Sunday, April 19, 10:40 am
Huh.
Well, it seems I've gotten into a new habit: I go to write something in a post, start with the date and time, and then disappear and not write anything. I was going to write something yesterday but only got so far as, well... you know.
Anyway, here I am. So what? Yes, "so what" indeed.
[NOTE from November 19: Okay, I actually wrote THIS post before my last published post (POST #3), but I didn't realize I never posted POST #2! D'oh! So, here it is, out of order. Sorry!]
It's the third day of the three days off and I really didn't do much work on "The Caliegia" like I hoped. I finally sketched out some very rough character drawings of the title character, much to my unhappiness. The actual sketches are serviceable, but the Caliegia, the creature, makes no sense to me. It seems like an arbitrary combination of animals thrown together: a human torso and head, ram horns, large wings, a horse for the front part of the lower body, and the most mystifying animal element for me, the hindquarters and tail of a large lizard, or perhaps, dragon. All the parts seem unwieldy to me. I'm obviously being too literal or taking this whole thing too seriously, but I think it affects the way I approach drawing it. Ugh.
What-fucking-ever.
It is what it is.
Yes, I'm making changes left and right to the original story and characters, etc., and I'll be honest, I was set to alter the animal composition of the main character if I could come up with a suitable replacement for the dragon ass. But, in attempting to also maintain a "Greenland feel" for the creature, it seemed that viable candidates were mostly impractical because they were primarily sea creatures: walrus, whale, seal. The walrus was perhaps the most compatible in terms of size match-ups, but again, now we're dragging our ass around if the back is all walrus. Another possibility was a polar bear, which seemed interesting, except it's too small compared to a horse. Although, having said that, the dragon section I'm sort of basing it on a prehistoric phytosaur (yeah, I've never heard of that before until I started looking for Greenland beasts, current and prehistoric).
Oh! But it just occurred to me, maybe there was an ancestor of the polar bear that was larger...?
And it seems there was! There's some possible fossil evidence of a "King Polar Bear" (although in Alaska, but... pfft!). And one site mentions that its elongated skull compared to current polar bears lends itself to some legendary (and modern) tales of the "weasel bear," a bear larger than a polar bear but most notably with a longer neck.
3:00 pm
I told my wife about my wrestling with these various beasts in the Caliegia's description, especially the giant lizard or dragon-ass component and that I just came across the King Polar Bear find, so that I'm going to make some changes. She said that sounds good! Although, she's amused by how hung up I am on this detail in a fantasy story.
That's a legitimate point.
I guess these details are subjective to either a creator or an audience in terms of whether they have issues with it or not with regards to believability. I actually have a tendency towards some unbelievable scenarios in my stories or plots, but once I have that idea or story, I usually try to work on making it (somewhat) believable. But, even that is flexible. Sometimes, genre allows you to get away with an explanation or very little (or no) exposition, because, sometimes an audience is willing to accept something simply because it's in a genre story. That seems lazy on some level, and sometimes it is. But sometimes, an audience doesn't care how something works in a film and will accept that it's there because of the genre. Like, I remember a locally made zombie film, and the opening ten minutes spent a lot of time setting up why this zombie outbreak was happening. At first it was cool and believable, but as more minutes went by and they were explaining more specifics about what happened, it occurred to me that it was overkill. The exposition was no longer interesting but simply keeping us from getting on with the story. We came to see a zombie movie, let's get on with the zombie film.
And, with that in mind, I think I'm committing the same storytelling crime.
ARGH.
Saturday, May 2, 11:28 am
Holy fucking shit. I'm more pathetic than I realized.
So, I re-read some of what I've written above to see where I last left off. My current schedule has been very consistent: three days working, with four days off, including three of those days off all in a row, Friday-Sunday. So last week, I didn't get ANYTHING done on my Caliegia story. Nothing. And I was really looking forward to having those three days off and accomplishing at least something on the story. I mean, hell, my original game plan was to have seven pages of the story done (or at least pencilled) by the end of April and here it is May 2. Holy crap.
But, what I didn't realize was it's been TWO weeks since I last worked on this post. I thought I had scribbled down some progress just last week. Ugh. Man, I simply SUCK.
Although, comparatively speaking, at least I'm keeping some kind of track of my "lack of progress." I mean, I think my usual approach is to do absolutely NOTHING. And have no idea of the passage of time and how I'm accomplishing nothing as said time flies by into oblivion. At least now, I'm keeping some sort of tab and I at least have some kind of anxiety of how every day I seem to be an utter waste. Yay! I'm winning!
