The Muse

"The muse in her purest aspect is the feminine part of the male artist, with which he must have intercourse if he is to bring into being a new work. She is the anima to his animus, the yin to his yang, except that, in a reversal of gender roles, she penetrates or inspires him and he gestates and brings forth, from the womb of the mind."

"Andrea del Sarto, an Italian painter born in 1486, was famously married to his muse, Lucrezia, whose features so closely approached his ideal that he made all his female figures in her likeness"

This article seems to paint the muse as manipulative. http://litlove.wordpress.com/2006/07/27/the-artists-muse/ I'd like to mention unlike these examples there are plenty where the artist and muse never spoke at all. Salvador Dali got a sexual thrill from showing audiences his sexually charged pictures of his muse, his wife Gala. It's pretty clear he never even had sex with her.

At first it was all about her beauty. Then it became all about how special she is. Then it became about what she meant to me and how she inadvertently helped me out of one bad situation and then directly helped me out of another one six months later that no one could give me any real advice on but her. That was when I was hooked. That was the point she wasn't just an ideal but something more. My muse. Thats why I think of that Beatles song "She Said, She Said". Like there is a wisdom in her that was ethereal.

I thought it was funny when I realized recently that my feelings are kind of split. The part of me madly in love(I know, I know, I already covered this) with the actual person. And the part that wants to keep a distance. The part that wants to just see her as this angelic form of light. It's crazy. And I'm crazy. Then I had the realization. I started calling her a muse for a reason.

Because these things happen(to paraphrase Magnolia). They happen to artists. We specialize on some specifics in our art and those specifics can be embodied by someone. Mine are a mix of the sexual person I am and my personal fetishs. Razor like, seductive eyes, thin but shapely bodies, brown hair, sharp features. It didn't have to be like that, I've liked plenty of girls with big round eyes. I've liked plenty of girls who were not super thin(not that I even have anything against girls with some weight I just haven't dated a girl like that yet but I've been really attracted to a few) but I obsess over my fetishes which is different.

An artist need to be driven to be doing art that very well might not make money for a long while. You need to be obsessive. You need to have a will to never give up. All of these traits lend well to mad love. To just gouts and gouts of passion. It is the only way to survive as an inspired artist instead of a guy who just draws well.

I had a muse once. And we were madley in love. We only cared about one thing. Us. And when that ended I was so lost. My life went down the tubes. And then after a few years I met my current muse. She was a friendly girl and in retrospect I am sure she knew I liked her at first sight. I vaguely remember walking into the coffee shop, her asking what I'd like and that moment of just frozenness where I just looked at her with no intelligence. I saw her and my mind was frozen. And I think I smiled, acted like a human for a fucking second and snapped out of it. I told her my order but I must have lingered in that small subtle and indefinable way because she kind of had that knowing smile like she knew she blew me away and was flattered. After that I was in everyday. And we did kind of share that weird smile like we wanted to know what was up with each other. It was all friendly and my art stepped into high gear. I found out she had a boyfriend and it just fucking burned. Like a mental burn. Just stinging and sizzling. Fuck, I'm still mad about that dude. Don't even know why.

It was funny this one guy at this barbecue asked me about the origins of my comic and I told him how much I liked her and how unreasonable I was about my feelings and not giving them up no matter what anyone said. Then I mentioned how I never really hung out with her other than once. She was single. And I had a girlfriend. And truthfully, even if I didn't, even though I had healed so much, she was still too much for me. My self worth wasn't quite there. Now I think of us as equals. But back then she was still something no one should touch. The guy asked how about when we first met. I said at her work, but she had a boyfriend. And the invectives that came out of my mouth. That mother fucking shit. Fuck that guy. And so the guy was like, oh you knew him. I was like no. But fuck him. He aint me. When we switch places I'll fucking shake his hand. Till then fuck him. Then this dude was laughing. And I lightened up and said, no seriously, I love her and she is so sweet so fuckthatguyIhatehim( I was kidding but method acting is easy when you mean it).

