Hmm. I have no idea why other than my brain has decided to kick itself back into gear and get my hands cranking out a bit more artwork lately. But I guess I can’t complain and should enjoy this creative spurt while it lasts. No stories of note behind these as I’m usually just sitting down to do something else and the randomness hits me on the head for about an hour or so.
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Actually, if you find it you can keep it. You’ll need a big yard and a rather large pool for exercise and bathing purposes plus a sign letting your neighbors know to keep their own pets indoors at night. They’ll turn up missing otherwise. Otherwise, it will absorb eat pretty much anything you set down in front of it. Let’s see now.. oh, right. The puppy also has somewhat caustic saliva, so letting it hop up onto your lap for snuggling is a bad idea. Then again, given its somewhat massive size, I’d imagine you’d not want an overly peppy lap-hopping, acidic drooling pet lumbering your way. Finally, it’s housebroken to some extent (as in it’s broken the last home it was in, which is why it’s “lost” in the first place).
A few years back I was sitting in a diner listening to some folks at a nearby table debating some recent Hollywood remakes that were terrible (what else is new?) because they were basically updated version of the original films with more modern jokes. One of the guys at that table made the point that it would be better to remake a film that kept the title for familiarity but yanked the concept into new territory. A light bulb went off in my nosy little head and later at home I whipped up a poster idea for an old film I hated, Weekend at Bernie’s, re-imagining it as a dead serious zombie film of some sort with some of the same cast just to mess with the minds of those who recall it as a comedy.
For some reason, this idea keeps popping in and out of my head every few months or so. Recently, thanks to more remakes that don’t need to be made at all getting some funky not so fresh trailers (like this one. Seriously? WHY?) But I’m not about to suggest any budding to veteran screenwriter tackle this for real. Well, unless you’re willing to deal with those who somehow hold this stinker “sacred” lining up at your doorstep (or on some message boards) to take you to task for desecrating their nostalgic memories of this flick.
Anyway, that first piece above is my latest revision of the idea, the one below that has a font I like better, the third is an old piece I just added some lettering to and this link goes to my horrible-looking original poster concept. I even worked up a plot outline at that time, but it didn’t have much of an ending. Or a middle for that matter. Hey, I just come up with ideas, ladies and germs. Someone toss me a sack of money and yeah, I’ll come up with the rest of that movie in a heartbeat. Inspiration comes from the strangest of places. Like a sudden sack of money, for example.
For those who missed its nine-year run back in the 80’s, Bloom County was one of the main reasons to still check out the comics section in one’s daily newspaper. Writer/artist Berkeley Breathed bought a supremely sarcastic and subversive strip to the masses with an art style slightly similar to Gary Trudeau’s Doonesbury, but with a more oddball cast. Since I don’t hang out on Hatebook, er, Facebook much these days, I missed the photo above as well as the first new strip below. Thankfully someone pointed me in the proper direction and made me do a happy dance for a hot minute or two. Good. Life just got better for millions and worse for a certain bigmouth with a wild coif who’s going to get taken down a few pegs. “THBBFT!” indeed, folks.
Welcome back Opus and company. You’ve been sorely missed. Hopefully, you’ll stick around for a while longer than the first go-round. But we shall see what happens…
Gyaaah. So, it looks as if the roof repair project is going to take a few more days, there’s now some more water damage from that pipe behind a wall here, there still needs to be a floow-up inspection and I’m still figuring out where to store a bunch of stuff for the upcoming wall takedown/repair job. On the stupider front, I’m finding out that one reason repairs seem to be so damned slow here is this apartment has been in the family since 1976 or ’77 and it seems that the management is deliberately having the maintenance folks do crappy work as a means to make me crazy enough to leave. Why? Well, I’m certainly not paying market rate rent for this nice place, that’s why. Of course, the entire system for repairs here is SO damned ancient that I’m not going to be at all surprised when some newer tenants in buildings here take it on the lam after they deal with those inept dolts in the office and all that (waste of) paperwork that comes for even the smallest repair job.
Eh, I drew a tree yesterday after getting knocked out of bed early by some knocking on the roof. Enjoy it vicarously for me, as I was thinking of dropping a real tree on some people a few blocks up the street who need to get out of that office and see the awful work that’s been done up here. Boo on people who don’t see how the other half live because they just don’t give a crap.
Okay, I’ll admit to not being much into He-Man and the Masters of the Universe way back when it was on TV and those beefy action figures and massive playsets were selling like hotcakes in stores. However, I was a big fan of Earl Norem‘s fantasy artwork as well as some of the cool animation Funimation had been doing since the late 60’s. As soon as I heard Dark Horse Comics was putting out a massive 300+ page regular and limited edition hardcover called The Art of He-Man And The Masters of the Universe, it went on my long list of books I needed to check out.
