mystic milk

Dog Angry 3D.

2011-10-27T19:50:00.000-07:00

Hello Future Potential Employers.

2011-09-15T10:43:00.000-07:00

A video I made for this song that I posted last week and also made. I don't really like this video. I do think one part of it is funny. This part happens about 5 seconds in. I also think the video is funny if I imagine myself going on a job interview that goes relatively well. Afterwards, the potential employer googles my name while vaguely thinking nostalgically about when Google didn't exist, and he didn't google things, and 'googling' wasn't a word, and was this better for everyone not googling things, and do you have to earn information in order for it to mean anything to you, that seems to make sense until you actually think about it for more than 2 seconds, then it just seems like weird, privileged bullshit, he went to college, he went to college before wikipedia, he wonders if it's easier now, it was actually pretty easy back then, and he ends up watching a video of the young man that was just sitting in front of him wearing a suit and talking about business goals wearing lipstick and mumbling nonsense. Not funny in a way I'd actually laugh at though. Just kinda funny.

I almost started typing about when you make something and you immediately don't really like it (which, for me, happens a lot of the time), or you grow not to like it (which, for me, happens most the time), or you make something and hate it, but other people seem to genuinely like it (which, for me, happens some of the time), and I started thinking about how I heard REM's NIGHTSWIMMING on the radio the other day.

I've been listening to the radio more in the past couple of weeks than I have in the past 15 years. Only because I'm in the car more often and I keep forgetting my iPod in my apartment. The radio's weird. I don't know if it's the programming or because I haven't listened since I was a teenager, but it's like putting on a time capsule from the mid 90s. No matter what station I put on, I almost immediately start thinking about long-forgotten middle school dances I went to. Or at least my car takes on the emotional texture of a 1993 middle school dance. Awkwardness, uncertainty, hormones, Young MC lyrics. The other day I drove to the supermarket and sat in the parking lot for 3 minutes before I went in, mentally reliving the video for PM Dawn's SET ADRIFT ON MEMORY BLISS in its entirety.

I like REM. I listened to REM in middle school. I probably listened to them in high school too. In this millennium, I don't think I've listened to REM without being in a pharmacy, supermarket, or movie theater. When NIGHTSWIMMING came on my car radio I first thought of writing a tweet somehow combining REM and CVS.

NIGHTSWIMMING seems like a song that people could find really 'emotional' or 'connect to' and/or play at their wedding, or after a divorce. It seems like a bittersweet ballad that means something. It also seems weirdly 'half-assed' and 'thrown off' and generally shitty. Halfway through listening to it, I realized what the band probably intended it to sound like was the scene in a musical where the poor showgirl, or poor nightclub singer is rehearsing with her put-upon and also poor piano player and they launch into a small, unaccompanied, fake improvised, emotional ballad in an empty theater. What it started to sound like to me was a guy that always had dreams of becoming a successful lyricist, but ended up being a kindergarten teacher that lives with his Mom, knocking out an improvised tune with a second grade piano prodigy, loosely based on a high school poem he wrote, before the kids come in for play practice.

The word 'Nightswimming' is repeated over 40,000 times.

This led me to wonder if Michael Stipe likes NIGHTSWIMMING. Or any of REM's more embarrassing songs like SHINY HAPPY PEOPLE, or 60% of their catalog. Or if he regrets it. I imagined him not putting out records past GREEN. I imagined him firing that Tiny Tim guy. I imagined him as a kindergarten teacher jamming with a second grade piano prodigy wondering if he shouldn't have broken up REM.

I decided Michael Stipe's cool with his life choices.

Related: I played a lot of SIM CITY 2000 instead of working when I was in college. Remembering this, I searched for and downloaded SIM CITY 2000 a couple of weeks ago. I now play a lot of SIM CITY 2000 instead of working while not in college.

Not related: My friends run this very good literary site called Red Lightbulbs and they're specifically looking for comics submissions.

News.

2011-09-08T10:39:00.000-07:00

I drew this poster for the Dylan Williams benefit. You can bid on a print of it here. You can look at a lot of other art for it here.

I got my copy of Catch-Up in the mail yesterday, and it's a really great looking magazine filled with slightly oversized, full-color comics. It's awesome. I have a 2 page story in it. Their site is here.

In other news:

- I have this recurring fantasy where I rent a storefront on the main commercial strip near my apartment. I decorate it to look like a dog grooming place and massage parlor. I don't spend much money doing this. I put up a sign on the outside that says 'Dog Massages.' I spend some money on the sign to get it to look as professional as possible. As I get a slow trickle of customers bringing their dogs in, I explain to each one that we don't offer massages for dogs. We offer massages for people performed by dogs. Then they leave while I slowly giggle through my asthmatic lungs. For the few people that stay expecting a paw rubdown, I explain to them that this entire operation is a front for a pretty bad joke. Then they leave while I slowly giggle through my asthmatic lungs. I feel like this is the only business I would want to get involved in at this point in my life.

- I haven't told this story to too many people partly because it's kind of boring, but mostly because the job that the antagonist seems to have and the job that I sometimes get paid to do makes it seem too obviously metaphorical and therefore completely fictional, but it did actually happen.

I was riding the bus into Manhattan a couple of weeks ago. I was headed to a job interview. I was wearing a suit. For half the ride I was sitting with an empty seat next to me. In an attempt to prepare myself for the interview I was taking up more room than I normally do to try to seem 'socially dominant.' I didn't go to business school, but I assume that all that occurs there is they just show students videos of gorillas for four years. Or maybe they study the movie CONGO. So I sat there, legs taking up as much space as possible, mirroring what I imagined one of those evil gorillas from CONGO would look like sitting on a New Jersey Transit bus, muttering "I'm not Amy, I live in a fucking volcano. Try to steal my giant diamonds, motherfucker."

The bus started to get crowded. A five foot tall, chubby, bald man in a suit with no tie carrying a plastic bag filled with papers sat down next to me. Because I was taking up the same amount of room as one of Rick Baker's monkey puppets, he sat on the bottom left side of my suit jacket. He immediately got on his phone while I tried to pull it from underneath him. He began a horrifying monologue.

From what I could gather, he was some sort of art director that was somehow involved in building 3-D graphics for websites. Most of his conversation though, dealt with his attempts to not pay the artists that worked for him. A lot of it contained the words "Fuck them, they don't know any better."

As I tugged on my jacket a little harder, I started to get angry. I've been those unpaid artists. My friends have been those unpaid artists. But most importantly this dude was totally unrealistic. If I were to create a completely fictional arch villain for myself it would probably be a talentless, tiny, art director that fucks people out of money and doesn't know how to act on a bus.

I finally said "Excuse me, you're sitting on my jacket" while staring at him. He said "Hold on" and gave me a dirty look. "You're sitting on my jacket." He sighed at me. I yanked it free. He went back to talking on the phone.

Then he shifted slightly and dropped his bag full of papers. They spilled all over our feet. He peered at me like it was my fault. After frustratingly gathering them all back up he put the bag on my left leg. By now I had shifted as close to the other side of the seat as I could. This act seemed insane to me. I slowly moved my leg and let the papers fall back on the floor. He glared angrily at me again.

After picking them back up a second time, he put the bag on the other side of us in the aisle. It was only seconds before someone else kicked it over. I felt like I was winning this social challenge. He was the bumbling Tim Curry character to my evil CONGO gorilla. As he finished picking up his belongings again though, my jacket slid underneath him.

"You're sitting on my jacket again." He said "Hold on," and turned towards me. "My jacket." He sighed in response, disgusted and went back to talking on the phone.

I began to wonder why we weren't communicating. Maybe he couldn't hear me. Maybe the person on the other end of the phone was talking as much as he was so there was just endless static noise in the conversation. Maybe I didn't exist, and none of this was happening.

We pulled into the port authority. He ended his phone call. He went to put his phone in his pants pocket and laid his head on my lap. I hit some sort of weird emotional intersection between angry, amused and complete confusion. I couldn't believe what was occurring. He struggled getting the phone into his pocket. He nestled his face on my crotch for about 20 seconds. In those 20 seconds I began to completely question my existence. The only realistic explanation for what was happening that I could come up with was that I was a ghost. "That's crazy," I thought, "But maybe I'm like an emotion that thinks it's a person, or I'm the bus seat and have attained consciousness, or people can't see me because I'm a living dream." I started to breathe heavily.

I said "Dude" as loud as I could. No response. "Dude! You're laying on my lap." No response. I shifted my hips. He was still trying to get his phone in his pocket. "Dude, what the fuck are you doing?" I said quietly. Nothing stopped him. He finally finished putting his phone away, got up and got off the bus to go on with his life. Leaving me with deep questions about myself and the nature of reality. I got off the bus. An earthquake happened.

(I did shoulder-bump him going down the stairs to the subway, so there was a small taste of vengeance.)

Song.

2011-08-20T08:28:00.000-07:00

This is a song I recorded yesterday: The Pavement, the Wind, the Trees, Whatever.

Archie.

2011-08-13T09:28:00.001-07:00

2011-08-12T06:05:00.000-07:00

Internet 3-D.

2011-08-10T09:37:00.000-07:00

It took me maybe 4 years, but I was finally able to scrape enough money together to purchase a new computer. The computer I had been using was a 6 or 7 year old laptop. As technology evolved through the years, my computer and I struggled to keep up. I disabled Flash. I got used to reading websites with all of the text jumbled on top of itself. I imagined what videos were like from the thumbnail. I became more patient. I gave up being able to do advanced actions on sites like press buttons or enter text in text fields.

But eventually the gaping black boxes on most websites became gaping black holes in my soul. I was a man in 2005 watching 2011 happening in wide shot, crouching behind a barrier that suggested I update my browser. I was obsolete.

My technological leap through time has been a reawakening. Websites load moments after navigating to them. I can put my name and even my thoughts inside text fields. I can watch 1,000 hours of Youtube. I can press the 'read more' button. I can fucking infinitely scroll.

I also, for the first time, have a built-in webcam. Feeling that I should take full advantage of all the new computer has to offer, I took a picture of myself between 5 to 10 minutes after waking up every day for the last few weeks of July.

On top of owning a computer, I also own a mailbox. While I mostly get mail addressed to a guy that lived here 8 years ago, sometimes people send me things. Often after getting it I think 'I should take a picture of this and post it on my blog like other people do when they get mail.' Then I get distracted by writing COCOON fan-fiction, and wondering if AI was meant to be a sequel to THE BIG CHILL.

This was sent to me by Micheal Van Vleet and includes a mix CD with a nice handmade cover, the book THE GIRL WITH THE GOLDEN YO-YO that weirdly smells exactly like San Francisco, and a sticker that contains both a frog and a message.

