The Id & The Grid

 October 1, 2026

   I turned down a speaking gig yesterday and it felt so good. I have been saying yes to Dig-Me-On-The-Stage-Cavorting for as long as I can remember. I know there will be exceptions, but as of December 19, I am out of that game.

   Meanwhile, I am still on the hunt for a new kind of narrative truth.

Daily Whip Out:

"A Study for The Id Grid"

   When the concept of graphic novels first appeared in 1976 I thought for sure there would be some imaginative improvement on the comic strip, but no, it simply extended the worst elements of comics with the worst of the worst being those damn word balloons, with arrows pointing at who is talking. Seems like something from the Civil War, which in fact, it is!

Civil War Word Balloons

   My theory is that the narrative grid is ripe for innovation. It needs an evolution into something else. I flirted with this concept in the book I co-wrote with Jana:

   And in my subsequent art show at the Phippen Museum in Prescott, Arizona:

The Cascading Collage:

Real Women of the Wild West

   But at the very least, I want to pursue more imaginative explorations of the narrative form.

Daily Whip Outs:"A Storm of Regret"

Random Notes On The Road to Enlightenment

   It's all about the contradictions: On some level sanity is a bit insane. In order to be funny you need to think sad first. You only get to keep what you give away. And so it goes. . .ad infinitum.

Unfinished doorway in Robert Altman's

McCabe & Mrs. Miller

"There is a visual uncertainty to match a 1970s uncertainty about what American history even means."

—Mark Cousins, in his 15 part documentary "A History of Cinema: An Odyssey," about the movie McCabe & Mrs. Miller

"I'm a lawyer, you idiot!"

—The punchline to Rustler's Rhapsody

2 pages from Low Blows, my compilation

of New Times Weekly cartoons, 1983

"If you push away hard enough from the representation of a thing by its opposite, you'll get to the thing you're pushing away from."

—Paul Schrader, mangling a Freud concept to make a point about movie making

Faces West

A New Honesty On The Wing

   Combine scraps and organize them into a meaningful story. Stop chasing commerciality. Reject the current trends. Stop trying to hit a home run. Be more playful. Accept where you are and be with it. Don't write what you know. Write what you feel. 

   And by all means tease. Tease. Tease!

Their torrid affair ended with just three words.

   In "Of Mice And Men," John Steinbeck humorously describes a cowboy bunkhouse full of "those Western magazines ranch men love to read and scoff at and secretly believe."

The Duke of Dust Abides

"Hey, Grandpa, get off the stage!"

—Youngsters who are finally getting their wish