Sunday Scribblings: "THIEF!"

It's been a while since I've done a scribbling and I feel guilty for not participating. Partly because even if I write a bunch of silliness, it's still writing (something I've been doing more of this past year, and a bit of loose practice-writing can't hurt), and partly because "Sunday Scribblings!" is one of Laini's babies and Jimmy doesn't like to let Laini down. Truthfully though, I've been working on the illustrations for Laini's novel and since I'm depicting several of the main characters, lots of time must be spent to get them just so, and it's kept me very preoccupied.

Another reason for participating this week is because I came up with the topic the other morning on our dog walk, and I'd be remiss if I didn't take part, so:

"THIEF!"

I'm not sure if I should write about the Post-Its and stapler that I took from my last office/corporate job 8 years ago. Is there a statute of limitations on such things? If not, this is pure fiction. If so, then I should add that I took their fleet of company cars too. And all of their toilet paper.

Or maybe I should write about how whenever I go into a store and DON'T buy anything, I always feel like the employees might think that I'm stealing something (especially when I'm dressed down a bit ... and wearing panty-hose over my head).

Or maybe I should write about how Shiloh (one of our dogs -- she came with the name...) stole a partially cooked chicken breast OFF THE FIERY GRILL a few years ago. I was stumped as to where the meat could have gone until I saw her barf if up a few seconds later ... and then eat it again. She must have known about the "5 Second Rule." You know, the rule that if you drop something, it's okay to stick it in your mouth if it's been on the ground for less than 5 seconds. I don't think that generally applies to vomit, but then, I'm not sure if it's fair to be such a harsh judge.

OR (!), maybe I should write about how Laini and Alexandra submitted a FABULOUS book idea to a major publisher 4 years ago. The overall idea maybe wasn't ground-breakingly original, but the content (comprised of lists of ideas for the theme of their book) was DEFINITELY original, whacky, and sweet. The "thief" part comes into play when some time passes, they don't hear a rejection or acceptance from the publisher, and so Laini and Alexandra assume the publisher has passed on it. Much more time passes and then Alexandra sees a book in a bookstore about a year and a half ago from the same company. The book has a similar overall theme (fine, no biggie there), BUT the list of ideas for the theme has about 6 or 8 EXACT ideas (out of the book's 100 or so). Believe me, the ideas they swiped were WAY too whacky and creative (and worded the same) to be anything BUT plagiarism. Sleazy, slimy editor/publisher -- they're lucky the gals aren't litigious. If my name was Earl, I'd smack that editor with a huge karma (and partially-digested chicken)-filled water balloon.

That's all.

For more Sunday Scribblings, click here.

You try to raise them right, and they still conquer and oppress you

Laini and I just got back from OMSI (the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry) and their current Robots (!! yay !!) exhibit. The title of this post is actually swiped from one of the many billboard ads all over Portland where they have pics of robots with catchy phrases like that. Another funny billboard said "Humans are funny ... we'll miss you when we take over the world." I love those (only because they can't come true...right?). We met Laini's mom and our niece Izzy and her friend Chiara for lunch and some robot goodness. There was a (possibly unintentionally) funny movie playing on a loop there about one of the first computers that could do a number of computations at once and how it was over 40 feet long and weighed 30 tons. I wonder how much our grandkids will laugh at us with our iPods and DVD players...

While we were there I made a friend:


















... but then he got a little clingy and weird:





















And for those of you who'd read my last post, check out what "mysteriously" showed up at our house last week ...






