Welcome to the 26th issue of the Skook Works in Progress newsletter.This will be a short edition.We’ve made it through the first half of 2021!  I made a minicomic of sorts and I would like to send one to each of you who read this. To get your copy please reply to this email with your mailing address. Yes, even if you know I have your mailing address. Yes, even if you’re living somewhere other than the US.

Thank you for dropping by. If you’re one of the folks currently living a in hot zone, I hope you’re managing to stay comfortable. If you’re currently comfortable, I’m jealous. I’m also glad you’re comfortable. It’s not a toxic jealousy.

I’ll be back next week with more art and rambling!

Another Friday, another newsletter. It’s great to see you. You are beautiful and talented and you deserve to be rich! Or be served breakfast in bed.

As is now the pattern, personal news is upfront, followed by art and rambling about such. Read on!

These Days …

Fuck cancer.

I write this newsletter over the course of the week. Different sections therefore end up with different moods. This section is angry and tired and sad. Maybe a little hopeful. On Sunday I got a call from an old friend. We hadn’t talked in years. We’d been in touch by occasional (very occasional) texts but not voice. I was out a restaurant with Sarah and the housemate. When I saw the number on my cell phone I was expecting bad news. Who uses the phone to talk any more? A phone call from Alaska means something happened.

My friend has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

Hell. Just. Hell.

Since Sunday, there’s been a lot of up and down. There’s a lot I don’t know about her situation. After the initial call our communications have been texts again. The diagnosis was just the first step. She had a CAT scan on Monday. A biopsy was to follow but gall bladder problems were requiring immediate attention. That surgery couldn’t be done in Fairbanks so she was trying to get it scheduled in Anchorage.

And apparently it couldn’t be done in Anchorage so she got flown here to Seattle Wednesday night.

She quickly discovered that communication between Fairbanks and Seattle … sucked. No one in Seattle was expecting her. So she spent Thursday getting the necessary information and paperwork communicated and now, supposedly, she has her first operations scheduled for Monday.

She’s staying with a friend in Shoreline. Sarah and I will be going to visit her after work tonight. We’re picking up Ethiopian food on our way. There’s apparently no good Ethiopian food in Fairbanks. We’ll be up past our bedtime. We do what we need to do.

Face the Face

Who wears the Face?

Is he an urban legend? A guilty conscience incarnate? A hoax? A conspiracy?

That Face has been seen staring accusingly across a crowded room.

That Face has been heard whispering accusations from the corners of rooms that should have been empty.

That Face has grinned before the punch landed.

That Face was worn by the man who charged into the burning building and pulled people to safety.

That Face spoke from his Youtube channel, recounting the sins of the rich and powerful.

That Face was worn by the man who caught the tear gas cannisters and threw them back at the riot cops.

That Face snarled and did not back down.
.

The Face is watching. The Face knows what’s been done. The Face will drag the secrets into light.

Finishing Up

The next two images have been years in the making. I started them in 2017. I finished them in May. This last May. I’d been trying to do more of my finished art digitally. A lot of younger artists do all their work digitally. I really like working with pencil and brush and marker on paper but I think it’s a good idea to learn new media. I was using these two images to practice.

This was the pencil sketch for the first one. It features my crime fighting clown and her living ventriloquist dummy partner. They had names when I first drew them but I didn’t write those names down so I’m going to have to invent new ones.

This is about where I gave up four years ago. I wanted the image to be mostly areas of color with minimal lines. I use a wacom tablet from digital drawing. I’d been using it for a few years already but it was still an awkward tool.

This is the version I finished this month. It’s a reminder that practicing with a tool increases ones skill and comfort with said tool. I know both the tablet and photoshop better now.

This second piece is a portrait of Aunt Hortense, doing what she does best – smoking and drinking. She also overthrows civilizations, teases children and does bad things to narcissists but she does that while smoking and drinking. She is not a good example for young people.

Above is the pencil sketch that I started with. Below is what the digitally colored version looked like when I stepped away from it.

And this the version I completed last month. Care for a drink?

The above two images are available on a bunch of schtuff at my Redbubble store.

I also run an online store at Zazzle. Different images, different schtuff.

That’s it for this week. Thank you for spending some time with me. I hope that things are good in your part of the universe. If not, I hope you have friends and family (chosen or otherwise) to help you manage the rough spots.

Cheers!

Friday again? How quickly it sneaks up.

