The universe is big. Very very big. The chances of you and me and everyone we know existing as we are is infinitesimally small. Let us celebrate our unlikely time on this planet!

I do that by drawing silly pictures. What’s your pleasure?

These Days …

On Monday afternoon, Sarah had a plate and some screws installed in her upper arm to stabilize the bone and allow it to heal better. Due to covid restrictions, the hospital doesn’t currently have a designated waiting room. I ended up spending a few hours sitting in one of the two chairs in the elevator lobby. I had brought my sketchbook and drawing tools, a graphic novel and my phone to pass the time. I read the graphic novel and then spent most of the rest of time scrolling on my phone. Far too much of that scrolling was done on Facebook. I made quite a few snarky comments on other people’s posts. It being Columbus Day, quite a few people were posting about what a complete piece of shit the man had been.

One of my FB connections reposted a tweet from an elected official that made the claim that, whatever else he did, Columbus had proved that the Earth was round. Most of us know that this is a lie, I commented that the official “had failed to deliver intellectual gold. Cut off his hands.” For those who don’t know, Columbus forced the natives that he’d enslaved to deliver a certain amount of gold. Those who failed to do so had their hands cut off.

That evening FB informed me that my account had been suspended for 24 hours  for violating “community standards”. Being exiled bothered me less than the claim that FB has “community standards”. FB is a giant corporation with billions of users. It’s not a community. It’s a business. People and communities use it. I guarantee I haven’t violated my community’s standards.

I spent so much time scrolling rather than drawing because:
a) That chair by the elevator wasn’t a comfortable place to draw
b) I didn’t know how long Sarah was going to be and I wanted to be available when she needed me.

I gave her to the hospital folks at about one. At about 4:30 the doctor called to say that the operation had gone well and he thought that Sarah wanted to stay in the hospital overnight. I didn’t think that sounded like her so I decided to wait a bit. let her come out of the anesthesia and then check again. At 5:30 I checked again and was told that they were getting her ready to come home. She spent the night sleeping in her chair in our library. I slept on the couch nearby in case she needed me during the night. Both of us were happier that way.

I took Tuesday off from work in order to look after her.

Checking my FB account on my desktop rather than my phone lead me to discover that my account had been flagged back in July for making a similarly violent snark. It hadn’t been restricted because “mistakes happen”. Silly FB. I spend a good amount of time on FB not calling for the execution of the corrupt and the corrupting. My posts aren’t accidents. They are also not actual instructions for murder.

I went back to work on Wednesday. And again on yesterday. We’re short handed. My truck, which has rarely sounded healthy even after it has been serviced, currently sounds as rickety as I feel. Parcel volumes were down slightly from before my injury but there’s a local election coming up so we’ve got a lot of policital mail to deliver instead. Yesterday we delivered voler pamphlets. I like delivering voter pamphlets and ballots even when the rest of the day is a mess. I believe in the democratic process. I like being able to play a part in keeping it running.

Power Dynamics: Octobriana

Welcome to another edition of What The What, the podcast in which I interview some of the more unique personalities in our society. I’m Blane Walker. The last few weeks I’ve been speaking with superheroes, those folks with powers beyond the normal. This week we’re chatting with Octobriana. As usual, I’m speaking to you from my home studio here in Portland, Oregon. Octobriana is calling in from an undisclosed location – possibly in Eastern Europe, maybe next door. Will she tell us?

Blane – Hello Octobriana! Thank you for joining us.

Octobriana – Hello Blane. Are you well?

Blane – I’m great. How about you?

Octobriana – I’m sore. I was in a firefight with agents of the Opression last night. I was very drunk and that slowed my reaction times. I got shot more than I should have.

Blane – You got shot?

Octobriana – Eh. I am the Devil Woman, yes? Being shot is tiresome but part of the life. I am still here. The Opression agents are not.

Blane – I’ve never heard of the Opression. Are they some sort of terrorist organization?

Octobriana – All mercenaries are terrorists. The Opression is just one of the many companies that profit from the murder of the lower classes.

Blane – Speaking of lower classes – are you a communist?

Octobriana -… I was. Are you suggesting that the lower classes are communists?

Blane – Well, the so-called lower classes are often duped into thinking that communism and socialism will provide them with good lives without having to work hard. History shows that communism and socialism lead to opression and totalitarianism.

Octobriana – Propaganda from the upper classes claims that fairness and justice for the lower classes will result in more unfairness and injustice for those classes. The trouble with all systems is corruption. Systems need organizers and managers and far too often it is those who want power who take charge of political and economic systems.

Blane – So you’re saying that communism would work if people were good and kind?

Octobriana – Most people are good and kind and willing to believe that those in power are also. It is that naivete that allows the corrupt to take power. It is that kindness and forgiveness that allows the corrupt to flourish.

Blane – Do you see yourself as a fighter against corruption?

Octobriana – That would be foolish. Fighting corruption is like fighting with the tide. One doesn’f tight the tide. One either builds on solid ground or lives on a houseboat. I fight for those who lack the skill and power to fight for themselves.

Blane – So you protect the weak?

Octobriana – No one is weak. To live is to be strong. I allow the kind and the generous to remain so by being their rage.

Blane – Isn’t that a little self aggrandizing?

Octobriana – I have outlived two centuries. Modesty is a virtue I abandoned decades ago.

