Spike's Cartoons and Whinging

Atrocity Tourism Download: Rock 'N' Roll Comics: Vanilla Ice.

Because God loves you, and He wants you to be happy.

The best part about this UNAUTHORIZED AND PROUD OF IT artifact of the 90's comics glut is that it was published at the very height of Vanilla Ice's career. It was written, illustrated, and slapped on the shelf before anyone even had time to blink. The snickers hadn't even begun. We all still thought The Ninja Rap was sort of awesome. A guy could wear an airbrsuhed denim jacket without being hunted down in the streets like an animal. Strange days, indeed.

Me, I like to pretend they never happened.

A few excerpts.

Huh. Reminds me of my brother.

I'll bet Ice considers these the best years of his life. Think about that.

Go to a record store and demand some ABOVE-GROUND rap. Someone. Please. Then swing by my place once they sign you out of trauma ward, I wanna count the stitches.

Uhm.

3.7MB download. Have fun.

Twenty-One Guns, Box Made of Pine, Letter from the Government, Sealed and Signed...

Ganked from The Memory Hole.

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!!!1!11!

Vote Kerry. Register here.

Happy 24 Hour Comic Day.

I start mine at noon.

Updates when it's merited all day and night, until it's done or I fail horribly. Again. Whichever comes first.

6:08 PM - On schedule. Six pages done. Watching The Erotic Adventures of Zorro while I ink. Comic's called "Pickle."

10:09 PM - Page 10 in the can. Not thrilled with the quality, but... it's a 24 hour comic. So yeah. Think I'll make some coffee.

5:32 AM - The flesh is weak. Still, despite myself, 18 pages.

10:26 AM - Finished, and ahead of time. Now, sleep.

Spike Goes to the Police Auction.

So, first: All the information on where to find it and how it's run, because I found it myself after about ten minutes of searching and there are sites trying to charge you for the information. That pisses me off.

Chicago's police auctions are monthly. They're run by Ace Auctioneers, at the West Technical Institute. All the information, along with schedules, is here. The West Technical Institute is easy to get to an impossible to miss, so knock yourself out.

I went as an experiment, mostly. Wanted to see what they had.

They had bikes. Holy shit, did they have bikes. I HAVE NEVER SEEN SO MANY GODDAMN BIKES. Kid's bikes, adult's bikes, trick bikes, mountain bikes, city bikes, vintage bikes... and one impossibly gorgeous freak bike, which I kind of felt bad about seeing up on the block. Must have broken the owner's heart when it was stolen, it obviously had weeks of work put into it.

Went for fifty bucks.

The auctioneer took the time between lots to recommend bike locks to the crowd, and giving advice about how to saw the remains of the former owners' locks off the frame.

After the bikes came a potpourri of remote controlled cars, car stereos and speakers, suits, t-shirts, silverware, and, uh, teapots. Among other things. I think the furnace went for a hundred. How the hell you seize a furnace in the line of duty, I have no idea.

For a general idea of how out of touch I am, I was horrified to see a new mountain bike go for one hundred and seventy dollars. I made a note of the brand, and their website tells me that model retails for about a grand.

So... yeah. Consider me a cheerleader for this sort of thing. Forever.

I just wish I needed a bike.

For the three of you that missed it: Hitler vs. Stalin.

I first caught this comic on Alexey Lipatov's Elfwood page a couple of years ago (which is here, if you're interested), but this is definitely a superior translation.

Make sure to check out the copyright notices at the bottom of the first page.

Also, coming this Sunday, SUNDAY, SUNDAY!!!!: My third, yes folks, third attempt at a 24-Hour Comic.

You don't wanna see the first two, trust me.

The hardest part is always not allowing myself to think about it beforehand...

SUE ME PLZ

The New York Times ran a very cool article on the decline of Mickey Mouse a couple of days ago. It pretty much said exactly what you'd expect: Mickey's not popular. Not as much as he was, not as much as he should be. And that's because he's not a character anymore, and in a lot of ways, he never was; he's a logo, long devoid of a biography, personality, and even the merest flicker of charisma. And that's a shame.

To go along with the article, the Times had a few cartoonists reinvent Mickey; the slideshow of results can be seen here.

