I Am Going To Miss This Weather

So, so very much.

I looked over my summer to do list - I kind of completed things this summer. I don’t know - I think I am feeling bummed about not creating enough work, but at the same time, it was such a lovely summer.

The weather is gorgeous in Ann Arbor right now, but fall is creeping in at the sides. I love the glory of fall too, but not the fucking freezing temperatures that it means. I took some panorama shots the other day while I rode my bicycle to the post office, so I have something to remind me in the depths of winter’s frozen asshole that summer existed, and I was there.

This is the view directly behind the top picture on Catherine St. There used to be this big-ass statue where the orange cones are in the picture - I guess it’s being renovated or something. On the left the shop with the green awning is the People’s Food Co-Op, a semi-socialist grocery store steeped in the bohemian that has, according to the local newspaper, decided to boycott all Israeli goods to protest Israeli treatment of Palestinian refugees. Or something. Regardless, earlier in the day there was one person holding a large, obnoxious sign to protest the boycott of Israeli goods and another person holding another large, obnoxious sign to protest against the protester for support of the boycott of Israeli goods. I think both were expecting reinforcements for their respective protests, but no one showed up save for the two of them, so they were just bitching each other out for a solid hour.

Ah, fucking Ann Arbor, how I love you sometimes.

On a completely different note, we have a FUCKING BLACK KITTEN living in our basement! This is perfect in at least ten-thousand ways for me. Not ONLY do I love black cats, but I was previously mourning introspectively that there would be no feasible way for me to adopt a cat of my own for at least two more years as I would be doing too much moving for a cat to handle - and lo and behold, Dave Who Lives In The Basement is the proud owner of a three month old, frisky female kitten named Bagheera.

So abso-fucking-lutely cute. I want you to be mine. And yes, I flipped my shit so much about this kitten that I came back downstairs and took pictures of it just so I could blog about it later. I have a problem. I know.

On a completely completely different note, my budd-ey Petarr is back from Japan Fantasy Land! Bask in the glory of his awkward pose.

I would like to draw your attention to Petarr’s finger stroking an imaginary air vagina. Oh, it’s there. I know.

I put it there.

Room with a View

A panorama shot of my new room with my friend Joe hanging out on my rug.

I recently moved into a new Co-Op house, and I am in the process of cleaning up the place with the help of the new members. Unfortunately, the guys staying here previously allowed the house to go to shit, so there’s some work to be done. I’ve already cleaned three common spaces - next, up, the kitchen and the backyard. Weeee-hooooo.

Enjoying Kings of Leon lately as I clean - good fresh Southern indie rock. In the meantime, I am preparing for that dreaded event all seniors must face at the School of Art & Design - the Integrative Project (IP). In short, it’s like a year-long thesis project for senior art students - we each get our own studio space and must propose a year-long project to our advisors (we choose out of several pairs of teamed professors). I plan on doing a bimonthy comic series for my project containing a continuous, semi-related creepy storyline (a la Twilight Zone), comic diaries and possible one-shots and sketches. Hopefully my advisors will like my idea and will give me FUNDING to print that damned thing every (other) month.

And, of course, there’s always work do to (and find), friendly drama and future times to fret over, blah blah blah.

I’ve begun a Book of Shadows and I am using it to document my dreams in comic form - I’ve almost finished the first entry, and will post it when finished! And, by Book of Shadows, I mean an old sketchbook I’ve collaged the crap out of that I’ve filled with recipes, herbal remedies, diary entries, weird info, etc. - in a sort of pseudo-witchy way. I don’t actually believe in magic, and I couldn’t really call myself Wiccan or anything but I definitely have a perverse interest in the occult and I integrate it in humorous little ways into my life.

I guess I get it from my Dad.

Trapped in a Cave

Not really, but it feels close.

