Superdog Underdog

Well, between the Gallery show coming up and inking Burning Building #5, I've been working extra hard lately, so I'm just gonna remind everyone about the show. The artist's reception is this Friday, Aug 1st and the show will run through the end of the month. Come one, come all. Here's the link for all the information: http://www.dianetaniosgallery.com/ The reception is from 6 to 10pm and I've been told there will be valet parking. So, hope to see you there!

Low Brow?

Okay, it's official! Issues #3 and #4 of Burning Building are finally done and available to be ordered on the website. For those of you keeping track, that's stories 5-8! They, as always, are 19 pages in B&W, with full color covers and come with a piece of burned paper glued inside to the front of the book. Pictures of these things can be found on the website (and thanks to my bro Adam for taking care of that for me). Also, most every time a comic is ordered from me, or bought at a convention, I will happily do a little sketch inside the book. These are especially fun cause I like to do all sorts of wacky character designs that I can't afford to do in Burning Building proper.

Also, I'm going to officially announce my participation in a Gallery show here in Chicago. It's with the Diane Tanios Gallery in Lakeview. It's starting on August 1st, and will feature a giant reproduction of the entire Burning Building facade! As well as color prints from Issue #3 of Burning Building on display. There will be 19 different prints depicting the entire storyline. You can see the other artists participating and get all the details here: http://www.dianetaniosgallery.com/ I'll get pictures posted here as soon as I get them.

Been working on Burning Building 5 as well. The final issue of the building! I've been going at a pretty good clip, and am nearly done with all the pencilling, and will begin inking soon. Here's a preview of an early page in the blue pencils.

Those of you with keen eyes might recognize one of those characters from a previous Issue of Burning Building.

Saw Wall-E this weekend with my wife Emily, brother Adam, and my boy Van. It was Van's first movie outing and he did pretty well. He didn't sit the whole time, but he pretty much stayed out of trouble and we got to stay and watch the whole thing. I'm a big fan of Pixar and given how much positive buzz was coming out of Wall-E, I was pretty excited to see it. It didn't disappoint either. It may have been the most adorable Pixar movie, which is weird cause it was all robots, but they managed to cull as much damn charm out of some digital sound as possible. I could have heard those two stupid robots call each other by name for 4 hours! It was cute as hell.

A Stroll in Whales

I've recently been busy putting together some work for a gallery show. I'm still working on the details, and I'll be posting the particulars here when the time comes, but basically it will be a gallery show for comics in downtown Chicago. The plan is to display some Burning Building work, and so far it's coming together nicely.

So, this has put the delay on getting the new comics posted on the website, but I've got that all taken care of now, and I just have to wait for my brother Adam to do the magical website stuff.

Hey now, there's a nice shot of man with his dog. Unfortunately It's not my dog. I'm allergic. However, I wish I could have a dog just so there would be more pictures like this. What a lovely picture.

So, I took the boy out for a walk to the park today and I must confess that I love being a dad. There are these moments when I'm with Van, and something happens that takes me back to that age. Today, I was pushing him home in his stroller after a nice time in the park. We were going down the sidewalk and it was a quiet summer afternoon. There was a nice warm breeze and as I pushed the stroller I became aware of a steady rhythm as the wheels bumped over the segments of cement. I looked down and saw Van lulling off to sleep, and the memory of falling asleep myself after an afternoon trip to the park was a real as yesterday. And so was that feeling of calm and simple happiness. As I finished pushing the stroller home with that regular rhythmic cadence off the sidewalk I couldn't help but think that this kind of serenity, with the warm tranquil stillness, must be what it feels like when Buddhists meditate.

Somewhat related to that, I'm reading Moby Dick right now. I've read a little of Melville before, and liked it, and I try to read classic literature to help me feel smarter than I am. Anyway, it's slow and very descriptive and I have to admit there have been moments where it's lulled me off to sleep. There was this passage I just finished though that I thought was so nicely written and original a thought, I wanted to share it somehow. So here it is:

"Whales are scarce as hen's teeth whenever thou art up here." Perhaps they were; or perhaps there might have been shoals of them in the far horizon; but lulled into such an opium-like listlessness of vacant, unconscious reverie is this absentminded youth by the blending cadence of waves with thoughts, that at last he loses his identity; takes the mystic ocean at his feet for the visible image of that deep, blue, bottomless soul, pervading mankind and nature; and every strange, half-seen, gliding, beautiful thing that eludes him; every dimly discovered, uprising fin of some indiscernible form, seems to him the embodiment of those elusive thoughts that only people the soul by continually flitting through it. In this enchanted mood, thy spirit ebbs away to whence it came; becomes diffused through time and space; like Cranmer's sprinkled Pantheistic ashes, forming at last a part of every shore the round globe over.

I think that passage is talking about young sailors being lousy at spotting whales. Come on, huh? That was three sentences! There's seven semi-colons! Seven! Now, that's writing!