In one of the articles I read the question was asked, if the artist never met this muse, would he ever had been successful? Would he ever reach the heights he did? My answer is no. She made it worth it. And nothing else would have, I might not be here at all. I needed her. The inspiration because of who she was, how she was, all that. It inspired me to go on. And her outside beauty was the closest I could ever get to the person she was inside. I settled for that. And now knowing her better. It is so hard to look at her. She is too bright. All of a sudden real feelings of romance spring.

When I was a kid and just started drawing I realized one day that I could possibly recreate some girl I had seen. This was before the internet, before social networking, before everyone had cellphones. This was when you saw a beautiful woman and that was the the one and only time you would see them. They would fade into memory. But I could draw them. I could make them real in some sense. Real for me.

I brought this up the other day in conversation and my friend said he never heard of that. I said I thought all artists thought about this when they created art work. A song could sound like the feeling a woman gave you. A painting can feel like the moment you saw her. Words could recreate the way she bit her lip and smiled modestly. Maybe other artists think like this. Maybe it's just me.

I try to recreate her on paper. If I can get the slightest feeling it is her, the slightest true line, I would be happy.


I cannot kiss her. I cannot hug her. I cannot hold her hand and look her in the eyes. All I can do is sit at my drawing board and try to capture one true thing. Just one.

And maybe for a second it can almost feel real. Almost feel like she is with me. Almost like she feels the same way I do. Almost feel like it is her eyes looking directly into mine.

That is the power I want. This is the closest I can get.

And it never works. All those hours. All those slow precise brush strokes. Not one was good enough. Not one made her real. Not one equaled the feeling of really looking into her eyes.

Sometimes I think ten years from now, if we never see each other again, we'll think of this graphic novel, these paintings, and we'll be with our significant other, and wonder what could have happened. What the other person really was like. What opportunities we might have missed. Did they mean what they said? Do they still remember me? Does it after all this time still mean something? If it ever did?

And other times I think of what an idiot I am. How presumptuous. How there is no way I'll ever know what she thinks. How maybe she is just a girl. Maybe she never felt that deep connection I felt. Maybe I am nothing. And will always be nothing.

What do I even want? A relationship? I don't know. To get married? Definitely not. To have kids? No. All of those things in the future, maybe. But not right now.

The only answer I can come up with is Passion. That's what I want. I want burning fucking passion. Is that love? I don't know but it sure feels good. I have passion looking at her, hearing her, everything. Just seeing her be so painfully shy and so fucking cute when last we hung out. I was so awkward and not myself and she couldn't barely look up. It took me forever to realize she was being so shy. At some point we were talking and she brightened up. Part of me saw a cute kid who was guarded and scarred but still innocent(in the same way as me). That was the part of her I loved. But also the part I wanted to heal. Probably because that was all I had done for so many years. The other part saw the incredibly sexy woman she was and how much power she could have over me with the slightest look.

I have the kind of passion that could meet those eyes now. I'm 100% again. In my art work. In my words. And lately those words I have written, those stories have finally payed off. In order to become a writer or artist you have to have more passion than anyone else. Any amount of surrender will stop you forever. So you have to have a passion so strong that nothing can stop you. And even then I have so much more passion in my heart, that it eclipses my passion for art and writing. It wins over the other two. It burns like cities on fire. I have that for her.

I know I'll someday fall in love again. Maybe this new girl will be my new muse. Maybe it will all go away. The graphic novel. The girl from my comic. My feelings. Just gone from years of never seeing her again. From being with this new woman. And this whole thing, this whole house of cards I built will just collapse in on itself and be forgotten.

That makes me deeply sad. To think that this means nothing. People say I won't let anyone into my heart, but the truth is I want to. I want to badly. If only to lose myself and spend time away from this situation I cannot change. My greatest asset is that I know exactly what I want but it is a curse also. Because sometimes you cannot have what you want. I do feel better because we are friends now, but...on the other hand I may never see her again. So yes, I wish I met some person who was nice and smart and liked me and maybe I could forget. But then again some people are irreplaceable.

