Tag Archives: Zazzle

Skook WiP #79

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Good morning! It’s great to see you again. Without glasses! I hope the week has been treating you well. I hope you’ve been treating yourself well when the week has been poorly behaved.

These Days …

I’ve had the last week off from the USPS to let my right eye recover from cataract surgery. The surgery was on the 24th and I was not supposed to bend over or lift heavy things for at least seven days afterward. My eyesight is greatly improved. Having both eyes done feels less dramatic than when I’d first had the left eye done. I had a few weeks to get used to better eyesight with one eye before I got better better eyesight overall. My brain has just shrugged and accepted the new normal and is quickly forgetting how blurry and dull things looked just back in May. I’m finding myself a little disappointed in my own shortage of wonder. This is modern medicine! This is great!

I’m expecting to get new glasses so I can see better at distances but I’m not yet feeling a rush to get them. I’ve been getting used to reading and drawing with the new peepers. Reading is pretty easy. Drawing requires a little more work. Things line up, the images are clear but something still feels a little off. The more I practice the more I train my brain to understand the new now. Practice, practice.

My jaw is still recovering from last week’s dental surgery. Less pain over all but the right side, where I had two molars removed, is still protesting.

Mugshots

This week’s process GIF is for an abstract design. I mostly do illustrations of specific events, critters or places but I’ve been challenging myself to do create designs that … are different? I’m not sure how to put it. All art appeals to emotions. Abstract art does that differently than representational art. It also looks good on products in ways that illustrations can’t.

This design is available on a mug in my Zazzle store
and all sorts of other schtuff in my Redbubble store.

The Weather Report

Another concept/promo illustration for Kaiju Weather my in-development graphic novel featuring giant monsters. I’ll be doing (and publishing) comics that feature the Mighty Nizz before much of this one sees light but progress is being made. This design can be purchased on schtuff in my Redbubble store.

May your next week be better than this one. (Even if this one was already greater. There are no limits on good.)

See you in seven!

Skook WiP #55

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Two weeks into 2022.

Welcome to the latest Skook Works-in-Progress newwletter. I hope life is going well for you. If it’s not, have you asked for a redo?

These Days …

On Tuesday I filled out an application for a Managing Editor position at the major bookseller down in Portland. Sarah had been sent notice of the job via LinkedIn. The application period was ending on Wednesday and my initial thought was that that was not enough time for me to put together a resume and fill out an application. The job description emphasized a need to be able to make deadlines. So I thought, what the hell, let’s see if I can make this deadline. I had to work up a resume for the occasion. I thought I had one saved on my computer but, if so I labeled it in such a way that I can’t find it.

The pay is equivalent to the Post Office without requiring as much exercise. That’s a plus. The job is expected to be done remotely most of the time. That’s another plus. The job holder is expected to live in the Portland area. We live in the Seattle area. So we’d need to move. The likelihood that I’ll even get a rejection notice is pretty slim. I applied mostly for the practice of doing it. I’d be happy to keep delivering mail.

My body has other opinions.

I’ve been back at the USPS working what are supposed to be four hour (half day) shifts. I spend a couple of hours sorting and organizing mail and parcels for delivery on my route. Depending on the day and the carriers available I divide the route into three or four parts and I deliver one of those parts. My knee is still complaining about being used so I reserve the parts of the route that require the least amount of walking for myself. Some days I’m able to deliver my part in less than 2 hours. Most days I’ve gone slightly over.

As of this writing, I’m still waiting for Workman’s Comp to approve me getting an MRI. They want a diagnosis. They want to know why I’m not working all that annoying mandatory overtime. I’d like to know why my knee is on strike and what I can do to encourage it to be willing to put up with my abuse again. Workman’s comp wants to stop paying me to not work. I want to deliver my full route. (My customers want me to deliver my full route. They tell me. Some tell me in very colorful language.) You’d think that would be incentive for them to quickly approve the process. You’d think.

Mugshots

This week’s mug design is an example of thinking ahead. Perhaps too far ahead. I was thinking of Halloween when I drew this. Can you tell?

I do know quite a few people for whom Halloween isn’t simply a date on the calendar. It’s a state of mind. They’d be happy to see it celebrated all year. I’m guessing I made this design for them.

The mugs are available in my Zazzle store. The design is available on other schtuff in my Redbubble store.

Meow.

See you next week. Thank you for dropping by!

 

Skook WIP #17

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Open on: the Skookworks studio. The Cartoonist sits in front of his computer. He is typing. A black cat is slumped on his lap. It’s impossible to tell the time of day. The room has no windows. Two of the walls have built-in floor to ceiling bookshelves. The desk on which the computer sits is cluttered with scraps of paper and pens. The drawing table next to the computer is similarly cluttered but with a different variety of pens and pencils and the papers have more art on them.

The Salesman wanders in.

Salesman: “Hey.”

The Cartoonist doesn’t look up. Cartoonist: “Uhm?”

Salesman: “Did you listen to the Planet Money podcast about buying a superhero?”

The Cartoonist stops typing. He looks at the Salesman. Cartoonist: “Of course I did. We’re the same person. If you’ve done something, so have I.”

The Salesman rolls his eyes. Salesman: “For a guy with a lot of imagination you’ve got a narrow focus. Just pretend we’re two people so I have something to write about in this week’s newsletter.”

The Cartoonist rolls his eyes in exactly the same way the Salesman had done. Cartoonist: “I’m writing the newsletter while we’re talking. So keep talking.”

The Salesman frowns. Salesman: “Why isn’t the Writer writing the newsletter?”

