Comicpalooza came and went. This year was their biggest show yet, taking up most of the third floor at the GRB. They also tried a new design for their Artist Alley as well, a format I dubbed "The Maze." It was basically one route and it snaked up and down until you found your way to the end. Unfortunately, I don't think this format worked out as well as originally intended. What was designed so that everybody gets some shine from con-goers, had an opposite effect. A colleague described it as leading the cattle to slaughter. It was a very risky move on the convention's part which resulted in quite a few artists, even the more famous ones, to not do as well as they had hoped. Yours truly included. I did much better last year. Also, the convention, I think, had bigger names come out last year as well. But don't take this the wrong way. I will be at Comicpalooza next year because I support the idea of Houston having a huge comic show. Hopefully, the promoters will learn from the results of this maze idea and revert back to the traditional method of laying out Artist Alley.
Big Thanks to everyone who came out and bought comics and said hello and took business cards. You made the weekend that much more enjoyable. And big shouts to Dirk and the fam, who stayed with me for the week until Comicpalooza, and the whole Dallas trip. It was fun! Sorry I didn't feel like hangin out on the last day, I came down with accute case of an upper respiratory infection...you know how that goes. And an extra special shout to my lovely assistant, Annette, who helped me man the the table this year.
Dallas Comic Con '011 was fun. Let me rephrase that...extremely fun. Mainly cuz I was just hanging out with one of my bestest friends, Dirk Strangely and his wife, who has become a good friend as well. It was 2 days filled with fat-ass comic nerds, road trip munchies, bunny chasing (yes, we chased a bunny outside our hotel room, triangulated on his cute lil' ass), vintage comics, Stan Lee autographs, live art, drive-in movie watching, and monotonous suburban navigating, all within the confines of a slick black minivan aptly named Gary.
Here's some sketches I whipped out a my table, and among the plethora of other original work I'll be peddling this weekend at Comicpalooza!
Cuz Dirk dared me.
Baxter Stockman, with his prey of the evening.
Just Jokin' - The Joker in a hoppin' '64 Impala henchmen car shooting down the bat plane.
Super-Pissed Wolvie
And among Dirk's weird piece at the live art show, for the unusual character choice in this Mr. Burns-channeling, air-guitar-playing depiction of the Vulture.
And isn't this a lovely piece? Happened to snag a copy after seeing it in my comic reader. Turns out it's Mary Jane's first appearance on a cover. And I got it signed my none other than Mr. Excelsior himself. What a weekend. My friends came in from outta town and are staying with me here for the next week, to Comicpalooza. See ya there!
Watched this documentary the other night, The End of Suburbia, and it confirmed the suspicions that I've already had about the sustainability of our American lifestyle. How this film took seven years to reach my consciousness is beyond me, but I've been thinking about the 'suburban' lifestyle for a while now. I was born and raised in Houston, TX, and here in this sprawling metropolis it is necessary to have a vehicular form of transportation. If you don't you probably won't have a social life. The public transit, Metro, is quite slow at delivering passengers to destinations across town, and that's even if the Metro runs in your area. There's so many places here in urban Texas that don't have public transportation. Not to mention the hours of operation don't extend deep into the night. So having a car here is a MUST.
It's funny when you hear about Houston, and Texas in general, people are so quick to say that the cost of living here is low, and how cheap it is to live here, blah blah blah. What isn't factored in, however, is your transportation, the cost of owning a vehicle that'll get you around town and to work. That's a big chunk being overlooked. We're talking a car note, car insurance, car maintenance (tires, filters,oil changes, brakes), fuel, and associated costs with repairs that are not regular maintenance (like if your transmission goes out). All these together can easily add up to $1000+ any given month. But, that's not the only cost to having a car.
Okay, you have your transportation paid for, now since you are driving a vehicle in public you are subject to the laws that apply. That means having proper registration, and a passing safety and emissions certificate. If your car is not up to par with the emissions standards, then you must shell out more dough for repairs (like an $800 catalytic converter). After you have all your stickers in order, it's time to hit the road. But don't rest easy just yet, there's still more.
Now, as a driver in public you are subject to the laws of the road. And there's plenty. Not only do you have to deal with other crazy drivers out there, but you also must deal with the abominable face of law enforcement - the police. Issues with the law tend to get pretty costly. Getting pulled over for going 2 miles over the limit is enough to get you a ticket, which can cost upwards of $150 or a weekend in defensive driving or both, and if ignored can turn to a one way ticket to jail, in the form of a warrant. I won't even get into the costs of drunk driving, even though it's frowned upon everywhere, it is a way of life here in the H. Shhhhhh! Nobody will talk about or admit to doing it, even though they probably have done it before. Any time you see a knocked over stop sign, a dented light post, or an abandoned front bumper on the corner, remember that somebody was just sober enough to put the car in reverse and flee the scene before anybody would even notice.
