Tag Archives: Land of Oz

Skook Words (and Pictures) #37

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No, you’re not hallucinating. It’s Friday again.

Seven days have staggered by. It only feels like yesterday.

Mother Shub-Niggarath

Cthulhu gets all the spotlights. August Derleth named H.P. Lovecraft’s story cycle “The Cthulhu Mythos” so that helped to put a stamp on things. Cthulhu itself also makes an appearance in one of the stories. That’s more than most of the rest of the Great Old Ones. Nyarlathotep has more in-story visitations but he’s just a guy who could be an indescribable eldritch horror if he wanted but, in the stories, he isn’t. No one is making plushies out of his bad self.

Of the Great Old Ones that aren’t Cthulhu my favorite is Shub-Niggarath. Who wouldn’t love The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young? No one the other GOO have such a distinct soubriquet.

I don’t remember if Lovecraft ever wrote a description of her. Most versions I’ve seen depict her as a sort of swirling cloud with teeth. Not very goatlike.

Being a GOO, I wouldn’t expect her to actually be a goat but, when I set out to do her portrait I thought I should give her some resemblance to the randy critters.
This design is available on schtuff in my Redbubble store.

Ease On Down

My friend Rae Dinsmore passed away on July 3rd of this year. I was able to visit her in Fairbanks, Alaska for a few days at the end of March. I’d initially planned to help her and her family reorganize her mother’s home so that the mother and Rae could better manage it. Between the time I made reservations to fly up there and the time I actually arrived, Rae and her mother had moved into a retirement community and their former home had been sold. So I spent a few days helping Rae sort as many of her boxes of (very well packed) stuff as we could. Many of the boxes hadn’t been opened since her move up to Alaska from Texas a couple of years previous.

I did the black and white illustration above for the back cover of a reprint of the first issue of Steve Ahlquist’s Oz Squad back in 1992. These were my versions of the artist Andrew Murphy’s version’s of Ahlquist’s versions of the original Fabulous Foursome. Among Rae’s possessions we found a thirty year old photocopy of the original art. It was neatly rolled and the only obvious indication of its age was my signature. Rae and I had been a couple when I did the art. She’d kept the photocopy and decorated the walls of some of her apartments with it in the years since. She gave me the copy and I brought it home with me.

I had the idea of coloring it and sending her the new version as a poster. Things got in the way. Work. Other health crises. She went into hospice and passed away.

I’d done a little work on coloring it right after I got home. I started a written tribute to her right after she passed. It exists in bits and pieces on my hard drive. I haven’t been able to make any more progress. My grief gets in the way. But I’m better with images than words. A little at a time I worked on coloring this image. I finally finished it on Monday.

Rae brought color and life into the world. Those colors remain.

May the next seven days pass, for you, in glorious bliss.

Autumn is arriving. Ghost and goblins will soon be abroad.

Cheers!

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

Skook WiP #89

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These Days …

I am generally an optimist.

When I was writing this newsletter last Friday, I believed I had caught a cold. I’d been out among masses of unmasked humans and, though I was masked myself, I assumed that I’d picked up and carried cold or flu cooties long enough to get infected. No big deal. I had a sore throat, sore throats were usually, for me, the first sign that I’d gotten a cold and I can handle colds. I’ve had hundreds of them in my life.

However, just to be safe, I got some quick covid tests from the drugstore. Annndddd, yeah, I tested positive for covid. We tested Sarah at the same time. She tested negative. So we masked up and kept our distance from each other and tried to enjoy the four day weekend. As the day went on, Sarah started having symptoms. Maybe she had a cold? We’re both optimists.

Sarah tested negative again on Saturday but it seemed silly to think she didn’t have covid. The tests aren’t perfect.

The four day weekend stretched out. I called the station on Monday afternoon to tell a supervisor that I wouldn’t be in. He told me at least three other carriers had also called in covid. I’m one of the few carriers who still masks up the station so hopefully they didn’t get it from me. The carriers mentioned don’t mask. I’m guessing that if they didn’t mask while at work in a building with over fifty other people, they weren’t masking out in the world either.

