Many people don’t realize this, but I’m a bit of an amateur naturalist. You can often find me — palm frond in hand, pith helmet jauntily angled upon my pate — laying in wait along some deserted stretch of highway, crouching, coiled like a limp bedspring. Waiting. Waiting for what you ask? Why, Porcupines of course! Unlike certain other species that I shall refrain from maligning-even though they may deserve it (I’m talking about you, Yeti Crab), the noble Porcupine has never let me down, even though they are all alcoholics. So here you go -

Six LIES About Porcupines That Are Not True.

1. In turn of the century Canada, sheep were in fact quite rare. Thusly, condoms had to be made from the skins of the Porcupine. Of course, this led to a stiff decline in the birthrate, with some historians going so far as to say the porcu-phylactic caused the downfall of the Third Great Canadian Empire.
2. Never introduce a Porcupine to your lover. Porcupines live to sew dissension among otherwise happy couples. They are watching you through your windows. They know you don’t do enough dishes.
3. Porcupine is Sumerian for “Nettle Pig”.
4. An age old war has been raging for eons between the Porcupines and the Sea Urchins. Both claim the title of “Nature’s Pokiest Animal.” Thankfully, skirmishes are rare…except on the coasts.
5. Porcupines are filled with a grape-like drink rather than blood. Go ahead, lick one. They taste amazing.
6. If a porcupine mistakenly made love to a pineapple, the offspring would be the size of a bus, just like a liger. Strangely enough, it would have a silky coat like a mink that shampoos with Pantene. Poky is a double-recessive gene. Sort of like how two wrongs make a right.

1 FACT About Porcupines ( I Think…My Memory Is Hazy. )

1. My step dad totally shot a porcupine, like, twenty times with a pellet gun this one time. I think it got into our car engine when we were camping. Either it lived, or died a horrible death. I can’t really remember which.

(All of this is crap. I just had to draw a lot of Porcupines for a job, and decided to recycle some art. Then I drew something new.)

(Oh well.)

Later,

Jason

Happy Earth Day everyone!

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:

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.

Rarebits rocked it at MoCCA! Besides giving out a hundred samplers out on Saturday, we had a couple of microphones and cameras in our faces (Sam talked with NPR at one point), sold a bunch of comics, gave a bunch out to the press, and ate some freakin’ great food. The curry puffs were a particular highlight. Oh yeah, and this happened.

Along with a many other Center for Cartoon associates, (including Alec Longstreth, Nomi Kane, and Joe Lambert) Billy the Dunce got picked as one of the best comics at MoCCA for 2010 by the New York Daily News!

So there you go.

Now that that’s out of the way – rest assured there will be something new and sort of funny going up later tonight. About Porcupines.

Later,

Jason

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!