Maybe I do see her again. And the truth is, it will be my guard that is up. Sure, I'll be friendly, I'll chat. It will be friendly and normal. I'll make jokes like I always do. Be the little clown I always am. And just like the stereotype, I'll be hiding my sorrow. Playing through it. As long as she's laughing she'll never know I'm crying inside. Thats why when people who know me see this blog they always can't reconcile that I am this way in my writing but the opposite in person. That is my defense. My facade. The outside me. The inside me is this comic. This blog. But I would still do it. Put up the comedy act. And honestly it would all be worth it just to see her smile again.

I think of all the stories of Davinci and Mona Lisa. How that one painting, those subtle paint strokes, how that amounted to centuries of meaning for billions of people. When I die this might be the one true thing that lasts. The one true thing that I ever did. And yeah, it may just mean something to only me for now. But this is all of me.

So...she remains my muse.

Adrian

Post-Game Show

This is not a good bye, it's a see you soon. I am going to stop drawing pictures for myself for a little while. Only comics and commissions for at least a month. I do have a few sketches I'll be adding to this post(because none of them are new). Those will just take a while so they won't all be up tonight. Half of this post details some pathetic and funny and sad and happy shit through the last year. I just decided to not edit it too much(except miss spellings and revealing identities). It's all true, at least so far as my perceptions.


So... out of the shit I've gone through this year I need to sum up the highs and lows. I spoke to Elaine(have no idea how to spell it right because she never corrected me, but besides she was super hot on her Biker Party day, like so hot that when she fell I refused to touch her on grounds that we were friends and it wouldn't be right even though I was talking about helping her from falling down drunk, eat that shit up lady) about letting it all hang out and the truth is more compelling than half assed shit like the stuff we are all in the middle of. As we lead to the end of this year and it all becomes tears in the rain(yeah I'll still quote that shit even ask me 20 years later and I'll still be talking about Blade Runner) I will spill the beans so to speak about almost all the shit in the form of lists. This will be really revealing, partially because I am drunk and partially because I don't give half a shit and I don't think anyone else does.

Top 10 favorite movies of the year:

1. No Country For Old Men: I loved the book, and the movie was even better. The performances perfect. The sound, maybe the best ever. And the direction is just veteran mature work from masters.

2. There Will Be Blood: The best performance of the year by Daniel Day Lewis. An epic about one man. the people around him don't even seem to matter. Just him. Paul Thomas Anderson shows what a once a decade movie looks like.

3. Knocked Up: Very fun, heart warming, and true to a certain kind of person. It just felt like home to me.

4. Super Bad: It made me laugh more than any other movie this year.

5. Death Proof: The definition of having fun while making a movie that comes across on the screen. It's not trying to be great, just fun.

6. Eastern Promises: Cronenberg shows how to make a completely different gangster movie. Viggo Mortensen shows once again that great acting he had in Carlito's Way.

7. Zodiac: Just a great story about a case and the characters involved in solving it.

8. Juno: A cute, sweet, and at some points painfully realistic look at a pregnancy. Jason Bateman had my feelings all over the map. And the kids were spectacular in it.

9. American Gangster: Another master (Ridley Scott who directed my favorite movie Blade Runner, remember) comes and shows yet another way of doing a gangster movie.

10. The Lookout: One of my favorite actors currently does an original heist movie. Almost perfect(except the music).

11. Into The Wild: An inspiring look at someone who would never give up and had only one mission in life. I don't care about the politics of his mission, it was his tenacity that was inspiring. This should probably be higher on the list if only for Hal Holbrook very nearly bringing me to tears. I took a girl on a date to see this and she was making fun of me for like an hour.

I just realized how many damn movies I saw this year. I actually excluded a lot.

