Full speed ahead.

I absofuckinglutely need to start drawing more. And posting the things that I draw more. Read an awesome awesome comic recently that my buddy Tim picked up for me at SPX this year. It's a monster/sci-fi/pornographic/workplace comic and it's funny and cute and sexy and exciting, and yet indie-published and the author is not wildly successful and sitting on top of a pile of money (or so I guess, anyway). I find this all very disheartening, because if people that talented aren't on the covers of magazines and shit, how can I hope to even sell a damn mini at a convention? But what is maybe more disheartening is that I have nothing to do at work. My "creative" job has been utterly boring and, not to be all sensitive-pants over here, but kind of hurtful lately.

So. The reason comics > film? Not (necessarily) a collaborative effort. And I think I kind of need that.

And now I'm going to go eat Ramen for lunch because I'm effing broke. Drawings soon. I think.

P.S. - here's a link to said awesome comic's artist's blog: monstaland.blogspot.com

Remodeled

A comic I made about my grandmother. The scan job is pretty shitty here- sorry.

From Nana

From Nana

From Nana

From Nana

From Nana

From Nana

more sauciness.

My scanner is just utter shit for color; I have these amazing, vibrant markers and it all looks like ass once I scan it. Anyway, drew this last night and inked/colored it tonight. They look a little more Raggity Anne or whatever than I'd intended- my original hope was that she would be round head and straight line limbs with a very realistic, voluptuous torso. Basically, I wanted her to look more like she was made out of wood, but if you didn't know that, this would probably look successful. I also wanted her dress to have white polka dots, but I'm way too lazy for that shit. Anyway.

From aw shucks.

Rocketship for Big Sexy (NSFW)

To be published in Offshore Comic's anthology next month: Big Sexy. This is very not safe for work...

From Rocket Ship

From Rocket Ship

From Rocket Ship

From Rocket Ship

From Rocket Ship

From Rocket Ship

From Rocket Ship

From Rocket Ship

From Rocket Ship

From Rocket Ship

From Rocket Ship

From Rocket Ship

From Rocket Ship

From Rocket Ship

From Rocket Ship

From Rocket Ship

Naughty by Nature Girls Need Love, Too

O hai.

I was going to nap but decided to blog instead. Time will tell if this was the right choice.

Now, I haven't been on here in a while, and I've been feeling like I should. I have zero creative output in my life right now- I'm totally floundering on this comic I need to be doing; at work, I'm doing a lot of 'this just needs to get done' sort of stuff. So yeah, here I am at the blarg. What I want to write about stems from a conversation I had with my roommate Bethany last night, but first, some back story.

When I was younger, my mother was a mobile DJ. She, as a lesbian, did a lot of gay functions, and I grew up with all this great 80s dance music. My mother has always been kind of an audiophile, and for a while was pretty into having a good mixer and amp and crazy speakers. My parents still have these speakers that are basically the dimensions of an oven. Back in Springfield, where I grew up, our neighbors once had a party and my mother just rolled the speakers out onto the porch to provide music for the party. My parents had tons of parties in my early years (most of which I was shipped off to my grandmother's house for) and even when their friends just came over to hang out, invariably, the music would get cranked up and we'd have a dance party. Pet Shop Boys, Dead or Alive, Heavy D and the Boys, Pretty Poison (the first hot redhead I ever saw), Jodi Watley, Cathy Dennis, Technotronic, Bobby Brown, just tons of great stuff.

I should take a moment to say that it wasn't all crazy gay dance music at my house growing up; I'm not trying to pigeonhole my parents here. We spent a lot of time listening to Patsy Cline, Billie Holiday, Fleetwood Mac, the Cowboy Junkies, Leon Redbone and the Beatles, too; even the Civil War soundtrack got played a lot. And I still love all of that stuff. I was just more drawn to the feel-good, booty-shaking stuff that got me and all my parents' friends dancing in the living room. And I'm still that way. Give me a dance party any day of the week.