(Yes, you have to register to see it all. No whining. Just get some throwaway Yahoo account and do it, it's worth the trouble.)

I guess I got a little inspired, myself. So I took a crack at Minnie and Mickey both.

Like most guys named Mickey I know, it turns out that my own personal Mouse is a drunken Irishman.

Who's in the mood for a tersely-worded Cease and Desist? Cuz my Minicomic Sense is tingling.

Swastika Buddha Loves You.

If you've got a Livejournal feed of this blog, you've probably noticed a weird problem with an auxillary link showing up, lately. It doesn't lead anywhere, and it wasn't always there. I went into the style sheet and edited it down to a proper link to my frontpage, but the inevitable result was LJ's feed-reader interpreting the change in the style sheet weirdly and reposting all the blog entries from the last month or so. In a row.

Sorry about that. Won't happen again, unless the XML feed mutates a second time.

Anyway... Swastika Buddha.

I love these things. They're are all over Chinatown's gift shops in Chicago: Buddhas and various figures from Eastern mythology (luck gods, mostly) with little swastikas on their chests. Must be a real mindfuck for the Middle American, cornfarming set that finished up the horse-milking early for a day in the big city. CHRISTS-A-FIRE CLEM DIJOO KNOW THEM RED CHINESE IS ANTI-SEMITICAL TA BOOT?!

Eh. I guess I'm a somewhat passive supporter of the whole "rehabilitate the swastika" crowd, mostly because its acceptance back into the realm of common iconography is probably inevitable. It's a common design, pretty easy to spot in a lot of older Western architecture and fixtures, and it's all over the place in Asia. The world's gotten a lot smaller in the past few years, so regular exposure to swastikas that don't recall crematory ovens and goose-stepping will probably get more routine. The problem will essentially fix itself in a generation or two, whether or not I paint happy, dancing swastikas, doves perched in swastikas, and tattoo flaming vaginas on my forehead. Like some people.

Tomorrow: Police Auctions, or Mother of God I Can't Believe What They're Charging for a Goddamn Bicycle These Days.

Yeah, baby. Tote my HOT LOAF.

I have seen a lot of stupid crap today. But this is probably the stupidest.

From the cover of the latest Dick Blick catalog, which is regularly delivered to me through no fault of my own.

Loaf tote.

I like to think about the sort of person who would regard this as anything other than criminally absurd. I like to picture the greying retirees and housewives looking at this appalling fucking picture and thinking: "Yeah. Loaf tote." And tapping their teeth with a fingernail and dreaming of tasteful, unchallenging, pastel watercolors of flower arrangements and gazebos and Scottish moors, the kind that match every couch. The kind hotels buy, because they sort of have to. The kind that crowd the streets and sidewalks for every art festival, shoulder-to-shoudler with the mermaid dolls and photorealistic cuddly puppy portraits and mass-produced, glossy prints of white unicorns bounding over sparkly rainbows.

So the housewife buys this bag (shown in paprika, also available in black) and she shells out the $54.99, and what the hell gets herself that Classic Santa Fe IV easel for $569.98 (on sale) and some paints (oil paints because that's what Van Gogh used, you know) and hey why not some kicky little clogs and that cute little Bohemian sunhat and the beret (giggle giggle) and the smock and she converts a quarter of her basement into HER STUDIO and it is HER STUDIO and DO NOT LET THE DOGS DOWN HERE I AM WORKING GOD DAMN IT EDGAR WHAT DID I JUST SAY TODAY IS MY ART DAY.

Then... crap, wait. What? The instructional tapes made this look easier. What? Where? No no no, back up. Scumble? The fuck?? WHERE DO I BUY THAT IT'S NOT IN THE CATALOG.

Whoops. This is hard. Never mind.

So the two thousand dollars in art supplies sits in the basement. And mice have babies in it.

I think I finally understand how most art stores stay in business. Even with me and my slob friends counting our pennies out on the counter to take home three watercolor brushes and sketchpad.

Sparkneedle Homage Spotted. Previous Record for Most Obscure Reference Shattered.

Reinder Dijkhuis is a cheeky monkey. Check out the special guest stars in this week's Rogues of Clwyd-Rhan; Wonder where they learned that freaky dialect.