After getting a digital copy to peruse last week, color me impressed and a *kiiiind of* new convert to the old kid’s show. Granted, I’m not about to run out and buy up a box set and binge watch myself into a coma anytime soon. But thanks to the wonderful art and well-done interviews with many involved with the show, toys, comics and even that weird live action film, I respect the show a lot more on the art side of things. It’s still a big toy-selling chunk of nostalgia, but that sort of thing is why many now adults loved the show back in the day. I’m sure some of their parents had an eyebrow raised every time a new figure was requested and I don’t even want to think about holiday shopping for a hot new playset with a bunch of other parents eyeballing the same big box. Anyway, if one or more of those links floats your boat, go make a purchase. The regular edition is in stores on April 15 and the LE hits retail in May.
Oh, and someone needs to track down Earl Norem and send him a nice letter of thanks for all his gorgeous artwork, as his Wikipedia page is kind of depressing near the end. Personally, I think more people including younger illustration fans WOULD indeed be interested about the career of an 81-year-old artist. Hell, they’d better be, as his work was always consistently grand in just about anything he did.
It’s been a little bit since I posted some art, so here you go. This piece was done while waiting for a download to complete and as I was poring over a long list of articles I need to write or finish writing. For some reason, this past month has been a bit rough in terms of finding some focus but that’s most likely due to the weather, my poor throat being out of whack and some other stuff keeping my thoughts split into a bunch of places. In general, my best story ideas pop into my head at random intervals, usually within a few seconds of looking at a product or checking out a link someone’s sent me. This month or so it’s been some great beginnings to articles popping like mad, but no endings in that corn pile. Things are shifting back to normal as of the last few days, so I just need to dip into my notes and play catch up for about a week or two.
Eh, I’ll get my full mojo back soon enough. My motivation has been on vacation, but things on the horizon are looking up, so that trip seems to be coming to a close. Back in a bit…
Art copyright Don Orehek
So, if you’re old enough and happened to be a New Yorker (or in NYC) during the 1970’s and into the 80’s, there was a chance you could walk into a certain place at a certain time of the year and have a caricature drawn by a world famous (or nearly world famous) cartoonist for FREE. Yes, that’s right. Before the days of “Pay me!” comic convention art, ebay, and heck, the internet, a lucky few locals and tourists smart enough to find out about the event could queue up at The Manhattan Savings Bank for it’s yearly (National) Cartoonist’s Show.
I’d heard about this back in the early 80’s and wanted to go, but never could find time to get downtown until 1987 when I was working in Manhattan. If I’m not mistaken, a friend of mine had gone either the previous year or the year before and lucked out big time, getting Al Hirschfeld to draw him. Who wouldn’t want a Hirschfeld for nothing? I recall not knowing who was going to be at the 1987 event, and with only an hour for lunch, I figured (correctly) that the more popular cartoonists would get the longest lines. I don’t remember every artist at the event (there were no cell phone cameras back then and I didn’t think to pack a camera with me on a warm summer day to record history), but I eventually made it in front of three of them and the results you’re seeing below the jump…
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Thankfully, other than a few more days next week of colder temperatures, it would seem that this stupid winter has run its course*. I generally don’t get too ill during the season (or I don’t get sick at all), but the last couple of weeks have been rough thanks to wide temperature variations from day to day and the dopey new boiler put into the building about a year or so ago that works all too well. Hey, some like it hot, but I think constant indoor temperatures in the early summer numbers haven’t been the best thing for me. Of course, in a city where too many people don’t have proper heat, complaining about it being too warm in the apartment is a bit odd. On the other hand, one result of all that heat has been my wretched throat condition over the past week or so. It’s clearing up okay, but I certainly didn’t get much sleep last night thanks to all that water and tea with honey I’d sucked down to sooth my fur throat. I guess the good thin is I got more exercise running back and forth to the bathroom than I got walking through the freshly fallen snow yesterday. Ah-ha-ha.
Eh, have a very incomplete tree sketch. I may as well post something more interesting than this post.
*Of course, watch me be totally wrong if we get hit with a last gasp snow blitz right before spring hits. I’ll be the one screaming so loudly your windows shake no matter where you are when that happens.
Well, maybe not the update you wanted, but it’s an update nonetheless. I ended up spending the bulk of today dealing with sluggish internet while researching a bunch of stuff for some upcoming articles and not doing much actual writing. Boo. Well, I have more than enough in the way of notes now. I just need time to compile those and some images into something worth reading. In the meantime, I finished that sketch from yesterday early Sunday morning, but just got around to posting it now. And so it goes. Back tomorrow. There’s a bunch of snow on the ground, but it’s mostly stopped and with the temperatures going up tomorrow, should be a nicely mushy mess to walk around in. Ah well…
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