August 5, 2007
Started raining last night and sprinkled on and off all night. Woke up with steamed windows. Nice and cool on the bike ride. Saw Christa Barro out in her corral with one of her horses and I said, "Did you?" And she laughed and said, "Yes, I delivered the pizza and wings down to your house. I didn't want to go inside, but I knew if I left them out there the dogs would eat them." I thanked her for the great Barro's pizza (they are part of the family that owns the company and Mike, her husband, runs several of the stores, I believe). Christa evidently saw how famished I looked every morning as I rode by on the bike and decided to help me out. Pretty damned sweet.

Peru, Peru, Get Ready, Tomcat's Ready For You
My son Thomas Charles got his Peace Corp assignment yesterday. He is going to be stationed in the Colca Canyon region of Peru, and his host town (which I'm not allowed to tell you) is at 11,211 feet above sea level. Tomas tells me, "The area is very touristy so I'll have all the ameneties there. As far as my house goes, I'm living with a family that has a 20-year-old daughter, no funny business, and two older sons who work in tourism. Of course after my first three months of community analysis I can decide to stay with this family or I can move to another one. It is a brand new site so I'll be the first Peace Corps volunteer there. The running water is outside so cold showers and the bathroom is a latrine, outside as well.”

Forgotten Praise From Jack Jackson
"Looking through a pile of old magazines - having a bit of a clearout - I came across an issue of 'Comics Journal' from 1981, containing an interview with Jack Jackson. I must have bought this issue about the time I purchased a copy of his 'Comanche Moon', which I liked very much. Re-reading it today I came across this interesting quote - I wonder whether you have seen it:

"Have you seen the stuff this guy Boze Bell's doing out of Arizona, 'Honkytonk Sue'? He's done three books, and they're real slick. Good stuff. You can see him grabbing from all that's around him."

"He seemed particularly impressed that the strip was obviously taken from your own experiences and your own background. Do you know Jackson at all? I wonder whether he ever did any more Western strips after 'Comanche Moon' and 'Tejano Exile'?"
—David Ashford

Yes, I had completely forgotten about that comment. Which is weird because that is a high complement coming from that Texas legend. It's interesting that he picked up on the "grabbing from all that's around him." angle of Honkytonk Sue at that time. One of the reasons for this was that I came from the school of National Lampoon (that magazine and Mad before it, constituted my humor education), and I really kind of lost that edge when I got into this arena. Oh, I've tried it (Topless Gunfighter, The Good, They Gay & The Ugly), but then I get emails like the one from Mark Boardman. Actually Mark is on the hipper end of the scale. I have other business associates who go bananas when I do stuff like that.

Anyway, Jack's comment is kind of eating at me. I was on fire in 1981. What happened? Well, I had just had a kid (Deena), then another one (Thomas Charles) and I had to get serious. Hmmmmm. Actually, I'm still on fire, maybe too many fires. Ha.

Here are my sketches for this weekend. Still on the skeleton kick (right) and experimenting with flare lighting (left):



And an explosion of violence and death and our hero is sucked right up into the vortex of the storm:



I guess the real problem is being so scattered and unfocussed. I decided to sit down and paint what my brain feels like. Here it is, the inside of an ADD fevered brain:



Scary, huh?

Classic Onion Headline de Jour
Frederick's Of Anchorage Debuts Crotchless Long Underwear

"Where you are headed is more important than how fast you are going. Rather than always focusing on what's urgent, learn to focus on what is really important."
—Stephen Covey