I'd stomp 'em. Just to hear 'em squish.

Urf Unhg Pant Grunt Oof

And that's how Fufu got the chair.

Happy Easter. Remember to spend the day watching THE Christ get the shinola knocked out of him, not defying The Lord with the pure, blashpemous filth that is the 20-sided die.

JESUS SAVES (AND TAKES HALF DAMAGE)

Earning my Fangirl Stripes.

Still sore and cranky from the Clutch concert last night, and I know that no one really cares about the details anyway besides me, so I'll keep this pretty short.

Fucking awesome.

Spent both sets five inches from the stage, despite best efforts of drunken, blonde Trixie who didn't know the band, didn't know the lyrics, was under the impression that "Walking in the Great Shining Path of Monster Trucks" was appropriate to bellydance to.

Assisted in inadvertantly destroying the stage barricade. Oops. Club was not prepared for a Clutch show.

Got to hear most of "(notes from the trial of) La Curandera," even after the mic gave out. That close to the stage.

Touched Neil. Twice. This is a big deal for those of us with no lives, so just try to be happy for me. I also gave him some pictures.

These won't really mean anything to you unless you've heard and understood Blast Tyrant, but that doesn't mean you can't just appreciate 'em as drawings.

Worm Drink. Kind of a demon, kind of not.

La Curandera. In case you're too lazy to look it up, a curandera is a kind of folk healer; this one was described in the lyrics as a young girl, who gave quarter to Worm Drink during some kinda duel and patched him up afterwards. She goes on trial for it. Helping fugitive demons is bad.

If I had it all to do over again, I'd probably make her look less like Buttercup.

The crew of the demonic airship The Swollen Goat is described as being composed of "dog men." I decided to take that literally.

The Blast Tyrant. I felt that drawing the characters from the rest of the album but not drawing The Blast Tyrant would be pretty stupid, but he's the kind of villian that's better off shadowy and indistinct. So I just did the eyes. Goat eyes, to sorta suggest his general malevolence and creepiness.

I didn't have time for the women of Cypress Grove (Maenad reference), Diane the Huntress (Diana reference), the Smoking Irish Fly (your guess is as good as mine), or The Beast with Fifty Eyes (The US?). Oh well.

I handed these pictures wrapped up in a cd case to Neil Fallon, the lead singer, when he came on stage for the second set. I am lame. But he walked off stage with them at the end of the night, which gave me paroxysms of joy. I'd been about 80% convinced he'd be so overcome by my spazziness that he'd leave them on the amp where he put them. Guess not. Enjoy, Neil. They'll make awesome beer coasters.

Accidental Tourism in Protest Culture.

Banks close at noon on Good Friday, which didn't occur to me for even a second on the four-block walk to mine yesterday afternoon around 3:45. But that's okay. On the way home, a demonstration ate me.

I'm not a protest sort of person. I'm aware of politics, I vote, I read the newspaper. But chanting slogans in front of the post office isn't really my idea of influential law and policy reform, unless it's A) The 1960s, B) I'm in Selma, C) A police dog is trying to devour me, and D) I can reasonably expect that a good-sized chunk of the nation will actually see this police dog trying to devour me tonight on the news and be thoroughly appalled.

Things have changed. A lot. But not enough that I could ignore the high-pitched mewling sound in my hindbrain urging me to join the herd and mill aimlessly.

How things kicked off. This mob marched in off of an intersection, banging time on a snare drum and brandishing the Spanish anarchist's flag and dabbling in a bit of light cross-dressing.

I find it a little weird that all of the self-proclaimed anarchists, even just the ones in Spain, would hold still long enough to agree on an official flag. That much organization doesn't strike me as very anarchistic. If I were an anarchist, my flag would be a green bath towel with huge, throbbing gentials drawn on in orange house paint. Seriously huge. Not even gentials, more like fractions of genitals. The idea of genitals. Genitals so enormous and abstracted that everyone would have to ask me what they were. And whenever they would ask, I'd bite them in the eyeball. ANARCHY NOW.

The meet n' greet. It was pretty obvious that protesting was the hub of the social lives of a lot of the people here.

