Stargazing

Theres something metaphorical with the title of this post. I haven't figured it out yet. hat's probably fine.

It's clear to me that I cannot reconcile this deadline I have set for myself and achieving any kind of real creative output. This is something I must remedy. I have stories to tell, though I feel they must have a punchline more often than not. It's like I forget the things I'm influenced by as I'm creating the thing, or I'm influenced by things I cant remember. I look for visual solutions to the probelms I've given myself, and they don't come quickly enough for someone who spent four years at art school. For someone who purports to be an artist.

But maybe I'm not yet. Maybe that fine. In fact its fine. It is fine. Though the conceit of this project is that I am not an artist, and merely a pretender, I believe that maybe that is a voice. More than that, an voice worth hearing.

I have two comics in pencil now. I will scan them In I guess. Then discuss them. The finished products will hopefully come soon after. I like the second one more than I like the first.






The two are unintentionally sequential. Though the paper scratches whoever the fuck viewer you are may see are probably incomprehensible, I an offer you the gist. I've almost given up on trying to write the word bubbles in my comics. I have not yet successfully merged word and image. So when these are finished, Ill worry just about the pictures, the ideas. disjointed perhaps. But I cant be bothered with connecting them. Detail oriented is an adjective that makes me cring as I look through want ads. But I laughed at myself, when I saw the sad inidan guy in a bar on Its Always Sunny In Philadelphia describe himself as a "big picture guy." I can only create broad strokes.

It's funny how every time I come close to telling an actual personal story, I end up berating my lack of creativity. Maybe it's funny, maybe it's not. But given my obvious inclinations, Ill try to skip ahead to what the hell those sketches are about.

Strip the first!:

Panel 1

It's sunday afternoon. I just came home from my thanksgiving camping trip. I drove out to Joshua tree (lake camp ground and RV park (a seemingly random piece of unoccupied space surrounded by a fence, which is in turn surrounded by entirely similar looking land for miles in every direction)) to drink and do drugs with people who I've only known through drinking and doing drugs on camping trips. As far as I'm concerned they're the best people I've ever met.

Panel 2

For some reason I decided to come home instead of going to some hot springs with the intention of chatting up S---- who I think is just delightful and if I'm not mistaken may have taken a liking to me. I always seem to know the right move to make long after I've taken the wrong one.

panel 3 So now I'm home filling up the time, hoping that I can find a girl to go out with tonight. It will make me feel like I made the right decision. Like if a girl actually isn't busy, or even picks up her phone, or even even calls me back after the polite and purposely benign message I left on her voicemail, and when I'm about to leave my house also still wants to hang out, then maybe the two hours drive in the middle of the day wouldn't be for nothing.

panel 4

Unfortunately for me I've spent the entire day thinking about these things, but I haven't done it. All I have to show for it is a clean set of unfolded laundry, a tummy full of eggs, and half a chapter closer to finishing the book I won't finish for another three months, plus a few more levels advanced in the webgame I was too ashamed to draw myself playing for more hours than I spent accomplishing any of the other, documented, activities, rather than calling any girls I know.


TA DA! hilarious! hows that for a punchline. Here comes the next one.


Panel 1

In an extraordinary turn of fate, I've managed to muster the energy and effort and desire to call a girl who I think is cute, cool and funny (two C's and an F! like donkeylips' report card) and all it took was a two week contact hiatus after SHE invited ME to a party and a literal act of intervention from the heavens. She agreed (no suggested!) that we go stargazing for the Geminid meteor shower. I've seen her for an hour and a half outside of work and already the odds feel like they're for marriage.

Panel 2

I've come to pick her up. But I'm prepared. I dont claim to do many things that the general public might describe as "Baller," but this is pretty fucking baller. "I've got a reclining cushion, my sleeping bag to la upon (not in) and heres the baller part, my camping stove, propane, and packets of hot chocolate. I Ask you,is there a vagina not moist at the prospect of stargazing under a black winter night with a dude who brings caocoa? And the means with which to heat it? I mean come ON!

Panel 3
Not that I'm so proud of myself, but the prospect of GIRL! live GIRL!, but also THIS girl! Girl who is all at once, cute, funny, and capable. She has her own life. She knows nobody I know. She is funny and strives to be funnier. She called me back! she volleyed. I hesitate to draw her in detail because though I think he is wonderful in her own right, a lot of my opinion of her has to do with potential. For now, before I get to know her better, she is perfect, she is enthusiastic and non-judgemental, a drinker, an adventuress.

panel 4

but the fucking cops fucking closed fucking Los Angeles Crest freeway. I have no plan B. I have nothing. I have nothing save the dubious charm I can't muster because I'm trying to think of plan B.

