What part of "Occupy" do you not understand?

From my other blog Mi, Misma y Me

    The  Occupy Movement is the first protest that isn't so black and white.  It may have one thing in common, but that is simply the blanket to cover many varieties of issues that many feel should be addressed. Yes, maybe the protest needs a few faces to speak on behalf for them (since the aged news heads needs simplicity). However, the protest is not and cannot be narrowed down anymore than it is. Everyone who could appear did so for their own reason. It may not be all the same reason but one guy's reason may be the same as the second and that guy may have the same reason as that third guy even if the third guy does not share any of the same purpose as the first guy.  

     Many of the goals and motivations are linked in a six-degrees pattern, because whether we like to accept it or not, we are affected by the actions of one another no matter how separated we are. It's this denial of the separation theory that has brought us into this global economic situation in the first place. 

Equally, it's this same complexity that has allowed the movement to transcend cultural barriers. Different nations could use the economy as a template to mold for meeting their local needs.  After all, Those protests in North Africa would never have happened without the actions of technology advancements in the west. This is the 21st century, the new age of intricacy. 

     The goals are complex. The achievements may not even be picked up on video phones. Is that really a bad thing? 

The Other Brother

Red State

My submission to the latvian comic magazine Kusi .

Who Killed Tyra Banks?

Unlike previous submissions, this was drawn on an 8 x 12 sheet. It's something to note how different the drawing looks when you'e forced to draw smaller.

Sometimes you have to yell "fire".....

The time seemed right...

Nimis Memoria Tenere

What a difference a detail makes

Of all things in the space.....

Same Ideas, new structure

My first completed work since returning from Minnesota. Unlike the last two works, which were inked with a nib pen, I just went back to using my pigment pens. Nib Pens win. Also my tiny scanner required PS stitching from scanned sections, which turned out pretty good for a first attempt. 

Split Rock -- My Final Work

Due to the difficulty of the file sizes, it took a while to upload these, but better late than never. 

A re-descent into Fetus-hood with MTV

This weekend, MTV celebrated it's 30th birthday (August 1) by re-airing it's initial broadcast as it appeared on that very day. For someone who was only born a year and 14 days after the network, watching the initial first hour was more than just a look into television history, but a video snapshot of the world in 1981.

Who took this picture? The photographer for The A-Team?

As the screen-crawl warned, the first hour included "technical difficulties" in the form of a black screen with some occasional slipping of the vertical hold on the tapes. Between the actual videos and the off-sequence VJ segments, the occasional commercial would play. I revisited moments in time such as the revolutionary sound-reducing Dolby recording cassette tapes to a trailer for the "new" movie "Superman II". And (of course) an atari commercial. Along with these products were some ads that would've been lost to history if not for the master tapes:  Andron cologne by Jovan and Chewels candies .

Can cologne improve with age?

Aside from my comments, the footage was not completely disconnecting. The public access-style video quality that was standard up to the early 90s all but took me back to the days before fiber optics. I found myself again absorbed into to dimension that is MTV. A dimension that lay just through the 32 inch Sony in the basement.

If it's got this sticker, it's from the 80s!

I could never know what it was like to be an early 80s teenager and search high and low for just to see that new music channel everyone's talking about. The closest I could ever come to empathy is remembering my own reaction when I learned that there would be a 24 hour cartoon channel.

We're right behind you, MTV.......

Wanting more I found a yotube page of the first 24 hours (not just 1) of the MTV launch:

http://www.youtube.com/profileannotation_id=annotation_652189&user=MTVTheFirst24&feature=iv#p/p

National Lampoon's Split Rock

The fact that Split Rock is closing reminds me of the final act in National Lampoons vacation: when the Griswolds travel all that way only to find out that Wally World is closed. Well, although my travel wasn't in vain, it still pains me to know that other may have had to wait another year and now know that they're opportunity is lost. Maybe if those responsible for the closing understood what efforts people took to get to the Split Rock Arts Program, then they wouldn't disgard it so easily. So let's start with my story, at least.

Although I've been drawing for 15 years, I still consider myself an amateur cartoonist taught by "the self-learning method"of comics strips and graphic novels. They're were few that I could call "peers in the field", as other cartooning people I knew did so for fun and had no plans for serious pursuit. Although I searched for like-minded souls in comic book store gatherings, the closest locations only hosted "Magic: The Gathering" Parties and nothing more. Even in college I found only the usual readers (not illustrators/writers) of the superhero genre. What kept me going was my own study of cartoonists, comic artists, and the history and social impact of the craft itself. By the time I graduated, I knew that I was going to have to search long and hard to find formal lessons. I didn't know how hard it would be. 

