Calamity Cove

Thanks to Audrey, Keffy, EJ, Chelsea, and Brenda for checking out my live sketch show on Ustream. It works like this: there’s a live feed from a camera pointed at the art I’m drawing, and a chat window beside it where you can make fun of my drawing and demand content and responses. My talented friend Eliza does really cool sketch sessions this way, which she calls Sweatshop. (Check it out–she’s way more entertaining than I am!) Since I copy everything else she does, I figured I’d copy that too.

It was so fun. I will do this more. If you wanted to watch/participate in one of these live drawing sessions, what time/day is the best for you?

Until I figure out when I’m going to have a regular broadcast, here is the weirdest and least appropriate sketch. Probably work safe unless they read the text. Then it’s only safe for giggling nine year olds. » Continue Reading…

This took me an hour.

My boss is getting this tattooed on her foot.

A collective hour, that is. You wouldn’t believe how many pieces of paper I killed, how many times I put it in a drawer for a month and then accidentally found it when I was trying to look for character sketches for a comic. I don’t even believe it.

I hate those flowers, you guys. I HATE THEM. I’m not saying that so you’ll tell me they’re great (please don’t). I’m saying it so you understand why I’m contemplating a bit of therapeutic madness that coalesced in my mind after a comment on my tantrum from the wise and venerable Bear:

“flaws are what make the world beautiful.“

Whether she left out her capitalization as a subtle but powerful statement or whether she just didn’t feel like hitting the shift key for the largely uncaring audience on Twitter, it got me thinking.

I don’t know why I’m so scared of my art sucking. I don’t actually care. If I’m not specifically creating an original for sale, I use inferior art supplies on purpose because they’re cheaper. Archival quality? I don’t care if my art lasts years, or minutes. Nearly all my joy comes from the process of making a drawing, not gazing at the finished product.  I have just as much fun drawing with my finger on a fogged-up car mirror or a filthy pickup as I do on a piece of Bristol board with Copic liners.

And yet because I don’t particularly enjoy the finished product, I always assume others won’t either. And I also assume they will judge how much I care for them or how much effort I put into their work by the end result. So if I don’t make it perfect, my own logic insists that they will think I am rude or careless instead of just an unskilled artist. It’s taken years to dig this deeply into my neuroses, and I’m sure there are many more layers to my insanity. But I do know it’s hard for me to let go of art if I can’t ctrl+z, because those flaws might come across as a statement instead of mere accidents.

(I also undervalue my own skills and can never be good enough, but this neat article on pricing your own skills made me feel a little better about just giving people what they need from me instead of what I would need from me.)

Anyway, flaws ARE beautiful. I love this picture, which is a partial nude, so careful when clicking:

» Continue Reading…

Please take my commentary as seriously as if John Cleese was giving it while he wore a wig.

Imagine, if you will, that Amazon is a witch. They have used magic to make it so your cow’s milk is actually carbonated duran juice. Now, no one in the market will buy from you. Your livelihood is suffering, which stinks because this inexplicable buckle on your hat is getting rusty and you can’t afford to replace it. You rightfully call out Amazon as a witch in public. A few other people step forward and agree with you–they heard from a friend of a friend that Amazon tried to sleep with your cow and your cow refused to cooperate, and jilted, Amazon is pouting in the witchiest way it can.  (Keep in mind, Amazon doesn’t usually come to town on this day, and in fact, has specifically slept in on weekends in the past, like that time they made all your gay chickens disappear from the barnyard.) You rally together, storm Amazon’s house, and lynch them.  Their hangover might be what prevented them from speaking up for themselves, but they also might just have had no excuses to give. Good thing that friend-of-a-friend knew what was going on, so you didn’t have to depend on Amazon. Good old…well, you don’t know her name, but good thing she was there to explain things.

I have seen the same anonymous source cited repeatedly, and fifty snazillion pissed off authors and readers in an uproar over the disappeared books. They’re right to be pissed off, and I am not disputing that Amazon is a witch. However, because neither megacorporation has commented, we don’t know that Macmillan didn’t decide to quit selling through Amazon!

If we were accused of something so juvenile and petty, wouldn’t we want people to let us come back to work on Monday and tell our carefully crafted and yet transparent lies, not let some anonymous, unauthorized source speak for us? This “source” could be the janitor. Please don’t let the guy who files urinal cakes tell you why I make my decisions. I should get to lie to your face myself! I don’t think we’re exempt from the Golden Rule because we’re talking about a corporation–after all, instead of one person, that’s thousands of people.

Nothing new at BoingBoing, however. The comments section ALWAYS looks like this.