Sketchwork

I’m sort of between projects at the moment. I’m writing this newsletter every week. I’ve got hundreds (!) of designs in my online stores. I’m got more in the works but the initial rush to create and post designs is over. I’ve been taking commissions again but I don’t currently have any on my plate. I’m planning comics – sort of. I’ll address that later in this newsletter.

In lieu of a major project to hold my focus I’ve been sketching. The subject matter is all over the place but mostly I’m drawing people. It never hurts to draw people.

Process

Since I noticed that writing this newsletter didn’t actually get me to write comics I’ve been outlining a graphic novel. I’ve been using Google Sheets to do it. I mentioned this in a previous newsletter but I didn’t post an example of what it looks like. This week I’m doing that.

Sheets is a spreadsheet app. It’s not intended for creative writing. I’m using it for outlining because it gives me a visual grid that helps me pace a comic story. Comic stories and the pages of which they consist are, for the most part, constrained by how they are expected to be published. A web comic can have any number of panels and  pages. It can fit an infinite canvas. I might publish comics online first but, ultimately, I want to see my comics in print. That means designing pages to fit a printed page. Printed comic books (in the traditional monthly pamphlet format) have a page count that can be divided by four. This is because each sheet of paper in the pamphlet represents four pages. Short stories in anthology comics are often eight pages. The stories in Misspent Youths were 32 pages. Stories in comics with internal advertising will break the “divisible by four” rule but the actual printed magazine will still have a page count that fits the model.

Books, either paperback or hardback, still fit the “divisible by four” rule. So, when I think of a story, I think of pacing it in four page increments. The screenshot above shows a story broken into twelve page chapters. I’m imagining these pages to be printed at the trade paperback size of 6″x9″. At that size, it’s best to use 6 panels or less a page. More than that and the pages become cramped.

This is not a story yet. It’s not a script. It’s an outline. It’s me riffing off ideas that my brain has been kicking out while I’m delivering mail. I’ve done five outlines so far. This is practice. I’m getting used to imagining comic stories again. I’m thinking the story being told in the “decompressed” style of manga. The first outline suggested a 600 page story. I did a second outline that suggested a 660 page story.

Yikes.

I had a protagonist that I found interesting. I had some supporting characters with potential. I had some antagonists that had were worth keeping around. The plot was basically one bad thing after another. The protagonist gets targetted by the antagonists for abuse and torture. The protagonist endures and finally escapes. I enjoyed the process of outlining the story. The characters did some surprising things and pointed the plot in different directions than I’d planned. Creating the outlines was good practice but  writing and drawing 600 plus pages of abuse and torture doesn’t seem like a good use of my time.

So I tossed out everything but the characters and the flashback sequences. Thf flashbacks are what’s in the screenshot. I have a separate spreadsheet for the characters.

From there I’ve started two more outlines. I added characters and a more complex plot. I gave the protagonist some allies and the antagonists justifications other than just being horrible people. I haven’t finished either outline. I abandoned outline number three at 514 pages and outline four at 432 pages. For the first two outlines I’d been winging it, adding plot elements as I went along. For versions three and four I had a better idea of where I thought the story would go and there was no way I’d get there in under 800 pages.

And so I started a fifth outline. I tossed out some of characters. In real life even the shyest of us know and interact with dozens of people. In fiction, it’s better to keep the cast streamlined. I’m still ended up with way too many pages. The hardest part is getting Chekov’s guns placed.early on so they don’t unbalance things when they need to be used. In this story’s case those guns are influential characters and important information. While some of the most important characters appear in flashback, I haven’t managed to get them to show up in the story until after the 400 page mark and that’s way too late.

I ‘ve currently got a sixth outline in progress. Again I tossed everything but the flashbacks. I’ve got copies of all the previous outlines if I want to pull elements from them. I’m enjoying the process. I don’t actually expect to end up with story that I’ll draw, much less publish. That’s not the point. Not every creative activity has to have a public display.

____

Hmmm. I’ve rambled more than usual this week. If you made it this far, thank you! If you didn’t, well, okay. Hopefully you enjoyed looking at some of the pictures.

May the week be kind to you. May you find joy in the small things as well as the large.

See you next week!

Friday.

Hello!

These Days …

At USPS we schedule our vacations for the year at the beginning of the year. This last week has been one of those “vacations”. I put vacations in quotes because, in my mind, a vacation involves travel to distant places and having new experiences in novel situations. We haven’t taken one of those sorts of vacations in years. Mostly we stay around home, catch up on chores and I get to spend more time doing artwork than during my working days. If we go anywhere it’s to road trip to friends who live less than 200 miles away.

We had planned one of those trips this weekend but …

On Saturday, Sarah lost a negotiation with gravity. She’s currently nursing a fractured bone in her upper arm and we’re watching her forehead change colors from a nasty bruise. We spent about 6 hours in, first, urgent care and then the emergency room. We went to urgent care first because we’re optimists, didn’t think she’d actually broken anything. and the urgent care we use is connected with our primarily medical organization. Unfortunately our urgent care doesn’t do CT scans on the weekend and, with the glorious lump on Sarah’s forehead, they considered a scan necessary to determine if she had a skull fracture or internal bleeding. Double unfortunately we waited about two hours to get that judgment. Everyone we interacted with was kind and patient. The emergency room had rooms available.

