Murphy's Law as it applies to comics.

You're familiar with Murphy's law, yes? The rule of the universe which dictates that everything that can possibly go wrong will? I think Murphy is deciding to have a little fun with one of my comic book projects. I had this odd but intriguing idea for a comic a few months ago. One of those ideas that just pops into your head out of the blue without any of the usual struggle and hassle you get when you're actually *trying* to have an idea. And with the way the images popped into my head, it was immediately clear to me that it could only be made properly if it were made using scratchboard. Those (if any) who have read my previous posts will know what difficulties I've already been having with locating usable scratchboard. After failing to locate my usual brand in any stores (well, to be fair, I've found the brand in stores quite easily... just not in plain blank black and white. if I wanted to do this comic in black and rainbow or black and copper I would be having no such difficulties), I ordered some scratchboard from Dick Blick and was severely disappointed in the quality. Then my mom bought me a different brand in an art store in New Paltz, which was slightly better quality... but still unworthy of the project at hand (it scrapes pretty smoothly and doesn't flake off in chunks exposing grubby paper like the other stuff, but because of the way the black was applied to the white, it is impossible to get a totally clean white space without light black lines running across it).

So eventually I broke down and ordered the scratchboard I wanted all along from the one place in the US that still seems to stock it in that particular flavor: the official brand website. This morning it came in the mail.

Well, technically, I guess it came in the mail yesterday... During the torrential downpour. And it was left outside of the mailbox. In a paper package. Absolutely no plastic. Completely exposed to the elements. (Despite the fact that with the money I paid for shipping on two packs of it, I could have bought a third one, USPS apparently can't be bothered to provide their workers with cheap plastic bags for delivering priority mail in pouring rain)

So essentially, after all of that, after months of searching for a suitable scratchboard, I finally got exactly what I wanted all along, and it was completely and utterly destroyed before it even made it into my hands. And it costs a dollar a sheet, and I paid out of my own pocket. And I was really excited to get some actual work done on this rare week of freedom from my fulltime job.

So yeah... Apparently Murphy hates comics. Or maybe just scratchboard comics. Who knew?

Illustration Friday - Undone

This week's Illustration Friday word is "undone." My response is inspired by the jackassery of my neighbor, who has recently decided to raze dozens of beautiful trees along the property line to build himself a driveway to the creepy little barn he lives in (in the middle of a vast, empty field which he can easily drive over and in which he has never grown anything). (see my previous post below for further ranting) The whole thing is senseless and repulsive, and the damage sadly cannot be undone. Hence my sketch.

I feel like I'm going to be drawing a lot of trees for a while...

More Sad Things

Speaking of things that are sad: my landscape is changing in the most awful ways. All my life, I've lived in the middle of the woods and loved it (despite it sometimes being a little creepy). Now my creep neighbor has decided to build a second driveway so that he can drive right up to his sketchy little barn (where he lives. never trust a man who lives in a barn, raises no animals, and grows no crops) without having to drive over the vast, empty field he normally just drives right over judging by the tire tracks. The tire tracks which are now painfully visible, because he's decided that paving over part of his vast, empty field, in which he has never grown a damn thing, would just be too easy, cheap, and quick, and that instead he must cut down trees. Dozens upon dozens of trees. It's tree genocide over there. Senseless tree butchery. And now there's no barrier between our properties. We used to have a protective veil of beautiful trees. Now he has a straight line of sight right into our windows. It's truly creepy. And infuriating. And stupid.

I don't hate many people. But I truly, truly hate this man. Not just for this, but this really tipped the scales.

Engraving Art 2

You remember that rant I had a while back on how hard it is to find Engraving Art scratchboard in anything but rainbow and coloured foil and pre-printed designs and useless (for me) things like that? Well I was searching for it again after disappointing experiments with other brands... and my rant came up in my google search. On the first page. Towards the bottom, but still. That's how hard it is to get a hold of this stuff. You get the official website (with no pictures, so it's hard to know what you're buying, and I'm dubious because white "foil" doesn't sound like what I use), a handful of British websites, and my blog.

Sad.

Illustration Friday - Entangled

Been a while since I've had time to draw anything. It shows, unfortunately. Work is eating my life. I think that shows, too.

Good News!