This is a copy of the comic VIRGINIA that I drew and was written by Sam Humphries. He printed a few up to give out at San Diego Comic Con and they came out pretty nice looking.

My other big acquisition in July was a local library card. I have been a member of the New York Public Library for years mostly so that I can imitate that scene from GHOSTBUSTERS where they run down the library steps every time I have a late fee or a old lady tells me to be quiet. I am now able to go to the library in my town. Surprisingly they have a smaller selection than the Manhattan library. For some reason though, they do have every X-MEN trade paperback collection published between 2003-2008. I ruined some 10 year old's summer by checking them all out a couple of weeks ago. Mostly these comics are pretty forgettable, but there was a scene from one that has haunted me since I read it.

The X-Men are searching their mansion/school/headquarters for a hidden villain. Iceman and Polaris are tasked with searching the kitchen. When they get down there the kitchen contains horrified-looking, dead or dying pigs hanging from the ceiling. This is not mentioned at all in the dialogue making it seem like this is completely normal.

My Two Cents.

2011-07-24T15:30:00.000-07:00

The intro to my new show that will be airing on PBS in the fall.

Snoopy in a Mansuit.

2011-07-21T10:35:00.001-07:00

Die Hard.

2011-07-06T00:44:00.000-07:00

This Week Probably Occured Within a Greater Cultural Context.

2011-05-08T07:56:00.001-07:00

2011-05-03T11:55:00.001-07:00

I got my contributor copy of SNAKEBOMB COMIX 1 last week. It's a really nice looking zine, with some awesome comics, drawings, and a textured cover made out of what I'm assuming is the tears of the T-1000 that I can't stop rubbing against my face.

I think you can order one by emailing Jack. I think he responds faster if you include links to Sonic the Hedgehog erotica.

I also have a one page comic in the new issue of the online literary magazine/current one of my favorite things on the internet Red Lightbulbs.

Recent/Soon.

2011-04-27T09:48:00.001-07:00

The band I'm in, the Forever People, are playing a show this weekend.

The first 46 pages of the comic I make, Paws, are up on my site.

A sitcom I've seen, Seinfeld, no matter what time you're reading this, is probably currently showing on a cable station.

42611.

2011-04-27T09:45:00.000-07:00

42511.

2011-04-25T08:59:00.000-07:00

Poems.

2011-04-20T00:01:00.000-07:00

IMDB

I have a friend who
whenever I say something funny says,
"What movie is that from?"

-----------------------

The Rise of the Planet of the Apes Trailer

james franco gives apes smart pills and it makes them smart.
congrats, franco.
but it also makes them so, so angry.
oh no, dude.

-----------------------

Online Criticism Part 4.

I hate poems that are about writing poems.
I hate songs about singing songs.
Movies about movies about movies
are the worst.

Comments.

-----------------------

3 Minute Pop Song

Years ago, I saw an interview clip with Bono where he said something vaguely like
'Pop songs are these small things that make you want to throw away everything and run half-way around the world just for love.'
Something, something like that.
And I thought 'Yeah, Bono, yeah, that's a cool thing to say. That seems right, or, like, it at least sounds right.'
'Like it should be right, if everything else was right.'

But the only thing that Bono's songs have ever made me want to do is walk out
of the supermarket when they come on.

-----------------------

Urban Marketing

Some days every day is like a 1990's Doritos commercial white kids with skateboards breakdancing and eating over-dramatically in neon colored caps.

Song.

2011-04-17T13:01:00.000-07:00

Aw, Demon .mp3

I am very slowly recording a new EP. I am very slowly starting to remember how to record music. I am also very slowly remembering how to blog and breathe and love. It's been a long year staring into a safety deposit box of fake passports with hundreds of small photos of my own face staring back at me, but the memories will return.

Contemporary Criticism.

2011-04-16T10:03:00.000-07:00

happy holidays.

2010-12-24T08:56:00.001-08:00

Rom/Tron.

2010-12-02T09:55:00.001-08:00

December 2nd, the winter has arrived, and with it a barren New Jersey landscape glimpsed through frozen tears. Have you loved enough in this life to hold onto your inner flame in these cold months? Do your nerves recall a tender touch? Do you stand outside in a ratty coat straining to hear the sweet sounds of the Pointer Sisters in your memory? Or something, anything to keep you going?

That's just the greeting I've been using to answer the phone recently.

Tonight at Floating World Comics in Portland is the Bill Mantlo charity/tribute show SPACENIGHT 2. I'm pretty sure the poster I drew above is in it. Look at other stuff from the show here: http://romspacenite.blogspot.com

I think I've blogged about this before, but my poster is based on (and all the dialogue is from) the issue of POWER MAN & IRON FIST where they meet Rom. It is a crazy comic. It is also awesome.

Another crazy comic that is awesome is Stanley Lieber's ACTRON 242.

Read it on Arthur

Or download pdf/cbz

I was trying to think of a way to describe this last night and my immediate thought was 'Chris Claremont fever dream' but that's because I burn most of my daylight away by reading blurbs on the back of novels, while wearing a tiger-print bathrobe and telling my dog to "Shape up."

New Shirts.

2010-11-18T10:08:00.000-08:00

We have new shirts for sale in our spreadshirt shop. A couple of them were designed by Aleks.

I am also still taking commissions for full-page digital illustrations of whatever you want for $40. Email me or just click on the paypal link below.

I think I've made it generally well-known how uncomfortable I am with self-advertising, or self-promotion, or generally having a self at all, but I'm trying to get better. As I scooped out my porridge for One Meal today, I realized telling people that they can pay you to draw things isn't such an ignoble pursuit. 'How did he get to this porridge-lined road of tragedy?' you may currently be asking yourself. Well, my story is the same as the stories of many Americans in our current economic predicament.

Four years ago, at almost exactly this time of year, I lost my job. I worked in an office doing some vaguely soul-crushing work that may or may not have been affiliated with NASA and may or may not have involved extra-dimensional travel and/or using In-Design. After I was let go, I decided to embark on the freelance career of my dreams. I knew it wouldn't be easy. Gathering the 12 enchanted, peacock feathers from around the globe was not simple or inexpensive. Airline travel is not what it once was and catching birds is much harder than it looks. It took me a couple of years but I did it.

I set upon making my 'peacock coat of serene movement.' There was a learning curve. I was versed in neither sewing nor magic. But I knew I had to educate myself quickly or my enemies would destroy me. I sewed day and night.

Months later, the coat was ready to wear. But it was the summer. I waited until the winter. I discovered the joy of Twitter, I was content in my mission.

Donning the peacock coat of serene movement, I moved with a grace unseen in New Jersey since the Great Dancers Revolt of 1850. I strutted down the street. Children cried. Women phoned their lawyers to file divorce papers.

But I was broke.

I turned to catwalking in front of the local 7-11 for some quick cash. I was making hundreds of dollars a day walking back and forth, my hips on fire, the public dazzled. Then the market changed.

People no longer need or want a glance at a beautiful movement in a 7-11 parking lot. They have YouTube. They have Photoshop. They can google 'beauty' all fucking day if they want to.

Distraught, I have turned to designing t-shirts and drawing things for money. The peacock coat is in the closet along with America's metaphorical peacock coat, in America's metaphorical closet. The story is the same from shore to shore.

Monetary Dreddsperation.

2010-11-06T11:29:00.000-07:00

I drew this picture for my friend, quiet, multi-media entertainer Michael. Apparently his friend and ex-co-podcast-host (they hosted the Too Many Mikes podcast before the events at their Winterland Ballroom show which had Michael speaking the words to The Stooges' 'No Fun' and then dismantling the podcast and striking out on a solo career) has birthdays and also celebrates them. Besides that, he apparently is also a fan of Judge Dredd.

Up until now my only real interaction with British culture has been a trip to New Jersey's theme dining experience Medieval Times. So I wasn't that familiar with Dredd. Seeing as Michael kindly paid me $40 though, I got familiar. After over 8 minutes of googling, I became something of a Judge Dredd expert, and drew the piece you see above.

My point: For a little while you too can pay me $40 to draw something. Just tell me what you want, and I will send you a digital file containing a hi res, full page (10.5 x 7in), full color drawing. Portraits of you or Sonic the Hedgehog or of you embracing Sonic the Hedgehog passionately, or Sonic the Hedgehog packing your Mom's bags and telling her to move out of the house while you decorate the basement however you want, all available to you. Just drop me an email: godownmatthew (at) gmail.com

Or you can use Paypal if you'd rather do that:

gifing.

2010-11-04T21:22:00.001-07:00

Paws Part 2.

2010-10-13T11:30:00.000-07:00

30-odd pages of PAWS are now up on the Arthur Magazine blog. It's in the Greener Mags viewer which I accidentally called 'Greensleeves' the other day because before I spent my nights drawing comics, I was heavily involved with the underground lute scene.

Much like Greensleeves' ability to bring a tear to even the most jaded, Elizabethan-era cosplayer as it plays as an embedded midi file while he's looking at canterburypunx.angelfire.com, the Greener Mags viewer may help you to enjoy the lilting, folk song of comics as the soundtrack to the Canterbury tale that is you life.

Fall.

2010-10-10T23:28:00.000-07:00

Phone Pictures from This Week.

2010-09-30T11:36:00.001-07:00

Interview.

2010-09-30T11:28:00.000-07:00

I've mentioned this elsewhere (on tumblr, on twitter, on a dream horse made of stars whispering into the ear of the ghost of a civil war general who had my mom's voice, to my dog) but there's an interview with me up on the awesome escape from suicide wolf forest blog.

In Tokyo.

2010-09-19T18:26:00.000-07:00

My body may remain somewhat erotically rolling around atop metaphorical and sleeveless Bon Jovi tour t-shirts in the confused weather, and left-over 90s suburban ennui that encompasses pre-Autumnal northern New Jersey. My mind may remain wrapped up in leaves of vague depression and slight rage that rest inside of a rolling paper of general sadness, forming a cigarette-shaped emotion that fills the cigarette-shaped hole in my life since I quit smoking. But pictures I took are on display at Alin Huma's FdC gallery space in Tokyo (link to facebook page where I took above pics from).

Alin is another one of those guys that's always putting together awesome and interesting stuff. Anything he does is totally worth checking out.