I’d planned to work on the Mighty Nizz comic on the weekend. That didn’t happen. At no point did I feel like the sickness was life threatening but being ill wasn’t conducive to either concentration or holding a brush. We just hung out and did our best to enjoy each other’s queasy company. My Big Sister blessed us with a cornucopia of her wonderful cooking so we didn’t have to try to think of how to feed ourselves.

I’m not a great patient. I rather take care of someone else than be taken care of myself so there were some cranky times. Sarah was very patient. She’s currently taking a round of antivirals. Covid didn’t necessarily hit her harder than me but her immune system has more issues so it seemed like a good idea to give it some help. I managed to get a little art done each day. That helped my mood. By Wednesday I felt healthy enough that, if I just had a cold, I’d have gone back to work.

When is it safe (mostly for other people) for me to go back to work? Based on CDC guidelines and advice from friends in the medical professions – five days after onset of symptoms. So, unless something happens after I’ve posted this newsletter that will prevent me, I’ll be delivering mail again today.

Yay.

Mugshots

Who is this lovely lady? Who are the folks in the robes? Every picture tells a story but I don’t always know what that story is. You’re free to make up a story of your own.

Available as:
A mug in my Zazzle store
On a variety of schtuff in my Redbubble store

Before the Rainbow

Below is the scanned black and white art for the latest Oz Squad/Land of Oz design. On the left, Bungle the Glass Cat. On the right, Eureka the Pink Kitten. Pot. Kettle.


After the Rainbow

And here is the final colored version. It’s available in both my online shops. Oz is a socialist utopia overseen by an unelected princess but, since we don’t live there yet, I have some shilling to do.
That’s it for this week!

May your next seven days be healthy and happy and relaxing.

And if they can’t be that, punch a Nazi for Jesus.

Skook WiP #88

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And so we stumble into Friday, some of us tired from the previous seven days, some of us excited by all possibilities ahead.

Welcome! I hope you’ve arrived at today more in the second mood than the first. I’m a bit of both. If you just want to look my latest images, scroll down. Otherwise …

These Days …

I am currently working on a ten page Mighty Nizz comic. I’ve drawn a lot of illustrations of the little beast in the last couple of decades. This will be her first story. It will also be the second comic I’ve finished in, well, a couple of decades. I spent the beginning of this century failing at finishing a new Oz Squad series. I spent a couple of years, prior to getting my mail carrier job, working with a writer who let his need for perfection get in the way of finishing any of the stories he hired me to draw. We have an agreement that allows me to use my art and designs in any way I want that doesn’t conflict with his potential use of the original stories but I don’t expect I’ll ever take advantage of it. I have projects of my own that are more in the forefront of my attention. A series of Nizz stories for example.

Sarah wrote this story. I expanded it. I’m currently inking it. I’ll add greytones with pencil and marker and then color it digitally. Before I started I was a little concerned about what kind of illustrations I’d produce. I felt rusty and unused to thinking in story and in composing a comic page. I try to design each page so that the images in each panel complement and balance each other. This first story is a learning/relearning process. I know that, once I’m done, I’ll see a lot of ways I could have done it better. At some point I may redo some of the panels, possibly even some of the pages. I’ve read interviews with some comic artists who fiddle with each incarnation of their work. If the story is serialized they make corrections for the collection. If it’s reprinted they make more corrections. First I’ll finish it and publish it. Then I’ll do more Nizz stories. Any fiddling will happen after I’ve got enough of a body of new work to be able judge whether the old work actually would be improved by the fiddling.

I’d rather have a lot of finished imperfect art than just a little finished perfect art. Because perfection is subjective.