Welcome to the latest Skook Works in Progress newsletter. I run two online stores – one at Zazzle and one at Redbubble. This newsletter is my cracked idea of marketing for those stores. Personal news upfront, art and stories about said below that. Read on!

These Days …

I had one of my scheduled vacations last week. I spent as much of it as I could working on art.

I went back to work at USPS on Tuesday. My body, particularly my legs, has been unhappy with me since then. Doing art requires very little physical exercise. Delivering mail requires quite a bit of exercise. Bodies don’t like going from little exercise to lots of exercise. Ouch.

My station got a new stationmaster last week. This makes the fifth or sixth stationmaster our station has had since I started working at the post office seven years ago. I haven’t interacted with this one yet. At this point I’m pretty settled in to my position. A new boss isn’t likely to affect my job much. I do expect there to be more emphasis on hitting the numbers and avoiding overtime. That’s happened every time we’ve gotten new management. It does’t change how I do my work.

I suppose I ought to say hello to the guy, recognize him as a human being and such. Probably not this week. Between the heat and my body’s protests I’m not feeling too social.

Prayers from Ancient Ghosts

She is the last god of a dead pantheon worshipped by a lost civilization. There is no one human left who remembers her true name.

The trees remember. The stones remember. The rivers and the rain remember. The birds in the sky and the beasts who prowl the forest, they remember. She hears their prayers.

Sometimes she walks through the streets of a city. The people rarely see her. Their minds have been seduced by the empty, hungry gods of the modern world – gods that do not exist yet demand unyielding fielty. She watches. She listens. She hears the prayers the people offer to their selfish gods.Those prayers she does not answer.

She sees the world as it is – a planet that has become overrun by a single species. That species is clever and resourceful and lost. She is patient. The world will not end. The world and life is resilient. The civilization that is eating the world will eventually choke on its on filth and fall. Life will go on. New gods will be born.

Until then, she amuses herself by answering small prayers.

In this world she is called Fantomah. That is not the name to use if you wish her to answer your prayers. To learn that name you will need to ask the wind or the soil or the serpent in the grass. Then, once you have learned that name, be very careful what you pray for. Real gods are not servants. They answer prayers according to their own whims and sense of humor.

.

Shop Talk

“How do I get sales?”

That’s a question that keeps coming up in the Redbubble Facebook group to which I belong. People post links to their latest designs and their stores and ask how to improve them. When I have advice or suggestions I offer them. But I’m not an expert.

I’ve listened to a lot of youtube videos about running Redbubble stores. I will play the videos while I’m working on art. Sometimes I hear useful advice and get a handy tip.

There are quite a few energetic tubers who claim to be making big bucks running POD shops. Those folks are usuallly offering paid classes and course on how you or I can also make big buck running POD shops. I haven’t taken any of their classes. Their advice in their free videos is often about following trends and kinda sorta stealing the work and ideas of the designers whose work is selling well. Bleah.

The folks I resonate with are the ones who are having fun running their stores.

I am having fun. My stores are performance art and summoning spells. Art really only exists between the work and the audience. When you see it here in this newsletter you’re making it more real. Thank you! When you go to the stores and browse the designs you’re calling up stories. Thank you! And all y’all who have bought merchandise. We are partners in sorcery. You’ve taken a image that only exists as data and pixels and made it into something real and tangible. That is so very very cool! Thank you so much!

On my end I’m continuing to update my older designs so they fit and print better.

This pair of monster hunters looked ready to fight before –

Now they’ve got room to really rumble!

This wizard’s spell stirred things up …

Now it ties them all together!

This PI gave a good portrait …

Now he’s got more room to investigate the crime!

And then there’s this –  V for Vaccination Victory.!

I haven’t been taking requests for new designs or images. I’ve got so many of my own ideas to execute that taking on another person’s suggestion isn’t practical. Last Friday night, however, one of my former high school classmates messaged me on Facebook with this – “Hey man, I need a t-shirt with a symbol that assimilates a V for victory and one for vaccinated.”

I wrote back saying I’d think about it but my brain had already started generating ideas.

Saturday morning I worked up the design above. These last few years practicing with Photoshop have paid off.

My zazzle store now has a collection of merch featuring the design and my Redbubble store has the design on another variety of desirable oblects. Hopefully this design will only have meaning for a few months.

This is an example of magic. My former classmate gave me a spark. I hammered it into a design.

