I'll Never See Your Smilin' Face or Touch Your Hand

This blog post first appeared in my e-newsletter I WAS BIGFOOT'S SHEMP.

This week was my birthday.  I took it off, which is a luxury when I can do it.  Since I turned 50 I have always taken a leisurely, ironic stroll past the neighboring graveyard on my birthday (is it a surprise that I live next to a graveyard?) but that seemed a little close to the bone this year.  I've been struggling with my blood sugar and especially my blood pressure lately.  My glucose monitor has several choices to pick from after you prick your finger and I always hit "I feel fine" because there isn't one that reads I FEEL LIKE HELL QUIT ASKING.  But I will lasso this in.

The beast of it for me is that when my daughter was married in 2014 I was diagnosed with Type II diabetes (after having an incident of disorientation I thought was because of all the stress). I went down four pants sizes and lost around 50 pounds and have stayed off insulin. My doctor said I was 1 in 100 patients but it could still catch up to me one day. Which is funny because until a month or two ago I felt better in my 50s than my 30s.  But i guess I can't outrace the devil forever.

So now my son is getting married, and I am doing the ceremony, on September 10 (not a Satanic Mass).  The reception is at my house.  And I mentioned last time my dog died.

I loved my dog like a person. She was our empty nest baby when my daughter went to college. She was a princess. It happened very quickly, over 72 hours. I think she had a massive stroke at 14. Her face was notably slack and she was stumbling around, whimpering and pacing all night. She was a West Highland White Terrier and that's about all they have in the tank as well. It was a hard decision to make but I respected her too much to let her suffer very long.

So maybe hitting the stress button hard and getting on some meds.  It would be awkward for everyone if I died right before the wedding.

I'm wanting to get started on a new project, so I decided to push the reset switch and just sit on the couch on my birthday and watch movies.  I burned my free seven-day SHUDDER preview I've held onto forever and watched GLORIOUS and ONE CUT OF THE DEAD, the first because an Indiana guy wrote it and the second because so many people have talked about it.  GLORIOUS is funny and original, about a Cthulhu-type monster trapped in a rest stop bathroom, and I'll leave it right there as to why it is called GLORIOUS.  ONE CUT OF THE DEAD is an incredibly meta zombie movie about some people making a zombie movie, and the storyline keeps nesting like Russian dolls.  This is a great, wild movie I'd recommend to anyone for an October watch.

I was going to watch BROADCAST SIGNAL INTRUSION and make it a triple play but I took a nap, these new blood pressure meds take some getting used to.

Been trying to feed my head in other ways too; I finally decided to tackle Grant Morrison's run on DOOM PATROL, mostly because I saw all three volumes in TPB at the public library.  It never struck me as a younger comic book reader but I have wanted to tackle this head trip as an older guy.  It's not like anything else, which is the kind of thing I need to put my eyes on sometimes.

I read a book I could recommend to my subscribers called SLEEPWALK by Dan Chaon.  It's about a mercenary and his loyal dog in a dystopian near-future (struggling to keep up with our real one) who starts to question his life when he finds out he has a daughter.  Our tarnished protagonist rattles through various genres on a number of broken highways, and it's a pretty original read.

I got a Carhartt hoodie for my birthday which finally made me articulate how I'm ready to put this busted-ass summer behind me.  Wishing all of you the best.

#Inktober 2017!

This post first appeared in my secret e-newsletter I WAS BIGFOOT'S SHEMP which you can subscribe to from this blog.

I didn't do as many #inktober sketches as I might have liked, getting about a dozen in.  Here are the most popular, as voted on by likes and comments on Instagram and Facebook.

At #3 was this request, which was to "draw Deadpool," not necessarily make a weird Fantastic Four lineup.  But this might make a cool one!  Here they are fighting The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants.

#2 was another request from my pal Tom, to draw Sunshine Superman and Skyrocket in one of those 60s style DC romance covers.  Weird, but I was happy with it.

And #1 I was super happy with, bringing back the Mind-Grabber Kid alongside a mind-controlled Justice Society and a pretty interesting Justice League line-up. I think this vaulted to #1 because of a discussion on Facebok about the frittered-away life of Amazing Man, killed senselessly with nobody bothering to bring him back.

I'll try to do more next year!