In the Netflix documentary, DE PALMA, about, well, filmmaker Brian De Palma (by the way, I'm not sure if it's De Palma or DePalma or Depalma. In the film CARRIE, I think it's spelled Brian Depalma in the opening credits. Whatever) - a doc I've watched at least twice all the way through (most recently a couple weeks ago) and sections of it multiple times (a perk of using a streaming service) - towards the end, he says that a filmmaker's most productive part of his career is in his 30s, 40s and 50s. He uses Hitchcock as an example, saying people mostly talk about his films from that period of his life, not so much his later films. Great. I'm 60. I pissed away my 30s 40s and 50s. Oh, well.
Seriously, there's nothing I can do about it except eat that fact and move on.
Fuck, I kind of blew off my 20s, too. Except for the couple years I worked on the Buffalo State College RECORD.
Anyway, I bring this up because, man, working on this Caliegia story has been like pulling nails. I'm second guessing all my creative choices, and I'm not convinced I can pull off drawing ANY of my ideas, and I say that because I hate all my drawings so far. No, that's not true. I didn't like my original versions of Vampirella introducing the story, but then I think I got a serviceable version of her body. So, progress is there. It's just very slow.
The solution of course, is to JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP AND KEEP FORCING MYSELF TO MAKE PROGRESS, even teensy bits, because even something that's barely progress is mathematically more than zero.
Sorry. Yet another desperate "self pep talk," again.
12:10 pm
Well, I'm on hold with our bank as I try to take care of some stupid stuff. I have, like, a 10-minute estimated wait. And I'm making typos like a muther as I try to type while holding this phone against my ear with shoulder. Grrr...
Yeah, I'm in a seriously depressed state re: this damn Caliegia story. I don't like any of my writing, I don't like any attempts I've done trying to draw the Caliegia character herself. HEAVY SIGH.
Some of my self-doubts are about my attempts to re-write the story. I think I'm just incredibly long-winded, plus, I'm no longer convinced that the so-called "character development" I'm attempting to do between Yura (my name versus writer Nicola Cuti's original, "Djii") - the Caliegia herself - and the hunter, Toklo (versus "Vjor") is developing anything. As I read my dialogue efforts back, I think I'm just having them blab at each other inanely (insert yet another groan).
So, suppose what De Palma says is correct. I blew it. Whatever amazing creative potential I had, it was in the past, and now the past is gone, so suck it up, Kimmel, and enjoy your miserable existence.
Also, if creativity comes from the equivalent of some physical muscle, I believe that muscle would not be my drawing arm, but actually a part of my brain, a muscle that considers how to translate an actual object or subject into pencil and ink lines on the paper so that it looks like said object on the paper to any reader. And if the brain is a muscle, then, like other muscles of the body, it needs to exercise to stay in good working order, especially now that I've hit a certain age (i.e. 60). So, whether I like it or not, this Caliegia story really is, foremost, an exercise. I think any comic story I produce this year is merely an exercise, a step in working-out my creative muscle(s) and trying to get back into drawing (and inking) shape and beyond whatever storytelling shape I was in during my "prime," and by that, I mean my prime age-wise. That goal, of course, could be out of my grasp, but we'll never know. Even if I don't attain a certain excellence in my art that I would have had years ago, I can at least create some artwork and add it to my output rather than have nothing (or pretty damn close to nothing for an "artist" my age).
I guess that was another "self pep talk." I'm not sure how positively motivating it was, but eh! What are you gonna do?
Meanwhile, in my recent obsession with reading underground comics from the 60s and 70s, I now want to read more Rand Holmes after picking up Harold Hedd #2 on eBay. I may get this $35 book on Holmes from Fantagraphics Books. It reprints the Harold Hedd stories, I believe, plus a number of other underground tales he did. Reading HH #2, I was struck by Holmes' artwork as well as the topical subject matter (smoking pot, homosexuality, smuggling marijuana across international borders, etc.), and it made me think of how mundane and nonsensical my ideas for comics are. My comics seem to be about nothing. Probably because I have nothing to say. Another area that needs to be improved, if possible.
Alright, enough of this babbling bullshit. I'm going to put some laundry in the wash and then try to do some work on Caliegia.
Later.
Sunday, May 3, 12:40 pm
Oh, great. I've misplaced my camera. What the hell...