Three months ago, my girlfriend had an incident at work. She was performing a "finger stick" on a recent mother and the mechanism malfunctioned, causing the strange woman's blood to splatter on my girlfriend's face. Yesterday morning, my girlfriend got over the big three-month hurdle and passed her blood test with flying colours.

Congratulations, baby!

Illustration Friday - Pattern

I haven't really felt much up to doing the art thing lately, between the car accident and the new job that gives me such little time and has me clicking a mouse seven hours a day... My hands have been hurting and I've just been too tired and dissatisfied with my ideas. But I did happen to check out illustration friday (illustrationfriday.com) this week, and the word of the week was "pattern," which instantly made me think of this drawing I made a ways back. Although I guess most of my drawings I've done for Illustration Friday involve patterns, this drawing is specifically *about* patterns. It's based off a picture I took of one of my old roommates with a classmate's painting.

At any rate... it's a way to feel productive without having to actually draw anything new.

Engraving Art

Some years ago, I bought a bunch of plain scratchboard from Michaels. Just a blank black coating over a white surface. Same kind of stuff they gave us in art class in junior high. You'd think it would kind of be a standard thing that they'd keep in stock through the years... But no! For some odd reason, over the past few years this stuff has become next to impossible to obtain! Michaels now stocks nothing but pre-printed drawings over black coating over coloured foils or rainbow surfaces. And every art store I go to either doesn't carry scratchboard or else they only carry scratchbord (scratchboard's incredibly expensive cousin, which is a black coating over an actual board you could club someone over the head with). So it's either namby-pamby arts'n'crafts (with the emphasis on crafts) fare which is utterly useless for my purposes, or it's hardcore artist grade I can't afford and would be half-scared to use for fear of fucking it up. After months of searching I found what I thought I was looking for on the Dick Blick website, but what they sent me was thirty sheets of crap. Shiny, oddly textured black surface that flakes more than it scrapes, almost like a thin shell of nail polish, over white paper that just kind of peels at the first touch of the knife and gets all grubby from the black flakes.

I've since figured out the brand name of the decent-enough-for-my-needs board I used to use (Engraving Art). So now I'm trying to hunt it down online, so that at least I'll know what I'm ordering is useable. After far more searching than should be necessary for such a ridiculously basic art supply, I've located it. For roughly twice what I paid for the useless crap from Dick Blick. But I guess it's worth it if it actually lets me do what I need to do. I just resent that such a basic thing has become such a rare commodity. Seriously. It's infinitely easier to find glow-in-the-dark scratchboard than it is to find plain ole black'n'white.

I guess the point of this is... don't buy anything online if you haven't already tested the quality in person.

And buy a ton of black and white scratchboard from Engraving Art before it goes COMPLETELY extinct.

It's been a big week for me, in good ways and in bad ways. I started my first "real job" on Monday, got my passport...

...and totaled my car this morning.

I've never done more than graze the occasional curb while parking before, so it was especially shocking. Not that I imagine it's ever NOT shocking to make a left turn and suddenly find your car being slammed right at forty-five mph. I still haven't figured out exactly what happened, if I thought he was stopped or going slow enough to give me time to make the turn, or if he was running a light or trying to beat a yellow or WHAT; I have no idea whose fault it was, but right now the insurance thing is for "no fault" so I'm guessing we both fucked up. I can't really imagine myself making a left turn onto a busy road if traffic was moving in both directions, which is why I wonder about him going through a light, but I couldn't really say for sure... I was very tired and stressed out (and furious at my GPS for fucking me up; if it had just said "take the next left" when it was supposed to and not "prepare to turn left in 100 yards" or whatever it did say, I wouldn't have changed lanes and missed my turn, and I wouldn't have had to turn around and pull back onto the road, and I wouldn't have been running late and anxious...), and it's entirely possible I "looked without seeing". I have no idea what happened; it was all so sudden and out of the blue.

In a weird way the scariest thing at first was not being able to find my glasses. They and my hat got knocked clear off me, probably by the air bag (suddenly finding that smoking up my car with that dentist-drilling-around-in-your-head kind of smell was a jolt too), but my gum was miraculously still in my mouth and not lodged in my throat. All I could think at first when bystanders were trying to get me out of the car was "Oh god I can't find my glasses"; all anybody could find for the first five, ten minutes were sunglasses, neither of which were my prescription ones, so not only did I total my car but I couldn't see what was going on.