... hmm, I wonder how that happened? (heh heh :)

GREAT News and a Childhood Flashback

I know it's been a while since I've posted, but I promise I've been busy. Really! Some of you may already know by reading my wife's blog that she is finalizing the editing of her first novel as I write this! The book doesn't come out until next Spring, but it'll be worth the wait because she's just a fantastic writer. Thankfully, her editor has been supportive of the idea of me or us (Laini and me) doing the cover and interior artwork for the first book as long as whatever I or we came up with could get past the (BIG!) hurdle of getting the artwork approved by the Publisher, the Art Director, the Marketing department, and the Sales department. As it turned out, Laini's been WAY too busy to do the art herself, but I told her to art direct me if she wanted, as this is, after all, HER book. Anyhow, after a few weeks of hard work and a handful of sleepless (work-filled) nights, the cover pitch I designed was okayed and I was officially hired last week! Sadly, I can't show any of the work here because of publishing legal-type stuff, but I was really pleased with how the cover turned out since it's slightly more design-oriented than much of my work, and a bit different style as well. So, in addition to the cover, I'm also doing the chapter-heading spots and possibly a thing or two more. Some of you great blogger-kids have already congratulated me (THANK YOU!), but I figured this was indeed big news that I should share on my own little blog. Exciting times indeed!

Amidst all of this, these past few weeks I got into a few conversations with people about childhood TV shows that were addicting as we grew up. For me, 2 of the shows that I LOVED were the "Ultraman" show and the "Spectreman" show. These were basically very cheesy, but awesome nonetheless pre-Power Rangers type shows made in Japan and dubbed over here to the great pleasure of many a kid. In fact, when I brought up these characters with a few friends they flipped out and started rattling off details I hadn't thought of in decades. Describing the opening scenes with the credits, the villains, and TONS of other details that were buried deep in my wee head. For those of you not familiar with the characters, I BET you have a loved one in your life who was at the very least, aware of these shows & characters, if not completely IN LOVE with the corny-goodness. Both of these guys (separate TV shows btw) shot rays out of their hands, could fly, AND could grow from human-size to upwards of like 200 feet -- in other words: cool as hell!) Here are a couple shots of Ultraman:








































And a couple shots of Spectreman (and it should be noted that I dressed up in an AWESOME Spectreman costume that my amazing Mom made along with me for my 3rd grade Halloween. I even won a costume contest that year!):





It should ALSO be noted that Laini thinks these guys look really lame, but I freaking LOVE them. My slight touch of OCD has freakily kicked in and I'm almost positive that a poseable action figure (they're NOT toys dammit!) or two will be making it's (their?) way to my area of the studio soon. I bet if I told Laini that it was somehow tied into "Pride and Prejudice" (Mr. Darcy's alter-ego IS Spectreman!), she'd somehow find a way to back-pedal and admit that she actually thought these guys were pretty sexy. :) Also, these guys should totally NOT be made fun of. Do you people even REALIZE how many times they've saved the planet between them?!!! If it weren't for them we'd all be overrun by evil alien masterminds AND 200 foot tall monsters! Hello?! A little gratitude please?!

2 Seahorse Skeletons out of a possible 4

Yesterday was a day that should have had the power to suck the envy from every 9 to 5'er in a 20 mile radius like a CGI vortex. We got up early, walked the dogs and went out to an amazing breakfast at "Violet's Cafe." Laini had the chevre omelette special with a side of pancakes and fruit and I had the "Vampire Slayer" scramble also with the pancakes and fruit side. (By the way, anyone out there not wanting to order the "Vampire Slayer" scramble just once in their lifetime off of the otherwise very mundane menu should cash in their whimsy glands (everyone has 3 at birth), tearfully admit that they'll never be cool enough to own this shirt and call it a life).

We then headed out to see the new X-Men movie (of which, it should be noted, Laini was at least as excited as I was to see), sat in the theatre long before it started with our writing/sketching journals and prepared to be blown away by the third installment of what have been 2 of our favorite movies. 100 minutes later we watched the credits roll and both felt that all-too-often bland taste of mediocrity from yet another "Hollywood Blockbuster." While it wasn't a bad movie per se, it wasn't a good movie either. There was a fair amount of entertainment, but we both felt that even HUGE death scenes were missing the mark of causing the viewer to care all that much. Hmm. Crappy directors stepping up and becoming so-so directors just does NOT cut it for me. Sigh. And thus, "X-Men: The Last Stand," gets a piddly 2 Seahorse Skeletons out of a possible 4, making it more X-Meh than X-Men.

