I'm letting you in on a secret!

Before I get to the secret that you are dying to read, I want to say that I've been busy and lazy at the same time. It makes no sense, I know... I guess I should say I am busy with work and seeing friends, being a participating member of that thing called life. I now know what it is to have a daily life, wow! Again, let me tell you that graveyard jobs are the work of the devil. But, I've been lacking in my love of art and music. At first it was a month hiatus after my art show, I was a bit burnt out. But then it grew into me being lazy about it. I think I just like to have a deadly fire burning under my ass to keep me active. At first it was the art show deadline, and now it is my secret which I will now reveal:

¡¡I AM GOING TO PUBLISH A COMIC!!

Yes, you read that correctly. I have been in and out of planning this for some time, and now I have charted a course, and the ball is rolling, slowly, but surely. I have decided to work on a comic that has been in hibernation for a long time, but Andy brought it up recently and it kick started me into a direction. I let some ideas marinate in my brain, pulled out many reference books, questioned some friends, and basically came up with an origin story for a volume 1 graphic novel. But before I do the graphic novel, I came up with two ashcan/online single story comics to pump out first. This way I can flex my comic production muscles, get these printed via Ka-Blam, then pass them out for input, and hopefully use them as a pitch to my favorite indie comic company. I know a couple people who were printed by them, so I don't see why I can't.
We'll see how this rolls out, I'm planning for the first ashcan comic to be ready in August. As a bonus, I am having someone translate it into Spanish for me, I'm going to have a limited Spanish Language run of these also, so speak up when I get them printed.

I know I haven't mentioned the comic idea yet, but I want to keep it under wraps until the first ashcan comic is done. But for those who want to play detective, there is a clue to this comic's identity somewhere on my website. Have fun figuring that out.

Lastly, I just wanted to mention some things I've been doing. I was going to write a daily comic (last blog I believe), but it snowballed into my upcoming comic, which is why that didn't sprout. I also lost my Moleskine which had notes for issue one.
I also saw Man of La Mancha, which was great! I've always been a fan of Don Quixote. I was sad that there were no Spaniards playing any roles in the local production though.
I also just went to the Spokane ComiCon at Gonzaga. That was a lot of fun. I met a bunch of people, made friends, caught up with old friends, and even went to dinner with a bunch of comic artists. Next year I am definitely getting a booth and selling paintings, commissions, and promoting my comic.
Well, that's all for now, I need to sleep. I work at 8:00am tomorrow. BTW, I like my job a lot. I like working in the daylight hours. I like meeting all sorts of people in the hospital. I like to have an important role in the hospital, it makes me feel more productive and helpful. I just feel good about helping people. But with all this in mind, I still like my freetime more :D How else am I supposed to work on my projects?

That's about it. But first I'm going to write a random note to myself here. While in the shower, I came up with a weird concept for a painting that I want to do it. Its of myself, waist-up, in the steamy shower, brushing my teeth and looking like a tired wet rabid dog... yeah, sounds weird. I need to sketch it. If I like it, I may use it as a profile photo on the myspace.... which reminds me, I need to copy this and paste it into my Myspace blog, so everyone will read it. Hardly anyone checks here for my blogs.

Poetry Reading

So yesterday I happened to hear on the radio that Latino Poet, Martin Espada, would be doing a poetry reading from his newest book at Aunties Bookstore. Of course, "Latino Poet" piqued my interest, so I decided to go. All day, I asked myself what makes this guy a Latino Poet, and not just a poet who happens to be Latino?
I was hoping perhaps his readings would be themed about Latino culture and issues, perhaps even some Spanish poetry. In his favor, I'm hoping he avoided those poems due to the blindingly white audience. There were a couple of interest though, one about Puerto Rico, his home. Another was about the first Thanksgiving with his wife's family. The latter poem felt like the standard jokes though, about culture clash between ultra-wasps and a Puerto Rican who thought all Thanksgiving dinners had rice and beans with turkey. All-in-all, I wasn't thrilled.
I was even surprised there were hardly any Latinos in the audience, it was a a blanket of blanco.
They probably all received word it wasn't worth supporting and failed to inform me.
Lastly, his reading/speaking voice was hard to handle. I guess that's why writers write, so speakers can speak... He'd phase in and out of a rhythm, and sometimes even slightly sing phrases, all while tapping his foot and swinging an invisible pen in the air as though he were punctuating his voice or conducting an imaginary band. What made it worse was his vocal styling. I think he got lessons from movie commercials. His voice would go from raspy and whispery, to loud and too close to the mic. If you've ever seen an awful poetry reading at an open mic night, that's how this felt.
Of course, ending the poetry reading really made my day. I walked out to my car and had a ticket on it. I guess after 6:00pm, the parking meter I was at becomes a taxi use only spot. Whoops. So that's $30 I have to fork over for an awful night.

I'll be blogging again shortly, a lot has happened since the last blog post, I've just been too busy to write it all out.

