Welcome to Falling Rock National Park

new posts

2011-06-10T11:23:00.000-07:00

Hello dear readers,
I have now moved this blog to my website, where you can read my funny comic strip as well!
Please be sure to change your bookmarks and redirect those RSS readers so you can keep up with all the goings-on. Seriously, it's like Keeping Up With the Kardashians over there.

new post up

2011-06-02T10:13:00.001-07:00

Come on over to read my review of Phantasm and Phantasm 2:
www.joshshalek.com

friday robots...

2011-05-27T10:46:00.001-07:00

can be seen at my website:
www.joshshalek.com

Head on over! A great time is guaranteed for all!

happy birthday bob dylan

2011-05-24T09:16:00.000-07:00

Read my new post right here!

And if you haven't already, be sure to change your links, redirect your feedreeders, change yer bookmarks, and generally pretend this site never existed.

www.joshshalek.com !!!

from now on friday robots

2011-05-20T09:00:00.000-07:00

will be posted on my website only:
www.joshshalek.com

Go there now and enjoy some Friday Robot goodness.

change yer links, this blog is moving

2011-05-16T17:10:00.000-07:00

www.joshshalek.com

For some time I've been importing the posts from this blog to my main website, where they live beside my comics in peace and harmony. Now I feel it is time to make that an exclusive relationship.

I'm going to phase out this site in favor of my Wordpress blog at www.joshshalek.com. Over the next week or two, I'll try to keep updating this blog, but soon all new posts will be at www.joshshalek.com. Please change your links and feedreaders accordingly.

If you subscribe to my website, you will receive my blog posts as well as all new episodes of the cult phenomenon Welcome to Falling Rock National Park.

www.joshshalek.com

limbeck

2011-05-15T15:59:00.000-07:00

This post can now be seen on my website.

five years burning down the road

2011-05-13T07:00:00.000-07:00

Although it feels just like yesterday, I've been drawing Welcome to Falling Rock National Park for five years now. Today is the last episode of the fifth season.

I took this week to explore the edges of Falling Rock National Park and beyond. Faithful readers will remember another trip outside the confines of the park, when Pam, Ernesto and Carver drove a truck to California's beaches. This time Ernesto and Carver are on foot and so only get to the outskirts of Tucson, Arizona, before they're chased away by Animal Control.

Due to gainful employment, this was a busy year for me. I'm happy with what I achieved; I think I drew some funny drawings and wrote some funny words. Scenic Byways continues to climb the charts on its way to publishing history.

The main difference this year, at least for me, was in the way I drew the strips. I drew each panel in pencil on plain paper, then traced it in blue pencil onto Bristol board, then inked. This improved the compositions and made the characters more consistent from panel to panel. Next year I may even switch over to inking with a brush. If a brush was good enough for Bill Watterson, I figure, what the heck.

Thanks for reading, everybody. You, dear readers, make this whole slog worth it. I may not be a rich man, monetarily speaking, but with readers like you I know I've got something special.

This summer will certainly bring more blog posts, so keep checking back in on me. I also hope to finish my zombie book. If you are a publisher, let me say how much I've always loved you.

A few stats:

August 16, 2010 was the first episode of season five.
May 13, 2011 was the last episode of season five.

921: Falling Rock strips I've drawn. When I hit 1,000 I'm going to throw myself a huge party or something.

42: number on Ernesto's baseball jersey. Although Jackie Robinson's number was retired from all of professional baseball, Ernesto is allowed to continue wearing that number under a grandfather clause.

29: number of rejection letters I've received from comic syndicates regarding Falling Rock. This number will not grow as quickly in the future, since many of the syndicates have either merged or disappeared into the folds of the newspaper.

88 miles per hour: speed it takes to travel to either 1855, 1955, 1985 or 2015.

4.5 billion: age of our sun. It is the sun that gives life to this planet, allowing me to draw Welcome to Falling Rock National Park. I draw the sun as a spiral, in homage to the Native Americans who called the Southwest their home.

hat trick

2011-05-10T21:30:00.000-07:00

They say good things come in threes. This has certainly proved true for me this past month.

First, Isis and I moved into our new house:

The view is particularly inspiring:

Then, my mom brought me this piece of amber with bugs trapped in it:

From this humble piece of fossilized amber, I will one day run a park chock full of dinosaurs.

You'd think these two events would put me "over the top," as they say. Well, in one final, extraordinary twist of fate, I received a signed CD by Falling Rock's musical muse Esperanza Spalding:

There is a story behind this. I sent Ms. Spalding my latest book, Scenic Byways, and included a comic strip in which she pays a visit to Falling Rock National Park (this would hypothetically occur when she wasn't busy accepting a Grammy or opening for Prince). My comic appeared on her Facebook page and very soon after I got a mysterious envelope from a record company in Spain. The signed CD was inside.

I'm not sure if these things are connected, but I do know that, for the rest of my life, I will look back on this short time period with awe and gratitude.

APOLOGY CORNER: Sorry, SKS. I hope this doesn't take your Year of Shaft & Son out of the well-deserved spotlight.

primitive falling rock

2011-05-08T22:00:00.000-07:00

This post can now be viewed on my website.

free comic book day

2011-05-07T09:00:00.000-07:00

Today is Free Comic Book Day! Rush out to your local comic store and demand free stuff!

friday robots

2011-05-06T10:00:00.000-07:00

Happy Friday Robots Day! Though these robots are enclosed in boxes, rest assured they can still cause untold destruction at a moment's notice.

the hanging of bill watterson

2011-05-03T22:00:00.000-07:00

This post can be viewed on my website.

finally, a fishing joke

2011-05-02T21:14:00.000-07:00

This post can now be seen on my website.

friday robots

2011-04-29T10:32:00.000-07:00

This week's Friday Robots are dedicated to Biosphere 2, located just north of Tucson, Arizona.

Built on a whim by a billionaire, Biosphere 2's original mission was to see if people could live inside the glass structure for prolonged periods of time. B2 could have been the model for future lunar or Mars bases. Unfortunately, one of the Biospherians lost a finger and the rest ran out of oxygen before the mission was completed. Our dream of life on Moon Base 1 remains out of reach.

I also heard there was a giant octopus that snuck into B2's ocean and ate all the fish. That there is a giant octopus living in the Arizona desert pleases me beyond measure.

Biosphere 2 remains active, and is now being leased for the sum of $100 per year by the thrifty University of Arizona for scientific research.

Happy Friday everybody, and beware sneaky octopi.

tattoos i almost got

2011-04-27T22:00:00.000-07:00

All tattoos would have gone on my forehead, unless otherwise noted.

Eddie Vedder riding an eagle
The album cover (gatefold) to Led Zeppelin's Houses of the Holy

Abraham Lincoln slam dunking over LeBron James
Art Garfunkel's hair
Manet's Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe
Flying Mario

An ad for Jack Furrier's Western Tire Center (me & my car's best friend - yeah!)
I think that about covers it.

friday robots

2011-04-22T12:37:00.000-07:00

Here we have a team of superhero robots, as evidenced by their matching outfits and newsprint background. In a world of mayhem, robots may be the only ones capable of saving us from ourselves.

As a side note, these robots have been known to occasionally turn bandit and rob passing travelers of all their money. Superheroes gotta eat.

O

2011-04-19T21:53:00.000-07:00

Scenic Byways is now in the esteemed company of The Sound and The Fury, East of Eden, and The Bluest Eye!

Oprah Winfrey yanked a copy of Scenic Byways out from a pile of memoirs by twenty-year-old first-time authors and chose to elevate it to the status of National Treasure. Thanks, Oprah!

You can buy Scenic Byways here. Unfortunately I've run out of O Book Club stickers, but I will sign your copy if you ask.

stumptown 2011

2011-04-18T12:22:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I exhibited at the Stumptown Comics Fest right here in Portland.

Thanks to all the fine folks who stopped by table C-13 1/2 to chat or buy books. This being my third year as exhibitor, I saw some familiar faces which of course expanded my ego to an embarrassing size. If this is a taste of fame, I'm going to need a bigger skull.

Where would I be without my convention comrades? Kenan, Neil, Reid, and Matt all made the show feel like a weekend-long hangout. The highlight of the show was a jam comic that we all drew for Matt's birthday. Not only did we each draw a page, but we got such luminaries as Farel Dalrymple and Brandon Graham to contribute. It might be the best comic about a guy who gets locked out of his car and falls asleep, ever.

I met Portland mayor Sam Adams, who was wearing a faded flannel Columbia shirt - very appropriate, as Columbia Sportswear is proudly located here. He neglected to buy any of my books, which means he has lost my vote next time. Just kidding! Forcing a politician to buy something in exchange for a vote is probably illegal.

Scenic Byways continues to sell, climbing up the charts all the way to number 4,465,987,098. If you missed your chance to pick it up at the Oregon Convention Center, it's still available online.

Thanks also for all the trades! I've yet to begin my reading from Stumptown and MoCCA, but the pile of comics beckons me and I dare not resist much longer.

My next convention is none other than the San Diego Comic Con in July, where I hope to get my book into the dainty yet masculine hands of John Lasseter.

friday robots

2011-04-15T13:11:00.000-07:00

Today's robots are brought to you by the evening sky, which is happening later and later in the day to those of us in the northern hemisphere.

May these bright northern light robots bring you weekend joy, but always remember to duck if you see them coming for you. Joy can so quickly turn to sorrow.

MoCCA whoa

2011-04-12T11:29:00.000-07:00

MoCCA was held last weekend at The Armory. I had a blast in New York!

The Armory is apparently as famous for military history as it is for hosting art shows. Who would've thought the two worlds could coexist in harmony? This may be the only comic convention in which you can meet Ruben Bolling and get recruited for the army.

Kenan (creator of the Foldy Comic) and I shared a table. In a bit of bi-coastal symmetry, we will also share a table at this weekend's Stumptown Comics Fest.

Kenan lives in Brooklyn. I live in Portland. We both have foxy wives and black fluffy cats. We get along.

MoCCA was my first East Coast comics show, and it was great meeting so many new people, cartoonists and readers alike.

Of course, no convention would be complete without a Longstreth, and this show had two! Alec was there selling Phase 7, and his sister Galen ventured into the city on Saturday to promote her fantastic children's book, Yes, Let's. A group of us, including my Portland cartoonist brothers Reid and Matt, got some delicious Indian food at the end of the day.

One highlight of this trip was being able to finally see why everybody in New York lives in Brooklyn. A group of us cartoonists (including the esteemed Reid and Matt), as well as Kenan's life-partner, foldy comics folder, and internationally-feared lawyer Cate, ate at a Polish restaurant Sunday night. Ah, perogies.

