Tag Archives: #99Stories

Tuesday Night Party Club #50

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Galleries – Atomic Age Cthulhu

Atomic Age Cthulhu is the last book I illustrated for Chaosium. I did the work in 2012 and the book was published in 2013. It is a collection of adventure scenarios set during the 1950s. I shared the illustration duties with Caleb Cleveland and Marco Morte. There was some miscommunication between the folks at Chaosium who were sending out the assignments so I started some pieces but didn’t finish them because someone else was already doing them. I did maps for the first and, probably the last, time. It was challenging and sort of fun but not something I feel a call to do again.

The three scenarios that are I worked on were –

High Octane – In which Serpent People engage in shenanigans in the Pacific Northwest.

Destroying Paradise, Hawaiian Style – In which an Elvis type singer is targeted by Deep Ones.

Return of Old Reliable – In which a test subject monkey returns from space with a very bad attitude. This scenario was written by Oscar Rios, the future founder of Golden Goblin Press.

There was companion fiction anthology to the scenario book. I was commissioned to illustrate the cover but, for reasons that were not told me, Chaosium chose a different artist to do a new cover and used that instead. Oh well.

Story Seed #99
Start With the End

If you have a hard time starting a story, try beginning with your climactic scene and work your way back. That’s sort of what I did with these story seeds. I started with the hashtag #99stories and despite a delay after the first few (and perhaps some cheating along the way) we’ve arrived at number 99. If I’d planned better I’d have an actual story seed to offer.

Let’s pretend that I did.

Remembrance
Richard Corben

Richard Corben passed away on December 2nd. The image above was a limited editon print he did in 1978. It was the first and,so far, only art print I’ve ever purchased. Sadly, I lost it somewhere in the intervening years. He was one of the illustrators that has most influenced my art. Tributes to him can be found all over the internet right now. I hope to write something longer about his work in 2021. He had a long and impressive artistic run and I’m sad that it has come to an end.

Local News

In 2021 this newsletter will be hosted at tinyletter.com. If you subscribe, each issue will come directly to your email address. I’ll continure to post links to issues here but, if you want cut down on link hopping, please use the form below to sign up –

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This week is my Long Week at USPS. I’ll be working six days in a row. I’ll just do one thing after another until I get to collapse on Sunday.

Last week I was able to finish a Mighty Nizz illustration that had been sitting on my drawing table for over a year. Yes, it was really on my drawing table the entire time. I put other pages of bristol board over and moved it around when necessary but it stayed on the table the entire time. I’d penciled it and started inking it and then got caught up in doing commissioned work.

The space on my drawing table already has more works in progress on it waiting to be tackled. But Christmas and mail first.

Thank you for stopping by. Stay safe. Write letters. Be good to yourself and those around you. See you next week!

Tuesday Night Party Club #49

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Gallery – 2019 Daily Sketches 333-364

This the final gallery of the daily sketches I did in 2019. I actually only did 362 sketches. I miscounted a couple of times while I was scanning the original drawing so I thought I had done 364 sketches and I only discovered I was wrong as I was setting up the final posts in December. I filled in sketches 363 and 364 by finishing some much more complex drawings that I’d been putting off completing. Those can be found here and here. Sketch 365, posted on New Year’s Eve, was purposely blank to symbolize a fresh start for a new year.

Story Seed #98
The Rest of the Time

Carl Kolchak was a newpaper reporter who investigated mysteries that always seemed to involve supernatural creatures. No one believed him. So those stories didn’t get published.

Fox Mulder and Dana Scully were FBI agents who investigated mysteries that had seemingly supernatural elements to them. Scully kept offering rational, scientific explanations to the mysteries. Mulder went for weirder rationale. Mulder’s theories were, if not always correct, always closer to the truth than Scully’s. But since “the supernatural” isn’t a legally accepted way to close a case, most of their cases went unsolved.

How the hell did Kolchak or Fox and Mulder keep their jobs? Employers like results.

Consider Carnacki the Ghost Finder. Carnaki was a character invented by William Hope Hodgson. He starred in a series of stories in which he investigated seemingly supernatural mysteries. Sometimes the solution to the mystery was a supernatural one. Sometimes the mystery had a rational explanation.

I’m assuming that Kolchak wrote enough stories about political corruption and ordinary sleaze that newspapers kept giving him checks.