Cartoonist: “We can only be so many people before I get confused. Let’s stick to the point. Or find one. What about the Planet Money thing did you want to talk about?”

Salesman: “What do you think?”

Cartoonist: “I think the Archie comics guy was right, Micro-Face is a terrible name.”

Salesman: “Not that. What do you think about us digging up our own public domain superhero?”

Cartoonist: “Another one? We’ve already got five. What do we need another for?”

Salesman: “All of our guys have been used by other people. Why not grab a more unknown character and use that?”

The Cartoonist stares at the Salesman. The cat yawns and adjusts its position slightly.

Cartoonist: “Having some recognition helps us doesn’t it? These characters all have some reputation outside my drawings. A more unknown character might as well be a completely new character.”

Salesman: “Have you at least looked at the Public Domain Superheroes catalog?”

Cartoonist: “I’ve looked there and at this list. It’s easy to get overwhelmed. There are thousands of characters listed. Lots of gods and goddesses from old myths. Lots of daring aviators. Lots of folks who wear masks to fight crime. Lots of Flash Gordon wannabes.It’s fun to look but it’s hard to get more than a glimpse at any one character.
And I think the public domain status of some of the characters is questionable. The lists were put together by fans not copyright lawyers. I’d rather not get inspired by some character, do up a bunch of designs and then get sued. That’s not fun.”

Salesman: “I’m just trying to figure out an angle to take to promote our work. It’s … weird.”

Cartoonist: “Isn’t that an angle. ‘Weird stuff’?”

Salesman: “There’s a lot of weird stuff online. I’m trying to figure out a more focused branding to use.”

The Cartoonist makes a crumpled up paper sort of expression. Cartoonist: “Do you have to use the term ‘branding’? Isn’t that outdated by now?”

Salesman: “I googled it before you typed my dialogue. It’s still in major use.”

Cartoonist: “I hate marketing catchwords.”

Salesman: “Deal with it. You’ve got to play the game to get rich.”

Cartoonist: “A. If we’re trying to get rich we’re going about it wrong. B. We’ve got a day job to pay the bills so we’re doing this for the fun of it.”

Salesman: “You’re doing this for the fun of it. I want us to be rich.”

Cartoonist: “You’re only a tiny part of our personality. The rest of us doesn’t care about being wealthy. Some parts of us are morally opposed to great wealth.”

Salesman: “The Mail Carrier wouldn’t mind retiring. Soon.”

Cartoonist: “He does have an exhausting job. And I would enjoy spending more time drawing.”

Salesman: “Right! So I’m trying to figure out a more focused branding for our merchandise. The stuff in our stores is all over the place. Cute cartoon animal greeting cards. The Mighty Nizz. Cthulhu stuff. One-off scifi and monster illustrations. I’m thinking we’d better off having a half a dozen more directed stores instead of a couple general ones.”

Cartoonist: “Have you wandered off the point? I thought we were talking about our superheroes.”

Salesman: ” …. Right. So we’re not going to revive some obscure public domain character?”

Cartoonist: “Not today. Our stores are a jumble because we just jumped in and started putting them together with what we had on hand. We’re past that stage now. I’m designing images for the available merchandise. I’m having fun. I’ve got plans for Stardust, Octobriana, the Heap, Fantomah and the Face.”

Salesman: “Are you doing new comics?”

The Cartoonist makes that crumpled paper sort of expression again. The cat hops off his lap and wanders out of the studio. Cartoonist: “Ask me that when the Mail Carrier has a long vacation. Comics take time and concentration and those are rare commodities in this studio. Meanwhile, I’m working on some fun designs.”

Salesman: “Fun designs that I’ll be able to sell?”

Cartoonist: “They’ll be designs I’d want to wear myself.”

The Salesman sighs. Salesman: “More weird and obscure things? You hate me, don’t you?”

These Days …

Happy Friday! Thank you for dropping by.

This issue is a shorter one, a bit of breather between finishing the greeting card conversions and starting discussing the next phases for the online shops.

It’s been a weird couple of weeks. If you read my last newsletter you know that we (me, my wife and our housemate) have been quarantined because our new housemate is recovering from covid. The responsible thing to do after exposure is to stay away from other people for 14 days. So no work outside the house. No delivering mail.

Last week I was in a bad mood. I like my routines. This wasn’t in my plans. It wasn’t a vacation. I may have complaints about the number of hours I work at USPS but working there gets me the paycheck to fund the rest of our life. Not going to work makes me nervous. Not going to work because there’s a potentially deadly disease in my living space adds to that discomfort.

This week I was in a lighter mood. Our housemate has been getting better. Neither Sarah nor I have had any symptoms of covid.

I’ve been able to use the home time to get a lot of designs completed for my shops. Chemo, the black cat, has been acting as my executive assistant. He was waking me up at 3 am before quarantine and he has continued to do so now. Most of the new work is available now in my Redbubble store. I’m really happy with how the new stuff has been turning out. I’m enjoying the challenge of creating images that both suggest stories and look good on t-shirts (and mugs and blankets and shower curtains and phone cases and ..). I will be showing the process steps for each design in upcoming newsletters.

We’ve been rearranging the space a bit so our new housemate has room for her own stuff and has a place to work on her paintings. We’ve been giving away furniture. Chemo and the new grey cat, Flax, have been getting along.

We plan to all get tested for covid tomorrow or Sunday. Assuming we’re clear I’ll be back delivering mail next week. I’ll be getting my second Pfizer vaccine the week after that.

Yay.

I hope that things in your world are looking bright. If you need to wear shades, put them on. Everyone looks cooler in shades.

See you next week!

Skook WIP #14

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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!

