September 2003 Archives

And this one includes obnoxious "author's notes" and a nifty sketchbook image! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, CLICK THAT BANNER!!

Mmm. Voyeurism.

Metaspy is a self-refreshing page full of a random selection of the words and phrases currently being plugged into Metacrawler's search engine.

It's not as horrifying as I originally thought it would be, to tell the truth. Most of the searches are completely harmless ("vermont fire academy," "riding lawnmower," "payless car rentals")... but there's always the occasional "nude pre teen pics" or "sensual talahassee(?!?!?)" search to keep you just a lil' bit off-center.

Can't... stop... watching...

I got something in the mail, recently. Something different.

This minicomic... and despite being a whopping 88 pages, longer than most full-sized funnybooks, it is, technically, a minicomic... is about a man named Reid Harris Cooper, AKA "Lord Rexington Fear."

Yeah.

Lord Rex apparently once threatened to pigstick two New York cartoonists with a kitchen knife, K. Thor Jensen (Who happens to have a comic on Serializer) and his friend, Cheese Hasselberger. Evidently, his advances towards Cheese's girlfriend were unwelcome, and he's something of a social retard and hanger-on to begin with. This earned him a little talking-to, and he didn't appreciate being reminded of those two facts. Rex dragged out his grudge for months, even going so far as to follow his two mortal enemies to the 2002 Small Press Expo. God knows why.

After making an incomparable jackass of himself at SPX, Lord Rex had earned enough "friends" that he not only became notorious with cartoonists in general... I'd first heard The Tale of Rex some time ago... but inspired this mini.

There's very little scripting in the comic. Most of the stories are illustrations of Rex's pathetic, agonizing LiveJournal entires, word for word. I think my favorite line in the book is his complaint that he'll probably have to pretend to like Carson Daly when he's famous. Rex plans on being famous, you see. The WWF Intercontinental Wrestling Champion, first and foremost. And a famous poet, musician, chef, and world leader. But in the meantime, he's just an enormously fat, unemployed dimwit still living with his folks at 25 and pontificating from his e-pulpit in a state of astonishing, unequaled ignorance.

Did you know the Catholic Church made up Christmas to co-opt Wiccans and Kwanzaa? Rex did.

Anyway, it's a good read. Ther artists involved are all anonymous (although I think I recognize a few) and at all levels of ability, and any profit goes straight to Rex via Paypal, in an uncommon combination of cruelty and charity. You can get your own copy straight from Thor here, and read Rex's Livejournal here. Enjoy.

...but it's still always really fucking cool to see this.

SOLID! in my own comic shop. And flanked by Tom Beland's super-fabulous True Story, Swear to God autobio comics, no less. His site's here. Trust me on this one, he's good.

Hooray for everything.

I guess I should start designing my holiday cards soon.

I flaked out last year, won't be repeating. I have a couple months yet, but all this nonsense is best tackled early, especially considering I'd like to beat the rush at the printer.

I don't especially like Santa Claus, and I don't buy that son-of-god crap, either. So I've got no idea what to put on these things. I could cop out with a wildlife scene, but Jebus, if I'm gonna be that trite, why even bother making my own?

Hm. Maybe a devil. They're red, right? That's festive. A devil, bracketed top and bottom by the words JO, SATURNALIA. THE SLAVES ARE THE MASTERS.

Or is that too Pagan-y? I don't want anything Solstice-related. Or too political, although I do think a SO WHERE ARE THOSE WMDs AGAIN? card would be pretty goddamn funny. Hm. Ah well, lots of time to figure it out.

And all you guys out there can have a card, if you want. Once I finish the design, I'll be asking around for addresses. Mail me yours and I'll see that you get one. It's the season for sharing, after all.

Remember when they held off until the day after Thanksgiving before they pummeled you with all the pine trees and ornaments? Those were the days, man.

Speed asked me for a back cover for her funnybook. And what Speed wants, you can betch'er ass Speed gets.

Click for the full image.

Still haven't got her seal approval for it, but I guess it's okay. Tried to work in as many story arcs as possible.

Matt hasn't worked his coloring magic on it just yet, but it's got some promise. Here's to hoping it passes the test.

And Elster is seckseh.

Oh, Jesus. Just found a Shoutcast station that streams The Dr. Laura Show. I haven't actually sat down and listened to this rat-faced witch in ages, at least since I was in high school. God, I've missed her.

