Dave appears to have the notion that the conclusion of his opus will lead to some sort of mass nervous breakdown amongst those who call themselves ‘leftist’. Apparently he thinks that the gaggles of followers of dogma are in fact all believers in a unified vision that can be popped like a balloon by a new argument. He seeks to kill a great dragon of an idea that he calls 'Marxist Feminism’

That would imply though that it was one thing we're talking about, that most self proclaimed ‘feminists’ are not following agendas that are in fact of their own constructing, something cobbled together by their experiences as a women for those who are - and as people who most likely have know one or two for those who aren’t - the knowledge that it’s fundamentally unfair to judge a person on pluming or skin colour, and ideas picked up from those ideologies that they’ve been exposed to.

That they all follow a set of rules that have been uniformly agreed upon and that are presented as a nice single balloon for his logic needle to prod.

Looks nice in a thesis, but in the real world?

No human movement is made up of a true cohesive vision that can be dissected as though it were a unified whole.

For each person involved, each brings their version of the thing to the table and invariably presents it as if it were the same thing as the other folk’s version. Truth is there are all sorts who claim badges shared by others, and all sorts includes people who are just plain kooky, angry or otherwise reacting to the nastiness of the world with more nastiness.

There are also those who simply want things to be reasonably fair, nothing more. There are few if any secret agendas, conspiracies, or motives shared by more than a hand full at any given time.

And thinking? That’s been out of style for some time Dave, the ‘left’ has no monopoly there.

Feminism - as all ism’s are - is an idea. At its inception no more complex than that equality is better than oppression.

Ideas are fluid, intangible things that morph and adapt. It’s been split into a million sub-ideas, some hair brained and some quite logical but wholly fascistic. And still some who claim the badge simply want things to be reasonably fair.

You may try to pin them all down with nice labels, like ‘Marxist Feminist’. But if you look under the label even a moment latter you’ll likely find that the ideas have flown the coop already, morphed into something else. If you can pin a living movement down to a single set of rhetorical notions then it’s probably a dead movement with no real live humans involved, or maybe a minority of one.

Trying to make it make sense and help folks see the light is silly. These are humans we’re talking about. They see the light aright, all of them. For every idea there is at least a few dozen. And none of us, you included Dave, are sufficiently wise enough to know for cretin which is the true light.

And apparently you haven’t figured this out yet Dave, but those character traits you seem to always associate with women are really just basically human traits. Some people carry them more than others; I don’t think the statistical numbers fall especially heavy on the ladies side, men are just socialized In the west to play things closer to the chest and not let you know what they’re really thinking. And that’s started to change too.

I haven’t seen one idea or negative trait or inequity as outlined in all these long rants from Dave that I can safely say I’ve not seen as much from men as women. And at least one or two in you Dave. Like, resorting to supposedly ‘logical arguments’ that in fact boil down to simple character assassination….?

Yes, I know, technically that last line is potentially the same thing too. But here’s the thing. Dave presents his argument as though there were no personal emotional aspects to it. As though it isn’t of him as a person but of him as a logical mind. Except, he’s frothing a bit, though I doubt he’s aware – totally got his shit under control he does, he thinks. I wont’ speculate as to what the sources are, but Dave? Dude, you are so the angry man cliché, take a pill [figuratively] and go lay in the sun somewhere. Give the old brain a rest.

some of last night's work...



Looking forward to seeing the show at the blue met this weekend, shaping up to be a wing bang old cavalcade of fun. I stopped by BEM's house tonight and saw the art for his GN preview [he's doing a power point presentation], folks are in for a treat.

Landed myself a nice quick job cleaning up scans of classic comic strips for a local publisher over the next week or so, fun monkey work. ooop oop oop.

Some of my work from tonight. I didn't plan to but i ended up staying home instead of going to a fun party to do this....man i'm lame.


Came across this today.
The idea of there Being classes for comics at Colleges
& Universities...

I know this isn't the first one or anything, just one of the better accounts of one in the media so far - but the idea of being able to go to school for this stuff. To get a BA, or a PHD one day?