THEN, we went home, fully intending to get a ton of artwork & writing done, only to be washed over with a wave of malaise, coupled with the urgency to download the next episode of "Battlestar Galactica" that we hadn't seen yet (season 2.5 is only available by download). So, after LEGALLY doing that on iTunes and being BLOWN away by how much better that 43 minutes was than the gazillion $$ X-Men movie, we decided to try to further cleanse our palette of the X-Meh by seeing something that got pretty strong reviews: "V for Vendetta."

Bad idea.

Sadly, again, while not bad, this movie was also "meh" in a lot of ways (cheesy dialogue, lame overly-bloody fights, and a heavy-handed attempt to bash the viewer over the head with comparisons between the movies corrupt political leader and a certain American leader whose name rhymes with "Moosh." So once again, 2 Seahorse Skeletons out of a possible 4.

Crap, we should have stayed home and watched the MUCH superior "Battlestar Galactica" all day long. Oh well, still better than a Friday spent handling automobile insurance claims (my pre-art-career job).

Illustration Friday: "Angels & Devils"

This illustration was done for the amazing Pacific Northwest band Floater several years ago. The album title is "Angels in the Flesh and Devils in the Bone" -- what a great freaking album that is. I was hired to do the art for the album's reissue. Doing the CD jacket art and the art for the disc itself was a lot of fun, but as a bonus the job introduced me to one of my now favorite bands (and a good friend in Rob Wynia to boot!). While all of their albums are quite good, my other favorite (so far that is, as they've just recorded a new one!) was their 2002 release "Alter." Like all of their albums, the songs were very different from one to the next, and within almost every song there's a shift from slow to fast & back again (or vice versa, if that makes sense?! :) I've probably listened to "Alter" a couple hundred times or more between 2002 and now, and each time I'm blown away at Rob's voice, the fantastic guitars, drums, & mixing, AND (maddeningly to me) the fact that they haven't graced the cover of Rolling Stone yet. Anyhow, check them out if you're unfamiliar, you won't regret it!

And while I'm on the topic of music, I've recently gotten into "Clap Your Hands, Say Yeah" (which I mentioned on a previous post), "Architecture in Helsinki", and "The Spinto Band." All of the bands I've just mentioned (including Floater) can be accessed through iTunes (and no, I don't own stock in iTunes -- so there!).

Lastly, some potentially good career news on a couple of fronts this past week or so (!!) -- um, unfortunately though, to speak about them now would be too premature, and while I don't believe in being jinxed per se, I do believe in the maniacally vengeful universe smiting people for counting their chickens before hatching, so... :)

So, for now, thanks for stopping in!
Jim

Looking Ahead

We recently returned from a very informative and inspiring weekend conference put on by the SCBWI (Society for Children's Book Writers and Illustrators) where we had the opportunity to attend keynote addresses by a number of industry professionals. I had the great fortune to meet almost everyone I wanted to, including a very nice designer from Hyperion, a (VERY talented) top children's book illustrator (and sometimes writer) G. Brian Karas, and an EXTREMELY kind editor from one of the major publishing houses. They were all very giving of their time and info, and I was lucky enough to be able to sit and chat with the latter gentleman for almost an hour while everyone else was attending another keynote address. The tips and kind words he offered really made my weekend and boosted my already inspired noggin. As Laini has said on her blog, conferences like these are invaluable for making contacts. Thankfully, all of these new contacts were amazing people to boot!

So, with the helpful input given and a bit of direction offered, I'm working on revising my children's book dummy as well as focusing on several oil paintings to help supplement my portfolio in a more children's book-type style.

(a very late) ILLUSTRATION FRIDAY! -- Robot

The topic this past week was "Robot." I promise I'll get to doing new stuff for some of these but there's a conference coming up that I'm trying to get drawings and paintings done for, so for now it'll be an old piece of mine once again. It's from a few years ago & I did it for a friend of mine & his book at the time (Jason Alexander's "Empty Zone"). As it turns out, he & the publisher "broke up" right before this illustration saw the light of day -- I hate it when that stuff happens!