OMG OMG YOU'RE A WHORE AND CONDOMS HAVE A 20% FAILURE RATE AND WEAR LINGERIE TO EXCITE YOUR NO-NECK HUSBAND AND PEOPLE WHO "SHACK UP" TOGETHER ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS DIVORCE BECAUSE WE ALL KNOW CORRELATION EQUALS CAUSATION SO GET RELIGION SCREEEEEEEEEEEEECH!!!!!

I'll bet she's sitting behind the mic in a spiked leather bustier and cast-iron panties, fondling a cat-o-nine-tails. She's D-and-S for the people. Oooooo, yesssssss. Disapprove of me, Dr. Laura. Punish me. Lay me bare in front of your listening audience. I've been BAD. So, so BAD.

Sister's pretty self-righteous and puritanical for a lady who's got nudie pics floatin' around Kazaa. And Jesus, welcome to the jungle.

A beard-trimmer and a Lady Gillette, Dr. Laura. Do the right thing.

Enter Curio.

Curio Pepper... not her real name, but the name she clubs under... is another immigrant, having relocated to California from Bombay at the tender age of two. Her parents, professional geeks, caught the biggest cash wave out of Silicon Valley, and little Curio's privileged childhood and adolescence wanted for nothing. Unfortunately, it could probably be argued this didn't do much good for her character.

Her tits were a bribe, exchanged for a promise to Mom and Dad that Curio would, at the very least, TRY a year in college at Fallon State in Templar. It wasn't to her liking, and she's currently "on hiatus" from higher education to "find herself." She got the brand new tits all the same, though.

Most of her days are spent in her swanky King Street condo, recovering from her nights of club and bar-hopping with her entourage. When she's feeling especially brave, or has people in tow she'd like to impress, she'll slum in lower middle-class Old Town to show off her "artistic, bohemian" friends. She simply can't imagine anything more glamourous than being best buddies with a real live struggling writer (Ben), a real live musician (Gene), an honest-to-God philosopher (Lorne), and a 100% authentic black person (Scip).

And in case you're wondering where all this is going, sit tight. Not much more left until the main event....

I Grow Chronic is one of those films that I watched expressely because I could be reasonably sure that somebody out there wouldn't want me to. I haven't got much interest in drugs, legal or illegal, with the notable exception of caffeine, but I never was the type to turn down contraband information.

"Mr. Green" communes with his psychoactive weeds.

The movie, shot on a handheld home video camera in "Beautiful British Columbia," is hosted by Mr. Green, an unsurprisingly mellow man in green body paint, coveralls, a bucket hat, sunglasses, and most disturbingly, green nail polish. Mr. Green wants to teach us all, his willing students, how to grow "dank, fat, sticky nugs." Which sounds a little like a description of fresh dog shit, to me. But I'm not here the judge.

The complete set-up.

For a guy who's obviously smoking a truckload of pot, Mr. Green strikes me as unusually industrious. The movie's shot over a two-month period, in which Green sets up an admirably advanced hydroponics garden in his basement with the aid of simple hardware and home gardening supplies... which prompts me to wonder if the employees at Home Depot and the local plant nurseries know The Pot Guys when they see 'em by their purchasing patterns.... Like lots of orchid potting rocks, but no orchids. Ever.

Mr. Green explains hydroponics.

The main thing I learned from this movie was that you don't actually smoke the leaves, despite their symbolic, ubiquitous nature in modern pot culture; you smoke the flowers. Which in retrospect makes perfect sense, since it's called "bud." I guess I'm just that fucking stupid. Another thing: Male plants are bad. They can't be smoked since they don't have flowers, and the pollen they throw off prompts the female plants to stop producing THC (the entire point of smoking pot in the first place) and start producing seeds, which apparently suck. Naturally, Mr. Green raises only females... which leads to some weirdly provocative commentary and behavior on his part. The plants are his "girls" and "ladies." He rubs his face on their leaves, crooning at them suggestively and stroking their stems.

Seedlings. Note the name tags.

Pot also apparently comes in a number of varieties, although the movie never explains the differences between them. Mr. Green, for his part, grows "white widow" and "AK47." It reminds me of the names rose fanciers give their special strains, except without all the gentility. And sobriety. After all, pot strains are named by potheads. And I can't imagine anyone would smoke a strain called "Romantica."

Well, maybe.

Uh...

After Mr. Green apologizes to the plants for cutting them down, trimming them, and drying their buds, he smokes some... which isn't actually shown. The lighter inches towards the bong, and the camera cuts away... which seems a little bizarre, given that the man's just grown a shitload of a controlled substance in his cellar, on tape, for everyone to see.