Sarah’s skull and brain were and are fine. Yay! But rest and healing is necessary for both head and arm..

So we didn’t go much of anywhere this week. Her arm is being kept immobile in a sling. It’s her left arm so, being as she is right handed, she’s not as incapacitated as she could be. We’re seeing an orthopedic surgeon this morning. I assume more x-rays will be generated. Hopefully they’ll show good news.

Transmission 8

Wilhelmina Grace felt the music as soon as she finished manifesting. It was glorious. It felt transcendent and overwhelming, so overwhelming that, at first she didn’t realize that she was not standing on a surface. She was simply positioned in space. Before her was a being. The music seemed to originate from it. Was it trying to communicate with her? Was it communinating with something behind or beyond her? She seemed to be locked in place and felt unable to turn.

She laughed. She felt tears running down her cheeks. She wanted to sing to the being nothing came from her lips.

(Note – I have a few copies of the original Transmissions minicomic available. Reply to this email with your physical mailing address and I’ll send you one. Or, if you’ve already got a copy and you know someone you think would like one, send me their mailing address.)

Power Dynamics: Stardust the Superwizard

Welcome to another edition of What The What, the podcast in which I interview some of the more unique personalities in our society. I’m Blane Walker. The last few weeks I’ve been speaking with superheroes, those folks with powers beyond the normal. This week we’re chatting with Stardust the Superwizard. As usual, I’m speaking to you from my home studio here in Portland, Oregon. Stardust is transmitting from his base on Venus’s moon.

Blane – Hello Stardust! Thank you for joining us today.

Stardust – Yes.

Blane – You’re communicating with us from a moon of Venus. Is that correct. I didn’t think Venus had moons.

Stardust – Venus has three moons. I reside on the largest of them. They exist in a metaphysical space that current terrestrial instruments do not perceive.

Blane – I’ve heard that you were originally from Earth. Is that true?

Stardust – My sense of self was formed via a terrestrial physical and psychologlical development, yes.

Blane – When did you become … Stardust. That can’t be your real name, can it?

Stardust – Names are designations used to identify specific objects or subjects. A name is real if the parties using the name agree on the identity of the subject.

Blane – Uh. Right. I guess I mean to ask, what was your name before you became Stardust? And when did you become Stardust?

Stardust – My personality is derived from the human Tomas Zhigalev. When I transistioned into this version of Stardust is difficult to pinpoint in the temporary construct that you use. By your perception I because Stardust before Tomas Zhigalev was born.

Blane – Are you saying that you exist outside of time?

Stardust – No. You experience time in a specific way that works for your evolutionary development. As Stardust I am not constrained by Tomas Zhigalev’s genetic and cultural limitations.

Blane – Do you still consider yourself an Earthman? Do you feel any attachment to Earth?

Stardust – No.

Blane – Really? Why have you been protecting us?

Stardust – I am a steward of the Ultimate Archive. The solar system is part of the existential matrix of the Archive in this part of the Universe. I am maintaining that matrix.

Blane – So you don’t actually care about humanity?

Stardust – Your tone suggests that you would prefer me to care more about humanity than the rest of the life in the solar system. That is understandable. I remember feeling that way.

Blane – So you no longer care about people? Should we be afraid of you?

Stardust – Fantomah was correct. You are annoying.

That 2022 Calendar …

is available at my zazzle store. Print on Demand isn’t an overnight process so, if you would like a copy for yourself or as a gift, please order soon. Fourteen illustrations featuring the Mighty Nizz!

And I’m out.

Be good to yourself and those around you. See you next week!

Hello again! Thank you for opening and reading this email. It is not part of a secret plot to convince you to change your views about … anything. I’ve given up on trying to change peoples minds. I’m a stubborn so and so. You probably are too.

These Days …

One of the things I’m less stubborn about these days is going to the doctor. My back decided to object to my current activities last Thursday (9/23) morning. I’d worked a thirteen hour day on Wednesday. I carried my route and a third of another route. Amazon sent us lots of large heavy parcels.I had come home tired and sore but not feeling injured. I felt quite different the next day. My back didn’t like it when I stood up. It didn’t like it when I walked around the house. It didn’t like it when I tried to bend over. If it hadn’t already been my scheduled day off I would have called in sick.

I did call in sick on Friday. And again on Saturday. The pain got less and my mobility improved but not enough for me to be willing to risk stressing it out again.I have a back brace and I wore it each day. I had Sunday off as usual. I called in sick on Monday and went to see a doctor. I know myself well enough to think maybe I was hurt worse than I thought I was.

The doctor told me that he doesn’t think I have any permanent damage but he recommended that I the rest of the week off. And do exercises to strengthen my back. I didn’t argue.The doctor’s office had given me L&I paperwork when I’d said my injury was job related. I took that paperwork to my station to get it more fully filled out and to start any other paperwork that was going to be expected. And. of course. there was more paperwork. I had to write out a statement describing how and where I got injured. I kept getting asked if I remembered a specific address where I’d started to feel pain.

“All of them,” would not have been a useful answer. “When I started having to deliver big bags of dog food and heavy boxes of cat litter on a daily basis”, would also not have been considered pertinent. Finally, after a couple of calls to HR they decided that the date of the injury was enough for the form I was filling out.