I’ve decided that the X-Files tv series only showed the mysteries that had supernatural resolutions. Nine times out of ten Scully’s rational explanations would prove true and the pair would either catch an ordinary human killer or discover that the death(s) were caused by some sort of weird misadventure. 90% of the time Scully was correct so she quite reasonably stuck to her guns whenever Mulder offered up some “alternate reality” theory. She knew he was sometime right but it was her rationality that let them solve cases and keep their jobs.

Kolchak and Mulder and Scully were interesting, entertaining characters. I started watching their shows because I like weird fiction stories but I kept watching the shows because I liked the characters. Would I have been disappointed if some of the mysteries had had mundane solutions? Sometimes. But I would have kept watching.

The seed here is character. Find a character you want to hang out with. That character will tend to have adventures in a specific genre. But a good character will work in different genres. A good character will be fun to hang out with when they are just hanging out.

Recommendation

Pawprints is a Zazzle store that features the art of Wallace Tripp. I ran across it while researching the site and I think his illustrations are delightful.

Local News

Work, work, work. The volume of parcels continues to increase at USPS. Most days I’ve ended up delivering the last part of my route in the dark. Some days I’ve been drafted to carry part of another route. I make sure to carry that extra mail in the middle of my day. Trying to deliver mail to unfamiliar addresses in the dark is no fun.

And then I’m up at 4 am to try to get some art done or write this newsletter or just get enough coffee into my system to be pleasant company to the folks around me.

As I’ve said, I’ve got two online stores, one at Zazzle, one at Redbubble. Each platform has its own features. With Redbubble I upload an image and the site puts that image on all its available products. I then make adjustments to each placement so the image looks good on each object. With Zazzle I choose a product and then put an image on it. Each store has a different selection of products. Last week I spent time on Zazzle making a pair of Cthulhu shoes. I’m rather proud of the results. Surprisingly there aren’t a lot of Lovecraft oriented shoes available. Yet.

A couple of weeks back I made a danger graphic. I’d been looking at the biohazard symbol and I kept thinking that the pronged triumvirate looked like goat skulls. I thought sure someone else would have had that same thought and created a design already. I did a few image searches and came up blank so I created my own version. It’s proven quite popular on my Tumblr blog. It’s probably one of my most reblogged posts.

I have more art in process. I don’t expect to get much of it done between now and Christmas. It’s that way every year.

Thank you for dropping by! I hope that you are safe and warm and have as much company as you need. Be good to yourself and be better to those who need it.

In 2021 this newsletter will be hosted at tinyletter.com. If you subscribe, each issue will come directly to your email address. I’ll continure to post links to issues here but, if you want cut down on link hopping, please use the form below to sign up –

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See you next week!

Tuesday Night Party Club #48

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Gallery – Masks of Nyarlathotep Companion

In 2020 I was asked to do some illustrations of Jackson Elias for The Masks of Nyarlathotep Companion. Specifically I was asked to do a single illustration that featured photos of Elias’s past adventures. Doing the photos as individual illustrations made them available as individual handouts. I also did a portrait of the Crawling Chaos itself and some of its “Masks”.

Story Seed #97

Invent a conspiracy. Make it as ridiculous and farfetched as you want.

“Fairies run the tech industry because they’re trying to invent tech that doesn’t use iron so they can come out of hiding.”

“Neanderthals didn’t go extinct. They are the secret rulers of the world. Their big brains gave them psychic powers so we can’t see them when they walk among us.”

“There are no real squirrels in the city. They’ve all been replaced by squirrel robots that are spying on your every movement.”

Recommendation

What I’d like to do is sit and read a book. Just spend the day reading a good dead tree edition of something. Since that won’t fit in my schedule right now may I suggest that, if you have the time, you fit it in yours?

Local News

There’s not a lot to read in this week’s issue. My apologies. I sit at the computer and type out a few sentences and then delete them and start again. Most of what I’ve written is either a complaint or an explanation as to why I’m not writing much. Like this.

I’m continuing to add color to older Mighty Nizz illustrations. This –

Became this –

This illustration below was already colored. I did it in 2012 so it’s one of my ealiest images featuring the Nizz.
I like the original but I thought it could use some adjustments. Fortunately I’ve learned to save all my photoshop files with their original layers so making changes was pretty easy.

Thanksgiving was a small affair. Just our immediate household. We’re eating our way through the leftovers now. Thank you for dropping by. I hope you are well and feel seen by someone in the world. We all need that.