Above: nugs. Possibly dank nugs. Almost certainly fat, sticky nugs.

The movies closes out with a second reminder that it was shot in British Columbia. I guess Mr. Green's memory ain't what it used to be.

Overall, an interesting documentary that hasn't really changed my ideas about marijuana. Personally, I'm for legalization, and would go so far as to have it regulated like alcohol; a small amount of home production allowed for personal use, large-scale manufacture handled by private enterprises, and penalties for driving stoned. But despite its educational intentions, I can't imagine I Grow Chronic would do anything other than thoroughly intimidate the red-eyed couch jockeys out there who haven't got the motivation to so much as change the television channel, never mind find someone to sell them aquarium silicone.

My latest acquisition.

My name is Spike, and I dumpster-dive. I hope that won't be a problem.

Let's tour my trophy room.

Damn flash...

The print was a gift from Skip Williamson, a pretty goddamn notable cartoonist. It was draw in conjunction with S. Clay Wilson, an equally notable cartoonist. This didn't come of of the garbage, but the frame did.

The frame was found in the rain, outside the apartment building, and sheltering world's most idiotic, insufferable OMG WOLVES RUNNING IN TEH SNOW print.

The answer is NO.

Pulled the wolf print off its backing, painted the backing red, reassembled the frame, hung it up. Infinitely less tacky now, and a hell of a deal, considering the price-gouging professional framing shops get away with these days. More:

That frame had a picture of a kitten wearing sunglasses in it. What the HELL, people.

Broken column? More like KITSCHY PLANTER. I'm so artistic. (The plant meant for it's currently sprouting from a seed on the windowsill.) It's featured here with an as yet unused frame, a delightfully tacky leopard print throw pillow (part of a set of two), and a Kenneth Cole brand soft leather briefcase. It's scuffed, so some spolied fuck trashed it. Not that I mind; $200.00 I don't have to spend.

Throwing away plants is mean.

And the other stuff I'm too lazy to photograph: Some little wooden what-not for storing about 50-75 CDs. Six new, color coordinated coffee mugs, still in their shopping bag and protective tissue paper wrapping. A media table, that now holds the monitor, VCR and Dreamcast. A wicker clothes hamper. Countless milk crates.

Unless all this stuff either smelled like pee or was haunted by knife ghosts, it really had no reason to be out on the curb... Not that I'm complaining. Living beyond my means with other people's trash makes me feel clever.

And now, in case you'd like to be as filthy as I am, some tips.

• The booty for disgusting little trashpickers such as myself increases in volume and quality in August, when school's back in, and May/June, when school's out again. There's a lot of perfectly good crap that college kids throw out because they just can't fit it in the U-Haul. Haunt the curbs of student residences for the weeks just before and after school.
  
• It's called "dumpster diving," but you'll find yourself actually digging through a dumpster maybe only half the time. Most of the best crap is set just outside the dumspter, or next to it, or in the general vicinity of it.
  
• The best places to scavenge are commerical dumpsters, behind stores, malls, etc. Residential dumpsters tend to contain rotting food, and other such unpleasantries. They're best avoided. Construction sites are good too, but go when it's dark, and work's stopped for the day.
  
• The Supreme Court ruled, quite some time ago, that trash is NOT private property. Still, some places have outlawed dumpster diving, or any cops that catch you will just TELL you it's outlawed. Even if it's not, just leave quietly. You can come back later. The chances of this happening is very unlikely, but some cops are just always upset because their penises are so small.
  
• If a dumpster's locked, don't unlock it. If the owner or a store employee tells you to leave, leave, and stay away for a while. If you're told to leave and never come back, do just that. There are millions of good dive spots in any given city. This isn't worth getting into a fight over... and it's incredibly unlikely you'll ever even be confronted in the first place. I never have.
  
• In the unlikely event that you are confronted, you've got two options: The truth ("I was looking for any good, servicable stuff someone might have thrown away.") or the extremely safe, universal dumpster diver's lie ("I'm moving soon, so I was looking for cardboard boxes."). It's up to you which one you go with. Be advised, the lie may be safer, but it'll require you to drop any good stuff you might have found.
  
• If you've got a car, don't just park it in front of the dumpsters. People might think you're illegally dumping, which is ten times worse than plain old diving.
  
• And ideally, you should be in and out of the area in under five minutes. Survey the area, open the lid, poke around, close the lid, off you go.

o/~ The more you know... o/~

This is Lorne.