So this week I’ve been home. Today is the first day of one of the vacations I scheduled at the beginning of the year. I’m off until for another ten days. I mostly rested this week. Next week I’ve got to do those exercises so I’m ready when I go back to work.

Transmission 7

Wilhelmina Grace felt the quiet of this place differently than the quiet of her previous destination. The quiet, the stillness here, was one of passing. This place felt old and tired. It wasn’t lifeless but clearly life had slowed down.

She listened. There were sounds. She heard rustles in the debris near her feet. She heard something scamper through the foliage behind her. From far, far away came the rhythmic thud of a something gigantic taking a stroll. 

Schoolhouse Growl

I attended Analy High School in Sebastopol, California back in the 20th Century. Sebastopol was and is a small town. Apparently it’s either getting smaller or there just aren’t as many kids living there these days because enrollment at both Analy and its rival, El Molino, has fallen to the point that the two schools are being consolidated. Both schools will cease to exist and a new, joint temple of learning will rise from the ashes. That seems to have been the theory and intention of the current school board. In practice, a lot of current parents and alumni are pissed off. There have apparently angry school board meetings and recall attempts and shenanigans with Analy’s wikipedia page.

I had some good times at Analy. I met wonderful people who were and are still important in my life. A name change isn’t going to erase that. But people are upset so when a friend commissioned me to create unifying image for the schools I agreed. She asked for an illustration combining the mascots of El Molina (the Lion) and Analy (the Tiger). Below is my first, black and white stab at that.

I’ve gotten fond of circular designs. They work well for stickers and buttons and t-shirts so that was how I focused the next stage of the design.

My friend checked with actual El Molino and Analy students to get their imput. I’m generally wary of “design by committee” but I’m too distanced from the situation to have a strong opinion. I used those (and later) comments to shape the image. The response was that the first design looked too much like just a tiger.

Differentiating the stripe colors helped but still the commentary was, “it looks like a tiger. It needs a bigger mane.”

I abandoned the straight circular design. At my friend’s suggestion I gave the critter blue and red eyes. Blue and white are Analy’s colors. Red and black are El Molino’s.

We got commentary that the critter was still leaning too far toward tiger. I was asked to lengthen the mane and reduce the stripes in said mane. It took me a couple of passes to get what the kids were looking for. Below is the final version.

The above design is available on schtuff in my Redbubble store. The earlier circular version is also still available. I like it so I’m keeping it around.

Shop Talk

The above mascot is just one of the commissions I’ve been working on lately. I’ll showcase those that I can in future newsletters. I’m continuing to update older images and work on new designs for my shops, just at a slower pace. If you’re one of those folks who uses old school physical calendars please check out the Mighty Nizz calender at my Zazzle store. It’s fourteen images of a wild child and her furry hat. 

Thank you again for reading. I hope life in your part of the world is treating you well. Remember to drink lots of water and get plenty of sleep. See you next week!

Hello!

Thank you.

Thank you for what?

Thank you for the kindness you share with others. Thank you for your generosity with your time. Thank you for the compliments you give and the moments when you take a deep breath and do that thing anyway. Thank you for being more than you have to be.

Thank you also for opening and reading this newsletter. This last thank you is way down the list in terms of importance.

These Days …

It’s finally started raining again here in Seattle. As a mail carrier I’m not crazy about it. The USPS has had more than a century to work on the problem of keeping mail dry while delivering in a storm and it hasn’t come up with a solution. It’s embarrassing to deliver soggy letters and magazines. As a Northwest native, I’m delighted to see the wet descending. I moved here for the green. The wet enables the green. So, YAY!

Transmission 06 

This place was quiet. Unless she turned on the microphones, Wilhelmina Grace’s suit kept out most external sounds but this was different. This quiet was more than noiselessness. This quiet was something she could feel in her bones. The transmitter had placed her on the lap of some sort of statue. The statue floated about a field of stones. The field extended into the mists in every direction.

WIlhelmina sat. The statue’s clothing wasn’t stone. It was cloth. She looked at its face. At its chest. The statue breathed, slowly but deeply.

“Ah,” Wilhelmina thought, “Not a statue.” She expected that the ten minutes she would spend here would be very relaxing.

Power Dynamics – Fantomah

Welcome to another edition of What The What, the podcast in which I interview some of the more unique personalities in our society. I’m Blane Walker. For the next few weeks I’m going to be speaking with superheroes, those folks with powers beyond the normal. This week we’re chatting with Fantomah. As usual, I’m speaking to you from my home studio here in Portland, Oregon. Fantomah is sitting across from me here in the studio. She materialized just a few minutes ago. It was amazing. And weird.

Blane – Hello. Welcome to What the What. The world knows you as Fantomah. Do you have another name that you’d like me to use?

Fantomah – I have had thousands of names. I answer to them all.

Blane – I’ve heard that you’re a goddess of some sort. That you are worshipped by a lost civilization.

Fantomah – Those who prayed to my first name are long gone. Their cities have crumbled. The people formed other tribes. They forgot my first name and now, when they remember me, they pray to different names.

Blane – Uh. If they’re using different names how do you know they’re praying to you?

Fantomah – I know who speaks to me.

Blane – . I’ve read a lot of weird stories about you. There’s a youtube channel dedicated to videos of your … manifestions and some of that stuff is unbelievable. I wouldn’t want to make you angry.

