Drew this the other night. Whipped it up inked and all in 20 minutes, then I colored it.
Wouldn't that be a dope mash-up? I can imagine what kinda shenanigans these two would be up to working on a mission together.
In other news, there's a Kickstarter up for a comic anthology I'm apart of entitled Strange Stories for Strange People by none other than....Dirk Strangely. He wrote the stories and 5 artists each took one on, myself included.
Go ahead and the click the cover, all the details are laid out for you in a nifty video, and if you scroll down further you'll see I also contributed a nifty video with my whole sales spiel. Peep it!
And there's all kinds of snips from the interior pages, so yeah, peep it!
Happy Black Friday everyone! Today is that infamous unofficial American holiday (and I can't stress American enough) where we rush to wait in line at stores, battle through hordes of idle people, and shell out our hard-earned cash for goods and technology that'll be obsolete by 2013, all in the name of a good deal! To those participating in today's events be careful out there. In the meantime here's a short comic from the archive.
And if you're one of the few at home, here's what yer missing out on:
Here's the raddest video I've ever made: a time-lapsed video of me drawing and illustrating to the narration of this art cube concept. I've never made a video like this, and for a second there I thought it would be a failure. But I carried on, and this is the final version. The concept is very unique, as well. I implore you to share this Kickstarter with yer friends for the next 45 days! View in HD...
Dirk being here last month allowed us to create these two crowning achievements in homemade comedic YouTube fodder: HTTV Episode 2, and our Dallas Sci-Fi Expo Tour Vid. Watch in HD.
This whole holiday season, as I lay up on the couch with my boo watching reruns and holiday specials T-Mobile kept running their "Orgy Wonderland" commercial, well, 4G, but everyone agrees that it sounds like OR-G. I'd always laugh, without fail, at the poor little sap elf who barks "scooter" into the smart phone held by the much-taller, young beauty-of-a-spokes-girl, the kind that wouldn't seriously consider going out with this tiny guy in a million years. And here he is donning a cute little pink mustache and matching outfit, selling himself out to a role of an elf until next Christmas, when he'll be in demand again.
Or, maybe I was reading too much into the damn commercial.
Either way I laughed at this little guy. This is what I must have pictured every time I chuckled at his scooter bit. Watch in HD!
2 weeks back in H-town and my allergies are wreaking havoc on me in ways I've never realized before. Also in these two weeks I've been totally lazy in regards to cleaning my house after the two month sojourn, which also doesn't help my allergies. So while I'm cleaning up ya'll can check out this video I edited a few days ago. All ya'll 'Dexter' heads will know what's up.
It's for my pal Dirk Strangely and his Annual Holiday Commission Sale.
Shot just a few days ago at lunch in Washington Square Park.
Due to some copyright bullshit, YouTube had to block my video in a long list of countries, including the great land of America. But, Vimeo is happy to host my videos when YouTube gets fussy about my song choices. The end of the video features six more videos I made, designed to be made into links via YouTube's annotation system. But, that's moot. You'll have to get to 'em the old-fashioned way.
Really cool music video I did for DJ/Producer Lee Lawson. The beat samples music from the Super Metroid soundtrack. I used shots from the games Metroid: Other M (which animates events in Super Metroid) as well as Super Metroid itself. And it's available in HD.
You might have caught wind that I was working on an animation project earlier this year. Kept it under wraps for the most part, but because I'm in the market for more animation-related gigs, I compiled this short two and a half minutes of that project showcasing some of the animation techniques I used. It's a kid's program and a lotta fun. The concept is basically a bunch of aliens in the form of question words land on a farm and meet a smart farmer who fills them in on who they are through catchy songs. Sure, that sounds a lil' weird, but I like weird, and I'm glad I did this project.
The work was commissioned by none other than Houston funk legend Leon Mitchison. He did the music and voice-overs in the above piece, as well as write it. Basically, he just handed me the soundtrack and concepts. Leon Mitchison of Leon Mitchison & the Eastex Freeway Band. Of Mitchitone Records. Of course, I just found this out because I didn't think to Google him at the time. I'm blown away. Check this out. That's him on the sax.
2 Videos for dat-azz! This first one was filmed on location at the (deep breath) 3rd Annual Brooklyn Invitational Custom Motorcycle Show in Brooklyn, NY. I dedicate it to my Pop; he's got a custom bike of his own, you'll see it at the very end! It's the first video I shot with my new Sony Bloggie that I got for my birthday (thanks Boo), so be sure to watch it in HD.
The second video is something I whipped up when I was really digging on some old 16-bit video game music, particularly some old school arcade action a la Knights of the Round, and Aero Fighters II . I was just poking around so I threw those songs together with some anime for some visual splendor. The Akira part works really well and is my favorite. And then I threw in the final boss fight from Sonic 3. Like I said, just playing around. It's fun to upload shit to YouTube without it coming back saying you're infringing on a copyright because of a song.
NEW Episode of "Dirk Strangely gets Crunk" series, thrown together by yours truly!
In other news, I'm temporarily relocating to another city for a couple of months and I've made an astounding realization; I have plenty of books, but not enough cash! So, in an effort to transform some of these books into cash I put together a BACK 2 SKOOL sale! Much like the ones that killed our summer mood every August; much like the ones that kill the summer mood of vacationing teachers every August...
Yes! So from now 'til Labor Day you can get ALL 3 of my latest books - Screw Comics #1, Screw Comics #2, & Enchanted by Darkness - plus a 5x7 sketch of your favorite character...ever (go ahead, TRY to stump me), all for $25! That's a $50 value; you know, all the cover prices of the books plus the price of the sketch. Shipping's only $3, for 3 fat books. What a deal! I've only got a handful of Screw #1's left and the Enchanted's are also dwindling so ya gotta ACT NOW or Soon! Ya got until Labor Day!
Tell you what, you can READ some of the stories from Screw Comics on the Facebook page!
If you click LIKE the page you can get reminded of when this sale ends and other cool deals!
Just laid down a cover design for my boy Lee Lawson's FINAL mixtape Nuts, Bolts, & Screws.
It's a 46 track mash-up of song-blends, remixes, screw-downs, and beat loops. Lots of tidbits of interesting shit, and really interesting shit if yer a chronic-smoking underground hip-hop head. I'm listening to it right now. Not bad! You can get it FREE via torrentHERE.
I artistically directed LEE LAWSON's website, as well as designed most of his mixtape covers. Peep it HERE.
He even includes some info on how to download torrents. Cool shit, read HERE.
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.
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.
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.
