better living

Summer Mix - Material Sensations

2009-07-26T15:19:36Z

(cross posted to my other cartoon blog thing that's basically hidden on my website and nobody reads)

Here's a mixed cassette tape (psych!) that I made, all on computer for you to give a listen. This is what I've been into lately. I think it's a good mix.

Although I think it is sort of neat when songs literally blend together (but, in the end, big whoop), I don't enjoy it so much when mixes that I download are one gigantic file. I'd rather have the individual tracks. So that's how I did this. I renumbered the tracks, though, so hopefully they will show up in your playlist in the correct order. And it's up to you to turn on the magical "songs overlap by a few seconds" feature, so you can feel like your very own skilled DJ!

I just now named it Material Sensations. It's hard to get a theme-read out of this. A few songs seem to be about the physical appearances, and the inaccessibility, of ladies. As a summer mix, it's mostly upbeat-ish. My favorite type of upbeat song, though, are ones with minor chord melancholishness running with the beats (featured prominently in Sabali and Both Ends Burning). And I ended things with some coming down songs. One is actually called Coming Down. I like when mixes end in this fashion.

Material Sensations

It's the thought that counts

2009-05-28T19:10:37Z

Amigos/as,
Join my flickr group! I just created one called It's The Thought That Counts! wherein members can share well-intentioned gifts gone awry.

Here's the description:

It's The Thought That Counts is a space for sharing those well-intentioned gifts that, for one reason or another, fell flat.

It's a space where these gifts can be appreciated by a wider audience!

We welcome a whole range of "bad" gifts - from sagging cakes, to tacky clothes that are the wrong size, to art from your kids or relatives. Anything!

This is not a mean-spirited group (kids often make "bad art" - and it's charming!), and we hope that if someone posts a gift you've given you won't be offended. Your heart was in the right place in giving it, after all. And that's what counts.

I don't even have an icon for it yet.
I thought of this last week, and couldn't decide if I wanted to make it like a one-theme tumblr blog.. but in the end flickr seemed most logical. If you have suggestions, sock 'em to me!

My next step is to do lots of searching on flickr, and then request that people add their items to the group.

upsidedown music

2009-04-15T02:34:20Z

please forgive the weird feet/legs at the end. and that I forgot to keep drawing the pillow

thus

2009-02-11T04:15:46Z

Tentatively titled "super hunks have the most slanted faces"

What! I was feeling emo.

slice of life

2008-12-18T04:55:26Z

this one bar has a pizza place nearby, and when the pizza place closes they give their remainders to the bar. this is what happened one time when we picked up some slices of hawaiian. I sort of forgot how to draw. This was really difficult.

abbrev anon

2008-11-24T06:26:13Z

Free box

2008-08-19T09:06:28Z

sort of inaccurate - I don't grab things with my right hand. But otherwise, here...

So that's ten. I started a month and ten days ago. I wasn't as prolific as I would have liked. But ten is a nice number. Tomorrow I'll make a cover, and then after that I plan to have all of these printed out in a small collection. I'll be at a table at the upcoming Portland Zine Symposium, and shall have them on hand (it's this weekend).

Yesterday I made a page/blog for these on the website that is my own.
http://blueskiesabove.us/toons
If ever you care to share these with a friend, I think that's a better place to direct them. But it doesn't really matter a whole lot. I'll still post them here.

celebrate

2008-08-17T18:01:48Z

Thanks, Jacob, for suggesting I write something on this matter. You will always have a place in my heart.

State of Affairs

2008-08-06T09:24:16Z

Don't put tanks on couches

2008-08-04T08:54:58Z

part two of the last one.

Motorcycle trouble

2008-07-25T06:45:31Z

I messed myself up by deciding I had paper issues, and by not being able to conceptualize the entire thing as I drew it. But now I'm making progress in those directions. And I have part two of this one coming up next!

Today I noticed that I spelled my initials incorrectly in the first five comics...

Don't forget to look at flickr for pictures, because I haven't been posting many on here lately. And I have a bunch to put there.

Hands-free sneeze

2008-07-18T05:15:48Z

sveltelife @ 2008-07-14T23:25:00

2008-07-15T06:30:35Z

While making this I spilled a quarter full jar of indian ink on the chair I was sitting on, and the ground, too. With that bottle empty, I opened up a bottle of Higgins "American Indian Ink" - about forty years old - that I'd found some months ago at an art supply scrap sale. Glass bottle, and inside the box is an old advertisement
I meant to finish this on Friday, but wasn't able to.

Weather reports are not cool

2008-07-11T02:28:22Z

it's all true, but nothing is real

True wheel

2008-07-10T04:41:03Z

almost daily.

If I drew a daily (or so) paneled comic

2008-07-08T07:47:26Z

would be better with some face, but faces are hard, and I was a bit hasty and I wanted to see how fast I could whip this out. I sketched it in fifteen minutes while watching Dirty Harry (kind of a bad movie...), inked it in thirty minutes, and then the whole scanning, realizing it should maybe have rectangles but I forgot to draw them, drawing them and doing a scan, and aligning the panels in photoshop took another thirty minutes. sorry about the size... but that's the biggest I can do without feeling pangs of guilt for your beleaguered browsing experience. my inspiration