Here it is:

Illustration Friday topic: "Speed"

I've known about this site for a while now, but now that I'm blogging a bit more, I figured I'd finally go ahead and take part in Illustration Friday

Basically they're a site (similar to Sunday Scribblings ) that assigns a topic every week and you can either do an original piece of art for their topic or use an existing piece that you've done that applies. I'm going with the latter this week as I'm trying to get some art done for the children's book I've written and plan to pitch in the coming months. I'll try to do original pieces when I can, but I want to start taking part too, so, here's my piece for the topic "Speed."



It's an image that's also on my website originally done for the FANTASTICALLY well-written ongoing comic book series Rex Mundi that I worked on for a couple of issues (14 & 15) last year. I left the book on my own after feeling that comic books weren't what I wanted to be doing right now. I'd become very good friends with Arvid (the writer and creator of the series) over the course of working on the book and he and I still chat often (and I also have the cool privilege of proofreading everything before it goes to press nowadays (a fun little behind the scenes assistance that I still get to take part in). Anyhow, for those of you interested, Arvid best describes it as "A quest for the holy grail, told as a murder mystery," and it's top notch! He's been putting the book out for almost 6 years now and he just announced the very exciting news that it's moving from Image Comics to Dark Horse Comics later this year. Both companies are great, but DH, from what I understand, has a bigger, broader distribution and more of a presence in bookstores so I really couldn't be happier for my friend and his awesome book.

Oh, and lastly, I would be remiss if I didn't mention that I used my friend Steve Murphy as a model for this piece. He was a great model when I photo'd him and I know he pops his head in here and peeks around from time to time (everybody say "hi Steve!" :) He's also a talented artist himself and maybe one day I'll convince him to get a website and blog of his own going!

Anyhow, thanks for stopping in!

Jim

Sunday Scribblings #2 -- "Interrupted"

Hey there! In writing my second Sunday Scribblings, I knew I didn't want to write about anything too terribly serious about real Real Life ("Real Life" being the topic of the week and all), so I've sidestepped it a bit and, well, see for yourself. (A bit of a warning though, this is probably a PG-13 story, and remember, I'm a boy, and boys sometimes like a bit of action... :)



"INTERRUPTED"



Round and round the men ran. Up and up they went until they were at the 12th floor. They’d stopped at nothing to get here. Horribly, they’d even killed to reach this man they sought, and they planned to kill him too.

In they burst, screaming and hollering, searching and, at last, finding.

Bruce was in his robe, chopping vegetables for a large soup he was making when he heard the front door burst in. The coffee was brewing, and the broth was at a boil. He was really in no mood for intrusions, as he already had his day planned. “Damn!” he thought. If his home wasn’t being remodeled, he wouldn’t even be in this apartment, cooking for himself like this.

In ran the first man, gun at the ready, yelling that he found him -- and then nothing. Silence.

“Johnny?!!” In ran the second man until he collided with the hurling knife.

Quickly, carelessly, the final man rounded the corner only to see his two partners lying on the floor. “Dead?” he wondered? And then he was falling, dropping his gun to land near his friend’s weapons.

He struggled and managed to roll on his back, his skin burnt from scalding chicken stock. He gasped when he realized he wasn’t looking at their intended target, but someone else entirely. “The wrong apartment!” he moaned and squeezed out the words “How? Who ... ?”

Bruce grinned a perturbed grin (“This is going to really eat up my neatly scheduled day” he thought to himself) -- “Pal, I’m Bruce. Who’re you?”

“...But, how did you? ... All of ... us ... We’re pros. Like th’ ... movies. How’d ... you...?”

“This isn’t the movies friend, this is real life.”

Bruce Wayne then made a phone call, he had things to do and these bodies were in his way.

