During these weeks I weighed the choice to buy a very unique set of shoes, read on below for the full scoop. I’ve also included my training schedule for the next month and a half.

More comics to come next week!

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What I’m coming to understand is the physical activity of running has hidden benefits and revelations. Being the journal comic prone cartoonist I am, I think keeping a cartoon runner’s journal would be an interesting thing for me to do and for you to read. While I don’t plan on doing them on post-it notes and poor-quality iPhone pics every week, I will try to keep it loose yet legible.

I know of one other comic in the world where a running journal has been employed: the masterful “Haunted”! If anyone else has suggestions of running comics I could read and…uh…”draw” inspiration from I’d love to hear about ‘em!

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I’m sitting in the kitechenette of our African themed hotelroom tapping this post out on my iPhone and have four blisters and a light sunburn.

I had written a long thoughtful blog about nostalgia and Disney and creativity but my posting from an iPhone made me lose it all…for the love of blog.

Here’s a visual summary about my thoughts on theme parks and love for Jim Henson:

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Thanks to everyone who stopped at our table this weekend! It was so good to see you, shake your hand and give you a button or a comic! If you are in the mood for some fun posts, read some past ones. This little one is a little on the heavy side.

Over the weekend I had an injection of comics culture. It had been over half a year since my last comics and indie art convention, APE, and so much has happened to me since then that I felt a little off balance. When I went to APE I had one freelance job for sure and two maybes that quickly became yeses. I had been doing HCE for only a few months and hadn’t yet gotten into the flow of characters or lines my pocket brush could make on paper. Now I have a full time job making comics and illustrations for a company an hour from my apartment and I barely have the energy to make my own deadlines with HCE and Rarebits.

To put it another way: I felt like a loser.

Ok, I feel like a loser a lot of the time without much cause, but hear me out. The passion and joy in the eyes of all cartoonists I met and hung out with over the weekend in New York spoke of a hunger they had to see their work on screen or on paper. They lived for their expression. Comics were life, love and limb for them. Even those who had to suffer the so-called “asteroid field” of freebie tables were there for the love of comics. It reminded me of something TMNT creator, Peter Laird said to my CCS class in 2007, “If you don’t absolutely love comics and what you are doing, you won’t make it.”

I couldn’t be prouder seeing my fellow Rarebits cartoonists share their work with old and new fans. My joy on Sunday night when I read that Billy the Dunce was on the shortlist for best comics of the con was only matched and exceeded by Jen Vaughn and Kyleen Flynn. Their drive and love of comics and comics culture was evident all weekend, it was an inspiration to me.

I’ve toyed with the idea of stepping away from publishing comics on and off again every month or so. I ask myself if I love what I am doing. A conversation I had this weekend was about that very thing: if your heart isn’t in it, then it will show and not be worth it for reader or cartoonist. I am NOT at the time stepping away from comics, but it seems like I’ve been stuck in the undertow of life and can’t get back on my drawing board.

Next year, for MoCCA I hope to have something worthwhile to show. Something I’ve poured more into than the few reserve drops of creativity that constitute the majority of what I did in HCE volume 1.

And for all of you out there making comics or art, I will say this: NEVER stop doing what you love, even when it sucks. You will regret it more if you walk away. I’ve done it once, I won’t do it again (more on that some other time).

BTW: The new MGMT album is so good, NOTHING like the last one. If you are a fan of music, pick it up. Mind blowing. Truly.Share/Bookmark

Table G3 along the back wall with all the Center for Cartoon Studies students. Come by to say hi and get some Rare Bits buttons! Jason has beautiful prints for sale and Billy the Dunce comics! Sam has Here Comes Everyone comics, These Things Happen 2-4 minicomics, and a new anthology called Tag Team! Jen has Menstruation Station: Menarche Aboard, Don’t Hate Menstruate minis and Mermaid Hostel comics! So much good stuff here!Share/Bookmark

Sometimes I get in the old funk where I don’t really know the point of it all. This usually comes at the end of a long set of days or weeks where  sleep is short and work tremendous. It’s a trance state, like a spirit quest, only the wilderness I wander is between my ears and the fasting involves a lack of shut eye. I remember reading somewhere that the Sioux believe(d) the waking life is the unreal realm and our dreams hold the truth about the world. I kind of like the notion that perception, more than anything, defines the world for each human.

So, why the odd quote to title this rant? When I need some grounding in my trance-funks, I don’t reach for Thoreau, Emerson or Nietzsche; I go straight for the train-wreck of Charles Bukowski. Why? Well, because he was living proof that the life of the artist isn’t all it’s cracked up to be by those fortunate few who had friends in colleges, publishers and journals to ensure some kind of “fame and fortune” (although, late in life, he did feel some of both). It’s not a romantic existence. It’s often brutal, leading to early deaths or late crack-ups.

Now, the other, more true reason I turn to Bukowski is to reflect on what I think of myself. Am I a mad poet? Nope. Do I consider what I do as art? No. Would I consider myself to possess something of the literary spark? Sometimes. Am I living in a half-rotten apartment with a radio blaring Wagner and drinking cheap wine until 3AM? No. Thus, I’m doing alright. As long as I don’t follow the path of Bukowski, I’ll be fine. Modest Mouse (the band) has a great song about this very feeling.