Now that I have my glasses and am safely out of the hospital (mostly scrapes and bruises, no breaks or gashes, which was kind of surprising given the amount of glass I was picking out of my clothes at the hospital) what freaks me out the most is that my girlfriend hasn't been told. At the scene I only had time to call my mom and the friend who got me the job so she could tell them why I wasn't coming in today. Then at the hospital my parents persuaded me that it would be better to wait for Amanda to get here, since she's coming up tonight anyway, before telling her so that she doesn't drive worried and get herself into a crash too. Which makes sense, but I still feel awful not telling her right away. It's interesting how much things have changed since we've been dating... normally when something seriously bad happens I think "I want my mommy!". Today, even when I had my mom there holding my hand all I could think was "I want my baby!" Even if she'd been able to leave work straight away, I would have been discharged by the time she would be able to get up here, but still... I wanted her there. Now I think about how in four hours or so she's going to come up my drive and see my car's not there and she'll have no warning... but at least she won't be worrying about it during her drive, and I guess that's the important thing. But I still feel awful not calling her immediately, because I know she'd want to know.

Cars are frightening beasts. I've always felt that way. I always will. But all things considered, this could have been worse. I'm home. Bruised, scraped, aching, stiff, and abruptly car-less (which will make getting to and from my already overwhelming new job interesting), but home and relatively unharmed as far as these things go. I never managed to get a good look at the other guy, but as far as I could tell he was in roughly the same shape I was, so I'm hoping he too is safe and sound at home.

"Shaky" - Illustration Friday

The word this week for Illustration Friday (http://illustrationfriday.com/) is "shaky". I've been experimenting with scratchboard lately for a comic I want to make, so that's what I used to make this shaky little guy. Poor lil' feller.

How I know Ingrid Bergman is one of the most beautiful women ever to have lived:

She can make "Liverwurst" sound entrancing.

Seriously. Go watch Spellbound. I've never heard anyone make such an ugly word sound so beautiful.

"Drifting"

My entry for this week's Illustration Friday (http://www.illustrationfriday.com/). I actually finished it really early this week, but for some reason I'm still posting it on Thursday... Lazy.

At any rate. I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out. Everything just sort of came together really quickly and easily. The only thing that really bothers me is that I didn't know how much I would like it, so I drew it on a sheet of paper that tore wrong, so now I'm stuck with this awkward tear in the corner (I photoshopped it out, but believe me, you'd notice it if you saw it in person). Another life's lesson learned: treat every drawing like it's going to be a masterpiece.

You can get a larger view or see other drawings of mine (warning: not everything is PG, so if you're under 18 you might want to stick to the Illustration Friday section) at my website: http://sites.google.com/site/altheakeaton/Home/drawings

Mutton Chops.

For some reason, I'm really craving mutton chops tonight. Not food-y type mutton chops. I'm talking Wolverine style mutton chops. Old time-y guy mutton chops. Free-flowing facial hair you can get your fingers into.

I would so be loving running my fingers through my facial hair right now.

Father's Day

I have to say, I'm pretty disappointed by the selection of father's day cards out there. Except for the schmaltzy ones, everything was geared towards dads who love A) sports, B) power tools, C) boobs. My dad has no interest in sports, likes power tools okay but seems to see them mainly as a means to an end, and isn't a pig. My dad cooks and cleans. He isn't lazy, and he doesn't like sitting around watching tv. He takes good care of himself and his family. He doesn't have a particularly bawdy sense of humour.

So where's the card for THIS kind of dad?? I'd've gotten him one of the disgustingly sentimental ones, but I always feel uncomfortable giving somebody *else*'s sentimental words to someone I love.

So I ended up giving him something with a puppy and a poo joke, because it was the only "funny" card that actually made me laugh. And who doesn't love a good poo joke? (and, of course, I added my own personalized schmaltz, which is the important part anyway)

Seriously, though, it makes me wonder about other people's dads... Are sports-lovin', beer-chuggin', boob-ogglin', power-toolin' dads really such a majority that it justifies the overwhelming majority of father's day cards being geared toward them? Or are the people who make greeting cards really just that unoriginal?