And Last American Virgin stands out as a great rental(if you can even find it). Starts out as a straight Porky's riff and goes somewhere very dark. Seemingly explored in another movie that same year, here it is punctuated by the truest most painful ending, way meaner than the other movie I'm referring to here(but won't say it's name or I'll give away a key plot point). A stupid eighties movie that somehow shapes up way into it. Also there is a donkey dick dork in it that is so fucking funny. They mercilessly tease the dude any fucking chance they get. If there was a drinking game about this movie it would be every time they bully this dude for no discernible reason.

Favorite Comics this year:

1. Punisher: Strange to find this one dimensional character actually written not only well, but great. The best ruminations on vigilantism and violence I have ever read. Plus Barricuda has got to be one of the all time best villains(up there with some other Garth Ennis greats like Herr Starr). Garth Ennis is one of my all time favorite comic writers and here he forgoes traditional characterization(which he is the BEST at, think Jesse Custer, Cassidy, Tommy Monahan, and most any other thing he writes) and faces the pure violence of life and pure story. He knows he can't kill Punisher so what would in anyone else hands become pure looping episodic shit turns into something so much more.

2. Acme Novelty: Consistently great. Consistently perfect. Chris Ware will go down in history as one of the greatest story tellers of all. He can combine just a few lines and explain the meaning of life. Who else can do that?

3. Blade Of The Immortal: In issue form this comic has just bid farewell. But as books they are the most action packed long form comics ever made. Not like any of the Manga that surrounds it on the shelves. The villains are many times just as fascinating as the heroes.

Top 8 girls I've been devastated by this year who I have consummated nothing with:

(in order of appearance, not intensity and hey maybe this will hurt feelings but a)I doubt it and b) you should have taken the initiative I would have at least got you back)

(listening to Heart Of Mine by Bobby Caldwell, also done by a bunch of others)

1. Laura: Super hot half asian girl (I'm talking super out of my league and half naked like the whole night) who I stopped myself from kissing even though she asked why I wouldn't because she was super drunk. She had a long term boyfriend. Probably the worst decision of all. No one was around she was rubbing up against me, and I could have done anything I wanted to, but instead I was a limp dick loser and refused because she was so drunk it would be super wrong(although the limp thing is just a fabrication). She even slept in my house and I nursed her to health. Fucking idiot. She is killing me just thinking about her. What the fuck was I thinking. She makes me hungry. She could have been my "Last American Virgin" moment. You'd have to watch that fucking great movie in sheeps clothing, to mixed metaphors, to get what that means. Although I didn't in this case, I'd sum up that movie, and some choice painful moments in my own life, in the desert, years ago, as "driving and crying".

2. Sawako: Super hot Japanese girl who is probably the only girl who I could call a tease on this list. I got her number but decided not to call her because she made me jump through hoops for it. Very cute, and I had a rep for falling for asian chicks because of these first two but after that I basically gave up on the ones around me and accepted them as friends.

(now I'm listenig to "Feel Like Making Love" by D'Angelo)

3. K: I won't say her full name but I felt something deep and real with her and she worked at a "common" place that I frequented(yes, Starbucks, and yes, I was a fool). This was the first one I liked who was ten years younger than me. I totally was head over heals for her and she seemed to actually pick up on it and maybe like it on some level even though she had a long term boyfriend(the rapist who started me and Mendoza's term of Lee, based on the character in the british version of the Office). You can look at least to Spring when my whole Barista fetish began. I have never seen her since she quit and I don't think I will again. She is in love with someone and I am not. The lines do not cross. We could have been something really good. Fuck.....

4. Tu-Ahn: I may or may not have spelled that correctly. She is the girl with the most in common with me. If you like comics you will like to know I met her while stocking shit for Image Comics in Berkeley which my good friend set me up with. She was his friend and I had no idea she had a long time boyfriend from high school and my chances were next to nothing. I still talk to her every few months. She was ridiculous rad. She was fine and cool and just right like goldilocks.