Skook WIP #12

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Is it Friday again? Time flies! And occasionally stumbles. I’m still adjusting to, and complaining about, the time change. I do like that my phone and my desktop don’t require me to update their clocks. It would be handy if the rest of my timepieces adjusted themselves on their own but I really don’t need more objects connected to the web.

Thank you for joining me again. I hope you are well and happy.

Greeting Card Conversions

We start, as usual, with the before (scans of the original hand drawn art) and after (digitally corrected and edited for print) versions of the greeting card designs I’m posting in my Zazzle store.

Hil(arity)raiser

You’ve solved the puzzle and summoned the tormenter. Your giggles will be legendary even in Heck.

Keep your shoes on! Wear a heavy sweater! Stomp your feet and protest. He can only tickle you if you let him. Bunny cenobites require consent to torture you. They’re polite that way.

Out for a Stroll

Spring is on its way. So I’m told. It’s a mix of rain and sun and warm and cold here in Seattle. Dressing for the weather means taking a gamble at being too hot or too cold, often on the same day. But, heck, you might as well dress to show off and take your chances. You’ll look good for a few minutes at least.

Every season has its moments. Enjoy them as they come.

Fancy a Game of Catch?

After spring comes summer and with summer comes baseball! Teamwork! Batting! Throwing! Catching! Running! Yelling at the umpire! Nothing more American than yelling at some guy for having the wrong opinion.

Make sure to pick that frog kid for your team. He’ll never let a fly get past him.


A Dragon Indeed

This critter doesn’t hoard gold or diamonds. His favorite treasure is cookies. He doesn’t eat them. He takes them back to his cave and stacks them in neat piles. Then he sighs with satisfaction.

Chocolate chips. Oatmeal raisin. Peanut butter. Coconut maroons. He loves them all. They may get stale but they stay free of ants. When they show up the dragon eats them. He likes their spiciness.


The Panel Jumper Does Octobriana and the Heap

I got an email on Sunday from Cole Hornaday reminding me about his Panel Jumper series of videos. The main videos are neat little documentaries about various aspects of comic book history. In particular he has episodes focusing on two of the weird heroes I’ve appropriated for … whatever …
Click these links for histories of:
Muck Men (including the Heap)
Octobriana

After you’ve checked out those videos spend some time listening to the Perfect Bound podcast. It’s an entertaining and informative way to spend your quarantine!

Face the Face

The Face had a simple premise: radio announcer Tony Trent puts on a scary mask to fight crime. I like the basicness of the concept. Trent had no supernatural powers and his adversaries were primarily just ordinary crooks. The Face was featured in the anthology Big Shot Comics, appearing in 62 stories. In issue 63 Tony Trent stopped wearing the mask and went on to have another 40 adventures until the Big Shot was cancelled with issue 104.

This is the third time I’ve spent time (re)designing the Face. I did one version here and a second here.

I started with the idea that I was going to just update that second version but it wasn’t clicking. It didn’t look scary. So I went back to the original Big Shot design – short hair, no eyebrows – and played around with different variations..

I do like the horrifying version with all the exposed teeth but I ultimately decided on a look that wouldn’t require a lot of prosthetics (or magic) to pull off.

The original Face fought crime while wearing a blue tuxedo. It’s not a bad style. I went with a brown suit that, I think, more emphasizes the weird green and red mask. In the 1940s wearing a tuxedo made the Face stand out. Suits were the standard uniform of even the lower classes. These days suits are less common so fighting crime in one would be unusual. And, to me, more comfortable than the spandex and leather that most superheroes put on. I also think that, these days, a plain brown suit makes the Face look more like a middle class crime fighter. I get that the “hero with a secret identity” originated with rich guys (The Scarlet Pimpernel, Zorro, Batman) but I’m not a rich guy and, the older I get, the less sympathy I have for rich guys.

I honestly don’t know what, if anything, I’ll do with the Face but now I have a standard version to use.

News from the Night Forest

A couple of updates on the Mighty Nizz project –
Sarah wrote a vignette and it’s live on the site.
Unless something goes wrong, Nizz will be the star of my 2022 calendar. Zazzle has a calendar template that I should be able to make work for my preferences. I’m hoping I can customize the template to include people’s birthdays but I haven’t really looked at that yet. I will update you as I figure it out.

These Days …

Last week I forgot to do an “Influences” section. This week I’m sort of putting that section and this one together. After I’d written about Bill Peet I thought about other chlidren’s book authors I might want to feature and, of course, Dr. Suess came up. His books were ubiquitous for kids who grew up when I did. Obviously his work had some influence on me.

Right?

At first my answer was, “Kinda. Sorta.”

I don’t remember wanting to draw like Suess. I couldn’t remember any specific Suess story that had an impact on me. I remember How the Grinch Stole Christmas and Horton Hears a Who from the cartoon specials rather than the books from which they were adapted. I’m sure the absurdity in his stories and art had an impact but I couldn’t come up with anything specific.

And then it was announced that some Dr. Suess books are no longer going to be printed. My first thought was, “Which books?” because the first few memes I saw didn’t say. Being a someone who prefers to know what he’s getting upset about I did some research and found the list –
1. And to Think that I Saw it on Mulberry Street
Marco watches the sight and sounds of people and vehicles traveling along Mulberry Street and dreams up an elaborate story to tell to his father at the end of his walk.
2. If I Ran the Zoo
Gerald McGrew visits a zoo and finds that the animals are “not good enough” and describes how he would run the zoo. He would let all of the current animals free and find new, more bizarre and exotic ones.
3. McElligot’s Pool
A boy named Marco is ridiculed for fishing in a small, polluted pool, and tries to justify himself by imagining the fish he might catch
4. On Beyond Zebra
The young narrator, not content with the confines of the ordinary alphabet, invents additional letters beyond Z, with a fantastic creature corresponding to each new letter.
5. Scrambled Eggs Super
A young boy named Peter T. Hooper spins a tale of an incredible meal he created by harvesting the eggs of fantastically exotic birds.
6. The Cat’s Quizzer
The Cat in the Hat asks many, sometimes ridiculous, questions of the reader.

