For this Christmas, and probably every Christmas afterward, I have made a command decision to be brutally honest with myself, and everyone else. I would say that I hope others can accept my choice, but this is personal. I won’t even ask you to bear with me.
Comments Off on Year of the Grinch
Filed under Bad Influences, Don't Know Don't Care, Nostalgic Obsessions, Unfairly Maligned, Worst Of All
I have now passed the half-way mark on my least productive year in a decade. Even when I was practically homeless and actually starving a ways back, I was producing more work than I have this year. I know what the problem is.
That itself is the problem.
Continue readingComments Off on Museless
Filed under Bad Influences, Don't Know Don't Care, Girls of BIUL, Nostalgic Obsessions, Unfairly Maligned, Worst Of All
This year represents a personal milestone for me, in that I have now been creating and self-publishing my own comics for thirty years.
Continue readingComments Off on The Thirty Year Niche
Filed under Bad Influences, Comix Classic & Current, Faint Signals, Girls of BIUL, Magazine Rack, Site Stuff
I don’t really have to link the song, do I? We all know what I’m talking about! It’s not like they had another Top 20 song!
Continue readingComments Off on Concrete Blonde
Filed under Comix Classic & Current, Don't Know Don't Care, Eatable Things, Girls of BIUL, Thousand Listen Club
Long ago, in the Before Times, I was dating a woman with a very young daughter. I had not yet gelled as an artistic entity, and was in the process of learning that I’m really not cut out to be a father, even a surrogate one. This became apparent on two occasions. Both were attempts on my part to make a connection with a kid. Both failed hilariously.
The first was the purchase of a “children’s book”. I spent hours at Books-A-Million (down the block from Media Play) hunting for just the right one. It had to be colorful, clever, and not condescending. I refused to buy anything “kiddie”, on principle. It had to be something that enticed, thrilled, and sparked the imagination, like the books I read in my grade school library.
Comments Off on PaRappa the Crapper
Filed under Bad Influences, Don't Know Don't Care, Faint Signals, Girls of BIUL, Idiot's Delight, Nostalgic Obsessions, Robot Toy Fetish, Thousand Listen Club
When you listen to a professional newscaster, you are hearing an “all-purpose” American accent, very similar to how black comedians make fun of white guys. It’s a mode of speaking designed to be understood by a wide variety of ages and backgrounds. It’s also totally alien sounding, especially when they lapse into a Spanish voice for words like “Nicaragua”.
Outside of America, accents are seldom a focal point.
In 1990, I relocated from New Jersey to Georgia. Originally, I had a curt New Jersey accent, like Jim Norton. My first year, I roomed with a guy from Rhode Island, and when I went back to Jersey for vacation, my friends couldn’t believe what a horror show my speaking voice had become. I was the caricature of the braying Yankee.
Comments Off on Regional Ambiguity
Filed under Faint Signals, Uncategorized, Worst Of All
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.
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
Comments Off on The Kook Who Sat By The Door
Filed under Comix Classic & Current, Eatable Things, Girls of BIUL, Idiot's Delight, Magazine Rack, Uncategorized
I would call Outkast the greatest rap group of all time. The thing is, we’re from the same city (ATL), and I’m afraid I’ll sound like a local promoter.
That’s why I always forget to bring ’em up. This is a problem, because the media tends to focus on the wrong aspects of rap; the guns, the gangster fetishism, the bitches and hoes. These things don’t really exist in Outkast’s oeuvre. Integrity? Quality? Talent? Those do, in excess. Continue reading
Comments Off on I Left Out ‘Kast
Filed under Thousand Listen Club
Okay, look. This is what’s called an in medias res strip. The action was in progress before you started reading.
Comments Off on Elton John
Filed under Comix Classic & Current, Faint Signals, Girls of BIUL, Movies You Missed, Nostalgic Obsessions, Saturday Movie Matinee, Thousand Listen Club, Unfairly Maligned
Comments Off on The B-52s
Filed under Bad Influences, Comix Classic & Current, Don't Know Don't Care, Faint Signals, Girls of BIUL, Thousand Listen Club
BIG BOOK OF COMICS (SIGNED)
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