from the sketchbook

It's a robot fish, an animal whose head looks a lot like a shoe, and a light bulb with a bow tie.  Obviously.

tiny clothes

From my sketchbook!  I drew regular-sized clothes, then drew them again as small as my pen would allow.

hopworks urban brewery, 7-grain stout: a review

I’ve learned much about microbrews in my four years as a non-native Portlander.  Between the rain, the hipsters, and the abundance of wheat grown in the state, Portland  is a vortex of good local beer.  A “Perfect Storm” of brewing, if you will.  When I was asked to do a guest post for Bula’s Best, my thoughts immediately turned to that bastion of organic brewing just over the Ross Island bridge, Hopworks Urban Brewery.

Hopworks Urban Brewery is a special place, and not just because you go there to get drunk.  They cater to the bike lifestyle of Portland, offering plenty of bike parking and being conveniently located near the popular trail, the Springwater Corridor. Hopworks is a biker bar for bicyclists. 

Organic isn’t just some passing fancy at the HUB, whose slogan is “Organic Beer For All.”  When you belly up to the bar, get ready to save the planet while you drink.

This time I tried their Organic Survival “7-Grain” Stout.  Clocking in at 5.3% ABVs, 15 Degrees Plato, and 35 IBUs, the Survival Stout lives up to its nickname: it is brewed with barley, wheat, oats, amaranth, quinoa, spelt and kamut.  If you’re thinking “breakfast beer,” you’d be right, because it has been topped off with Stumptown Hairbender espresso.  It’s like cereal that gets you drunk.

I tried Survival Stout as a midday snack during happy hour, and it certainly did the trick.  After two pints you can wobble home on your bike, but visit when it isn’t raining and you’ll have a much happier ride.

A natural dark brown (like the trunk of the ubiquitous Douglas Fir), Survival Stout has a pleasant nutty aftertaste.  You definitely notice those grains; like bread, the Survival Stout is better with more.  Can we get a 12-Grain version someday?

If Survival Stout were a person, he would be a deliriously mellow hippie, lazing on his front lawn soaking up the summer sun.  He’ll always smile as you pass his house and if you ever get to talking he’ll pepper his language with words like “sustainable” and “auspicious.” Of course I mean that in the best possible way.

Cost: $4.99 for 1 pint 6 oz at your neighborhood grocer, $3.50 per glass during happy hour.

friday robots

light boxxing

Matt Groening used to trace his comic strip, Life in Hell, using his sliding glass door.  He'd do the pencil sketch, then tape it up on the door and ink the final strip while standing.  The fact that he lived in sunny Los Angeles probably helped; if I had to wait for a sunny day in Portland I'd never get any inking done.  And forget using a brush, unless you like the Pollock drip method applied to comics.

 

My light box is one of my most useful drawing tools.  I don't use it for everything, but when I need a little light shed on a situation (har har), it can't be beat.

Another tracing method I've recently tried is good old fashioned tracing paper.  I'm able to draw in pen on the tracing paper, because when I scan the image it looks the same as if I drew on Bristol board.  I only use tracing paper for little drawings or pieces of larger things; drawing an entire comic on tracing paper wouldn't be pretty.  I press too hard when I draw; the paper would get torn.  And the originals would get crinkled up and lost.


In my high school art class, there was a huge light box that allowed you to put your sketch on a shelf that you could crank up and down.  You could make the sketch bigger or smaller to fit the final drawing.  Because it was in a bright classroom, our art teacher had built black curtains all around the light box.  You entered it like a voting booth.  I wonder if Matt Groening has one of those in his house now, since he's got like a billion dollars.  I know I would.

keep portland beard

I got to thinking about the ubiquitous Keep Portland Weird bumper stickers you see on all the nicest cars around here.  Similarly, I've been urged to Keep Boulder Weird and to Keep Austin Weird.  I hope I did.  Anyway, I came up with a variation on this theme:

And in case you like your bumper stickers less font-y:

I hope I've helped keep Portland weird today.  If that didn't work, tomorrow I'll post a rambling open letter to the zoo's polar bear.