You know when you're doing or experiencing something and you didn't realize that you actually wanted to do it until it happens? Maybe you randomly pick up an apple from your fridge and it's not until you bite into it that you realize that you really wanted to eat an apple. No other foodstuff would have soothed your appetite in quite the same, almost poetic, way. Or you've been putting off getting exercise, but you end up having to walk somewhere and it feels really good, and you promise to walk everywhere all the time. And you go home and start pouring lighter fluid on your car, while waving around a sparkler in a 'celebration of leg energy' before you notice how tired you are, and that you forgot to take your medication. That's how I felt seeing that second picture of hip dudes in Tokyo chilling in front of a large pic of me shirtless wearing a paper mask and a cape. A dream I never realized I had was totally fulfilled.

More Advertising.

2010-09-17T13:50:00.001-07:00

Paws merchandise for sale on Spreadshirt.

Advertising.

2010-07-31T07:35:00.000-07:00

The site that I sell my t-shirts through is having a sale this weekend. You get free shipping if you live in North America and use the coupon code FREEWEEKEND if people in your neighborhood are allowed to own guns, or CANFREEWEEKEND if they aren't.

I really hated typing that for a myriad of abstract reasons.

Actually the main concrete reason is probably the fact that quitting smoking has made me start having emotions/moods for the first time in maybe 20 years.

Sometimes I think I should take a class on selling shit on the internet and then I realize that maybe therapy would be more helpful for my webstore.

Pretty much everything about selling t-shirts online makes me think about crying.

Even though I joke about it all the time, I don't remember actually crying since the late 90s.

I don't think I want to sell t-shirts.

In the late 90s/ early 2000s I would've been really excited about being able to print and sell my own shirt designs.

Though I doubt it, I may have gotten so excited I would have cried.

Thinking about selling these t-shirts in the late 90s/ early 2000s actually made me feel kind of good about my life in a strange way.

It's probably more a feeling of being proud about 'how far the internet has come.' Or 'how far the internet has taken the t-shirt business.'

'Look at how far the road stretches behind us, wwwdotfrienddotcom.' Animated gif thumbs up.

I should probably make shirts that have jokes or reference pop culture or have STAR WARS jokes or reference STAR WARS culture. I'm not being sarcastic.

Or at least a shirt that has a pic of a hand giving a thumbs up and says 'animated gif' underneath it.

I'm probably going to take the 3 shirt designs I have up right now down, and replace them with 3 new ones in the next week or two.

I think I woke up in a bad mood.

FREE WEEKEND.

^(Full post to be read in the voice of the movie trailer voice-over guy.)^

I made you a mix.

2010-07-24T10:34:00.000-07:00

Here's a mix I made (track list text file included).

Imagine the year is 1999. I am 17. In reality in 1999, I was actually 20, but this is a slightly fictional situation I'm trying to get you to construct here, and most people reading this probably don't know that I was 20 in 1999. I mean, I actually had to do math to figure that out just now. So if you do know how old I really was in '99 then you are probably a stalker and are just really enjoying every word I'm typing anyway, and realism is the least of your concerns. The first of your concerns probably being: murder me and wear my skin.

You are 16. I do realize that someone reading this could be under 16, or have been born after '99, so any memory of that year is wrapped in false 'older sibling nostalgia', or the belief that DAWSON'S CREEK and THE REAL WORLD were fair representations of reality. That's probably not totally off-base, as much as it may seem to people that actually lived through that time period. I remember when REALITY BITES came out in the mid-90s and I thought 'This movie is like a bad, cartoonish, offensive, Hollywood stereotype of 20-something Gen-x-ers.' I just saw it again a few months ago and thought 'that's pretty much how people were in the 90s.' I'm saying, mass culture usually dictates broader memories, or at least the settings your memories take place in.

Maybe you have no concept of the year 1999 at all, it's just a Prince song to you. Or maybe you were in your 50s in the late-90s and now you're almost 70 years old and due to senility, barely remember middle age, or most of your life, but are on a virtual quest to retrieve your memories through reading blogs written by younger people every day. 'That's how it could've been, that's probably how it was' you mutter to yourself as you sip your tea and gaze at the laptop your kids got you so that they could email you and not have to feel bad because they don't visit.

It doesn't matter in the context of this blog post. It's 1999. I'm 17. You're 16. I am a skinny, intellectual, though still manly, high school-graduate. You are a smart, beautiful 11th grader. You live in a college town on the east coast of the US, in a place very much like New Jersey. Your parents are immigrants from Australia. They both have some native blood which may or may not effect your political blog entries later in life, and may or may not give you magical powers currently.

You get bored of your suburban existence and yearn for something more. You're not sure what. You're also not sure if you just do this because you read and heard and have seen characters doing so in books, songs and movies.

What is nice about where you live though, is that it's a college town so there is easily accessible art, and indie movies and music, and cool books. And hot dudes.

You live directly across the street from the university so every summer since you were 11, you sit out on your porch and watch the college guys go to school for 'freshman orientation' until the end of August when they start to move in. You watch them and rate them against your top 3 fictional crushes, Ian Malcolm, Thurston Moore, and Arthur Rimbaud. Mostly they don't match up, even when you create detailed back stories for them. Sometimes, since you've gotten older, you even run into guys that you've watched at parties later on and they not only don't match up, they are pretty disappointing.

July 1999: you sit on the steps in front of your house watching young men pull up to the school, sipping coffee. You usually don't drink coffee, but your mom left some in the machine when she went to work, and 'sitting on your steps drinking coffee' seemed like a comforting idea for some reason.

I pull up to your curb in my 1988 Honda hatchback. I get out of the car. I'm wearing a Smiths t-shirt, cuffed jeans and a headband, though headbands were not in style in the late 90s. It's my attempt to stand out and 'be cool'. In high school, I wore a fedora until I realized it made me look like Ducky from PRETTY IN PINK. The headband, while still sort of 'ironic' and weird, wasn't Jon Cryer-full-commitment-weird like the fedora was. Besides, I'm a college dude now.

You watch me unload a few boxes from my trunk. You think I'm sort of cute. You like my t-shirt. You then almost immediately forget about me as I walk away towards the school.

Later that night, while asleep, you dream. In the dream you're in the desert and you find a small hole in the ground. Though nervous, you decide to climb down into it. 'This is like ALICE IN WONDERLAND', you think. After crawling through a tunnel for a few minutes you come upon a opening into a large cavern. There are hundreds of you there. Though it is off-putting to see a few hundred clones of yourself standing in a cave under the ground, you actually feel fine, or possibly really good. No one is speaking, the clones are smiling to each other and you. A clone standing near the front of the group holds her finger up into the air and her fingernail lights up like E.T.'s. She moves her hand around in a repeating, fluid, and beautiful motion. You are somewhat hypnotized. The lines of light her finger is making are only in the air for a microsecond. Is she trying to tell you something? Spell something out? It sort of looks like a drawing of a face. Whose face? Is it the guy you saw going to school earlier in the day? Is it me?

You wake up. You attempt to dismiss the cave of clones as just another weird dream in a long line, but you can't help but think that it means something more. Maybe your Aboriginal blood still connects you to the Dreamtime. Maybe those 'clones' were actually your ancestors or you from parallel dimensions, or the atoms that make up your body attempting to tell you something.

You get dressed and go back out on the steps. You start to forget about the dream, and begin your usual interior monologue that wonders if there's something more to life than what's available to a 16 year old suburban girl. Suddenly the hatchback pulls up again.

I get out of the car and approach in what can only be described as an 'awkward skip'. Without speaking, I hand you a CD.

It's a mix CD. I made it for you a few hours ago. I saw you yesterday and thought you were pretty, but then I had a dream about you last night and couldn't get you out of my head. I started to feel almost obsessed.

You, of course, don't know all this. For now, you just have a CD in your hand and a guy wearing a headband standing in front of you looking uncomfortable.

- That night: You listen to the CD.

- 1 night later: I stop by your house and ask you if you liked it.

- 2 nights later: We have our first date.

- 90 nights later: I profess my love to you outside of a Superchunk show.

- 200 nights later: I start to seem distant. Maybe you're too young for me? You tell me about the dream you had before we first met. I play it off like it doesn't matter, but it makes me feel weird. I never tell you about my dream about you.

- 220 nights later: You break up with me in a Barnes and Noble parking lot. I take my headband off and throw it dramatically on the ground. A single tear rolls down my cheek. 'Songs and dreams and love all come from the same place', I mutter, and then run away sobbing.

3 Posters.

2010-07-23T11:49:00.000-07:00

1. Noby Noby Boy themed poster for a Katamari and Noby Noby-themed charity art show happening at Floating World in September.

2. Lizard themed poster for a show featuring the Radar Bros that Arthur is having tomorrow.

3. Space themed poster for nothing yet.

Meta: The most I ever laugh at myself is when I try to write dry facts about things, like the above. I don't know what this says about my sense of humor, other than I find realistic and accurate descriptions hilarious.

T Shirts.

2010-06-30T07:46:00.000-07:00

I now have a spreadshirt page where you can buy t-shirts I've designed if you want.
I've been sitting in front of my laptop, staring just past it out the window watching everyone in the apartment building across the street from my place go to work/school/their drug dealer for the past 3 hours, typing out what was going to be this blog post. Then, a few minutes ago, I deleted the 15 paragraphs I wrote as I quit smoking a few days ago and, everything I say, or write, or do right now has the vibe of a suicide note, or a serial killer manifesto, or a Paul Schrader screenplay, or a love poem to cigarettes, or an opera about my issues with my father, or negative criticisms of everything anyone has ever said or done, or vaguely insulting limericks about my dog, or choreography for a musical called 'I Hate You, Me', or a stereotypical blog post.

Things I Accidentally Posted On Other People's Facebook.

2010-06-09T12:30:00.000-07:00

I had a dream last night that I volunteered to help clean up the oil spill, and ended up on a beach surrounded my hundreds of people, and helicopters, and jeeps, and large vacuums, and lifeguards. One of these lifeguards asked me if I wanted to go up in a helicopter and hang off the side 'Vietnam-style' and I was like 'No. I'll die.' And he said 'How do you know?' And I said 'Trust me, dude.' And then I waded out into the ocean with a shovel, but got nervous that the undertow was going to drown me and swam back to shore.

When I got back, everyone was really nice and chill, like volunteers sometimes are in their volunteer community and not online where they sometimes accost you for your semantics when talking about politics. Another lifeguard, who was sort of a mixture of SJ Chambers' husband, Josh, and a stereotypical, BAYWATCH cast member told me he heard I was into comics. I said I kind of was. I tried to downplay it because I was tired from swimming and didn't want to get caught up in a conversation with a dream lifeguard. He told me there was a famous cartoonist that had a studio nearby and we could go see if he was there. So we went.