This stuff is something that I have worked at teaching myself for over 20 years now. That's something I'm fairly proud of - nothing changes that.

When I started there were NO schools, nothing that would teach you form & method over content and style, Nothing that wasn't laced with the dictates of so-called consumer demand and an air of self enforced conformity. Nowhere to discussed at length the subtext of the material, as you can for writing conventional literature at collage or university for years.

In some ways that was good, mainstream schools are full of as much BS as they are good stuff. And outsider status has allowed comics to maintain it's alter ego; comix. One of the still recognised cultural rebels in North America [just look at the hipster Prof for proof - all be it somewhat embarrassingly stereotypical].

But there still is the good stuff. I hope comics never stops being strong in the street - Still, there's a thing or two to be learned in some of the better classrooms out there. And soon there will be a school, just for us.

Once I had made the decision to pursue this genre as a career as well as craft, I looked into schools. I took school very seriously. My parents met at an alternative school, and education reform was something that I was aware of before I even found myself in the bowls of Scarborough's 'special-ed' system. I was all the more aware of as a purgatory of BS for it.

I had an ideal of what school should be held up to me since I was a baby, and the reality shoved down my neck every day for 8 years bracketed by hour long bus rides to and from my suburban nightmare.

So I new there was a system, and that there were routs through it, which could work for me, if I fit the mould dictated for them.

But none really fit me. I quickly learned that there was no direct root to my goal or my 'type' through school. I could take a lot of related classes an a broad range of programs, to get into all of which I would have to qualify at levels that excided my abilities being 'learning disabled'. I was generally encouraged to learn a trade, maybe car painting?

I was on my way out already but this certainly didn't help to keep me in school any longer than I stayed in the end. By mid gr 11 I was officially retired from the Scarborough school system, forced out by my VP personally, seen as a trouble maker and "ringleader". Never even got a dammed watch.

I have no complaints to day, or use for schools myself, though I could see teaching funnily enough. There is that ideal that I still believe in, about what school should be.

But now there are classes of people coming out of universities & colleges in The US and here. Some will be no better for it.

Others will come out potentially having hot-housed and sucking up the equivalent of what takes an Autodidact like myself considerably longer to learn with limited resources. And with the social advantages of coming from a system, with all the connections as associations that grants. Knowing a few of the right people in the right places right from the start.

Most, like in other fields will probably fall by the wayside. But even if every class puts out only one moderately productive and skilled creator a year who goes onto bigger and better things, that's a lot more bigger and better things to look forward to.


Take a moment to think about that.

Now who was saying that comics are a dead or dieing medium?

Makes me shiver just the think about it :)

Sony, Philips and digital paper pioneer E-Ink have announced an electronic book reader, the Sony Librié 1000-EP. Due to go on sale in Japan in late April for $375 (£204).

Warren's got the details here

Plastering the bathroom, getting rid of the funky wavy crap textured walls so we can once and for all get rid of the stench of mildew



Been working on Pg10 of the rise and fall, Above you can see where I stated by redoing the thumbs, having changed things in the last few pages and cutting a page out of the count. Here on the left are the large roughs I did. They are composited here in a possible layout; I’ll work on my roughs like this to see if it's working out or if I need to add/remove/change something.

then I printed them out on separate sheets of Bristol and started working the final drawings...




First night I was able to open the window and draw by it tonight. Come on spring!

Man this brings back some good memories…the first part that is. I used to spend every Wednesday till three am at the Dance Cave. DJ was a drinking buddy of ours and played my favourite mixes, always made our requests top priority too which is nice – and always knew just where to slide them into the line up to get the best effect.

Tell you one thing that sucks about Montréal. Nowhere to go dance.

Oh I’m sure there are some places if you love dance hall tecno/rave/hiphop stuff.