Lost Small Note Book (Moleskine)

Saturday, April 25th, anywhere from 7:00 - 11:00pm I lost my black notebook (technically a moleskine). Somewhere around Sushi Dot Com, but now it could be anywhere. Inside the front cover has my contact info, the back cover has a pocket that even contains several of my business cards with my contact info again! It wouldn't mean much to you, it just carries my various notes, to-do lists, sketches, business cards, etc... It means the world to me, I'd gladly pay you for returning it. I'll even buy you a drink!
Let me know if you have it or have seen it!

It looks a lot like this one (without the weird cutout in the papers):

Journal Comic? First Day of work?

So, I was going to write about my first day of work, but instead I started thinking about the web comic I wanted to do but pushed aside to get my paintings done for the art show. Well the art is up on the walls, and I have time to do something. So, I thought of a compromise, how about a journal web comic? The American Elf journal Comic is actually a lot of fun, even inspiring. I've also been listening to a podcast from the Savanah Art of College and Design, and a student also maintains a journal comic here. So, now after some thought, I think I am going to do a weekly journal comic and see how it rolls. I'm already working on one that is about DAY1 of my new job. I'll try to get it up this weekend, I'm putting more time than necessary into it, but this is the first time I've done anything of the sort, so I'll just have to roll with it until I come up with a standard way of doing it. We'll see.
Anyway, I'm having trouble kicking my graveyard schedule, as you can tell by the time stamp on this blog entry, it is around 3:00am. I worked all morning from 7am - 3:30pm, drove home, stopped at the comic shop to order some trades, then ate dinner. Afterward I decided to take a nap, but instead I crashed hard core from 4:30 - 11:30pm. So now I'm wide awake, but I'm going to try to sleep a couple more hours before starting at 8:00am. I should be fine tomorrow for work, but fighting my sleep schedule is going to be worse than I imagined.

PS, I forgot my wallet on my first day of work, so when I swung by The Comic Book Shop, I was only able to make orders for some books and couldn't buy a damn thing. This was actually kind of cool, but also equally frustrating. There were pretty books all over, but I avoided "The Gauntlet" of marching back and forth in front of the new released comics rack. I promptly made my orders and ran away to not be further tempted. I've been buying more comics than I thought I would have ever when I got back into comics about a year and a half ago. At first I thought I'd pick up one or two subscriptions and the occasional trade. Now I have 7 comics in subscription, and I'm always grabbing more than I want when I leave. I think I'm going to have to come with a list, and stick to it to avoid over purchasing, I just don't have room for these silly funny books.

Goodbye Graveyard Shifts, Hello Daylight

Today, I am officially a day person who will sleep at night, and see my friends and family like regular people. I will not be resting in a dark dark room while the world frolicks in the daylight, like a vampire. This is a phenomenal moment! I start my new job as a patient transporter bright and early Monday morning!

The Art Show was great!

So, I had the reception for my art show at the Empyrean last Friday. It was a lot of fun, so many friends came. I've never done anything like this before, so it was nice to see so many friends come out to support me. I sometimes feel like I don't have many friends, mainly because I don't get to see them because of my job's hours(which will soon be remedied), but seeing so many people come for me on Friday made me feel like I was on top of the world.

It was so much fun to talk with everyone about my art, I had people ask me all sorts of questions. I was able to meet the other artist there, he was a really nice guy. I also was able to hear some unfiltered opinions of my art as I overheard people chatting away who didn't know I was the artist. It made me feel really good to hear what everyone had to say. I always worry that friends just tell me they like my work because we are friends, so now I have a better idea of what strangers think of my eccentric paintings :)

From what I hear, I think the tattoo shop next store to the Empyrean wants to buy my Street Fighter paintings. I'm prety stoked about that since the painting is 4' x 3', I wouldn't know what to do with it if I had to bring it home! :) I priced it at $400, which is a really low figure too, considering the endless amount of work I put into it, and the massive size of it. Actually, all of my paintings are pretty cheap in comparison to what others are trying to sell for. I guess it means I'm a cheap whore then :) But honestly, I'd like to sell my paintings and know someone will hang it up and enjoy it, so if I have to settle for a slightly lower price than what others sell for, its fine by me.

Again, I just want to thank everyone who showed up, it meant a lot to me to see all my friends in one place!

Art Show!

I finally wrangled an art show at the Empyrean. Originally we were shooting for May, but then they called me the day after I talked to them and asked if I could do April instead. I guess the person they had for April flaked out. It's a bit sooner than I'd like, but it just means I have to work that much faster, I bet some of the paintings will still be wet as they are being hung. Don't be surprised if you see me there touching up things on the wall with a paintbrush :D All week I've been painting like crazy. There's a 4'x3' painting that's almost done, and there will be some new works.

Anyway, here's the details:


Empyrean Coffee House is kind enough to display my art during the month of April. There will be an opening reception the first Friday of April, the 4th, from 6:00pm - 9:00pm. Stop by if you can, if not, the art will be hung all month long!

Empyrean Coffee House
154 S. Madison
(509)838-9819
Spokane, WA 99201