Yet Another Tree!

I did mention that I love drawing trees right? Well, here is an attempt at using brush and ink instead of pen and ink, or a marker.
Not as bad as I thought it would turn out.

Character Profile - Dunk

I decided that character profiles might be a good thing to do, since I had questions about Mr. Head, ya know the giant penis character in a few of my strips. Anyway, this character profile highlights Dunk. Shown here in linework only, which makes him seem somewhat naked, Dunk, is an alter-ego of sorts for myself. Growing up in the northern suburbs of the Twin Cities I had a small, close-knit group of friends. I was dubbed with the nickname Dunk, because I flat out sucked at basketball. In fact, I still do to this day. For example, this weekend I played some hoops with a friend of mine and he is still giving me pointers on my jump-shot and I'm twenty-eight years old. Anyway, Dunk is just a guy trying to be a guy. Dunk is a laid back, scruffy as hell sasquatch with some strong political beliefs and an absolute undying passion for hockey, basketball, and baseball. So, there you go.

Cartoonist Conspiracy June Jam Session

Yesterday I went to the Cartoonist Conspiracy Jam Session. They happen every first Thursday of the month at Diamond's Coffee Shoppe in northeast Minneapolis. I had heard of the Conspiracy a while ago, but finally made a contact through Bud Burgy during MicroCon. I finally made it to my first jam, collaborated with about twelve other artists on a sixteen page mini-comic, had a vanilla French soda, practiced my lettering, and sat in awe of the great talent that was assembled in that small room. I also ran into Steven Stwalley, a former classmate from the Art Institutes International and, I believe, one of the founding members of the Conspiracy. Anyhow, I was invited to a party later this month at Diamond's on June 29th. There will be live art, drinks, and food. I was told to invite anyone interested, so if you read this, you are invited! I'm definitely going to be there, unless I am completely bed-ridden. Check out the website at cartoonistconspiracy.com. I'll have more details on the party later on as well as some of the panels I drew for the mini-comic when I get access to them.

New bewilderedkid comic strip!

Since The Price is Right is going off the air for good this year, sadly there is only one remaining game-show that I can actually stand - Jeopardy. All the rest of the game shows out there are crap. This is my homage to the concept prime-time game show. Enjoy. Remember to click on the image for the larger, readable, image to appear.

My Local

Borrowing the title from a great limited series comic book, Local, I wanted to do a post about two points of interest. The first point of interest, is being able to somehow mention Local (the comic book), while simultaneously praise the writer Brian Wood and artist Ryan Kelly on their tremendous work. Secondly, I wanted to come up with a clever way of incorporating my own local, which is done at the end of every issue by various people from all over the world, whom send in pictures and descriptions about places that hold resonance to them. Well, I tried to figure out for myself where my single local is and I just couldn't do it. Seriously, I cannot come up with one single location, because I have so many different locals that I can't just call upon one in particular.
The character of Local, Megan, began her journey in Portland, Oregon and thus far has travelled throughout the United States and Canada. Although I can assume what the character is feeling based on her actions, like most modern art, I take away from the piece what I get from the piece. What "I get" is that the character, much like myself, is not satisfied with her station in life and is looking to somehow rectify that. She travels from city to city to find something that keeps her grounded. Unlike the character in this series, I have something that keeps me grounded - that being my wife. However, I am not satisfied with my station in life and until I am, I will continue to search for that place. My search has not and will not be limited to what many generalize as a "local scope." Instead, I have broadened my locality by moving to different places throughout the country - although not nearly as many places as the character of Megan.
In all fairness, whoever reads this, do yourself a favor and begin reading this book. You can still find copies at your local comic book shop, or khepri.com. Once the twelve issues are complete, you can buy the inevitable graphic novel. Wood (The Couriers, Demo, and DMZ) and Kelly (Lucifer, Books of Magic, Giant Robot Warriors) have done some amazing work in the past and will continue to do so in the future, but currently, this collaboration cannot be limited to the word great - it is truly whatever is better than great times infinity.

More trees!

Yesterday was not a good day. So to celebrate, I posted more trees! Yay!

McRevolution Part Two

A couple days ago I posted something that I wrote a while ago about everybody's favorite crap-food joint. I confess, I occasionally indulge on this sludge. Every time I do so, I feel very guilty and angry afterwards. The anger comes from my time working at McDonalds, which produced many memories and emotions. During high school, in order to have some spending money, a majority of which went to my car - a 1978 Buick Regal with a functional, factory installed 8-track player, I worked at McDs.
As stated before, I have many memories of the place. Many fond, many strange, and many hilarious. One such hilarious incident occurred when I had decided, as a seventeen year old shift manager, that it would be a good idea to attempt to unionize our restaurant. I created pamphlets and left them in the break room. However, I was struck down by the general manager, who scolded me, stating that unionization of a McDonalds was a bad idea for a shift manager to attempt and that it was nearly impossible anyhow. Surprisingly, I was not fired or even written up for the incident - mostly because I defended my case by stating that it was a parody and nobody had took it seriously. It was then that I discovered that many of the elderly ladies who worked the morning shift at the restaurant had found the material I left the previous night and thought that terrorists, or the equivalent of terrorists, since the word had a very different connotation at the time, had placed these brochures for the viewing of the McDs crew. Good times.
This weekend, I recreated the logo that I used for the pamphlet in Adobe Illustrator. Maybe the reference to Soviet Russia was too much? The U.S.S.R. had dissolved at the time, maybe it was still too close to the fall of Eastern European Communism? Who knows?