Fantomah – I am rarely angry. I answer prayers. I provide and transform.

Blane – Yeah. Uh, the stuff I’ve seen and the other stuff I’ve heard about … it’s pretty wild but also kind of all over the place. What are you the goddess of?

Fantomah –

Blane – Uh. I’m sorry. Was that a hard question?

Fantomah – As I was one of the first I am one of the last. I am awake. The others sleep. I answer prayers.

Blane – Whose prayers do you answer? Do you just answer the prayers of your worshippers?

Fantomah – My temples are gone. My people are the world. There are more prayers than any god can answer. I do what I can.

Blane – If I prayed to you, would you answer?

Fantomah – I did. I have been here and I have spoken to you. The prayers you are thinking now are small and dark. You ask that question because you think you are bigger than you are.  You would not like my answer.

Blane – Did I make you angry?

Fantomah – You are too small for that.

Meanwhile, Back at the Castle

One of the benefits of having spent a few years just drawing stuff is that I’ve got a lot of work that can be updated for my online stores. I did the piece below when I was finally making time to draw again after my first year at USPS. Back in the Nineties I’d worked for Half Price Books and I’d seen a lot of old paperback romances – lots of covers featuring beatiful lone women standing outside (or running away from) creepy forbidding castles. Those cover images had great mood so I thought I’d try my hand at a similar image.

This year I colored and expanded the image. I’ve had enough experience putting images on merchandise now to know that the original drawing was going to have limited use so before I set to coloring it I expanded it. I’m really happy with the results.

It’s available on all sorts of schtuff in my Redbubble store.

And, while I’m shilling, let me remind you that I’ve got a calendar available at my zazzle store. Fourteen illustrations featuring the Might Nizz!

Thank you again for dropping by.

Stay safe. Stay sane. Read a good book. Remember there are no guilty pleasures – that’s Protestant killjoyism.

See you next week!

Another Friday. Thirty-eight weeks into the year of our lord Two Thousand Twenty-One. Thank you again for opening this email. Thank you even more if you read it.

These Days …

I’ve been summoned for jury duty! When I got the notice I was momentarily excited. The post office pays your regular salary for time spent on jury duty. I checked the dates and was disappointed to find that the date falls on my next scheduled vacation. This will be the fourth (maybe the fifth) time I’ve been summoned since moving to Seattle. The first couple of times I was working for a company as the office manager. If I’d actually been chosen for a jury the company would have been without anyone to answer phones, schedule appointments, bill clients and other such important activities so my bosses got me excused. The last time I was summoned I did the previous day call in thing and was told I didn’t need to show up. That was pre-covid. According to the summons jury selection will be done remotely. If I’m not contacted by a bailiff by October 6th I’m no longer in the running for a jury.

I’m interested in serving on a jury sometime. I suspect I wouldn’t make it through the selection process but I’d like to see what a trial looks like from the inside.

That’s the first week of October. I will have the whole week off. This week … bleah. The best way to handle a mess is to expect a mess. So I go into work each day with the expectation that I’ll be working at least ten hours, probably more. I got myself a good powerful headlamp so I’m ready for that evening when I’m stuck out after the sun has gone to visit another part of our planet.

This week has been an improvement over recent ones. I only carried my own route on Monday and Tuesday. I did overtime because of the volume of parcels (on Monday) and Red Plums (on Tuesday) but I was done before six pm. Wednesday was my scheduled day off. I took Thursday off because Sarah had doctor’s appointments.

We’ll see what today brings.

Transmissions / Power Dynamics

… will return next week.

Practice, Practice, Practice

I’ve gotten four commissions in the last couple of weeks. One was for a pair of spot illustrations for a Call of Cthulhu book. The second was for a portrait of a family as their favorite superheroes. The third is a re-coloring job updating some art from the 1940s. The fourth is an illustration inspired by the current kerfuffle happening in Sebastopol (the small town where I spent most of my childhood) over the merger of the two rival high schools. I’ll post some of that when it’s appropriate.

I’ve also been trying put in time sketching. Now that my online stores are up and have a good variety of images I’m wanting to create some comics. I have ideas. Kaiju Weather. The Witch Engines. Both are long graphic novels that I’m not ready to tackle yet. So I’m sketching to see what comes up in the meantime.

Some of these sketches are NSFW. Fair warning.

I’ve also discovered that Google Sheets is a handy way to outline a plot. I set up a spreadsheet for the number of pages I want for, say, a chapter of a stpry. Each box of the spreadsheet represents a page of the comic. In each box I write a few sentences describing the action of the page. That allows me to figure out the basic plot and action. From there I can work up a script (for the dialogue and captions) and thumbnails (for the layout of the illustrations).

One of the advantages of Sheets is that I’ve been able to set it up on my phone and make notes during breaks at USPS.

With Sheets I’ve outlined a long graphic novel twice. The first time the story came to 600 pages – that is, 600 boxes in a spreadsheet. Fifty 12 page chapters. I lthought the first version was a good start but it needed another pass. The second time the story came to 660 pages – Fifty-five 12 page chapters.