Big Phail

Time to weigh in on the issue of the day (or months, as it has been).

Ha ha.  Joke's on you, planet Earth.

Seriously, I can't think of a more pertinent and chilling metaphor for the fate that awaits us all if we don't change our oil-consuming ways than the inky black mass of death that is currently floating towards the Gulf Coast states.

father to son

When I was three days old, my dad sat me down at the kitchen table.  He set a coconut in front of me and said, "Son, if you want to survive in this world, you need to be a man."

He said that I had to open and eat that coconut or I would die of starvation.  And you know what?  At three days old, I opened and ate that coconut.

My dad went to the neighborhood bar that night, as he did every Monday-Thursday for the first 20 years of my life.  But that night was different; that night was special.  My dad told all the guys at the bar that he had a son, and his son was a real man.

Thanks Dad, for letting me be your son.

friday robots: oak park edition

With font and design inspired by legendary cape-wearer Frank Lloyd Wright.

Happy Friday everybody!

books for sale

I just checked Powells City of Books; they only have 4 copies left of See America First!  If you find yourself in that bookstore anytime soon be sure to grab a copy before they're all gone.  You can find them in the Green Room!

Big news on the book front: See America First! is now on sale in the great city of Los Angeles!  Meltdown Comics and Collectibles, a behemoth comic shop on Sunset Boulevard, has begun stocking my book.  Many thanks to to their brilliant buyers; now let's make sure they don't regret their choice.  SoCal fans of Falling Rock, make sure to patronize the heck out of Meltdown.

And for Oregon fans who live west of Portland and east of the Pacific Ocean, Amazing Stories of Astoria now carries Falling Rock books.  Astoria, as you may well know, is the filming location and setting for The Goonies.  I am thrilled beyond belief to be associated, however tangentially, with that fine film.  Be sure to check out Amazing Stories, located in historic downtown Astoria.

i will never watch The Wolfman

My wife Isis and I were watching television one evening when a commercial advertising the movie The Wolfman came on.  It was moody, and action-packed, and had a dude who turned into a werewolf.

"I'd like to rent that when it comes out on DVD," I said casually.  I must emphasize the coolness with which I said this, because I was not hungering for The Wolfman.  I was not, in any way, lusting after the delicious, tender celluloid on which The Wolfman had been filmed.  I was merely, in my calm way, mentioning in passing that I'd someday be interested in viewing the movie that appeared so gracefully before us.

Isis' reaction could not have been more surprising.

"WE ARE NOT GOING TO SEE THAT MOVIE," she screamed.  "I'm tired of wasting my life watching terrible movies!  No more!  I've got better things to do than waste precious hours sitting in front of dreck like that!"

Stunned, I turned to look her directly.  Her face had transformed into something hideous.  Filled with rage, my wife had changed before my eyes.  I quickly checked the sky: nope, it was not a full moon.  What in that minute-long ad had turned my easygoing life partner into a vengeful monster?

I made the mistake of asking her that question.

"I'm just sick of wasting my life!" she said.  And that, it seems, was that.  I dropped the subject as other, less awful things were advertised. 

I have not seen The Wolfman to this day.  I kind of wish I could.  What about that particular movie inspired such a violent reaction in Isis?  Was it the subject matter?  A man turns into a werewolf and terrorizes the locals.  She likes the Warren Zevon song Werewolves of London.  She likes dogs and real-life wolves.  I don't think she has any problem with the actors in The Wolfman, and I know for a fact she likes scary movies.

Maybe the latter is the clue.  Isis likes scary movies, and we've seen a lot of them.  But we've made missteps.  Some of those movies have been bad.  Boring, or poorly edited, or uninspired, or all of the above.  Maybe Isis sat through her personal limit of bad movies, and if she sees one more, she will turn into a zombie.  We all have our limits.  I can't eat tuna fish anymore, and I used to eat tuna sandwiches all the time.  Isis is afraid that The Wolfman will be her breaking point.