I am capturing video at the Duderstadt Center on what was a gorgeous day, sitting in a small, sound-proof room in front of two large monitors - basically just waiting as I capture something like 12 hours of video. Capturing video requires that it all be done in ‘real time’ - meaning the computer translates it into code as the video plays. So, if your movie is an hour long, you will have to play it completely through to capture it all. Fortunately, this is for work and I am being paid for my time.

Unfortunately, the Duderstadt Center is practically empty on a Sunday in summer, and no stores are open - meaning there is no place to buy food within a five mile radius. Short of the vending machines, I am fasting for the entire twelve hours while I just wait for it all to complete. I really hate this, but such is work.

In the meantime - yes, I know. I have not written in a great while. I’ve been busy-busy, more or less, getting my own projects done and working for others.

Here is a montage of drawings I’ve made recently….

I’m also beta-comicing (read: storyboarding for a long comic) for a short novella. The tentative working title is ‘Caleb Knows‘, although I may choose something with a stronger biblical reference. Our protagonist, who remains unnamed throughout the story, is a prodigy of sorts who, at the age of fifteen, will soon graduate high school. Disillusioned and paranoid, the protagonist begins to see apparitions of his dead older brother, Caleb, a wayward youth who made our protagonist and his family’s life hell up until he and his 1978 Mercury Grand Marquis was found at the bottom of a river five years ago. The story insinuates that Caleb was dealing drugs and upset the wrong people - this leading to his questionable demise. The apparition Caleb gives our protagonist advice on how to ’stand up for himself’ and eggs him on to seek out revenge on their stepfather, John, for Caleb’s death. Our protagonist soon finds his life and his sanity spiraling out of control.

Detail from Page 2.

Detail from Page 5.

More on this story as it develops.

What else - preparing to shoot a short film with Ronen Goldstein as my DP. I am excited for it - it’s a feasible short story by one of my favorite authors, Jonathan Lethem. The major complication is that it will require some special effect, so Ronen and I will be doing some tests to figure out what the hell we can do to create semi-transparent salmon-colored glowing objects. Yes, really.

What else - I recently chopped off the dreadlocks of a friend of mine. He had, valiantly, attempted to do the white boy dread thing, with … some success, but he’s lookin’ all classy now with his buzzed head. God, I am hungry. I want to leave this damned room.

You know what I want? I want one of THESE.

Not Beef flavor though. I like Chicken flavor. I don’t even know if any real chicken is involved in the process of making these things, but I do not care. I just want some ramen. That’s not too much to ask, right? God. I need to eat something.

So I am thinking I will wrap up this post so I can take that damned bus down to Central to get something to eat.

Colleen out.

Leeloo

THE FIFTH ELEMENT (PART ONE) (PART TWO) (PART THREE)

Movies and LOTS OF SKETCHES:

Hey Baby, Wake Up From Your Asleep.

I’m not responsible for Zlad! at the top. God, I wish I was though.
Planning homebrew-ery with Adam Konner. Loveliness.

The movie is a promo for Play Gallery.org.

The comic is fine, from a dark fairy tale. Trying to get the actual copy back from Phoebe. A valiant effort.

Astral Planes, Indian Food & Beer

A comic for you. Interpret as you will.

INDIAN FOOD
My recent hobby is to attempt to master the fine art of Indian cookery. God, the food is so good. I have perfected the craft of making paneer/panir (indian cheese) and am now working on cracking the code behind Madras Masala’s amazing Panner Tikki Masala dish. If you are in Ann Arbor and looking for a great place to eat Indian, Madras is affordabler and DELICIOUS. That freaking sauce WILL be mine to make…someday. I slowly work towards dechipering its magical ingredients.

HOMEBREWING
Bought Charlie Papazian’s Joy of Homebrewing, 3rd Edition with $15 I found lying on the street (lucky!). Now I must gathering homebrewing supplies. A guy who lives next door mentioned having a whole kit that he got for this birthday - perhaps he will lend it to me…

In other news, plugging away at LIMBO and revising it as I beta-comic. Will post pictures of beta comic pages as plan progresses.

