Hokkaido... Where being a "Redskin" has a whole other connotation...

And he's back....

I come to you all refreshed and revitalized from the Land of the Rising Sun! My Goodness... it was tough getting on that plane to come back to this cesspool, I tell's ya... after 3 full weeks of clean efficient subways, immaculate urban landscapes, and scrumptuous preservative free meals, I had to use some SERIOUS self-persuasion to get myself into that economy-classed tiny flying coffin back to the States. I had a tremendous time this trip... from the steel and concrete canyons of Tokyo proper... to the mist covered mountains of Hokkaido! I hit all the regular haunts... all the Tokyo favorites (Shinjuku, Shibuya, Ikebukero, Akihabara, and the rest), vibrant Osaka, the old city of Kyoto, and the beautiful Onsens of Hakone! We then took a "Romance Car" Shinkansen bullet train all the way to Hokkaido... we had our own little private room, complete with pull out beds and a huge glass ceiling to watch the stars go by as we hurtled across the country! We ate in an old fashioned European dining car and showered on the train as it rumbled on through the night. Once we hit Sapporo, we partook of the local cuisine (barbequed mutton... YUM!) and basked in the quaint small town charm of the tiny city. We also soon realized that after taking a 9 or so hour train ride, the body doesn't always immediately recognize afterwards that it is no longer travelling at upwards of 200 mph while being seated! I've NEVER found myself getting motion sickness from simply sitting in a stationary position before...WEIRD!
The sickness soon passed... but we all found it hilarious that while walking upright, we felt no ill effects... it was only after we sat down that the wooziness hit us! Ahh... sweet inertia...

After Sapporo, we headed inland to Noboribetsu... home of the "Valley of Hell" and the many Oni (Japanese horned Demon) who inhabit that part of world! This area is a hotbed (literally) of underground hot springs that can actually be seen bubbling and steaming up through great cracks and fissures in the Earth! With all the gurgling steam and the strange multitudes of gathering crows cackling in the background... certain areas of this place really DO seem quite frightening and Hellish! They even have a gigantic Oni statue over 60 feet tall pointing to the resort area as if to say, "Here lies the Valley of Hell!" These demonic figures are actually the "mascots" of this region of Japan... and it is quite endearing to see how fond the locals are of them.

I'm trying to get back into the swing of things at home now... back to the drawing board. The next page is progressing nicely, although my previous ocular affliction has once again reared it's ugly head. What's with that, eh?

Photos from my trip will surely follow, once I start organizing them...
In the meantime, I leave you with more carnage, fresh from my demented noggin... enjoy!

"The Old Man's still got it..."

Been keeping myself busy this last month trying to get myself ready for my big upcoming Japan trip in November...
Strangely enough though,... I still feel completely unprepared. I'm FINALLY going to make it to Japan with my Grad School buddy and Kaiju co-conspirator after countless false starts and cancellations on his end. I warned him that this was the last time I would ever offer to show him around and afford him the added benefits that previous trips have afforded me. I think that he could sense how pissed I was at him for his previous last minute bail-outs and realized that if he ever wanted cheap hotel rates and a built-in guide to all the hidden vinyl kaiju treasure troves all over the Land of the Rising Sun, he'd better make good on his old promise and pull his weight this time. It will mark the first time that I've been able to travel to Japan alongside someone with similar interests and an almost identical aesthetic sense. It will nice to be able to go wherever I want whenever I want, without having to worry about whether my traveling companion is having a good time as well!

On a freaky side note-
I've begun to date again locally... I'm simply tired of having my life put on hold by a relationship with a person situated on the other side of the planet. I'm nearly 40 now and I really need to put the rest of my life in perspective if I ever want to raise a family.
I met a gal over the internet recently (yes... I know,... pathetic), and I'm doing my best to take it one day at a time with her.
She is quite a departure from my usual preference, but I've found the contrast is strangely welcoming. Plus, I find that a tremendous pair of legs can obscure a great deal of possible conflict quite nicely!
It isn't always easy... but keeping an open mind helps a lot... as does her quirky sense of humor.
One day at a time, Greg... one day at a time....