I'm content to let the issue slide, mostly because The Wolfman wasn't a huge hit and wasn't reviewed very well.  I don't feel like I've missed out on a cultural touchstone.

Now, when they make a movie called The Wolfman Breakdances With Rashida Jones and Zooey Deschanel, there's not going to be a discussion.  We're seeing that in 3D.

what cartoonists do

So I needed to draw three characters sitting in a helicopter.  I know I've seen a ton of movies with this very shot, but I couldn't remember off the top of my head where I could get that particular screen capture.  I was having trouble drawing without reference, and I didn't have two friends handy in which to re-enact the scene.  What did I do to solve this artistic conundrum?  I took three pictures of myself sitting in three different chairs.  Then I went into Photoshop and made a quick combination of the three pictures.  Results below:

It's crude and wouldn't stand up to much scrutiny, photo-wise, but it totally worked.  I sketched out the figures (me, me, and me) and got a good drawing to work from.  I'm beginning to wonder if I should start drawing crowd scenes using this method.  If nothing else, it would make for some pretty funny doctored photos.

Oh, and behind the scenes, a small black cat wanted to be on the helicopter crew:

a never-used test website

For the longest time, I didn't like my website design.  I built the thing myself, and it showed.  A few years ago, I began working with a guy who knew how to use Flash animation.  I emailed him some drawings and he put them together as a test for a new front page.

Although it never ultimately came together, I always liked the animation and wanted to show it.  If you ever wanted to see a Falling Rock cartoon, here you go. 

Make sure you wait until Ranger Dee has finished walking onscreen and said her hello, then move your mouse over the signs on the signpost.  No links work, but at least you can see how it would've worked.

Begin the show!

i won't be watching the world cup

...but I have listened to that Shakira song about a hundred times already.

friday robots: submerged

This week's Friday Robots were inspired by my recent visit to the USS Blueback, a decommissioned submarine currently docked outside of the Oregon Museum of Science & Industry.  I took a tour with my brother and sister-in-law.

Here's a tip: if you ever get a chance to tour a submarine, take it.

It was a windy and rainy day outside.  The Willamette was choppy.

sada chai

Every morning I make a cup of tea.  I've got my favorite mugs, and I recently purchased a sweet  water boiler that tells you the temperature of the water as it heats.  The Japanese are serious about their tea, I'm forever thankful for that.

When my wife and I went to Ireland, we were introduced to several brands of strong black breakfast tea.  While I stocked up as much as I could, alas, the tea eventually ran out.  America has many things for sale, but Irish black tea is apparently not among the more accessible of them.  So, decaffeinated and lost, I began my search for an equivalent cup of tea.

The good people at Tao of Tea introduced me to a strong, dark brew known as Assam CTC, or Sada Chai. 

Sada Chai is not the same as the Irish breakfast tea.  The blend on the right is named 500 Mile Chai, the tea on the left is the tea itself without spices.  While highly caffeinated (for tea; we're not talking Red Bull here), Sada is much more mellow in flavor.  It also takes longer to brew than the Irish tea.  I'll leave it brewing for anywhere between 5 and 10 minutes while I prepare my breakfast.  The trick is to leave it in a long time, but if you wait too long the water starts to get cold.  The last thing you want is lukewarm tea.  Blerg.

While I generally brew it as straight tea (with a little milk), my wife does it up right.  She actually follows the directions on the tin, adding milk and spices and heating it all together.  I love it when she makes that for the both of us. 

I never knew my journey to find the perfect black tea would lead me to these rolled little leaves, but I'm glad it has.

pop gun war: chain letter, by farel dalrymple

Among the many cartoonists I wasn't able to see at Stumptown, Farel Dalrymple was high on my list of wish-I-could've.  I'd recently been introduced to his surreal Pop Gun War (which is nowhere near as violent as the title implies) and wanted to speak to this Irish guy who looks like he is drawing Brooklyn but is currently living in Portland.

