I had a very vivid and disturbing dream after coming home from work in the morning.

I dreamt I was at some unknown college campus wandering through the old dorms/mansions there. There was some revitalizing going on in the place but not very thorough. Everything looked like it was falling apart. I was trying to find the bathrooms. There was sawdust and mortar everywhere and it was very dingy. It all looked like it might have been nice at one time. The other students appeared to be partying and hanging out or going around looking for each other. It was all like a huge maze inside the buildings and there were multiple entrances and exits so I'm not sure where I was leaving one building and enter another. After I found the bathrooms, I think I was trying to find where everyone else was going, but just to check it out. I'm not a huge partier. I think I saw some people I knew from high school.

At some point or another I picked up a newspaper that had a picture of an american soldier in the middle east being executed. There were a bunch of soldiers/maybe-civilians propped up against the side of a bridge facing a wall. They had that not-freaked-out-but-giving-up-to-doom look on all their faces. One of them and I couldn't tell who was being shot in the back of the head and the photographer did a nice job of snapping the photo right when the brains were flying out. It was one of those moments when you want to look away from something but you can't and of course it's worse in a dream. Then I felt like I was being pulled into the picture and everything in the pic. was becoming real time, as if I was transporting into the war-zone. That's when my brain was starting mull over it all as a dream and that I should certainly wake up before things got worse. Like I'd been going along with it all being so crazy up until the point where it seemed threatening and then I thought "fuck, how do I get out of here!?", waking up shortly afterwards.

HoboMon is my official online comic now. My hope is, similar to a lot of the kung-fu films I like, that even if no one is reading this comic or likes it now, at some point in the future it will be a rare gem of comics that people out there will enjoy... Well, even more than that, if I can keep at it, I'll gradually get a following of fanatics and/or eager readers, which is better to want. The online comic thing is simply until I get a book format rolling. As for the format of the release of HoboMon, I'm still working that out.

So Last night I drove into the first neighborhood I grew up in, Hunter Mill, to see the old house I lived in while I was in the preschool era. I felt like a huge, snobby bastard because the townhouses seemed so crammed and I never realized how tucked away my house was. It must have been a major pain for my parents to drive through there everyday. When I rode past my old house it was around five in the morning and quiet as all hell. The whole area looked creepy and intense because of the wind blowing and the leaves falling all around with it rainy. There's a little bit of woods among all the townhouses so it felt like I was in a Friday The 13th movie (mostly the first one) or near the beginning of Halloween (when the inspector is going to the mad house). I didn't live there very many years, but if it had any effect on me, from what I could see last night, it couldn't have been good. There weren't any terrible memories from there nor were there any really good ones. Still, the neighborhood we moved to after, had far less kids my age, which I know for sure was really bad because when I couldn't hang out with the few friends that lived there, I would spend time by myself. I think it gradually got worse. This is pretty obvious but isolation for a kid never has good results.

Driving to Hunter Mill pretty much killed any sort of nostalgia for me, which I think is helpful. All I can think now is that I'm so glad I don't live there anymore and that I'm old enough and have more freedom. There was a time in High School were I couldn't help but look back at all the good times I had before and how much things had changed. I still enjoy a lot of the cartoons that I did as a youngster, which have inspired me so much. That having been said; I've never really wanted to go back. I don't think I've ever been stuck in the past. What I miss is being happy-go-lucky. I think while I was having so much fun it made some people jealous and that after having been knocked off my high horse I think it doesn't really matter. It's not worth to have to get back on for everybody else as well as deal with individuals that can't stand it and want to ruin my good humor. They weren't super important privileges to me, since I enjoyed being a kid so much, but being able to stay up late, watch whatever movie I want, not have to be dragged along to everything, etc. where all things I thirsted for as a child. Now I get to do all those things and even if they aren't as great as I imagined, it's still better to be able to do what I want. Freedom is such a simple ability that's so enjoyable to have, but hard to appreciate because it feels so natural. It's not gradual at all... The more I get out into the world, the lonelier it feels as a cost. There's a price; it's hard to avoid paying.

Well, I'm saying things that are obvious. I don't really have a point either. It's simply better to be happy-go-lucky and do what you want, ha ha.

I've been buying and watching a lot of the Rankin/Bass animagic and animated movies as of late. They rock! So far my fav. is "The Little Drummer Boy". It seems shorter than the others and grainier for some reason on the camera, which makes it cool for me. I still have to get "Mad Monster Party?"(no, not the awesome NES game). Ha ha, Harvey Kurtzman did the script for it. And Paul Coker Jr. did the designs for a lot of the characters in those animagic TV movies. I wanna do character designs for a stop-motion/claymation feature!!