Of the six on the list I remember having read the first four. I don’t remember much about them. The summaries I’ve included came from the Suess Bibliograpy wikipeda page. I don’t remember racist imagery in the illustrations but when I was a kid I wouldn’t have noticed much. There was enough racist imagery all around me that such illustrations probably seemed normal. I was a white kid growing up in a mostly white community. I didn’t see a lot of examples of other races and cultures. The human beings in the good doctor’s illustrations were all pretty cartoonish. I didn’t have the awareness to know the difference between generally cartoonish and offensively cartoonish.

I did feel disappointment in hearing that some of the Suess catalog would go out of print. I especially felt a twinge over the loss of Mulberry Street. That was Suess’ first published kids book and had been rejected by multiple publishers before it debuted in 1937. It had been an example for me of success through determinated effort. I’m also attached to the idea that a book I liked once would be available for me to read again someday. But books go out of print all the time. Most of the books on my shelves right now are out of print. Before print on demand, most books got one, maybe two print runs and that was it. Mulberry Street was in print for EIGHTY-FOUR years. The Cat’s Quizzer, the most recent of the books, first saw print in 1976. I’ve had plenty of opportunities to buy a copy of it or any of those other Suess books.

Theodore Guiesel aka Dr. Suess passed away in 1991. His widow, Audrey Guiesel, passed away in 2018. His books and the licensing of his characters is now managed by Dr. Suess Enterprises. It’s a nonprofit company but it exists in a capitalist world. It’s a property management company. They could have had the books edited to change or remove offensive content. Suess himself did it slightly once with Mulberry Street. I’m sure there would have been outrage at that. But the money to made with Suess’ work isn’t in publishing books. It’s in licensing. Licensing for toys, film and television adaptations, games. It’s in recognizable characters like the Cat in the Hat, Horton the Elephant, the Lorax and other non-human creations. Those characters can be sold to any parent of any race and ethnic background. Those characters can be marketed internationally.

It’s been over a week since the announcement and the internet has moved on to other outrages. I have a lot of time to think while I deliver mail and I’ve devoted more time to thinking about Suess in the last couple of weeks than I have in the last twenty years. I realized that, yes, I did have some favorite Suess stories. The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins. Bartholomew and the Oobleck. Green Eggs and Ham. The Pants with Nobody in Them. Horror stories for children. 

Most folks probably wouldn’t consider them such. They all have happy endings. I don’t remember if any of those stories gave me nightmares but they are fuel for such. Pants, in particular, has haunted me through the years. I’d forgotten about Bartholomews adventures until I read the Suess bibliography. Pants was a story that I’d use as an example of a really creepy children’s story. I was disappointed to discover that it’s not actually titled The Pants with Nobody in Them. The proper title is What Was I Scared Of? That telegraphs the pleasant resolution. I did remember that the pants and the narrator became friends. But I remember more the disturbing idea of being stalked by a piece of empty clothing.

I don’t need to own those books. I need to let go of a lot of the books I own now. I love having a big library but eventually we’ll have to move and it will be a lot easier to do that with a lot less books. Those Suess books that are no longer being published will, sooner or later, enter the public domain. Mulberry Street will do so in twelve years, in 2033. At that time anyone will be able to publish the story. They can publish the original version. Or they can redo it to fit their own taste. It will be interesting to see the variations we get.

In the meantime, I hope you own the books you love and you have time to read them. See you next week!

Skook WIP #10

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Well hello! It’s a delight to see you again! The constant insanity of the modern civilization doesn’t seem to be infecting you at all!

Me? I’m okay. There are been some bumps in the road but whether those bumps are problems or high points is something I’m still figuring out. I’ll talk about those next week when they are more sorted out. This week, let’s just talk about some art. We’ll start, as usual, with some greeting card conversions, before (scans of ink, colored pencil and marker drawings) and after (digitally cleaned up and edited) versions. (The final designs are available in my Zazzle shop.)

Carving Your Face

In America, Halloween is the season for giving faces to oversized, hollowed out squashes. This is, apparently, an evolution of an old European traditon of carving faces into hollowed out turnips. A long series of films to the contrary, it is not a season for killing teenagers. Killing teenagers is frowned upon by all right thinking people. If you’ve been thinking about killing teenagers, please consider carving pumpkins instead.

Admittedly, killing teenagers will give you more cardiovascular exercise. However, most teenagers are actually more entertaining when they are alive than otherwise. Pumpkins are much more entertaining as objects to carve than teenagers. Plus, you can roast the seeds for a tasty snack!

There are No Weak Kittens

One day Sarah, my fabulous wife, described herself as feeling “weak as a kitten”. That comment inspired this card design. She has the original.

That original was done on a sheet of 8.5×11 folded in thirds. For the version that’s in my shop I had a lot of fun moving and reorienting the elements to fit a standard 5×7 greeting card design. Climb those curtains baby!

A Bit of a Breeze

There you are, walking with your umbrella, staring at your feet, thinking out what you’re going to have for lunch, trying to keep dry and suddenly …

The wind gives you a new perspective!

