Labyrinthian Five Minute Mini-Epics

I was working on a painting today and I added some oil paint and then I looked at my "clean" carpet, covered in paint stains, and remembered I wasn't getting my security deposit back after they see those.  I then remembered back when I was doing most of my oil paintings back when I was losing weight and not leaving my apartment at all(I barely leave now, but back then I sequestered myself in my apartment and forced myself to not even be around tempting food.  After a while it got so I didn't eat that much when the diet ended, but I was like a wild beast.  I kept my hygiene up, but other than that I was covered in oil paint, shaggy, half insane with passion from having been stuck inside so long focusing on art and theory.   I think that was when I stopped looking to meet anyone because all I was looking for was that crazy passion in people.  They either had it or they didn't.  It made other people seem boring.  I felt like the half naked, paint covered insane guy high on art(and not eating, and also a lot of pot) all the time.  I really still do.  And it was how weirdly vague and blurry those oil paints were.  Losing myself in the transparent way I would have to build up the opacity of the paint over time.  Lost in that time.  Just trying to build up the colors, like bringing them out of a mist.  Or just putting a gelatinous blob on the canvas with a bold stroke.  Not blending at all, just letting the color stand on it's own brilliance.

That's what oil painting reminds me of.

Chinchilla

My sister bought the cutest Chinchilla ever.  Plus it looks a lot like my cat.  I asked her if she only like gray furry things, because she also was the one who brought home my cat Oliver who is the exact same weird gray color.  I have to admit the Chinchilla was softer.  But Ollie is smarter, so there.  Anyway, my sister showed me the Chinchillas favorite thing, it's dust bath.  Yeah.  The moment she put it down the guy ran into it and started flipping over in barrel rolls.  And then stopping and sneezing.  And then whipping itself around in this little clear box with fine dust in it.  I was laughing so fucking hard.  It was beyond adorable.

Interview

I got to do an interview today. Wow, how my ego has waited for the moment people started asking me questions.  Because all my answers are labyrinthian five minute mini-epics.  A kid from highschool needed to profile someone who does comics.  I technically do(as in I will be published very soon).  Anyway, he asked me questions like what got me into comics and why I chose it as a profession and what kind of education one would need to do it(like learning not to make run on sentences or putting everything in parenthesis, and proper punctuation, all of the things I wish I learned).  The thing is I think about this stuff all the time for years.  So that was fun.

Comics

I have started drawing on a good schedule and finishing pages on a regular basis.  Right now I am pencilling 5 pages a week and inking about five(I am beihind schedule on the inking so I'm not inking the same pages I finished penciliing.  Basically when I get that all on schedule I will start drawing Thought Balloon Man pages on the side.  And after Talented(the work for hire comic) is done I'll probably finish August, then start my science fiction comic and do the rest of Thought Balloon Man on the side(August is a chapter of it, it covers about five years of my life with every bit of weirdness and fun and awkwardness thrown in).

I've spent almost a year working on my next project.  It's really science fiction heavy with an emphasis on futurism and how that affects crime/society and our humanity(but yeah there is a bunch of punching and shooting, too).  I specifically wanted to make some unique and fascinating characters with pasts that reflect their futures.  I felt everyone was being lazy in their writing and not producing the graphic novels I grew up with.  Just bland copies or sequels, or worse yet prequels(I'm looking at you Before Watchmen).  Making shitty derivative work that doesn't spark imaginations is not how to sell your book or make fans.  I want to do something new.  And I may have found that something new in this story.  So I'm really excited about it and I love writing the main character.

Doppleganger


I went to this place and there was this girl working.  And she looked a lot like an ex girlfriend. She was working at this place.  And when I ordered I just looked at her like "Don't you recognize me?  We totally used to do it.  We're good.  Remember?"  Of course she didn't since she had never seen me before.  But she must have wondered why I had that look in my eye.  So then every time I went in afterwards I would look at her like that.  Eventually she got it that there was some weird communication going on.  Finally we started flirting, I couldn't help it, I felt that sensation like why are my hands not all over your body right now.  I must have been just pheromoning the shit out of that room. Finally one day I saw her with her boyfriend(or some dude) and I was like, nah fuck this shit.