DON'T UNDERESTIMATE THE TURKEEEY

How can I get paid enough money to make a living from drawing comics? That's probably the ultimate question in my life right now. But what's actually more important than that is, how do I make any money at all from drawing comics? Or maybe that's the first step. If that's the case than if I can just make that first step... Since I honestly have made no money whatsoever from any comics I've drawn. I've made money from drawing caricatures, illustrations, and selling sketchbooks,but not a dollar from drawing a comic. At least not that comes to mind, I could be wrong though. I did get paid while I was drawing comics at a job where I was supposed to be faxing and filing so in a way I technically have. I simply haven't had the satisfaction of handing a comic that I've made to someone in exchange for money- as of yet. That first step.

Then my parents. They keep bugging out. I honestly have no real problem with them. They on the other hand have a problem with whatever I do if it isn't exactly what they want. Then they make certain that their problem becomes mine. Moving back home wasn't a great idea. Now I feel exactly like I felt before I graduated from high school.

As far as getting published, even in a small zine, that isn't really going on. I can't complain over all. I don't know why since a few things that I WANT but don't NEED aren't happening that I make myself feel so crummy. It's that hunger. And drama.

I could be at that point where everything is "wonderful" and look back at all of this and laugh. I know I could be laughing with some bloke(s) about it and it'll be great with them since they're pleased with where I am and I don't want to get to that point.

Haha, I put this on my website but it didn't seem to work too well!




Don't come around, I'mma clown

Everybody wanna come to me, like it was some disease

Last Friday I went to this retrospective at the Freer and Sackler Gallery for Osamu Tezuka that is being held in D.C. and it was awesome! Frederik Schodt was there and gave a talk. My dad went with me(I think he was honestly curious, now that what I had been blabbing about for quite some time was an actual big deal) and bought me a signed copy of Mr. Schodt's Dreamland Japan Writings on Modern Manga. Some years earlier I flipped through that book at some point or another at the SVA library but found it not as easy to read as Manga Manga because of the lack of pictures(yep, that's how I am).

I was crazy nervous for some reason before Frederik Schodt came out to talk. As soon as he was even in the room I started to relax and by the time he got to the podium I was completely calm. This guy was as about as chill as one person could get. On top of that very intelligent and obviously his vast knowledge of manga is on point. After he gave an introduction, we watched four episodes of Astroboy in English. It was exactly like Keith Mayerson's anime class. It was a flashback and a flash-forward at the same time! Everybody in the theater was laughing, even Frederik Schodt, at the funny scenes in Astroboy. There was not a huge amount of people there because it had been rainy and cold all day. I had to leave early to go to work, but it was unreal. There's a whole week of events going on for Osamu Tezuka in D.C. for anyone who's interested. I missed some of the other events, but I plan on going to the showing of Prime Rose and the short films.

Here's the info: http://www.asia.si.edu/film/tezuka/

 ( Read more... )

 Did anyone see this before?

http://www.mangasama.com/manga/cashman/cashman-1-1495/002/

 



    Talking with this girl the other day and she seemed erked at me 'cause she can't spend that much time on the internet... I dunno why she would be erked.. So she was half-saying that I spend a lot of time on the computer. She could be flat out about it- It's true, I spend a ton of time on this machine. But do I really want to? There's a million other things I would be doing if I could!

   I don't like having my comics online, I'd much rather have them in print. Right now there aren't too many avenues that I've tapped that'll allow me to get my work out there otherwise. The internet's the fastest way and I'm not sitting on my laurels until I find a zine I can get into. If I could be out on a vacation, I would. Not to mention it's been cold outside and rainy since yesterday. It was like that a couple days ago too. I'm bored as well and I was on for a while to check for messages from HER the girl that's bothered by it. I'd get messages from her while I was off doing other stuff or at work 9 times out of 10 and I did absolutely nothing other than hand out candy yesterday.

  I wanna say something about kids and manners and parents and Halloween, but as long as people were having fun yesterday that's what counts. Have more fun than me! Listening to my elders and being a goody-goody has gotten me nowhere as far as is smack-dab obvious.

     I've done some not too smart things lately and it's become painfully obvious... I need to start dating again. Maybe the ladies out there have their mental scanners up and  can get some readouts that I'm the real deal. I'm not desperate, not at this point, but I've got to be honest with myself at least. I'm a hell of a lot happier in a relationship than out of one. Screwing my chances is a unique talent that I have, though. I've made quite a use of it in my time.  The next deal, I'm gonna try and make last longer. But I'm not that long lasting in general(ohh-ho, diss to myself! Crippling!).