Don't laugh. He could probably take your head off with that thing.

Lorne's unequaled mastery of the slingshot is a tidy, convenient metaphor for his approach to life in general. He's a treasure trove of useless information and pointless, antiquated, eccentric, or wholly unnecessary skills. If you need help unclogging your bathroom drain or installing shelves, call the super. But if you're interested in a rundown of the mating habits of Hawaii's extinct avians, the psychology of mylar balloon fetishists, or a detailed analysis of the creation myth of the Yanomami Indians of the Amazon basin... well, Lorne's your man.

He's got numerous degrees in numerous esoteric fields of study, none of which could ever hope to offer him steady employment. How he pays his rent, feeds himself, and keeps his lights on is a topic of considerable speculation among his neighbors.

Lorne's buddies with Ben and Bloom, and a casual acquaintance of Scipio, Sonny, and Gene. He gives Reagan the creeps. He gives the Elliots change.

Holy shit do I love Mary Prankster.

Mary Prankster is indescribable. She's not punk, she's not rock, and she's sure as shit not girl-with-a-guitar. She's just... Mary Prankster. She hasn't got a song over three minutes, but manages in a minute-thirty what most bands miss entirely on full-length albums. But the hell with hype, I'll let the songs speak for themselves.

Uh huh. Songs, plural. I couldn't decide on just one.

Mary Prankster - Art Fag Bastard (Live)

Mary Prankster - Tits and Whiskey

And if you like what you hear, get your ass over to her site and buy yourself every album she's ever made. EVER. And do it with a clear conscience; Palace Coup Records isn't RIAA-affiliated. See?

Lyrics under the cut. Have fun!

On the left: My This Was Your Life! collection. Three in English, one in Zulu. On the right: Other tracts, including the utter and complete classics Somebody Loves Me and Doom Town. Titanic was, sadly, slightly damaged in an accident with a bit of blue tempra paint, but it's still legible.

Apart from the tract in Zulu, none of these tracts were bought; they were found, mostly in the porno sections of video stores, in bus shelters, on sidewalks, or in other dens of sin periodically haunted by queer-for-Christ, glassy-eyed busybodies far gone enough to think that Chick's crummy cartoon booklets have any worth other than in a purely ironic sense.

In case you don't know him, allow me to introduce you to Jack Chick, self-appointed president of God's fan club. For years and years (AND YEARS AND YEARS AND FUCKING YEARS JESUS CHRIST), Chick's been drawing, writing, and publishing "Chick tracts," teeny-weeny morality play comics designed to bring the reader into the glory of God. Oh, and convice them that Muslims are taking over the White House, Catholic churches are filled with secret graveyards of aborted fetuses, Dungeons and Dragons will make teenagers kill themselves and practice witchcraft, and Satan will come after you with a chainsaw if you celebrate Halloween.

"Fundie" doesn't even begin to cover it, folks.

You can read most of these tracts online at Chick's own site, and fuck, I say go for it. You could kill an hour just comparing the various incarnations of This Was Your Life!. The differences between the Swahili and English language versions are especially quaint, down to the zip-a-toned, bathrobe clad, lightbulb-headed black God. But the Japanese language version's no slouch, either; check out that soul-saving, SUPER MANGA STYLE! KAMI-SAMA IS SO SUGOI, NE??

Page plus pin-up! Chapter Two is underway!

I like pin-ups that pose more questions then they answer. I'll bet you couldn't tell.

Click the banner, doodz.

If you don't know Skeletor and Gang, you're missing out.

Plotted and shot by a guy calling himself "Exaggerated," Skeletor and Gang is a stop-motion series starring first-gen He-Man toys. Yeah, you heard.

Of course, He-Man toys aren't exactly well-articulated, even for action figures... so there's a lot of running around on all fours. And frantic writhing around on the floor.

I think my favorite episode is the one where Skeletor defeats He-Man with the power of disco.

Inspired by a shit-shootin' session with the lovely and amazing Lisa Jonte. Plug, plug.

Me, doin' a smutty comic for MyThingie. Not a series, a one-shot.

Thoughts?

I just had to reject three orders for minicomics and buttons; they were ordered with credit cards.

I recently added a note to the bottom of my $$$ page, but it's sort of out of the way, so I'm gonna repeat it here. I'm really, really sorry guys, but I can't accept credit cards with my current Paypal account.

PayPal wants me to upgrade to a higher order account in order to accept credit card payments. I'd do it in a second if it were smart. It's not smart.