THE END

"What Would You Attempt If You Knew You Would Not Fail"

There's a brand spankin' new Blogger site called Sunday Scribblings that my wife Laini and her bloggy-friend Meg recently started. Basically, it's a place where anyone who so chooses can participate in writing about the topic of the week (which they "assign") -- pretty cool, neh?! The current (first!!) topic is "What Would You Attempt If You Knew You Would Not Fail." Well, I've interpreted it as if the "Knew You Would Not Fail" part was quite literal and all-encompassing, so, here it goes:

















Knowing he would not -- nay, could not -- fail, Chemistry/Baking double-major grad student Studebaker Shoebox set out to invent that which would bring the world to its next phase. This invention would cause what mankind had only half-heartedly considered, that which the greatest minds of the past and present could only dream of: pizza topping that would immediately, upon creation, bring about world peace.

With ingredients in hand and mixing bowl at the ready, he plunged in, whirring and mixing, stirring and frothing, until at last, before him oozed his miracle.

Suddenly, magically, men worldwide laid down their guns.

Knives were sheathed, tanks were clicked off.

Over the coming weeks war ships became party cruise liners, missiles were disarmed and became makeshift toboggans.

When people had a disagreement, they felt compelled to have a dance-off to settle their problems.

Studebaker Shoebox was ecstatic! At last, mankind knew true happiness.

Two days later the aliens invaded and mankind, ironically, was used as alien pizza topping, THE END.

Back to work!

Here's a pic of us in Ashland as we toasted hopeful accomplishments for the coming months.

We zipped off to Ashland late last week for a pre-planned little getaway for some theatre, some sight-seeing, and (duh!) some romance.

Also, we find that long car rides work fantastically for collaborating on little stories and plots that we work on as side projects (after, of course, Laini's mandatory immediate car nap as I exit the driveway of our home). Long rides helped us hammer out our collaborative graphic novel THE DROWNED (www.thedrowned.net) as well as a few other things that are temporarily shelved until we can find the time to work on them. This ride was very helpful to me, in that I have written a plot and about 30+ pages of a story that I want to partially illustrate and eventually try to publish, but there were/are some story details that needed work. So, Laini and I talked out the plot and I THINK some new ideas were introduced that will allow me to get to the "meat" of the story a bit more quickly and compellingly. No details on it yet as it's going to be a loooong time in the making.

Anyhow, we saw "The Importance of Being Ernest," a play I knew just a little bit about when I bought the tix a few weeks ago (given as a Valentine's gift at dinner) but I knew enough about Oscar Wilde to know that it would be a fun production -- and it was! The acting, costumes, and sets were fantastic, by far the best play I've seen. (Okay, so I've only seen about a dozen plays or so, but I think this one will hold up for quite a while). Anyhow, I highly recommend Ashland and the Oregon Shakespeare Festival for anyone able to attend it. We're DEFINITELY going back this summer for an actual tale by the Bard in their outdoor theater (that theater doesn't open until June but the other 2 theaters have plays year-round!).

So, for some actual pix of Ashland and it's nearby old mining town neighbor Jacksonville, go to Laini's blog entry from the trip. But for weird, potentially blackmail-worthy pix of me that could definitely be used against me if I ever vie for political office, look no further:





Now, as the title suggests, I've got to get back to work! In brief, I'm currently working for one of my favorite clients, White Wolf Publishing. I've done illustrations for about a dozen of their books and I did some RPG (Role Playing Game) cards for them a year or more ago. Anyhow, they're fantastic to work for and I'm glad that I've been tapped to do some more work for them. Currently I'm doing 5 paintings for their "VTES" (Vampire The Eternal Struggle) RPG set and it's loads of fun. With these I'm trying to go for more subtle portrait-like scenes for the 5 characters I've been hired to portray. Going too far over the top with some of the imagery could push the corny-factor a bit too much and I wanted them to be more subtley creepy. I'll post some eventually once I finish, but for now there's work to be done! :)

Jim

Tagged by my dear friend

Finding myself tagged yet again, this time by my EXTREMELY dear friend Alexandra (and knowing the seriousness of ignoring such a calling!), I copied and pasted her questions below. I tried and tried to answer them meaningfully and thought-provokingly.