But I’m an old timer now. I like some of that but in moderation. What’ll really turn me on and get me on the floor is some good old 80-90 era pop, new wave, punk, ska and Indy music. A smattering of classics from the 60-70, maybe a few crooner tunes while were at it and even some choice trip hop or other prime post 90 stuff in the mix. But the only a very few places play anything like that mix here and they are hopelessly over crowded, no dancing even possible, just that stupid hoping that passes for youthful abandon these days. Then there's the fact that there is no such thing as volume control here apparently, only on and obnoxiously deafeningly painfully loud. I don't think I’ve encountered one soundman, or DJ who knows how to balance the room or do their job anywhere near competently. And god in haven when did the morons get the idea that it’s cool to dance with your beer or worse, your cocktail in your hand. Get the fuck off the floors you morons! Geez…I really miss dancing. Well, I’ll just have to turn up the stereo and use the living room.

Guess what film i watched today?...

Drew these watching the second disk of David Fincher's Alien³, man what a drama. The new edition of the DVD includes a second disk with a massive amount of documentary footage on the film. And the first disk includes a restored first Assembly Cut, an approximation of a directors cut though David had nothing to do with it in fact and was "no where to be found" at the time. Man, hate to say I sympathize with the guy’s story, sounds awfully familiar.

Personally I have always liked the move, and suspected there was more to the idea than what we saw on the screen.

This rough cut clearly suggests a far superior narrative that the one we ended up with. Frankly aside from some choppy dialog in some of the speeches, which were cut for the better, the long and far more interesting film presented in the Assembly Cut was excellent. I was enthralled. I Only just now, watching the extras, found out about the mess behind the scenes on the film and the degree to which the film was butchered by the studio. And all with people on the other side sighting, as usual, that they were just doing their job as a defence. Fear is a poor excuse for stupidity.

And just who was the exec who had a thing for doing a prison story so bad...? Like a bad penny that just wouldn't go away. Dude, I know a guy who you should talk to if you want to make a prison movie so bad.

You may or may not have noticed the addition to this page of a pictorial index of my photo essays, just to the right under the section links. here's a new one.

Trying to write the second installment of my rant on form for Sequential Narrative Art I'm soothing my mind with the sounds of murder. One of a set of audio pieces by Jack Goldstein published by ubu.com. Seriously, nothing like this sort of stuff to help me think sometimes. I used to get a great blast out of composing audio sound scape tapes for a radio show i produced for CIUT back in the early 90's. Listening to this stuff kind of makes me want to play with audio again...humm, i should see if i can find a good sound ediing program...anyone know of a freewhere one out there that works pretty good? I'd just need a 4track equivalent really.

Take that you bag of BS: Clive apparently on a theme of the issue of honesty in the wired world these days, an interesting string of posts on his blog about this sort of stuff...

Found another interesting power source in development [see previous]. Scroll down to Waste not Watt not to hear the brodcast.

"Dr. Bruce Logan, a professor of Environmental Engineering at Penn State University, sees waste as a wasted resource, and he's come up with a way to do something about it. Using the power of the microbe and a fuel cell, he's found a way to generate electricity from sewage. He thinks the microbial fuel cell he developed could be used to clean water at waste treatment plants, and generate modest amounts of electricity as a bonus. Since the plants themselves now consume large amounts of electricity, this could amount to a substantial savings"

9 pages from my current project
the rise and fall of it all

Oh look, more good news...

I found talk of this at the top of this article about emerging mobile tech. If this is at least as sensitive as the Wacom drawing tablets,or if they put out one that is, it implies some great tool possibilities. A sketchpad that you can hold in your lap or on your desk and draw on, the endless scrap sheet.

I'm fairly committed to keeping some aspect of my work always hands-on, but I've done quite a few roughs already with my Wacom, and then printed them out to finish the rendering. Usually goes back in the machine for final touches and the composting of elements [something I picked up from my days at animation studios]. I'd probably save a few $ on paper with one of these things but really it just seems like a more natural interface for the Box here, which alone is good reason for one. The difference from a mouse to Wacom in their current form is light years already.

My pal Scott sent me this link, a new Brit comedy spoof of Dawn of the Dead, Shaun of the Dead ...looks like a good laugh, He wrote this review for the BBC, gives it thumbs up. He's got fine taste so i say take that seriously.