Thanks for all the trades, fellow exhibitors! I have a huge pile of new comics to read, a weekend of experiences to remember always, and a song in my heart. What is that song, you ask? Is it a song written by one of New York City's more famous residents?

Nah. It's a bit more obscure than Johnny Rotten.

friday robots

2011-04-08T13:08:00.000-07:00

I'm in New York, but Friday Robots appear as scheduled:

These robots got stacked on top of each other in an almost reverse pyramid. That happens sometimes.

Have a great weekend everybody!

dancing with jack ketch second printing

2011-04-05T08:25:00.000-07:00

I didn't want last week's big announcement of Scenic Byways to crowd out the equally exciting news that my pirate story, Dancing With Jack Ketch, is now available again!

Now in its second print, Dancing With Jack Ketch tells the story of Jackson Donfaire, an escaped slave who eventually becomes a pirate captain.

I was particularly pleased to have the opportunity to fix up Jack Ketch. It was only my second foray into self-publishing, and I wanted, with this print, to make Jack Ketch as special as my Falling Rock collections.

I re-scanned all the pages in glorious HD, re-did the front pages and added a final spread, and re-did the back cover. All of this was printed with care by the fine folks at Pinball Press. The second printing of Jack Ketch is kind of a new reading experience.

Dancing With Jack Ketch is available for purchase through my online order form, and I will have copies at MoCCA and Stumptown this month! Look for it! Look for me!

friday robots

2011-04-01T23:06:00.000-07:00

Just because it's April Fools Day doesn't mean you don't get Friday Robots.

These are companion robots to last week. Yeah, they hang out after work, and are Facebook friends, and know about each other's favorite HBO series.

happy april fools day!

2011-04-01T09:00:00.000-07:00

Today's Falling Rock was not drawn by me. It was drawn by a team of highly-skilled covert operatives known collectively as "Kenan Rubenstein."

My favorite April Fool's tradition has been to have a friend draw this day's episode of Falling Rock. Kenan is my first cartoonist friend to draw the comic. (Faithful readers may remember him as the inventor of the Foldy Comic.)

The April Fool's episode has classically been the best drawn and written Falling Rock of the year, and Kenan has raised the bar even higher for future April Foolers.

Does anyone else think I resemble Ernesto?

falling rock book 5 HAS ARRIVED

2011-03-30T18:28:00.000-07:00

It's the best day of the year! Today I picked up 500 freshly-printed copies of Scenic Byways, the fifth collection of Falling Rock comics. You've seen the cover before, but here it is once more:

Front

Back

Here, for the first time ever, is a photo of the actual book itself.

Like Welcome to Falling Rock National Park (the self-titled third book) and See America First, Scenic Byways was printed with care by the fine folks at Pinball Press using only the naturalest of materials. Post-consumer recycled paper, recycled chipboard covers, and soy-based ink. This book is not only black and white, it is green.

You don't have to waste your precious time reading about Scenic Byways; you can purchase a copy and actually read it. Right here!

Scenic Byways is the culmination of the 2010-2011 year, with 65 hand-picked comics that touch on all the hot button issues of today. Yes, Falling Rock is not afraid of controversy, if by "controversy" you mean an owl who fancies himself an art critic or a lizard who wears the same ratty old baseball jersey every day.

If you happen to be in either New York or Portland, I will be at MoCCA on April 9-10 and Stumptown on April 16-17, selling Scenic Byways as well as the rest of the Falling Rock book collection.

scott adsit, why won't you accept my friend request?

2011-03-28T21:00:00.000-07:00

This post can now be viewed on my website.

falling rock book 5: scenic byways

2011-03-27T12:15:00.000-07:00

Now it is time to reveal the final covers of Falling Rock book five. The title of this year's collection is Scenic Byways.

Ernesto and Carver are going on a grand adventure. Where are they headed? You'll have to buy the book to find out. (HINT: It's a twist ending. They were dead the whole time.)

The back cover plays off the joke on the front cover.

Scenic Byways will be available by the beginning of April. I'll have copies when I'm at MoCCA on April 9-10 and Stumptown on April 16-17, and I'll update my online order form as soon as they get back from the printer.

friday robots

2011-03-25T12:30:00.000-07:00

book 5 covers continued

2011-03-20T17:00:00.000-07:00

I knew that I wanted this year's collection of Falling Rock comics to be a companion of sorts to last year's:

I was at a disadvantage this year because Ken Burns has not put out any new National Parks documentaries since my last book. I could not steal any of Mr. Burns' good ideas. This thought put me into a severe depression only a glass of Scotch could cure.

In my last post, I decided to go a little less historical and a little more spacey. Basically, this meant putting Ernesto and Carver in a rocket. Here are two early sketches for the cover, which I drew at the size it would be printed:

Although the detail was better for the latter sketch, which might indicate I was happier with it, I actually preferred the dynamic composition of the former sketch. What's a man to do? I combined the best parts of both sketches! I'm positive I was the first artist to conceive of this technique.

This was the final sketch before I put brush to Bristol board paper. Yeah, that's right! I used a brush to ink the cover! But you'll have to wait a little while longer to see the final cover. I gotta save something for future posts.

You might also notice the title for book 5 will be Scenic Byways. The best way to see America's beautiful wilderness areas is by rocket.

Here are some sketches for the back cover:

The sign reads "WILDLIFE REFUGE and ROCKET TESTING GROUND," which is just a joke. There are no rockets allowed in Falling Rock National Park.

friday robots: white house edition

2011-03-18T12:44:00.000-07:00

I imagine this is the robots' version of the White House. This is the seat of Robot power, where the Robot leader lives (if a robot can be said to "live").

Be wary if you should happen upon this strange and formidable house. And for goodness' sake, don't send your kids trick-or-treating there.

falling rock book 5 cover sketch

2011-03-16T21:25:00.000-07:00

Falling Rock book 5 is currently in production! As with all my Falling Rock comic collections except OWL, book 5 is being printed by the good people at Pinball Press right here in Portland.

The most challenging part of putting these collections together is coming up with a cover that will blow people's minds. After all, what's the use of picking the very best comics I've drawn over the last year if they aren't presented as essential reading? Problem is, when I say to myself "think essential," my mind becomes as blank as a brand new sheet of Bristol board (300 series pad, 2-for-1 sale at Columbia Art Supplies).

I made a series of sketches and asked my wife/art critic Isis for her opinion. I'm not sure why, but Isis preferred this sketch (on the right):

Didn't she see that I clearly wrote "BAD IDEAS" at the top? Oh well, let's see if it works out.

I made a few more sketches and then went to the NASA photo archives to see how real capsules look. At least, capsules in the 1960's. Because everything looked cooler in the 60's.

More to come!

from the sketchbook

2011-03-15T21:20:00.000-07:00

Some plants and stink bugs I drew.

These are for a Falling Rock episode I call "The Great American Series."

I've got a number of reference books specific to desert flora and fauna. Sometimes I'll flip through them for ideas. It's a great way to pass an hour or so.

where i'm blogging from

2011-03-12T20:49:00.000-08:00

You may have noticed that the rate of posting on this here blog has dramatically dropped in the past few weeks. I have not forgotten you, dear readers. Rather, I have been hard at work putting together two books for upcoming conventions in April.

MoCCA, April 9-10, in New York
Stumptown Comics Fest, April 16-17, right here in Portland

Oh, you were wondering about the books? My pirate story Dancing With Jack Ketch officially sold out last year, it's going into second print. I've taken advantage of the large-format scanner at my place of daytime employment to scan the originals in directly, so the finished product will look even better this time around. Plus there's a chipboard cover! So there's plenty of reason to be excited about that.

I'm also putting the finishing touches on the fifth Falling Rock book collection. It will be in the same format as last year's mega-blockbuster See America First! Chipboard cover, recycled paper, soy inks, delicious creamy filling. The comics have been carefully selected by a team of ninja physicists as the best from the 2010-2011 year.

And of course there is a new batch of Falling Rock comics that are just about ready to come out of the oven. April will be a big month.

Fear not, dear readers, this blog will have plenty of news in the coming weeks.

friday robots: tree of life edition

2011-03-11T12:30:00.000-08:00

The weather is warming and the trees are beginning to bud. Here are two robots that celebrate the beginning of renewed life this year.

And, because I love you so, these are the original sketches for today's robots. I kind of like the "wooden robot" in the sketch better than the second time around. These were drawn with a ball-point pen on scrap paper; somehow fitting for treelike robots.

Happy Friday everybody!

friday robots

2011-03-04T12:26:00.000-08:00

Hey, remember those robots from last Friday? Well, here they are again!

This time they've been covered in paint. Has this altered their meaning, their purpose? I don't know. Robots are mysterious. Will Rashida Jones read this post and think, "Hey, that paint really ties the picture together"? Women are mysterious, too.

cursing cursive

2011-03-01T20:22:00.000-08:00

This post is now on my website.

one less syndicate

2011-02-28T21:02:00.000-08:00

Read the news last week that United Media, a syndicate that once managed Peanuts and Dilbert, will turn over their comic strip properties to Universal uclick. For those of you keeping score, we're down to three viable syndicates:

Universal uclick (in my limited experience, the most active syndicate)

King Features (once a fine syndicate, but they haven't done much in the last decade)

Washington Post Writers Group (only syndicates a handful of comics; the upside is most of them are good)

The other "syndicates" (I use that term loosely as they rarely launch new features) are Tribune Media and Creators.

Comic strips continue to be profitable and, most importantly, read. It's been clear for some time that newspapers don't want to run comics. Maybe they should cut the cord and see what happens (hint: final nail in the coffin). The internet is becoming an increasing revenue source. Many un-syndicated cartoonists (hint) are either solely web-based or they use their website to increase their audience.

I've always liked to read comics on paper. Call me Old Timer. That's why I self-publish books. Anybody can go on my website and read, for free, the entire run of Falling Rock. I haven't heard from many people who actually do that. I do hear from the people who read my books. Maybe we're all Old Timers.

Are books the future of comic strips? I would be more than happy with that outcome. Universal syndicate is essentially the same company as Andrews McMeel, a book publisher. They publish not only their own comic strip properties but those of their until-now rival United Media. Universal could be a web and book syndicate. It seems as if they're heading that way. Newspapers are cutting themselves out of the loop.

Why are newspapers so stupid? Ask David Simon; after he was fired from the Baltimore Sun, he went on to write The Wire. But that's a topic for another post.

Is this good news or bad news? I am uncertain. Universal is certainly the most forward-thinking comic syndicate out there. I'm glad United Media's cartoonists have a place to go where they will be treated with respect. On the other hand, that's one less submission I can send out this year in the hopes of finally getting syndicated. On the first hand again, Universal has seemed like my best shot for a couple years now. There are so many unknowns.