The world is suddenly a much bigger place. So many colors! So many birds! So much moss on people’s roofs!

Love Is …

Time is short. Spend as much of it on the things that bring you joy in the company of those you love.

A little peace and some cuddling makes the chaos of the rest of the day so much more bearable.

Hail to the King!

Photoshop is a massive program and my knowledge of it is actually pretty minimal. I know how to do a few things fairly well but the program can do so much more than I use it for. Lately I’ve been practicing making gifs of my illustration processes. I save my work in layers so making gifs is fairly easy. This process gif is of one of my King in Yellow portraits.

Influences – Chuck Jones

Chuck Jones is the one of the first film directors I remember identifying. I didn’t really know what he did, I just knew I liked his cartoons more than most of the other cartoons I saw on television. The short cartoons were funny. The smart characters outwitted the buffoons. The drawings were attractive.
As an adult I can identify why I liked Jones’ work more than other cartoon short directors. His character designs are a mix of angles and long curves. His heroes were the smart guys. They succeeded by being more clever than their adversaries. When the clever ones crashed it was usually from failing to think out the ramifications of their latest plan. (Hello Wile E. Coyote!)

I saw most of his work on television. There was the regular Bugs Bunny show on Saturday morning and during the week there were blocks of cartoons that played on a local station in the afternoons. There was The Grinch Who Stole Christmas. Horton Hears a Who. Rikki-Tikki-Tavi. He drew a comic strip that ran in our local paper for awhile. I loved the art but it didn’t really stand out from the other strips. Jones was a master at motion and timing in film. His strip looked good but didn’t have the space to play to his strengths.


My Moe and Detritus/Misspent Youths comics owe a lot to Jones. The heroes (mostly) succeeded by being smarter than the bad guys, by being (mostly) calm in the face of chaos. Hell, I owe a lot of my personality to Jones. I got bullied and picked on as a kid. He gave me examples of characters who faced bullies and survived (and thrived) by being more rational and much weirder than their foes.

Model Sheeting the Super-Wizard

Last week I posted concept sketches and a model sheet process gif of the Heap. This week I’m posting concept sketches and a process gif of Stardust the Super-Wizard. (Superwizard? Super Wizard?)

The first thing I realized as I started sketching Stardust is that, in the original comics, his expressions were pretty much the same from panel to panel. They ran the gamut from stern to slightly more stern. I spent all of two seconds considering making my version of Stardust just as stoic and blank faced as the original before deciding, “Nah. That’s no fun!”


The original Stardust seems to be a giant – taller than regular humans. I made him about ten feet tall, lanky and stretched out. He’s a space wizard. Maybe he grew up in zero gravity. Maybe he grew up on a planet with lighter gravity than Earth. Maybe his practice of superscience has transformed his body. I’ll figure it out later.

Expressions!

I updated Stardust’s outfit slightly, more for the fun of it than because there was anything wrong with the original. I don’t question the fashion choices of technosorcerors.

That guy in brown standing behind Stardust? His name is Bill. He’ll be in most of the model sheets for size comparison. He claims he’s 5’10” but, you know guys, he may be exaggerating somewhat. He is on the taller side of average. The average height for men in the USA is 5’9″. Since I’m an American that’s the height I’m conditioned to think of when I have to think “taller than” or “shorter than” average when designing characters.

What do I plan to do with Stardust? When I know I’ll tell you!

These Days …

“Bad art is forever.”

I have a friend who likes to quote that when talking about why he noodles on all his projects and has abandoned many altogether. I get that. I want to be proud of the work I produce. I want it to be the best it can be. I’m also plagued with more ideas and images and thoughts than I will ever get down on paper. I plan the work. I do the work. I fix glaring mistakes. I resist noodling. I put it out in the world and leave it to the world to judge whether it is good or bad.

I will always see the faults in my work. Most creative folks can tell you everything that sucks about their work before they can point out what’s good. But art, good and bad, exists in interaction between the work and the audience. Once I put art into the world it’s no longer completely mine. I retain the copyright and the trademark but the interpretation? The judgment of goodness, badness, coolness, greatness? That belongs to the audience. And that’s great! Not because the creator is a bad judge of their own work (although they often are, both rightly and wrongly) but because humans are social animals and art is part of the conversation we have with each other.

I got an email recently about Misspent Youths, a comic book series I created back in 1991.

Hi, there! I just wanted to let you know that I’ve been a fan of Misspent Youths for a while now–since they came out, actually, when I was a disgruntled and disaffected teenager working in a comic shop. The shop I worked at brought them in and I snatched them off the shelf eagerly whenever they arrived, but for whatever reason (it might have involved the store eventually going under; it’s kind of hard to remember) I never got to read Issue #5. Flash forward three decades and my original copies have long since vanished into the aether and I’m in lockdown halfway across the continent from my hometown. Regardless, I got a hankering to read Misspent Youths again and found a set on eBay for a reasonable amount, so I ponied up my money and waited. Well, they arrived today and I couldn’t be more pleased. I’ve read the first issue again so far and it’s just as great as I’d remembered it (and captured much of the flavour from my hometown’s punk scene in the ’90s (minus the Pile and the cop homicide (though we sometimes wished it were otherwise)). Interesting characters, fun dialogue, compelling story–just great  all around. In any case, I just wanted to shoot you a quick line to let you know that those comics you put out all that time ago imprinted on and have stuck with someone since they came out, and I’m thrilled to finally be able to read the entire series through for the first time. Thank you very much for the quality read.

I thanked the author, Chris Eng, for writing, saying –

Your email made my day. I’m delighted that, thirty years later, someone would track down issues of Misspent Youths. I hope issue five was a good read!