I doubt that either outline will be expanded further. They were good practice. I imagined the final pages to be manga-ish – smaller than American comics, three to five panels per page. I had originally thought the story might be about a hundred pages but, as I outlined, the characters started escaping the original plot. They refused to do what I wanted them to do. They chose to do things that were better, worse, different. Still, 600 plus pages is too ambitious at the moment. Those characters were fun to work with so perhaps they will find their way into another  story. Versions of some of those characters are depicted in these sketches.

As I said, Google Sheets was really useful. Having the plot laid out in a grid allowed me to see where to schedule page breaks, plot reveals and gage how many pages to dedicate to a series of actions. I did most of the writing early in the morning. I’d take a half an hour and jot notes. The first draft took a couple of weeks. The second draft a little less. I didn’t use my phone access much but it was handy to have available.

That’s it for this week. Thank you for reading. I appreciate it.

Remember that there’s a Might Nizz calendar available for 2022.

See you next week!

Friday arrives, stumbling and confused. Everyone waits for it with anticipation but, with plague and overwork and no work and missing friends, no one remembers what to with the weekend anymore. The week hasn’t ended. The chaos rolls on and on.

Hell.

That’s no way to greet you.

Howdy! Sorry about that. I clearly haven’t cleaned up around here lately. There’s some black mold growing in my attitude. Time to toss around some bleach and do some mental scrubbing.

These Days .. 

Stuff happened. There was a holiday on Monday and I had a day off on Tuesday. With Sunday off as well I had three days in which I didn’t deliver mail. Yay! I really needed the break.

I was reminded why I needed the break when I went back to work on Wednesday and found that my T6 (the person who delivers my route on my day off) had had to deliver one of his other assigned routes and broken up my route for other carriers to deliver instead. And one of those carriers hadn’t been able to do that. I had trays of mail that needed to be sorted into the current days deliveries. I had Red Plum coupon tabloids to deliver. And I was asked … mandated … to deliver a third of another route. Another twelve hour day.

I’m tired. I know my fellow carriers are tired. A lot of the routes needing to be covered because carriers are on vacation but, even when we’ve got a fuller complement we’re still shorthanded. We need more carriers. I’m happy to work some overtime. I’m not crazy about twelve hour days. I’m not crazy about multiple twelve hour days.

Complain. Complain.

Transmission 05

Wilhelmina Grace felt the noise upon arrival. This place throbbed. It pulsed. It came from all directions and from all the machines. She could feel the power and pressure through her suit. She felt the hairs on her skin rise. She felt the vibration in her bones.

She checked her suit’s sensors. She expected that this place would be hot. It looked sweltering. It looked torrid. The sensors read the environment as cold, near zero in temperature. The machines, linked and connected, went up and down as far as she could see. 

Power Dynamics – The Face

Welcome to another edition of What The What, the podcast in which I interview some of the more unique personalities in our society. I’m Blane Walker. For the next few weeks I’m going to be speaking with superheroes, those folks with powers beyond the normal. This week we’re chatting with the Face. As usual, I’m speaking to you from my home studio here in Portland, Oregon. The Face is calling us from an undisclosed location. .

Blane – Hello, the Face! Can I just call you Face?”

The Face – If you want.

Blane – I have to ask – who are you really?

The Face – I’m a citizen who wants to make a difference.

Blane – Why put on a mask? Couldn’t you make a difference without it?

The Face – This is just one way of acting. I don’t spend my life in disguise.

Blane – Why this particular mask? Why green?

The Face – It seemed like a good idea at the time.

Blane – When was this? I mean, when did you put on the mask the first time? There are reports of you, your … “Face” … going back at least five years.

The Face – I can’t speak to the specific incident without putting people at risk. But who doesn’t love a mask? Who doesn’t want to punch a bad guy? You could say I’ve been preparing for this since I was a kid.

Blane – There is a lot of debate about that “bad guy” label. Some of the “bad guys” you’ve been punching have been cops. The video of you attacking a line of police officers during the BLM riots goes viral every time someone uploads it.

The Face – “Attacking.”  “Riots.” You’re letting your capitalist, statist, copaganda indoctrination show Blane.It was a peaceful protest. The cops showed up in riot gear. They used tear gas and weapons on unarmed citizens. The violence was initiated by the police.

Blane – There had been property damage …

The Face – There had been murders committed by cops hiding behind their badges. There was and continues to be violence against marginalized people committed by cops. Cops who are well paid and who remain on the job.

Blane – But is violence the way to stop violence?

The Face – Did you think that question through?

Blane – Are you a member of Antifa?

The Face –

Blane – Was that a bad question?

The Face – That was a dumb question, Blane. Antifa is as real as bigfoot. Actually, that’s a bad example. I’ve met sasquatches. They’re real. They just aren’t the things urban legend thinks they are.

Blane – Bigfoot is real?

The Face – Bigfoot is as real as I am. Bigfoot is as much a member of Antifa as I am.

Blane – Bigfoot is Antifa?

The Face – You’re easily distracted, aren’t you Blane?

The Calendar for 2022

The Skookworks calendar for 2022 is now available through my Zazzle shop. Twelve months of the Mighty Nizz! Fourteen illustrations! 365 dates!

That’s it for this week. Thank you for visiting!

Stay safe. Stay sane. Drink your milk.

You’re back! Seven days have passed and you have opened another missive. Huzzah!