Work on the strip had sputtered out a bit because of the recent "distractions", but I've now re-dedicated myself to the story and it seems that the pages are starting to gel again. Here are a few panels from some of the more fully realized sequences since page 26...

Enjoy the madness....

"Slapshot"

Back into the familiar rut...
I've started page 26 now and it's progressing at a fairly torpid click.
Recent changes to the story's script have hampered progress a bit, but still I plod ever onward...

"Little Fin", as I have taken to calling my lovely midday swimming companion (see last post), has been strangely absent these last few days... so my recent workouts have been noticeably lackluster. This sort of disappointment is so typical of my daily predicament, that it hardly strikes me as unfortunate anymore...
Oh well.

At least I was fortunate enough to be there at the right time for the brief bit of inspiration she afforded me while it lasted.

The festival of brutality continues throughout page 25 with renewed abandon... I've really tried to keep the camera flying about to spice up the visual narrative. I'm hoping that the panel arrangement won't interfere with the actual storytelling aspect of the page... I don't want to sacrifice continuity for punchy eye-candy.




I'm trying hard to keep pushing forward and doing my level best to avoiding looking at the blank masonite panels stacked neatly against my drawing table....

Soon,.... soon.

Chlorinated Reverie

I've been swimming a lot lately... for many reasons.


I started this endeavor most obviously for the sake of my health... all those years of sitting on my ass in order to eke out a freelance living have not been overly kind to my physical well-being. I need the aerobic exercise to get my heart back into shape. So... I found an affordable public indoor pool that is well maintained and of a suitable length for lap swimming and set to it.

It's already made a tremendous impact on my general energy level... and now that I'm working whole sets of muscles that have up to now remained fairly dormant, I'm beginning to see my former muscle-tone reappear.

It's a great feeling, let me tell you... to be back in the water again.
I used to swim a great deal in my youth... I was even at one time considered an excellent aquatic athlete and held the fastest 100 yard Backstroke time in Texas for my age group. I loved being on the town's Swimming Team (Temple Aquatic Swim Club or T.A.S.C.) when I was a boy... but as I grew older, the increased pressure and the constant demands that the competitive aspect of the sport made upon my young grade school life proved too much for me. I found that I no longer truly enjoyed even being in the water anymore... it was becoming like a job to me. So... much to my Father's chagrin,... I quit the team.

Ahhh... what might have been had I stuck with it...

Regardless... a few months after I made the decision to leave the world of constant practice and swim meets behind... I slowly re-discovered the wonder of liquid weightlessness and rekindled my love affair with the water.

So now I'm going to the pool 3 times a week for an hour or more, swimming lap after lap at my leisure. It's amazing... even beyond the fact that I know this kind of a workout is good for me physically. I've always loved to be in the water... for as long as I can remember...

Which brings me to the other sort of swimming that I've been doing lately...

Every other day at around 6pm or so,... she cautiously walks across the pool deck, carefully hangs her towel on a peg, and slips gracefully into the water. The same deep blood red one-piece suit and cadmium orange swimcap every time...

I'm not sure if it is by grand design or happy accident that she always seems to situate herself in an adjacent lane to mine, never more than one lane away. She is very deliberate in her actions and her stroke is very smooth and even... neither arm seeming more dominant. Each stroke is represented vigorously with the same measured execution. I find myself lingering before a flip-turn or executing criminally languid underwater wall launches in order to watch her form moving through the water from beneath. From the front, Rectus Femorus and Vastus Lateralis flex and ripple like steel bands moving just beneath the tawny skin... while from the rear, Biceps Femoris and Gastrocnemius pull and contract like powerful organic bowstrings drawn across a Kyudo horseman's great weapon. She is truly a beautiful machine in motion...

When she leaves the pool at 6:30 sharp to gather her towel and head towards the women's showers, I wonder to myself... Could this be the same creature I've been observing so breathlessly for the last half hour?
Surfaced, she is still lovely... but more modest in her demeanor. Her long torso bowed slightly and her head tilted down towards the slick cement as she walks, she hardly cuts the same path as her submerged alter ego. Even the flexor groups in her thighs only flash timidly as she slowly makes her way to the stairwell out of the pool area.

