Pointless Man

I don't like birds--poor substitutes for dinosaurs, if you ask me--but I can't help drawing them with smiles.

For the Lord! For peace! For scientific inquiry! For Plymouth Rock! For...uh...Because! Recognizing comics as a medium of nearly immediate apprehension, I am sensitive to the effect of difficult-to-read pages. It almost hurts to decipher the writing above. But such is the result of the best and quickest method I have to upload comics at present. Apy-polo-logies for the inconvenience.

It occurs to me the smaller print didn't make a good transition in the photo. It would be nice to have my scanner up and running, but that would require a working PC. Alas. The dialogue in the upper right corner is as follows: THUG: I heard he pissed off a mob boss what throwed acid in his face. Afterwards. PREACHER: Lo, he was a lost lamb, a wandering heathen, 'til the light did come unto him and cleanse him of his face. Behold the tender mercies of the Lord. SAILOR: I posit he is a primitive ancestor of man--a proto-man, if you will--decked out to appear human. He is a clever fellow, you see.

Yesterday, I was riding the bus with my son when an urban camper climbed aboard with what I assumed was the sum total of his worldly possessions. "Telling stories to teach lessons about Jedi powers. It's about goddamn time," he was saying as he strode past. After mumbling to himself for awhile, he began regaling various passengers with his dogma. I couldn't quite make out what he was saying until he took his gospel to someone in front of me. "What do you think about my flag?" he asked the cornered passenger, pulling at his hand drawn t-shirt. "What do you think about my cross? Seven stars for the seven continents." He sat down. "See, it's not just about Jesus. I'm the second coming, but I'm beyond Jesus. I'm the resurrection of Luke Skywalker. "I finally cracked the Bible!" he happily declared. "I'm not crazy anymore!"

The tiny text at the bottom is about Wang Yangming , a general, governor, and neoconfucianist scholar from the Ming dynasty. He earned the nickname 'Mad Ardour' after keeping his newlywed wife waiting all night long, while he spent his honeymoon in a marathon conversation with a Taoist monk.

My apartment needs new flooring.

On the bus the other day, there was an older Filipino lady clad in varying shades of red, from hair to handbag, except for powder blue shirt sleeves peeking out of her crimson jacket. Seated next to her was an asian college student drowsing off, half hunched over his backpack. This inadvertent couple made a pleasing picture, so I began to sketch them. On the other side of the Asian kid, nearer to me, there was an uninteresting, white, middle-aged business-man. He kept shifting around and looking at me uncomfortably. I didn't say anything, but I wanted to tell him, "Relax, this isn't about you." Maybe I should have. Of course, I doubt I could have kept myself from adding, "You're boring," which is why I kept my mouth shut. My other thought was to show him the drawing, but I wasn't sure he'd understand. There had to be a more reassuring course of action. After all, not talking is often a poor way to communicate with strangers. Unfortunately, no...

When I was a kid, I was an angry little dude. As a teen, I struggled to translate this into my drawings.  Those efforts were exercises in frustration, both in what they exhibited and in how I felt about them. They were failures to my eyes, but plenty mad enough for others. I guess I could capture the desired emotion in a sketch, but it was hard to make my pages empathize, to burn from the inside and share their heat with the world.  In this way, drawings may be said to lose out to shots of whiskey and punches on the nose. It's been a while since I last tried any of that--I sip my overly expensive whiskey, thank you. In the interim, I think I've done a better job of making my pages collected, bored, and aloof than I ever did of making them angry. What does this say of me? Clearly, I have become a healthy, well-adjusted individual.

As a child, I had several drawing instructors.  I had a huge crush on one of them.  She was a talented cartoonist with fine arts training. Smart, cute, a no-harness and no help kind of rock climber before it was cool to go off and break your leg, she listened to early eighties metal and let me draw whatever I wanted to. I still have the sketchbook and card she made me for my birthday one year.  I pretty much hated my other art teachers. They had no interest in helping me realize my comicbook dreams. Still, I guess I did okay under them.  In 1990, a pastel of mine sold for $125. After agent and gallery fees, this netted me $75 (which, at age nine, was still a lot).  My mom reinvested the cash into my classes. I was dismayed. A few years later, I received some some of the most serendipitous advice I have ever been given. A family friend, who worked as an editor at DC Comics, looked over my sketches and suggested I avoid taking any art classes.  I was so p...