If you're reading this post, it means I'm doing something right, and that's really the most important thing. Thank you. Now let's get back to the funny stuff.

very hungry friday robots

2011-02-25T12:45:00.000-08:00

Friday Robots have long been compared (favorably) to The Very Hungry Caterpillar. That is why these cutout Robots are dedicated to Mr. Eric Carle.

Have a great Friday, and don't forget to eat!

who am I following on twitter?

2011-02-21T14:49:00.000-08:00

Tom Hanks
Bill Watterson (likely fake)
A zombie
A ghost
A pirate
2 dinosaurs (stegasaurus and olorotitan)
Fake David Bowie
Mount St. Helens (usually dormant)
Lady Liberty
DJ Roomba
Zeus, King of Gods
Liam Neeson, player of Zeus in the remake of Clash of the Titans
McBone
Slider K. Shaftacular
Andy K (it is the only way I can legally follow him, due to court
restraining order)
3 otters (1 sea, 2 river)
Fate
Destiny
Free Will
Lord of the Flies
Old Scratch
Mr. Furnace Boots
(okay, I made that last one up)

And, Tweeting from the Great Beyond:
Kurt Vonnegut
Timothy Leary
Ken Kesey
Ella Fitzgerald
Sir Winston Churchill

friday robots

2011-02-18T12:30:00.000-08:00

What better time to bring out the leafy robots than the middle of February?

"But where are the robots?" you may wonder. Are the leaves themselves robots? Are there robots hiding behind each leaf, or are the robots too small or too big to see in this picture? Or was the artist drawing leaves on Thursday night and ran out of time to draw robots?

Like all the best questions in life, these may never be fully answered. In the meantime, enjoy your Friday and have a great Presidents' Day.

foldy comic is up!

2011-02-15T20:39:00.000-08:00

I have arrived. My brand new foldy comic has now been posted on the official Five-Page Folded Mini-Comic website. This is only my second foldy comic, but it will not be my last.

Malcolm Gladwell has long been a nemesis of mine. With his hair reminiscent of a certain foxy jazz singer, his connections to The New Yorker, and his using of cheap English Major tricks, I find him both aggravating and oddly alluring. There are certainly less talented people who are famous, but I don't think many of them aspire to be the Humanities' Carl Sagan. And so I use my tiny folded pulpit to poke fun at a man who has perhaps achieved a greater fame than his methods deserve.

Read, enjoy, and, if you happen to be Malcolm Gladwell, please don't sue.

new foldy comic coming soon

2011-02-13T14:04:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since my last five-page folded minicomic. Ernesto and Cookie Monster's special message is still a fan favorite. I wanted to make another "message" comic but waited until I had something truly important to say. After all, the foldy comic form should not be desecrated with half-witted ideas or half-baked art.

Lo and behold, an idea came to me. Malcolm Gladwell, my blogging nemesis, seemed ripe for parody.

For the full comic you'll have to wait until Kenan, my friend and creator of the foldy comic, posts it on the official Five-Page Folded Mini-Comic website. Until then, here is a panel to whet the ol' appetite.

Oh, Malcolm Gladwell. You're so full of yourself.

friday robots

2011-02-11T12:30:00.000-08:00

Robots, as we all know, can be any size or shape. These microscopic robots exist in the extreme atmosphere of the ocean floor. It has been incredibly difficult to study these extremophile robots thoroughly; their attitude towards humanity remains unknown.

Perhaps some future Friday will bring us closer to these mysterious robots. In the meantime, enjoy your current Friday and try not to stand too close to any underwater volcanoes.

when robots attack

2011-02-07T21:06:00.000-08:00

In the not so distant future...

Robots are coming, and you'd better get the hell out of Staples unless you want to meet a sour demise.

Also, stay out of school unless you want a robot to teach you a lesson you'll never forget.

I'm beginning to feel like the dinosaur who looked down at the small mammals at his feet and thought, "I'm not long for this world."

who's got four paws and hates ronald reagan?

2011-02-06T17:03:00.000-08:00

This cat:

Sambora, the cat I live with, agrees with the late President Ronald Reagan not one bit. Seriously: foreign policy, the national debt, military spending. Sambora is Reagan's political opposite.

On this hundredth anniversary of the old coot's birth, Sambora and I both mourn the fact that neither of us were able to vote against him.

We take consolation that we'll be able to vote for at least two Obamas.

no chief of mine

2011-02-06T16:23:00.000-08:00

For the last two years President Obama has been quietly and steadily fulfilling his campaign promises, not the least of which is the first major health care act since Medicare, and the very first to include those of us under 65. Despite a Republican majority in the House I'm confident Obama will continue that good work he was hired to do.

Lately, though, I've been feeling a heaviness in my chest. It isn't a physical problem, although if it was I am one of the fortunate few to have health insurance provided to me by my employer. No, the heaviness comes all the way from Washington DC; specifically, from the douchebaggery at the Supreme Court.

If Obama's Affordable Care Act is argued before the Supreme Court, I am nervous Chief Justice John Roberts and his cronies will strike it down as unconstitutional.

I have reason for my worries to be justified. Roberts struck down a bipartisan campaign reform act, co-written by that liberal bastion John McCain. Why? You can actually see a piece of McCain's soul dying in his remarks about the callous way the Court struck down his bill.

Chief "In"Justice Roberts* has decided that his tenure at the Court will be marked by conservative activism. Activism has long been a swear word Republicans have lobbed at liberal judges, but now we see conservatives love to play the game they claim to hate.

There is absolutely no good reason to take health care away from the people of this country. There are parts of the law that can be modified (see: Obama's 2010 State of the Union address), but it is in no way unconstitutional.

John Roberts: I hate you, and I hope you live long enough to regret every bad ruling you've ever made. But there is hope for you yet! Like Ebeneezer Scrooge there is time for redemption. These chains you see do not have to be in your future! Tiny Tim can be cured, but only if you don't take away his health care.

*Zing!

friday robots

2011-02-04T12:30:00.000-08:00

wall street: money never sleeps

2011-02-01T22:00:00.000-08:00

I witnessed a filmic tragedy this past weekend. Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps is the sequel to Wall Street (no colon). Unlike the original, Money Never Sleeps has no apparent point of view and no guts.
It is a mess of ideas that never really resolve; I weep for the waste of it all.

There is often no artistic reason for a movie sequel. Usually sequels are done for the sake of cold, hard cash. Sometimes, however, a sequel is creatively justified. I can't think of a more apt example of this
than Oliver Stone's Wall Street.

The original Wall Street was a hyperbolic and highly entertaining romp through the stock market and those swaggering fools who rode the wave throughout the 1980's. Michael Douglas had the signature role of Gordon Gekko, a man for whom greed is good. Charlie Sheen, in a role that obviously taught him nothing about real life, played a stock market newcomer who grows a moral conscience after trying (and failing) to play by Gekko's rules.

Wall Street is a sharp, incisive film that not only entertains, it has a strong opinion about money, markets, and the corrupt creatures who thrive in that world. It is a darn shame that its sequel has none of those qualities.

When the markets crashed in 2008, those craven braggarts who nearly drove our country into financial seppuku should have all gone to jail. They didn't. Instead, they got the government to bail them out just in time to receive their year-end bonuses. It would be nice to see them tried and hanged on the movie screen, if not in real life. Wall Street was due for a continuation.

Money Never Sleeps takes place around the time of the market crash. Gekko has been released from jail and has now written a bestselling book. His daughter, Winnie (Carey Mulligan), claims to hate Gekko but 1) is dating a guy (Jake, Shia LaBeef) in the same field as her dad and 2) stands to inherit one hundred million of his ill-gotten dollars.

Oliver Stone obviously loves the environment, and he wants us (dear viewers) to know it. Winnie, that trustafarian, works for a nonprofit blog and Jake dreams of using seawater to create a fusion power plant. Did you know we're exactly one hundred million dollars away from clean fusion power? Oliver Stone does.

Money Never Sleeps doesn't have a clear plot, although it does have a bad guy in the form of Bretton James (Josh Brolin), who gets lynched at the end of the movie. No, wait. Bretton does get a stern talking-to. And LaBeef and Winnie get to see Gekko reformed, and LaBeef's mom (Susan Sarandon) gets out of her crooked real estate business selling McMansions, and Frank Langella gets to appear as a ghost. Everybody gets something in Money Never Sleeps, which is what movies are all about.

Or are movies about opinions, and thought? Money Never Sleeps is a mess of conflicted messages and never comes up with anything resembling a logical narrative or character arc.

And what did I get from Money Never Sleeps? A waste of nearly two and a half hours, and this blog post.

friday robots

2011-01-28T12:28:00.000-08:00

benefits of green tea

2011-01-23T18:55:00.000-08:00

Green tea is a magical elixir imbued with nearly infinite health-giving abilities. But how do you unlock these mythical medicines? Exactly how much green tea do you have to drink to win the health lottery? Below is a handy chart that will tell you, the green tea drinker, how many cups you need to drink in a day to remedy the disease listed.

AILMENT: NUMBER OF CUPS PER DAY

Headache: 1
Atheism: 4
Loss of job: 8
Match.com: 12
Distemper: 23
Gout: 126
Allergies: 47
Out of tea: 1
Loss of hearing: 54
Loss of car keys: 98
Man problems: 76 (if the drinker is female), 465 (if drinker is male)
Depression due to running out of Mad Men episodes to watch: 654
Chased by Boogeyman: 300
Chased by Dick Cheney: 14,000
Indigestion: 11
Bad spirits: 7
Hangover: 5
Cable news: 87
Existential crisis: 589
Keep forgetting the endings of movies you've seen: 45
Not famous enough: 4,865
Too famous: 5,821
Blogging: 6,738
Twitter.com: 12,000,000
Facebook.com: 45,000,000
Life (non com): 1

friday robots

2011-01-21T12:15:00.000-08:00

Less a regular visit from Friday Robots themselves, more an announcement of Friday Robots yet to come. Either way, have a great Friday everybody!

the curious case of christopher lloyd

2011-01-19T22:00:00.000-08:00

This post can now be viewed on my website.

the oregon boogeyman visits falling rock

2011-01-17T21:12:00.000-08:00

This week in Falling Rock National Park, Carver and Ernesto glimpse the rarely-seen Falling Rock Boogeyman. Here is one of this week's strips:

Those of you who regularly read this blog know that a terrifying Boogeyman named John McLoughlin founded the state of Oregon. When I was looking for reference pictures for the Falling Rock Boogeyman, I eschewed all animals. Mammals, reptiles, birds: I considered and ultimately rejected them all. I needed look no further than photos of the man who once ate the unsuspecting children of unincorporated Oregon. It helps that John McLoughlin is so bogey-esque; I really didn't have to do much to him but add body fur.