I wonder if I would even notice her if I passed her on the street above?
She has a pleasant enough face... with even, symmetrical, and almost elfin features... I could easily see myself enjoying her company. We could sit at an acrylic table and sip coffee together, talking nonchalantly about our daily travails.
I could look into her oval face and listen to her speak and watch how her tongue moved between her small thin lips... all the while thinking about the subtle flex of the Suprapatellar Bulge that lays just above her smooth kneecap when she stands, walks, or sits...

Will I ever speak to her?
How could I?
What would I say that wouldn't mark me as an ogling predator... a keen connoisseur of magnificent physical specimens?
In this day and age... how does one simply tell a stranger that he finds her beautiful without sounding obtuse or threatening?

I must try....
I'm swimming in her wake...

Ocular Resistance...

OK... another crappy post with a work-in-progress panel sequence...
I apologize for the recent lack of "deep and introspective" entries, but the strip is occupying most of my time these days and I haven't afforded myself much in the way of wistful reminescence as of late.

This recent trend might be due to the lack of truly lucrative freelance work in my life at the moment.
Perhaps it is simply an excuse to finish this accursed strip once and for all so that I can move into the next stage of my life... the horrific grovelling and self-depricating boot-licking I'm so anxious to begin! Hooray for self-promotion! I can hardly wait to break open that "Sycophantic Toady Kit" I've been saving patiently since my days at the Sci-Fi Channel!

Feh... it has to be done.
I got close once with an inferior product... this time will be different.


Japan trip in early November is solid now... and I can hardly wait.
More on that later...

Geez... what's with the eye thing?

Here is a recent panel from the strip that has finally resolved itself. I plan to put in the bullet "velocity trails" digitally in the coloring phase. I'm crossing my fingers that the finish will look somewhat akin to the image I have for it in my head.

I've come to notice recently that there are at least 3 or more separate panels depicting eye injury in this story alone...
What's up with that..?
Is there some hidden message I should be getting out of such a patterned chain of violence?

And what the Hell is up with all this rampant ellipses usage..?

Sure... more than five characters in one panel fits GREAT in a thumbnail sketch...

Man... it just seemed to fit together so effortlessly in the script and preliminary page layouts...

I am an idiot.

I did my best to capture the unchecked frenzy of forced entry and sloppy close-quarters combat in these panels. There are a lot of details that need to be clearly seen among the rushing bodies... the camera swap... the tape cassette tuck... I just hope that in the finish the panels will seem at least a bit less frenetic. Without dialogue to guide the reader, I have to rely on a sort of carefully directed bedlam in order to get the manic atmosphere across along with the necessary visual cues that drive the narrative forward. Controlled chaos at work...

Trying to come to grips with it...

Not much more to say really...
With John Buscema gone, and now Alex Toth... I'm fast running out of idols to worship.
I've got to do something to reach out to those giants still left among us.
I will endeavor to avoid making the same mistake 3 times...

Just a few character concept sheets I did while working for the Sci-Fi Channel around 6 years ago.
Funny thing is, these characters have found their way into the Heavy Metal strip I'm still working on today...
I just thought that they reminded me of the old Alex Toth character turn-arounds I saw once of his television character designs. I hope to post a Space Ghost sketch in his honor in the near future... it just seems a bit inappropriate just now though.

"We stand on the shoulders of Giants, oblivious to our footing..."

A giant among artists has passed forever from our midst...

I loved Alex Toth's work before I ever knew his name.
His creations and his unique renditions of other classic characters filled my head with possibilities and purpose in my younger, more difficult years. Space Ghost, The Superfriends, The Herculoids, Johnny Quest... these shows inspired me and galvanized me into artistic action. These old shows filled my personal creative pantheon and I worshipped unknowingly under Mr. Toth's great shadow.

As I grew older and learned his name and who he was, my respect and admiration remained unabated. It was , however, tempered by a strong desire to avoid emulation and to forge my own Cartooning/ Illustration style. As a young teen, I actually worked against Alex Toth's style... trying to glean knowledge from his masterful figurative simplicity, all the while trying desperately to forge my own unique hand.