I’ve got another friend who has asked to have some of the images he sees adjusted so they better fit on the product he wants to buy. Or he’s asked me make a design I’d posted only in my Redbubble store available on a product in my zazzle store. I’m happy to oblige.

I have another friend who keeps asking me to do designs featuring Aunt Hortense and the rest of the lizards. I love those guys and plan to work up some illustrations

These exchanges have me considering actually asking for requests. I still have way more of my own ideas to every execute in my lifetime but, heck, why not add more?

Are there images in my Redbubble store that you’d like to see on different products than what Redbubble offers? Let me know. Zazzle has huge variety of different objects just waiting to be used. If I can make the illustration work on one of your preferred objects I will do so.

What new illustration would you like to see? What new design?

Reply to this newsletter and let me know.

Maybe your spark will fire up my creative forges. Maybe you will summon up a new story.

Thank you for reading. I hope your part of the world is safe and warm and has plenty of cats and cookies.

See you next week!

Welcome to the Skook Works in Progress newsletter issue number 22. I’ll be chatting about personal events upfront with pictures and discussion thereof to follow.

Thank you for dropping by!

These Days …

This week has been my scheduled vacation. At the USPS we put in for vacation time during the first weeks of January. Whether or not we get it depends on the seniority of the people vying for each available week. I’ve generally avoided bidding on weeks in “prime time” – June, July, August and December – so I’ve always gotten the time I’ve asked for.

Saturday was my last day at work. I did my best to clean up the route for whoever fills in during my absence. I pulled the mail from a couple of boxes of customers that I’m pretty sure have moved. They didn’t put in change of address notices but, given that they hadn’t collected their mail in at least six weeks, it seemed safe to remove it. The general procedure for pulling mail is to leave a note saying that we’ll be holding it at the post office for ten days. I don’t do this. I figure that if someone hasn’t picked up their mail in 45 days keeping it around for another ten is just cluttering things up in an already cramped space. I forward all the first class mail and periodicals and send the rest for processing.

Other than that bit of tidying the day was same-old, same-old. Overcast but not cold. Lots of large parcels that I couldn’t carry in my satchel so I had to park at the actual delivery address and lug them to the door individually. There are all sorts of conspiracy theories about the pandemic. The one I invented says that Jeff Bezos spread covid to create lockdowns so people had to shop online. Mail volumes may have dropped in the last year but the parcel volumes (and sizes) continue to be high. Now that a lot of folks have gotten used to shopping for things online I don’t expect the volumes to go down. Why spend an hour going to store when you can order something in five minutes and then do something fun?

Sunday was my birthday. I would honestly forget that it was my birthday if my friends and family didn’t remind me. I stopped giving the date attention after I turned 25. I prefer to just be over 25. My exact age is always nebulous to me. I have to do math every time someone requires me to tell them my age. In the morning Sarah and I went out for coffee and breakfast sandwiches at Starbucks. The drive-thru was backed up into the street. Sarah checked her phone and discovered that one of our old regular breakfast places was open. We had our first in-restaurant meal in over a year. The food was as good as ever. The staff remembered us and asked after the friends who had regularly joined us before the plague descended.

Once we got back home I spent most of the day working on art.

Monday – more art with breaks to cook meals and a long phone conversation with my brother.

Tuesday – art and errands. The new housemate had a load of her stuff brought in from her old apartment. Sarah and one of our neighbors have been working to rearrange our stuff to get rid of that which does not spark joy and make room for … more sfuff.

Wednesday – art and making meals for me. More organizing for Sarah.

Thursday – the new housemate and I went down to her old place in Tacoma so she could do a walk-through with her property managers. I emptied her fridge, tossed out some trash and packed up the last of her stuff that’s coming north.

Today – more art for me, hopefully.

Indistinguishable from Magic

Stardust the Superwizard is, ultimately, a librarian. He lives in a technological/informational archive located on Venus’ moon.

The archive is one of many scattered across the universe. They are all connected via multi/interdimensional gateways and platforms in such a way that, to the casual visitor, they appear to be one vast, nearly infinite collection. The archives were established by an intelligent species that has mastered time. They are intensely curious and are continually adding to the archives.

Stardust himself is the enhanced clone of the Soviet cosmonaut Major Tomas Zhigalev. Zhigalev and his ship disappeared soon after escaping the Earth’s orbit in 1962. Zhigalev was intercepted by the archive and his mind was transfered to the Stardust clone. His original body is stored in the archive.  The USSR covered up all record of Zhigalev’s mission.

