Every cartoonist has a cabinet full of failures. It’s part of the job. A maxim I live by is one an old writing partner told me:
They can’t all be golden.
That says “Headcheese”, in the “Cheese” font. I was being pedantic, not meta.
Tag Archives: John’s Arm:Armageddon
The Worst Comic Strip Ever
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Filed under Animation Analysis, Bad Influences, Comix Classic & Current, Don't Know Don't Care, Faint Signals, Idiot's Delight, Magazine Rack, Worst Of All
Soul Coughing
All comics I produced from 2006-2008 were written and drawn during the production of my movie, John’s Arm: Armageddon. I jumped the gun by putting a “release date” on my shirt in the opening panel. Here’s why.
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Filed under Animation Analysis, Bad Influences, Comix Classic & Current, Faint Signals, Thousand Listen Club
A Pirate Looks At 44
I meant to use that title four years ago, when I turned 40. Then today, when I turned 44, I figured that using the title unchanged would confuse Jimmy Buffett searches. Buffett’s song, “A Pirate Looks At 40”, is one I have not heard before, but I’ve read the lyrics, and I understand it’s one of Buffett’s better tunes. So I replaced “40” with “44”, to set it apart.
Originally, I planned to use “butt pirate”, but there’s really only one definition to that phrase, and it’s not one that describes me. It would have made a funny title, but it also would have netted me a lot of attention, mostly unwanted. From pirates of butts, I’m guessing. They’d email me pictures of their hooks and peglegs, with the message “YARRRRR!!! I BE PLUNDERIN’ BOOTY!!!” Right? I’m not caught up on my pirate culture. Continue reading
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Filed under Comix Classic & Current, Don't Know Don't Care, Idiot's Delight, Site Stuff, Uncategorized
Windows of America
In college, I split-majored, in both graphic design and illustration. I’m a cartoonist, but when I graduated high school, that wasn’t a common part of art-school curriculum. In illustration, I learned the most important aspect of rendering; figure studies. After all, there will never come a time when human anatomical knowledge is unnecessary. The skill to draw any part of the body you inhabit will never hold you back.
However, I was naive in my choice of studies. I was so eager to learn all that I could, I didn’t grasp that graphic design requires the left (analytical) side of the brain, and illustration (creative) requires the right. For a green teen, it was too much; I burned out and then dropped out. I couldn’t jockey back and forth across the hippocampus day after day. While trying to ink the sewer grate for the cover of the second Mike The Pod Comix, I had a psychotic episode and hurled my sketchbook down the dorm hallway.
The sewer grate, folks. The sewer grate. (1991)
If none of this makes sense to you, then hello, normal person. Continue reading
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Filed under Animation Analysis, Bad Influences, Comix Classic & Current, Faint Signals, Magazine Rack, Nostalgic Obsessions
I Don’t Like The Drugs (But The Drugs Like Me)
“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
The Thankless Life
A harsh truth of reality: not every movie gets a sequel, and this isn’t a bad thing. Only one thing grants a movie a sequel; money.
Money and passion are often confused by consumers. They feel the same, in many ways, and they produce similar results. But for creative people, money and passion are completely different creatures. The latter is fuel, and the former is a means to an end. You can possess a passion; money, you can only hold. Continue reading
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Filed under Bad Influences, Faint Signals, Late To The Party, Movies You Missed, Nostalgic Obsessions, Saturday Movie Matinee
L’il T-Rex Arms
From ARMLOAD OF ACTION #1, 2008.
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Bouillon Cube Theory
Almost every single aspect of my personality can be explained by one simple fact: when I was a kid I ate a bouillon cube.
I was too young to know better. I had witnessed the flavor sorcery that resulted when my parents would cook with a bouillon cube. Surely, I reasoned, if it made dinner taste that good, then a whole cube of it would be a trip to flavor heaven. I even imagined it might expand into a steak or a burger, like in The Jetsons. So one evening I sneaked into the kitchen, unwrapped a beef cube, popped it in my mouth, and chewed it up. Continue reading
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Filed under Bad Influences, Eatable Things, Nostalgic Obsessions, Robot Toy Fetish, Thousand Listen Club
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