For the last few weeks, two public art projects have coexisted at Westlake Park, in the thick of Seattle's downtown. '((Borders))' is by Steinunn Thorarinsdottir , a metal sculptor who seems primarily interested in featureless people in various states and positions.  Originally installed outside of the U.N. headquarters, it is supposed to reflect something (or other) about multiculturalism.  Passersby seem most interested in the composition of the statues. Thoraninsdottir's site is pretty cool, by the way. Konstantin Dimopoulos's 'The Blue Trees' is meant to bring trees into contrast with their surroundings, and so remind people of them.  By extension, this is supposed to bring attention to deforestation, over-logging, and the like.  The actual effect is mere surreal wonderment, but anyone so confused can read the small sign standing in the middle of the park for clarification. I'm not sure how successful these are in achieving their stated int...

The final installment of the 'Solution', unless I decide to draw out the following ideas: -Glen Danzig in 'Heavy Metal Human Sacrifice' -Two Face in 'Homophobia' - Steve Martin, as Navin Jackson, in 'Jerks!'

A guest comic by my coworker, Lo Blanco.

God as depicted throughout the ages.  No Alanis Morissette, and, no, that isn't ironic.

Nat Turner and John Brown are both famous in the United States for having lead failed slave rebellions in the decades before the U.S. Civil War.  They have each inspired several artistic and historical works.  I read " The Confessions of Nat Turner " when I was 14, but have yet to read " John Brown's Body ". The KKK are, of course, racist dicks who Superman beat up .

Each panel originally had a caption, a feature which was scrapped in a silly attempt to bring cohesiveness to the page as a whole.  They were as follows: panel 1 - Pig fingers!  Carrot hands!  Cannot draw! panel 2 - Focus off. panel 3 - Perspective is a matter of perspective. panel 4 - What, me worry? In thinking about it, I suppose I might have impanelled these in the orange bar at the right, but it probably would've been a bit much. ... I'm not sure how wide-spread the campaign is, but in  Seattle, there are numerous billboards and bus signs which read, "Jesus is ____."  I want to play mad libs with these things, or else write in, "a day labourer."  Other acceptable answers include, "bearded," and, "featured in a Leonard Cohen song."

Part 1 of a series where every problem's solution is the same.

Getting good at drawing Spider-Man seems like it would be both fun and headache inducing--appropriate to the character.  It's harder to draw him than you might think.  Spidey is a funky dude.  He moves like a nerd with superpowers where his lower ribs should be, only with panache.  That's hard to capture. Then there's the web design on his suit.  I like drawing patterns, but it's difficult to get this one to conform to the body, and harder still to not let it distract from more important lines (his head's contours, for example).  Using nib pens and brushes would help, I'm sure.  Multiliners probably weren't the best choice in this situation, but they felt more comfortable otherwise, so I went with them. Despite having read hundreds of Spidey comics over the years, I never did any firm sketches of the guy until I set out to make this drawing as a Christmas present for coworkers' children.  I think the lack of experience shows, but kids hard...

Something along the lines of what I might draw in the margins of someone else's papers or on a receipt at work. The big difference here is this was done with my thumbs. Not the most nimble digits, they. I also made an attempt not to go with my now standard starting point of the eye. Doing the same thing all the time gets comfortable, and may be good practice to start, but is ill conducive to creativity. If sketches like these are to be anything but mindless ticks recorded on paper, the sketcher has to at be willing to be weird and forget his usual tacks. Sometimes, I am successful in these minor endeavors. It's a little harder using just my thumbs, though. Have been considering getting a stylus to remove such excuses, but first, I'll need money.

Birds are a known source of mischief and poop. This bird is not modelled on anything real, though the pose is taken in part from my memory of an African grey parrot which used to terrorize my house whenever my mom decided to let the thing run free.  The majority of birds are feathered, little dinosaurs, and should be eaten. Photoshop Issues (yes, with a capital 'I') at the right margin are due to my wish to keep the balance it had when I drew the thing around several holes punched in its side.  I suck at Photoshop, but I'm still better at using it than getting a good photo of a drawing out of my phone. So, hurrah for my revived scanner and all it offers.  Hurrah! As a part of my crusade against birds, here is Werner Herzog on the stupidity of chickens .