(listening to "Desert Island" by Magnetic Fields)

5. D: She reads this. She was the Barista in my painting earlier this summer who e-mailed me back that she read my blog. I think we connected on an intellectual level(although she was hot to the point I painted that one picture of her and made a post about it). We loved art and she was interesting. I knew there was more to her than she revealed and I think she saw the same in me. More than ten years younger she left to college and I thought I'd never see her again. Then she came back. Just as hot but with a new boyfriend(she had one when she left which was the only thing that kept my crush from blowing the fuck up). I am trying to avoid her but I literally bump in to her all the time(the fact she works at a place I frequent all the time only has like 100% to do with it you subconscious motherfuckers). She has the guy and I don't think she likes me in any other way than in the fact we have interesting lives. To give you an example I don't think I've even said anything funny to her ever. I mean fucking ever. And that is the only thing anyone has ever liked about me. Shit, I shouldn't write so much about her. If she wasn't taken I'd eat her up like cookies...

(Listening to "New York Groove" by Ace Frehley, yeah, THAT Ace Frehley)


6. Michelle: Cute, fun, and just a great time. I met her in New Orleans during like a rain storm I thought might be the next Katrina. Seriously. They shouldn't have been showing reruns of the weather channel in the fucking bar we were stranded in. Very terrifying. Anyway, the next two days were dedicated to drinking and partying and living our last days in what clearly were not our last days. Taylor and I were depressed for days after that. Our fun level was raised to impossible levels because of her and her friends. Everything after that was a huge letdown. But it's still good to know life can be that good. Thanks!

Drought

7. M: Holy shit could you not find girl more suited for my tastes. I went out with her. I was on her so fast it was an Adrian revelation. She really didn't seem to dig me though. It was kind of sad and led to my very sad art posts of the later year. I basically thought that all women must hate me. She has a tattoo that I will not go into because I talked to her tonight and felt wrong even mentioning how hot it was. I see her all the time and hang out with her but she never reciprocated so I basically gave up on her. Still super cool and I should have gotten the fucking hair cut from her. Goddammit!

8. L: I see her all the fucking time and one night I had sparks like crazy with her. I took her on a date and nothing. I was into her but the moment I made a move the electricity was gone. So it's over.

(listening to "Wouldn't It Be Good" by Nik Kershaw)

I'm still seeing some of these girls(not in the dating sense but in a literal sense). But for the most part it is totally over with them and I think I won't actually have anything romantically to do with them. Right now I have an every other day hang over of D. at her place of work. Need to avoid. What good can come out of it?

There were actually enough repeats to make it to ten but I'm not going to go into how they repeated. Although I guess I have.

I'm gonna check my Itunes for embarrassing lists of music. Lets see what I listen to the most regardless of what people think.

These actually say a lot of my piece of mind. I can't believe looking back on it haow much, actually.

1. Magnetic Fields - In My Secret Place: About, literally what it sounds like. And most likely about how I feel alone where I live, yet sheltered and safe. Everything I do is so for myself it's an artists dream. Yet it is scary on so many levels. It leads to highs that most don't get yet it also leads to lows.

2. Elliott Smith - A Question Mark: Shit, this is really getting personal. This song explains a lot in it's lyrics about how you can feel confused , destroyed, and powerful. And yeah, he killed himself. No, I have a lot to live for so I would never do the same. But the whole album is on the edge.

3. Magnetic Fields - Strange Powers: Probably the only positive song I listened to. It treats women as a mystery(although I'm sure he's talking about a man since he is gay). "I can't sleep, 'cause you got strange powers". Pretty much my year.

4. Magnetic Fields - The Trouble I've Been Looking For: Same album as the other two. Again about meeting someone who will tear you up yet make you feel good for a short time. Dammit, I really thought my song choices would be more random and not so telling.

5. Gary Numan - Metal: A song about the disconnection between people. He basically makes the Blade Runner paradigm about some people are more human and sometimes a connection can be made anyway.