The 'famous cartoonist' was sort of like Dave Sim. At first, I expected him to be an asshole, but he was very polite and talked endlessly about the stop-motion movie he was making. After a few hours, he asked us to leave because he had to work. I kept thinking that I should get his autograph. I reached into my bag to get a piece of paper and realized it was ripped on the bottom and everything was falling out of it. I said 'Why is this happening?' And the dream lifeguard said 'that's what always happens when you put too much stuff in a bag.' I was still nervous about asking for an autograph. I lied to the cartoonist that I had read everything he'd ever done, even though I had only read about half of his comics (in my dream past). While still fumbling for paper I pulled out a gigantic bag of Skittles and spilled them all over the floor. I was sort of horrified. I attempted to pick them up one by one, while the cartoonist acted frustrated that we weren't leaving.

I woke up.

Things I did before I went to sleep last night:
- Read about the oil spill.
- Watched a couple of interviews with Dave Sim on Youtube.
- Played a war videogame featuring helicopters.
- Thought about going to the beach.

I'm one of those people that mostly remembers every detail from their dreams. Sometimes I write them down. Sometimes I use them in comics, or on Twitter. I'm sometimes tempted to tell them to people, but I don't think anyone actually wants to hear about other people's dreams. It's boring. I tell them to Aleks, but I tell her boring shit all day. There's a part in Paul Bowles' THE SHELTERING SKY where the character that's essentially Bowles says something like 'dreams are only interesting to the people that have them.' Then he dies of malaria or something. In the movie that character is played by John Malkovich. It's terrible. There's these two weird, dream-like scenes though where the real Paul Bowles is sitting in a bar and he's giving voice-over narration by reading from the book, but his mouth isn't moving. It's like the director is suggesting the entire film is happening in Bowles' head or that he's telepathic, and it's jarring and reminds me of that scene in MULLHOLAND DRIVE where the dude goes behind the diner to see if his nightmare is going to come true. That scene is the scariest, most realistically frightening thing, I've ever seen in a movie, I think. Even though the dream dude kind of looks like the Predator.

I have a feeling that scene was based on an actual dream David Lynch had, and he told it to people and they were bored, but they feigned interest because he's fucking David Lynch. And then when they saw it in the movie, they were like 'that's actually a decent metaphor, maybe I should pay attention when other people talk.' And then they tried that for a few days and realized everyone is actually speaking in metaphors all the time but it's never really about anything interesting, and slowly they went back to half listening and thinking about taking pictures to post on Facebook, or a really good sandwich that they ate, or a dream they had the night before.

Paws.

2010-05-25T09:55:00.000-07:00

The first 22 pages of PAWS are now up on the Arthur Magazine blog in their GreenerMags comics viewer which is essentially the Imax of comics viewers. You know, if the internet was a movie theater, and webcomics were movies, and I was a Hollywood creative type and spent all my money on Na'vi costumes for my butler and maid, and they got kind of angry because they had finally gotten used to serving me while dressed as Lord of the Rings characters, and the blue makeup just gets everywhere, and hypothetical situations were real.

I think it looks really good like this and is much easier to read than my own website which I build by opening Dreamweaver and yelling and moaning and rolling around on the floor until an ambulance shows up and I ask a random paramedic to FTP a bunch of jpgs.

The rest of the Arthur comics are at the link as well, and are pretty much all totally awesome.

Re Up.

2010-05-12T20:59:00.001-07:00

Sometimes when I can't hear something someone said I'm like 'Re-up? Re-up?' And they stare at me blankly while I think, 'Oh please remember I said this to you in three years when everyone else is using the same expression, so that somewhere in the back of your mind you will think of me as a 'futurist' like HG Welles or Dennis Gabor or Bob Gale. And one day when you're trying to get your future children to watch BACK TO THE FUTURE 2 because you remember it as a 'great movie' from when you were a kid, and they don't really want to watch it because it's old, and you're like 'no, I used to love this' and then you put it on your 3-D tv set and it slowly dawns on you that it is really horrible. And you start to realize your kids hate you for a reason, and you really wish they didn't, but it's not their fault, or your ex-wife's fault, or anyone's fault but your own, you and your blinding nostalgia. Jesus Christ, your whole fucking life is a lie? Maybe, maybe not. But how can you tell if you're really seeing anything clearly? You'll never know. And then you'll be like, "hey remember that guy, Pete Toms? He had a nice beard for a while."

As I've mentioned elsewhere, I put the first 21 pages of PAWS up here.

That's just less than half of how long I think the comic is going to be. I put 21 pages up because when I originally wrote the script for this thing it was 21 pages long. I still have that draft. And going by it , I'd be on page 3. Which probably doesn't mean anything to anyone else, but I've realized that drawing comics (probably like making most art) is essentially developing compulsions, and imaginary rules and then sticking to them. Every cartoonist has their own style, and way of working, and rules about working, and page layout and sound effects, and thought bubbles and what looks good, and what they're trying to say, man and spend hours using these to create incredibly detailed imaginary worlds, that usually attempt to communicate 800 things in the half second it takes to read a panel, and then people on the internet wonder why they usually go insane mid-career.

I'm just saying that I'm probably well on my way to insanity. And I should've known PAWS was going to be longer than 21 pages when I forced myself to write what I wanted the 'theme' of the comic to be and I rambled on for 10 pages. Though admittedly, most of my personal writing are asides, allusions to old Spider-Man comics, and inside jokes I share with my dog.

I have a comic in the totally awesome DIAMOND 5 anthology. I talked a little more about it on my tumblr.

Below is a 4 page comic I did for a zine:

Recently.

2010-03-24T09:04:00.001-07:00

Diamond 5.

2010-03-11T22:56:00.000-08:00

The Deal: Floating World Comics puts out a comic-newspaper thing called DIAMOND. It is always awesome. They put together a new one that's in full color, which means three things:

1: I know people are used to black and white newsprint comics, only expecting to see color cartoons on Sunday. With a full color newspaper you can pretend every day is Sunday. Show it to your boss, never go to work again. It's Sunday, man. Spend all your time celebrating the end of the weekend. Watching football, drinking beer and crying in your car in the church parking lot, whatever it is you normally do on a Sunday, this gives you the opportunity to do it forever.

2: I won't have to find every comic store in New York that carries it and spend hours coloring all the copies in with crayons, leaving me to devote more time to my true calling, doing that to as many copies of the New York Post and b&w indie comics from the 90's as I can find everyday.

3: It costs more money to print.

So they're asking for donations to help make all those things possible. I've seen most of the issue and it's great. The dude that put it together, Jason Leivian, has excellent taste, and is insanely good to cartoonists. One time, I complained about a pack of small dogs in my neighborhood barking and keeping me up at night, and he flew to New Jersey and murdered them with his bare hands. While watching a shirtless man hold a chihuahua over his head and tear it in half seems like something you'd never want to see, as the blood hit his face and he muttered 'Yo quiero Taco Bell, now?', I realized the true beauty in helping people, and violence, and the need to destroy the corporate advertising we've had shoved in our heads by any means necessary, if just for a moment.

Pledge if you want: http://kck.st/d0oFy7 I have a comic in there as does Stanley Lieber, Benjamin Marra, Derek Ballard, Michael Deforge, Panayiotis Terzis, and Cleon Peterson.

Paws Part 1.

2010-02-19T09:45:00.000-08:00

9 page preview of my new comic PAWS on the ARTHUR BLOG.

I know I already posted this on my 200 other blogs, and I was going to make a joke about not being able to remember things that referenced MEMENTO, but I was all 'Hey me, the 90's are over. No one cares about MEMENTO anymore. You don't even see screencaps of it on Tumblr. And besides, it was just the serious version of that Dana Carvey movie where he wakes up every day unable to remember the day before. I think that movie was called something like BLANK SLATE but I know we're both too lazy to google it, and will forget even talking about it in 5 to 10 minutes. How weird is it that Hollywood used to make Dana Carvey vehicles? Remember that one where he finds a rich dude's wallet and steals his identity? They should make a serious version of that with Gerard Butler, and Russell Crowe, IDENTITY THIEF, and get Ridley Scott to direct it.'

I'm going to put PAWS up on my site in 9 page 'chapters' so hopefully by next month 18 pages will be up. At some point I'd like to do one of those page at a time weekly webcomics, but as the winter winds down, I barely have the energy or will to eat once a week, so updating my site every 7 days would be an Olympian task. Actually, I'm assuming webcomics will be an Olympic event within the next 20 years or so. Not that I'm going to compete. I'll be kind of old by then. But I will wear my American flag running suit, sit in front of my TV and cheer you on as you draw stick figures and make fun of whatever videogame you're playing. If I have a TV in 20 years. I'm not saying TVs will be replaced in the future, I'm just saying there's a chance I won't own one. I am not psychic. Though we can all guide the future with our minds in a lot of ways, and right now I am going to use my mind to guide myself towards a future where I remember how to write blog posts again.

I haven't seen ARACHNOPHOBIA since it was first released, but I think about it a lot.

2010-02-03T23:38:00.000-08:00

Last two shots are from my new career as an over-30, teen model.

Dave Nuss wrote a really nice review of PINK TOMBS.

And this website is pretty scare-larious.

Redux.

2010-01-23T13:40:00.001-08:00

(cross posted apologies again)

My comic, PINK TOMBS OF YOUTH, is available for purchase again through the comixpress site.

I have this dream that Natalie Merchant works in the dollar store by me, and spends her days doing Stevie Nicks' spins in Stevie Nicks' dresses, opening bags of pencils so she can sell them individually, is still really excited that Clinton was elected, and remains content in her decision to quit 10,000 Maniacs.

That's more of a random daydream though. I had an actual sleeping dream the other night that John C. Reilly and I went out on a date, and I felt awkward because I didn't know how to bring up the fact that I'm not interested in a homosexual relationship, mostly because I was having such a good time.

Every time I think about 10,000 Maniacs, which isn't that often, I can't think of any of their songs or videos. All I remember is Natalie Merchant dancing with Michael Stipe at the MTV Clinton Inauguration special and half of a joke from a WHO'S THE BOSS episode. Something about 10,000 people being a large amount of band members.

I can also barely remember anything about WHO'S THE BOSS except for that, and a song that might be from the same episode that's played by the daughter's new boyfriend's 'punk' band. They are practicing in the garage and play a song about Reagan. Tony mentions that Bush is now president. They say that Reagan sounds better. Then the laugh track probably kicks in. I've had that song somewhere in my head for 20 years.

I do remember bits and pieces of Natalie Merchant's solo career, and a girl I went to high school with being really into her. Her bedroom door had photos of Merchant cut out of magazines along with Sinead O' Connor. This girl eventually became the first riot grrl in my high school. She got in trouble for writing 'slut' on herself in marker.

I think I'm friends with her on Facebook.