Stardust is just one of many beings who maintain and protect the archive. Because it exist outside of consensus space and time he is able to travel through the universe to any point he finds interesting. He has a fierce sense of justice and uses the archives’ resources to twart and punish evil doers.

As a human Zhigalev was reserved, stoic and asocial. As Stardust his personality is much the same. Yet he still feels attachment to the Earth and its inhabitants. He views protecting the solar system as one of his duties.

When he isn’t adventuring, he is investigating the archive, learning, learning, learning.

Shop Talk

As I work on new images I’m continuing to edit and expand the designs I’ve already posted to my Redbubble store. I’ve made more changes to some of the illustrations than I originally intended. This image of the fellow contemplating the stars, for instance …

I like the original but when I tried expand the white starfield along with the rest of the illustration it kept looking wrong. I couldn’t seem to find the right photoshop brush. The white in original is lively. To me, it gives the image the feel of watching fireworks. The revised version is relaxing.

The mutants below went from posing menacingly in a desert landscape …

To posing menacingly in a bigger desert landscape. Not a lot of changes needed to expand this one.

I’d already revised “Red Right Hand”  (inspired by the Nick Cave song) before I posted it to Redbubble. My big sister had ordered a greeting card printing of it and showed me the result. The result was dark. Too many details got lost.

I lightened the color palette when I expanded the image. The current version feels drier, more weather beaten.

Until … 

I hope that your life is only as chaotic as you can enjoy. I hope you have time to chill out when things get too wild. I appreciate you taking the time to stop by.

​See you next week!

Friday. Friday. Friday.

It arrives once a week. Millions of people anticipate it because Saturday follows after. I work most Saturdays so Friday has an appeal for other reasons.

YOU!

Welcome back!

Read on!
(Or scroll down the page and look at the pictures. I don’t mind.)

These Days …

We’ve been having a lot of sunny weather here in Seattle. It’s warm enough for short sleeves to be comfortable while cool enough to make being outside pleasant. Since most of my USPS job requires me to be outside I’m happy with that situation. The station has been requiring mandatory overtime on most days. We’re short carriers and clerks at my station and looking to hire.

Beyond that I don’t have much to say about the day job that I haven’t said before. Maybe next week.

Promises to Keep

The Heap was germinated in 1918. Baron Eric Von Emmelmann, a German fighter pilot, was shot down over a Polish swamp. He didn’t exactly die. What exactly happened to him is open to conjecture. He loved his wife. He had a new born son that he had not yet held. He was very stubborn man. Perhaps that stubbornness, that will to live kept a spark in his body as it was subsumed by the swamp. Perhaps the occult activities in which his ancestors were rumored to engage made his reformed body a revenant. Faerie beings in the swamp and/or the goddes Ceres have also gotten credit. Whatever the cause, flesh was replaced by mulch and moss and fungus, bones by roots and stems and vines. It took a decade but the spark held and grew and, in 1928, the Heap pulled itself from the muck and headed home.

The way was fraught with danger and horrors. The Heap seemed to be a magnet for evils both human and supernatural. He battled vampires and werewolves and more mundane evils.

Not surprisingly, the Von Emmelmann family reunion was strained. His former wife had married his former best friend. His son was now a ten year old boy. His estates were in ruin. He was no longer human and, having no vocal cords, could not speak. But they were all practical, rational people even when faced with the impossibility of the Heap. They reconciled. The former Baron let go of his former life and his spirit left the Heap.

The Heap remained. It wandered the world, a mostly mindless creature. It continued to encounter and defeat all manner of menaces.

From 1951 until 1963 the Heap housed the mind and spirit of Jeremiah Cartier, an African spiritualist and adventurer. He and his family defended the world from secret occult conspiracies and supernatural dangers.

In the mid-1970s the Heap bore the mind of Jesus Robertson, a former crop duster pilot. His human body died in a plane crash and his mind transferred to the Heap when it pulled him from the wreckage. He had a variety of adventures before he settled down on his parents’ farm to help them through their remaining years. When they passed away his spirit left the Heap.

These days the Heap is inhabited by the spirit of Isabeau Bienvenu, a former Air Force pilot, bartender and DJ. She lives in Mississippi with her young niece and two adopted orphan girls. Of course they fight monsters and menaces from beyond on a regular basis. That’s part of the package of being the Heap.