In 2021 this newsletter will be hosted at tinyletter.com. If you subscribe, each issue will come directly to your email address. I’ll continure to post links to issues here but, if you want cut down on link hopping, please use the form below to sign up –

powered by TinyLetter

See you next week!

Tuesday Night Party Club #47

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Gallery – 2019 Daily Sketches 303-332

This is the penultimate collection of my daily sketches from 2019. 30 images all in one covenient place.

Story Seed #96

Once again, there are thirty images above. They all have stories. The story you find in the illustration will be different than the one someone else tells.

Recommendation

This week I’m recommending David Lasky’s Etsy shop. David is a cartoonist, art teacher and friend. His work is lovely and eclectic. Check it out!

Local News

Rain and cold and darkness have settled over the Pacific Northwest. The holidays loom but we’re staying away from other humans and their icky diseases. The mail and parcel volumes have increased as expected so I’m getting overtime whether I want it or not. Wearing a mask in addition to rain gear leaves me with just a narrow strip with which to observe the world. I feel disconnected and unbalanced. The mask does keep my face warm. That’s an unexpected bonus.

I’m also officially a Guy Who Wears Glasses. As I got used to the new prescription I started wearing them in more and more situations and now I wear them more than I don’t. I go without them in situations where I need to have a mask on because I haven’t yet taken the steps to prevent them fogging but otherwise they’re just part of my wardrobe. The eye doctor recommended cataract surgery. Supposedly that will correct my vision issues so the glasses may not be a permenant accessory. I won’t be taking any steps toward surgery until after the holidays though. Too much to do, not enough time to recover.

I’m continuing to add images to my Zazzle and Redbubble shops. Both shops recently had complete strangers make purchases. That was encouraging. One can’t become a mogul by selling just to ones friends.

I’m currently completing and/or coloriing older illustrations of Little Red aka The Mighty Nizz. The image below is from 2011 or 2012. I’m pretty sure it’s the third time I’d drawn the character. I found it when I was clearing and organizing a stack of art and art supplies this summer. It was mostly still pencils, only the lettering and the bear in the tree had been inked. I wish I’d remembered to scan that version but we’ll have to settle on the completed inks.

From that to this –

I also colored two images from 2015. This –

Became this –

And this –

Became this –

I actually prefer this version to the more detailed one I did later. I’m making both available in my shops. I long ago learned that my taste is not necessarily my audience’s. Unless I hate an image I’m likely to make it available.


In 2021 this newsletter will get a new title – Skook WIP (Works in Progress) and will be hosted at tinyletter.com. If you subscribe, each issue will come directly to your email address. I’ll continure to post links to issues here but, if you want cut down on link hopping, please use the form below to sign up –

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It’s Thanksgiving this week. We’re keeping it small. Just me, my wife, our nephew and his girlfriend. Easy enough since we share the apartment. Others were invited but the C19 resurgence is keeping them home. I’m working the day before Thanksgiving so any cooking I do will happen in the morning on Thursday. Since we’re keeping the menu small I don’t expect to do much. Since I’ll be tired from the day before I really don’t plan to do much.

Thank you for dropping by. I hope that your holiday is warm and relaxing. We’ve been in a slow, stupid apocalypse for months now. Celebrate by doing what makes you happy and keeps you safe. See you next week!

Tuesday Night Party Club #46

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Gallery – Strange Aeons

Ah, Strange Aeons 2. The project that launched my most read blog post. If I’d had had sense this either would have been my last project with Chaosium or I would have insisted on being paid upfront from then on. If I had had sense …

Chaosium’s assignments were always fun and they gave no significant editorial oversight so I accepted further commissions. And had to deal with further late payments. Silly me.

Strange Aeons 2 was a collection of Call of Cthulhu scenarios by different authors set in different time periods in different parts of the world published in 2010. The variety made the project fun. My complaints only occurred after I’d done the work.

Story Seed #95
The Price of Redemption

How does a monster find redemption? I’m not referriing to nonhuman monsters – King Kong, dragons,giant ants, whathaveyou. Forces of nature don’t have sins that need absolving. They can smash a city in one story and save humanity from alien invasion in the next without causing a lot of cognitive dissonance in the audience. Human monsters, villains, shouldn’t get such an easy pass. For people, hurting others is a choice. Choices are conscious decisions.

