No-Good Rabble-Rouser

Desperately trying to manage my completely unfounded infatuation for a married father who pisses himself on-the-daily.

Jacks

For many years I have wanted to create a webcomic. I wanted it to be witty, full of life, and possess the ability to withstand the test of time. But I always had trouble with the jokes. And the story. And then, once I actually mustered enough strength to draw a comic, there was the lack of confidence in my art.

And then, there was no comic.

I have been reading Penny Arcade for many years. The strip started in 1998 and I have since watched their comic go from a crap to gorgeous art with hilarious story lines. Then I think to myself, "Why can't I do this? When these guys started out, I could draw them under the table...and NOW look at them!"

Oh wait. Story.

Oh wait. Molly. Problem solved.

So, Molly and I have embarked on a web comic. Not too fast, but not too slow. She will write 95% of it, and I will draw it. It may look crappy at first, but we are thinking of the potential. If 14 years can make PA look gorgeous, maybe 5 will make our strip look moderately badass.

So, check out the first installment of Jacks, a web comic about two girls who are always trying to tackle a different occupation, a different boyfriend, different levels of parenting (both cat and human).

Join us. Please.

Foxy Shazam T-Shirt Contest

Back in February of 2012, I went to see one of my favorite bands, The Darkness with my best friend, Molly Reynolds. While there, we experienced one of the best Alt-Rock bands I have ever had the pleasure of seeing live, Foxy Shazam.

What we thought was going to be another lame opening band turned into an action-packed, blood-pumping, all-out AMAZING show. Not to mention that Eric Sean Nally and his crew are pretty magical song writers. And any band that displays a healthy dose of piano crowd surfing, cigarette eating, and shirtless trumpet playing is an a-okay band in my book.

So, as time went on, I became more and more involved in the fandom, and eventually happened upon a t-shirt contest started by Creative Allies, to be judged by Foxy Shazam themselves. Needless to say, I jumped at the chance.

There is also a prize for the most votes. I think. So even if the band doesn't like what I do, I could still rock at selling t-shirts.

Vote for my design here!

In case you are still not sure why I love Foxy Shazam so much, have a taste of "Oh Lord". Or, as I like to call it, my new favorite song and music video:

I've been having this intense relationship with John Frusciante's music lately. I found some shots of him (presumably part of the same photoshoot from my perevious drawing's reference photo) and I am completely taken by him. 

Don't get me wrong. This love is for how his music makes me feel, and how it accurately expresses how I feel. But it has been my personal experience that artist-artist love is very stormy and aggravating. 

"When you`re talking to a fan, you`re talking to somebody who`s not talking to you. They`re talking to a photograph, they`re talking to their image of you, they`re talking to a walking poster. And if you make the mistake of thinking, that they`re talking to you... When they tell you that you`re a genius, or that you`re so fucking cool... Or whatever their fucking image is of you... Then if you believe it... Then you, the real human being dies." - JFru

Yo, dawg. I hear you like John Frusciante. So you're gonna draw a picture of the image of John in your head and have John interpret that picture as the picture of himself as you saw him in a picture in your head.

At work, I started a sketch of John Frusciante on my yellow notepad. I took it home and finished it as I listened to his studio albums (minus "...Usually Just a T-Shirt") on random. I sat Adan next to me with a few markers and a doodle pad and he made his own drawings of a "car" (scribbles) and of an "opicus" (scribbles that he said was an octopus). 

I fell in love with John's music in 2006, after falling deeply in love with The Red Hot Chili Peppers' album "Stadium Arcadium" on an August day, during a long drive home from the sun-drenched dirt of Arizona. That dark winter, I discovered "To Record Only Water for Ten Days", one of John's solo albums. It was a discovery that transformed me in an artistic powerhouse, and confused my hypersensitive heart, for I had discovered that it wasn't the Chili Peppers and Anthony Kiedis's dodgy lyrics that had captured me, but it was John. It was all John. 

From that moment on I worked on collecting all of John's music that I could. The wailing guitars and siren, gruff  voice seemed to personify what I felt, and define in music who I was. The harmonies would sometimes bring me to tears. His vocal relationship to Josh Klinghoffer on songs like "Omission" with make my chest swell. 

Lately, John has been pulling me in again. I felt anxious and desperate because I had to back up my computer in the cloud and re-install the operating system and have a tech go through and clean out the hard drive. I had to live without music for a few days. I had to live without John.

The depressing part is that I have floor seats to a Chili Peppers concert in August. John will not be there. I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to experience John live, and in person. Ever. 

"When You Can't Function, Someone Decides Who You Are."

Tell me about it, John.

In case it wasn't already painfully apparent, I love The Lion King. And, most of all, Scar.

This was another "on-hold" sketch spending a few hours each week for my "day job" seems to be the standard these days. Which is fine considering I have time to draw.

For those of you who aren't familiar with the series, the drawing depicts Sarabi (Simba's mother) arguing with Scar, who has taken on what we can only assume to be a new queen, Zira. Aside from the stubby legs, I like it.

I often wonder what I could have done had I been trained in animation. The things I do without training seem pretty solid.

But I'm learning to never say never. I'm hoping that 2012 is going to be amazing in terms of my art.

On Monday I picked up my illustrations, along with stitched-together scans for Adan's book.

Digital Pickle's Yelp profile doesn't do it justice. Apparently a bad manager ran the Pasadena location into the ground. But their new staff is doing an excellent job, in my opinion. The scans look great and my illustrations were returned to me in better shape than I brought them in; I received my art back wrapped in plastic and in a sturdy paper bag with my name written on it in silver ink!

Unfortunately, it quickly became apparent that our home computer isn't up to task for digital production. I first started noticing the issue when I put Adobe Flash onto the system. The program freezes and dies often and takes almost 10 minutes to load. When I tried to upload the high resolution TIF files from Digital Pickle, my computer had a brain fart and keeled over.

So, after spending an entire day of uploading the files to a cloud server from my work computer, I spent most of my evening downloading said files onto my home computer.

It's been a hurdle every step of the way, but we're getting there!