Most people I know are really creative people and are constantly making things. Some of them, though, made one thing that they're really proud of and have no actual intention to ever make anything again. Sometimes they say the will but they never really seem to mean it. I think both are respectable, but every once in a while I do get tired of hearing about the making of an album someone did when they were 15 years old for the thousandth time.

I've been sold out of PINK TOMBS for a while now. It took my friend Dean enough correspondence with comixpress that getting them to list it in their store can, in a certain light, be seen as the completion of an Arthurian quest. When I originally had copies for sale, I made this LJ post explaining the comic and myself.

It's supposed to also be listed in the 'retailer' section of the site where stores can buy it at a discount. I'm not sure this is the case. If you are a store, or own a store, or work in a store, and want to purchase a few copies, just drop me an email and I'll figure it out.

I'm working on new stuff, and have, early in the morning, heard myself mutter aloud, 'If I don't put out two more comic pamphlets this year, I'll just kill myself,' which is one sentence containing over 80 cries for help. It is also more comedically dramatic, and contains more planning than any other thought I would ever allow myself to seriously entertain in my head. Death threats just seem to make good deadlines, as any hostage taker would probably agree.

Thanks.

Where I'm At.

2010-01-15T00:55:00.001-08:00

(I'm posting this around, so sorry if you've read it before. I'd be slightly more sorry if you just couldn't stop yourself from reading it though. What I'm saying is I'm especially sorry to people with OCD and those guys that leave comments on blog posts that say that this isn't what they want to read, and if you're going to write about movies on a comics blog, they'll still read it but they will be so so angry, at least until they calm themselves down by organizing the pencils on their desk by date purchased and possible religious affiliation again.)

Happy new year (Like with most things I do, I celebrate holidays about 2 weeks after they end in order to gauge public reaction, and cater my enthusiasm accordingly. Also, Xmas stuff is so much cheaper in the middle of January).

2010: One Tear At a Time

Sometimes I go outside. Even more infrequently, I'm outdoors and I run into someone I know. They ask me what I've been up to, and I pull a switchblade out of my leather fanny pack, snap my fingers and say 'Don't you read my blogs?' They say no, the switchblade turns out to be one of those switchblade combs, and I comb my hair while jogging back home in reverse attempting to erase the last few minutes of my life. It's embarrassing and never works, so I'm going to attempt to avoid it in the future.

Places I am on the Internet:

I FEEL AWESOME

My website. It gets updated sort of infrequently as I have a really old version of Dreamweaver on my computer, and apparently in earlier versions of the program, a lot of the keyboard shortcuts only worked if you pressed SHIFT and screamed 'cocksucker' while crying for an hour. It does have most of my music, and my comics PINK TOMBS and SLASHR on it.

MYSTIC MILK

My blog. Mostly using it to post finished illustrations right now. I used to update it a lot more, but I've been distracted by tumblr and the non-non-stop cocaine and dog grooming party that is my life recently. Really I'm just mostly drawing comics now, and if I was to write posts about my process every day, it would be 'Been inking Page 8 for about 12 hours, thinking about eating a sandwich, why are we really here and what's it all about, maybe I'll watch ROBOCOP again, I wish I was really friends with ROBOCOP, then he could kill my Dad and it would be legal, but maybe I'd be sad, WHO KNOWS' forever.

FLICKR

I put most of my drawings and photos here. If nothing else, flickr will always be the only website I pay for, and one of the few websites that break 90% of the time I'm on it.

TUMBLR

I originally started using this just to post about stuff that I liked every once in a while. I'm now using it as my main blog. Let's say I was Harvey Keitel in TAXI DRIVER, my Tumblr would be Jodie Foster. And it would be less awkward when Aleks caught me saying 'Who's my sweet baby' to my laptop.

TWITTER

Every day.

LIVEJOURNAL

Still using this though mostly to read the daily posts on my friends page about how no one uses livejournal anymore. Planning on quitting on my 50th birthday.

FACEBOOK

I mainly started using facebook so I could see the pics my dog would take of me while I was sleeping and untag the ones where she put makeup and wigs on me. Then I started using it to keep abreast of what people I went to high school with think about reality tv shows, and what aging is like for people living the unexamined life. Then I started using it when I felt I was overly happy, to try to even out and depress my mood. Last week I used it to write stream of conscious status updates immediately after waking up. All I'm saying is I should probably take a social networking class.

FORMSPRING

Just started using this but I might already be tired of it as I'm now mostly getting questions that are either vague insults or reference the way I answer formspring questions. Both of which are fine, but I'm pretty sure answering questions with 'fuck you' or too many meta references is what got Oscar Wilde thrown in jail.

Happy Holidays.

2009-12-22T23:05:00.000-08:00

Whatever rituals your ancestors were into, enjoy them, or enjoy avoiding them and revel in your contemporary knowledge while laughing at ghosts. Also, happy new year.

C&D drawing for Arthur.

Too Many Mikes drawing for the podcast. I believe the show hasn't officially started as they have to get the mayor of San Francisco's wife to break a bottle of champagne over their mp3 compression software or something, but there's a sort of pilot episode up, and it is hilarious. Fake Dracula voices is almost always the key to my humor heart.

Interview.

2009-12-03T23:24:00.000-08:00

This is sort of old news by now, but I forgot to link the interview I did with S.J. Chambers.

My Favorite Artist.

2009-12-03T01:41:00.000-08:00

This is kind of a random anecdote that I haven't thought about in a while, but I'm attempting to practice telling stories again in case I get invited to any high-society cocktail parties over the holidays, and I get tired of just explaining why I showed up not wearing any pants.

A couple of years ago Aleks and I were on the subway. I think it was around Christmas, and we might have been headed to the Port Authority to take a bus to my Mom's house for the holiday. It was crowded, but we got a seat. Through the standing crowd of people and shopping bags, and across the aisle from us, there was a clean cut guy, who looked like he was in his 30s, wearing a pea coat and jeans. If you were take a giant gold pan to Manhattan and scoop up a random group of 30 year old white men, shaking out the homeless people, the struggling tattoo artists that really want to be film directors but are interning at Time Warner, the art school alums that came to New York to work for galleries after graduation and are just starting to realize that being a shirtless waiter covered in glitter for the gallery owner's weekend parties might not help their photography careers, and the Wall Street guys that play in experimental electronic bands on the weekends, you'd end up with a lot of dudes that looked like this. He was average. And he was staring at Aleks really hard.

As people do when a random person is leering at their girlfriend through a crowded subway car, I stared at him, and prepared to kill him with my mind. Failing that, I was going to attempt to injure him in some way through telekinetic, laser knives fired from my eyes. Then I realized he had a sketchbook on his lap and was carefully drawing.

Every art teacher, or at least everybody on livejournal that draws comics where a really muscular wolf that looks vaguely like them makes out with a sexy fox that looks like a female fox version of their roommate, tells artists to go out and draw from life. A lot of people take this advice.

I put my fake psychic weapons away, but kept looking at the dude, just in case. For about a half and hour to 40 minutes he stared at Aleks, then his sketchbook, then Aleks again, while intensely concentrating on drawing her. Our stop came. As we were getting off the train I walked past him, and looked down to see his work. This is a re-creation, but it is extremely close to what I saw:

The Links In My Mind Are Mostly Broken URLs.

2009-11-17T22:18:00.000-08:00

DanceDance from Madeleine Bliss on Vimeo

I was just eating some cake that Madeleine gave me, and while I was mostly thinking 'Cake cake cake, don't choke Pete, CAKE', I also realized I forgot to link her video in my post from earlier today.

2009-11-17T10:59:00.001-08:00

I have a theory that almost all Bruce Willis movies are about the lone, conservative, American male fighting against our liberal, changing world (global economy, immigration, women executives, the internet). I also have a theory that every Keanu Reeves movie is about the next step of human evolution. Neither has anything to do with the DIE HARD comic above.

Cuban Links:

The second part of Stanley Lieber's ENSIGN SMURF went up on Arthur last week.
I recommend it to everyone, but specifically to people that spend their days crying about the fact that there's no good webcomics. Let Stanley Lieber dry your tears with his silk-gloved hands.
Full disclosure: I colored it.
Fuller disclosure: I love it.

As usual, I actually recommend pretty much everything on the Arthur Comics Blog. Every time Jason posts something I get all excited about comics and think about drawing. Then I usually lay on the floor and age. But that's an important part of the comics-making process.
Current Faves:
Jesse Moynihan's GWC.
Jason Overby's Compression.
Farel Dalrymple's Pop Gun War 2.
There's like 10 more but I'm tired of copying and pasting the links.

Donald Dean Bigbee has a new music blog.
Don makes a lot of very awesome music, and according to the links to it that he put up everywhere on the internet, this is his hidden blog for secret music projects.

S.J. Chambers interviewed Aleks for Jeff Vandermeer's blog.
Human excellence meets in short conversation.
Selena also asked me to post this as we both know most of the people that would read this blog are steampunkers and read it on their iphones they've modded with a tiny tophat:

Noted Archivist Seeks Steampunks to Index

World Fantasy Award winner Jeff VanderMeer's The Steampunk Bible, published by Abrams Image, will provide a comprehensive and lavish overview of all aspects of Steampunk, in text and pictures. Research for this momentous and globe-spanning project includes the compilation of a comprehensive Archive of, and Index to, everything and everyone Steampunk and Steampunk-Related. This Archive will be made public online, and you also might be contacted about appearing in the book.

If you would like a website or blog link, book or brick-and-mortar establishment, to be considered for the archive, please send the relevant information to Master Archivist S.J. Chambers (steampunkbible at gmail.com) or to The Steampunk Bible, c/o Jeff VanderMeer, POB 4248, Tallahassee, FL 32315 USA. Make sure to include a short paragraph describing your submission and your complete contact information. Although the Master Archivist's extensive list of ongoing clockwork projects makes it impossible to guarantee a reply, you may be sure she will give each missive intense scrutiny. As part of a Larger Study, please consider including Your Personal Definition of Steampunk with your email message or snail mail parcel. Rest assured, the Master Archivist and her minions are also out in the World, actively seeking Steampunks for the greater glory of the Archive.

I'm telling myself I'm wrong in the comments too.

2009-11-04T13:41:00.000-08:00

I haven't seen the TV show MAD MEN for the sole reason that I'm pretty sure it would make me want to kill myself. I've heard people talk about it though. And I've seen animated .gifs of the characters in livejournal avatars. With this knowledge, I can pretend to know why it's so popular; the most beloved form of entertainment right now is marketing.