Fiction, especially the adventure genre, is filled with villains. A good villain makes the story more interesting. With series (novels, comics, television, movies) the hero usually faces a different antagonist each episode with a few “archvillains” making repeat appearances. In horror fiction, the “villain” is often the most interesting part of th story. Whole movie series are built around the villain with the hero rotating out with each new installment. Villains become “anti-heroes”.

A bad guy who becomes popular often has their sharp edges shaved off. They get a tragic back story that explains why they’re driven to do bad things. We might learn that their victims were also bad people – perhaps worse than our popular bad guy. Our bad guy might start acting more decently. The really horrible things they did when they were first introduced aren’t mentioned. Those actions get forgotten. Our bad guy “reforms”.

Except that’s not really reforming. The popular bad guy gets a pass for his bad actions because now he has fans. They themselves don’t address their own past actions. They don’t come to terms with the damage they’ve caused. “I tortured and ate your family? Oops. I don’t do that now. I only kill evil people these days. Get over it.”

There are stories to be told of how a human monster comes to terms with their past and makes restitution to, if not their victims, then to greater society. Stories less about how they are forgiven than about how they become forgiveable.

Recommendation

Yes, I did the cover illustration for this book. Buy it for that reason if you like. I’m recommending the book because it’s well written and very funny. For more info and a chance to pre-order, click here.

Local News

The cold and the wet has returned to the Pacific Northwest. Our station manager managed to get our start time moved back to 7 am from the 7:30 we’d been stuck with for the past few months. Maybe I’m getting a cold. Maybe my body is just complaining.

When I started working at USPS I Ididn’t have time for much other than the job. I did very little art. I put a hold on commissions because I had no idea when I’d be able to finish them. I didn’t post here for a year. As I got used to the job I started working on black and white images to get used to drawing again. Quite a few of those featured the Mighty Nizz aka Little Red.

I’m currently adding color to those illustrations and adding them to my portfolio at Redbubble. They are a bit of an odd size. When I originally did them I was thinking about getting art done not where that art might end up.

This:

Becomes this:

This:

Becomes this:

I’ve got another half dozen in process. I will post them as I finish.

Thank you for dropping by. May you have good books to read, good food to eat and good friends to keep you company – even if you can’t see them in person. See you next week!

Tuesday Night Party Club #45

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Gallery – 2019 Daily Sketches 273-302

Here are 30 more of the half hour/daily sketches that I posted in 2019, now in one convenient gallery.

Story Seed #94
Move the Frame, Change the Rhythm

My wife has said that a story can be anything. It’s all in where you place the frame. It’s the lens through which you view the tale. It’s all in how the story is told. Based on modern adaptations most folks would assume that Beowulf’s story ends with him killing Grendel’s mother. His story is longer than that. And it’s a poem. In old English. Basically a foreign language. So most modern audiences experience the story as translations or adaptations or reimaginings.

And that’s fine. That what humans have been doing with stories for as long as we’ve been telling stories. We rewrite them for new audiences. Or because we wanted a different mood than what we got in the orignal. Or we thought the original ending sucked. Hamlet could be a comedy. Joan of Arc’s story is triumphant if you stop writing it before her betrayal the Burgundian Faction. The Hunchback of Notre Dame could be a musical with a happy ending.

Yeah.

It’s easiest to do this with a story that you didn’t like. One that left you unsatisfied. One of the things I enjoy about a story I didn’t like is thinking about how I would rewrite it to fit my tastes. The public domain is full of stories that don’t work.Pick one up. Figure out what bugs you about it. Once you strart moving the pieces around, once you see it from a different angle, it becomes something new.

Have I said this before? Probably. It’s been that kind of week. I write to remind myself as well as to speak to world.

Recommendation

Matt Howarth was one of my inspirations for comics back in the 90s. He’s still producing work and has a huge back catalog available. Check it out!

Local News

Jeez.

The last couple of weeks have been mind numbing. I’ve spent entirely too much time on Facebook, both on my phone and on my desktop. I voted, what, three weeks ago? And then it was all waiting. Last week was my Long Week (six days working in a row) and the weather got cold and rainy. I’d get up in the morning and scroll news sites and FB. While delivering mail I spent a lot time mentally writing political screeds. Once I got home I just wanted to forget about it all. Too tired. And I had art to finish. And plenty of other people had already posted some damned fine screeds.