Panel 5

Some failed attempts at continuing the evening in some positive way, end In me driving her home. No kiss. No real expectation of a kiss. If there was a kiss, it would have baffled me. THough I wouldn't have denied it. Why am I so willing to expect a girl to be perfection, when the chances are really so slim?


And thats that and I'm tired. Ideas yes. Product no. The effort continues.

The Small Battles

Worked late. Can't rant. Strip is up. time to jack off and sleep.

Tomorrow I swear.

So I guess I have to maintain the notion that there is a deadline. Though I haven't shared this blog with anyone (well Marin, but she doesn't have the link yet...) I still feel compelled. One day I may think this thing is worthwhile, and then start sharing it, and people can look back through the archives and marvel at my consistency. So I worked late this past week and all weekend. Not a whole lot of free time that wasn't spent eating, sleeping, or preparing to do either. Strip up tomorrow for sure, I think it's looking good so I dont wanna rush it.

Also a decent rant to. I have plenty to say about work, girls Los Angeles. The whole she-bang.

It's funny how it seems like blog-writing has its own voice. Maybe just poor, predictable blog writing. But anyway I don't feel like I'm writing in a diary. Some rando blog browser is going to hit the little "next blog" button and land here. And he's gonna feel reeeeeeeal special. Or not give a shit even at all.

My first webcomic?

Welcome to strip 1 of the tentatively titled, tentatively blog-bound, tentatively existent "Diary of a Post-Grad Mediocrity." I'm having a modest internal struggle about how self-aware and whiny these blog posts need to be, considering the likely, overwhelming self-awareness and whininess of the comic and my general demeanor. I hesitate to make any promises, but I will try to get the bulk of my sensitivities about the existence of this thing out here, now, and leave any future blog posts as more of a journal anyway. In the interest of having the title serve also as a mission statement, I hope that I can maintain a steady course of discussion of my life and my attempted forays into the world of entertainment in Los Angeles.

I'm surprised that it surprised me, but creative life in Los Angeles is a grind. The whole thing is dealing with the massive, broken system already put in place. Jobs here are becoming scarce as the industry changes to deal with an American culture that is increasingly used to getting entertainment from less spectacular venues than movie theaters, as the gap in quality between home entertainment systems and commercial entertainment outlets is shrinking. I find myself caring about the business end of it more than I ever hoped I would. I realize it may seem naive, but I believe there must be a city somewhere out there where I could do creative stuff and not have to be grown up about it. Where honest people will ask me to do stuff for them, and then pay me handsomely for it. Or better yet, I'll drive out to the mountains of Utah and live in a van in the mountains, make something spectacular on my own time while living cheaply, and then in one fell swoop the whole world will realize my genius and I will be able to buy one of those ultra-photogenic mountain houses you see in oversized ecologically minded architecture books, and spend my days photographing my own house for some future edition of an oversized architecture book.

I feel like I went to Art School to prevent having the workaday life I so dreaded. I realize there are two ways out of it. Well, three maybe, but It's going to take some life-shattering event to grow my balls to the size that I could sell my honda and buy the van mentioned above. The first is to stick with it, claw my way up the food chain. Well, I'm not much of a claw-er. Not a fighter. No, I'm likely to plod. To wade. To sit until someone lifts me by the straps of my overalls into the next tier, and the next and the next.

The other, is to work. All the time. It's not just the job. It's the free time. I have to keep my brain thinking, and my hands moving. To draw constantly. To write down the ideas that so frequently come and go. To have a venue to express myself. To make a webcomic....

That's right everyone, the way to get out of the post-graduate creative rut is to make a journal webcomic. Real. Fucking. Original.

I mean jesus christ what IS that hand in panel two? And where the fuck did the fan go?

Well the answer is my imaginary deadline forced me to make decisions. You have to murder your darlings, so says Oren Sherman, my old illustration 2 professor, teacher, rival...

Where does all this bitterness come from? Why does blog post one have to be the internet equivalent of self-flagellation? Well If I ever do decide to share this with anyone, self-flagellation is completely nullified as it becomes public. That's why albino monks do it in church. It's more sacred. I don't have the energy to defend the title, and it will probably change, and maybe I'll get some piteous comments. But really, I have no interest in making this sacred. That is not what this is about. I hope this germinates into something better. Something less derivative. Less... this.

Good start. So this thing should be weekly yes? It's thursday. Lets make it... Well If I ever get fulltime work again, thursday updates are going to be tough. So lets make it sunday nights. Midnight sunday PST? Midnight sunday PST!