He replied:
Issue five was, weirdly, really touching. I mean, it did bring back the shitty kitchen job I had in my teens (where I put up with the first of many exploitative managers but thankfully not a hostage situation), but the issue in general was a nice coda on the (too) brief tales of Detritus and Moe (and all of the other assorted and endearing members of the cast of characters). The series in general summed up my time in my hometown’s punk scene: all of us living as best as we could and looking out for each other while scraping bottom. Good times all round. (Also, can I just say that I would have loved to have seen Detritus and Moe in Bugtown? That would have been a hell of a story. I’m imagining the bizarre and intense meeting between Detritus and Hiroshima. Or the Pile jamming with the Bulldaggers.)

His letter did more than make my day, it made my week. I loved doing Misspent Youths. I loved the characters. Doing that book was fun and exhausting and satisfying and … unprofitable. The publisher didn’t make any money. I certainly didn’t make any money. I did draw 160 pages of comics in about a year while working a part-time job. Brave New Words (the publishing company – they also put out the first four issues of Oz Squad) put out more issues of Misspent Youths than any other series they printed. Cancelling the series was a mutual decision – the guy behind Brave New Words was reassessing his business plan and I wanted a break to improve my art skills. I’d planned to pick the series up again, to publish it myself.

Other things happened instead. My drawing skills did improve. I drew the Misspent Youths characters in some calendars that got printed at Kinkos and sold to friends. I got married. I moved from Santa Rosa, California to Seattle, Washington. My wife and I tried running a publishing company and put out few anthology magazines. I worked in a couple bookstores and as an office manager and now as mail carrier. In the thirty years since Misspent Youths I’ve illustrated/collaborated on a lot of projects (comics, RPGs, novels) that haven’t gotten finished. I’ve enjoyed that work. I got paid for most of it. I’ve improved my skills in the process. But I’ll never get any fan letters complimenting or complaining to me about that work. It sits, unfinished, in my files.

Bad art in the world is more fun than great art in a drawer. I’m not saying that Misspent Youths was bad. Not at all. I put my heart and soul into it. It was the best work I could do at the time. And it’s out in the world. Copies can be found on ebay and on comics specialty sites. If the internet crashed all the art on my websites would be unavailable but someone could still read an issue of Misspent Youths.

I’m a different person than I was when I did that book. The characters still keep me company but they’re older and wiser and (mostly) more settled. They wave to me from the back of my imagination. I love the idea of drawing comics but, so far, working as a mail carrier doesn’t leave me the time and mental energy necessary to do an ongoing series. Drawing is relatively easy. Writing takes more concentration than it used to.

So what’s my point?

Number One –
A big thank you to Chris Eng for writing! Chris has finished some projects of his own. He has a couple of novels available through Amazon: Molotov Hearts and ZeroWave. He didn’t ask me to include those links.

Number Two –
That project you’re working on? Finish it. Put it out into the world. Art is ephemeral. Do the best you can and let it go. What was brilliant once is often considered terrible by a new audience. What was obscure and forgotten originally can find new fans. But it needs to be available.

Yes, I’m talking to myself as much as to y’all.

Back to work. See you next week!

Skook WIP #9

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Welcome to the ninth issue of the Skook Works in Progress newsletter. You are a fabulous person and very good looking. Give yourself a gold star!

Greeting Card Conversions

In which I present a sampling of before (scans of the original ink and colored pencil/art marker drawings) and after (adjusted in Photoshop) greeting card designs. The final designs are available at my Zazzle store.

Probably Not Bob

In the January 15th issue of this newsletter I posted a card design featuring a beer drinking, cigarette smoking reptile. One of my reader’s asked if it was a portrait of Bob the Lizard. My response was, “Who?” The reader sent me an image of Bob saying that he was a character in the Grimjack comics published in the Eighties and Nineties. I read a good chunk of those Grimjack comics but I don’t remember much about them.

My beer drinking, cigarette smoking lizard is Aunt Hortense. She made her first appearance in The Highly Unlikely Adventures of Moe and Detritus minicomic, issue 5. She’s the parental figure of a bunch of dimension hopping lizards. I published that minicomic in 1989. I don’t know when Bob the Lizard started showing up in Grimjack comics but the first issue of that series was pubished in 1983. Did Bob influence my creation of Aunt Hortense?

I don’t remember. What I do remember is that, sometime in the mid-Eighties, a good friend of mine got tattoos of some drawings I had done. One of those drawings was the silohuette of a lizard. I remember thinking, “I should draw more lizards!” From that seed came Aunt Hortense, Seth, Zerro, Lamallia, Missi and Willy. I first drew them as basically identical but, over the years, they evolved distinct appearances. Aunt Hortense got craggy and squarish. In the Nineties I featured the lizards in a series of xeroxed calendars and some issues of GLYPH magazine.

In recent years I’ve only drawn Hortense a few times. Once was the previous greeting card design. More recently was this portrait done for my tattoo sporting friend for her birthday.   

I didn’t do much to update the image for a greeting card. Hortense is not someone you mess with.

Good Buddies

This image is blatantly inspired by the Chuck Jones directed cartoon Feed the Kitty. I saw it as a kid on one of those afternoon cartoon shows and it stuck with me.

We all need friends and having friends who are very different from us is good for our character.

A Smile and a Dance

I have no idea what’s going on in this illustration. He’s happy so I’m happy when I look at him. That’s good enough for me.

Let the joy shine!

A Little Monster

Inside every big monster is a little monster that just wants a hug. And a cookie.

Giving this critter a cookie and a hug will not only bring you joy, it will keep you from feeling those claws and teeth. It is a monster after all.

