Sketches and Pictures: April 2004 Archives
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