Just when we were about to fall into a show-hole, we thankfully found HOTEL BEAU SEJOUR, a Belgian crime show with supernatural overtones that kept me interested straight through.  Worth a try for the offbeat.  And we finished it just in time for the new season of THE GREAT BRITISH BAKING SHOW to appear on Netflix, a happy thing indeed.

Lots going on, and it seems like we are on a rocket to the holidays.  Talk again soon.

Funky Tornado

My swag from Days of the Dead in Indianapolis, showing off my love for the offbeat and the DIY world.

#Inktober 2016

I took another stab at #inktober this year, drawing a new picture for each day of the month, and didn't get as much drawing done as I wanted, but here are the top three most liked and commented on images I uploaded to Instagram and Facebook.  Far and away was my imaginary West Coast Avengers cover, which harkens back to my childhood desire to draw the covers of comic books I wished existed.

#Inktober

In 2014 I tried the #Inktober challenge, posting an Instagram picture of a drawing every day of the month of October (more or less), along with people of actual talent and skill.  Nonetheless the mind is drawn towards trying it again, so for your relative pleasure, here are the Top Ten most liked images (in order) from that run (adding Facebook and Instagram together).

China 9, Liberty 37

This  post originally appeared in a slightly different form in my newsletter I Was Bigfoot's Shemp, which you can subscribe to here.

In a single week I sold my house, closed on another, moved, and then jetted off to Italy.  One day, those seven days will seem funny.
As usual, I made my annual pilgrimage to the grave of fellow A/V nerd Guglielmo Marconi, and stocked up on fumetti.

But five trips to Italy later I finally fulfilled my dream of visiting Cinecitta, the legendary Italian film studio.

I had always wanted to go, but it is more than a dozen stops from Roma Termini, the central train station, so I have never been able to find the time.  Even though it is a giant studio space, there isn't a ton available to the public, but I still found it interesting.

As you might suspect, Fellini gets a lot of space here.  Apparently he used to crash out and sleep at the studio a lot back in the day.

In the museum, there is a lot of time spent on Italian Neorealism, one of my favorite genres even before I visited Italy, but also a fair chunk on Spaghetti Westerns and Sword and Sandal movies (or Peplum as they are called there).  I thought there might be a section on Poliziotesschi films (Italian cop movies) but I guess that genre hasn't reached critical nostalgia mass yet.

Since this is Italy, they also have an area dedicated to Italian starlets of the 60s and 70s like Sophia Loren, Claudia Cardinale, and the like.  There was a section about Cinecitta during World War II, and the destruction that led to Neorealism. 

I thought one of the more unusual displays was a room full of drawers that were objects that inspired various directors that have worked there.  The photo above was for Martin Scorsese's, and includes a pair of glasses he apparently left lying around.  Tarantino was the only other American director represented, but the great Sergio Leone left some junk there, as well as Roberto Benigni and Lina Wertmuller.

A pretty cool day, and I'm glad I went there.

In Dreams I Walk With You

This post first appeared in my new newsletter I Was Bigfoot's Shemp, which you can subscribe to right here.

 I think this was a work anxiety dream; that I was hired to write a DC comic book series, but at the last minute also had to draw it.  What I remember was a splash page where Doctor Fate arrives, with the skull of Red Tornado, to present to the Invisible Kid.

This was the second Invisible Kid, Jacques Foccart, added after a long run of having only white heroes in the Legion of Super-Heroes (if you don't count green and blue characters).  Later in DC Comics continuity Invisible Kid gets elected President of Earth, with Tyroc (actually one of the first African-American superheroes introduced in DC, ever) named as Vice President.  Naturally, the Earth subsequently blows up, putting Invisible Kid, Tyroc, and some other survivors on a New Earth, floating through space.

Mercifully, DC Comics has forgotten this ever happened.

In my dream, New Earth is stranded, melancholy, at the end of time, guarded by Doctor Fate's Tower of Fate.  This image struck me so much that I tried to draw it, to purge myself of the memory.  Here is the splash page from that imaginary comic:

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When I got back into reading comics in the 1980s one of the first comics I fell for was Jon Ostrander's SUICIDE SQUAD.  I wish I still had my signed copy of SUICIDE SQUAD #1, one of the few possessions I don't have any longer I would like to wish back.  So that's why COPRA is so awesome to me; an unapologetic riff on that 80s SUICIDE SQUAD comic by a guy named Michel Fiffe who must have read it as religiously as me.  Although that may be a small audience, what I think has resonated with people--and made this a cult sensation--is that the guy writes and draws it himself, and sells it on Etsy.  It's a model a lot of people are interested in, and he is succeeding at it.