Last night, I'm in the car with Bethany and I've got a mix in that has Naughty by Nature's O.P.P. on it. "I wonder if listening to this kind of music as a kid had any effect on me," I joked. Bethany said, "What do you mean?" I kind of hesitated, and then said, "Well, you know...like promiscuity." Bethany said, "What?!" She had no idea that's what the song was about. She listened to it as a kid, too, of course, but never thought about it or had anyone explain it to her, and it's just a fun rap song from the 90s to her. When I was little, I remember being intrigued at this crowd of people that were all just openly promiscuous (down with O.P.P., if you will) and it all sounded very fun to me, like a club or something, long before I had any interest in sex.

Samantha Fox is the next thing that comes to mind. This adorable woman with pink-blond hair and sophisticated British accent that was naughty and just wanted to have some fun. I'm watching the "Naughty Girls (Need Love Too)" video for probably the first time in my life right now, which makes me remember we never had MTV when I was growing up. The first time I was exposed to music videos was when my parents started getting VHS tapes from MTV with the latest music videos, and I remember those all very well (though it mostly things like Tom Petty's Mary Jane's Last Dance- not anything saucy). The point I'm trying to make, though, is that I never saw Samantha Fox dance or saw her exposing her midriff or anything like that. I knew Lita Ford was hot, but only because of her picture on the CD (seriously, how hot was she?). As a result, I was constantly making up music videos in my head for every song I listened to. So most of my sexy 80s images were completely of my own imagination. When Fox's Love House was playing, I think I was always imagining something way racier than what's in the video. The song started with an ominous male voice asking if I was ready to do things tonight that I never dreamed were possible, and then bubbly Samantha goes on to talk about what sounds like some amazing rave/orgy that attracts the attention of the city police (who I thought were the "silly police" when I little). How awesome is that?! And it never sounded dirty or lewd. It just sounded like fun. A little raunchier than Love Shack, maybe, but still pretty harmless fun. Even in O.P.P., it didn't seem like anyone was getting hurt. C&C Music Factory's Things That Make You Go Hmm has a similar plot to it, and while everyone in the song seems a little skeptical, no one's heart is getting broken, and every discretion is a punch line.

And I really think all of this did influence me. Not entirely- there's a lot of it that was just in me. My parents never listened to Alice Cooper or Warrant or Poison or several of the other musicians that helped form my stupid sexuality. But in talking to my friends about sex (and I do it a lot- I make some of them uncomfortable), I've found that I'm way more open than a lot of people. To me, it's all still Love House. Maybe the sort of free and open Samantha Fox/Naughty By Nature sexuality doesn't mesh with the tortured desire of Alice Cooper's Poison or Love's a Loaded Gun. I don't really know. I think my thesis statement here is that my sexuality is an amalgamation of 80s lyrics. I'm completely enamored with the hair metal groupies scene of that time, too. It just seems like the 80s were the best time for sex. And I'm not a damn day glo hipster hammer pants asshole over here- the rest of the 80s is neither here nor there for me. I'm also not claiming to be any sort of sex expert- modern or otherwise. I have no idea what sex (and when I say 'sex', I mean the pop culture appearance of, not the act itself. I imagine that's stayed fairly consistant) was like during the 40s or the 60s. I just know the image of sex in the 80s is absolutely awesome. I know a lot of it is sexist and demeaning, and that concerns me a little. But then I think about Lita Ford. It bums me out a little that she's all rolling around on the ground in the Kiss Me Deadly video because that's some Britney Spears shit and actual musicians aren't supposed to have to do that. But she looks so good! And it's her video. There's no dude grabbing her or objectifying her. It's just her being, "yeah, I look this fucking good and I play guitar. Eat it." One video I do remember watching as a kid was Close My Eyes Forever with her and Ozzy Osbourne. Woman played a double neck guitar and it was such a sweet solo. I remember thinking, "wow, she's gotta be some kind of special to have Ozzy duet with her." And in the video, she was just torn jeans and big blond hair and made me think of my mom, who was arguably an atypical mom, but still. My mom was someone I thought was cool and powerful, not eye candy. And how can you argue with Jodi Watley saying that some crap guy is "unworthy of her best" and she's going to find someone that really appreciates her. Recognition of self-worth, dude. The men may have had eye candy in their videos, but the ladies were always in charge in their own videos. And I can roll with either of those.

