"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.