As a young adult, I came to understand how profound Toth's influence was on the comic book industry... my private idol was one of the titans of the Cartooning world as well, inspiring scores of imitators as well as devotees. It was shocking to see how many people had been influenced by this one man's work... and for a young aspiring artist, more than a little intimidating.

As a functioning freelance Illustrator, I bring a little bit of what Mr. Toth taught me to everything I do. I've read all his books, scrutinized his past work, and endeavored to learn his unique approach to story-telling... all in order to somehow infuse my own humble work with a shadow of his greatness.

I never met the man. I was always too frightened to send him a sample of my work as well... afraid that he might comment upon my lazy figure work with disdain. "When I'm just a little better"... was my mantra. "Next strip will be the one I send him"....
We always figure that there will be that distant day when all the signs are right... that special tomorrow when we will finally do that thing that we've always meant to do.
I guess that I just figured that he would always be there. Guys like him seem immortal... bigger than life to mundane folks like me... we just assume that they will be there when we work up the courage to reach out to them. On this May 27th, I realized that I had cheated myself of something special out of petty cowardice.

In closing let me say this,...
We all have our idols... those people that stand out to us above all others. Alex Toth was one of those people for me. He was my early foundation... the linchpin in my initial artistic inspiration. I will never forget that no matter how high I may rise in my field, I stand on the shoulders of giants that have gone before. I owe him a great debt. He inspired me in ways that my own Father could not.

I will try to keep his spirit alive in my work... as will all the other artists that have been touched by his artwork and profound achievements in the Illustration and Cartooning fields. Though each of us are but single shadows of his great artistic contribution, together we are legion... and our combined output and mutual admiration for Alex's work will assure his immortality.

Thank you, Alex Toth.
I will remember....

"My Freelance Career went to Nowheresville... and all it brought me back was this stupid Head-butt..."

Wow...
It's been awhile,eh? Got a bit lost in the day-to-day grind and forgot that I had an actual avenue to release some steam through.
Very hectic around the home front... had to usher in a new roommate on very short notice. This was accomplished, but I'm still unsure as to the wisdom of my decision. I've never lived with a woman before that wasn't a romantic partner... so the ensuing awkwardness that followed her arrival was quite new to me. So far so good though... while it isn't much, a little help with the rent is always welcome (even if it comes with certain sacrifices).

So... work has been VERY slow as of late. Frighteningly so,..to be precise. I have some money still coming down the pipe from my last teaching gig at the Museum (After-School Sculpting Symposium for High School students at the Museum of Natural History), but aside from that and a small Calligraphy job in the wings... the subtle sucking sound of the "income vacuum" is growing louder. However, one good thing that has come from this recent Freelance defecit is my current progress on my next Heavy Metal strip...

The pages are flying by at a surprisingly decent rate (for me, anyway) and I'm finding myself strangely pleased with the resulting imagery. This is not to say that I think the pages are bursting with artistic merit... far from it. It's pulpy comic book style storytelling at it's most basic... dramatic angles, high drama, graphic action... all the stuff that I used to relish in the books that I read in my youth. Standard fare... nothing special. Occasionally, I may find a glimpse of something greater in one of my panels... but this hopeful discovery soon fades as I bury that happy accident in a page full of necessary but pedestrian transitional panels that help to further the story. I'm happy though that the book looks consistent and the characters seem to strut about their environments with convincing weight and verve.

I'm at page 22 now in a projected 33 to 35 page story. Pages 1 through 19 are already inked as well (with possible completion of pages 20 and 21 coming this weekend) and scanned in for placement into Photoshop for coloring and Illustrator for dialogue bubbles and layout. I guess that makes me around 1/3 done... geez.

My new roommate keeps asking me how I can be so sure that Heavy Metal will even run my story once I've finished it...
I haven't really got a good answer for her... but if my past track history serves me, they've already printed 2 of my earlier efforts that were vastly inferior to this project. I even spoke to Mr. Eastman himself (Magazine Publisher and Editor-in-Chief) a few years back about it at a convention... he offered to print the thing along with re-prints of my earlier stories as a trade paperback. I'm sure that he's long forgotten this discussion... but I'm hoping that the quality of the work will at least merit a print run in the regular monthly Magazine if not a trade.