Also, on Sunday I dropped off Sarah downtown for an appointment. I was supposed to pick her up again in five hours. I haven’t been downtown for anything but appointments in years. We didn’t go downtown before the pandemic. But, on Sunday, we got an inexpensive parking space and I felt like walking around. I had two destinations in mind – Pike Place Market and the Central Library. Pike Place Market was crowded. My ultimate destination was the comic book (collectibles) shop but it took a while to find that. I didn’t buy anything. I just wanted to see what was available. Before my cataract surgery I’d lost my enjoyment for shopping. I couldn’t see well enough to appreciate what I was looking at. I only shopped for things we needed. From Pike Place I wandered up to the Central Library and spent an hour searching through the graphic novel collections. I ended up selecting a heavy pile of books. With an hour until I needed to get Sarah I lightened my load by reading a few of them.

When I was a kid, comic book illustration seemed to come in two flavors – representational art with a lot of hatching for shadows and cartoony art with little or no shadows. Both types had flat colors. In the decades since, the varieties of illustration have greatly expanded. Better printing techniques have resulted in a wider variety of colors. Imported comics from Europe and manga from Japan have added more styles of art. Webcomics added more. Alternate publishers (not Marvel or DC) added even more. These days comic book (graphic novel) illustration looks like anything. Highly detailed. Crude and rough. Everything in between. All that’s important is whether the art tells the story. Any weird concerns I had that I might have forgotten how to draw a comic have vanished and I’m more relaxed when I work.

Also also – I’ve got a cold. I likely contracted it from wandering around on Sunday. I wore a mask the entire time but I touched a lot of things that other folks touched and I’m sure I touched my face more than once, to rub my eyes or adjust said mask. Right now it’s just a sore throat. It feels like every other damned cold (or flu) I’ve had before. I’m assuming it’s not covid but I’ll get tested to just to be sure.

Mugshots

This week’s process GIF features a nice lady and her huge critters.

This image can purchased on a mug in my Zazzle store and a variety of schtuff in my Redbubble store.

Before the Rainbow

No GIF here. Simple before and after versions of this design. Below is a scan of the physical art – non-photo bluelines, inks and greytones.
After the Rainbow

Below is the post-Photoshop version – corrections and colors.
I put this design on a t-shirt in the Zazzle store and schtuff in the Redbubble store. The store links above should get you there.

And I’m out. Today is the first day of a four day weekend – my scheduled Friday and Saturdays off coincided with the holiday and I plan to spend a lot of time working on the Mighty Nizz comic. When I’m not coughing from the cold.

Cheers!

Tuesday Night Party Club #34

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Gallery: Delta Green

Most of my RPG illustration work has been for Call of Cthulhu related projects. That’s the result of intention and good luck and accident.

The Intention part happened in the year 2000. I submitted some illustrations to the Delta Green website. Delta Green was a Call of Cthulhu RPG set in modern times – the late 199os. Most CoC games are set in the 1920s/1930s, the time the original stories were written and set. I discovered Delta Green in 1999 when I working at Half Price Books. I was the buyer when a customer sold us his collection of RPG manuals. In the buy was Delta Green and its sequel Delta Green: Countdown. I bought those books for myself. I loved the ideas behind the setting. It updated the Cthulhu Mythos for the late Twentieth Century in ways that surprised and delighted me. It created a means and a reason for investigators to, well, investigate the horrors from beyond.

I’d wanted to illustrate RPGs but didn’t have much of a portfolio of examples to show. I found the Delta Green site early the next year. I don’t think it had a way to send submissions and I don’t think they were asking for any. What it did have was a way to submit fan art and writing. So I worked up three illustrations (see the follow gallery) and submitted them. They got posted. No one from Delta Green contacted me.

Oh well.

Two years later those illustrations got me work at The Black Seal. But that’s another post.

The original photoshop files of these illustrations are, possibly, residing on an old back up drive. It’s formated for Mac and I currently use a PC so I haven’t tried plugging it in. A lot of the work I did in the first ten years of this century was done on a Mac. The art always started as graphite and ink on paper and then had photoshop magic applied to it. I’ve got the original drawings in big metal flat files but the art that got published looks different.