However, each time I got to the "kitchen quote" question and the "flower" question, my male DNA kicked in and I couldn't find my feminine side long enough to answer with any sort of emotional depth. So, I backtracked and answered as the smart-ass that I can certainly sometimes find myself being.

(P.S. - love ya Alexandra! :)

HERE ARE THE QUESTIONS & ANSWERS:

What were three things when you were little you wanted to be when you grew up?

Older
Taller
Happy


You can live one day over again from your childhood. What day will it be?

The day I invented "The Slinky."


You have two minutes (and a mover with you if you need heavy lifting help!) to grab 5 things from your home before it morphs into a polka dotted hobgblin and hops away. What will you take? (Food/drink/family/friends excluded!)

All of the photos of myself
My mirror
My trophy collection
My hairbrush
Pictures of myself with my photos, mirror, trophy collection, and hairbrush.


You have to paint one quote on your kitchen wall. Whats it going to be?

"Are you going to finish that?"


What is one thing you want to have accomplished by the end of this year?

Finishing my book "The Slinky Memoirs."


You are moving to the moon for one year and can only bring one flower with you. What kind will you bring?

A magic flower that makes oxygen.


You just received word that aside from one flower, you can also bring five books with you too! Your choices?

1) "How to Build a Spacecraft in Zero Gravity with No Parts: FOR DUMMIES"
2) "How to Build a Teleporter: FOR DUMMIES"
3) "How to Survive without Food on the Moon: FOR DUMMIES"
4) "A Million Little Pieces" by James Frey (to see what all the fuss is about)
5) "The 5 Books to Bring With You to The Moon: FOR DUMMIES"



(Alexandra's blog can be found at my link entitled "marvelous madness")

Tagged

Well, my wife's first post just went up and what did she do? That's right, she gave me homework! Drat. But at least it'll get me to finally do a new post, so I forgive her :)

And, since she posted a self-portrait of herself I'll post one of me even though it's a few years old now:



Anyhow, there's this thing called "Tagging" other bloggers that I wasn't aware of until just now, and that's my homework, so here it goes:

Four jobs I've held:
Karate instructor
Auto Insurance Claims Adjuster (ugh...painful to remember)
Bartender
Freelance Illustrator (YAY!)

Four movies I HAVE watched over & over:
Amelie
So I Married an Axe Murderer
The Matrix
tie: Die Hard and Lord of the Rings (trilogy)

Four places I've lived:
Santa Cruz
Turlock, CA (ugh)
Oakland
Portland, OR

Four (or more) TV shows I've watched (and freaking love):
Arrested Development
Firefly, Angel, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
The Office (British & American versions)
24
The Wire
The Shield
Spaced

Four places I've vacationed:
Italy (twice)
Bulgaria
Turkey
Prague

Four of my favorite dishes:
Chicken anything
Butternut Squash fries
Pizza
Pie

Four Sites I visit daily:
www.salon.com
www.marvelousmadness.blogspot.com
www.netflix.com
www.imagecomics.com

Four places I'd rather be:
In my future villa on the Amalfi Coast (with my wife)
driving around France (with my wife)
at the comic book store or music store (without my wife because she hates both)
tie: writing in a coffee shop with my wife OR at the movies with my wife

This is the place where I'd then "tag" someone else, but, since I'd like to tag Alexandra (www.marvelousmadness.blogspot.com) and she's already tagged herself, then I'll hold my tagging someone else for now and use it wisely for someone in the future. So, beware, you could be next...