Friday, May 8, 11:23 am
THANK GOD IT'S FRIDAY!
More specifically, THANK GOD I HAVE THREE DAYS OFF!!
In addition, last night in my bumblings along the internet, I came across a current fine arts painter named Roberto Ferri and looking at his work has rejuvenated my enthusiasm for working on THE CALIEGIA.
3:00 pm
Meanwhile, I HAVE found my camera. Yay!
I've also been itching to buy more books/comics on-line. I wanted to get some more collected Wally Wood material, but some of that stuff is out of print, or excessively expensive because it's out of print, or it's available digitally (Kindle, etc.), a path I'm not really interested in going down if I don't have to.
Oh, but I'm going to spend more money, don't you worry! I'm just going to have to do some more research as to what to spend that money on...
Meanwhile, yesterday, I received my limited edition copy of Jan Strnad and Richard Corben's MUTANT WORLD and SON OF MUTANT WORLD.
3:43 pm
Ugh, my brain is all over the place.
I have to buckle down and get something accomplished.
I just have to do some drawing today. SOME thing. It's turned into this insurmountable proposition. I can't seem to do anything I like, but maybe I have to just crap out a bunch of hideous work and finally get to the good stuff in the process. For instance, this is a drawing I did a couple weeks ago. I don't like it, especially the face (not to mention, now that I look at it more, the eyes are crooked-- the right eye is slightly higher than it should be. Grrrr!). But, I did discover I liked the effect of covering up one of her Yura's breasts with her hair. I thought it increased the erotic quality of the image. And the drawing itself isn't too bad, kinda-sorta. I'm just fussy.
Grrrr..!
Oh, and though I didn't elaborate on it much in the drawing, the bottom of her IS supposed to be a horse.
Sunday, May 10, 8:30 pm
Holy crap! This is, like, going to be the FOURTH three-day weekend in a row that's gone by that I haven't really moved forward on this damn story!
I have to puke out something tonight.
If it sucks, then I have to work on fixing it, but even something shitty is better than a page absolutely BLANK.
ARGHHH!
Thursday, May 21, 9:06 am
Today's Thursday. I'm starting a four day weekend. Usually I work Thursdays, but I switched shifts with another guy this week to have today off. Something going on today with my wife at her work and I'm busy being the spouse. We'll be practicing social distancing-- oh, yeah, that's still going on.
Anyway, so I'm starting my SIXTH multiple day weekend. There's also ELEVEN DAYS left in the month. I really have very little to show progress-wise on this freaking comic book story. Part of me is thinking I have eleven days to do some significant progress or else, I should just throw in the towel and decide to do something else with my life.
But, I have to do some other crap with regards to this event with my wife. So, later!
Friday, May 22, 11:48 am
Okay, I have some catching up re: yesterday but now we're planning on getting some gardening crap done and I'm planning on being the dutiful spouse. In other words, gardening is not my bag. Which means I have to get dressed and clean out my car's trunk to make room for soil, etc., because my wife's car is getting inspected and also an oil change and maybe some other work done today. Ughh...
But, yesterday turned out pretty good!
2:17 pm
Well, I guess I'm having another productive day, although, not in regards of drawing. I've been doing house chores, including cutting the freaking grass yesterday (which turned out to be herculean task due to the ground still being wet and the lawn tractor's battery being low on power). Today I've finally tried cleaning out my car trunk, which turned out to be an archeological dig. Found lots of my CDs back there, though!
Sunday, June 28, 3;11 am
Wow. It's been over a month since I last updated this post. Well, what else is new?
So, I'm going to wrap this post up and move on because there have been some developments in my life and the world, and like my dad has often said and I often quote him saying it, "Time waits for no man."
In terms of my life, my best friend Steve has returned to Facebook. I don't know how long this will last, but he's back and that's not a bad thing at all. He doesn't spend much time on FB, I don't think, but he has been dropping comments on my FB page. Especially when I'm posting my typical cat GIFs that I've found on the internet. And his comments have been about me wasting time on the internet when I could be drawing the comic book story he wrote for me to draw back in, like, 1984 (literally).
I'm not really sure about the exact year, but it was definitely in the mid to early 80s.
I can't remember if I asked him to write me a story to draw or he did it spontaneously and sent it to me, but either way, he wrote me this horror story. It's called "The Cat's Meow" and it's very "The Tell-tale Heart" in spirit. To the best of my recollection, I started working on this story three different times (at least), the first two attempts yielding almost a full first page pencilled, but two different approaches. One exhibited my fascination with manga at the time as I utilized speed or action lines in one of the panels. The other approach chose a more cinematic style (though studied), not so much in shot selection but as if I was using a tracking camera and moving from one destination to another.