Shop Talk

I’d thought that, when I reached 100 designs, I would start replacing some to keep to a nice even 100 but, after updating a few older designs, I’ve changed my mind. There are a few images that I plan to replace with completely new versions. But the more I work on this project the less I want to limit it. I’m having fun. The “Explore Designs” pages give me a more expansive and easily updatable portfolio than I’ve currently got on my own website. So, on beyond one hundred.

This forest god illustration is a bit cramped.

So I’ve given the old creature more room to move …

The next piece is a bit different. I did the original back in 2015. I had finally gotten settled enough in my USPS carrier job that I could make time to do art again. I’d started posting new illustrations to my website. I was just working in black and white at the time. I didn’t yet have the energy to work in color.

When I was going through my desktop to find the original photoshop files of images I was planning to update for the shop I was reminded of this piece. I liked it when I did it. I still like it.

Between 2015 and now I’ve had a lot of practice drawing digitally so expanding the original image was easy. And fun. Adding color was even more satisfying.

This is currently design #98 in the Redbubble store.

And that’s it for this week. Take care of yourself and those you love. Time is fleeting. Madness takes its toll. You know the drill.

See you next week!

Hello!

You’re looking awfully handsome today! Have you done something new with your hair? Is that a new shirt/dress/pair of socks? Whatever it is, keep doing it!

(Unless I’m just delusional. In which case I’ll hang on to my delusions and continue passing them on to you.)

These Days …

Hmmm.

So this is the part of the newsletter where I get personal. As personal as I’m going to get in medium that can be read by anybody.

Caveats, caveats.

No covid. My second vaccine should be fully functional today. I expect to continue wearing a mask in public for a while. I haven’t had a cold in year so, personally, I find them effective. I also like the idea that wearing a mask screws up Big Brother’s facial recognition software. Not that Big Brother couldn’t find me if it wanted to. My scanner at USPS has GPS tracking and I carry a cell phone whenever I leave the house so I’m hardly doing a good job of being anonymous.

The new housemate is basically moved in. Her cat and ours are still a little touchy with each other but mostly they are getting along.

Little news otherwise. So let’s get to the artstuff!

Fighting the Powers

Open on:
The Skookworks studio. Early morning. Not that it matters. There are no windows in this room, only bookshelves. The Cartoonist sits at the drawing table. He is sketching. The Salesman sits next to him at the computer desk. He is staring at the screen. He types a few words and then deletes them. He sighs. He looks at what the Cartoonist is drawing.

Salesman: Octobriana and the Face?

Cartoonist: Yup. I’ve done the other Weird Heroes. Time to team up the last two.

Salesman: Are you sure you want to use that composition?

The Cartoonist lifts up the page. He stares at the drawing. He drops it to the floor.

Cartoonist: You’re right. That one didn’t work. No action. No tension.

He puts a new piece of cardstock on the drawing table and starts sketching again. The Salesman types a few words. He deletes them. He looks at what is being sketched.

Salesman: Much better.

Cartoonist: Much livelier.

Salesman: What’s with the dog?

Cartoonist: These guys seem more like dog people than cat people.

Salesman: That is a happy looking dog.

Cartoonist: Happy dogs are great. The Mail Carrier likes the happy dogs on his route.

Salesman: I’m trying to write something insightful about these characters, about why we’re using them. We like the Heap because we like swamp monsters. We’ve adopted Stardust (the Superwizard) and Fantomah because they require us to think in new ways. What is the appeal of these two?

Cartoonist: They hate rich people?

Salesman: Everybody hates rich people.

Cartoonist: Not really. If everybody actually hated rich people there wouldn’t be any rich people. And these guys hate rich people for different reasons. The Face is a guy who puts on a mask to fight crime and corruption. He’s not trying to completely change society. Octobriana is a revolutionary. She’s fighting for a different, better, egalitarian world. The Face is an American. Octobriana is international. And she has a pterodactyl.

Salesman: She has a pterodactyl? Why didn’t you draw the pterodactyl?

Cartoonist: That’s in Octobriana’s solo illustration. This is the team up illustration.

Salesman: What are they teaming up to do?

Cartoonist: Something that will probably involve punching cops.

Salesman: They punch cops? A lot of people like cops. A lot more people like cops than hate rich people.