On Saturday I got to work and discovered that our start time had been changed from 7:30 back to 7 AM. Apparently that had been announced on Friday and I’d missed it. So I was late but no one minded. I’d showed up. Enough other carriers called in that the rest of us were being mandated to work overtime to cover the missing carriers routes. Bleah. It was another long cold rainy day. I’d be finishing it delivering in the dark.

I was loading up my truck when we heard people setting off fireworks. The election was called for Biden and Harris. Relief. It’s amazing how much easier it is to do your work when you don’t feel a sense of impending doom.

Yes, there’s a lot of work to do. Yes, the vote was much closer than it should have been. Yes, there are far more obstructionists still in Congress than there should be. Biden and Harris are conservatives. I’d prefer some radical progressives. They are far far better than the guy who just lost. The people they appoint will mostly be in their positions to do their jobs rather than line their pocketbooks. For now, that’s enough.

My screeds can wait. There’s art to make.

I hope that you are also feeling a little lighter. Able to laugh a little more. Able to plan for a future. Thank you for dropping by.

Tuesday Night Party Club #44

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Gallery – Terrors from Beyond

Terrors from Beyond, in 2009, was my third interior illustration project with Chaosium. This time I got to do a lot of ull page illustrations. That made for some breathing room in the art.

Story Seed #93
Wake Up New

You go to sleep. You wake up in someone else’s body. The body might have belonged to your next door neighbor or it might have belonged to someone on the other side of the world. You have only your memories not those of your new body’s original owner. So if you were a 30 year male taxi driver in Pittsburgh when you went to sleep, waking up in the body of a sixty year old woman goatherder in Botswana would be quite a shock.

This happens to everyone. You can put off the transfer by staying awake but you can only stay awake so long. Go to sleep, wake up someone new, somewhere else.

At first, civilization is going to grind to a halt. Civilization relies on skilled individuals doing specialized jobs. Communities and cultures rely on people sharing the same languages and customers and general knowledge. At first there would be panic.

But then?

Human beings are adaptable. We can manage change if we put our minds to it. What kind of society could grow from a people who are someone new, somewhere new, every day? Could we develop a common language? Could we manage our complex infrastructure? Are there skills that can be used regardless of the body you find yourself in? How do you prove you’re you? Does it matter?

Recommendation

Storyink Studios is the Etsy shop of Teresa and Jeff Swenson. They are delighful, creative people. They make stickers. Take a look!

Local News

Today is the final day to vote in the USA. Normally election seasons mean that I have to manage a lot of political flyers and advertisements. This season was surprisingly light, at least in my USPS station. No stacks of mailers for either presidential candidate. No stacks from either candidate for the Governor of Washington State. There were mailers for a couple initiatives but even these didn’t seem as overwhelming as mailers have been previously.

And that’s fine. I’m still doing overtime but mostly on my own route. General mail numbers have gotten higher lately. Amazon continues to send us a large volume of parcels. Many of those parcels are oversized boxes that can’t be carried in my satchel and so require me to take the extra time to car hop the parcls directly to the delivery address.

Artwise, I’ve finished both the pirate character illustrations and the cover for the novel. I’ll share the cover when the book is actually in print. The final version is likely to be different that the last version the publisher sent me. My job was to do the illustration. They were handling the type layout and design.

Next up is a portrait of someone’s RPG player character and some concept sketches for another person’s novel. Then a series of character illustrations for an RPG sourcebook set in North American Colonial times.Given that the mail and, especially, the parcels are only going to get heavier from now until January, that project will likely continue sometime into 2021. Does that throw off my plans to just concentrate on producing work for and marketing my online stores? Of course! But adjusting to change is life.

Daylight savings happened on Sunday. My body will be taking a few days to get used to it. I’ve woken up an hour before my alarm both Monday and today.

Thank you for dropping by. I hope that your week goes well and that you are able to celebrate some victories. I get through the days by celebrating the small ones. A sketch finished. A meal made. A bill paid. A swing completed on my route. Big victories are stacks of small ones. Celebrate your small victories.

 

Tuesday Night Party Club #43

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Gallery – Mansions of Madness

The first interior illustrations I did withr Chaosium was for Basic Roleplaying. My gallery of that work can be found here.

My second interior job was in 2007 for an updated edition of Mansions of Madness. I illustrated a scenario featuring of family of inbred weirdoes.Some of these folks were hideous but harmless. Others would happily have you for lunch.

 

Soty Seed #92
Floating

Have you ever had a dream where you remembered that you could float? You start to swim through the air. You never get very high but, as long as you remember you can do it you can move without having to touch the ground. When you forget you can float gravity pulls you gently down.

