Introspection

"From childhood's hour, I have not been
As others we, I could not see
As others saw, I could not bring
My passions from a common spring..."
-Edgar Allan Poe, Alone
Okay so I don't like to quote others that much--I more often quote myself, that way there's less chance of misquoting.  But I always loved these lines from Poe's poem.  I suppose everyone likes to think they are different from everyone else in some way or unique.
I always tell myself (and others) that I'm awesome.  I realized that long ago, I may never have friends that think that of me, so I should start believing it myself.  That way, I wouldn't turn into one of those people that NEEDS others to think highly of them.  I got lucky in the sense that I actually do have friends who respect me and think I'm awesome.  But it became a comfortable mantra nonetheless, and to this day I fully believe it.
While working on Golden Brown, I realized I created these characters, these personalities, and could make them do what I wanted.  Not having control over much in life makes this realization so much appreciated, and I became their GOD--when I made a mistake in the comic's continuity, I blatantly fixed it in the next panel or two, exhibiting my power over my little ink and paper world. 
My friends know this pretty well by now, every now and then I replace God with Doug in playful megalomania.  I guess I figured it's not enough to have fun in life, but also I should be having fun with life.  Why not?  I don't need to own a house, or have a conventional family.  I abide by written laws (mostly), but I don't need to live by every little societal rule--but I can if I choose.  there are plenty of others out there who can live orderly lives with prescribed rituals, and that's fine.  I don't live in chaos.  I would simply love to live within my own order.

Drawing Conclusions

I've been thinking a lot lately about my future in Illustration.  I have a few avenues of experience--comics, tattoo/band logo design, archaeological illustration, portraiture...
Unfortunately freelance would be my most productive option, and unfortunately I would have to work my ass off whoring myself out to businesses to make any kind of living at it. I have a good history doing archaeological illustration at UND, and was thinking of contacting other universities to see if there was any interest.  Scientific ilustration is still a not-terribly-popular field, mainly (I'm guessing) due to the tedium of having to reproduce artifacts with little or no artistic liberty. 
TECHNICALLY I am a professional, even published illustrator.  I should be out there doing more with it. 

Singled Out

It's kind of weird to think sometimes that this is the first summer since 1997 that I've been single.  I've been single for around 9-10 months now.  Some still think it's odd that I would stay close friends with Karissa, but I guess that's just the way we are.  I was always cool with her seeing other guys, and would even be excited for her if she found someone she really liked--she is the same with me.  Somehow, that works for us.  I've never been a conventional person.  I'm proud of that.  Kevin once said I had "my" way of doing things, I like that. 
Unfortunately, I'm not the easiest person to live with.  I keep odd hours, I collect too much junk, I go off on night walks (yes I sometimes still do that).  Those are things about me that I wish not to change, with the exception of accomodating Isabella's schedule.  She is my #1 priority, and any prospective girl would have to know and understand that up front. 
Fortunately, I don't hate myself.  In fact, I love myself.  If I can't find a chick that would work for me, eh.  The world won't end.  Time won't stop.  I'm not the type that "needs" someone, anyone in their life just to make it complete.  I have my friends, colleagues, etc.  I cherish those relationships.  I often let them know when I'm drunk, hahaha!
It would be nice to have that girl to watch the sun go down with, say dirty things to me, all that fun stuff.  But if I gotta do that stuff myself, I'm cool with that too.  I got my drawing, my music, my whiskey, my friends.