These Days … 

Lots of overtime at USPS this last week. Bleah. More time handling mail (mostly Amazon parcels) means less time having a life and therefore less time to write about having less time to have a life. You’re probably getting used to, and perhaps tired of, this complaint.

Moving on …

Transmission 03 

Wilhelmina Grace almost laughed. The transmitter had found her a safe location. She stood on solid ground. It appeared to be the only solid ground for thousands, if not millions, of miles. It seemed to hold a much stronger force of gravity than she would have expected in so small an object. Nonelheless she stayed still. She didn’t want to make any sudden moves that might launch her into the void.

At first she took the glowing objects that drifted past as comets but then she heard faint music. Music, coming from glowing objects, in airless space? Wilhelmina checked her thoughts. This destination only appeared to be airless space. This was not her home dimension. There could be an atmosphere outside her suit. The music from the not-comets was atonal, staticky and vaguely electronic. She thought it sounded like Chinese opera as played on a Theramin.

Super Portraits

I’ve done team up shots of my “Weird Heroes”. I’ve done solo images. I figured it was time to do portraits of each character. My standard work flow is to start by sketching with nonphoto blue pencil.

There are five “Weird Heroes”. I hate leaving empty space so I drew a cat.

Once I was basically satisfied with the blueline sketches I went over them a “B” lead pencil. Once I’ve scanned in these drawings I will drop out the blue using a function in Photoshop. I’ve made process gifs of each portrait and I’ll be sharing those in my next few newsletters.

I went ahead and inked the cat.

The final version of this critter is available on schtuff in my Redbubble store. If you’d like to see it on Zazzle merch just let me know.

Once again, thank you for opening this email. Life is full of distractions. I’m honored that you let me be one of them.

I hope you are well and sane. Remember to get some exercise. See you in seven days!

Good morning fabulous reader! Thank you opening this email. The only viruses it contains are love and appreciation.

These Days …

Cleviosity is not a recognized word. Not yet. It’s a term invented by Patrick McLean. He says, “Cleviosity (or Cleviousness) is my term for when you are trying so hard to do something smart that you wind up doing something stupid”. He has an essay about his own Cleviosness here.

I’ve been using the word frequently since I read it. There’s a lot I do that’s intended to have one result but ends up producing different ones, ones that could have been predicted if I had thought three or four times instead of just twice. This newsletter is a good example. I started it because I’d been reading a lot of other email newsletters and I found a lot of them inspirational. I’ve been writing it in part so I get practice writing. Writing and producing writing to deadline. And I’m getting that – the experience of writing and producing a newsletter to a weekly deadline.

The thing is … I want more practice writing and drawing comics. Writing a newsletter gives me practice stringing words together. Comics are not words. Yes, most comics have words in them. Yes, most comics start with a written script. But a comic story is not a newsletter. I can ramble on here for a few hundred words and get a satisfying product. I don’t have to plan much.

A comic story requires more planning. Whether the story is five pages or five hundred, each page needs to be composed so that the images can be read clearly. If there’s dialogue it needs to be considered while planning the page so it can be read cleanly. Too many words can overwhelm the images. If the story requires a page count it must be planned so that the action is presented well.

A newsletter is not a comic book. Also, the audience for a newsletter might not be the same audience for a comic story. Not everyone who reads this newsletter will want to read my comics. Heck, not everyone who subscribes to this newsletter opens it. Not everyone who opens it reads it, I know some folks just look at the pictures.

That’s fine. Really. I long ago stopped worrying (much) about the results of my creative endeavors. I do notice the results and, when the results aren’t what I was hoping/planning on, I make adjustments.

Putting out this newsletter on a weekly basis is useful. I do get practice hitting deadlines and writing prose. I made a commitment to put out this version of the newsletter for a year and I will. We’re now far enough past the half way point of 2021 that I’m thinking of how I want the newsletter fo function in 2022. I have some ideas. If you’re one of the folks who reads each issue, I’d love to hear your feedback.

In the meantime I need to figure out how to add “write and draw comics” into my schedule.  Hopefully I’ll manage it with less cleviousness this time.

Transmission 02

Wilhelmina Grace arrived gently. The transimission process was supposed to work that way. The machines were supposed to calculate a stable arrival point for the subject and desposit it there precisely. Theory and application were not always the same. Grace was relieved that this arrival had actually gone as designed.

She was disconcerted that the transmitter had placed her on top of some sort of stalk. She wondered it was a plant or a fungus and recognized that she was attempting to apply Terran biological classifications to organisms existing in otherdimensional realms. She also recognized that she would need to maintain her balance on this stalk for the ten minutes until the transmitter forwarded her to the next destination. The transmitter would find her if she moved but she realized that she could see the ground from where she was balanced. All she saw were waving stalks and floating creatures.

She was beginning to think that the ten minute destination visit idea might have been poorly thought out. 

Expansions

I’ve been continuing to update older images to better fit on merchandise in my Redbubble store. I’ve realized that most of my earlier images were composed as if they were comic book panels. I tried to fill all the available space as if I only had so much space available. That meant, when I tried placing the images on a variety of different products I’d often either have to crop out cool parts of the image or just not place the image on some products. Fortunately most of the work I’ve done in the last five years exists as large, layered photoshop files. I can make adjustments to sizes and lines and colors pretty easily.

Singing for Shub Niggurath 

The original –

The updated version. More space at the top and bottom of the image, more flesh on the singer, and simplified colors.