I'm not saying people like it because it's actually about marketing. I think viewers realize MAD MEN isn't so much a show about ad executives as it is a show about selling a retro style of 'cool', nice clothes and the idea that cable makes classier entertainment than network television. That's why people like it, not because they want those things advertised to them, but because the show makes very obvious what it's trying to sell. All media is 'secretly' trying to sell you something, and by putting it not so much under the surface as just further away on the surface, MAD MEN is making viewers feel like they figured it out. It's real subliminal advertising is that it's making you feel smarter for watching it.

That's what's cool now, I think, having knowledge about marketing, figuring out why and how things are being sold to you. And it's been cool for a while. Most blogs or forums about movies are more likely to talk about how GI JOE was marketed than the actual (terrible) film. I think this, rather than decreasing attention spans, are why trailers are seemingly more popular than the films they're advertising. People into BATMAN don't so much talk about what he's up to, or how he's drawn than how he's being sold to the comic readers or how he could be sold to not comic readers. I realize this isn't new as it's been going on since the 60s, or since I've been on the Internet at least, but I think it's popularity has entered the mainstream, and there was a slight change in the discussion about it and how it's treated a couple of years ago.

I was raised by HE MAN. A show created to sell me action figures. I had no problem with this. I was also an impressionable 12 year old when grunge music happened. Remember 1991? Kurt Cobain said Rolling Stone was a corporate magazine, the music industry was fake, patriarchal society is just trying to sell us pre packaged fear and rebellion. He might as well of said 'Fuck He-Man.' But He-Man was my father, and no matter how much adolescent rage I'm going to throw at him, somewhere there is love.

College music and the college attitude became cool. Gen X, like their hippy parents before them, started to slightly rebel against marketing culture. Then, also like their parents before them, they got jobs, and had to start marketing themselves and their companies. And companies started having to advertise to them. There was a certain guilt embedded into Gen X advertising that carried over into companies and people advertising on the web. A friendly, sort of, 'this is an ad, we're sorry for trying to pull one over on you, but please buy our shit.' People used to apologize for having to register or have ads on their blogs. They felt sorry, or at least, knew you knew you were being marketed to and didn't want you to object. They also wanted you to feel like you were part of a group of people reclaiming the marketing machine. He-Man still wants you to buy his toys, but he's sorry he tried to trick you.

And, of course, it being Gen X, there was heavy use of irony. Indie music blogs started talking about, or singing the merits of Billy Joel or Britney Spears. Ads were all 'wink, wink, buy.' But it was cool, because they were kind of kidding. But they also kind of weren't. And now they totally aren't.

People a few years younger than me were raised by Pokemon. A show created to sell video games. They were impressionable 12 year olds when rappers and boy bands were the most popular music acts. Both rappers and pop groups have no qualms about advertising. You know what record label a rapper is on, or when his new album is coming out because he says it in his songs. These kids also grew up on not only ironic advertising, but web advertising, like Google, and Amazon, that is more personalized, but also much more obvious. They know everything is an ad, and I don't think they don't give a shit.

A lot of blogs have ads, and most blogs are almost attempting to sell the blogger as a product. A lot of people have Twitter accounts selling themselves (sometimes, it seems, for no reason). Most vlogs I see on Youtube essentially beg for comments, or star ratings. Corporate run websites or magazines, like Vice or Paste or Flickr, don't really hide the fact that they're owned by a corporation. They don't care, and don't expect you to.

You can listen to Billy Joel or Britney Spears or Madonna unironically.

The difference between the sons and daughters of He-Man and She-Ra and the children of Pokemon (besides one group's likelihood to be sexually attracted to furry cartoon monsters) is that marketing is no longer hidden, or at least not hidden in the same way.
Marketing has just become something else you do, like painting, or coding, or making music. And people love to criticize it like they used to criticize painting, or coding, or music. And that criticism is one of the most popular forms of entertainment right now.

I can't believe I'm still typing, so I'm going to avoid the whole Republican VS Democrat, Apple VS PC, Xbox VS PS3, thing. Or that Kurt Cobain is a video game now (I like him more as a video game). Also I'm grossly generalizing, yo, and not saying one thing is better than the other.

I have all this stuff in mind when I'm trying to make a website for my artwork. I've had a domain for about 5 years now and I've been slowly updating it and changing things around the entire time. I want a site that's all 'hey look at my drawings, if you want', but I sort of need a site that also says 'and give me some of your money.' I don't want to come across like He-Man or Pokemon. Which is probably why I don't get jobs. Then I had a break-through the other night and came up with this:

http://ifeelawesome.net/dollars

Also, if anyone wants to pay me to attempt to write the longest set up for a joke ever, I'm your man.

Here's a song:

The Cancellation of Quasar

Here's the first 3 pages of the comic I'm working on right now, PAWS. I'm going to put it on my site to read in chunks. I've been waiting for a good stopping place for part 1. At first I was going to stop at page 5, but now I'm thinking 10. If this line of thought continues, Part 1 may encompass the entire thing.

Halloween.

2009-11-01T09:34:00.001-08:00

Old News/Self Conscious Blogging.

2009-10-02T09:39:00.000-07:00

I put the 16 page comic I made for Stanley Lieber's Fake anthology and have been posting pieces of for the past 2 months or so here if you'd like to read it.

Speaking of SL and comics; you can download, or buy his comic (on paper, or, I believe, laser disc) The Abandonment Of Cruelty here. My totally lazy review of it is: it's like Eddie Campbell drawing Valis, bro.

I originally wrote this post last week and saved it as a draft, as I am young, and busy, and run from hip social engagement to hip social engagement, hopped up on Red Bull and metatextual references. Or I had to go to my Grandmother's birthday party. For the past 7 days, I've been tweaking and slightly editing this while reminding myself that it's a blog and not something important like a thesis paper, or a groundbreaking scientific research article, or an internet video game review. This is why I normally just stop doing things at the first sign of being finished. I'd never actually consider comics or songs, or blog posts to be 'done' otherwise. I'd be the George Lucas of blogging.

I'm hoping that paragraph makes more sense, but remains equally as thrilling when I turn it into a 350 page mass market paperback called Save As Draft, Save As Death.

All that being said, I think the 12 paragraphs (no joke) I wrote about the Running Man script don't necessarily need to exist outside my head. Although making a blog post about the making of the same blog post probably doesn't either.

This is the cover to my next comic of which I've drawn one page so far. I keep going back and forth on whether to run the thing as a weekly-ish webcomic or just wait to put all of it up when it's done (I'm hoping between November/December and 2020).

Hippies.

2009-09-16T09:51:00.000-07:00

Two drawings I did a couple of weeks ago for an article about Phish fans in The Portland Mercury.

First time in a while I had a lot of fun doing an illustration for someone else. I got an email from a dude that's into Phish talking about the band today, and I had to admit that while chances are I have heard them, I can't remember it actually happening. Music, for me, just like the news, poetry, or love, doesn't exist unless it happens in a Raekwon song.

Rom N Roll.

2009-09-03T10:02:00.000-07:00

My Rom drawing for the Bill Mantlo fundraiser Spacenight that's happening at Floating World Comics in December. Here's the blog for it.

I realized a few days ago that I neglected to mention it here, but I still have a (very) few copies of my Pink Tombs comic for sale. It's $8. More info on my livejournal

For sale at comixpress.

I'll probably do another print run once these sell out, though that may take a while. They should, however, be available at 1, 2 or 3 comic stores soon, so I'll let you know. I'm also wondering if the comixpress webstore only looks like a pit of despair, and if it would be worth selling it through them.

I feel like this post reads as if I used a blog template to write it. 'Insert Image, Insert Description, Insert Link' Insert Life Update:

I haven't been writing on the internet too much recently as I've been feeling a little blogged out. Not so much in a 'I went on a picnic, and there's a 3-d world out there, with 3-d women and I cried, so I'm deleting my Myspace' way, more in a cranky, my new neighbors are really into this music that's a mix of traditional Latin songs with club beats, and it could be breaking my brain, and I've cut down on caffeine which is causing me to have emotions, or at least one emotion: grumpiness -way. Though, after 15 years of being protein deficient, I have discovered these things called 'protein drinks' which are making me feel almost human again. So I should be back to typing about random comics from the 1980s, and the magic of Teaneck, New Jersey in no time.

2 4 U.

2009-08-10T13:41:00.000-07:00

1

Stanley Lieber made a comic for you to read called Ensign Smurf. The first part is up on the Arthur Blog.
I was going to write about how SL is an internetional treasure, ect but then I realized that I'm tired and cranky, and you could easily read the first few pages of the comic and discover this for yourself if you haven't already. Such is the magic of comics that they contain a dense amount of information in a small space. And part of the Ensign Smurf information package is the sentence 'I'm Stanley Lieber, I'm a genius motherfucker.'

2

I made you a mix. Sometimes when I'm kind of bored or procrastinating on 'paying my bills' (writing suicide notes to credit card companies) or work or whatever, I start cutting together samples to use in my music. I however, almost never use them. Not because I'm afraid of copyright infringement as I laugh at copyright (not really but sometimes I write 'LOL' inside of copyright symbols on things), but because every time I do use a piece from someone else's song, someone points out how it's the best part, or really impressive for my music. Which in itself would be okay if it didn't lead to me slowly punching myself in the face for a few hours.

Anyway, this is bits and pieces of songs and noises and whatever. If you were to imagine being in a club that replaced dancing and drinking with napping and birdwatching it might make more sense. I'll put up a tracklist for it when I get a chance to listen to the thing again.

more slashr.

2009-08-07T10:43:00.000-07:00

two more pages from this comic. i should be done drawing it sometime between this weekend and 2011. hopefully when read at once the whole thing makes slightly more sense. committing myself to work solely on this until i finish it was, while honorable, possibly a bad idea as my personal life lies in so much ruin i can't convince anyone to go see the gi joe movie with me.

yesterday we spent 20 hours vaguely house sitting, but more specifically doing laundry and watching an endless amount of cable television. these are some things i learned:

-television now allows you to just pick a tv show/movie to watch. it's like a world where space time does not exist. or it's like watching tv on the internet without chinese subtitles at the bottom of the screen. i guess i should mention here that i haven't had cable in 10 years.

-watching too much tv may give me brain damage. i think mostly because it lacks the interactivity of the internet. 3 hours in and i was lulled into a near catatonic state that is only now beginning to lift. when i'm online, i'm usually doing 40 things at once. when i'm watching 'babylon a.d.' on tv, i have only vin diesel's living poetry to occupy my mind. i'm not saying it's bad, it just makes me feel weird and unconnected. remember that episode of 'terminator: the sarah connor chronicles' where the john henry robot gets unplugged and he won't speak or move until he is allowed back on the internet? no? i guess it's your fault the show got canceled then.

slashr.