I still have the first printing of the the first issue of the ridiculous "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" book that made Mr. Eastman so goddamned rich in the first place... perhaps that small past gesture will resonate loud enough for the boomerang to head back in my direction...

I'll be waiting.

One chasm closes... another gapes wide to replace it...

Ahh... the madness has finally subsided.
My bathroom is whole once more... and they even replaced my shower-head so I can actually wash my ass without having to stand on my tippy-toes to do it. It's been long overdue,.. but at last my microscopic water closet can compete with any roadside Motel shit-house that you might find on I-35 driving from Temple to Austin, Texas!
BOOYAH!

I'm considering another visit to Japan in October or November...
It would be my 5th time there and I have almost enough Frequent Flyer miles to cop an almost free round trip to the Land of the Rising Sun. All my ducks are slowly moving into line...

Then... suddenly... my roomate drops a bomb on me.
He's moving out at the end of the month. He drops this on me with almost no notice... but what can I do?
He's an old friend of mine... I just don't have it in me to stick it to him like he's obviously capable of doing to me.
It's just terrible timing. I just can't believe that he would pop this on me after I was willing to take him in (and on such short notice, I may add) when he desperately needed a stable place to stay a few years back...
Feh.. whatever. Good riddance. He'll only regret it later on when he realizes what he left behind.
I'll bet that his new landlord or roommate won't let him slack off on the bills like I did...
Shit... I even covered him a few months back because he was short on cash... what a sucker I am.

I may go anyway...
It's hard to pass up a practically free ride to that magnificent country. It will be great to hang with Kazu and the rest of the gang again as well...

Japan Fun Fact #68: The Daibutsu in Kamukura Japan (Central Honshu) was cast in 1252 out of bronze and is 44 feet tall.
It has survived tidal waves, fires, earthquakes, and typhoons.... even when the buildings that once contained it could not. It stands outside, naked to the elements... sitting unchanged as it has for over 750 years. The Buddha's features are slightly distorted so that it appears balanced when veiwed from a low front perspective... similar to some Greek statuary. Silk Road influence perhaps?...

Craptastic!

Holy Gaping Cavity, Batman...!!!

I was having some work done on my bathroom tub this morning...but I wasn't prepared for the mass destruction that followed!

It's like this... every 5 months or so, I have to get my bathtub re-caulked because the gap between the tile and the top of the tub has been slowly widening (because of faulty installation and water damage) over the 12 years that I have been here. Water runs down the side of the tub when I shower, flows through the cracks in the caulk, and leaks into the lower apartments and inner foyer of the building.
Now... if they simply replaced the tub or re-installed it properly the first time, we wouldn't need these semi-annual visitations that send my cats scurrying for cover under my bed sheets.

It's all come to a head though this morning... and the repairman says that they'll have to rip out the tub itself to effect repairs...
YOINK!
It's not exactly reassuring to look headlong into your building's guts and have a repair expert rip out a moisture rotten timber from the wall struts with his bare hands... so much for "structural integrity".

I'll report back as to when I'll have a proper place to belt out J-pop lyrics as soon as I get an update...
Until then, I suppose I'll have to keep the bathroom door shut to discourage wayward vermin and the odd sewer zombie from just crawling up into my apartment from the basement/sub-structure beneath the complex.

Trust me when I tell you that taking a dump in your own bathroom isn't nearly as relaxing and satisfying when you have to hear the sounds of everyone else in the building chattering away through the gaping chasm in your bathroom floor... especially when you're afraid that they might overhear you "extricating" yourself from your bodily waste!

Maybe the smell will keep the zombies away at least....

"Come on in,... the squalor's fine!"

Actually made some progress in the last couple of days... despite a small Calligraphy gig that popped into my lap at the last minute. It never fails... as soon as I set aside a weekend to make progress on my personal work, some random client manages to call at 5:30 on Friday afternoon with a last minute job for me. I can't really complain... times are tough and I really need the work... especially with my roommate threatening (again) to move out at the end of the month.
Regardless, I finished up the job as quickly as I could and still managed to squirt out a page of my own story to boot this weekend... DAMN, I'm good!