The first search was not so successful when I moved back home. Of the region-wide Comic Book stores that had websites, no meetings could be found on their events calendars. Reaching the peak of my frustration, I took a break from the search and focused on my creative writing.

In between writing groups, I travelled through the online branches of database links, collecting as many writing workshop postings as I could. I knew, however that it wouldn't hurt to peek at the art databases, you know, just in case. In the best stroke of luck, I could not believe what stood out among the droves of watercolor, acrylic and other traditional workshops: Comic Art. With a little financial help from Mom
(and a promise to let her tag along on the trip west) I was on my way to a real structured workshop!

As I conclude this blog, I'm setting up for a Comic Art Meet-up located 3 hours from home. Because it's the closest one available.  I hope those responsible understand what they're taking away when they let Split Rock close down.

Split Rock, Come Back

When I came to the Split Rock Arts Program in St. Paul, MN, I was as surprised as the other participants to learn that the 2011 season was the last for the 90 year old program. At first I exhaled, relieved that I did not wait to go next year, but then I felt slight grief.  Many of my classmates decide to express our feelings about this through the program evaluations. However, I don't think enough can be expressed on an simple scantron. If only this responsible understood what the program did for me:

Good Outreach

When searching for workshops, I seek the usual: google with the right selection of keywords, and workshop databases with links to other databases and so on. I collect whatever posting appealed to my qualifications. Split happened to be among those that appealed to my personal qualifications.  

Convenient Access 

I was able to apply online and pay online. If I had questions, I was able to call the appropriate parties who, if unavailable, returned my call within a day. 

Excellent Accommodations

Of the many workshops I collected, I found many that catered to their local community. Unfortunately that meant that these programs didn't anticipate out of state participants and therefore did not accommodate them with housing or links to assistance. One workshop even scheduled one class a week for 6 weeks! Not worth the hotel bill or time.  When I saw that Split Rock was offering a week long workshop with equal stay in a dorm, I was estatic. Even my mother was allowed to stay with me and work at her job's St. Paul branch, which was a better alternative to the St. Paul hotel 45 minutes away. But that surprise leads us to…

Unexpected Assistance

When this city girl arrived, she was prepared to learn her own way around two campuses by herself. Little did she expect to find a Split rock staff member waiting out the dorm building waiting to drive her to her class room. Later that day a second staff member escorted her and other participants along the commuter bus ride so they knew how to get back to their dorms and catch the bus the next day. This city girl was stuck for words. 

Unexpected Avenues

I learn new things everyday, but going to this workshop exposed me to venues that I could not have been able to find ( or trust ) through an online filter. For example, I did not know mini-comics existed before coming to this workshop. Nor did I know about the term "emanata" (i.e. those little things over cartoons heads, like exclamation points,  anger steam or Spiderman's "spidey senses"). Even seemingly small details from where word balloons pointed to the directional layout of panels determined how coherent your story was. Most of all, I did not know that many of the largest Comic art communities ( many of whom were workshopping with me) resided west of the mississippi. Why should I be surprised, after all, Comi-Con's in California. By now I'm pretty serious about pursuing this field, so if I have to move west, I will. But for the next person as lost as me, this was an excellent gateway. Don't close it just yet.

Drawing Words and Writing Pictures in Minnesota

The week of July 10, I travelled to the Split Rock Arts Program at the University of Minnesota in the Twin Cities for some serious in-depth comic Art instruction with Jessica Abel. I finally learned the basics, such as inking (properly), lettering, and measuring tiers and panels correctly on bristol board and even converting the scan resolutions for reproduction. When compared to all my preceding art, the difference is astounding.  I still can't believe I used to use a ball point pen to ink.  :-P

My poster entry on Jack Rabbit Slims

Through an interesting turn of events I discovered that the Irish Band Jack Rabbit Slims likes my Blues Poster entry enough to put it on their site. We all win.

"Millie the Jaded Seer"

"Millie the Jaded Seer" is the first comic series that I began at the Red and Black.  An personal experiment in illustrative design and storytelling, expect to see more of her as the story develops. 

Yapper's Echo/ The foot-long Void

"Is she liberal or conservative?", they ask......

Old Cartoon, New Color

Ekphrastic Writing at UNCG

The Weather spoon Art Museum at UNCG was giving a night of something I thought I'd never find: a workshop that combined writing and art. Valerie Neiman hosted the event with Terry Dowell, offered me and the other participants chance to have my work published on their gallery blog. Everyone that showed up were told to seek out a piece of work in the gallery that caught their creative eye and begin writing. As usual, the scenic works always stopped me in my tracks. So here's my story based on the work below.