My First Digital Painting (1-hour practice piece)

In the past 12 months I've been trying to teach myself more and more computer-specific skills, some out of necessity, some out of pure interest. I've learned how to color artwork in the traditional comic book way (which involves flatting/color separating and rendering, etc.), and some basic web design. Now I'm going to try and learn how to paint digitally -- we'll see how it goes amidst trying to get other things done (I know I'm not the only one who wishes the days were WAY longer -- ah, to be able to get MUCH more done every day ... sigh...). Anyhow, I will often do a "warm-up" drawing of something before I start working on anything else, just to get my creative blood flowing and it often works as a boost too (depending, of course, on how the piece turns out!). So, yesterday I drew this 9 x 12 drawing (approximately 15 or 20 minutes):


Then, after reading up on a few tutorials online (which were basically building on what I've learned about digital coloring from my work on Rex Mundi this past year) I decided later in the day to practice digital painting for the first time using yesterday's drawing. I mostly tried to treat it as a very loose, very NON-precious practice piece, not zooming in at all until the very last pass or two.
So, while I know it's not some major achievement, I am pretty psyched to do some more experimenting with digital painting. Here's the piece again after "painting" it for about 30 or 40 minutes:

Website Up and Running!

Well, it took about 3 years but I finally updated my site! Actually, as I'd said in my last post, it's not as simple as that. In that time, the (very cool) guy who had set up my site is no longer doing web design that I know of, AND (mainly) I wanted to learn how to do it myself so as to not have to pester someone else to do things exactly the way I wanted them. So, while it's a pretty basic design (no Flash required), I'm still pretty darn happy with it. Check it out here: www.jimdibartolo.com

Website update a'comin'

Reality is unfolding around us (!EEK!), as I've learned enough web design to get my wife's new website up and running (www.lainitaylor.com) and mine all completed and ready to upload! I'm only waiting on the &%$# grace/waiting period needed for transferring domain names from one company to another and then it's ON BABY! If I seem overly excited, it's because Laini and I have been wanting to know how to maintain/update/redesign our own websites since before we ever got our first sites up and running. To now have the god-like power to do our own updates without having to pester someone else to do things "just so" is a freaking dream-come-true.

For those who care, we've had the ability to design our own sites for more than a few years now (knowing enough about Photoshop to lay things out) but to actually do anything webby with the designs, well, we just couldn't devote the time (or so we thought!). For the time being, our new designs use a lot of white space and simplicity. This is mostly because we sometimes get frustrated trying to load sites that try to be too clever. I don't want to bag on sites like that too much however because there may come a time when we want to be a bit eccentric ourselves, so... :)

Soon I'll write about my December solo art show and link to some of the pieces on my site that I had up and some that sold.

Cheers and a belated Happy New Year!

A Sequential Sample

Here's a sample page from the aforementioned comic book REX MUNDI. For those who might be reading this and not be familiar with it, it's a fantastic tale written by my now friend Arvid Nelson. He describes it in a nutshell as "A quest for the Holy Grail, told as a murder mystery." It takes place in an alternate history 1930's France and will ultimately be a finite story concluding in 35 issues (again, issue 15 -- done by ME! :) -- just came out last week). The new artist on it will do a fantastic job, and if you're interested in the comic, check out www.rexmundi.net for more info.

I've spent the first half of my day finishing up a 20"x30" drawing that has a bit of watercolor on it that I'm doing for a local art show at the restaurant I work at. I plan on having about 10 pieces hanging for my show and hope to make some holiday money by selling a few. Last time I hung some art there I sold 8 pieces, so wish me luck! (hello? Is anybody out there? Hmm -- If a person blogs and no one reads it... :) Once I get my computer/scanner issues resolved (don't ask) I'll post this and other pieces--fun stuff (imho).

Jim

Some whimsy and a ramble

This is a mixed media painting (watercolors and oils) I did as a personal piece for my portfolio. Shortly thereafter an editor from Paizo Publishing contacted me and asked if she could show this painting (and several other artist's paintings) to "a writer" to see if "he" wanted to write a VERY short story using the art he chose as inspiration. When the editor phoned to tell me that my piece had been chosen, I was flattered. During the conversation though, she informed me that the writer was Harlan Ellison AND that Neil Gaiman was going to write an introduction! My jaw dropped and I could hardly believe it!

However, neither fame nor fortune have followed, but it's still a pretty good story when I tell it to people who know who either of them are! If they don't, well, then it's actually NOT that great of a story I guess ... :)

Welcome!

Greetings world! Get ready! ...

... although nothing may happen here for a while... :)

Jim