Sunday, October 31, 2010

"What Even Is This" - Digital Piano

Oh, money.  Having it, spending it, accumulating it--a few years ago, that was me.  Now?  Well...at least I'm still spending it.  Once I built a railroad--made it run.  Made it race against tiiiiiiiime...

Friday, October 29, 2010

"I'm Not C.I.A."

There was an article yesterday about how the MI6 chief made the first public address anyone in his position has ever made.  Maybe he started out with "I'm not MI6..."

Thursday, October 28, 2010

"Mice"

Back when I lived with my parents, I'd occasionally have roommates:  mice.  As such, I have a fair share of mice-related memories.  They've never grossed me out like bugs (especially roaches), but dealing with them was always emotionally problematic.  I probably have some mild form of PTSD from the mice I've had to deal with.  Do you like that euphemism, "deal with?"  I don't know where that's coming from.  Probably from all those mice I've had to kill.








Wednesday, October 27, 2010

"What Even Is This" - Doctor

It's hard enough just to exist, let alone go through all the basic motions that ensure one's continued existence, like eating and sleeping and talking to other humans.  But then when an actual problem gets thrown into the mix--hoo boy, I'm outta there.  No thanks.  Count me out.  You got the wrong guy.

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Introducing Ryabovich, in: "Basketball Chair"

Meet Milton Ryabovich.  He's an ordinary 30-something bachelor living in the city.  He fancies himself a writer, but if pressed, probably couldn't present any evidence to support that claim.  His best friend is Charlie, and his on-again-off-again girlfriend is Rain.


I've been drawing "Ryabovich" for over 10 years now, though I don't draw him much these days.    The strip has two "formal features":  The first is verticality--you're supposed to "read down," as my thick felt tip pen advises multiple times on this page, and which is just plain unintuitive and a bad idea.  The other is that instead of speech bubbles, "Ryabovich" comics use floating quotation marks with short lines to indicate the speaker.  Again, an arbitrary and possibly poor choice, as demonstrated in that frame in the bottom left corner, where the basketball chair totally gets in the way of the words.  Weird.

Also:  A basketball chair?


Monday, October 25, 2010

Halloween and Thanks

Hey everyone!  Thanks to you guys, I've gotten over 1500 hits on my blog--and only about 1400 of those were me checking to see how many hits I'd gotten!  So, thank you!  And me!  For visiting my own website!

I don't know when I made this odd "Zank You!" card, but judging by the Christmas coloring, I'd guess it was January 200X.

Sunday, October 24, 2010

"Baggage Claim"

This is sort of the follow-up to the "In First Class..." comic I posted earlier.  Sarah and I were exhausted from two weeks of country-hopping and wanted to get our bags and get the f out of JFK.  Of course, it isn't always that easy.

Sorry about the blurry scan.  I scanned this about a week ago and promised myself I'd redo it before posting.  The lies we tell ourselves.

Friday, October 22, 2010

"Whatever Happened to...?"

 I thought I'd scan in a brand new comic, one I just drew yesterday.  I think the celebrities that brought this to mind most recently were Linda Cardellini and Busy Philipps from "Freaks & Geeks."  Linda totally posed for Maxim.  She's so great.





Thursday, October 21, 2010

I ♥ Nogales

Years ago, my dad went on a business trip to Nogales, in Mexico.  He spent a few days there, and when he came back, he was full of information about Nogales.  It was Nogales this, and Nogales that, and Nogales, Nogales, Nogales.  Madre de dios.

Anyway, in spite of the hours and hours of information communicated to me by my dad when he returned home, I didn't learn anything about Nogales.  But I did draw this slightly offensive comic, which I now present to you.

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

"Back to the Ocean" 2 - LIRR

When the picture in the movie theater is blurry, you're supposed to yell, "Focus!" until the projectionist fixes it.  But what do you yell when the sound is bad?  "Sound bad?"  "Bass Limiter?"

Also, I still don't know why Dasani hisses when you open it.  Not that I've bothered to look it up or anything.

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

"The American League Vs. The National League"

I never could get into sports.  I've always wanted to, since it would give me something to talk about with so many people, and of course add a few activities to the rather short list of things I do besides breathe and eat.  But sports have never clicked with me, and one day I'll learn to accept that.  Maybe.

Monday, October 18, 2010

"Back to the Ocean" 1

This friend is a recent creation.  I first doodled him (sounds dirty) at my old job, where I worked as head writer, and where there were always plenty of discarded scripts lying around to fill with vacant-eyed, soliloquizing humanoids.  Except this guy didn't have any eyes--just pure vacancy.

The title of the strip I borrowed from a song I had just written.  I figured no one would ever hear the song or read the comic, so there wasn't much harm in it.  And yet here we are.  Wanna hear the song?  It's in 5/4 time.  Pre-tty cool.

Sunday, October 17, 2010

"Carnival Time"

This one's pretty disturbing, but it always makes me laugh, in a shocked kind of way.  Which, I guess, is also kind of disturbing.  I don't remember what I was thinking when I drew this, except that, like almost all of these, it was just improvisational and written one frame at a time.  I'm not really comfortable posting it, but I honestly think it's darkly funny, so I hope you do too.

My wife (who isn't dead, and if she is, I didn't do it) thinks that I sometimes try to shock myself with these comics.  That sounds about right.

Saturday, October 16, 2010

"Oh, I'll Move Out"

My mom, scanner-extraordinaire, sent me one of her favorite doodles I made years ago.  I was still living at home, a year after college, and I guess there were frequent and loud discussions about whether I should still be doing that.  At one point I guess I drew this on a napkin and hung it on the fridge.  Or maybe mom hung it on the fridge.  I don't know who hung it, but it hung there for, like, three years.