Cartoonist: The original Face became a crime fighter because he saw corrupt cops murder someone. Our version probably has a similiar origin story. I’m still working it out. He is an American though so he’s not opposed to the police in principle. He just wants them to act in favor of justice rather than as selfish asshats. Octobriana is opposed to the police in general. The police are tools of the state. The state uses them to oppress people. To her, there are no good cops.

Salesman: I’m on deadline here. I’m not sure that’s got mass appeal.

Cartoonist: Smash the state! Eat the rich!

Salesman: You’re not helping.

Cartoonist: You’re a stooge for the capitalist oligarchy.

Salesman: Sigh. Artists. This design is available on all kinds of stuff on Redbubble. Buy now and keep the wheels of the marketplace spinning!

Shop Talk

Last week I had a conversation with someone who has purchased some of my designs on products through Redbubble. She’s been happy with her purchases so far but she found the search process frustrating. She didn’t find it easy to find my shop using either “skookworks” or “david lee ingersoll” in the search field. What’s frustrating to her is frustrating to me. I like to be easy to find. I’ve also had difficulty finding other artists’ shops on Redbubble. I was sure the shops existed but putting in the artists’s names yielded no results.

My customer does her online shopping on her phone so I used my phone to search Redbubble for my products. Less than ten showed up for “David Lee Ingersoll”. Less than ten for “Skookworks”. I had randomly added tags for “David Lee Ingersoll” and “skookworks” to some designs when I was having trouble thinking of a variety of tag words and phrases to use. The designs that showed up in the searches had those tags. Bleah. This means I’ll need to be adding those tags to the rest of my designs now. People can’t buy what they can’t find.

Interestingly Zazzle pulls up my shop when I search for “skookworks”. Searching for “David Lee Ingersoll” only pulls up products that I’ve tagged with my name. I guess I’ll need to make some updates there as well.

While I was doing these searches I started thinking about edits I want to make to some of the earlier posted designs. I’d planned to wait until I had 100 images posted but … what the heck, if I have to add in tags I might as well do some edits at the same time.

I’m not making major changes. At this time I’m just expanding some of the illustrations so the images fit better on the merchandise that Redbubble offers. For instance, this guy punching a robot …

Becomes this guy punching a robot. More space around the figures means it can fit more comfortably on a  greater variety of products.

This sad monster at the abandoned drive-in …

Becomes this sad monster at the abandoned drive-in. It now has more space in which to be
sad. (I love this sad monster.)

Finally, this image of the Mighty Nizz being cheerful to a doubtful bear …

Becomes this expanded version.

I won’t be able to do this with all my older designs. These were layered Photoshop documents and the colors are simple. Expanding designs that were originally done in pencil or markers or used specialized digital brushes is a challenge that I’m not planning to take on. I’d rather redo the illustration.

I’ve joined a Redbubble Facebook group. I’ve been watching videos on “how to get rich on Redbubble” on Youtube. Hearing other folks experiences with and reasons for being on Redbubble is/are interesting, in part because so much of the focus is on sales. I get it. I guess. I’m delighted when I get a notice saying I’ve sold something. I’m especially delighted when the sale is for some odd illustration that I really didn’t expect anyone else to like. I long ago learned that my taste is not general taste. But I’m on Zazzle and Redbubble because having those stores as destinations gives me a focus for composing my illustrations.

The three original images above were originally done because:
a) I thought the subject (and the implied story) would be fun to depict
and/or
b) I wanted to practice some new rendering techniques.

With the stores as endpoints I’m still inspired by a) and b) but now I’m also thinking about:
c) composing an image so the important aspects of the design will look good on a variety of different products.

Eventually I may add:
d) follow pop trends for big sales
to my thinking but that will mean I’ll have to pay more attention to pop trends. And draw fast enough to take advantage of them.

We’ll see.

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

May your life be only as exciting as it is satisfying. See you next time!

Welcome back! It’s Friday! I hope things are going well in your neck of the apocalypse.Time for another edition of this newsletter!

A reader recently suggested that I provide an upfront summary of each newsletter so they’d know what to look for. It’s not a bad suggestion. I hadn’t considered it before because the newsletters I’ve subscribed to don’t have that feature.

The biggest block to me doing this is that I’m always writing these against a deadline and around delivering mail, doing chores and new drawings. I don’t know how much I’ll get in before I hit my Friday morning deadline. So I’m flipping the order of things a bit. I’m putting the life news up front with the art in progress stuff following. If you just want to look at the pictures feel free to scroll past all the words.