Imagine that people develop the ability to … not exactly fly but to defy gravity as long as they think about it and make some effort. They can still walk and stand and sit but they can also swim through the air. How would that affect the world? How would that affect the way we interact with each other?

Recommendation

I know that Halloween hasn’t passed yet, much less Thanksgiving, but if you’re the sort that likes to get ahead of things you’re already thinking about Christmas. And if you the sort who likes sending weird Christmas cards take a look at these offered by Studio Wondercabinet. I used to have breakfast with a lively group of folks including Heather and Daniel on a regular basis. They are talented, delightful people and well worth sending your money to.

Local News

The biggest thing that happened last week was me starting to wear my new glasses. My sight has been getting dodgier in the last year. Things were appearing blurrier in both the near space and the distance so I finally got my prescription updated.

I got two sets of glasses, a reader pair and a pair with graduated lenses for general use. I didn’t use either pair at first. I’d gotten used to drawing and working at the computer without them so I kept forgetting about the reader pair. I really only started wearing the reader pair after I started wearing the general pair delivering mail.

About a third of my deliveries are mounted – that is, I drive my truck to a mailbox, pull the mail out of trays on my left and then insert the mail into the box through my right side window. The weather has been gettig grey, more clouds and light rain and, with evening arriving soon, most of the daylight has been dim. It’s hard enough to read the 10 point (sometimes 8 point) fonts on the mail in regular light much less twilight. I was starting to have to hold the mail up to my face before I passed it into the mailbox. Not only did that make delivery slower it felt embarrassing.

Wearing my glasses while doing the mounted part of my route makes a huge difference. I can read the addresses in the trays. I have to drive a little slower because I’m not used to how the glasses make the rest of the world look but that’s fine.

Once I’d started wearing the glasses at work I thought to try them out at home. And now I can see the details in the television shows we watch in the evenings. And I can read the titles of the books in my library from across the room. Walking while wearing them is still a little weird. I don’t wear them while doing the walking parts of my route. They throw off my proprioception.

I hope your week has gone well. Thank you for reading. Take care of yourself and those you care about. Practice floating.

 

 

Tuesday Night Party Club #42

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Gallery – 2019 Daily Sketches 243-272

Thirty more of 2019’s half hour daily sketches in one convenient gallery.

Story Seed #91
What Stays Up

A transatlantic flight doesn’t land. The pilots can’t find a signal from the ground. There’s nothing but ocean below them and something has taken over the plane. It stays aloft for hours past when it should have lost fuel. It will respond to some commands but it won’t descend.

There’s only so much food on board. How do the passengers react? How does the crew? Do they work together to figure out a solution? Do they go Lord of the Flies?

Recommendation

Jackie’s Vegetable Kitchen. Jackie put up with me for four years in high school. We haven’t talked much since but we’re connected on Facebook so I’ve gotten to see glimpses of her life. If you’re someone who likes to cook and is interested in vegetarian recipes, Jackie has dozens of dishes worth trying out.

Local News

Last week –

At USPS we delivered local voter pamphlets, then ballots. Every voting session I have ballots for people who have long since moved. Apparently all the noise about voting has had folks be more proactive. I had a lot less undeliverable ballots this time around.

Artwise I’ve been working my way through adding greytones to the character drawings for the pirate book and I’ve been working with an author and his publisher to narrow down cover designs for the author’s novel.

I’ve been feeling scattered mentally and emotionally. Apparently that’s pretty normal these days. It does mean that this newsletter is a short one. I’ve had a lot of thoughts but writing them out coherently hasn’t happened.

Thank you for dropping by. Stay as healthy as you can. Avoid idiots. Thank your friends for making your world a better place. See you next week!

Tiesday Night Party Club #41

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Gallery – Inkober/Drawloween 2016

There are a lot of different drawing challenges on the net. Mermay. Junicorn. Kaijune. I think a couple of the oldest are Inktober and Drawlloween. I think. They may simply be the most famous or the ones I was first aware of. In any case, back in 2016 I posted a drawing a day during October. I used the Drawlloween prompts rather than the Inktober ones. I don’t remember why but I suspect the Drawlloween prompts just seemed more fun. It was fun and I’d enjoy doing it again sometime. This year I’ll just post a gallery of the work I did in 2016. Boo!