I am also reading BITCH PLANET, which is getting a lot of attention, written by Kelly Sue DeConnick as sort of THE HANDMAID'S TALE meets ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK.  In a near future, "non-compliant" women are sent to a remote prison planet, and the action revolves around the subculture there as well as Earth's reaction to it.  It's the kind of comic book you suggest to people who don't read comics at all.  Interesting for its social and political commentary but also a fun comic.

And lastly I am working my way through THE SANDMAN: OVERTURE, a long-awaited addition to THE SANDMAN comic book series, really a milestone work in comics by author Neil Gaiman.  It relies somewhat heavily on being in love with the original run almost twenty years ago (and remembering it clearly), but the comics are so beautiful to look at it's worth it just for that.  The artist is JH Williams III, whose run on BATWOMAN blew a lot of people's minds.  I am reading this in trade paperback from the local public library, and it has plenty of extras packed in it to make it, I am guessing, the way to read this one if you are so inclined.

The Return of Ringo

Every time I visit Italy I think of this place, my favorite to visit; it's the large fumetti and giallo market at the Piazza della Repubblica. I always enjoy strolling through here and finding unusual things.

Marvel Two-In-One

More glimpses into the dark recesses of my mind while I'm doodling and talking on the phone at work.

World's Least Finest

I hope this papercloth tablecloth was there for this reason.

Mental Floss

Not sure why I was carrying these Post-Its in my wallet.

SPACE Oddities

My old pal Tom Cherry decided to table at the Small Press and Comics Expo this year, a great show in Columbus Ohio that we have both visited several times.  I offered to help him table, which mostly meant I walked around and talked to other cartoonists and then drew sketches that forced people to take a wide berth around his booth.  A fun day and a neat event.

SPACE Table

Tom Cherry's wares on display at SPACE.

SPACE Barbarism

I have been following Tom Scioli's career for a long time and met him some years ago at SPACE.  Here he is signing American Barbarian for me, a lunatic masterpiece.

SPACE Swag

Some of the stash I picked up at SPACE.  I am a longtime fan of Pam Bliss and really like her mixed-media Green Peas and Chickenhorses and was pleasantly surprised by something I'd never heard of before called Indestructible Universe Quarterly.  I picked up some new Cynicalman and King Cat Comics and really enjoyed meeting King Cat's John Porcellino.  I have been reading his autobiographical comic for over ten years and had the surreal experience of feeling like I knew somebody I had never met before.

Volunteers #1 Cover

Welcome to VOLUNTEERS #1, May 2004.  The germ of this idea came in the shadowy days after a bad migraine, when I was thinking about "found art"--making art out of whatever flotsam and jetsam happened to be lying around.
Thus, all of the dialogue in VOLUNTEERS #1 was chosen at random from old comic books I plucked out of an overflowing box, with the following caveats:  the comic book must be at least 15 years old, and preferably an obscure title or one no longer in print.
I wrote each one on a post-it, and kept re-arranging and re-arranging them until they made sense.  As you might suspect, I threw out a lot.
One might recognize the stalwart Volunteers from their guest-starring role in my prior comic book experiment, BAD EGGS #1, a 24 Hour Comic Book.

Volunteers #1 Page 1

TIGER-MAN #2, Atlas, 1975
SGT. STRYKER'S DEATH SQUAD, Atlas, 1975

Volunteers #1 Page 2

ALL-STAR WESTERN #1, DC, 1970
GHOST STORIES #18, Dell, 1967

Volunteers #1 Page 3

GHOST STORIES #18, Dell, 1967 (Continued)
WENDY THE GOOD LITTLE WITCH #91, Harvey, 1975
SON OF DRACULA #1, Atlas, 1975

Volunteers #1 Page 4

The issue's title comes from a text fiction story written by Gerry Conway in ALL-STAR WESTERN #1.