    Spaghetti Man is on ice for now. Not completely. It got too depressing for a couple reasons. The main reason I'm holding it is because I want to halt all the works I've been doing with my cousins. My cousins aren't really into the comics anymore and they've got their own stuff to do. They give me the runaround on a consistent basis. I want to go back with Spaghetti Man and revamp the whole thing. My writing skills can and need to improve. Also I need to balance the serious and funny parts of my comics. At some point I'm going to print up a Spaghetti Man: Compendium Vol. 1 with all the story and tons of illustrations I did. It'll be unfinished, but then eventually I'll start it again and it'll wrap up in Compendium Vol. 2(which will contain more comic pages and less single pages/illustrations!). It was supposed to be my prized online comic!!! The format for my website kinda makes it hard to do one main online series. Also I dunno how anyone does it without an editor or publisher on their case. Without getting paid or a huge fan base it's hard to find any motivation.

   I've been tinkering with the idea of a Spaghetti Man Jr. series which will be a lot funnier and pretty much a straight gag comic without the black comedy or anything too deep. I wanna work on it directly with my cousin Sam, though, and have him oversee it. Oh..... And Pharaoh Kidd? I don't know what the hell happened with that! I was doing this one page and it was turning out so bad to me, I froze up on the whole thing. Completely froze. Every time I try to go back and work on it, it's so difficult to even ink it. I know I can stick with one thing. It's not that hard. Damn.

   My New Year's resolution is to stop being such a moody punk-bitch all the time and put my foot down more if anyone's trying to play me.

 It's October 2009. It's been well over two years since I had my internship at NETCOMICS and the shit still bothers me from time to time. But the thing is, I can whine about it and get it off my chest or I can do something to endanger myself or somebody else. I think this is the better option. Plus, no one reads this and to anyone who stumbles across it, if you enjoy reading someone vent, that honestly makes me feel all the better. Also if you can relate to what I'm saying, maybe that makes the both of us feel better because it sucks being on your own in situations like this.

  The big deal to me is knowing that I got attacked on all levels for something I didn't do. Someone took their aggression out on me unfairly and never apologized which is fine, but left me feeling very stuck and hurt. This person obviously had problems with someone else in their life from the past and decided it would feel good to emotionally abuse me and then backpedal and make it seem like I wasn't being mature and needed to move on.

 

I tried to figure out a way to make the lines look not so jagged while trying to make the whole thing look clean, but perhaps I failed. Also I don't think it needed any heavy black areas or toning but if anyone feels different, feel free to critique this or any of the other stuff I post on here. Hopefully somebody's seeing all this work and getting a kick out of it. I have gotten the "make it for myself" vibe out of my system and now I want to start making comics that everyone can enjoy. How do I go about making the best that I can possibly make? There's no easy way. Hard work is the only and what's tough is it doesn't pay off immediately.

I was thinking about this the other day while watching a kung-fu movie, Death Beach, but it's hard being a director. The only reason that Death Beach hasn't disappeared into the depths of obscurity is because it was an early film that Yuen Woo-Ping choreographed. It's entertaining, but still a film that is influenced by Bruce Lee and the style of Lo Wei. I'm guessing that the directors in Hong Kong/Taiwan were payed a lot for their films. It must have been bad if they had their hearts set into making masterpiece films. Even if it was hot at the time, it's got to be tough to bare it as a movie is slowly forgotten over the years and no one mentions it or remembers it.

 Motherfuck Cartoon Network, man! Bitch-ass channel. Ohh, well, I shouldn't watch then should I? I don't, motherfucker!!! Every once and a while I think maybe I'll give it a chance, but then I'm sadly disappointed. CALL IT HANNA-BARBERA NETWORK. CALL IT BITCH-ASS CORPORATE MACHINE NETWORK RUN BY PUNK HOES. But please don't call it Cartoon Network... 'Fuck outta here. Fuck these motherfuckers! Who wants to watch Scooby Doo all day? Scooby's not a terrible cartoon but c'mon, g. Who wants to watch that played out ho shit? Don't put the veil over little kids eyes when they don't know any better. If it's not quality it should get the big "X". And by quality I don't just mean great animation. I like Aqua Teen Hunger Force and it's not exactly the best animation on earth. I'm not completely against Hanna Barbera either. Fantastic Max was a great show and so was the Smurfs and Snorks. Why don't they show the Smurfs all day instead of Scooby Doo. Switch it up a little.

    Am I just angry man-child who's mad 'cause they don't show the cartoons I grew up with? NO! Jumanji was the worst fucking cartoon ever made in the history of animation and it's from my era. Fuck the movie too and Robbin Williams! Half the cartoons I grew up with were terrible. Part of me doesn't want to admit it and this is the proof that I'm not partial to my own particular tastes but Captain Planet. Captain Planet was bad. I don't think they show reruns of it anymore and they truly shouldn't. The animation was generic and it was such a strange show looking back. It was odd and it probably disturbed me without me even fully realizing it on more than one occasion. 

   There was probably a time when the only cartoons shown on T.V. were from Warner Bros. or Disney. We've come very, very far since then. Thank the heavens. But we should know better. I wanna smash down the walls! Particularly if they're not sturdy and especially if they're keeping me trapped in.