Earlier this year I realized that I’d sent most of those illustrations to the editors and publishers via email and I’ve never deleted any personal emails. So I’ve tracked down a lot of that older art and will be showing it in future galleries. I found the two black and white illustrations in the above gallery in my emails.

The first three images, however, I couldn’t locate in my gmail archive. AOL has long since deleted all my old emals. At first they didn’t appear to be on the current Delta Green site but, after doing some obsessive google searching and some sort of back door poking around on DG I found them in an archive. Huzzah!

Story Seed #53
The Time Line AntiDefense League

There are a lot of stories that feature some sort of organization whose mission is to defend the “correct” timeline, to make sure that history works itself out the way that it is “supposed to”. Bleah. How about an organization whose mission is to create timelines where history works itself out in the best ways for the most people?

Recommendation

Beeple. This person’s art started showing up in my tumblr feed, shared by other folks I followed. It was weird and creepy so I subscribed to his feed. He posts an image a day, every day.

Also, the Growing Up / Overnight Kickstarter concludes on the 30th. If you’ve been putting off backing it. please jump in.

Local News

Last week, in one of our stand up meetings at USPS, we were reminded that we, the letter carriers were not supposed to talk to the press. That if a member of the press attempted to engage us in conversation we were to refer him/her to management. Also, while we were in uniform, we were not to engage in political discussions with anyone lest they assume that our views represented those of the USPS. We were also to be careful not to express politcal opinions on social media in such a way as to lead people to believe that our views represented those of the USPS.

Sigh.

To be clear, anything I write here about my job at USPS is just my experience and my opinion. I like to assume that those of you who read these newsletters recognize this but, on the off chance you don’t, I AM NOT A REPRESENTATIVE OF THE POST OFFICE. I’m just a guy who works there. In my opinion, the USPS can’t actually have an opinion since it’s an organization. Organizations are not people. The people in charge of organizations may claim that their opinion represents the opinion of the organization but that’s just a fiction.

Anyway.

The most interesting part about the day job right now is that I have a new T6. USPS delivers mail six days a week. Regular carriers work and deliver theri route five days a week. A T6 is the person who delivers the route on the regular carrier’s day off. My last T6 had medical issues that prevented them from delivering my route on a regular basis. My new T6 is healthy and detail oriented. More detail oriented than I am, actually. And that’s good. It means I’m updating labels in mailboxes and doing maintenance on my route that I’d let slide. I keep most of my customer changes in my head. Having another person who has to regularly work my route reminds me that I should communicate customer changes in clear, written methods. It’s only polite.

We’ve also moved our start time from 7 am to 7:30 am. I’m not a fan but I’m adjusting.

I’ve left my alarm at 4 am. I get up. Drink coffee Write. Do computer art or make products in either my Zazzle or my Redbubble stores. I’ve updated my various websites to include a “store” page with links to each. This week I spent most of my store time working on an Oz Squad collection for Zazzle. Oz Squad is Steve Ahlquist’s creature but, as a fan and sometime collaborator, I try to find ways to keep the brand active.

In the evenings, once we’ve finished dinner and our spot of television, I work on physical art. Right now I’m doing pirate sketches. More about that when the project can be talked about publically.

Thank you for dropping by. Remember that life has always been insane. Look out for yourself and your friends. That’s where sanity and security dwells.

See you next week!

April the 28th, 2019

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A lot of folks love their Disney Princesses. That’s fine. My favorite princesses all hail from Oz. Only Ozma was born into royalty and she spent most of her childhood as a commoner boy. Dorothy Gale, Trot and Betsy Bobbin were all regular American girls with aptitudes for adventure.

Happy Birthday to:
Harper Lee
Terry Pratchett

April the 26th, 2019

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“Couldn’t the Wizard give you a heart that was both Kind and Loving?” asked the boy.

“No; that was what I asked for, but he said he was so short on hearts, just then, that there was but one in stock, and I could take that or none at all. So I accepted it, and I must say that for its kind it is a very good heart indeed.”
The Tin Woodman of Oz
L. Frank Baum

Happy Birthday to:
Stefan Blitz