events like a sunset, a child's smile, or any of the trite, stereotypical things people ascribe to a God-moment. I'm talking about those really mundane things that shouldn't inspire anything. It's difficult to describe to anyone who's never experienced it. It's like trying to describe colors to a blind person. It's one of those 'gotta be there', subjective moments. You either get it or you don't -- like those stereogram optical-illusion illustrations that were so popular in the late-eighties; the one's that had everyone staring and "oohing-and-aahing", even though I saw absolutely nothing. I was certain I was the intended victim of a grand Candid Camera conspiracy to drive me batty. But I was determined not to be the unwitting dupe of this most nefarious hi jinx. I felt like the kid in the story, "The Emperor's New Clothes". I wanted to scream out, "This is hooey! There's nothing there!" Well, eventually I stared long enough to become cross-eyed, and then, like magic, there it was. And then it would disappear ... and reappear ... and disappear again. But I did (sometimes) see what others saw. Perhaps if you stare at this comic panel long enough you'll see what I see ... but I doubt it. 

LAST MINUTE 

THOUGHTS

I suppose "last minute thoughts" implies something is being thought prior to something else, or at the terminus of some other event.  In this case it refers to thoughts I'm having prior to dragging my carcass off to bed at 4:45 in the morning after another long night of working to wrap-up a project. The thing is, I'm not quite sure what those last thoughts were, and after spending far too much effort explaining the title to this post, I'm quite certain the thoughts have now successfully escaped me, never to return until I'm quite comfortable in bed, at which point I'll be unwilling to get up and make a note of what it was that was on my mind. 

Oh wait, I do recall it had to do with a comment on a post of mine from early September. I was going to discuss how no one reads this blog, and yet when someone does stumble across it they take the time to wander that far back into the blog. One would think that after skimming through a few of the latest posts, people would get bored and move on. I know I do.

DAVE STEVENS: BRUSH WITH PASSION

I've been chomping at the bit for Underwood Books' release of the Dave Stevens book, "Brush With Passion", since they first announced it at the San Diego Comic Con in 2007. It finally arrived last week and I'm annoyed that I haven't had the opportunity or time to read through it all. But just from flipping through it and reading the first few pages, it looks to be a great book on this fantastic talent. I was a bit disappointed that I was unaware of the deluxe edition with additional art before preordering my copy, but such is life. At least I saved a few bucks.

I didn't realize it was going to delve so much into Dave Stevens' life. Whether that was done as an afterthought as a tribute to him because of his passing, or whether that's the way Dave himself planned it from the outset, I have no idea. But I'm pleasantly surprised that it is what it is. 

There's a photo of Dave Stevens on the cover, and he's sitting in front of a wall covered with the film-poster of his trademark character, The Rocketeer.

It's a bit ironic that the art for that poster wasn't done by himself. But the film poster, illustrated by John Mattos, is a great piece of deco-style art, and it does Dave's character justice. It also happens to be tied for my favorite film-poster of all time, the other being that famous King Kong poster that's made a revival in the past couple of decades. 

For anyone who likes great art that's imbued with a sense of style and nostalgia reflective of the early-mid part of the past century, Dave Stevens is the only artist in recent times that could deliver -- and how.

CHEAP FILLER

I have no idea how people find things to continually blog about, given that most don't get paid to write. I guess I really am a chronic laconic when it comes to this. Seems to me that aside from those blogs which exist to inform or entertain, most blogs exist as a modern version of the journal or diary. Ironically, after a century of taking great pains to find new and clever places to hide a diary from prying eyes -- to the extent that such need or desire for privacy spawned an industry which produced little books with rudimentary locks which any budding thief could pick with any small, malleable piece of scrap-metal ... now where was I? Oh, yeah -- so after a century of fiercely guarding one's private thoughts, people now cast caution to the wind and post the private details of their experiences and ideas on the world-wide-web for any and all to peruse. I suspect most teeny-boppers probably think their parents are ignorant Luddites, unable to navigate the web to find out what their children have been posting for the world to consume. Add to that the fact that it matters little if, somewhere on the other side of the globe, Omar Al Ding Dong is sitting on a three-legged pack-mule and scouring MySpace on his laptop, reading about how little Suzy snuck out of the farmhouse on a Saturday night, past her ever-vigilant father, Ol' McDonald, to join her friends for some illegal tractor-pulling. Yeah, no chance that ol' Omar is going to rat her out. As if.

Be that as it may, I'll leave the true confessions, political pontificating, infomercials, and/or "how to" lessons to other bloggers ... which leaves me with little left to write about ... which is why I rarely post ... so there. 

So I'm having some guys redo the site and add an Admin panel so I can actually update content every so often. It's been a drag not being able to do so, but hopefully the thing will be complete soon 'nuff. It's the curse of not being a Gen Y geek, meaning I'm unable to master web-publishing programs at a glance. As I have no intention of designing anyone else's site, I don't want to waste time with the learning curve, so I'm depending on a dope-proof Admin panel to help me update content without having to know html, Flash and so forth. I should have done this on the first pass, but I guess I'm learning the hard way.
Oh, the pic is a cover to a comic I did for Z2H.