See the resemblance?

welcome

2011-01-16T13:16:00.000-08:00

Falling Rock National Park officially welcomes baby James K. Shaftacular to the world. We extend our warmest wishes to the Shaftacular clan, especially Mrs. Shaftacular, who, let's be honest here, did most of the work.

This robot was specially designed to guide James through the more challenging aspects of the world, including Super Mario Bros. 2 and girls.

Congratulations to all those at West Lawn Park. I look forward to drinking pints with James in about 21 years or so. In the meantime, maybe orange juice?

friday robots

2011-01-14T12:30:00.000-08:00

Happy Friday, everybody!

attribution

2011-01-11T21:10:00.000-08:00

Today's strip owes a lot to my friend Haley, who once referred to Boulder, Colorado as a bustling metropolis. She said that very phrase to me as we sat in "rush hour traffic," which consisted of three cars at a traffic light. Haley later moved to Montana, which is bustling in terms of cows and horses, but not people.

Falling Rock's "one summer park ranger" is an oblique reference to Ed Abbey, the unofficial poet laureate of Falling Rock National Park. If you haven't already rushed to your local bookstore or library, go now and check out Desert Solitaire. One of the very best books written about the American Southwest.

Finally, Selmer, the oldest squirrel in Falling Rock, is named after Selmer Kittelson. Selmer would have made a good squirrel.

It's a threefer today at Falling Rock! Also known as a hat trick. Very rare, and sure to be a collector's item.

disarmament now

2011-01-09T10:16:00.000-08:00

There is a threat to Americans, and it is not the Communists or the terrorists or illegal immigrants. The threat to Americans is other Americans with guns.

What we need right now, countrywide, is a ban on all guns. Gun control is no longer good enough. When we say "gun control," the NRA says "Second Amendment." Then another innocent person gets shot. When we say "gun control," Fox News says "keep America free," and some disgruntled student shoots up a bunch of his classmates and teachers.

I'm past the point of caring whether 90% of the population can own guns without incident. When one kid can inflict so much harm to so many innocent people, the time has come to remove the vehicle for destruction.

Two things need to happen in this country, and they need to happen right now: disarmament, and a complete change in political rhetoric.

Disarmament is easy. We've got the military to protect our country, and we've got police to protect our streets. Otherwise, zip. We, as a society, have proven again and again that the ownership of guns results in the shooting of people. Politicians are targets, but so is pretty much everyone else. When a public speaker has to wonder if someone in that crowd has a gun, we have reached the end of the road in terms of sanity.

The second part is tricky, because it means Sarah Palin has to shut the fuck up. When politicians use violent metaphors, it is only a matter of time before some nutcase will follow through on their angry rhetoric. The case of Gabby Giffords is the latest case in point.

From politicians to news outlets, TV personalities, bloggers, all the way down to the way parents talk to their children, we need to stop the shooting.

The time has come when we, as a nation, need to take a giant chill pill.

If your hatred of guns and violence exceeds even your hatred of certain individuals, you're not a threat. People have done crazy things like host a sit-in or march on Washington, but they'd never murder those they disagree with politically. They would also not talk about murdering their political opposites.

Disarm! Disarm! We can't take any more of this.

congresswoman gabby giffords

2011-01-08T11:35:00.000-08:00

It is unlike this blog to post on breaking news, but I must post this unfolding story of Tucson Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, who was shot this morning at a public event outside a grocery store.

The link.

As of this time I'm not sure what her status is, but the link above should be updated regularly so keep checking in.

Awful, awful.

friday robots: shouts from the desert

2011-01-07T12:30:00.000-08:00

This week's Friday Robots comes to you from the desert, a noble and sacred place long believed to be incorruptible. The robots will do their best to overrun the native plants and animals, and only a fierce and efficient Lizard Army will be able to defeat them. Backed by funds from the Quail Mafia and supported in secret by arms traded from the polar bears up north, Lizard Army finds its greatest threat not from suburbs but mechanical monsters.

Should be a doozy of a weekend. Stay tuned.

in it to win it

2011-01-03T20:54:00.000-08:00

I've been drawing Falling Rock comics a bit differently this season. For my big fifth year I knew I had to "step it up" and "bring it" unless I wanted my readers to yawn and shuffle off to some other corner of the internet.

My template for comics success is, obviously, Bill Watterson. The problem with emulating Bill Watterson's process is that he is a genius and I am not. His methods don't always work for me. Case in point: he rarely did much penciling. When I saw some original Calvin & Hobbes strips at the Ohio State Cartoon Library & Museum, I quickly realized how much Bill left to inking. He certainly did the foundational stuff in pencil - panels and lettering. Otherwise, he drew light circles in pencil roughly where he wanted the characters' heads to be and got right down to the final draft.

Until this season, I tried to follow that method. I drew rough character shapes in non-photo blue pencil, leaving details to be filled in while inking. This often resulted in less than satisfactory compositions. Characters' legs got cut off more than I wanted, and occasionally I had to white out and re-ink Ranger Dee's head because I drew it too big for her body. The last thing I want is a balloon-headed Dee.

This season, I'm trying what I call the Richard Thompson method. Richard's art style is much looser than Bill's. Richard does a lot of sketching, then tracing. I'd never thought of trying that before, so I gave it a shot.

Turns out, I like it a lot. I draw, in a very sketchy way, almost every panel on copy paper. Then I trace, using non-photo blue pencil, onto my Bristol board. That gives me a pretty exact drawing, which I ink. Not including the original sketches, I draw each comic strip three times. This has helped me refine the drawings that much more; so far I've been happy with the results. Below is an example of two strips on copy paper.

January 19 and 21, 2011

Inking has become more brainless, which is fine, because I can have a movie or podcast playing and so keep up on pop culture while I make my contribution to it.

tiny reviews

2011-01-02T20:42:00.000-08:00

MOVIES

The Expendables- Sylvester Stallone and Zooey Deschanel star in this quirky little romantic comedy, directed by Rob Reiner. Lots of explosions ensue. Look out for the glorious (and totally not gay) fist bump at the end of the movie.
Nightmare on Elm Street (the remake) - How can a horror movie about a burned dude who goes into teenagers' dreams and murders them be so boring? The director took all the fun out of the original. Slickly produced bloodbaths are not interesting.

Get Him To The Greek - Jonah Hill really needs to lose some weight. We're getting worried about him. Seriously, don't turn into the next Chris Farley.

Scream 1 - I know I saw this movie before, but I barely remembered any of it. Neve Campbell has awesome bangs.
Scream 2 - Surprisingly, much better than the first. Better chase scenes and a somewhat less convoluted backstory. After the first Scream was such a hit, part 2 was a parade of celebrities. It might have been distracting had the whole series not been so dedicated to being "meta."

Scream 3 - Darker than the second installment. Somehow they manage to keep a consistent backstory through all three movies, filling in more sordid details as the series goes on. Courtney Cox has a weird haircut in this one, and she bears an uncomfortably close resemblance to Skeletor. Hollywood is not kind to aging women.

True Grit (2010) - This is how you do a remake. Might be one of my favorite Coen brothers movies. I only wish they had filmed Jeff Bridges' beard in 3D.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Undead - This is my top recommended movie from 2010. It's just your average Shakespeare-mixed-with-vampire love story. This indie was funny and surprising. If you love vampires and hate what Twilight did to them, consider this a palate cleanser. With a soundtrack by John Lennon's kid (Sean, not Julien).

BOOKS

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, by Susanna Clarke - A tale of two magicians doing real magic in the early 19th Century. I listened to the audiobook, and narrator Simon Prebble is one of the best readers I've yet heard. Funny and tense, literary and breezy, chock full of historical detail and character and mythology. I'm so glad I finally got to this one.

The Corrections and Freedom, by Jonathan Franzen - While The Corrections managed to be a comical tale of tragedy, Freedom was just depressing. I can't recommend Freedom, even though I appreciate how well-written it was. The Corrections, on the other hand, had a dose of unreality that tip-toed towards magical realism. Franzen should go further in that direction. It was hard to read Freedom because I didn't like any of the characters, and the realism was served up hard and cold. Instead of reading Freedom, go rewatch It's a Wonderful Life. Same deal, but with Jimmy Stewart.

link love

2011-01-02T15:21:00.000-08:00

Now this is a good way to end the year 2010: I got linked to by The Daily Cross Hatch!

Right here.

Not only am I pleased with the mention, but I couldn't be more thrilled with the fantastic company I'm in. Ruben Bolling, Tom Gauld, Toby Jones, and Matt Bors! I'm not sure how I'll top this feat in 2011.

friday robots: goodbye 2010

2010-12-31T12:30:00.000-08:00

Here they are, the very last robots of 2010. It's been such a pleasure to bring you new robots every week this year, and I look forward to foisting another 52 or so robots onto an unsuspecting populace in 2011.

Remember: on New Year's eve, when you've had your drink and smoke and injection, beware hitchhiking robots. They may appear harmless, but once they pile into your beat-up station wagon they will commandeer your mind and force you to do horrible things in 2011. Things like voting Republican, not recycling, loudly whistling at people you are attracted to and making statements like "Hey baby, I've got what you need." Don't make 2011 a year you will regret. Watch out for robots.

Be safe everyone, and I'll see you next year!

Photos used for these robots were taken in (from top to bottom) Oregon (Bend), California (redwoods), California (off the 101), California (APE in San Fransisco), Ohio (Orrville), Ohio (Oberlin).

friday robots

2010-12-24T12:24:00.000-08:00

Scenes ripped from the headlines of my life:

lifelong dreams

2010-12-20T20:56:00.000-08:00

My lifelong dreams:

1. Be a professional cartoonist.
2. Touch the rough skin of a real, live stegosaurus.
3. Ditto almost any other dinosaur.
4. Be Tweeted @ by Ashton Kutcher.
5. Remix George Harrison's All Things Must Pass so it doesn't sound like Phil Spector barfed all over it.
6. Become friends with at least one otter (river or sea, doesn't matter).
7. Punch Dick Cheney in his stupid face.
8. Create everlasting world peace (this one must happen after #7, obviously).
9. Rashida Jones.
10. Find out if anything is living underneath the ice crust of Jupiter's moon Europa.

Some of these may be far-fetched, but if you're not dreaming big, you're probably only dreaming about getting an eggnog flavored milkshake at McDonald's.

carver reads his poem

2010-12-18T20:19:00.000-08:00

This week I ran a story about Carver the owl writing his first poem. Writing poetry is as confounding to me as flying a fighter jet. So I never wrote a poem for Carver. The whole story is about the process of him writing a poem, and I didn't think the poem itself mattered.