Once again, I’m not saying Amazon is innocent (it’s highly effing unlikely), or even that they deserve to be defended.  And this public discussion about e-book prices is necessary and vital, regardless of the validity of the catalyst. Still, I feel like Twitter is being used as a time machine to bring us all back to 1692. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I miss the tweets about the boring-ass bagel you had for breakfast, since you actually know that happened. (;

Please, mark your speculation as speculation. (Props to Cherie Priest, for doing that very thing.) Call/e-mail Amazon and demand they explain the disappearing titles, and urge that others do so. The faster we have some corporate bullshit answer, the faster I’ll feel it’s morally warranted to decry their new soulless ways (in addition to the heap of other soulless ways). You can contact them using the e-mail form on their website (I think you must be logged in, though), or you can call them at 1-866-216-1072.

Update:   This is closer to being evidence. They’ve done it before.

Update #2: Thanks, John Scalzi, for tweeting a link to  the official Macmillan letter. And now I have at least half of a story straight from the horse’s mouth, I am willing to say that yes, Amazon is definitely a witch. Pitchfork is ready.

…And in case you don’t know what I’m talking about:

BoingBoing
BusinessInsider
NYTimes
Whatever

It should come as no surprise that the first time my work is in print, the publication has a disclaimer reading:

“Some readers have woken up naked in Canada with no memory of how they got there.”

On a completely snobby note, I really like the graphic design in this magazine. It’s legible, has style, and I don’t see any shitty Comic Sans or trendied-out Papyrus! HALLELUJAH. I thank them for making my first print appearance something I can be proud of.

If you like horror, you can buy an issue or subscription here. If you don’t like horror, do it anyway or monsters will get you.

Shai’s passing left an opportunity to help out another dog who needed a home, and there was definitely a dog-shaped hole in our life.

Note the verb tense! (:

Seamus and I were traveling south of Seattle anyway for a family gathering, so we made an hour detour to meet a 5-month old puppy named Hanzo. He had responsible, loving owners who couldn’t keep him for various reasons, including an unexpected pregnancy that left little time for his continued training. (Congratulations, T&E! I’m sure your new baby will keep you just as busy as this one did.)

We couldn’t leave without him.

His previous owners gave us a CD full of photos(!!), but this one was taken with my crappy cell phone by Whatcom Creek.

He was raised around another, smaller dog, two cats, and very well trained. He’s still a puppy and learning, but he’s eager to please and loves everyone. Even my cats, who most assuredly do not love him back (yet!). I’m nervous, though, because I haven’t been responsible for a puppy in 10+ years. We’re starting obedience classes ASAP. Today, I got him a little coat to keep off the rain. It’s slightly too big, and thus, extra-hilarious.

Also, just in case this post had a maturity rating somewhere above “five year old,” I’d like to announce that he has the worst farts.  (:  Ever. In the whole world.

Now it’s time for something funny.

On December 18, 2009, Seamus and I drove down to visit my Grandma Moonie in Everett. Some of my Spokane family had driven there as well. We hung out for a few hours (with Shai, who by then was forbidden from long, fun walks but was still allowed long, fun car rides). At about 11:00 p.m., Seamus, Shai, and I left.

We stopped at Albertson’s, and as we were walking toward the building, we saw one of these:

I don't actually remember if it was an A8, just that it was totally bitchin'.

It came around the corner without headlights on, so I waved at the bespectacled driver, who looked a lot like this guy:

The guy in the car had slightly better hair. SLIGHTLY.

He was busy talking to the lady in his passenger seat, and though he was driving very slowly, he wasn’t looking up.

When he finally did, I guess he thought we looked like this:

BAM! POW! OOF!

because he totally panicked, stomped on the gas, and shot across the parking lot. I started laughing. For those who haven’t met me, allow me to explain: You expect me to be taller. Being afraid of me only makes sense if you have a pants-pissing fear of leprechauns with glittery faux-diamond facial piercings.

For some reason, he circled back around a row of cars, still with no headlights, and drove past us again. Keep in mind that Everett is not a bad neighborhood. It might be a little skeezy, but this guy clearly thought he was about to get carjacked by a gay couple with their dog. His windows were all still up, and when he stopped the car, it was a good twenty-five or thirty feet away from us.

Now the young woman collecting grocery carts started laughing about it too, and she also gestured and yelled. We’re all hollering, “Turn on your lights!” He rolled down the driver’s side back window, presumably to hear us–and then threw money onto the ground and zipped away again.

…DIED. LAUGHING.