Fortunately, I got my chance last week at Floating World Comics.  Farel was doing a signing for First Thursday.  We got to speak for a while, which is cool because I got to ask a thousand questions - mostly cartoonist shop-talk.  A few tidbits:

• He does use a brush, but also employs the PITT pen for detail work.  I use the "M" size PITT pen for Falling Rock, but I've been contemplating switching to brush.  That is something I'm going to experiment with this summer.

• For a guy who uses a lot of perspective (buildings, room interiors, sewers), he basically freehands his lines.  However, he does put down "a few" pencil guide lines, just to give himself a frame to work within.  This was gratifying for me, since his looser style would look very strange next to crisp, measured perspective lines.

Farel was promoting his new Pop Gun War story, Chain Letter, which he is self-publishing in four installments before collecting the whole shebang into a trade paperback.  I picked up the first two chapters, which are just as fantastic (and fantastical) as the original story.  A few sample pages:

Guys with tails, a kid with angel wings, a fallen astronaut, creepy sewer men, robot crows...this book has a little something for everyone.  If you think those pages are cool, wait until you see the color stuff.

underground, by steve lieber and jeff parker

Even though Steve Lieber is a Portland-based cartoonist, I met him all the way down in San Diego last year at ComicCon.  I immediately felt a connection with his work; his emphasis on location as a character in the graphic novel Whiteout really hooked me.  He realized Antarctica is not just a cool place as backdrop; he made it integral to the story (a murder mystery).  After reading part 1 of Whiteout, I immediately got part 2 and was just as taken with the purposefully messy & white art.

When I gave Steve a copy of my Falling Rock book collection, he reciprocated with a new story he was working on with Jeff Parker: Underground.  Underground is the story of a cave system in Kentucky and the park rangers whose job it is to protect it.  While my natural affinity for caves drew me in initially, it was the art and story that kept me reading.  The state park is under pressure from local business to 'open up' the cave for tourism; however, the rangers are skeptical that letting hordes of visitors into the cave will cause irreparable harm to its delicate ecosystem.

Park Ranger Wesley Fischer immediately endeared herself to me, for obvious reasons.  Besides being a pretty outdoorsy girl, Ranger Fischer is a complete character from the start.  You can feel her love for her work, coupled with a natural stubbornness that is exceedingly cute.

The story is propelled by two misunderstandings: Ranger Fischer's disgust that tourism dollars may be put ahead of a natural wonder, and the townspeople's irritation that a new park ranger would want to hinder them from making a living.  It is a common debate in towns that don't have much in the way of commerce or industry and want to exploit their scenic locations for tourism.  How do you balance nature and people?

Don't imagine for one minute that this is a story devoid of action.  Lieber and Parker spin a tale so compelling that I read the entire collected volume - 125 pages - in one go.  Murder, mystery, suspense.  And let's not forget fish without eyes and BATS.

Still not entirely sure you're interested?  Well, they've generously put up the first chapter FOR FREE online.  Read it and decide for yourself.

friday robots: come see!

Of course there are Friday Robots living in Falling Rock National Park.  They're just hard to find.  But come out anyway, you'll have a great time regardless of how many robots you see.

Please refrain from feeding the robots during your visit to Falling Rock.  Like Yellowstone's bears, Friday Robots are wild but will learn to tear open cars if they know there's food to be had.

the periodic table of robots

This post can now be found on my website.

over and over again

Dear Loser,

Thank you for applying for the Administrative Assistant I position.  After careful and deliberate consideration, we regret to inform you that you have not been chosen for an interview.

We have been particularly fortunate in receiving an unusually large number of qualified candidates.  With such a varied and promising field of candidates, it was a hard decision to make.

Best of luck on your future endeavors,

Blah blah blah