A funny thing, actually... the last page I finished and the one I'm scribbling away on now are actually pretty exciting. I'm setting a new precedent in my story. These two pages feature a few panels that portray a villainous male character assaulting and choking the life out of a female victim. Pretty brutal stuff... and necessary for the narrative. I'm trying my best to keep the scenes from becoming gratuitous in their violent content... while attempting to retain the shocking quality of the imagery.

I usually really try to steer clear of the whole "Damsel in Distress" convention often used in graphic story-telling... but it just seems so utterly appropriate for the sordid story I'm telling. I have to show how this girl ( a secondary character) is just being used as a tool... a plaything for the amusement of the tale's antagonist. I have to show what a vacuous soul he is... distant and cruel.
We need to see what happens to the girl, because it foreshadows the possible fate of one of the main protagonists. It has to be as frightening as possible in order to build her growing dread... we, as the viewer, are watching what happens through her eyes... experiencing the terror with her.
Anyway... it's good creepy fun... and I almost find myself feeling guilty for devising this sad fate for the fictional gal I've drawn.

A character created only to be destroyed for a pivotal plot device. Poor kid never had a chance...

Why we finish last...

A quicky query... why is it that so many seemingly intelligent and insightful women repeatedly choose to immerse themselves in relationships with men that treat them like glorified penis warmers?

I fully realize that folks tend to gravitate towards people that seem unattainable (and those "Bad Boys" just seem so delectably out of reach)..., but it's just so unnerving when they are challenged on the point... and they are shockingly aware of their problem! No denial... no defensive rebuttals... they are fully conscious of their behavior. Some even cling to their obvious malfunction with gleeful affection! It's the one and only time I'd give my eye-teeth to hear a gal I dig tell me how full of shit I was...

I have recently been faced once again with this awful truth...
I met a terrific girl who has everything a guy could possibly want. She's got so much going on in her favor, it outta be illegal.
Yet, regardless of her laundry list of merits, she finds herself trapped in a loveless relationship with a "Bad Boy".
A man that is not only embarrassed of her and lies about their relationship to his family, but also expresses absolutely no interest in her as an individual.... oh... unless you count the times when he wants to put his pecker in her.
He's a charmer when he's got the time... but it's the "nice guy" friend like me that she turns to for consolation and feedback.

The worst part is... when I confronted her with her predicament, she only informed me that it wasn't the first time she had gone down this path. She said that it was something she got from her Mother...

Heartbreaking.

Darwin was a complete bastard.
"Natural Selection," my ass...

Foundation...

Well... here goes.
I suppose that in order for me to start this out properly, I ought to anchor it with some honesty.

See the struggling artist spinning his wheels in New York City, teeth clenched against his slow and steady descent into middle age... see how he frets and rages?

So many things only half done.... half realized. Where did the easy part get off to?
Time to put my nose to the grindstone once again.

My next strip is taking absolutely forever to finish. Too many interruptions and absentee efforts. Balancing all those hats can take a terrific toll on your head. My last published story was printed over 2 years ago now... I've got to move forward instead of revising and laboring over simple transitional panels. At least the recent pages still look good to me... a small victory.

Kazuko is still in Japan and I'm still here.
What more needs to be said?

Last night, I read a random blog about a gentleman learning to deal with the recent death of his Father.
I had scarcely finished the first entry when I inexplicably became almost completely overcome with grief.
Unbelievable... almost 3 years after my own Father's passing, and I am only now partially able to allow myself some measure of grieving. It's as if I can only express my frailty among strangers, far removed from my own friends and family.
Does this reflect poorly upon me? Perhaps.
My Father taught me well....

Breaking ground...

Everything begins somewhere... this place seems as good as any.

I'm hoping that this will serve as a sort of odd reliquary for the daily insanity that passes unfiltered into my life on a constant basis. I'm hoping that if I hold those strange nuggets up to the light of scrutiny, they will somehow translate into something worth holding on to...

Wish me luck...