I thought wrong.

Due to popular demand, I present to you Carver's poetry reading (in some parts of the country this would be called a "slam").

In two parts:

friday robots: college edition

2010-12-17T12:53:00.000-08:00

These robots are from my carefree college days. The first was based upon the college seal. I added flying squirrels, wine glass trees, faintly visible classroom windows, and an enigmatic stalactite left of center.

My first-year art professor asked me, "is it a commentary on race?" I hated that art teacher. No, I called it black and white because the drawing was black and white.

Three years later, I finally decided to enroll in another art class. After that first semester train wreck, I wasn't so sure about art classes in college. Boy, I'm glad I took a few more before graduation, because my two professors senior year were fantastic, for very different reasons.

These two robots were preliminary works for my final project. It was to be a painting based on a collage, and I combined two things that interested me greatly: dinosaurs and Japanese Shinto architecture. My final project painting was made from the top collage. I liked it, and my professor didn't even ask me if it was supposed to be about class warfare or the sexual revolution or anything.

Happy Friday everybody!

carver's smile

2010-12-13T20:45:00.000-08:00

When Bill Watterson first drew Calvin, his haircut covered his eyes. An editor suggested combing that hair back. Watterson saw the logic in this immediately. The best way to see a character's expression, his mood, his intent, is in his eyes. How much can you know about someone whose eyes you never see?

When I designed Carver the owl, I tried giving him a mouth. The inherent problem was that his beak is his mouth. It looked about as weird as you think it would. Like a person in an owl suit.

Over the years I've expanded Carver's expressions mainly using his eyes. Normally almond-shaped, they widen in disbelief and narrow in anger. But I've discovered that, even though his beak looks much better closed than open,* there are still possibilities for expression.

Carver's neutral pose includes a straight beak, a tall triangle:

His beak gets curvier the more agitated Carver gets:

When Carver is happy or cocky, his beak tilts slightly:

Here's a good progression. Carver starts off very agitated, then gets more complacent. His beak slowly loses its curve:

I also like this particular strip because you get to see the pupils in Pam's eyes.

These are probably things you ought to think about before you settle on the character designs for your comic strip, but I prefer to figure this stuff out as I go. Fortunately none of my characters in Falling Rock have required a complete makeover; I just change a few details over time and hope nobody's paying attention.

*It's too bad Carver's beak looks so weird open. That makes it harder to draw him eating something. I also realized it's hard to draw Carver puckering to kiss, but I guess that's okay because real birds don't kiss. Or do they?

booboo kills yogi

2010-12-13T14:54:00.000-08:00

A la Robert Ford and Jesse James. Watch it until it gets forcibly removed by internet lawyers:

Here's the original scene. It's nearly shot for shot (pun intended):

transportation meditations

2010-12-12T20:45:00.000-08:00

There are a million ways to go. Just ask Cat Stevens. Personally, I prefer walking or riding my bike, but that isn't always possible. Groceries, commuting when it's icy or pouring rain, blah blah blah. I keep it simple by traveling by whatever means will stress me out the least. Here are a few observations on the various forms of transit I regularly take.

Buses are as mysterious to me as the ways of women. They supposedly run on a schedule, but even after checking the times and routes, that schedule remains elusive to me. Maybe buses are more like bees. They flit from stop to stop, following an internal clock that can never be understood by the rider. Some people rely on buses exclusively for getting around. I pity those people.

Right now I've been taking a bus to work when the weather is too unfortunate for riding my bike, and I'm still not sure I'm leaving my house at the correct time. Even if I left at the exact same second every day, my commute would be slightly different.

Trains are the most alluring form of mass transit. They glide on metal rails, following predetermined lines. A train stop won't change on you, and trains (at least here in Portland) run with traffic lights and without traffic. It's almost magical.

The monorail may be my favorite kind of train, though they are sadly relegated to the realm of novelty. Someday I'd like to ride the super fast trains in Japan, especially the ones that run on magnets. They never truly touch the ground. It may be as close to hover cars as we get.

Cars are very American and have all the problems Americans do: they take up way too much space, they cost too much, and they aren't efficient. On the other hand, their benefits are American benefits: you control your own destiny. You choose everything from the destination to the air temperature to your company (or lack thereof).

Growing up in the Southwest, there was never a lack of good driving weather or parking. Living as I do now in the Northwest, there are definitely bad days to drive and parking can be a headache. As I've never loved to drive the way most American men are supposed to, this has given me a good excuse to use my car less.

In the future, transportation will be a series of pneumatic tubes. We'll simply remove our brains, toss them into the tube of our choosing, and have a spare body waiting for our brain at the other end. Until that day, we muddle through the best we can.

friday robots

2010-12-10T13:00:00.000-08:00

Fridays in December in Portland tend to be low-key. We do get a little daylight, but clouds tend to cover that much of the time. This is why Friday Robots, seen here in our very own Japanese Garden, are all the more important this time of year.

Like last week, these robots are drawn from the book The Rock Art of Arizona, by Ekkehart Malotki. I don't know if Native Americans in the Pacific Northwest ever drew on rocks, but I'm guessing that if they had, the rain would have washed the drawings away after a few seasons. Totem poles, carved from big northwestern trees, were probably a better bet.

the allure of the roof

2010-12-05T19:04:00.000-08:00

What's on a roof? Sometimes Cary Grant. Usually, though, not a whole lot. A swamp cooler. Dead birds. Lost footballs, baseballs, soccer balls. Leaves. Junk that doesn't fit in the basement. Why, then, are we so fascinated with roofs of all kinds?

When the Beatles decided to play their final concert, they considered many venues. They considered legendary places befitting the biggest and best rock band of all time. The Parthenon or the Colosseum, perhaps; structures that are indelible marks of human progress. Or maybe a big ship, where the Beatles could literally sail off into the sunset. These grand ideas were ultimately rejected and the Beatles simply walked upstairs to the roof of their office building to play one last show:

In a story, being on the roof is significant. Batman meets with Commissioner Gordon on a roof. Tom Hanks meets with Meg Ryan at the top of the Empire State Building. The roof is not for sissies; when you're on the roof, you mean business.

A roof is a public place and yet it is private. Not just anyone is allowed on the roof; there is a certain privilege in being atop a building. Helicopters land on roofs. Pigeons hang out on roofs. From a roof, you can look down on the city around you and get the lay of the land. You are king on the roof. You are a god on Mount Olympus.

I am not an architect, but if I were I'd design a building that was all roof. That way, everyone could feel the power of living on top of it all.

friday robots

2010-12-03T13:00:00.000-08:00

This week's Friday Robots are brought to you by rock painting. Southwestern Native Americans, thousands of years ago, saw some surfaces and had some pigment and decided to tell a few stories. These robots are based on images from the book The Rock Art of Arizona, by Ekkehart Malotki.

rickmania is here to stay

2010-12-02T21:11:00.000-08:00

I joined the rest of the free world last night in finally seeing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1. Although it was not the tour de force on par with Prisoner of Azkaban, it was certainly dynamic, funny, tense, and provided a good diversion from my miserable life for a couple hours. (For a more thorough and well-written review, please see McBone. To see how Harry Potter stands up to the Julianne Moore rating scale, see West Lawn Park.)

Harry's latest magical mystery tour has him scouring the bucolic English countryside in search of Horcruxes. If you don't know what a Horcrux is, shame! No, just kidding. A Horcrux is an object in which a magical person can hide a piece of his or her soul. Lord Voldemort, being the evil guy he is, split his soul a bunch of times and Harry has to find and destroy all the pieces before he can tango with Voldemort himself.

I've long liked the Potter series because it is a timeless story about a goofy redhead who falls in love with a bossy girl. A tale which for some reason resonates with me.

A few notes to the filmmakers, which will undoubtedly be ignored because they've already finished Part 2. More Alan Rickman, please! This movie was sorely lacking in Rickman. It barely registered on the Rickman scale. Second, although I enjoyed the animated tale of the Deathly Hallows - it was my favorite part of the book as well - I found the animation a little too computer-y. Too similar to all the other animated effects throughout the film. I was hoping for something more old-fashioned, like stop-motion or, heck, regular old hand-drawn 2D. But I'm picky about that kind of thing.

The cinematography, after the first two movies, has been exceptional, and for this film it became the identifying mark of the story. Harry and Hermione's road trip and the melancholy tone of the film all made cinematography hugely important. It is a beautiful film to look at.

Even though we have to wait until next summer to see the titillating conclusion, we all know how this story ends: Harry, Ron, and Hermione play a concert on a roof. Get back, Harry!

an evening at mcbone manor

2010-11-28T21:31:00.000-08:00

Though I haven't actually been to McBone Outpost #1211, I frequently find myself imagining an evening spent at that ancient, deathly estate. What would it be like to visit the current headquarters of Palin-hating, Denzel-Washington-loving, Stabbone and McGraw?

Let's try to paint a picture, shall we?

My wife Isis and I arrive at the gates by horse-drawn carriage at dusk. A mist hangs over the estate. I stroke my beard thoughtfully. Isis, prone to cases of the chills, says she feels chilled. It's true, this time there is a definite feel of mortality in the air. As if our lives may very well be snuffed out at the stroke of midnight. Undaunted, we tell our driver to carry on.

A movement between the trees. Isis thinks it's a werewolf. I say, pshaw, it's only a trick of her over-active imagination. Either that or it's a regular wolf. Isis begins to withdraw from reality.

As our carriage pulls up to the entrance, the door creaks open. Though we are ten feet away, the eerie air from inside the manor gives us both goosepimples. No doorman is there to greet us as we enter, and yet the door swings shut behind us. The lock closes on its own accord. There is no coat rack, yet it matters not. Isis and I are colder than when we were outside.

A shadow against the stone wall is our first sight of our host, Lord McGraw. He glides toward us as if propelled by an uncanny pulley. No wheels or rope are in sight.

"Please, let us retire to the dining hall," McGraw coos. "My wife and I have long been expecting you." He begins to laugh, gently at first and then gaining in intensity until he coughs violently. Isis and I glance at each other; we were not aware the Lord said anything resembling a joke.

As Lord McGraw leads us to the dining hall, we notice the pictures, of which there are many, are not hung from the walls but set on the ground as if to be hung later. They are all covered in thick black cloth. The sound of dripping water can be heard deep in the distance.

"Ah, you remember my lovely wife, Lady McGraw," says Lord McGraw, gesturing at a woman seated at the dining room table. Isis starts. I cannot blame her. Lady McGraw is as pale as death, with dark brown eyes and hair that tumbles almost to the floor. She is wearing a tattered wedding gown, and though it looks old, it is as white as the day she was married in it. I ask Lord McGraw how long ago they were married, for, though we have been friends since boarding school, events in his life have become hazy to me. It is as if the mist outside has clouded my mind.

