Useless idea #245671 – Helen Vaughn, Wilbur Whately and the Frankenstein Monster form a detective agency and solve supernatural crimes. Or maybe they plot to destroy humanity.

My family is one of those blended concoctions – a mix of steps, halves and full blooded siblings with about 20 years difference between the oldest and the youngest. While we did get together for various holidays over the years we never managed to get more than 6 of us in the same room together. At this point, in this world, we never will get more than six of us together.

One of the handy things about being an artist is that you can create your own worlds whenever you feel like it. So for my Big Sister’s birthday this year I gave her this picture of a full sibling get together.

And before you ask, I have no idea why Big Big Brother is wearing moose antlers or why there’s a green mammoth in the background. Just because I create new worlds doesn’t mean I understand them.

On Friday I posted this to my Facebook status – Reorganizing and replanning needed for Operation 2011. The Day Job and I have parted company. It was a relatively amicable divorce. The biggest annoyance I’m feeling at the moment is that I just bought a case of Cup O Soups for lunches at work.

I got quite a few of my friends congratulating me on the event. Reading the note now I see that I could have been clearer about what happened.

I’ve been laid off. It’s nothing personal and if the work were there I still be there as well. Laying me off right now is just cold blooded economics. I was a
salaried employee at the previous incarnation of the Day Job and I kept most of that salary when I moved to the current version. The amount of work I’ve had in front of me has stayed as high as did in part because the many of the systems were pretty inefficient and needed a human being available to make sure folks got what they needed.

Over the last few months the company has been going through a lot of changes. We got a CEO whose focus has been on setting up effective systems, streamlining the day to day operations and making sure the company is in good shape going forward. One of the biggest steps lately was a complete redesign of the company’s website. The new website is set up in way that eliminates most of the problems that were predictable in the old systems and thus eliminates a lot of the hands on work that I did.

I’ve gotten a small severance and an exit letter that should make it easy for me to get unemployment. Looking for work is not something I’m looking forward to but I’m not going to start worrying about that until Monday. I’ve been working a few hours a day, seven days a week since the beginning of 2010. I didn’t have any company emails to answer yesterday. I won’t have any to answer today. I’m enjoying the peace.

Happy New Year!

Yeah, yeah, January First was two days ago pretty much everywhere on the planet. I’ve been working. And stuff.

I just wanted to pop in and wish y’all a better year this year than the one you had in 2010. And if 2010 was already a great year for you then 2011 should be staggering.

Stay tuned for new posts of old sketches!

I probably did this page in 2000. It was both a speed drawing practice and a test of drawing with Micron pens.

I keep thinking that I’ve already posted this image but I can’t seem to find it in my archives. It could easily be somewhere here. There are over 1700 posts online after all. I don’t have a specific tag I could use to identify this image. It’s not related to any story. I just had a picture in mind and markers on hand to use. I don’t know what relationships these characters have but, somehow, I suspect that, whatever you’re thinking, you’re right.

Perverts.

Why, yes, I have dropped off the face of the planet. I’ve been swept up in a fog of … work. And not the artistic kind. I can’t promise when I’ll be posting regularly again. It might be tomorrow. It might be 2011.

I hope all is well for you in the real world.

(The graphic above is from a flyer we (Labor of Love Studios) put together to advertise the GLYPH comics newspaper in 1998. Zazkwatch was a four page comic strip that I wrote and drew in each issue.)

My stepmother passed away about an hour ago. It’s not unexpected. She’s been fighting cancer for the last few months.

I supposed there are wicked stepmothers out there, that cliche must have started somewhere, but Jan wasn’t one of them. She always made me feel welcome. She brought me two brothers and gave me a little sister.

She took so many photographs. We were seen even when we thought we didn’t want to be.

She’s gone to join my father. They were a good match and she’s been waiting for this reunion. She’s at peace.

Update 10/20/2010 – Anchorage Daily News Obit

I spent yesterday getting readjusted to home and work and thus missed posting. My apologies.

This illustration was the last piece in the watercolor sketchbook that held the figure drawings and the previous post’s Black Molly illustration. As I think I written previously, most horror writers and fans have a vampire story they want to tell. This is a glimpse of what mine might have looked like if I’d started drawing it in 1992.