Story Seed #60-#90

Every picture tells a story. Or suggests one. There are 31 possibilities up there. Pick an image. Write the story that it illustrates.

Recommendation 

127 Terrifying Creepypasta. In keeping with this week’s early Halloween theme, here’s a list (with links) of 127 creepypasta – short internet based horror stories. Have fun reading!

Local News

I’m been thinking more and more about what projects to handle in 2021. It’s easier for me to manage time and projects when I plan ahead, when I figure out what I want to be doing and set out some goal posts that I want to pass.

Last week I wrote that I was thinking about suspending commissions so that I could spend more time creating art for and marketing my zazzle and redbubble stores. I thought about it a bit and decided that I’ll be spending the first 6 months of 2021 just working on the stores. I may take on commissions again in July. If I do, it will be at a higher rate. I don’t think I’ve raised my rates in 10 years. The new rates will still be less than what I make while working for the post office. (If you want my rates, just ask.)

It always feels odd to write about pricing my illustrations. Art is one of those cultural necessities that seems sullied by putting a price on it. And yet, I live in a determinedly capitalist culture that insists that everything has a price. When I gave people art when I was young they would often say that they would hold on to it until I was rich and famous, implying that they’d make a tidy profit by selling it. Someday. And I’d be happy if they did get a handful of cash for some sketch I did 30 years ago.

I’ve read plenty of stories about paintings that sold for more money than the actual artist who painted them made in their lifetimes. Mostly I’m appalled. The painting isn’t better for having been traded for a higher stack of cash. It wasn’t improved. And the person who did the work didn’t benefit. Yes, there are living artists who sell their work for ridiculous amounts. I don’t begrudge them. I’m just not impressed by rich folks competing for ownership of more things.

I used to think of art as low in value in life. We need to eat. We need to sleep. We need places to live and clothes to wear. When things break we need people who know how to fix them. But art? I figured that we could live without it so getting paid for it or getting rich at it or doing it for anything but fun seemed weird. And by art, I mean all the creative arts – writing, cartooning, singing, acting, poeting, painting, etc, etc, etc.

The thing is, art is culture. Culture is the stories and metaphors and ideas that our brains use to organize and communicate our thoughts. Culture is the software that our brains use to think. No art, no thoughts. American culture is obsessed with money and status. I try to look at my thoughts and attitudes to determine whether those thoughts and attitudes are ones I developed consciously or if I’ve just absorbed them.

I’m heading off on tangents that I can’t really explore without doing a lot more writing than I have time for. And time is what has become more important. I believe that the value of any work of art is reflected in how long it survives after it becomes part of the general culture. Frankenstein. Starry Night. The Road Not Taken. MacBeth. Lola. Superman. Kafkaesque. Lovecraftian. Oz. Peanuts. The art that survives is the art that matters. There are artists who were financially successful in their lifetimes who are forgotten now. There are artists who struggled financially whose work is now known by millions who have never experienced it directly.

I never expected to get rich doing art. It’s always been a way for me to relax. The process of drawing shuts off more annoying parts of my brain. Writing does the same but I need a quiet environment to write. I can draw in a noisy space. At this point I’ve got a job that pays all my bills and, barring the economic collapse of the USA, should continue to do so until I retire.

What I want to do is create some art, some stories, that has(have?) the potential to live on after I’ve stopped. Living that is. The art that has its own life is generally the art that is original. Using comic book artists as examples – consider Jim Steranko and Berni Wrightson. Both brilliant artists. Both illustrated some lovely stories that feature established corporate owned characters. Outside of comics Wrightson’s work is more likely to be remembered because he co-created Swamp Thing with Len Wein and his illustrated Frankenstein presents a definitive version of the story.

It’s not so much that I want to be remembered after I’m gone. Once I’m gone I don’t expect to care. History and culture will save what it deems important. There are images I want to see and stories I want to read that don’t yet exist. No one is commissioning me to create them. People commission me to illustrate their own ideas, not mine. If I want to see those specifici images and tells those specific stories I’m going to have to create them. And that means I’ve got to dedicate some time to creating them.

The Mighty Nizz. Misspent Youths. Kaiju Weather. The Witch Engines.

More next week. perhaps.

Thank you again for dropping by. I appreciate it. Your time is valuable. I hope, in the next week, you’re able to spend some of it doing things that bring you joy. If that’s creating art, yay! If it’s experiencing art, yay! If it’s engaging with the world in other ways, YAY!