6. Dubstar - Everyday I Die: Actually a Gary Numan song, but the cover is so fucking immaculate and rad I listened to it a lot. About a crush on someone far away. Through celluloid or on the pages of a magazine. My crushes were distant and fascinating in their complexities.

7. Sugar - Helpless: About being helpless to the powers of another(again I thin I heard the dude was gay, so maybe that says something, although I am crazy straight). A great song about the confusing feeling that another can give you.

8. Sineade O' Connor - Mandinka: I guess this is a very positive song also(like Strange Powers). About love and making a connection. I somehow see it as light and heat and summer. Maybe something to do with my youth and when I first heard it. A great song.

9. Magnetic Fields - The Things We Did And Didn't Do: A song about the name and all the possible permutations. What relationships feel like and what they should and should not. Great lyrics and a great sentiment about the things that should and shouldn't be. Again, the lyrics say it all.

10. Lush - De-luxe: A song about sex and feeling. Very sensuous and just plain sexy. I love it and it reminds me of actually doing something. It reminds me about living. I guess I have. But sometimes I forget anyway.

(Listening to "Magnet And Steel" by Walter Egan via the Boogie Nights soundtrack)

I guess there is a note of possible happiness in these songs.

Favorite Porno Titles I can remember right now:

1. Somebody's Daughter: So fucking cruel and perfect. No I've never seen it. Just the commercial(huh).

2. Dirtpipe Milkshake: Not as bad as it sounds, but never the less I have never seen it. I know better, come on give me some fucking credit.

3. 7 The Hard Way: Reminds me of that great Rodney Dangerfield moment from Caddy Shack("How would you like to earn five dollars the hard way"). I actually had to sit down and think about this title.

R.I.P. Haley Paige. Long Live Jenni Lee. If you don't know you probably wouldn't care anyway.

I can make lists forever like High Fidelity or I can stop typing and live life. I think I'll do that. Live life. Draw the stories I said I would. Love the way I want. Live. Live.


One from the heart, the whole heart, yes it lives it breathes and it will abide, like the Dude, like everyone else,

Adrian Rivero

Cliffhanger

So after that two day cliffhanger the answer is: I will keep posting on Graphic Apparatus. I'll try to get others in on it. Maybe Taylor or some other friends who draw, but mainly I'll be working on Mendoza. He does all the crazy adventures(like the time he talked to Lee[therapist]) and all the other starnge gambits he always ends up in. For now I'll just keep on keeping on. I have story pages I have to post and still a bunch more sketches(and if I ever get a deal to fucking publish I have a bunch of stuff I have held back because I don't want it stolen that can be shown). Everything is cool between Mendoza and I, he just works like 6 1/2 days a week or more so drawing is pretty tough.

Hopefully this(what I hope is a) sabatical will be of the sexual type. After all it's hard to draw when you're doing it(said in an unsavory voice).

For now, the readers will have to put up with a bunch more of my rambling, introspective, long rants that will never mean anything until I'm famous or dead. Wonderful.

This is a picture of my biggest crush this summer(which compared to last summer's draught is actually pretty amazing, I was doing something both right and absoletely wrong this summer) who I will never see again in anything other than what will surely be an awkward situation. Yeah, she was mentioned in a previous post. And yes, Lee is keeping her warm. And yes, I am creepy and alone.

If it gives me any points I didn't draw her until I never saw her again.

Shit, I just thought of a funny story. Once she sat with me and asked to see my drawings. I showed her a bunch(careful to flip quickly past my Batman fetish) and she liked them. Suddenly the flipping stops on a picture of someone that looks a bunch like her. I stutteringly explain that I'm bad at likenesses before I realize it totally looks like her and have to backtrack and explain of course I was just drawing someone who looked like her but not her(but if I am so bad you woulnd't be able to tell the difference anyway, arghh, headache).

