Friday, November 18, 2011

Things I've written whilst drunk

[1] And when they tried to speak to each other it was always with the circling formalities of days long since past they would look back down their shoulders and not see  a single moment that anchored them together they had forgotten how to speak with the certainty of sweat and hands eager to the touch all humid reactions and instant groans. Their language was no longer that of sharp breathed intakes and lips bit to the quick and blood welling bright in the front of everything. They forgot how to laugh the cigarette taste clogging their mouths till all that was left was their needs. They knew there was more than this adjusting of bodily spaces and they lacked . . . oh how they lacked.

[2] Guys! WE'RE FUCKING ALIVE! And we can taste it all the blood and the sweat, the fear and the night air, the cum and the moment right before it all changes! GUYS! We are alive! And yeah there is some monumental shit to deal with...BUT WE GET TO DEAL WITH IT! We get to eat gas station hot dogs and work too much, play too little, miss the important moments and dwell on the worthless, but guys! We get to fuck and cry and know each others names! Our feet get to rest in lakes and our hands on bodies that seemed made for action! GUYS! We are that action.

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Logo by Dustin Harbin

Just putting this here so i can link it elsewhere but hey look how great Dustin Harbin is, you should HIRE HIM AND PAY HIM MONEY.

Sunday, July 31, 2011

Sketches

Here are a few rough drafts of pieces I am working on for a show




Also progress is being made on the SECRET comic project

Thursday, June 2, 2011

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

thisisit

He realized that he had become mostly filled with ill will and malice. He would walk home late at night stumbling slightly from the after work drinks and stop to stare at couples dining in restaurant windows.  He would stand mere inches from the glass. When they would look up at his unwavering attention he would then mouth "FUCK YOU. FUCK THIS. FUCK YOU" with more than the socially acceptable amount of direct eye contact.

Later in his apartment, surrounded by half read books, he would sit on the couch his head nested down onto his chest and glare at the radiator. This wasn't quite how he had envisioned filling his time. Occasionally he would get up, walk three times around the room stopping to open half filled notebooks before sitting back down. Eventually he slept.

Sunday, March 27, 2011

rabblerabblerabble

"The Russians are coming!" I gasped "Quick we have to get to a storm drain so we can escape through the sewers and start our lives over. We will be the Resistance, we will smear our faces with refuse and laugh over burning barrels when the Red Machine thinks it has won! We will be the disease inside their body, the burr under the saddle . . ."

"Ahem" she rolled her eyes and turned towards the wall "If this is what you call dirty talk then I'm just going to sleep"

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

ohshitohshitohshit

the slow crackle and hum of fading radio stations breath frosting up into the sky the late night filter of wan yellow streetlights asphalt brittle and slick stumbling the taste of whiskey bitter on the tongue fingers too cold to fumblingly unbutton coats hands grasping pushing pulling saliva warm and bitter with cigarettes keys dropped and kicked off porch sudden laughter biting lips till blood comes breath harsh and insistent from the lungs

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

My stumptown votes 2011

Best Artist: Emily Carroll, "His Face All Red"
Best Writer: Carla Speed McNeil, "Finder: Voice"
Best Cartoonist: Sarah Glidden, "How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less"
Best Letterer: Brittney Sabo, "Francis Sharp in the Grip of the Uncanny, Vol. 1"
Best Colorist: Emily Carroll, "His Face All Red"
Best Publication Design: Zack Soto, "StudyGroup12 #4"
Best Anthology: "StudyGroup12 #4", edited by Zack Soto
Best Small Press: "The Whale" by Aidan Koch
Best New Talent: Michael DeForge
Reader's Choice: Francis Sharpe in the Grip of the Uncanny Vol. 1 by Brittney Sabo

Monday, February 14, 2011

Ihearitsawaitinggamenow

We buried him today. Does it make me a horrible person that I was bored at the funeral? There were forty-five rows of folding chairs - twenty two on the left twenty three on the right, twelve chairs in each row except for the front rows which had nine chairs on the right and six on the left. I know this because I counted them all, five times. It's not even that I was uncomfortable because it was a funeral and the body of someone they kept trying to tell us was our friend was lying in a wooden box at the front of the room, open for display like muffins or scones at a coffee shop. I just can't sit still. I kept adjusting and readjusting my tie. I know the lady next to me was watching. I imagined her naked and the two of us fucking in the bathroom for a few minutes. Then I felt bad. Not because I am a prude or anything or that a corpse could make me unable to get it up. I just knew we wouldn't be fucking in the bathroom later and that made me sad. There were forty-seven lilies in the right flower urn and I think forty-three in the left. I wish I hadn't worn a suit jacket, I felt all prickly and I wanted to get up and go to the bathroom all through the service. Now that I'm home I wish I had a sweater on but I don't want to get up off the floor. I poured out all the alcohol in the house as soon as I got home. I'm not sure if this was a reaction to the funeral or not. I think maybe I just wanted to make a statement, say something that I couldn't voice at the funeral. I don't think it was even about the beer and whiskey, I think it was the lack of something I really wanted. Like I was pantomiming not talking to him, kissing him, waking up next to him with every bottle I pour down the black yawning mouth of the drain. There were thirty four bottles in all.

Saturday, January 15, 2011

Review: Young Men of a Certain Mind by Lars Martinson



The Minnesotan Lars Martinson is a bit of an iconic figure when it comes to the subject of how to do self-publishing correctly. And yes there is a right and wrong way to go about it or at least a “worse” and a “much much much better” way. Lars is squarely in the much much much better camp. He published his beautifully rendered Tonoharu Part One under the auspices of the Xeric foundation in 2007 and has been a critical darling ever since.  But before that he published a 43-page mini-comic titled Young Men of a Certain Mind in 2003. It is interesting to look back at this spiritual predecessor to the Tonoharu books and see the early glimmer of the later maturity of line and tone that his work would develop. However the beautifully dense crosshatching that would so effortlessly populate his later books at times seems forced in YMoaCM. As if Martinson is shading to fill in the panel and not in actual accordance to the contents of the panel. At times the horizontal lines beginning at panel borders run afoul of the figures within them. On the other hand the panel composition is as good as you could wish for. The word bubble layout in correlation to the interior art is never crowded and Martinson shows a deft hand with negative space and blocking. One standout feature in the construction of this book is the way the last panel of every page works as a pausing point for the narrative, a sort of natural cadence break in the dialogue. The dialogue pacing is such that each page has a settled feeling to it there is no incomplete cadence to the page pitch, every last panel is a small self-contained ending for that page if not for the overall narrative arc.


And it is indeed a very enjoyable narrative arc. The main character goes through his daily mundane minutia at times bemusedly detached from humanity and at other frothing with spittle flecked rage at their perceived shortcomings. He is a character profoundly unhappy with his station in life, at ends to where he is headed, and all his observations are tinged by this lack of situational empathy. Martinson has a few insightful moments during the book, chiefly the idea of the occasional alien-ness of the world around us. The moment when you look up from your coffee and something shifts and you can no longer breach the gulf of your surrounding culture. It is in these moments that the strength of YMoaCM lies.

As a whole Young Men of a Certain Mind is a great comic. The draftsmanship is solid and pleasing if lacking Martinson’s future brilliance and the story will resonate with more than the titular demographic.

If you are of a certain mind to purchase it you can do so here.