2009-07-31T10:01:00.001-07:00

2 in sequence pages from the middle of the comic that i'm working on. hoping to finish it soon, or at least come up with some sort of 'tear guard' for my wacom tablet.

hey.

2009-07-26T08:47:00.000-07:00

still here yet find it difficult to blog in the summer due to all the time i spend sweating and feeling uncomfortable, attempting to discover humanity's true cosmic purpose and waging a holy war against mosquitoes.

i do find 10 minutes a day to tumble though.

manga jackson.

2009-07-05T10:06:00.000-07:00

i'm pretending you don't read any of my 200 other blogs while also pretending you'll read this.

2009-07-03T12:24:00.000-07:00

(first 2 pages from a comic i'm drawing for the FAKE COMICS anthology)

written in bullet points to give you the freedom your reading style desires:

- i am not dead (yet).

whenever i don't update here for a while some friends, but mostly people that i don't usually talk to start emailing and texting me asking 'what's up?' i, of course, read between the lines and assume they want to know if i am finally dead and aleks is finally single. this is again not the case. i took a couple of weeks off from drawing to get some comic scripts done. this led to playing a lot of infamous, totally forgetting how to draw (see above), and being kind of cranky. it also led to me remembering i kind of like writing and now currently write blog posts too long for anyone to read and emails with stories only tangentially related to the subject.

- tumblr.

i've been using my tumblr pretty often. i have dug the vibe (from what i've seen) of tumblr for a while. mystic milk had a long abandoned account there last year. i originally got this new one because in attempting to make my computer live i was going through and archiving a bunch of old files and found 200 short stories i had written and not posted anywhere because they were either terrible or i just didn't really know where to put them. so i figured i'd throw them on tumblr and forget about it. since i only thought of this 6 months ago and it would take like 10 minutes this didn't happen yet. i did get an iphone though so the ability to blog while i walk aimlessly around my town hoping no one wants to rob me has led to a bunch of random updates.

- gif week.

i also updated livejournal for 5 days in a haze of nostalgia. it was similar to when i saw duran duran's 'first ever reunion' show twice, 3 years apart from each other.

- not really important but you might be involved.

i've added a bunch of links to the side of this blog. there is a chance i forgot you. there is also a chance i put your name and made up your website. while it might seem socially awkward to mention either, if you want to toss off the chains of society's taboos just let me know and i'll add you/fix it. also if we don't know each other, and your websites there, i'm just a fan of yours and only slightly creepy.

- vlog.

i wasn't going to post this but whatever. vlog

- happy 4th of july.

i'll be wrapped in only an american flag eating grilled cheese all weekend in celebration.

i like in scifi when they let you know it's the future/alien planet by referring to concepts of time with made up words.

2009-06-10T12:18:00.000-07:00

i'm waiting every day for the cnn headline that reads 'too many blogs, not much to say: is this generation all typed out?'

for the first time in 200 consecutive years i didn't make it to the MOCCA fest this past weekend. i was kind of busy. saturday i ate a cupcake and sunday i had one of those oreo sundae things from baskin-robbins. judging from most of the stuff i've read about it on the internet it was hot and in a different building and this made people sad. i'm pretty sure mocca is really hot every year though my memory of the event is clogged by the fact that i mostly remember the searing sweat pouring into my eyes more than anything else.
according to fewer things i've read about it there were a lot of books that i now want and a bunch of awesome people there. unlike the highlander though, i live without regret. yet i am totally going next year.

and then you realize network tv is like 10 yrs behind the rest of pop culture and a single tear drops from your left eye.

2009-06-03T08:30:00.000-07:00

an abandoned idea for a comic strip. it was supposed to be about a cynical, sort of asshole tv writer from our time that wakes up 'reverse life on mars' style in a kind of post-apocalyptic future. he is constantly expecting some sort of dystopian/1984/almost every sci-fi movie situation to reveal itself, but everything is pretty much awesome.

i thought it'd be kind of funny, but i have since thought of things that are kind of funnier.

the characters were going to mostly be this group of guys i came up with a couple of years ago to be in another abandoned comic idea 'loveocalypse'. i wanted to do something that went against the whole apocalypse is coming/i want to fuck zombies/it doesn't matter it's the endtimes vibe that was going on in pop culture (i think it has since become an idea that is now just accepted as fact. 'yes, the zombies are coming out of the melted ice caps, i can eat as much cake as i want' type of thing). so i started to write a series of mini comics about this future city that was essentially a utopia. or, at least, a joketopia. and even though i wrote a scene where a guy has sex with an animated tree with a face, i got bored quickly.

maybe we're all humanators.

2009-05-26T07:35:00.000-07:00

with the all sorts of awesome 2nd half of the 2nd (final) season of the terminator tv show and the movie coming out last week, i don't think i've talked about anything else for the past month for longer than 30 seconds. it's getting to the point where the people around me are the human resistance and i am a lazy skynet machine firing theories about john connor's alternate time-lines bullets.

here's a new song:

the temple's all right

pink tombs series finale.

2009-05-18T06:40:00.001-07:00

the final 8 pages of my comic are up on the arthur blog.

i'll probably make another post talking about it a little more, once i actually wake up and/or convince myself of the possible illusion that people have read it, but you know the end of roseanne where you find out that much of the show was just a story roseanne was writing? i was going for not really that with a mix of those two cosby show episodes where he dreams about muppets.

i guess i should've labeled that 'roseanne spoiler' but those that know me know that i have 'roseanne spoiler' tattooed across my chest, and it's weird to overstate something like that.

not awake.

i'd actually take winter over summer 95% of the time (in a fistfight)

2009-05-17T08:23:00.000-07:00

a logo i made for aleks that i think captures much of her personality.

here's a song i recorded recently:
summer2009
after a self-imposed (the cia was only vaguely involved) exile from recording music since i finished my last album, i'm back in the game. if 'the game' is making poorly recorded pop music and not competitive break dancing as my parents always led me to believe. i've made a few songs. this is the one i actually like the least but it's also the only one that's finished. besides, it's topical. or seasonal. it actually works if you imagine me being 100% serious about it, in which case, it becomes kind of funny. also i realized the computer voice when you put a delay effect on it sounds like it's saying 'revolt'. kind of frightening, but not surprising. also 'summer 09' sounds kind of like 'summon odin'.

wwf.

2009-05-15T10:27:00.000-07:00

like most kids in the 80s, i was obsessed with pro wrestling. my interest hit its zenith and abruptly stopped at possibly the peak age for being a wrestling fan, 8 or 9 years old. in my grammar school 'yearbook' though i did list pro wrestler as my future career. i wonder what my younger self would think of me now that i have the body of a pro wrestler, but just waste it by sitting on the computer all day.

(no joke: in my 3rd grade yearbook i list 'the fall guy' as what i want to be when i grow up. sadly this didn't pan out either.)

in the wolverine sequel kitty will prob be his cousin or something.

2009-05-07T12:35:00.000-07:00

i believe the kitty pryde show that al and i are in along with 17 million other artists (at least 1 million amazing ones) is happening tonight at floating world.
full of pryde
floating world comics

i won't be there as i don't live in portland and will be busy being dressed as young, moustachioed, picard and telling people 'i'm not even born yet' at every screening of the new star trek i can get to for the next 4 days.

spring.

2009-05-04T13:03:00.001-07:00

b.

2009-04-30T08:39:00.000-07:00

bees.

2009-04-28T08:32:00.001-07:00

aleks woke up earlier today and stopped me from the beginning of my daily 20 hours of sitting motionless and wondering how i'm going to make enough money to survive next month, to let me know 'something' was in the bedroom. something that sounded like a bee. i went in to discover a bee (or wasp or hornet) that was about the size of my head. those that know me irl, know that an insect that is the size of my head is an insect that is, at the very least, 4 feet long. i ended up beating it to death with the 'songs of the 60s fakebook' (no joke) and then having to turn over the room to find it's corpse. i feel weirdly guilty about killing things, especially when they are the size of my dog. i felt weirder about it because as the bug died it said something along the lines of 'bzzzzdozzzyouzzzknowzwhatliezzzintheshadowzzzofthe
statuebuzz.'

this combined with the fact that i've been playing resistance for ps3, which heavily features alien scorpions and spiders makes me feel like i have bugs crawling all over my skin.

3 things i like on the internet today:

forming by jessie moynihan: possibly one of the best webcomics ever, as it has everything i like, space gods, aliens, prehistoric civilizations...

kevin hooyman's comic for arthur is also awesome.

and madelion's music video is all kinds of good:

the robocop 2 of my comic.

2009-04-24T08:05:00.000-07:00

next 6 pages are up on the arthur site.
they contain a musical number, civil war battles, drug use, jokes, a teepee and walk on cameos by both phoebe and biggz.

world wide web comic books.

2009-04-10T07:22:00.000-07:00

6 pages of my new comic are up on the arthur magazine site
.

more pages will follow soon-ish.

it's a comic based on the idea that the fictions we experience (books/movies/songs) and the ones we create are just as 'real' to us as our 'real life' experiences, especially when dealing with memory.
it's something i've thought a lot about since i watched masters of the universe on dvd a couple of years ago and realized that much of my remembered childhood was actually he-man's life. though i did have a cat that let me ride it around my neighborhood and i was surrounded by muscular, gay men throughout my younger years, there's not much he-man and i have in common. identity is interesting to me especially with how it's built by memory and how much that is tied up in the things we experience in our imagination as much as the things we experience physically. and i think it's even kind of weirder now, as opposed to my eternia years, as everyone blogs about their lives. we're all building a sort of public internet persona as well as our 'real' one. i'm rambling. which is why a drew a story about it, i guess.

of course you probably won't get any of that from the comic.

i'm really happy to be able to do something for arthur magazine as i actually read the mag and the website and really dig it. jason leivian is their online comics dude (as well as being involved in 600 other projects on a daily basis). and he's been posting really awesome shit there recently like farel dalrymple's pop gun war sequel and stuff by kevin hooyman and al columbia. and stanley lieber is working on a story for it that may finally reveal the sexuality of the internet.

blogging prof.

2009-04-07T08:46:00.000-07:00

like many people's grandparents during the late 20s/early 30s, the economic downturn has me going without certain things that i only recently considered necessities. and also like our grandparents, blogging is on top of that list. i do miss it.
all my time recently has been wrapped up in sort of obsessively working on one comic story (i got into that sort of weird hell dimension of re-drawing one page over and over), but in an exciting twist, i'm about to finish the 6th page and grandly reward myself with thinking about doing my laundry.
i think i forgot how to blog.

flower parachute

2009-04-02T14:17:00.000-07:00

that's how I would most likely phase if only i could.
For the Kitty Pryde show at floating world comics.