Don't get me wrong, I love cars. I embrace a few car cultures, like hot rods and lowriders. I love to cruise around on crisp spring nights in the full moon. It's just that having my own car in this city opened my eyes to all that I have mentioned above. I look around and everybody is in a car. Stacks and stacks of cars (and trucks, lots of trucks in Texas) with only ONE person line the freeways every morning and afternoon to and from work. You hop in your car, go to Mal-Wart, hop back in and go home, hop in your car, go to Timmy Chan's, hop back in and go home. And that's if there's no drive-thru to drive through. I look around, realizing this is the culture I've been raised in. A culture everybody here has been raised in. A culture embedded into the very fabric of America.
And everybody's cool with this?
I guess so. I mean, all ya gotta do now is go to church and wait out the rest of your life until you go to heaven. This is the promise of suburbia. This is what people strive for. And yet, did you all think this would last forever?
Of course you did. This whole lifestyle is brought to us courtesy of cheap, readily available fossil fuels. But now something is happening. The fossil fuels aren't readily available anymore, and hence, aren't cheap anymore. What's gonna happen when this whole lifestyle, this culture, this economic infrastructure becomes too expensive to keep going? There's no easy answer, or a fast way out of this. Too bad we didn't think of this 25 some odd years ago that way we can put into action a long term plan. But, wait a second, we did think of this way back when. Remember when Jimmy Carter put solar panels on the White House? Well, guess who took 'em down. It's funny because all over town people love to complain about gas prices going up. Somehow we've forgotten that owning a car is a luxury, but we've treated it like a necessity. I say let the gas prices go up. Let them go up and up and up. Only then will people actually realize what's happening and do something about it. Unless they just kill each over it, but it's something. It's like what George Carlin said, "What are ya gonna do? Play with your prick for the rest of your lives? You gonna eat at Wendy's and read People magazine until the end of time?"
Here's the trailer to the movie that sparked such a winded post. The whole thing is also available on YouTube, and a torrent for it is HERE.
Holy Fuck! How come nobody reminded me it was Friday the 13th? If they did I woulda totally freaked out and not done anything fun today. But since I had no idea, and my not noticing the date on my phone right by the clock (which serves as my watch, no less!) I had no idea it was a superstitious day! The quintessential of superstitious days. Is there any other superstitious day? But seriously, it's not like I would have freaked out or anything, I'm not superstitious. Hell, I'm not even religious, which it would take a bit of some the latter to fill out the former. But I can't help but thinking if and how I would've treated the day having known otherwise. I probably wouldn't have had much fun. Sheeeit..today, I had lunch on a patio, then went to the the zoo, then went went crate digging at this local vinyl store right there in second ward. Talk about a fun filled day, even with just the zoo alone. If I would have known otherwise perhaps I would have been looking for slip-ups, bad omens or even glitches within the matrix. Although I said I wasn't superstitious, I have to admit it was a bit thrilling fathoming the thought that one misstep on a hairline fracture upon a sidewalk could shatter your mother's spinal column walking to music class in the 3rd grade (Step on a crack and you break yer mother's back). I understood that wouldn't happen but still I had to watch where I stepped just in case. So nowadays, that's exactly what superstitions are to me today; just a reason to party on a certain day because it is a certain day. That and you can make superstitious people uncomfortable by reminding them to be careful of black cats, walking under ladders, and that lil' guy in the red suit with a pitchfork. In other words, it's a day just like any other day. That's what it felt like to me!
UPDATE: At the vinyl store I scored two 45s; a Mudhoney one, and an ultra rare Tad 'Jack Pepsi' single. Unfortunately, it didn't have the cover to it, the one that appropriated the Pespi logo to say 'Tad' that resulted in a lawsuit. Also, ironically enough, this is my 13th post.
Don't know what happened to that dog, as I haven't returned to the seen. He survived, so therefore he probably hobbled off. What would you have done in this situation?
Here's my latest music vid. Combining my two favorite things: Spider-man and Nirvana's music. I've been diggin' on Spider-man lately, ever since I got this comic reader installed on my laptop. I hit up a site and made a few downloads and the next thing I knew I was hooked on old back issues of Claremont's X-men, as well as Romita's Sr. Amazing Spider-man. Really digging Romita Sr.'s art. Also with the comic reader I'm able to export pages, allowing me to make snippets of the old school gag ads or interesting panels. One of which makes for the Toonzday title card at the end of the vid.
What made me want to do this video stems from reading those old Spidey back issues. Peter Parker attends college, gets his own place, gets a motorcycle, and is caught in this flirting triangle with Gwen Stacy and Mary Jane Watson. I've caught myself really rooting for Pete to get some play with either one, even so much as exclaiming out loud "Diss!" after witnessing Peter getting shot down by a hot blonde or a fiery red head. It's the dilemma of Peter Parker; if he could only explain that HE was Spider-man, then that would clear up the flaky behavior, and the illusion that he doesn't care. That's what I like about this song. I think it captures that angsty feeling of being around somebody new, someone you could possibly care about, someone you would love to tell your secret to. The kind of situation where if you pursued her too hard, too fast, or if you revealed too much too soon she would run. That's a lotta too's.