Maybe that's all just me trying to justify that I love trashy music from a trashy time period. It doesn't really matter though. Regardless of what any of these musicians were trying to say or put out as an image, I took from them what I wanted to. A little pomp and swagger, and a lot of innocent fun.

And that is how 80s music influenced my sexuality. :-P Thanks for listening.

Instead of drawing, I'm going to regail you with my thoughts on nudity

First, though, I would like to fully acknowledge that I am the worst blogger in the world.

Now, this:
http://www.naked-people.de

That's the link that got me started on this thought process, sorta. It's a photographer who has taken twenty regular folks models and photographed them with their clothes on and then naked, in the same pose. You click on them and the clothes fade away. The project has more than a few cute girls in it, but it's still pretty neat.

The other inspiration for this post is the Watchmen (because that's all I've thought about for the past three months or so). I was thinking about the Hiroshima Lovers scene in the film- where Dan Dreiberg dreams of him and Laurie naked and then in costume and then getting blown up.

Pretend they are naked. I couldn't find a naked picture.

When they showed Dan and Laurie both full-body and naked, it completely took my breath away. In part, it's because I had a crush on Dan Dreiberg in the comic book, and Patrick Wilson's embodiment of him was absolutely everything I wanted it to be. But another part of it was that I was seeing sort of non-Hollywood-standard naked people. Okay, Malin Akerman is pretty hot- granted. And Patrick Wilson is hardly your average dude.

Patrick Wilson cordially invites you to the gun show.

But in the film, there's maybe an inch or so of pudge over those six pack abs. And that's enough to drive me nuts. It made him look like a real live naked man to me. And that's awesome. Hollywood nudity- like everything else Hollywood does -is cookie cutter. It completely anesthesizes sex. Sex is between a woman that looks a certain way and a man that looks a certain other way, and no one else. Fat people don't have sex. Flat chested people don't have sex. Hairy people don't have sex. Ugly people don't have sex. Unless it's some weird, depraved scene that is meant to disgust you. I think it sort of makes you feel like you're doing sex wrong, because you don't look like that, and you're not having sex with someone that looks like that. And maybe it causes you to lose appreciation for what you have, or feel like you don't have the right to be doing it.

The first scene in Watchmen when Laurie kisses Dan was fantastic- it's awkward, Dan is self-conscious, Laurie has to guide him -it felt so honest and realistic. It allowed me to relate to the characters in another way. A friend sent me a way better article about comics and sex that I think makes the very good point that "maybe you've never been a glowing blue master of quantum reality, but perhaps you know what it's like to be mystified by your girlfriend's reactions to your advances. Or maybe your boyfriend can't shift matter but he's definitely been more preoccupied with his job than getting you off."
http://chud.com/articles/articles/18397/1/THE-DEVIN039S-ADVOCATE-SEX-AND-THE-SUPERHERO/Page1.html

And I guess what I'm saying is that I don't feel like Hollywood wants to let you relate to characters that way. Sex is always a way to define a character (evil, lacivious, kinky) instead of a way to enhance a character. Do you know Nite Owl without seeing him have sex with Laurie? Yes. Do you know him better afterwards? Yes. Sex is key part of their relationship. Among the six main characters in Watchmen, Dan and Laurie are the most human and the most pathetic. They're kids playing with giants. And when things are too big and too frightening and too beyond their control, they know they have this very human way of relating to each other. And there's nothing lacivious about it. Sure, the sex scene in Archie is hot, but it's also about Dan feeling alive and powerful for the first time in several years, and I think you feel that way with him.

And that is my nudity/sex rant. For now.

hmm

So I'm on the work laptop at the sound mix in New York and I apparently was signed into blogspot? Whoops. Can't even think of when I would've signed into on here before. Weird.

Anyway, I haven't posted since like June. I have a new computer and I need to make my scanner work with it. And I need to draw some shit. In the meantime, though, some soapbox blogging.