Comic Relief

So why am I into comics?
When I was about 12 years old, I entered middle school, terrified of the impending social change I was to endure.  I knew a few classmates from my grade school days, but they were in maybe ONE of my classes, the rest being filled with strangers I felt were surely staring me down in judgment.  I was positive they noticed my greasy hair (even though I showered before coming to school), or my big glasses, or I'd say something stupid and they'd all laugh.  To some degree, I was right.  That's middle school.  Within a week I was attracting the unwanted attention of the more popular kids, someone lower on the rung to make fun of.  I wasn't mercilessly bullied in middle school, I know damn well others had it worse.  Half the time I was fairly invisible. 
There were a couple friendly faces, and over time I would end up befriending other geeks (because that's what i was labeled by then).  I was somewhat into comics before, but it was around this time that I really got into them.  They provided an escape for me.  I liked superheroes, because obviously they were what I was not.  But they frustrated me to no end.  Why?  Because even the geeks had girlfriends.  Peter Parker his Mary Jane, Tim Drake his...fuck that guy was juggling girls.  Me?  Girls thought I was weird because I wrote a rap about setting teachers on fire.  I didn't know how to talk to them, so I resorted to aloofness, which at that age backfires horribly. 
Enough about the girls, though.  I've more or less fixed that problem by hanging out with cooler girls.  Because of said unpopularity, I spent quite a bit of time alone.  When I came home from school, I went to my room, turned on my TV, sat at my drawing desk and went to town.  Sometimes I'd walk to my sister's place after school, a half-hour 5-mile walk to a trailer park on the edge of town, punctuated by a stop to the Arcade downtown to buy a couple comics.  In my alone time, I learned that drawing made me happy.  I loved comics, I dreamed of stories myself, so one day I finally started trying to make one.
I made tons of drawings of characters I made up myself, worked at understanding muscle-structure--without actually knowing which muscles I was drawing, eventually even managed a couple pages of dialogue.  One day I drew a 5-7 page booklet about "Thunderbolt", a hero who shot electricity out of battery-powered gauntlets on his arms.  He met Batman.  I don't know why. 
The next comic I drew was another made-up character called "The Nightmare".  He was a high school kid that looked like me, who was the nephew of Thunderbolt.  He was NOBODY's sidekick, though.  In fact, he even had his own tech-nerd, a foreshadowed sadomasochist who knew too much about the school's basement layout.  Plus a girl who was totally into him.  Gee, didn't go into fantasy-land much, did I?  I actually managed a full 22 pages, ripping off various comics along the way, including a two-page spread of him swinging on a rope straight through the windows of a car, which came from a Batman comic.  After the story I wrote a short 2-page vignette where I sent him to Hell. 
After that ONE issue, I didn't do anymore comics.  I don't know why, I guess I just kept drawing other stuff, like the entire cast and then some of Mortal Kombat 2.  My Doug, I really was a fucking geek.  I did make the attempt, once or twice, at scripting a new comic.  But nothing.
In late winter of 2006, I was sitting at work one night when I had the idea to do a comic about pimps with weird powers.  I made Kevin my guinea pig model and turned him into Dr. Golden Brown Kevin Sneed.  Golden Brown became my 3-year long experimentation with comics.  I learned what jokes worked and what didn't, how to sequence a story and action shots.  I drank with a demon.  I'm very proud of Golden Brown, because of what it taught me about storytelling.  I sent it off once to a local publisher, and was told that he showed it to 2 people.  One was a "hillbilly-type" southerner, the other, a black guy who had grown up in "the mean streets of Detroit".  The hillbilly thought is was quite funny, the black guy thought found it relied too much on outdated Ebonics and was slightly offensive.  My first thought was "how convenient that he had two very polarized audiences to work with!"  My second thought was "A pimp parodying 70's blacksploitation films, yes that would require outdated Ebonics so I don't understand the criticism".  My third thought was, "Only slightly offensive?"  Needless to say, it did not get published. 
While attending art school, I took a comics class and actually made some pretty good short comics.  I resurrected my demon Hellken from Golden Brown and placed him in a Dantean Hell wanting twinkies.  I drew a 3-page wordless story about a lighthouse where baaaaad things happen.  I depicted Rasputin's last night alive.  I spun Little Red Riding Hood into a story about a Romanian secret order of the wolf run by Bunica (Grandmother) Giurescu.  I turned my brother and I into zombies.  I did pretty fucking well by myself creatively.  My latest comic, Banjo's Tune, is not really different.  I abandoned the shading lines I'd used previously.  I developed my characters more.  I learned how to draw a guitar better. 
It's still escapism for me, just a little.  But every time I finish a page, I feel so good about myself.  Every time I sit down to work at penciling or inking, turn on some music or a horror movie, I feel at home, in perfect solitude.

Watching My Language

Every now and then I dig out my books on learning languages and go through some of them.  I've been doing this for years, you'd think by now I'd be fluent in SOMETHING.  My stupid brain doesn't process language well though.  I learned from a comic book (of course) that one could theoretically learn the basics of a language by memorizing 10 words a week.  Of course, that leaves out grammar and sentence structure.  A couple came with tapes that I listen to in my car, which is okay, but really require books to read along with as well.  Try learning a full sentence in Lakota or Norwegian in a car...it doesn't work. 
I love using language to fuck with people in my comics.  Right now, Banjo's Tune has incorporated Spanish and Maori.  I purposely did not include the translations in the page because I thought to accomplish on of two things:  Either the reader would work for it, and look up the meanings to get the dialogue, or they would give that up and simply try to follow along visually.  It's like making them earn the story a little bit, I love that.

Mood Lite

http://hyenazine.wordpress.com/
Feminism, gender equality, tolerance, and (as the author puts it) bitchiness.  She touches on a lot of relevant topics, and draws a great comic.
On that note, I'm excited to be drawing Golden Brown again.  It's not a huge story, though--it's more like a preview of tings to come.  Actually, it's characters sitting in a room trying to figure out the next story.  But now I think I've said too much...
I'm still doing Banjo's Tune as well.  I cross from working a page of one to a page of the other.  It takes longer, but I love transitioning from a dramatic story to a funny one (shut up it is too funny). 
Last Friday the Mecan'tiKs tried DIY recording again.  The overall mood this time around was much lighter, and we had more energy.  Beer didn't hurt.  I hope the recordings come out well just the same.  We spent 5 hours locked in a room and came out with 10 songs recorded, but still need to work on them this week.  It may not seem like it to outsiders, but life is pretty fun right now.