At any rate... Thanks for all the home-cooked meals, for the emotional and financial support, for being more sympathetic about my menstrual cramps than most people of any gender, and for twenty-five years (and counting) of unconditional love, Da.

And thanks for not being a stereotype.

Coraline: the Musical

And we're off!

So... I don't normally read the theater reviews in the New Yorker, but the June 22nd one caught my eye. Now, when I found out that they were making Coraline into a movie, I was really excited, and when I found out it was being directed by Henry Selick (the guy who did the Nightmare Before Christmas) I was even more excited. My excitement was justified when it came out. Beautifully animated, best use of 3-D I've ever seen, artistic, creepy, just... perfect. Completely did justice to the book, which is not something I often say about movies based on books. (and my girlfriend took me to see it as a Valentine's Day treat, which made it extra-special)

Well, apparently now they've made it into a stage musical. When I learned this I was... intrigued. Then I found out that the music was being done by Stephin Merritt of the Magnetic Fields and went beyond intrigued into excited. This discovery was all the more exciting since just a few weeks ago after watching Across the Universe and listening to a lot of Magnetic Fields, I decided it would be really great to build a musical out of their songs. And then I flip open the New Yorker and voila! A musical with music and lyrics by Stephin Merritt. Based on a really great Neil Gaiman story. Which is especially perfect because I've been re-reading a lot of Neil Gaiman and listening to a lot of Magnetic Fields lately, so it caught me at the best possible time.

And yet... I don't know. A bad review isn't usually enough to put me off of something. After all, the New Yorker hammered the hell out of Fight Club and I love that movie. But something about this musical just seems... off. Actually, I can pinpoint exactly what it is: the casting of Coraline herself. All the other complaints didn't ruffle me, but when I found out the lead character, a preteen girl, is being played by a middle-aged woman... Yeesh.

What a horrible, horrible idea. The story is all about childhood. And as much as I hate child actors as a general rule, the idea of Coraline being played by a fifty-five-year-old just really puts me off. There's just no way to make that work. A grown-up playing a child is always very tongue-in-cheek, wink-and-nod-to-the-audience. It's far too camp for a heartfelt story that's all about the perspective of childhood. Also, many of the women are played by men, which I'm normally all far, but it makes the whole thing even more needlessly campy. It's not really a story that lends itself to drag, be it gender-drag or age-drag. Not to my mind anyway. Clearly, there are those who disagree.

I guess it was too much to hope for, that musical theater could tell a story without killing it with camp, but still I'm disappointed.

Neil Gaiman has a tremendous gift for female characters, something very rare for a male writer. Too bad the story seems to have passed through too many hands which don't share that gift.

Starter blog.

Ah, blogging. The pure pleasure of talking about yourself endlessly to bored strangers and bored friends alike. For months I'll be content to just think my thoughts quietly to myself, maybe jot down the odd note or send the occasional random text message. Then I see someone else's blog, boldly posting the fruit of their brain-loins for all the world to see while they're supposed to be at work...

And I'll think, "Damn, I wish I had a job."

But blogs are easier to come by than jobs, so here we are.

Before we get started, I'll give you all a brief introduction so that those who don't know me can pretend they do, and so that those who do know me can kill some more time at work. My name's Althea, if you couldn't guess by the blogging address. I just turned twenty-five, which was much less of a big deal than I was led to believe (quarter of a century is a pretty superficial landmark anyway when you consider that few people actually live to be a full century). As you can tell by the name of my blog, I'm a huge Jim Henson fan (and please don't complain that it's not an original blog-name: I'm well aware that there are probably hundreds of others called Kermit the Blog, and I'm not about to let that stop me). I have a soft spot for the muppets in particular, but I have a general fondness for all Jim Henson creations. I'm an artist and a writer, and I frequently like to combine the two disciplines to make comics. I'm queer, mostly girl-gay with a splash of boy-gay for flavour (I was actually really excited to see that blogspot included gender identity as well as sexual orientation in its non-discrimination text; you don't see that everywhere, sadly).

I was going to go on about taste in music and movies and books and all of that, but that should all be pretty easy to pick up on as we go along. So that's it for my introduction. Thanks for taking the time out of your busy day to read it.

Now get back to work.