"Oh hey Barb, how ya been? Ya goin' t' that gathering against the privatization of the university's janitorial staff on Tuesday?"

"Wouldn't miss it for the world! Ya gonna be on the state capitol steps this fifteenth for the gay marriage visibility project?"

"You bet! Cliff's organizing! See ya there!"

This guy was golden. Total attention whore. He spent the twenty minutes before the speeches began standing on a bench, strumming his guitar and ad-libbing an Engrish-y little tune with "Bring troops home now!" as the bridge. He was eventually drowned out when the drummer in the ski mask began parading up and down the block, pounding out something I vaguely remembered from marching band.

Also golden: This guy. He didn't say anything, he just stood quietly on the edge of the crowd, holding up this picture of the Pope. He was wearing anti-Bush buttons, so I'm assuming he agreed with the general sentiment, but cognative dissonance ahoy. Later on, when a representative of a local mosque stepped off the stage, Pope Man ensnared him in a converation that I would have paid admission to experience.

Especially golden: Hispanic Anarchist. He spoke in Spanish, so I only caught bits and pieces of his contribution, but he mentioned las fascistas a lot and pushed for socialized health care. Such energy. If felt like the build-up to a chorus. I bet he listens to a lot of Rage Against the Machine.

Clayton Bailey should sue. Also, a news van. There were at least three. Maybe I got on television, the dreads and army surplus and what-not must make me the epitome of the Malcontented Political Protest Chick the news guys expect.

Love this flag. It's so granola.

A parting shot of the crowd. Lending credibilty to the I Look Like a Goddammittin' Hippie theory, I was approached by one of the organizers before I left and asked if I would like to address the crowd; she was looking for women-on-the-street types who wanted to speak after the official representatives were done. I guess I looked marginally coherent or something.

I probably would have spoken, actually. I'd have loved the attention. I even thought of something slightly clever to say. But I had a Clutch show to catch at the Bottom Lounge at 9:00, and I had a line to stand in.

Bye bye, protest.

More on the Clutch show later.

Just All Over the Place Today, Aren't I...

As I've mentioned, I have two rats.

One has learned how to open the cage, but not how to get down from the coffee table. He likes to spastically urinate over everything he skitters across.

One has learned how to get down from the coffee table, but not how to open the cage. He likes to chew wires.

Fortunately, my rats have yet to master the fine art of the calculated conspiracy. I'll know the instant when they do, because that'll be the day I wake up to piss-drenched comics and books, and every wire in the house gnawed completely through.

...

I love them. But they are bastards. And they make it very hard.

In other news, I've got a quick poll for you.

While waiting for Webcomics Nation to go live, I've begun fooling around with the comic I plan on sticking on there. Tell me which method of "coloring" you prefer.

Option one: None. Kind of sparse, but easiest.

Option two: Grayscale. Better definition and more meaningful light and shadow, also great for hiding mistakes. But sort of dull.

Option three: Goofy sort of sepia tone. Weirdly luminous. Also kind of distracting.

Input appreciated.

More Navel-Gazing.

Stolen from Joey's blog: A piece over at Sequential Tart by Graphic Smasher Barb Lien-Cooper about the ups and downs of making webcomics. Read it here. Can't find a single point I disagree with.

Comics has always had, and will always need, a red-headed stepchild to smack around. And since TokyoPop and Viz are lapping The Big Three without breaking a sweat, manga can hardly be consigned to the fad pile any longer by anyone but the most deluded industry purists. So webcomics fills the niche, and pretty nicely, too; like Barb's said, most of them suck. There's no getting around that the increased ease of publishing a comic online leads to a pretty crummy signal-to-noise ratio.

If any idiot can do it, every idiot will. And this is the Internet. This is where we keep the idiots. And for every When I Am King, I've waded through a hundred... well, you know. I know you know. Half of you sent me the links.

Anyway, read up. Enjoy. And I'll try and have a little doodle or somesuch for you guys tomorrow. I've been slacking on the art front, lately.

Music Appreciation: Aesop Rock - No Regrets.

Every once in a while, the husband will bring home a new MP3 that he's convinced is a private little mash note, written especially for me. "You're gonna love this song," he says. And because we live in one another's heads, he's usually right.