In order to get a professional level account that can accept credit payments, Paypal wants to charge a fee of 2.9% plus 30 cents on all transactions... which is sort of crazy, when I'm stocking items worth a buck. Maybe in the future, I'll upgrade. But not now.

I apologize to everyone I've had to reject payment from, especially since so many of you have had to wait on it. This week's been busy. Don't hate my ass for it. if you still want my crap, you'll have to pay another way. Because I enjoy making your lives difficult.

Psht. It's never easy, is it?

Some people just can't stand to be disagreed with.

An ability to accept the vailidity of an opponent's reasonable and factual argument without necessarily agreeing with it is probably the sign of a fairly intelligent man. So I'll leave it up to you just how much that attribute applies to all the nice folks behind ThenLeave.com.

ThenLeave.com just can't stand vocal dissention, disapproval of the current goverment and its policies, and all those pesky protests and political actions, seemingly forgetting that people in democracies tend to take full advantage of that whole "being allowed by law to form their own opinions" thing. I suppose debate, fairer elections, and a new approach to foreign policy, one that wouldn't inspire the burning hatred of the rest of the globe, wouldn't fix anything. So they'd all just really, really appreciate it if I and folks like me would just shut up and leave town for good.

I guess the fact that this is as much my country as theirs wouldn't hold a lot of truck with folks like this, on account that it's unpatriotic of me to disagree with the president. So perhaps I should enter their contest for a free, one-way ticket wherever I like... which really, says way more than they probably think it does about how uncomfortable I'm making them by merely existing.

Sorry, bubba. I'm a evil, commie liberal.... And when the presidential elections rolls around in a year or so, I'm going to take immense pleasure in being the one to personally cancel out your vote.

On a lighter note... Mari-chan.

"Magical designer Mari-chan" is Japanese, and wants to kill Japan's "character culture," or compulsive need to design cutesey mascots and merchandise them mercilessly. Tall order, but I think she's up to it. Besides churning out new, anonymous character culture mascots at breakneack speed, she's also mimicked the style while depicting gushing, explosive menstrual periods and self-harming apples... with.. uh.. teddy bear heads.

Yeah.

So anyway, enjoy. And a quick note to anyone who's ordered comics in the last five days or so: I've had to stay at home recently to wait for the UPS guy, so everything's being mailed in one big lump tomorrow. Be patient, okay?

Go read Lucas and Odessa.

Don't make me come over there, damn it.

Sonny Bahzan is the nightmare of many immigrant families made flesh: The completely Americanized child. They didn't even name him Sonny in the first place; it's just that now, it's the only thing he'll answer to.

Born in Mallawi, Egypt, him and a good chunk of his nuclear and extended family packed it in and moved to Templar, Arizona when he was six. The first thing he learned was that America has lots and lots of candy. The second thing he learned is America has lots and lots of appallingly filthy swear words. He's never really fallen out of love with either.

When he's not cramming his weight in taffy down his throat, Sonny's langauge, delivered in perfect English and devoid of any accent, could spontaneously combust sailors. His family can only be grateful that his grandmother has no idea what he's saying in response when they suggest he find a better job, cut down on his Twix consumption, or consider a long-planned marriage to a old country girl back home.

Sonny plays bass guitar in Gene's band, Abide, and plays drifting offense on Scipio's diesel street-hockey team, Whipsmart. He knows Ben, Epiphany and Reagan, and is one of Zora's countless honorary uncles.

If I were an asshole black turtleneck conceptual artist, you know what I'd do?

I'd rent a buffet table, china plates, fine silverware, and a row of chafing dishes and serving trays.

Then, when it came time for the show, I would rip up a few dozen copies of holy books from every religion that has them, and dump them in the trays.

Maybe a colorful, illustrated selection from the Mahabharata for a light appetizer, followed by an alphabet soup of Torah passages seasoned with the Egyptian Book of the Dead and the Epic of Gilgamesh... For an entree, Genesis, or perhaps Psalms. Something weighty, in a cream sauce with palm fronds and communion wafers, maybe with Koran salad. And a few Buddhist koans for dessert, served with crystals and lotus blossoms.

See, it's perfect. It references a touchy and controversial topic without ever actually saying anything one way or the other, so people can read anything they want into it. And if anyone asks me what it means, I can just say, "Oh, I know what it means to ME. What does it mean to YOU?"

Maybe I should go back to art school. Bet I could get a grant for this retarded shit.