Silly Story of SeriousThings by Mike and Jeff - 4-19-16

I posted a little about a story I'm working on with my old California roommate Mike here a couple months ago, I thought I'd post a few more doodling notes.

Still a work in progress, but I lie what we've done so far, no spoilers now.

We've taken a little hiatus from this for a bit, can't wait to get back to it though!

Talk to you soon.

Pretty Good, Not Bad, I Can't Complain - 04-18-16

Hi all.

I haven't much posted more about the fun I've been having playing and singing at the open mic nights around my new hometown of Missoula, MT. but I will.

I have never lost touch with it so I wouldn't call it a rediscovery, but in playing and relying in the catalogue of songs in my head to express to folks I have gotten ever closer to my love of the music of John Prine.

John's 69 years old now and has beaten cancer a second time.  He's hitting the road on tour, so if you get the opportunity to see and hear him in your hometown I suggest you do.

This doodle sprung about while talking with a friend about terrorist acts that are becoming so common in today's world and the way a lot of these radicals hide their own fear-based motivations behind the religion they purport to follow.  People finding reasons to hate people who are different looking than them and using their differences in religion as justification.

Bullshit and fuck you.

I won't go further into this, except to show this drawing, I doodled a few deities that came to mind and I reminded myself of an old Prine song.  Not one of his big songs and one he probably hasn't performed much since the mid 70's when he wrote it, but this lyric seemed to go with the drawing. 

Shut up Jeff!!  We want draw'rings, not you rambling!

Fair enough.

Talk to you soon.

The Now Dated Yet Still Entertaining to Me - E-Banana Watch

Last year a friend of mine contacted me about a magazine his wife was working on.  She wanted to have some comics in it and was generously offering up 2 to 3 pages of space for me to lay with.  An unheard of thing especially in today's climate.

I quickly came up with an example piece for her to show her co-publisher and this is what I came up with.  The parody subject is dated now, but I thought it was when it first came out so I'm OK with that.

Hipsters are fun to draw.  GERZOINKS!

Talk to you soon.

Previous Chevy Chase Death Bet (all due respect) Payments to Nathan

Before the Supersuckers comic I published yesterday, I had done 2 other quick comics with my buddy Nathan Meza.  I thought I'd share them here.   He'd get inspiration for gags and text me at 1 a.m. and I'd get to doodling.

"The Lotto/Star Wars Fantasy" or "I Wonder What Jeffy Would Look Like in a Gold Bikini?"

"One Fine Day in Corporate America (if it was run by apes)"

Note to Nathan:  While I had fun doing these with you, and look forward to doing more, be warned.  When people die alone (as surely Chevy Chase will - all due respect) their bodies are usually found by  friends or loved ones.  As I'm sure those are few and far between by that shit bag Chevy (all due respect) he could have very well died before last New Years and it may be another 6 months to 12 years before someone finds the body.  It's not like any body's expecting him on a movie or TV set and would notice.

And when they do find that bloated, lifeless but no-less talented corpse (all due respect) I shall seek retribution.  Mwah-ha-ha!

Talk to you soon.

Eddie Spaghetti and the Supersuckers

A buddy of mine from Southern California who's a big fan of the band The Supersuckers and lead man Eddie Spaghetti in particular, was recently at one of their shows and purchased some very personal and high-end merch.

He wanted to commemorate this and thank the band somehow so he came up with a comics idea and asked me to draw it.

This is what happened.

There's a little side story to this.  Way back in 2015 (was it really 4 months ago?  Seems like yesterday.) I declared that Chevy Chase would be dead by New Years.  Nathan bet me $50 that he wouldn't be.  This was the most entertainment value that Chevy Chase (all due respect) had provided me with since 1989, so I agreed.

New Years came and went and there were no stories of Chase's body being found by a hotel maid or a woman he was having an affair with or anything.  Sigh.  Chevy you let me down again.  There I was owing $50 over this P.O.S (all due respect).

Nathan, being a kind-hearted soul said I could keep the money and we'd call it even if we collaborated on a few ideas he had.  I figured that was a much better and more fun idea and I didn't want to keep adding to my half a century old Chevy Chase deficit fund.  My bank account was still smarting from the Chevy Chase movies I had paid to see.  Fletch II anyone?  Modern Problems?  Under the motherfucking Rainbow?????  Actually, even as a stupid 18 year old I could tell that last one was going to suck and pocketed my $4.

Anyway, to make a short story long, I figured it would be much more fun to put energy into something positive like drawing Eddie Spaghetti.