These Days …

Last Friday Sarah and I were finally able to get our covid tests. We’d needed to wait until our new housemate’s covid cycle had theoretically run its course. Three weeks in quarantine. I know, I know, lots of folks have spent a lot longer periods quarantined. I did get a lot of artwork done. And we binged some distracting series. Things could have been worse.

We took the test in morning. We were told that we’d either get a call from a doctor (if the test was positive) or we’d get a notice in our mychart (if the test was negative).

We got our mychart notices in the late afternoon. Negative.

Saturday morning I went back to delivering mail. Saturday afternoon my arms hurt in ways they hadn’t in years. It seems that if you don’t do a certain repetitive action for three weeks your body forgets how to do that action and then complains when you start again. Thank heavens for Tiger Balm. I highly recommend it for muscle pain.

Sunday was a day off.

Monday was another day delivering. No repeat of Saturday’s pain. The body gets back into a rhythm pretty quickly.

Tuesday was a scheduled day off. It was also the day I’d scheduled my second covid vaccine. Other than feeling sore in the needled arm I didn’t think I was having any adverse reactions.

Those came Wednesday. I’d missed so many days of work (and I’ve worked while tired, sick or suffering from ennui in the past) that I felt compelled to go in. I started the day feeling a little woozy. I finished the day feeling exhausted, chilled and needing to go to bed early.

Thursday I felt great. Work was a breeze.

I still feel okay today. Not quite as perky but I suspect a lot of my good feeling yesterday were in contrast to how crappy I’d felt the day before.

I still expect to continue wearing masks in public for awhile. I haven’t gotten a cold in over a year and I credit that to masking and physical distancing. Humans are disease bags.

Dieux Sans Portefeuille

Open on:
The Skookworks studio. The Cartoonist sits at his drawing table. He is sketching. Next to him, at the computer desk, the Salesman is typing.

Salesman: This is what I’ve written for the copy for our Stardust and Fantomah design …

Cartoonist: Stardust the Superwizard.

Salesman: What?

Cartoonist: Stardust the Superwizard. Try doing a search for just “Stardust”. You’ll get a million Stardusts that aren’t Stardust the Superwizard. We have to make sure that we include a “Stardust the Superwizard” tag if we want people to find us.

Salesman: Do a lot of people search for “Stardust the Superwizard”?

Cartoonist: I do.

Salesman: You’re not helping. Can I read what I wrote?

Cartoonist: Sorry. Go ahead.

Salesman: “Stardust is a Super-Wizard, awesome in thought and power. Just ask him.
Fantomah is a nature goddess, slow to judge, furious to respond. Don’t mess with her. Fletcher Hanks thinks he created them. He was wrong. They allowed him to unleash them upon the world. The cat? I don’t know anything about the cat. ”

Cartoonist: That sounds fine to me. Were you wanting a critique? The copy is probably superfluous. People either like the design enough to purchase it or they don’t

Salesman: We must but try. The proper words can move mountains.

Cartoonist: Mountains don’t have ears. Words mean nothing to them.

Salesman: You can be annoyingly literal. You know what I mean.

Cartoonist: Yeah. Yeah. 

Salesman: So. Why?

Cartoonist: Why what?

Salesman: Why Stardust and Fantomah? Why these characters? What is their appeal for you? You’ve already expressed a lack of love for Fletcher Hanks’ art and storytelling.

The Cartoonist stares into space. The Black Cat wanders into the studio. It meows loudly. It wanders out again.

Cartoonist: They are a challenge. They aren’t the sort of characters I would have created on my own. The Heap, The Face, Octobriana – those folks are more familiar to me. When I invent superheroes they tend to me midrange sorts. Fantomah and Stardust are essentially gods.

Salesman: A lot of superheroes are. Superman is ridiculously powerful. And a few superheroes are gods from prechristian pantheons. Thor. Hercules.

Cartoonist: The comics industry has mined a lot of mythologies to create new characters. What I find interesting about these two is that they aren’t anyone’s gods or standard superheroes. They’re not from an existing mythology. They don’t fit the regular superhero template either. They aren’t regular people transformed into superbeings. They don’t have secret identities.They don’t have some tragedy in their past that is prompting them to right wrongs and seek justice now. Their powers are undefined.

Salesman: You’re seeing potential in them?

Cartoonist: I’m seeing a challenge. In order to do anything good with them I have to …

Salesman: Think outside the box? Color outside the lines? Do different?