Read some sad news on flat earth today, New Zealand cartoonist Martin Emond [ aka Marty Fuck ] took his own life in LA yesterday. It's odd news it seems as he was thought to be doing well and happy, engaged to be married and seemingly enjoying his work. On the TCJ boards folks are talking about Martin's contributions and sharing some info about the details.

Found this backtracking referral URL to a Japanese Blog...Seems they have actually printed a Cell Phone....

Disposable Cell Phone - Phone-Card-Phone
Inventor, Randice-Lisa Altschul creates the world's first disposable cell phone.

Motorcycles:
I'm looking at this great old book of motorcycles of my dad's, some amazing looking old machines.

The Munch X Mammoth 1200 & the MV 600 4-cylinder are great monster cafe racers. And the Egil-Vincent 1000 has a sweet basic design and a fantastic literary heritage.

this is a slick overhaul of a Egil
here's an old hot rod incarnation, & here's some nice classic ones

Can't find the old Much in my book but the current model is pretty fucking impressive, they should use it for the Ghost rider movie...ug, that looks Crap! oh boy. Well, anyway....Ah! here's the whole Much family tree

Bikes are cool :)

Robot girl rough and some ink and brush doodles

John Ashcroft's zombie army of bible thumping watchdogs have taken up the call to arms in the Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography and have started campaigning via e-mail to get cartoons in local papers censored.

Tony Millionaire has recently been asked to change the wording of his comics, replacing "cunt" to "vagina".

Now, given what runs in the back pages of most of the local weeklies that Tony's strip appears in, & the average age of the reading audience who enjoys Millionaire's strip I’d say this is decidedly a bit absurd. Grow the fuck up people, and leave the rest of us adults alone! Free country my Ass.

Well, i can take some solace in the fact that the odds are in favour of there being a god there to tell them what self righteous buggers they are when they die.

Oooooh, Cool beans!

Some new Cheese Boy and Service Industry Guy comics from my good budy George up on his blog here

Walking around the other night with a.j. I noticed an exceptionally bright star in the west-north corner of the sky, fairly high at 7pm, about 2 or 3 o’clock. Something like twice or three times as bright as I recall mars being earlier this winter. Been trying to figure out what it is, haven’t had any luck yet but I’ve found some interesting stuff in the search. I though t maybe it was a man made object, and the SSC is getting brighter, but I found that it’s not in the right place when I found this site, has a very cool jave based 3D model of the earth with all it’s MANY man made orbital objects, you click on them to get their names and orbital path.

Found a lot of links about the new planetoid Sedna but by definition I doubt that’s what I’m seeing shining brightly in my evening skies. Hmm, no luck so far. Anyone know?

The future is now; Tec research for sci-fi/fact project

Robot legs
A stem cell injecting to cure baldness
Humanoid robot horn player
Robot Desert race
Singapore will spend $8.62 billion on military R&D
Seamless surveillance that ‘sees’ all
A new practical energy harvesting device.
Nano wires
Microfluidic Tunable optical fibers
Distributed Data Storage
T-rays
Bayesian Machine Learning
Synthetic Biology

Been toiling over the lettering a bit, and revisions the result there of. Found i needed a panel were none was, so now one must be. And some of the spoken word dialog is needing some teasing and pulling to make sense as pure text with specific meaning, vs poetic prose with more inferred meaning.

clop clop clop.

But that's ok. Been getting some really positive responses about the pitch for rise and fall, and now i hear there are other interesting developments on john's end.

Over in the blogaverse, Sean Collins is taking Larry Young to task for being his cranky self and taking poorly thought, out badly written, depressed sounding ambiguous swipes at bloggers in general while giving one a back handed complement. Bit of stink about not much, I doubt Larry gave his post that much thought.

But i see a point i'd make in all this.

Larry, like a few others out there apparently [or so I'm told, I don't read enough to have picked up on thins as a trend myself], are pretty free with dismissive comments about the quality of content on some - most it seems - blogs. Not really surprising coming from Larry, he's earned himself a rep as a bit of a crank at times, though a very good publisher.