I moved out in 2005.

Trivia:  The boombox is labeled "jambox" because that was the term Meatwad used on my favorite show at the time, "Aqua Teen Hunger Force."  The stratocaster case has stick-on metallic lettering that used to spell "KZAGE," the name of my first band, until the Z fell off.

Introducing Peter Pen

My wife Sarah just said to me:  "I like that you wrote this before you were in therapy."

I have to say, though, it's a prescient comic.

Friday, October 15, 2010

"Where Was I?" Part II

Here's Part II of "Where Was I?"  My brother and I were kicking "The Supervisors" around as an idea for a TV show, and I think the garden hose came up during that conversation.  Also, here's "Max" (AKA Job the Dog) when he was just a malnourished little puppy.  He's never told me to get a garden hose, but boy does he like to give orders.

Thursday, October 14, 2010

"Where Was I?" Part I

My super-talented friend Rick Ritter and I are going to collaborate one day (hopefully soon) on a project I've been dreaming about for years.  It involves Gods, and Agents, and humans called Supervisors--and that's all I can say without giving away the plot.  Of which there is very little, as of yet.

But this comic is one of my earlier attempts to explore the idea of Supervisors.  I wouldn't be surprised if this scene, or one like it, makes it into the storyline down the road.  Tomorrow I'll post Part II.

By the way, Rick just put out an amazing anthology of horror comics, featuring some great artists.  Get it here:  lastminutecomics.com 

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

"Oh, Sh*t, [INSERT CGI ANIMAL MOVIE]!"


There was a time a few years ago when it seemed like every movie coming out was a CGI animal movie.  Talking lions, talking squirrels, talking fish, talking dinosaurs, talking whatever--if it couldn't talk in real life, it was a strong contender to star in a CGI movie.

I decided the appropriate reaction to this would be to point at each poster I saw for a new, awful-looking CGI animal movie, and exclaim, "Oh, shit!" in a really excited, surprised way, followed by the name of the movie.  I got my girlfriend and her brother and sister doing it too, I think.


Come to think of it, there are still a lot of CGI animal movies coming out.  So how about this:  Why don't we all start pointing at the posters and saying, "Oh, shit, Guardians of the Owls!" or whatever?  It'll be a game, like shouting, "Punch buggy yellow, no punch backs!" whenever you see a yellow VW beetle.  But don't punch anyone.  Just point and scream a mild profanity.

Also, don't do it if a little kid is around.

Sunday, October 10, 2010

The Moon©

A little while ago (sometime between 2001 and 2003) I came up with this idea to copyright the moon.  He'd be a sad, vacant-eyed little character (in sharp contrast to my previous characters) who was fated to float in space, wistful and disenchanted about things in general.  Something about having the copyright symbol next to his name seemed funny and poignant.  I mean, he's the moon--our moon--one of the most popular, go-to symbols in all of human existence--I'd say a close second to the sun.  People have projected all of this meaning and emotion and profundity onto this poor satellite for as long as we've walked the earth.  Wolves and dogs have howled up at him.  NASA has shot probes into him, and sent men in big, bubbly helmets to walk all over him and plant flags.  And never once has he gotten to tell his side of the story.

Poor, poor Moon©.

Saturday, October 9, 2010

"In First Class..." (Slightly NSFW)

I've only been overseas once, when my wife and I took a belated honeymoon in Europe:  Italy, France, the UK. Very whirlwind, but fun.  I drew this on the flight back to the States.  In coach.

Friday, October 8, 2010

"The Feather Cap"


A little two-parter here.  Unfortunately, my sketchbook got caught in the rain or something, so the first page has been damaged a bit.

Also, I'm really sorry for my handwriting.  In 2nd Grade, I had a teacher named Ms. Rhone, whose specialty was teaching handwriting.  But about a month into the school year, Ms. Rhone got sick, and we got a guy named Woody as a substitute for the rest of the year.  Woody was pretty awesome, and apparently moonlighted as a drummer on television shows.  Unfortunately, he didn't teach me cursive.  Or even how to print legibly.

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

"Adding"

I've always been scared of math.  I even have a recurring math nightmare.  It's senior year of high school, and I'm in Ms. Evanthia Basias's AB Calculus class...except I'm not.  In fact, it's, like, May, and I haven't been there all year.  I've been wandering the hallways and getting pizza at Sal's and doing god knows what other kinds of important stuff.

This sounds like a trite dream scenario, doesn't it?  Well, fine, but it's also what actually happened.  I never went to math class.  I don't know what the hell I thought I was doing.

"I'm Selling Things Again"

This is a comic I drew a while ago.  (I apologize for the poor quality of the scan.  And the art.)  It features a character I call "The Proprietor."

My friend Andrew Cohen and I are now collaborating on an illustrated story called "Surrealia" that features this character.  Andrew is a very talented artist, and I can't wait to show you what we come up with.

Oh, and welcome to my blog, by the way.  Thanks for coming.

"I'm Going A Sewanee!"

     Back when I graduated from college, I was writing a lot of poetry, and I got a scholarship to attend the Sewanee Writers' Conference.  It was a lovely week or two down in Tennessee, where I met some wonderfully talented people and professors and didn't pay enough attention to anything they said--kind of like college.  
     Anyway, I was still living with my parents when all of this went down, and Sewanee sent the information packet to their house.  A couple of nights before I was to leave, my mom anxiously sat me down to read through all of the literature about the conference and the facilities and the lectures, etc.  Together.