"Oh, ages ago," responds McGraw, and laughs again. He finds so many things amusing, and yet no one else is allowed to share in his merriment. Isis gasps, for no apparent reason.

We all sit to have dinner. The servants are obedient and silent as they place our plates in front of us. As one slips around the corner I think I see a tail protruding from his waistcoat. It can't be true, I think to myself. I just need to eat.

Eat we do! An eight-course feast suitable for kings. Almost every food is represented, and yet McGraw cannot go more than a few seconds without remarking how much worse it would be if it was slathered in a white glop he calls "mayonnaise." Lady McGraw seems to have a healthy appetite, but Isis cannot seem to nibble here and there. I gently scold her. Lord McGraw notices this and tells her to wait for desert.

"It will be a delight below the heavens!" he exclaims.

"You mean, above the heavens," I say.

Lord McGraw gently laughs.

When desert is presented to us, Lady McGraw finally speaks. Unfortunately, it is nothing more than a high-pitched wail. It is so alarming, so unsettling, that even Lord McGraw cannot muster a giggle. "She sometimes has nightmares," he says.

"But she's not asleep," I protest.

"But it is night time, is it not?" McGraw opens a curtain to present us the moonless sky.

After dinner, the ladies retire to their sitting room while Lord McGraw shows me the manor.

"Here is the game room," he says, gesturing to a room full of sharp implements and a cabinet full of skull-and-crossbones canisters.

"This is our sun room," McGraw points toward a windowless crypt deep in the bowels of McBone manor. There are no chairs, only two empty coffins. "Lovely," I manage to say.

Lord McGraw takes me upstairs. He has told me he likes to keep pigeons. "They are calming," he says, as we climb the rickety wooden stairs higher and higher. I swear to myself that the house was not this tall looking at it from the outside. Finally we reach the roof.

When he shows me the coops, I am aghast. "Those aren't pigeons!" I exclaim, for staring back at me are dozens and dozens of beady-eyed bats.

Lord McGraw tuts me. "Tut tut, my friend. These are pigeons. The night is so thick you have imagined bats. Why, I'll bet your wife told you she saw a werewolf running the grounds earlier."

"She did!" I say.

"The night plays tricks on even the most intelligent of us. Specters and goblins appear when only leaves and hedges are to blame. Lady McGraw once told me she saw the demon Argosphospheles standing at the foot of her bed late one night! Of course that was incorrect." Lord McGraw turns swiftly around and heads back downstairs. Gratefully I follow.

We find Isis and Lady McGraw staring at a quilt upon our return.

"This is a quilt made by the entire McGraw line. My great-great-great-grandmother began it, and every generation has added to it," says Lord McGraw.

Each panel seems to depict a massacre, a witch-burning, a pagan ritual, or a beast of horrific proportions. "Lovely," Isis remarks. To me, she whispers, "we have to go." I concur.

Our hosts, though peculiar, have shown us every hospitality. We thank them profusely, perhaps over-zealously, as we back out the door.

As our carriage takes us away from McBone Manor, Isis clings to my arm. Her hands are ice cold. I find that I, too, am shivering. The further we retreat from those weird grounds, the more like ourselves we feel. When we arrive safely home, Isis makes me promise to wait a "good long time" before accepting another invitation to Lord and Lady McGraw's. I find myself hedging. It possibly has to do with the peculiar bite marks on my neck, but I see myself returning to McBone Manor very, very soon.

friday robots

2010-11-26T18:45:00.001-08:00

Most days Friday Robots want to take over the world. Occasionally, though, Friday Robots kick back, eat some leftover turkey, and watch Mad Men marathons. Today is definitely the latter for Friday Robots.

Even though Friday Robots are not actively plotting conquests, they want to extend their thanks to those among you who have to work this holiday weekend. Without people working, Friday would be just another word on the calendar, and Friday Robots would just be robots.

We hope everybody had a great Thanksgiving.

Be nice to the clerks and salespeople this weekend!

being thankful for rickman

2010-11-24T22:06:00.000-08:00

This post can now be viewed on my website.

the garfield effect

2010-11-23T21:01:00.000-08:00

In an effort to dredge up my entire life history on this blog, I present you with perhaps the most important letter I have ever received. For the full back story, please read this post.

The short version is: when I was a kid, I wrote a letter to Jim Davis, creator of Garfield, imploring him to stop the exploitation of his characters. What I got back was a very nice form letter. He did sign it, at least.

This letter changed the course of my life. Soon after, I started reading Calvin & Hobbes. Bill Watterson's strict ethic about his work and the control of his characters resonated with me. I had seen the dark side, and I never wanted to look back.

Now that I have my own comic strip, I look at Jim Davis and Bill Watterson's ideas as opposite sides on a spectrum. There is plenty of ideological space between the two. Note that I'm not against licensing my characters. But when that fateful day does come, I will have a balanced view.

I'm glad I had this devastating experience as a kid, or I wouldn't be the fully-formed adult I am now.

middle school cartoonist

2010-11-22T21:01:00.000-08:00

DISCLAIMER: The following comics, though originally intended for entertainment purposes, are presented here for historical value only. No entertainment derived from reading the comics contained within this post will be non-ironic in nature.

Now that I table at comic conventions, I get to talk to comics readers. I cannot express the gratitude I feel when someone takes the time to read my work. Even if they don't buy it, the fact that they form an opinion about something I've written makes all the work worth it.

One interesting statement I hear a lot from comics readers is something to the effect of, "I wish I had the talent to draw comics." This always makes me laugh. (No, I don't laugh at them.) If only talented people drew comics, there might be three cartoonists in the entire world. The rest of us have had to work at it for many, many years. I've been drawing comics since I was ten and still haven't mastered the craft. Talent has very little to do with comics. It's more about willpower and a dash of obliviousness.

To prove my point, I present to you, dear readers, three comic strips I drew when I was 13 years old - in 7th grade. In 7th grade I already knew I wanted to be a cartoonist. I had, by that point, changed my style. It was a big decision. When I was in elementary school I drew people with huge eyes and no head. The hair grew from their eyes, the ears grew from their eyes. The nose and mouth hung somewhere below the eyes, and the body hung below that.

My new way of drawing was inspired by Bill Watterson. After copying Calvin and Hobbes, I saw the potential for a full face, and for connecting the head to the body. I was basically learning how comic characters worked.

Eager to inflict this new style on an unsuspecting populace, I joined the school paper with my friend Andy. Andy, it should be noted, is not a cartoonist, yet the examples below prove that he was by far the better artist. Had I not been so stubborn and kept at it, I would still be drawing like a cloven-hoofed farm animal. Talent has nothing to do with my improvement. It's all practice.

The following is my first published comic strip. It appeared in the first semester of my 7th grade year.

Nobody knew what it meant. I had to explain this comic to people for weeks after the newspaper came out. It was so poorly executed I will probably blow up the internet by republishing it here.

Undeterred, I kept submitting comics for publication. The next few I drew were wisely rejected by our newspaper coordinator (a brave woman who was also my English teacher). Finally, in the spring semester, I came up with these two winners:

The origins of the jokes are hazy to me. The first reads a lot like something from Calvin & Hobbes. Note the headline on the dad's newspaper. Bill Amend used that joke all the time in FoxTrot, and I always liked it. I hadn't yet learned to size the lettering, so the joke is not as subtle as intended.

The latter strip was taken from a conversation with a friend. Of course, nobody was actually strangled - even then I preferred making stuff up. But the basic germ of the idea was ripped from the headlines of my life.

Again, I got nothing but grief from my classmates. I hear stories from other cartoonists about how they liked to draw comics and their peers encouraged them to draw more. That didn't happen to me. I drew comics with no encouragement (outside my family and close friends) and, sometimes, outright disdain.

It is a testament to my boundless optimism that I continued at all. Looking at these now - heck, even back then - it's clear there is absolutely no talent on display. Based on the meager panels above, Andy should have been the cartoonist.

There is a silver lining to drawing bad comics when you're 13. Other 13-year-olds are not afraid to tell you exactly what you're doing wrong. More ruthless than a 15-year-old, a 13-year-old may be the most cynical, meanest person on the planet. By the time I began high school, I knew what not to do. And I got better.

Middle school was, without question, the lowest point of my life. For some reason, though, I stuck with cartooning. Not because I had talent - you now know I didn't - but because I could see myself in the future, drawing good comics. I propelled myself into that future. And here I am now, living in the future exactly as I imagined it: riding in my hover car and married to Elisabeth Shue.

There's a lot to be said for wishful thinking.

friday robots: more light

2010-11-19T10:59:00.000-08:00

Some robots exist to destroy entire civilizations. Others, like the robots below, exist to decorate and illuminate your living space. Let's just hope these robots don't spontaneously turn into the civilization-destroying kind.

so i met this lizard

2010-11-15T22:07:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, when a man is on a business trip, he meets someone. This isn’t a permanent someone. This someone will never replace the man’s wife. It is a someone who provides a few moments of happiness in an otherwise dreary time of passage.

For me and my trip to Tucson, this someone was a tiny lizard.

I was sitting on the backyard porch, writing comics. It was a beautiful sunny November day, with only the slightest hint of a breeze. The killer bees were pollinating the rosemary bushes. Occasionally the calm would be pierced by the neighbor’s idiot barking dogs. I was gazing toward our pool when I saw something scurry across the deck. I knew it to be a lizard.

Standing to stretch my legs, I walked over to take a closer look. Here I was, a Thoreau in the desert, taking the time to admire the minutia of nature. The lizard, not aware of my benign intentions, took a flying leap directly into the pool, presumably to escape this lumbering giant.

He swam back toward the lip of the pool. “Good,” I thought. The last thing I wanted was a drowned lizard weighing on my conscience. He climbed a few steps and fell back in the pool. It was clear his energy was quickly running out. I cupped my hand and pulled him out of the pool.

He was a tiny thing, even for a lizard. He looked to be gecko-like, with padded feet and an almost translucent brown speckled skin. His tail was growing back from a previous encounter. This lizard was living a full life, to be sure.

I bent over to let him off my hand, but he took a few steps back toward me. My hand was probably helpful to him. It was dry and warm. He was still dripping with pool water. So I walked around the backyard, slowly, making sure he got sunlight to dry off. Occasionally he would blink.

After a few minutes, I set him on a warm dry rock. Then I ran inside to grab my camera.