The third time I tried to draw this script, I mostly concentrated on taking photos of my fellow employees as possible character models, but it never got to the drawing stage, or not much of one.
Anyway, cut to 2020: Steve's back on FB, dropping hints on where's this comic book story? And... I planned on getting to it, finally, this year, as a matter of fact, juts later. It was to be part of my first year as a sexagenarian and my late stages of pursuing some sort of art career, or at least, updating/improving my measly and outdated portfolio.
"The Caliegia" was going to be my first effort and this goofy fan art based on this local cosplayer was going to be this other one. And then, maybe I 'd start "The Cat's Meow" except, I'd have to find the script first, and I'm pretty sure I have it... somewhere in this basement...
But, that initial strategy has all been scrapped and now "The Cat's Meow" has taken my primary attention, more or less. I've been talking to Steve about me actually doing this fucking story for once and how I had to track down the script first, but he miraculously located the script first and e-mailed me a copy.
So, Step One, I have the script again!
Step Two: well, draw the damn thing.
I think my actual Step Two is rough out the entirety of the story first. I really have no clue how many pages this thing is going to be, and I think it would help if I knew that. Plus, laying out the damn story, even roughly, would be a huge accomplishment for me.
Meanwhile, in the world at large, other things have been transpiring. New York State is slowly trying to open back up... we're at Stage Four, or maybe Three, I don't really know. but, people are going back to work and the general public is starting to do things like eat out again. Meanwhile, some people feel like their rights are being infringed upon if they have to wear a mask out in public. Some people have just been acting like things are back to normal in terms of social interaction and that's a cause of some disagreements, another topic of draw-the-line bickering on Facebook, Twitter, etc. Meanwhile, on May 25, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, four policemen were arresting a black man named George Floyd, and as they were arresting him, they put him to the ground and one officer kneeled on the back of his neck. Whether you feel it was or wasn't a proper use of force, the real issue is the officer stayed on his neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds and Floyd eventually died of suffocation, despite his cries of being unable to breathe and despite the fact that three other officers were present witnessing this.
This led to public backlash and the slogan "Black Lives Matter" was in the news again and protests erupted nationwide. Except this time the protests became a persistent rallying cry and even now there are some protests still persisting. So, this has been going on.
Finally, just this week, a local film and theater actor passed away after being in ill health for a while. His name was Michael O'Hear and we knew each other through the WNY film community circles, and prior to his death, he had been in the hospital and there was a GoFundMe going on to raise money for his medical expenses. I knew he was in bad health, but 72 hours before he died, I thought he was on the road to some sort of recovery in a sub-acute care facility. And then, suddenly he was dead. He had taken a turn for the worse and I didn't realize it until he was gone. Michael is the fourth person I know who has died since the whole social distancing started.
Sue K. (her maiden name) who I knew when I was going to Buff State, died suddenly while taking out the garbage of all things (she lived in another state). Apparently she collapsed in her driveway. If I understand correctly from her brother, because of Covid, we'll never really know why she died so abruptly and her death was ruled due to natural causes.
Another friend, R., succumbed to cancer after having beaten it for several years. Sadly, the cancer had resurfaced in recent months.
Also, the brother of my sister-in-law passed away as well. Because of the Covid lockdown going on across the country, all of these people didn't and won't have the usual send-off with friends and loved ones we usually expect since we now have to live by social distancing restrictions. Michael's death was the most prominent example because a large number of friends have been mourning his passing the last several days and they'll have to wait for some kind of memorial in the future when it's deemed safe to do so, I'm assuming, hoping.
I'm NOT saying we shouldn't be social distancing nor that we shouldn't be wearing masks. I'm not saying that at all.
I've been very fortunate so far with regards to health and also being able to work, so to a certain extent, I've been blessed considering the fact that a lot of actual shit's been going on.
And I've been feeling very mortal lately.
On a superficial level, I just need to motivate my ass and get some shit done before it's my time to go...
I've been very fortunate so far with regards to health and also being able to work, so to a certain extent, I've been blessed considering the fact that a lot of actual shit's been going on.
And I've been feeling very mortal lately.
On a superficial level, I just need to motivate my ass and get some shit done before it's my time to go...