I fell down on the ground because I was spasming so hard it was easier not to hold my own weight. I was gasping for air. Even though the store clerk had been yelling with us, and I’d been pointing at his car, not rubbing my fingers together, he apparently thought we were begging. Or that he could pay us off with this:

I guess it's useful if I purchase blow in Mexico, but I want to buy it here!

BUT THE WEIRDEST PART IS YET TO COME. After throwing out what only barely qualified as money, he drove another fifty feet and then slammed on the brakes. Then the passenger side door opened, and guess who got out?

I'm glad it's fashionable in 2009 for everyone to look like ladies of the evening! Now the real ones don't have to feel like Goodwill mannequins.

Well, not her exactly, but you get the picture. Captain Nerdboy of Bellevue Or Some Other Clueless Over-Privileged Suburb decided we were so threatening that he didn’t want his hooker anymore.

In the end, I feel he deserved his azure testicular condition, and I feel like we saved the prostitute from her worst client of the night. After all, if he thought a dollar would stop us from jacking his sweet Audi, I don’t think he was a generous tipper.

I don’t think I can say this without sounding like a self-centered dick, so I’m just going to go for it. Grief is my excuse!

You don’t know how I feel. You think you do, because you’ve lost pets before. And trust me, I appreciate that you want to support me. I love you for trying to compare our pain so I know I’m not alone. I’m not ungrateful so much as uncomfortable when you compare my canine loss to yours. I don’t think your loss was any less terrible, but I do think it’s different.

Because:

You can’t know how I feel. You tell me about your dog that died of this or that. Maybe yours even had gastric carcinoma (aka stomach cancer) like mine did, and you had to clean up its vomit for over a month while it wasted away and lost the energy to do its favorite things. Maybe it even panicked during euthanasia like mine did, and you had to hold it and feel its heart battering the inside of its chest as it struggled desperately to stay with you.

It’s possible that you met your dog as an adult, and that in the beginning, it owed you nothing except a place to stay. That it ignored you when you gave it commands, and you spent three years in a constant battle of wills to get the damn thing to stop dumping the garbage on the floor or licking your face when it had cat turd-breath. Maybe it wasn’t raised to love you, and it decided to of its own free will.

The similarities become distinctly unlikely when we get this far, but it’s even possible that you’re a person in a minority group at high risk for getting your ass kicked by people who don’t even know you. Perhaps, once in the middle of the night, when you were alone, three people decided you looked like a punching bag, and they moved in on you like a pride of meth-peddling lions, and you were terrified because they were accusing you of getting in their way, and explaining how they were going to remove you, and what the hell could you do because you’re a hundred and twenty pounds and never been in a fight in your life. And it’s possible that you touched your dog’s collar, hoping it would understand. Maybe your dog lunged at them like mine did, snarling and ready to rip their throats out because it already knew what was going on, and it would rather fight three full grown men, each of them three or four times its own size, than let anything happen to you. It’s possible that you got to watch those pieces of shit turn in silent tandem and go back the way they came, that you saw that out of the corner of your eye, because you got to act all cool and look straight ahead as if they weren’t even there and you’d never heard their challenges, because your dog was so awesome.

It’s possible. But I doubt it. Even if I have another dog capable of that courage and loyalty, I hope it never gets the chance to prove it. And so I won’t know, will I?

The next dog I own will probably be just like yours. I will love it, and it will love me. I never thought that wouldn’t be enough until I found out there was more.

R.I.P., Shai. It took me awhile, but I loved you as much as you loved me.

Take a look at our Christmas tree.

Every light is like an Alienware power button.

But wait… What is that up on top? Look closer:

You don't even want to know how much our tree-topper cost. Try... an arm and a leg! HA!

Yes, my friends, to the best of my knowledge, that is an actual preserved Pygocentrus nattereri, also known as the red-bellied piranha. Have an even closer look!

OM NOM NOM

When I was putting the ornaments on the tree, I dropped one. Seamus burst out laughing and turned to my cat Every, who was sharing the couch with him, and said, “Haha, you were totally right, man! Here.” Then he pulled five dollars out of his wallet and tucked it under Every’s paw, like this:

Joke's on Seamus. Every paid me to take a dive.

Also, in a less flesh-rending version of Christmas: while we were shopping for tree stuff, I found this strangely confused Santa Claus.

I always get it mixed up and think the elves live at the north pole and penguins live in the south. Silly me!

So, is there anything special about your holiday decorations? Perhaps one of your ornaments is an heirloom, or you cut your tree from a hanged man’s grave under a full moon and it comes alive at night and murders your neighbors. Please, do tell.