He was a willing, though reluctant, model. Lizards are, by nature, camera shy. This lizard allowed me to take a few shots before he perked up, scurried off the rock and underneath the adjacent bush.

Our brief encounter was hardly what you could call an intellectual connection. Had I met this lizard before I met my wife Isis, I doubt my life would look any different than it does now. However, I am grateful to have spent a few fleeting minutes with this desert creature on my hand.

tucson comic con 2010

2010-11-14T21:31:00.000-08:00

Saturday November 6 marked the Third Annual Tucson Comic Con. There were so many highlights, it was like one giant flourescent day. Tucson never had anything like this when I was growing up, which made it especially great to be a part of now. For being a city full of talented, creative people, Tucson is short of events to showcase said talent and creativity. Many, many thanks to Mike and his team for pulling this off so well. (You can see Mike here, on the left with his epic beard.)

Unlike the Hotel California, you can actually leave.

I, too, have domineering stage parents.

My new favorite convention pose.

His favorite pose.

I got YouTubed! Wait for me, I'm at the end. Thanks, Victoria.

Awesome trades! People you should check out:
Kelly McBrady
Jack Crawford
Tavis Maiden
The Fine Gentlemen at Spazdog Press
Kozak Komiks

I hope to return next year when the Comic Con will be at the Tucson Convention Center. Comics cannot be contained!

friday robots

2010-11-12T10:04:00.000-08:00

My recap of the ultra-amazing 3rd Annual Tucson ComicCon is in the works. Needless to say, Tucson in November is beautiful; it was also great to spend some quality time with my parents. I consider Tucson my Fortress of Solitude; it's a great place to crank all my cartoonist powers back up to 11.

Which brings us to this week's Friday Robots. Though drawn in black & white, these robots encompass nothing less than the entire cosmos.

Up top you see the celestial dome. The ground we stand on is represented by a prehistoric stone circle. Below, you can see the layers of earth until you get to the very core of our planet, which is a swirling enigma. The crazy part of this is: it's all robots. Yes, dear readers, robots not only live around us and among us, but robots are in fact everything. I see I've blown your mind. Have a great weekend.

the 3rd anniversary of friday robots

2010-11-05T09:00:00.000-07:00

This week marks the third anniversary of Friday Robots. Three years ago, I began drawing robots to usher in the weekend. At the time I had no idea whether I'd continue drawing robots weekly. Since I am, by nature, deadline driven, posting robots every Friday became part of my life. I haven't missed a single week since Friday Robots began.

Friday Robots began in my sketchbook before I even had a blog. I drew these blocky shapes whenever I didn't know what I wanted to draw. They all seemed to belong together. I started calling them robots, even though it was apparent that they had no obvious purpose. I was like an inventor of completely useless inventions. I found this hilarious.

Over the course of 155 posts and one YouTube video, Friday Robots have taken on many forms. It is a fun challenge every week to post something new, different, weird, and frequently baffling. Sometimes I spend only a few minutes drawing the robots. Sometimes, like this week, I spend a few hours.

My two partner bloggers, Stabbone and McGraw and West Lawn Park, have generously agreed to post something about the Third Robotiversary, so please check them out. Together, we form a blogging triumvirate that future internet historians will discuss endlessly. Today we all celebrate Friday Robots.

Here is the special edition Third Anniversary Friday Robots. They are based upon my very first Friday Robots. Celebrate Friday with Robots, and celebrate Robots because it's Friday.

tucson comic-con

2010-11-01T21:53:00.000-07:00

I'll be at the Tucson ComicCon this Saturday, November 6th!
It is at the Hotel Arizona in downtown Tucson, which is located somewhere in this photo:

Hope to see you there.

good king/bad king

2010-10-30T21:40:00.000-07:00

Stephen King has had good movies made from his books and some really bad ones. Someday I'd like to discuss why this is so, but I think the main reason is simply the vagaries of the movie business. When you have as long an IMDB list as King, you're bound to have a few gems and a few duds. Just in time for Halloween, here is a quick rundown of some of King's best and worst cinematic adaptations.

THE GREAT

The Shining (1980) - Easily the best of all Stephen King's movies. The fact that King has disowned this movie in favor of a far inferior version (see below) baffles me. Stanley Kubrick took one of King's scariest books and made it into something weirder and more profound. Jack Nicholson's signature role.

The Mist (2007) - Frank Darabont, who cut his teeth writing the screenplay for Nightmare on Elm Street 3, loves Stephen King like almost nobody else. And thank goodness King has a fan in Darabont. The Mist, based on King's short story, is claustrophobic fun. People get terrorized by monsters from another dimension. Be sure to watch the black & white version, which completes the monster movie feel.

Shawshank Redemption (1994) - Another Darabont adaptation. Based on Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, Darabont turned a somewhat hokey story about a jailbreak into a meditation on friendship and the nature of Truth. This movie coined the phrase "Shawshank Redemption good."

Christine (1983) - Who'd've thought a car could be so scary? Christine, the titular car, takes hold of all-American nerd Arnie Cunningham and warps him into a sadistic greaser. Christine the movie is made great by a virtuoso performance of Keith Gordon (as Cunningham). This guy has been in only a few movies, but in Christine he showed us how it's done.

Cujo (1983) - About halfway through this shaggy dog story I thought Cujo was one of those throwaway King adaptations. But when mother and child (played by Dee Wallace and Danny Pinaturo) become trapped in their car, look out. Cujo proves that horror doesn't have to employ alternate dimensions, demon spirits, or massive CGI to work. Horror, like any good story, works best when it is told on a human level.

THE OKAY

Carrie (1976) - Brian De Palma directs and Sissy Spacek gets doused with pig blood. Besides that seminal scene and the final fright, there isn't a whole lot going on here. Still, not bad.

Pet Sematary (1989) - Fred Gwynne as Jud Crandall makes this movie worth watching. "Sometimes, Louis, dead is better." I swear the TV version of the ending is scarier than the gross-out unedited version.

THE BAD

The Shining (TV miniseries) (1997) - 17 years after King tried to fire Jack Nicholson, he finally got The Shining he wanted. King wrote the screenplay for this craptastic farce. Watching the dude from Wings and the chick from The Hand That Rocks The Cradle bicker their way through a haunted house is about as scary as an episode of Divorce Court. Throw in another in a long line of terrible child actors, cheesy make-up, and the fact that they filmed the Boulder scenes in Denver, and you've got one of the worst movies I've ever had the pleasure to forget.

Thinner (1996) - I hardly remember this one. A fat guy hits a gypsy with his car because his wife is giving him a BJ. The gypsy curses him to become thin, which is awesome at first (free stomach stapling!), then gets scary because he keeps shrinking! The ending has completely eluded me, but I think he accidentally kills his wife. Whatever. This sucked.

Firestarter (1984) - Almost bad enough to be good. Drew Barrymore in the role that made her famous. She starts fires with her mind! They made a funny SNL skit about this: Firestarter Sausages.

It (1990) - Another TV miniseries best forgotten. Good job casting Tim Curry as Pennywise the evil clown/spider/demon/whatever. When a group of childhood friends begin dying as adults, they must return to the sleepy Maine town they all left as soon as they could. This is the Big Chill of horror movies, except the Big Chill was good. Maybe if they had used the cast from the Big Chill instead of Harry Anderson and John Ritter. Also: the only member of the group to stay in this tiny Maine town was the black guy? He was the only black guy in town! Of course the evil clown will find the only black guy in town!

The moral here is to not be so slavish to the source material. King has an amazing imagination. He has written some plots, the scope of which are unparalleled. In order to make these stories into movies, some things need to be left out. Some things need to be changed. You cannot make a cohesive movie if you're following an 1100-page book to the letter. That said, I do find myself enjoying almost every King adaptation for one reason or another. They're never boring (except Thinner).

Here's to many more years of Stephen King movies. Happy Halloween, everybody!

friday robots: canned sardine

2010-10-29T12:20:00.000-07:00

My friend Kenan had the brilliant idea of driving down to Monterey the day before APE so we could visit the aquarium. Before Monterey was an aquarium town, it was a sardine canning town. Now some of the factory machines are on display at the aquarium, mere feet from where live fish frolic and play.

city lights books

2010-10-26T22:00:00.000-07:00

Ginsberg

Burroughs

Kerouac

Snyder

...me?

I cannot imagine a cooler bookstore than City Lights Books. Located in downtown San Francisco, and known for its connection to and championing of the Beat writers, City Lights is as much a cultural landmark as a still-thriving bookstore.

That is why I am pleased as punch to announce that you can find See America First for sale at City Lights. To be associated with huge mega-stars such as those listed above is a dream I would never have dared dream, and yet here it is, not a dream at all but reality.

My next book of comics will be written on one continuous scroll, a la On the Road.

Just kidding. I don't think they make Bristol board paper in scrolls.

For those of you living in or near the great city of San Francisco, be sure to check out the zine rack at City Lights Books and buy a copy of See America First. Don't make them regret hearing my name.

APE 2010

2010-10-25T20:03:00.000-07:00

Kenan told me to sit this way. He called it the Trump Pose.

As my friend Brian used to say about Alternative Rock, "Alternative to what?" The Alternative Press Expo, in San Francisco, is a showcase for comics, zines, trinkets from Shangri-La, relics of saints, baubles, broaches, brocades, elfish magic tricks, a pie-eating contest, and mythological animals. It is the alternative to everything boring, dull, and stupid. It is the epitome of aweseomness, daring, and the new. This was my second year exhibiting at APE and I daresay my best. It was a real party.

I was seated in the midst of genius: my tablemate, Reid, a way better artist than me and also taller by at least 4 inches, was debuting his book Cryptozoology. Turns out his instincts were right on. He got a number of folks remarking on how cryptids were this year's "in" theme. Although it certainly wasn't Reid's intention to cash in on the zeitgeist, he ended up making four billion dollars and got a movie deal. No seriously, he did well and made some new friends, some of whom were even nice enough to stop and talk with me too.

To our left was the table that could barely contain Kenan and Neil. To my great delight we got to spend time together after the show; our little collective made me feel like a real artist. We partied like it was some year that ends in the numbers 9, 9, and 9.

My neighbors, Kenan and Neil

Saturday night the four of us went to a Chinese restaurant. You enter through the kitchen, go up a flight of stairs, and sit in a tiny, narrow dining room. The server was an older lady who was trying, apparently, to have a heart attack that very night. That or a broken leg; she kept running around and nearly tripped down the stairs. It was especially strange since the crowd was not all that large and did not necessitate a server who literally threw our chopsticks at us as she sprinted by.

Later we went to Isotope, a very cool comic shop a few BART stops away. Every year they give the Isotope Award to a deserving minicomic. This year's winner was Pete Hodapp for his comic The Possum and the Pepper Spray. As you can imagine, if you put that many cartoonists in a room and serve alcohol, you get a wild party.