It Came From the Landfill

The original – inspired by creature in the movie The Milpitas Monster.

The updated version – more room at the top of the image, more vibrant (lurid?) colors.

Three Girls and the Heap

The original –

THe updated version – more room at the top and left side. Highlights on the figures.

And that’s it for this week. I appreciate you spending some of your no doubt limited attention here.

Get some rest. Say hi to friends. Give your work the love it deserves.

See you on the 27th!

Please leave a message at the tone.

If there is no tone, please whisper your message into the nearest sanitary ear.

These Days ..

The weather is hot. We’re short on carriers. Amazon continues to send us big heavy parcels that require extra time for delivery. Rinse. Repeat. .

Transmission 001

Wilhelmina Grace ceased to exist. She felt it happen. She expected it. It was part of the transmission process. But expectation and experience can be very different things. One can imagine not existing. Feeling nonexistence was something she hadn’t anticipated. The moment was brief but palpable. She felt, knew, a moment of complete discontinuity.

And then she was in a space that was not a place. It was a betweenness. There was no ground. No sky. Colors that she could not name. She felt like she was falling but couldn’t orient herself to up or to down. She felt relieved that she would transmit again in ten minutes. She knew she could deal with this experience for ten minutes.

Unless there was a down, a ground, a place where gravity mattered, somewhere in those ten minutes.

Unless minutes meant nothing in this no place. 

Back in the Light

I’ve done a lot of illustrations for role playing games. Most of them were for some version of The Call of Cthulhu. One of my favorite companies to work for was the one I started with – Sixtystone Press. I’ve looked through my archive of illustrations to see which ones could be converted to merch. Not a lot, I think. I could be wrong but most of the pictures seem too specific to the scenarios which they are illustrating to work as stand alone images.

Most but not all. I found three images in the scenario book Lost in the Lights that I think can be appreciated without context. All I needed to do was edit them so they worked better on t-shirts and such.

Above is the original front cover illustration of Lost in the Lights. The scenario takes place in Las Vegas during a convention of celebrity impersonators. One of the most prominant celebrities to impersonate, especially in Vegas, is Elvis. Below is recontextualized version of the image.

Most of the book’s interior illustrations are scenario specific but I found a couple that I lked just by themselves.

Skulls! Who doesn’t love skulls? People who don’t have skulls perhaps?

Above is the black and white version that appeared in the book. Below is the colorized version.

Creepy masks! Who doesn’t love creepy masks? People without faces maybe?

Above is the black and white version that appeared in the book. Below is the colored and colorized and edited version.

Shop Talk

Hahahahahahaha!

I wrote that the above section on Sunday morning. The featured images have been in my stores for a few weeks now. On Monday I got this email from Redbubble –

Hi David Lee ,We’re sorry, but we had to remove your artwork from the Redbubble marketplace, because it may contain material that violates someone’s rights. The owner of these rights has provided us with guidance describing the type of content they consider infringing that should be removed from the marketplace. In most cases, this means that the rights holder did not specifically identify your work for removal, but that Redbubble has detected potential similarity between your removed work and one or more words, phrases or images included in the rights holder’s removal guidance. More information: Rights holder: Sony Music Entertainment Subject matter: Elvis Presley Affected Artwork: Cosmic Horror and the King of Rock and Roll https://www.redbubble.com/people/skookworks/works/81545321-cosmic-horror-and-the-king-of-rock-and-roll What you can do next: Do nothing Your artwork will not be reinstated, and you should not upload it again. This usually brings the matter to a close. Contest the removal This is only appropriate if you believe that removal of your work is a mistake or that your work is parody, satire, critical commentary or other fair use. More information on the counter notice process can be found here. Important: Re-uploading the same content without going through this counter notice process may result in penalties being applied to your user account, including account suspension.

I like specifics. I wanted to know how I specifically violated Sony’s rights. I know they control the rights to most if not all Elvis’s music but I wasn’t aware that they also controlled rights to any depiction of him as well. So I asked for a copy of the guidelines that RB used to decide to take down the image.

I got this instead –

Dear David,

Regards,

The links in that bullet list are broken. I’ve interacted with RB over copyright before, weeks ago, and gotten the same broken list. That tells me that RB isn’t paying much attention to my response. I’ve pointed out those links are broken before yet they haven’t been fixed. I’m not taking it personally. The complany claims “Redbubble is a community of independent artists and designers who take sole responsibility for the content of their work. We value originality and creativity and strongly oppose infringement of copyright, trademarks, intellectual property rights and publicity rights.” It’s a nice sounding slogan but a hollow one.

The takedown of the my Elvis art isn’t the issue. There’s enough wobble around who can profit from depictions of the man that, if I were RB, I’d find it easier to remove the design too.

My issue is that RB hosts dozens, if not hundreds, of stores that sell stolen designs. Those stores are pretty obvious but reporting them doesn’t get much action from RB. They hide behind their rule that only the rights holders of a design can report a stolen design. It’s a rule that is no doubt intended to prevent malicious takedown requests but mostly just lets RB avoid responsibility for enabling thieves.

Ah well.

And that’s it for this week! Thank you again for visiting. Stay safe! Stay sane! Don’t eat your roommates if they die. Let your cats do that.

See you next Friday!