I was in Job Lots a couple weeks ago on a lunch break, picking up some batteries. I'm in line behind this grandmotherly looking woman who's got three bags of fancy holiday nuts and that's it. Maybe she lives off fancy holiday nuts- I don't know -but it seems like that's a luxury item, right? Or a gift, maybe, but it's mid-November at this point, so I'm pretty sure she was just like, "I want some nuts to eat," and went to Job Lots and got herself some. Which is fine. The cashier asks her if she'd like to donate $1 to the community kitchen and the woman says no, and then asks to make sure that the cashier didn't over charge her for her fancy holiday nuts.

Now, people who say no to that shit are a huge problem to me. I understand that not everyone honestly has a dollar to spare all the time, and that's cool. If you're here with your last $20 trying to buy bread and milk and socks or something, keep your $1. If you're here treating yourself to snack foods, kick in a buck so someone can have a meal.

I'm getting a little high and mighty here. Stay with me.

I worked at Brooks during 9/11. We had a "donate a dollar" at the register type of fund to benefit victims and families, etc. Who could possibly say they don't have a dollar for that? Answer: most assholes. I got a lot "oh, I gave over at Ames," which was right next door. I don't care if you gave at Ames. First off, $2 isn't going to kill you, and don't try to alleviate your guilt by telling me that you were a good person at the store next door, so you don't have to be now.

Which brings me to New York. This place sucks. There's just...swanky shit and people everywhere and just total glut and every meal I'm served is enough for two and it just gets tossed. We get a tray of breakfast food at the sound mix every day and I'm sure tons of it goes in the trash. We get cookies at 3pm (those get eaten, though). We honestly haven't seen a lot of homeless people- probably because we're 'removed' from that. Last night taking the train, though, Erik and I shelled out a few bucks. Right at the bottom of the stairs into the subway, there was this sort of older fellow with markers who was drawing things that looked like Indian catchers and he had a sign out saying he was a vet. We each gave him a buck in his little dish and he bantered with us a bit. We saw another guy, who wasn't homeless because he had a keyboard and was selling CDs, but he was awesome. He was playing music I can't describe, and he was ancient and seemed Italian, maybe.
What set him above the rest, though, was that he had some dancing dolls in his act. Fiddle and sax players up on his keyboard, and a Britney-like dancing doll on the ground in front of his set-up. It was so charming and awesome and just put a smile on your face. Erik and I talked about him all the way to the hotel on the train, compared pictures, talked about how hungry we were and how we couldn't wait for our dinner at the Mexican place.

And this is where I get super preachy on your ass.

As we're coming out of the stairs, there is a guy. In shorts. So skinny. A foot or two away from him, he's got his trash bag, which has holes in it and has obviously seen better days, and he's just...he's not even begging, really. He seems beyond begging. He's just standing there, looking at all of us, and Erik and I walked by him. My wallet's all the way in my purse, you see, and hard to get to. But poor Erik- he gets through the door that you can't get back through when I say, "hey, wait," and decide to go back. Erik catches himself, too, and says, "yeah, I almost did...I don't know why I didn't..." and gives me a buck to go give to the guy. I look in my wallet and all I have left is a five. I go over and give him the money, which feels weird because he doesn't have a hat out or anything...he's not quite asking for it. But this guy is homeless. Like...not an act. Not a "career choice" (God, I hate that mentality- that every beggar you see just choses to take your money and not work). Anyway, he says, "God bless you," and doesn't even see the five until I've gone through that exit and he waves excitedly at me.

So I'm not trying to brag and be all "I gave him my last $5" here. Because if I'd had a one and a five, I probably would've given him the one. I kind of think that makes me a shithead, maybe. I just...don't get how this happens. And I don't get why the phrase "spread the wealth around" makes some people so angry and defensive. I know if I lived in New York, I couldn't be giving my money away all day every day and stuff. And I know I can afford to do that a lot more than some other people. But I was just reading about how food stamps aren't going as far these days and how more people are signing up for them. And it just makes me sad. And I don't know what to do about it.

And this is why I have a drawing blog instead of a writing blog.

Happy TG, folks (and by folks I mean Tim and Matt, because you're the only ones reading this). :)