Also looking into the Fulbright and other opportunities for next year - never too early to start getting ready!

Cook Cook Cook.

Today’s comic says it all.

The Art of the Short Film

HERE’S TODAYS COMIC

ONE DAY: by Michel Gondry, w/ David Cross.

Michel is pursued by his giant, vuglar and racist turd, who sees Michel as his father. Hilarity ensues.

This movie, to me, is the epitome of good movie-making on an extreme budget. The movie has really only two actors - Gondry and Cross - and invites real people into the scenario as actors which makes it even more hilarious. The costumes are pointedly cheesy and make the ludicriousness work even more. The real thing holding the story together are the actors - or largely, just David Cross’ - preformances, and its strangeness.

I’m trying to come up with a good story idea now, something simple like this. Initially, I had a trippy drug movie as my idea, but it seems overly complex. I would rather create something like this, simple and wonderful for its purpose.

My simpler story idea involves a young college girl, a fan of paperback romance novels, discovering a toll-free number on the back of one of her favorite novels - she calls in and mistakenly arranges to have her own personal ‘Knight in Shining Armor’ shipped to her door as a live-in bodyguard. The knight turns out to be a partially insane, John-Cleese-esque man, a character played and created by my friend Bernie J. Michael (assuming he agrees to actually play him) as enacted here and introduced by none other than moi
.

I also appear in

Watch me worship a giant squirrel. I’m in the red leather jacket.

Sunny-Side Up

So. I just recieved the e-mail from NYU that I was not accepted to the study-abroad program because my GPA was/is too low. Not a huge surprise. The school still hasn’t cleared my incomplete (due to a handicap - it’s like pulling teeth to just get the administration to list it as a ‘pass’). I’m actually kind of relieved. I had no idea how I was going to pay for such a program - I just don’t have the money.

Still waiting on Cooper Union - wondering if I can still get myself overseas somehow, for school or not. I just want to get out of the country for a little while. Maybe I’ll just go overseas anyway - wander aimlessly for a few weeks, and if I survive return triumphant to the states. At the very least, I want out of Ann Arbor.

I could just couch-surf (or futon surf or the like) at my friends’ places overseas. That would be fun! School credit or no. I just want to see more of the world.

At the very worst, I could get a sugar daddy overseas to cart my ass out there. Oh, God, how horrible….yeeck…

Here’s some stills of an animated loop I am working on - the hair-ooze comes out of her mouth and is sucked back in again - drawn on tracing paper.

New Graphic Novella

Starting a new project - a graphic novella called ‘LIMBO‘. Takes place in - where else - Limbo, and centers around the characters caught between life, death and The Abyss.

In short, the characters of the story have died, and now exist in ‘Limbo’ a sort of shadow world built from the collective memories of its inhabitants. Unfortunately, the inhabitants of Limbo find themselves stuck there, and short of being dead have no real idea of what happens beyond life - is Limbo all there is after death? If so, why is it so empty? Is there really a heaven - and if there is a heaven - is there a hell as well?

Limbo is constantly wracked by the Tide, a huge wave of turbulent blackness that sucks up space and time and leaves behind only a void. The Tide ebbs and flows, and those caught by the Tide are inevitably sucked into the Abyss, where they become Nothing - a fate more frightening then death.

Should be interesting - I’ll post the story as it progresses.

By the way, that picture of the house above - that’s sort of how I envision Limbo, as a gray world, like the living world, but everything is run-down, decrepit and vanishing.

In other news, I’m really enjoying Dame Darcy’s Meatcake…

and Kaki King’s music. I tuned into WNYC.org online and happened to hear her playing ‘Gay Sons of Lesbian Mothers‘ live - really liked it and immediately bought the song on iTunes.

Yup yup. That’s my entry for now. I will post on the progress of my To Do list of Doom soon.