I'm just thinking about all this because this sharp eyed young girl flirted with me today and it just confused me because I was probably too old for her but then again she was exactly what I like.  I think she immediately caught me being strangely flustered when I saw her.  I was only flustered for like three seconds, but I think she thought that was how I am, which is true, but at the same time, I am really flirtatious now a days(a pleasant by-product of not giving a fuck).  But after a minute I thought she looked really young and even though she was totally hot, I started thinking that flirting with her may be wrong or something, plus all her co-workers know me so it's weird.  God, I'm bad with women.  I mean, we're not even talking about kissing let alone sex, or even a relationship.  Just flirting.  Pathetic.  Whatever, I'm moving anyway.

I went out with a friend one night.  She was talking about her boy troubles and I was giving her advice.  She asked why I wasn't interested in anyone(we were around people at a bar).   I said because as far as I know, after 30 years of memory, 95% of it in northern California, girls up here, really don't like me.  She didn't believe me.  And after all my advice about these other guys she finally asked me, if all guys are like that, then how come you aren't coming on to me.  I did say all her problems was because she was attractive, and guys act stupid, so she must have been wondering what I was thinking.  I told her that truthfully, I would be doing everything in my power to get into her pants right now, if I wasn't moving, and the next thing I was going to say was "and because you don't like me enough", but that sounded like I was looking for sympathy or some shit so I said, "and because you're fucking that guy over there."  She laughed because it was actually true.  A few minutes passed and a girl I had a crush on many years ago walked in.  I was happy to see her so I went up and said hi, after all it's not like my affections are secret and anyway it had been years since I'd even seen her, but we knew each other for a long time.  I tried to talk  to her but she wasn't paying attention and she everything I said got a reply of "yeah" or "oh".  She was so uninterested in my very existence, regardless of how much I had changed and grown, regardless of how much weight I lost, and even regardless of my personality(which good or bad is at least hard to ignore).  I was less than nothing.  She introduced me to her gorgeous friend(who is friends with like 5 girls I know from completely different, and lots of times weird places).  But I was so deflated by the whole thing I just said hi to the friend and looked at this girl like, this is all you got, this nothing, that's all you got to give, and said, "Okay, see you whenever."  I walked back to my friend, sighed with a sad smile, took a bow, and said, "That's how much women in Northern California like me."

I think the only time I feel alive is around women I like, so most of the time I just don't feel alive.  I'd say maybe it's just me, but then I think about it and why the fuck would being alone ever feel passionate, and worse yet, why would I waste my time with someone who isn't.  So I'll just remain passionate and hopefully I'll barrel into someone who courses with energy, because that's what I like, even though I have rarely met those people.

Movies

I think moving was worrying me a little(I will have a hold on a place by  this weekend, somehow or another, even if they then reject me) so I wanted to make sure my life was all in order because I'm not coming back(nothing here for me) and I don't want to be bored in Southern California.  Luckily I have been making movies and acting for a good ten years so I have contacts and got to speak with a casting agent who threw me a bone to get into her agency(so they could get me jobs acting).  In a funny way, acting isn't the most important thing because I need to leverage all the actors and production people I know to try to get my own production started(which is why I made those shorts and commercials for my own movies in the first place, so I could meet those people and know how to do it better than others).

You have to stack up all your potential advantages because we all know there are hundreds of things to get in the way.  I see many people have one plan.  I make several.

My other options are working on friends projects(my friends who are writers and directors).  Or if worse comes to worse I know people who can hook me up for pre-production movies and get me a union card.  And that's if I want to ignore my whole comic career.

I still have to do headshots and of course get that apartment to start this rolling.  Me and my friends even talked about making a new acting reel(because I was thirty pounds heavier in my old stuff).  But that would involve filming up here and I don't have enough people willing to act up here(even though all they'd have to do is say a line or two and nod their head).  A friend told me I should do a scene as a conquistador seducing a woman.  I really wanted to film that.  But I'm probably only going to do headshots because all that stuff would take time and I have to move this month.

But I think it's funny what other people would cast me as.

Adrian

P.S.: Many years from now, after i've done my science fiction/futurist comic, I have to do Tooth And Nail(my samurai comic, with some weird tie ins), and finally I will do my fantasy comic, Red Sands.  It's a fantasy in two worlds throughout about three thousand years and ends in a Western.  I was drawing the sketch up there of the main character, Axl.  I thought that since he is black and I like the way the paper brings that out, wouldn't it be cool if the whole comic was done on tinted paper.  I've never seen a whole series done on tinted paper with painted highlights.  This idea is almost twenty years old so it's not going anywhere.  Maybe someday I'll do a tinted comic.