Talk to you soon.

Meeting Missoulians! - 04-12-16 - Kris

I really like living here in Missoula, MT., my new hometown.  It's full of history, music, art, hippies, rednecks, great food, big mountains and lots of colorful characters.  I enjoyed sharing a tiny piece of the story of Tommy the Leprechaun on St. Patty's Day.  I think I'll like sketching and sharing tiny pieces of the stories of others I meet along the way.

About a month or better ago I was going to meet a friend for lunch.  I got downtown a little early and decided to step in to the saloon next door and have a beer while I waited for her to show up.

I was sitting there with my glass of Highlander, my sketchbook on the bar in front of me though it was closed and minding my own business (like I always do) and a few of the downtown weekday daytime drinkers wandered in.  I don't know if they have an official club or anything or if that's there name, but there they were.  A couple of the guys sat at the end of the bar talking to the bartender about last night's goings on and a young lady who was with them named Kris sat down on the stool next to me.

I was reading something on my phone and Kris was just kind of taking in the day and looking around.  After she'd been there for about 5 minutes she pointed at my sketchbook and asked, "What are you sketching?".  I tried to describe the kind of thing I liked to draw to her and she smiled and took that in too.

Then she told me how she liked to doodle a lot once as well.  She enjoyed drawing geometric shapes and designs.  getting lost in the page as her pencil made a pattern that she'd build on and then build on some more until pretty soon she knew she was done.

She said that back when she was tweaking, it was all she enjoyed doing.  She'd do a bunch of meth and then get lost in sheaves of paper and her designs.  She called herself a tweaker-doodler.

She said that while she was in prison, doodling was how she passed the time.  She could buy paper and colored pencils from the commissary cheaply and she'd spend the hours drawing page after page of these designs.  Pretty soon the other inmates got into it and would ask to have them and they would spend their hours coloring in Kris' designs.  They even were so proud of their works of art, they began hanging them up on the communal walls and comparing and complimenting and competing with each other over which was the best.

Then one day the guards made them take their drawings down.  Said that they were too distracting.  Said they made the prisoners too excitable.

She said she never doodled after that.  I asked if she did now that she's out.  She said, "No.  Since I've sobered up, I don't like it anymore.  I was a tweaker-doodler and that's all I guess.".

Then it was time to go to the restaurant next door and meet my friend and I said goodbye.  Told her I would probably see her around town again.  She smiled and told me to enjoy my lunch.

I think someone needs to go out to the prison and knock some guards' heads together.

That's my story about Kris.

Talk to you soon.

Judgemental Primates and Ungrateful Snakes - 4-11-16 - Aesop's Fables

I'm alive!  Been lax in posting as I've been finding my happy in finding places to play some music.  I've been successful, and more on that later, but in the meantime I HAVE been doodling some.  So let's catch up, shall we?

"The Wolf, the Fox and the Ape"

"One day a Wolf and a Fox got into an argument.  The Wolf accused the Fox of stealing something from him (what it was matters not, probably a fine piece of mutton or some such) and the Fox vehemently denied that he had stolen anything.  An Ape happened upon the quarrel and immediately set up judge-ship over the case.  After hearing both sides impassioned telling the Ape ruled.  "Wolf, I do not believe you lost a thing.  You never owned the item in question so I believe the Fox.  But Fox, I do still find you guilty as I believe you DID steal that from someone as foxes are known thieves.'"

MORAL:

"The Dishonest, even if they act honestly, get no credit."

"The Woodsman and the Serpent"

"One cold and wintery day as a woodsman was returning home from his daily tasks, he spotted something unmoving in the snow.  Upon closer study he saw it was a Snake, frozen and apparently lifeless.  The Woodsman feeling bad for the Snake and hoping beyond hope that he could revive it, tucked the Snake under his coat close to his body and hurried home.  Once home he wrapped the slightly thawed Snake in a blanket and lay him before the hearth.  The Woodsman's children gathered around and with fascination watched the Snake slowly begin to move and shiver and miraculously show signs of life.  When one of the children reached toward the Snake to pet him, the Snake bared his venomous fangs and reared back to strike.  Without hesitation the Woodsman drew back his ax and cut the Snake in 2."

MORAL:

"There is no gratitude from the wicked."

We're getting toward the end of my selections from the alphabetical list of fables I came across...I think this needs further study and I by no think I've plumbed anywhere near the depth it may go.

We'll see.

Talk to you soon.