But If its in fact the case that this opinion is starting to represent a 'camp' of sorts, it strikes me as rather cliquey high school behaviour based on some really spurious thinking. It's true that the writing is often casual, and spelling, grammar & etc often slack. & That they often present very personal ideas & windows onto the posters worlds.

But that's kind of part of the point of a blog. Bitching about it pretty conservative and cranky really. Boggs were conceived in the same sprite of much of the Internet; as free forms for communication.

Specifically blogs are merely an efficient way to publish. Note that doesn't specify WHAT you publish. Larry seems to be quibbling over what content qualifies as a blog or worthy...but that's missing the purpose.

Blogs are means, they do not dictate form or content.

So to generalize about Blogs is going to be no more valid than to say all publishers are narrow minded. Now If he wants to be constructive he should site specifics, make a few constructive suggestions maybe. If he's just bitching...well he's free to but I'm free to ignore him too.

Silly Rabbit.

To be fair I'd say Sean took it all a little more to hart than I suspect Larry ever intended it, given the odd use of 'espouse' on Larry's part I doubt he though for very long about it before hitting 'post and publish'.

And who cares you say? Well, that's my point isn't it.

With that, I point you to the spanking new Comic Weblog Updates page at simpleweblog.com; More personal points of view and general espousing of ideas than you can shake a stick at, all regularly updated!

Terminator 3: issues 1 & 2; Inking Job
Two 40+ page books to kick off the tie-in comic book series for T3 the movie. Published by Beckett Comics: Script Ivan Brandon; Pencils Goran Parlov; Inks Salgood Sam

This was fun job, though long. Goran has some really nice tight pencils, a real master of the minimalist clear line traditions of Euro BD.

Also we were told that this was the first time ever that the Governator allowed his likeness to be used in a comic! So some minor comics history there. I wonder if that'll make the art anymore valuable...hummm?

I'm going to need to do some paying work this summer, would be cool maybe to do some more inking. Any publishers reading this can consider my door open for that. :)

Also if anyone wants to buy the original inks [done separately from the pencils and not as full pages, see here for details, look under "Method"] I'm selling them now!. Contact me for details.

Wow, amazing use of avantgard sequentail art here by James Jean and Kenichi Hoshine.

New work up here at rise-fall.com...


Oooohhhh baby, i just found this on artbomb, a new film from Enki Bilal, Immortel! [warning, the flash part of the site is el-sluggish-o' on my old shit box, but Jesus Christ on a wobbly crutch you must see the trailer!] it's based on the classic Nikopol trilogy & it's set to debut in France and Belgium on march 24th. Cooooool BEANS!
I can't wait for the DVD!

Spalding Gray's body was found this past Sunday in N.Y.'s East River [*]

To the memory of a great story teller.
Few have has as profound effect on me as he did. It seems those who knew him sensed his going missing was ominous. Hope you find some peace Spalding.

Also been drawing a lot, but not stopping to scan that just yet today, maybe later tonight. But this morning i started off the day calling a few publishers to follow up my mail out for the rise and fall last week, put together two pages for the book, and spent some time putting another old project up online.

Posted some more stuff in the comics section.

A Storyboard for a TV commercial idea and the first installment of what will be many for the new Saint Sinner section, trial by fire'.

Saint Sinner was a monthly series i worked on published by Marvel Comics in 1993. This project was a pivotal experience for me, learned a lot about myself as a creator and it was central in sending me off in the directions I've followed professionally since. Not all that was positive, quite the opposite.

So to both think about what i learned from that for myself, and to share that Knowledge with others who may be in or thinking about getting into the comics 'biz' [that is the commercial side of comics publishing] I'm going to be posting fairly extensive background stories and accounts of the specific issues surrounding the artwork. In this first post I talk about the cover art that i did, and why after the 2nd issue i stopped doing them...

Also I've added comments to the page, at the bottom of each post. Drop me a line and say hi!