Why, I will never give up on juice pouches.

Minute Maid coolers
your secret pocket
eludes me.

kitty pryde.

2009-03-25T08:33:00.000-07:00

this is a poster i did for a kitty pryde-themed, charity art show that'll be happening at floating world comics in may.

for the unXucated: kitty pryde was a teenage member of the x-men in the 80s who hung out with wolverine a lot, until she got a little older and then she ended up being trapped inside a giant space bullet. i think she might be most famous for being a sexually active 14 year old superhero. kitty was one of the few mutant characters i liked as a kid.

her power was that she could walk through walls. which is a pretty decent ability for a kid superhero. this is before they started giving child heroes the power to melt people's eyes and perform psychic abortions. walking through walls, as some people that wrote her realized, is just on the right side of lame though. i always wondered/worried about the mutants at xavier's school that had shitty mutant powers. i think because when i was a kid, i assumed, if i was a mutant, obviously my chances of having shitty powers were pretty good. i'm not sure if this was explored in the comic. in the second x-men movie though, there's the kid whose power, it seems, is the ability to change the channels on a tv by blinking. there's a short scene where wolverine walks in on him using his power alone in the x-common room late at night. it's in the movie to show how weird it is at the school, but it also shows that in a place that has all these people with awesome powers, it would be so lonely and depressing to be the kid that is cursed with remote control eyelids.

kitty pryde was eventually kind of replaced by the character jubilee whose power, i think, was that her fingernails lit up or something.

bearzebub

2009-03-21T23:06:00.000-07:00

it's finally spring.

i hate sundays page 3.

2009-03-17T09:07:00.001-07:00

here's the previous 2 pages in case you don't have them memorized/hate looking for things as much as i do/weren't born when i originally posted them.

this thing will only 4 pages long in the end. i was going to wait until i was finished with it and post the whole thing together, but it has taken a slow yet dramatic tumble down the priority list.

if you're an american that wants to be irish/hate pagans/love holidays/need an excuse for your rampant alcoholism/need any excuse to feel, really/accidentally wore green to work today and thought 'aw shit' when you realized what day it was/are one of those people that have a calendar with random holidays on it and are like 'hey it's reindeer fitness day in canada! happy reindeer fitness day!'/a frat boy/own a bar/are living with an unemployed irish guy that never stops playing call of duty and you really need some time to yourself at least for one day: happy st. patrick's day.

Lists and header

2009-03-13T19:10:00.001-07:00

I found this cool Catalog card generator. I wasted way too much time making a bunch of lists. Try it out.

--------------------------------------------

Made a new blog header for fun.

luckily i've been setting the clocks one minute ahead for the past 60 days.

2009-03-08T08:54:00.000-07:00

that last picture is supposed to be noby noby boy. we've been playing the game a lot and so should you for these reasons:
it's really fun and weirdly relaxing.
while i'm 40% the game exists to hypnotize the people playing it, the hypnosis is of the type where you don't remember the assassinations/robberies you committed while under, so it's guilt free.
every time you think it's getting boring, and you want to turn it off, you find some other seemingly small and generally inconsequential thing you can do in the game and it seems awesome. which, of course, is exactly like real life and the reason i've yet to kill myself.
and probably most importantly: the way the game advances 'levels' and unlocks new things is through the cumulative score of everyone playing it. so, like a death cult, the more people involved, the better the game gets.
and it's only $5. unless you don't have a playstation 3. then it's like $505, yet possibly still worth it.

Elevenses Group Show

2009-03-03T11:28:00.000-08:00

I have a couple of pieces in this group show. Check it out if you're in Honolulu.
Curated by Jen Callejo. Opens March 6th.

winter comics.

2009-03-03T07:16:00.000-08:00

anytime the weather gets insanely 'wintery' (like the 60 feet of snow we just got), this late in the season, i imagine puxatony phil sitting in his lair, rubbing his tiny paws together and laughing maniacally.

ACE Hotel preview

2009-02-28T21:52:00.000-08:00

This is something I've been working on for ACE Hotel in NYC. I'll take a proper picture of it once the canvas is installed in the hotel.

PSH calendar.

2009-02-25T08:17:00.001-08:00

PSH calendar for march.
download.
previously: february.

i could've stopped typing but i haven't talked in days.

2009-02-24T07:42:00.000-08:00

in the beginning of every february i get vague, soul-crushing depression, usually followed by the flu. seeing as this has happened for at least the past 20 years in the same exact way, you would think that i would have discovered a way to avoid at least one of these things. but, last week as i sat in my isolation room, wearing my chem hazard suit and eating spoonfuls of prozac, i began sniffling and realized; the february depression/flu is my destiny and there is nothing i can do to break the cycle.

while i was concentrating on attempting to breath, i also realized i should probably put up some of the half written blog posts i have sitting on my hard drive. i will most likely die unloved, but i won't die unblogged. at least that's what my tattoo says. this file was called 'recently found books' though now it's not so recent. unless you're sort of old, i guess. i mean, my mom says things like 'they just opened that dunkin donuts in...uh, 1996.'

in an old box of comics i found this 'return of the jedi production sketchbook'. i had a bunch of books like this as a kid, mostly star wars and indiana jones, but this one has like 20 pages of ewoks.

i really like p. craig russell's art, especially during the early 80s and i am finally willing to admit my absolute love for michael moorcock's elric, so i had been looking for this book for a while. it's called 'elric: the dreaming city' it was published as a marvel graphic novel in 1981-ish and has a script by roy thomas. i found it in back of the frightening hell that is my local comic store. the art in it is fucking unbelievable. it's this mixture of 70s fantasy/heavy metal/psychedelic/comic art, with possibly the best coloring ever.

every few months aleks and i go to the amazing store 'time machine' in the city. last time i was there i got a few issues of 'marvel fanfare'. one of them contained a bill sienkiewicz 'portfolio' as well as a comic apologizing for the $1.25 price (glossy paper) and a message from ralph macchio explaining he doesn't have any resolutions for the new year because he has made marvel so awesome in his time as editor, it really has no where else to go.

besides the portfolio, the best part about this comic is there's an 'out of continuity' dr. strange story that the editor decided to make 'in continuity' by negating everything that happens with editorial boxes that say things like 'not really, see dr. strange #251'. including the conclusion and entire theme of the thing. strange realizes at the end that you can't make snap judgments of people because all humans have the ability to be heroes. and underneath this realization is a box that says 'but the doctor was actually right in his original judgment see dr. strange...'

aleks, as usual, got a bunch of old sci fi movie magazines which have stills from movies that are probably horrible but look like the best things ever made (dr. phibes is awesome though).

webcomics 4ever.

2009-02-17T08:08:00.001-08:00

for valentine's day aleks sent me the long awaited (by me) next page of harmonium.
here: http://www.ifeelawesome.net/harmonium2.html

i have at least 75 unfinished and never updated webcomics yet i'm still thinking of starting another one.

i also updated my website: http://ifeelawesome.net

happy birthday aleks.

2009-02-12T07:44:00.000-08:00

my only regret is that the butter isn't painted gold.

2009-02-10T23:43:00.000-08:00

I've only got hasty, badly drawn comics in me.

train.

2009-02-09T14:18:00.001-08:00

maybe i do have too many blogs.

2009-02-06T14:09:00.001-08:00

my new album
zip file
aleks drew the cover.
a lot of talk about the songs on livejournal
and i also put it on cllct

the internet is vast. and looks down on us like bugs. bugs that are its children though. and possibly its gods.

interview.

2009-02-03T06:48:00.000-08:00

there's a short interview with aleks up on the chalkboard blog. i don't want to spoil anything, but the twist ending took me by surprise.

world domination pants.

2009-01-30T13:30:00.000-08:00

this is one of the couple of drawings i did (prior to it's editorial remix) for the videogame zine world domination plan. as society collapses around us and we retreat into the interactive fantasy of virtual worlds (perhaps our final fantasy), we may need publications like this to keep our flesh anchored partially in this plain of existence and to help prepare us for the eventual abandonment of our earthly bodies. maybe. you can buy it at the website. edited by dean (with audio engineering and backing vocals by kraig marshall).

papi.

2009-01-27T00:05:00.001-08:00

PSH calendar.

2009-01-24T15:44:00.000-08:00

This is part of our new project, the PSH calendar. We're going to post a philip seymour hoffman themed calendar page every month, for free. Print it out, et voila. Can you guess which movie this is from?

click here to download FEBRUARY.

docudrama.

2009-01-23T06:25:00.000-08:00

come on tanelorn. from godownmatthew on Vimeo.

promo video, documentary thing about my new album. as i've mentioned maybe 200 times before, it's done, and as i've also mentioned 200 times before, i'll put it up soon.

pete and aleks, january.

2009-01-19T14:57:00.000-08:00

only a few hundred things can tame it.

2009-01-19T08:36:00.000-08:00

a new-ish song:
the real wild hearts- go down, matthew.

this is one of those songs that you write and think 'i'll just keep it simple' and then so much goes wrong with recording it that you realize that it's probably cursed. and then you start to wonder where exactly you got all of your instrument cables from and maybe one of them belonged to your obviously cursed ex roommate or a voodoo priest touched one while it was on the shelf at guitar center. or maybe you yourself have some sort of hex on you for not giving spare change to a homeless wizard. then you wonder how you could go about decursing everything and purifying your body and mind, and you end up in the fetal position in bed wondering where it all went wrong. but it happens to everybody once in a while.

i have no idea how people that use autotune fight the temptation to make everything have a chipmunk robot type voice.

winter is a non stop party. please help me.

2009-01-13T21:45:00.000-08:00

biggz&garfriend.

2009-01-08T10:56:00.001-08:00

i'm still really bad at scanning. amongst other things obviously.

song.

2009-01-07T08:46:00.000-08:00

people more appreciative mp3- go down, matthew.

trying out my new recording setup, involving many wires, a mic that runs on magic, and buttons that do things i doubt i will ever understand.

holidays.

2009-01-05T07:57:00.000-08:00

happy new year. so far, for me, 2009 has been mostly about sleeping but also about being grumpy and nursing my drawing/moving/wii/obsessive computer use - induced wrist injury. hoping to turn it around today. with the power of prayer (satanic).

saddle the lightning.

2008-12-30T20:27:00.001-08:00

i have 1 or 2 more posts almost ready to go for tomorrow, but in the case that i end up playing civ on my ds for the next 16 hours and completely lose the use of my hands, have a happy new year.

happy holidays.

2008-12-22T18:27:00.000-08:00