Of course the joy of APE is not confined to The Concourse in San Francisco. On my drive down I paid a visit to the majestic redwoods. These trees are powerful. I've met them twice now and still don't feel like I have spent enough time with them. Perhaps next year I can make more time for the trees.

Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox, just chillin'.

After the redwoods, I made a beeline for the Charles Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa. I've never seen so much original Peanuts art before; the linework and design that went into each individual strip was almost unbelievable. Schulz drew huge! 27.75 inches by 7 inches for a daily, 23.25 inches by 15.75 inches for a Sunday. That's a lot of ink.

There is a tile mural in the grand hallway. It is composed of about ten year's worth of strips, made into tiles, and when you stand back they form an image of Charlie Brown trying to kick a football from Lucy.

Next to the museum is the ice skating rink Charles Schulz visited every day. After a morning of cartooning, he'd have lunch and watch the skaters; he was a huge hockey fan and even played in the National Beagle League for three seasons, from 1953-55. (He eventually quit in frustration after he kept losing his puck to the Puck-Eating Tree.)

To my great amazement, a little red-haired girl was taking skating lessons inside. I am not making this up.

On the Friday before the convention, Kenan and I made a trip down to Monterey to visit their great aquarium.

Seahorse watching.

The aquarium stood on the site of an old sardine canning factory. They left standing one wall of the old plant, and had several of the machines used for the production of canned fish on display. These machines will show up as Friday Robots in the future, have no doubt about that.

Now it's that part of the post dedicated to LINKS!
A number of old friends were also exhibiting at APE, listed here in no particular order. Visit their websites! Read their comics! Live your life without regrets!

Keith Knight
Stephen Notley
Raina Telgemeier
Dave Roman
Alec Longstreth
Greg Means
Matthew Ocasio

I managed to make a number of good trades despite being tied to my table for the majority of the show. This just goes to show you how much talent there was; had I spent the whole weekend browsing I would have filled boxes with awesome comics.

Spitball Press
Octavio Rodriguez
Karen Knighton (Karen also works for the website Ringtales, which you should check out for their animations of daily comic strips. I've never seen comics animated so well. The way they do it, it works.)
Kevin Woody
Russ Kazmierczak, Amazing Arizona Comics
Ako Casuera, Cactus Girl
Jen Tong, prints
Jonas Madden Connor

Finally, links are coming back to me about...me. Here are a couple early reviews:

A Comic a Day
Neil's Oh Boy, Comics!

uphill

2010-10-24T19:40:00.000-07:00

Unlike a root canal, midterm elections are a treat for all the senses. You get the party who is currently out of power scrambling to regain a majority, and the party who is in power scrambling to retain their tenuous and largely imaginary dominance.

This time around it's the Republicans, the Party of No, who want us to forget what the years 2001-2008 looked like. The Democrats, many of whom should have been ousted in 2002 for crimes against humanity, have been trying their best to remember that they are the party for the 99.99% of us who aren't Ted Turner. Actually, I take that back. Ted Turner is not that bad a guy. The Democrats stand, in their best form, for the endangered species that is the middle class, the diversity of races and cultures that make up this nation, and for the idea that you don't have to be rich to be happy, but you do have to at least earn a living wage.

President Obama is one of the greatest presidents this country has ever seen. (Keep in mind that this statement is coming from the guy who brought you Carter/Obama '08.) He made a lot of promises when he was running for office, and in the two years since he has been diligently keeping those promises. Financial reform, money for science and the environment, money for jobs, and, oh, let's not forget the health care bill.

My liberal friends complain that it was not a good bill, even before the Republicans hacked away at it, but I must remind them that health care has long been the proverbial "third rail" in politics. Touch it and you're dead. Not only did Obama pass one of the most comprehensive pieces of legislation for the good of the populace of this country, he did what no other president in recent history could do. This is by no means an end. We must work to amend the bill and make it even better. A public option, for starters. But the hardest part is done.

The problem is, nobody likes to talk about domestic issues. They aren't popular, politics-wise. We don't like to talk about homeless people, or sick people, or kids who can't go to school because they have to work three jobs. But those are the kind of problems we have to deal with now, way too late, because President Bush and his gang of thugs told us there are terrorists everywhere and we need to fight them everywhere (but mostly in Iraq).

Nobody likes to balance their budget, least of all state and federal governments. Ronald Reagan could attest to that, at least before his mind started "resting." Why balance the budget when you can buy all kinds of shiny new planes and ships for the military? Why balance the budget when you can drive over to Best Buy and get a HDTV?

Fox News, which I watch for kicks but also to see how the other half lives, wants us to believe that President Obama and the Democrat majority have created the highest deficit ever. What they gloss over is the simple fact that Bush ran that deficit up, and kept running it up, like it was the credit card his daddy gave him. He's probably still running it up right now. No no no. I won't stoop to wild accusations. But you get my point: the Republicans only get fiscally responsible when a Democrat is President, or when they're talking about domestic issues, or both. Right now, we have both.

President Obama came to Portland recently to stump for our Democrat candidate for governor, Kris Kristofferson. In his speech, he said the Republicans are running a campaign of amnesia. That is, they want us to forget what happened a mere two years ago and vote for them. What happened two years ago, you ask? Massive unemployment, the biggest financial disaster since the Great Depression, our car companies begging for change on the side of the road, Florida selling itself on craigslist for 35 bucks. In 2008 I was laid off. Two years later, the country is turning around. The car companies have promised to pay back their debt to the government, Florida is still standing, and I have a new job. Nothing's perfect, but we're on the right track.

Thanks for listening to one cartoonist's rant about politics. I write this blog in part to touch on issues that will never appear in Falling Rock. Hopefully I've only alienated a small number of you, dear readers, and that you will forgive me my Scotch-fueled verbosity.

friday robots

2010-10-22T12:36:00.000-07:00

Dark and stormy Friday Robots for you on this week before Halloween.

ernesto: the movie

2010-10-21T10:30:00.000-07:00

A while back I mentioned my choices for a Falling Rock movie. Well, dear readers, Hollywood has truly come through. My friend (and fellow cartoonist) Reid alerted me to a new animated film starring a lizard wearing a goofy shirt:

Johnny Depp is, I must say, an inspired choice. Not only is he good at doing voices, he's one of those actors who has a face for radio. Better to use him for his vocal talents alone.

el presidente

2010-10-20T10:24:00.000-07:00

Guess who's coming to town to wish me a happy birthday?

friday robots: waves and waves

2010-10-15T12:30:00.000-07:00

Shades of gray Prismacolor markers, then colored in Photoshop. I didn't have the colors I wanted, so came up with this method for getting that marker look with the colors I wanted. Kind of weird, but I love discovering a long, probably counter intuitive solution.

There's the hard way, the easy way, and the Friday Robots way.

appearing at a comic convention near you

2010-10-11T21:58:00.000-07:00

...if you happen to live in Northern California.

I'll be at San Francisco's Alternative Press Expo this weekend! Sharing a table with the inestimable Reid Psaltis, and being neighborly with Kenan Rubenstein and Neil Brideau. Come, see us in our natural habitat.

Right here:

yukon ho!

2010-10-10T20:19:00.000-07:00

When I graudated from my crumbling public high school, I went to college. When my brother graduated from his upper-crust prep school, where the students rode horses and wore tweed jackets to class, he drove his pickup truck north to Canada.

His travels led him as far as the Yukon Territory. The only thing that kept him from Alaska was a patch of black ice. When he got back home, safe and sure of what his livelihood would be, he told me the story of his involuntary weeklong stay in Whitehorse, the capital city of the Yukon. Me being me, I turned his story into a comic.

What appears below is exactly how my brother told it to me, with the minor exception of the name of the bar. He never told me the name, so I made it up. Fortunately he escaped his accident with no major injuries, but he was forced to wait in Whitehorse until the necessary replacement parts arrived for his truck.

I originally shared this in a student-run cartooning class I took my senior year of college. Hooray for the internet, now everybody can read it.

Happened October 2001. Drawn March 2002.

friday robots: more robots in the clouds

2010-10-08T12:31:00.000-07:00

As if it being Friday wasn't good enough, here's some robots to fly overhead. Oh, wait. Robots are evil. At least you're stuck inside today. Unless you're an airline pilot, in which case, call in sick.

un-april fool's day

2010-10-03T17:15:00.000-07:00

You've all heard of Un-birthdays, right? It's the date six months away from your real, actual birthday. Some people, weirdos mainly, use it as an excuse to celebrate what would be an otherwise boring and forgettable day. Two days ago was the Un-Birthday of April Fool's Day. What I'm not going to do is play a trick on you. What I am going to do is show you the memorable (and always fun to create) April Fool's comics that I've run over the years.

As many of you know, I drew a comic strip before Welcome to Falling Rock National Park called The Family Monster. In 2004, my then-girlfriend Isis filled in for me on this installment:

Much inspired by Sex and the City (a feminist literary journal, I'm told), this episode set the tone for future April Fool's Day comics.

The next year, my friend (and underground pop sensation) Andy K produced this masterpiece.

I hadn't realized it until this was made, but my four main characters fit the archetypes of the four Beatles. Who would've thought I had unconsciously re-created my favorite band in comic form? Well, probably everybody who knows me.

2006 marked my brother's debut as a cartoonist.

He decided to go meta and introduce me as a character in the strip. I asked my collaborators to make April Fool's Day strips mention the oddness of the occasion, to let the reader know that, beyond the different drawing style, something was afoot. My brother took this concept to its very limit.

A few years later, I was drawing Falling Rock. My friend and partner blogger Nate stepped in. He really knocked it out of the park. Featuring Nixon as a disembodied head was a stroke of genius, to be sure, and it made me wish I could have included it during the strip's regular run.

I flaked out in 2009 and didn't find anybody in time, so I drew this April Fool's comic myself. Since I don't often draw one long panel, I did that. And since I love those Easter Island heads (moai), I drew them.

My most recent April Fool's Day entry was done by my friend Ian. Since his dad started an ad agency, and since his dad told all his kids to never go into the advertising business, we naturally came up with this:

Modeled after old newspaper ads, and featuring the name of an old building downtown, it was nice to see how my characters would fare if I ever get the chance to sell out. Believe me, I can't wait to sell out. I hear snake oil is big business.

Happy Un-April Fool's Day, everybody! I've already had some requests for 2011's episode, so stay tuned...

friday robots on parade

2010-10-01T12:29:00.000-07:00

Better click on this to see it larger. I made an even larger original, but didn't want to crash the internet with my picture of crashing robots. Or is that clashing?