And no this picture isn't the one she saw. This is an obscured pic of her(to keep her identity secret, "but Adrian I thought you were bad at likenesses?", you say, okay I did it like this so I don't have to try to make it look like her, jeez)

Adrian

Baristas

So this is an embarrassing story. My summer of failure was dotted with near moments of coolness punctuated by dismal embarrassment. As was the case here. I came into the Starbucks with Mendoza to ostensibly flirt with my favorite girl, we called her Original Sauce(of course the more I like them the longer it takes for me to get up the nerve to do so) only to end up flirting with another. Original Sauce happened to be working and I talked to her a little, but another beautiful barista ends up sweeping near me. I can't help myself and start talking to her. I notice that this barista is also gorgous and nice. Next thing I know my balls have dropped and I start full on hitting on her. I even resort to old standards like how pretty her eyes are(I was actually being honest and the moment that came out of my mouth I realized how trite and cliche it was). I try to justify it and at the same time hit on her more by telling her I should just paint her eyes onto this picture I'm working on. She laughs and I can't help but do it. I end up hitting on her more, shes really cool about it and it is now just obvious, and finally she knows she needs to tell me the jig is up because the phone number question is about thirty seconds away. She subtely tells me that the guy working complements her eyes. I figure out what that means back off and look down at my drawing of her. I think Mendoza was laughing but I wouldnt even look him in the eye.

I've said many times how bad I am at likenesses so I never was really afraid it would look like her anyway. But, somehow, this one time, it does actually look a hell of a lot like her. I look at her behind the counter just to check if I am wrong about the likeness and if she is really with the guy or I was just imagining things. Of course both things end up true and on top of it I hit on this girl in front of my real crush. I try to pretend it isn't her by changing the hair color but it doesn't change a thing. It is her. On top of all that I'm kind of friends with her boyfriend so it was really humiliating that I was such an idiot.

Anyway, they ended up both being super cool and pretending I wasn't the idiot I am. I saw them a bunch more times after that and hung out with them while they were on break once. They want to buy the painting. She even called it the painting with her eyes which totally made me blush, because again I tried to change it but it was clearly her. I even changed the hair color. Oh well.

And the other barista, Original Sauce, had a boyfriend the whole time so I never had a chance. I don't remember why we called her Original Sauce maybe because she was like the best barbecue sauce(or something stupid like that).

None of them work there anymore. I was sad to see the couple go because they were genuinely cool people. But Original Sauce just broke my heart. She was so fucking cool and hot and sweet and smart. I never painted anything of her. I was that weak. But sometimes I look at things I painted there and I can tell there is something...just something that reminds me of her. And now I probably will never see her again.

It's weird how people pop in and out of life like a few frames of film in your own personal movie. I wish I had a pause button.

Adrian

Therapists

Mendoza thinks I'm gonna chicken out on posting today just because I didn't pay my electricity while on vacation(I just got back a few hours ago). But Starbucks has internet(for a price) and what he doesn't know is I have no shame and will go there several times a day just to flirt or be around hot bariistas(truly, no shame). So here I am again. My only wrinkle was today when I went outside to talk to some old friends and came back to find Mendoza sitting next to one of the rapists(What I call these stealers of my potential girlfriends. Some prefer to call the rapists boyfriends but I just can't imagine a world where woman would choose to sleep with these guys.).

Methinks that in Mendoza's quest to outpost me he joined the rapists side in order to weaken and taunt me.

These are random sketches from my sketchbook. Soon I'll be posting out of my vacation sketchbook which has a shitload therewithin(newly coined word by Adrian). first is a small sketch I did of John Constantine because I like to draw him. Then a dog with a choice boner that has it's hands up to "raise his roof" in homage of Mendoza's own thematic pose. Then an uninked preliminary character sketch from a future comic of mine called Tooth And Nail because I had a scan of it lying around.

Death to the rapists.

I hope this is the first post you've ever read on Graphic Apparatus dear reader.



Adrian