To get to the quote (finally): “To make art, one must be crazy always/and alone.” An interesting thought. One that some folks take to heart, even some who have never read a line of Charles “Chinaski” Bukowski. But I don’t find this to be true in my own work. While, I don’t consider myself an artist in the way Chuck meant it, I do consider creative expression to be something I do from time to time. I do this best within a group of like-minded folks where we are all a part of the creative and critical process. Without the input of others, the work that is done could easily become a navel-gazing, dime-a-million piece of cultural crap, speaking only to the person who made it and very few others.

True, to be a cartoonist, one must often be alone and a little crazy, but in my opinion, it can’t stay there. Even Robert Crumb (someone who illustrated several Bukowski stories in his time) have other cartoonists to work with and had to get out and sell Zap out of a baby carriage.

But it doesn’t end with just artists helping each other, the life of a creative person is defined mostly by those who enjoy her or his work. It is to you, reader and friend of the Rare Bits that I blog. Thank you for reading, and please feel free to comment, good or bad, on our little posts. More than craziness, it’s why we doe what we do.Share/Bookmark

Just going to be one of those months everybody. March is in like a lion for me. Here’s hoping for lamb chops in early April. Too bad I’m not a libertarian or I could just shrug.Share/Bookmark

Well, I’m doing better today, but yesterday was a little hard to get going. One aspect of the creative cartoonist’s life is the burn out. We spend MANY late nights to see our passions through to their ends. Whether it be producing mini-comics at a 24 hour copy shop or posting webcomics like us here at rare bits the cartoonist thrives on the manic twitch of the artistic nerve. And, like the aftermath of coffee or sugar, the crash can be rough. Yesterday, I crashed. Today, I’m doing a little better.Share/Bookmark

And then he stopped. Under Leahy’s thumbs the pulse- only moments ago a frantically pounding drumbeat- was still. The knife-blade of pain and fury left Leahy all at once, replaced by confusion and fear. He jumped backwards, letting the warm corpse drop to the ground. His eyes wide, Leahy spun around, desperately trying to make sense of his surroundings. The darkness of the room was speared by a shifting pattern of light. A single small television sat in the farthest corner of the room, the sound turned to a low droning. It caught Leahy’s attention. As he watched and listened, the swirling leaves of his thoughts gently settled- into a pattern of sinister purpose…

The Estate Tax Re-appropriations Bill was met with a rider, as is so often the case. Senator Tom Delay and Senator Richard Santorum authored the rider; an effort to limit the government subsidizing of “seasonal” crops. Senator Kennedy had opposed such a limit, and was busily co-authoring a counterproposal with Senators Jim Jeffords and Joe Lieberman while Senator Bill Frist held the floor.
Frist was arguing in support of the Delay-Santorum rider, but with an added provision for the elimination of phrases regarding same-sex relations from all government internet sites. The air in the chambers was languid and thick. And as Frist spoke, lazy swirls of dust turned spirals in the sunbeams. Paper crackled and swished as notes and folders were moved about. It was a somber stillness. A cold, cast-iron stillness

As Frist spoke, the stillness increased, if such a thing were possible. The dense calm became a billowing thunderhead of silence; at once deafening an all-encompassing.

It seeped into the skin and was felt everywhere. Even Frist- animated with the passion of debate- could hear his voice diffuse into the stolid atmosphere. A flicker of electric panic arced through his spine. Instinctually, we are driven to listen to the quiet. It is the calm that abandons sailing vessels. It is the stillness of a patient predator. It is that most basic part of us that says, quit simply: run.

Frist continued to speak, but a tinge of worry bent the ends of his sentences at uncomfortable angles.

Kennedy Lieberman and Jeffords hunched over a small desk, speaking to each other in low grey voices. Notes and letters and laptop computers were arranged in a mess of planning as their alternate rider was hammered into shape.
Kennedy, however, was no longer staring at the tabletop. The sharp edges of Frist’s voice caught his attention. He strained to hear beyond Frist’s voice, beyond the subtle quivers. He listened hard, past the coughs and the shuffling of the Senate chamber. He heard a low, distant wail.

And he heard it again.

It was louder this time, closer. Lieberman looked up, and he too heard it. Again. It was louder still, closer. Senate floor discussions and arguments faded as the wail grow louder. Frist’s eyes darted to the back of the chambers, past the floor to the large wooden doors. He continued his speak, but kept his eyes fixed on the two black men standing guard.

The wail grew louder. Frist trailed off. Jeffords raised to his full height to speak. Kennedy put a hand on his shoulder, sitting him down.

The wail was close. It was very close. The two guards looked at one another, letting their hands touch their side arms for reassurance.

A wail so loud and pained that it might shatter the wooden doors rang out. But it didn’t shatter the wooden doors. It was a pair of tallow hands, thick with muscle and surging veins that shattered them. Wood and metal burst into the room. One of the guards was left cradling the twisted wet mass of his left arm. The other fumbled for his gun, his eyes stinging of tears and sawdust. He would eventually find his gun, but it would not end well for him.

Senator Patrick Leahy filled the door frame- an uneven mountain of a creature. The sad remnants of a pinstriped suit hung in irregular swatches. His nostrils sucked in the air with raw hunger. His mouth twitched and his teeth gnashed.

And his eyes …oh God, his eyes.

Run.

Leahy’s eyes were round with fury, the edges crinkled like paper set aflame. Frist looked into them and saw a stare to break bone; a pick-ax, a hammer. A stare as old and as raw as hate. Frist saw this and other things dark and ancient in Leahy’s eyes, but none so terrible as his own reflection staring back.Share/Bookmark