Tag Archives: Little 5 Points

Nation of Ulysses

How about that? It’s 2020.

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Filed under Bad Influences, Faint Signals, Girls of BIUL, Nostalgic Obsessions, Unfairly Maligned

Your Suffering Pleases Me

Even if I don’t see the ones who’ve hurt me ever again in reality, I still see them in dreams. That’s how I know I’m truly in the right. My subconscious mind proves irrefutably that I was the victim and they were the abusers. I bear no buried guilt.

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Filed under Bad Influences, Comix Classic & Current, Don't Know Don't Care, Worst Of All

Ooh, That Smell

I based this pink flying unicorn on myself.

Something you probably don’t know about me, being that we are conversing in the odorless digital realm; I have olfactory senses on par with or equal to a woman’s. I can smell everything. All the time.

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Filed under Don't Know Don't Care, Faint Signals, Thousand Listen Club

Head Shots

When you’re polishing the brass railings of the HMS Titanic, it’s important to remember one thing; do it with style. Otherwise, why bother? The more you polish, the better you get. So what if the ship hits the iceberg and sinks?

Since 1998, largely to keep myself out of a rut, I’ve changed the heading of the Bands I Useta Like strip every few years. In the very beginning (when it was self-published), it looked like this:

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Filed under Comix Classic & Current, Magazine Rack, Site Stuff

Bands I Useta Like: The Unofficial Soundtrack, Vol. I & II

Imagine if you will, a world parallel to our own, identical in many ways, disparate in others. Long story short, in this mirror universe, Bands I Useta Like was optioned by a major independent film studio, and made into a hit movie. It combined animation and live action, and because the producers had deep pockets, licensing songs for a decent soundtrack wasn’t a problem.

Whether I allowed the film to be produced at all was contingent upon the quality of the music choices. If they balked at a crucial song, or refused to include it, I would walk off the project. Which I did, and they replaced me on-screen with a real actor. Like I said, the movie was a hit.

The 2-disc soundtrack sold out of stores overnight. Even though it came packed in that shitty double jewel-box, which just winds up broken, on the floor of a car.

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Filed under Animation Analysis, Bad Influences, Comix Classic & Current, Don't Know Don't Care, Faint Signals, Movies You Missed, Thousand Listen Club

2012: The Sketchbook

I had to move recently, hence the hiatus. If you’re a writer or an artist, moving is extra hell because of all the books. Big glossy ones for the coffee table (if applicable), thick reference tomes, and oodles of little half-finished sketchbooks.

Not an exaggeration.

In 2012, my friend Chay and I worked as audience members for the taping of a popular game show, hosted by Steve Harvey. We helped to provide a diversity that was wholly absent from the proceedings.

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Filed under Comix Classic & Current, Faint Signals, Idiot's Delight, Robot Toy Fetish

The Kook Who Sat By The Door

If I could go back in time 20 years, and tell my 24-year-old self that I’d be signing my own comics at Criminal Records in Atlanta’s Little 5 Points, I wouldn’t believe it. Mostly because at 24 I was incredulous about the feasibility of time travel.

Three years ago, in jail, more than one dude told me I looked like Bruno Mars. I don't see it.

Three years ago, in jail, more than one dude told me I looked like Bruno Mars. I don’t see it.

I’ve guested at comic conventions before, but this was Criminal Records. They’ve had an almost mythical status since the 1990s, and their old location (it’s now Stratosphere Skateboards, another local business I highly recommend), which I visited often even before I lived here. It had cartoons drawn on the walls by Skip Williamson, Evan Dorkin and Bob Burden, just to name a few. I want to say Patty Leidy was up there too, but I’m going on memory here.  Continue reading

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Filed under Comix Classic & Current, Eatable Things, Girls of BIUL, Idiot's Delight, Magazine Rack, Uncategorized

Great Hamsters I Have Known

Today, a great hamster was laid to rest. His name was Boris. 

boris1

We must not be sad, and instead celebrate the all-too-brief life of a beloved creature. Boris was curious, friendly, and adored by all who knew him; even the folks who disliked his kind. By some cosmic coincidence, the grey-and-white patches on his back formed a big “B”. Continue reading

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I Don’t Like The Drugs (But The Drugs Like Me)

"The sedative for coughs", until 1913.

“The sedative for coughs”, until 1913.

Here in Atlanta’s Little Five Points neighborhood, we lost another local musician to heroin. I won’t write his name here, because I don’t want to inextricably link him with the drug that killed him. But there’s an anguished frustration every time this happens, when the needle takes yet one more.

Junk has been a cancer on music since before Charlie Parker played a note. It has taken too many casualties to list here. It seeps into cinema and art like toxic groundwater. No one does better work while on heroin. It improves no experience; it only makes one atrophy. What it does, is put your soul in terrible pain, and then dulls it. Nothing it does helps you or anyone else in any legitimate way. Continue reading

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Filed under Bad Influences, Don't Know Don't Care, Idiot's Delight, Worst Of All

Skinny Puppy

BIUL_Skinny_Puppy

There are a handful of things I’d change if I were to redo this strip.

  1. I’d rephrase what “intrigued” me in the caption atop the first panel; my sarcastic quotation marks on “texture” are easily mistaken for a misspelling of an actual Skinny Puppy song, “Testure”.
  2. I would reevaluate my appreciation for them, because these days I find myself turning to their music regularly, like a balm.

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Filed under Bad Influences, Comix Classic & Current, Faint Signals, Late To The Party, Nostalgic Obsessions, Thousand Listen Club