Here we go to round out the latest of my old Sunnyland strips. Meanwhile, here in Houston, the drought waxes on and the heat is coming to dog-pile all of us. Hopefully, you have an A/C unit or yer in a part of the world where the heat is not problem. I'm still fighting the urge to turn on my A/C unit. How long can I make it?
Yeah Yeah Yeah, I have a pink bluetooth headset, what, ya wanna fight about it?
Here's a strip darker in tone.
Ever watch the Wizard of Oz and on the lion's turn to sing his song do you notice how conveniently they pull the makeshift cape and crown when mentions being king? Or how there's a carpet conveniently there to roll out?
Okay, for this last strip, it's a doozy: four pages. Okay, but not only that but it touches on local politics. Okay, so I like dissecting some issues and politics, but I really had no intention of writing a political strip. Just an anecdote, no punch line. This really happened when I took my grandma to the doctor and took her car to get washed in the meantime.
Yeah, true story. I didn't know who he was until he flashed his badge. And he really spoke that way too, cussing and attitude and all. So, here’s to Officer Castillo, and hopefully next time i get pulled over in the ‘hood it’ll be by him, and hopefully he’ll remember who I am, which I’m not really counting on. For the sake of keeping Sunnyland fictional, I changed the sheriff mentioned's name to Davie Davis. In actuality he was talking about former Harris County sheriff Tommy Thomas being a 'no non-sense kinda guy'. He referred to the current HC sheriff Adrian Garcia as 'Mickey Mouse' in that arrogant, condescending way. Click the links and you decide.
That about wraps up the back strips in Sunnyland. Next time I post Sunnyland it'll be something ya never seen.
Okay, maybe not HD. Here's my entry to the Stones Throw Video Contest. Footage is old camera phone videos I took long ago (circa 2006-2008) with my trusty Sony Ericsson k750i. Music is J Dilla's "Workinonit" from one of my most favorite albums, Donuts.
More Sunnyland from the archives! I know what yer thinking; "When is he gonna start posting new comics? All these strips are dated 2007 and such." Well, good question. All these 'From the Archive' posts are as much a refresher for you as they are for me. It seems like I've been away from working on these fun, short strips and that I myself must get reacquainted with the characters and scenarios all over again. Plus, (and I'm sure other comic creators will agree) it's fun to create comics, post 'em, forget about 'em, and then come back to 'em just to be blown away by your own creation. Not only that, but these archived strips serve to familiarize the new audiences with my world and my characters. I thought you woulda figured that out by now.
Next up, Rob and his appointment:
Rob and Shelly head for the cinema, online to have an anti-piracy yes-man get in the way. You can tell this one's dated by the mentioning of Bush. Although, has much changed since then?
This next one is for the old school gamers. What fun!
WOULD YOU?
Last one for today shows the trouble with tropical storms. Currently, there's a drought here in Houston so I think this is something we all look forward to right about now!
Hey folks! I'm back with more sequential goodies! As I delve into the comic archives of my old site, in an effort to bring new readers up to speed, I've rediscovered another title worthy of a retrospective. Sunnyland started out as a strip in the University of Houston paper when I was a student there, and ran for about 6 semesters. Originally, the concept was the misadventures of the roommates who also work together as caricature artists at a boardwalk attraction in the fictional city of Sunnyland. Rob, tall and constantly wearing sunglasses, is the chain-smoking, drug-addled alcoholic who represented a more free-spirited approach to situations. Arnie, short and stumpy with his hair slicked back, represented the more rational side to what was going on. Throughout six semesters, these characters along with many other supporting ones graced the pages of the Daily Cougar 5 days a week, getting into adventures including (but not limited to) chasing leprechauns, riding out storms, going to rehab, drinking mysterious potions that made you gigantic, and just commenting on a lot of the silly stuff going on in the world at the time. Sunnyland also gave a home to many other characters I had previously written about in the issues of Chingazo (my comic zine) and presented ways for me to incorporate them in a new setting.
Sadly, at the dawn of MY last semester as a student Sunnyland was cut from the paper when a change in editors took place, and I didn't "reapply". As a result I didn't give Sunnyland a proper send-off to the UH audience. But I did continue to draw the strip for my own site, complete with themes and language I couldn't previously use. Here we go into the archive of post-Daily Cougar Sunnyland. Enjoy!
Sometimes, Sunnyland veered off into funny unrelated anecdotes.
This one features Juju and Hambone, regular characters in my Chingazo series, and friends of Rob and Arn.
It's fun to use your comic strip to act out behavior you probably wouldn't do in real-life situations.
At one point Rob went to rehab. There he met Shelly, an ex-heroine addict and they hit it off ever since. Shelly's cool in that the addition of her character now allowed me to narrate and comment on my own relationships in real-life.