Aesop Rock - No Regrets

For those of us that decided early on that bullshitting ourselves wouldn't be good enough. Not by miles.

Lyrics below the cut. Have fun.

Lucy was seven and wore a head of blue barettes
City born, into this world with no knowledge and no regrets
Had a piece of yellow chalk with which she'd draw upon the street
The many faces of the various locals that she would meet
There was Joshua, age ten
Bully of the block
Who always took her milk money at the morning bus stop
There was Mrs. Crabtree and her poodle
She always gave a wave and holler on her weekly trip down to the bingo parlor
And she drew
Men, women, kids, sunsets, clouds
And she drew
Skyscrapers, fruit stands, cities, towns
Always said hello to passers-by
They'd ask her why she passed her time
Attachin' lines to concrete
But she would only smile
Now all the other children living in or near her building
Ran around like tyrants, soaking up the open fire hydrants
They would say
"Hey little Lucy, wanna come jump double dutch?"
Lucy would pause, look, grin and say
"I'm busy, thank you much."
Well, well, one year passed
And believe it or not
She covered every last inch of the entire sidewalk,
And she stopped-
"Lucy, after all this, you're just giving in today?"
She said: "I'm not giving in, I'm finished," and walked away

1 2 3
That's the speed of the seed
A B C
That's the speed of the need
You can dream a little dream
Or you can live a little dream
I'd rather live it
Cuz dreamers always chase
But never get it

Lucy was thirty-seven, and introverted somewhat
Basement apartment in the same building she grew up in
She traded in her blue barettes for long locks held up with a clip
Traded in her yellow chalk for charcoal sticks
And she drew
Little Bobby who would come to sweep the porch
And she drew
The mailman, delivered everyday at four
Lucy had very little contact with the folks outside her cubicle day
But she found it suitable, and she liked it that way
She had a man now: Rico, similar, hermit
They would only see each other once or twice a week on purpose
They appreciated space and Rico was an artist too
So they'd connect on Saturdays to share the pictures that they drew
Now every month or so, she'd get a knock upon the front door
Just one of the neighbors,
Actin' nice, although she was a strange girl, really
Say, "Lucy, wanna join me for some lunch?"
Lucy would smile and say "I'm busy, thank you much."
And they would make a weird face the second the door shut
And run and tell their friends how truly crazy Lucy was
And Lucy knew what people thought but didn't care
Cuz while they spread their rumors through the street
She'd paint another masterpiece

1 2 3
That's the speed of the seed
A B C
That's the speed of the need
You can dream a little dream
Or you can live a little dream
I'd rather live it
Cuz dreamers always chase
But never get it

Lucy was eighty-seven, upon her death bed
At the senior home, where she had previously checked in
Traded in the locks and clips for a head rest
Traded in the charcoal sticks for arthritis, it had to happen
And she drew no more, just sat and watched the dawn
Had a television in the room that she'd never turned on
Lucy pinned up a life worth's of pictures on the wall
And sat and smiled, and looked each one over, just to laugh at it all
No Rico, he had passed, 'bout five years back
So the visiting hours pulled in a big flock o' nothin'
She'd never spoken once throughout the spanning of her life
Until the day she leaned forward, grinned and pulled the nurse aside
And she said:
"Look, I've never had a dream in my life,
Because a dream is what you wanna do, but still haven't pursued.
I knew what I wanted, and did it 'til it was done,
So I've been the dream that I wanted to be since day one!"
Well
The nurse jumped back,
She'd never heard Lucy even talk,
'Specially words like that
She walked over to the door, and pulled it closed behind
Then Lucy blew a kiss to each one of her pictures
And she died.

1 2 3
That's the speed of the seed
A B C
That's the speed of the need
You can dream a little dream
Or you can live a little dream
I'd rather live it
Cuz dreamers always chase
But never get it

1 2 3...
A B C...

Gooble Gabble, One of Us!

Joey Manley, founder and mastermind of the Modern Tales family, has finally succumbed to the sweet siren song of the blog. His new site's here. I also stuck him on the ol' friends list, on account he's such a genuinely swell guy. Go read his blog to get a little insight into the workings behind MT, and tantalizing snippets of his Evil Master Plan for World Domination.