Spreading the Heap Around

I did this drawing of the Heap as one of my daily sketches back in 2019. It’s one of my favorite pieces from that project so it seemed like it would look good on a mug.

To better fit a mug I extended the image, colored the figures and redid the background. Here’s a process gif showing the main stages.

I usually imagine there’s story behind my illustrations. The Heap and this girl are grooving at a night club. Why?

I don’t know. I often always know the story. I have to think about it.

The Heap as a DJ? As an MC? Maybe this image is part of an album cover?

Okay then.

And if it works as an album cover, why not on a t-shirt?

Okay then.


Influences – J.C. Leyendecker

It’s hard to discuss J.C. Leyendecker separate from Norman Rockwell. Rockwell is now the more famous of the two illustrators but Leyendecker came first. Rockwell idolized Leyendecker and his early style is strongly modeled on Leyendecker’s. I was glad to read that the two artists did become friends.

I love Leyendecker’s art for its precision. It’s deceptively simple. It’s all sharp angles and clean lines, geometry and design. All his characters, even the (rare) down and outers, have a sparkle to them. No grime.

Oddly, it was easier to find good images of Leyendecker’s work online than Rockwell’s. The link in my first paragraph will take you to a ten part blog series that features a wealth of his paintings. I only grabbed a few for flavor. The man did thousands of paintings – magazine and book covers and clothing advertisements.


It occurs to me that Leyendecker’s idealized men and women could have been models for the original comic book superheroes. The artists of early comics would have known his work. Today, he is a nostalgic footnote. In the late thirties and early forties, he was famous. It would have been hard not to think about Leyendecker’s work when you wanted to depict a heroic figure.

Character Concept Sketches and Model Sheets – The Heap

The Heap. The Face. Octobriana. Fantomah. Stardust. You’ll find depictions of all these characters in my shops. They are all comic characters who have escaped into the public domain. They are actually just a few of the comic characters who (mostly) debuted in the early days of the American comic book industry who are now available for anyone to use. So why am I  interested in this bunch?

Honestly, it feels like they found me. I didn’t go looking for public domain comic book characters to illustrate. I’ve participated in online remake/remodel challenges using other public domain characters and none of them stuck in my imagination.
Each character has a different appeal.

Stardust is a space wizard. His sorcery is of the “Technology so advanced as to seem like magic” variety.

Fantomah is a jungle vengence goddess.

The Face is … so basic he’s fun. He’s a guy who puts on a scary mask to fight crime. No superpowers. No tragic backstory.

Octobriana is a kick ass revolutionary.

The Heap is the original comic book swamp monster.

Until now, all my illustrations of these characters have been one-off images. I hadn’t considered drawing any of these folks on a reoccurring basis. Because of that they often look significantly different from version to version. I’m now past the “just get started” phase of creating merchandise in my shops and I’m moving on to the “create a consistent brand” stage.

That has meant doing what would have been preliminary sketches. These are to try out different versions of a character to see what looks good. I figured I’d start with the Heap. I’ve drawn him quite a few times over the years and his design is pretty simple. He’s basically a humanoid haystack with a sort of a carrot nose. In most of my illustrations I’ve given him some sort of eye. The Heap was drawn by a number of different artists during his original comic book run but most of them just gave him shadows where his eyes might have been. Having eyes means there’s more of a chance of having expressions so I decided to keep them. Most of my earlier versions have had some sort of roots and fungus on them. That gives a little variety to his design.

The Heap is a compost pile that’s come to life. It grew up around the body of a WW! pilot who had crashed his plane in a Polish swamp. It shambles about the world fighting monsters and human evil doers. 
Once I’d gotten a feel for the details of the character I set about creating a model sheet. I plan to do this with all the characters I will be using. Model sheets are usually created when a character is going to drawn by different artists in a variety of media (animation, comics, toys, breakfast cereal, whatever). It gives the creative team a base to work from. I’ve done model sheets for myself when I’ve been designing characters for comics and graphic novels. Most model sheets feature a character in a series of standing positions – front view, side view, back view. Most of my model sheets will have character in motion. It’s more fun to draw.

I basically stuck to my Big Swamp Boogie version of the Heap. I liked it when I drew it in 2019 so why not?

I’m mostly going to be showing my process work as gifs. I like watching an image as it evolves but, if you’d rather (or would rather also) see the different stages as separate images, just let me know.

These Days …

I like deadlines. But only deadlines that I’ve either given myself or negotiated with a client. I like them because they help me to structure how to manage a project. If something is due in two weeks I know I should be finishing at least 1/14th of it every day. I therefore know the minimum of work I need to complete. I also know that life happens and I may not be able to do 1/14th of the project every day so I aim to get 1/7 of the work done each day. That does not mean I push myself to do twice as much work as possible every day. I hate rush jobs. It means I’ve planned (or agreed to) a schedule that allows me to do good work at a comfortable pace in the time I have available outside of my USPS job and my responsibilities at home.

Last year’s newsletter was an exercise in getting myself to write on a regular basis. The art I posted was primarily from past projects. I published an issue a week. That was my goal and I met it. Yay me! My one frustration was that I wanted folks to subscribe and only a couple of people did so. Apparently the set up of my website made the subscription link difficult to find. I subscribe to a couple dozen newsletters. I don’t read every issue but having them show up in my inbox reminds me that they exist. So for 2021 I decided to use an email newsletter service to see if that would make it easier for readers to sign up. A number of the newsletters I read are hosted by tinyletter.com. Most of the rest are hosted by substack.com. Substack allows writers to charge for subscriptions. Tinyletter does not. I don’t plan to charge for subscriptions so I chose tinyletter.