Cartoonist: Think beyond catch phrases?

Salesman: If you want to get complicated.

Cartoonist: I do actually. I like complexity. I like considering new ideas and concepts. What would it be like to have godlike powers? What would you do with your time? Who would you hang out with?

Salesman: Who would your arch enemies be?

Cartoonist: Maybe. Maybe not. What if you didn’t have arch enemies?

Salesman: What about the cat?

Cartoonist: Don’t ask.

Salesman: Hey! Kind reader! Yes, you. The person reading this sentence. This design is intended to be featured on dark clothing. We’ve got a sample down below and there are many more examples in our Redbubble store. Check them out!

Out of the Aeons

A few years ago I got some flat files to better store my art. As I sorted art into different drawers I came across this unfinished illustration –

I’m not sure when I originally started it. It was likely in the mid nineties. The graffiti on the side of the shanty are symbols that I was using in the “Bonecage Graffiti” series in Glyph Magazine. The folks around the fire are Moe, Trouble Coyote, K.Z. O’Neil and Detritus from my Misspent Youths comic. I don’t know why I hadn’t finished the piece. If I don’t finish an illustration within a reasonable timeframe (say, within three months) I usually don’t finish it at all.

I thought this one had potential for completion. The main work was done. I just needed to complete the interior of the shanty and the brickwork up top. I set it aside with a few other unfinished pieces. I’m an optimist.

Years passed. The other unfinished illustrations got put into the flat files. This one kept getting moved into stacks of newer works in progress. Then I got quarantined. I worked my way through all the other illustrations in my stacks. Now or never.

I did the finishing in Photoshop. I was concerned about making mistakes on the original page so I worked digitally. It’s a lot easier to change direction or correct errors that way. I’m really happy with the results. It was a pleasure to hang out with some of the Misspent Youths gang again. The completed illustration is available on a variety of products in my Redbubble store.

That’s it for this week. Thank you for reading. I hope you’ve had a chance to finish an unfinished thing or two yourself. I hope you’ve been able to start a few projects as well. It’s great to have goals!

See you next Friday!

It’s Friday. You’re where you are. I’m where I am. This newsletter connects us for a moment. Thank you for stopping by!

Greeting Card Conversions

As usual, we start with before and after versions of some greeting card designs. The after versions will be available in my Zazzle shop. Normally they are already uploaded by the time I send out this newsletter but … squirrel!

Speaking of Squirrels

Joy + Noise = Music.

Truth.

A little extra color just makes it shine.

Hip to be Square

Good god, I’m dating myself by quoting that song.

It wasn’t true then. It’s not true now. It’s hip to be hip. Being square puts you in a corner.

Dress for success. Dress for excess. Dress to impress. But, please, dress!

And the Award for Best Best Goes to …

Sometimes you just need a prize, an award, an acknowledgement that you did it, you made it, you’re still here. And if you’re fine today, then someone else can use it. Share the love and the kudos and the huzzahs and the cake!

Especially share the cake!

A Relaxing Cup of Tea

I like the idea of sitting down and drinking a nice warm cup of tea. Of just letting the world take a pause.

I really should try it sometime.

Joyful Noise

This is the first design created specifically for my online shops. Because I have this newsletter I thought to scan each step in the process.

Most of my design start with a sketch. I use a non-photo blue pencil to do the rough sketching.

Once I’ve figured out the basic design I use an HB lead pencil to finish the sketch. I scan it into Photoshop and use a filter to remove the blue lines.

I then convert the pencil drawing into a blueline drawing and print it out at a larger size. The original was done on 8.5×11 cardstock. The second version is on 11×17 bristol board.

I ink over the blueline and then add shading. Sometimes I shade with greytone markers. Sometimes, as in this case, I just use an HB pencil. I scan this version into Photoshop, remove the blueline and start coloring.

Voila!

Here’s a process gif. It’s not real without a process gif.

This design is available on a beer stein in my zazzle store and on many, many other things in my redbubble store.

These Days …

Each week is a juggling act of attention and action. The day job and the Sarah get my attention first. Then it’s chores and art and writing and marketing and goofing off. This week I was having so much fun working on art projects that writing and marketing got mostly ignored. As did some chores.

I will show off the art in weeks to come. The chores you can imagine for yourself. I will have more to say next week.

Thank you for visiting. Stay well. Get your shots. Pet a cat. Give a compliment. Look out for each other.

See you next week!