Chicago (1912) by B. J. O. Nordfeldt
 (from the Weatherspoon Art Museum)

     "Momma!" Cynthia tugged at her mother's jacket. "The bank's on fire again." Cynthia's mother looked up to find a sky billowing in smoky cumuli. Sighing, her eyes dropped back to her child.

"It's nothing, now come on, we're late." Cynthia kept her eyes on the greying sky as her mother dragged her into the sea of oblivious pedestrians. There were cracks within the smoke from which the sky peeked through. The fiery red glow began to swallow whatever blue was left in the atmosphere. Below it all, men, women and children continued past one another, only keeping clear of the occasional traffic cop. From a distance, the whirring whines of fire engines battered their way through the streets. Crowds made a path as if an invisible force pushed them by. 

Just above from the second floor window,  Cynthia pressed her face against the glass as far as she could for a good look. She could almost feel the heat from outside. She giggled at the ant-sized figures, scattering from the roaring red beasts below. If only she had her watering can from home, she thought, would the ants below drown like the ones in Momma's garden? 

"Cynthia!", a voice called from the clothing counters. Cynthia turned toward the direction of the voice, the flickering flames from outside remained imprinted in her eyes. The blue shapes of the store counters  and shoppers slowly reformed in her light-weary corneas.  

"Try this on please." Cynthia's mother called from outside a dressing room door. Next to her, another woman in a stiff white waist-shirt and indigo skirt. In that lady's hands was a baby blue dress.

"Yes, Momma" Cynthia slumped from the window, bidding farewell to her urban ants for now.  With every back glimpse, the window shrank with distance.  The fire's glow continued to light up the sky, penetrating the windows, finally warming the cooled department floor. As Cynthia stepped out of the dressing room, she looked up to find the sales woman's waistcoat flickering with rhododendrons. Cynthia approached her mother at the counter, taking one last look at her new baby blue dress now flickered with lilacs. 

Portrait of an Emo Queen

Her accessories courtesy of MS Paint

Strong Fences and Magic Cooking

Baby Rap

                                            The weakest dogs bark the loudest.

Justice Quits

From the Red & Black, 2007

Pimpin' ain't easy (or so I've been told)

                                                            My first PS color job.

Graveyard Abuse (2006)

Daddy's little Mess (2006)

From The Red and Black, 2006

Mall Manners (From 2006)

You're a detective. Figure it out.

Safe from Nature?

Earthquake in Buffalo, NY

       The recent events in Japan has got Mom asking me for scientific reasons behind Japan's latest tsunami disaster. I'm not a environmental science major and I don't pretend to be one, so I tried to explain what I remembered from my earth science requirement. That, however, had me thinking of the recent reports in earth's changing nature: the shifting axis, the changing magnetic poles, earthquakes happening it isn't expected. It wasn't that long ago when a mild tremor occurred in the DC area, my birth place, the latest in rare east coast earthquakes.  Haiti only compounds the issue.

At the moment I told mom that we lived too far inland for tsunami to affect us. I had to, as she's seen too many hurricanes in her day. But with the way the world keep acting "out of order" I don't know how long I can keep telling her that. If the country that gave the name for the disaster wasn't prepared for it, how can I possibly prepare Mom for her first "derecho?"

Egyptian Protests before the Egyptian Protests

I took came across this demonstration while in Raleigh, NC back on January 7, 2011. I did not get a chance to speak to any individual protester, so I speculated from the signs and their attire most in the group were NC State students protesting Egypt's treatment of Coptic Christians.  This was a good two weeks before the news broke of Cairo's riots. As to how the recent uproar in egypt has effected this group's progress remains unrevealed.....at least to me.

With all the violence going on now, what can Cairo Christians expect at this point?

The gentleman standing at the far right in sunglasses pretty much represented the typical response to the scene: mildly curious, but primarily indifferent. Other than two contractors taking in a bird's eye view from a second story window of an adjacent building, I was the only passerby to show real investment in understanding their cause, even if it was for self-serving reasons.

These student's protests weren't in vain, though. I think they wanted awareness of all things. Leave it to trusty ol' NPR , more specifically Mornin' Edition, to cover the plight of Coptic Egypt when the 24-hour news clubs cover overly beaten paths:

http://www.npr.org/2011/03/11/134440532/in-new-egypt-christians-face-old-discrimination?sc=fb&cc=fp