Because I like being ahead of a deadline I started setting up emails. At the moment I’ve got images prepped (and some writing about those images) for newsletters into April. The first seven newsletters went out with no problem. You folks subscribed. Thank you!

Last week I hit a snag. I pressed send on issue 8, went to have a cup of coffee and came back to this message –

“Your account has been flagged by our abuse prevention system. Our team reviews all accounts for Compliance with our Terms of Use. If your letter has not been sent after 12 hours, please reach out to our Support team with the username for your account.”

Issue 8 was stuck in limbo and, most annoyingly, I didn’t know why. Was it the Rockwell images? Was it the joke about the red canid with the trumpet? Did I have too many links? I read the Terms of Use. I checked FAQs. I missed my Friday posting deadline. Phooey. After 13 hours the newsletter hadn’t sent so I sent tinyletter an email asking for help. Friday became Saturday became Sunday. I

The really embarassing thing is that, having concentrated on putting together this newsletter for the last few weeks, I’d kind of forgotten that I still had a website. Having remembered I recreated the issue as a blogpost and sent out links via tinyletter as a test to see if it was just my 8th issue that was blocked or my whole account. Those links went.

On Monday morning I got a response from Stanley at tinyletter –

“Hi there,

Thank you for reaching out about your TinyLetter account. We’ll be glad to help offer some clarification here. 

Taking look at the account, it appears that our automated prevention system, Omnivore, detected content, keywords, or activity that can indicate the possibility of harmful information being sent through our service.

Upon review, however, we can see that the letter is fine and has been moved back to drafts where it can be resent. 

We appreciate your patience during our human review. As the specific keywords and content that Omnivore detects are constantly changing, we’re unable to provide a full list of all potential triggers, however if you run into any issues in the future, please reach out and we’ll be happy to assist. 

You can read more about our detection practices here:
http://mailchimp.com/omnivore/

Please let us know if you have any questions. We’re here to help. “

I responded, jokingly asking if it was my joke about the horny fox. Stanley then answered with –

“Hi David,

Thanks for the reply. For proprietary reasons I wouldn’t be able to divulge exactly what set off our system, but rest assured we’ve made adjustments to prevent it from stopping letters in the future 🙂

Let us know if you have any questions. Take care :)”

I sent out issue #8 on Monday afternoon. If you haven’t read it yet it’s available in both the tinyletter archives and my website. Hopefully you’re reading this issue on Friday morning in your email as planned. If not, check my website on Saturday. I’ll be reposting it there.

Hopefully you are also doing well and only a little stir crazy. I get outside as part of my job and I’m stir crazy. Hopefully you’re managing better than I.am. 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 –

powered by TinyLetter

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 #36

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Gallery – The Black Seal #1

I did my first RPG illustration work for The Black Seal back in 2001. AOL has purged all the archives of their inactive accounts so I can’t check the sequence of communications that led me to contribute. I remember being contacted by John Turner first. He’d seen my illustrations on the Delta Green website and asked if I would be interested in submitting illustrations to a new fanzine of modern day Call of Cthulhu (and specifically Delta Green related) adventures in Britain. I emailed back a positive response and was soon working with Adam Crossingham, the editor, doing illustrations for the first issue of The Black Seal. 

The Black Seal was named for an Arthur Machen story “The Novel of the Black Seal” about a hidden civilization secreted in the wilderness in Wales. The magazine’s focus was to be on material about PISCES, the UK’s Mythos fighting equivalent of Delta Green. I provided specific illustrations for a few articles and some random simple spot illustrations to be used as needed. I didn’t know what print quality TBS would have so I mostly did straight black and white work. I did spend a lot of time doing Photoshop effects on the second illustration in this gallery. I was still very inexperienced with the program and was figuring it out as I went along.

 

The Black Seal saw three issues printed between 2002 and 2004. I did illustrations in each issue and provided material for a couple issues that may see print someday. Work on TBS got me started doing Call of Cthulhu related illustrations. I’ll be showing some of that in future newsletters.

Story Seed #55
A Conspiracy of Squirrels

Most animal attack stories focus on large predators. Sharks. Bears. Wolves. Small varmints are primarily represented by rats. But rats hide in dark places. You usually don’t see them during the day. Squirrels? If you live in a town with trees you see them constantly. They’re everywhere.

Spying.
Plotting.
Organizing.

They only look cute until there are hundreds of them out for your blood.

Recommendation

This week I recommend How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism by Cory Doctrow. Doctrow is a writer and activist with a focus on the benefits and dangers of modern technologies, particularly the internet. This is his latest book, free to read online.

Local News

I spent more time on my Redbubble store than my Zazzle store this week. Redbubble’s set up makes it easier to position on image on multiple products so it’s made it easier to feel like I’m getting more done. Mostly I’m importing images that I created to show off here at Skookworks in recent years but I’m beginning to create some images just for Zazzle and Redbubble. My favorites have been expansions of some designs I originally did as bandanas for Dagon Industries. The images are on most of the products in my Redbubble store. Since Zazzle’s focus is on individual products I’ve started by putting the design on the square puzzles.

This Cthulhu design is meant to be displayed as a diamond but Zazzle doesn’t offer that option. Just turn your head to the left a bit.

Great Cthulhu Glow Green Jigsaw Puzzle

Great Cthulhu Glow Green Jigsaw Puzzle

by Skookworks

That’s it for this week. I appreciate the visit. I hope that you’ve got people around you who keep you amused and make you feel loved. If you do, thank them! They’ll only get more amusing and loving.

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!