Skook WiP #56

Another Friday dawns and lo, this newsletter pops up in your inbox.

Thank you for your time and attention. I hope your week has gone well and that cats respect your need to sleep while they are awake and stalking prey.

These Days …

On Sunday I was exiled from Facebook for “violating community standards”. I have a tendency to use violent rhetoric when I snark. That rhetoric is usually focused on folks who advocate beliefs and policies that make the world a worse place. To me, it’s punching Nazis without having to bruise my knuckles. This isn’t the first time. I was exiled for two days earlier this year. This time my exile is for seven days. I’ll be able to post and comment again this coming Sunday. The most annoying thing about this, to me, is that I can’t wish folks happy birthday. I’ve been using FB as my birthday reminder calendar.

As far as I can tell Facebook doesn’t publish the rules to their “community standards”. My snark suggested killing someone and setting some else on fire but it’s hard to tell what actually triggered the ban. “kill” and “fire” are awfully general terms to ban. “Kill” isn’t just a verb, it’s also a noun. And “fire”? Where is civilization without fire? I suspect that my account is more closely bot watched than others because of my previous lack of decorum.

I don’t feel like my right to free speech has been curtailed. I’ve never felt like that right was every as sancrosant as some folks do. Our culture shuts down certain subjects of conversation on a regular basis. We might have the right to say whatever we want but you’ll still want to be careful what you say and where you say it. Nazis punch back. Facebook is not the public square. It’s a business. One that I both appreciate and despise.

The great thing about this exile is that I end up doing something else with my time other than scrolling my Facebook feed. I’m not going to claim that I’m being more productive with the “extra” time but I am finding myself less annoyed. I’m reading fewer ill thought out political memes and that really improves my mood.

I’m continuing to work half days at USPS. I organize my route, divide it in thirds (or fourths on a good day) and deliver one of those thirds. Some days I run over my allotted 4 hours because the mail volume is greater than the time expected for delivery. I have to be careful about that. Management and workman’s comp don’t like it if someone does more than they say they can. To them it means that the person should be working more time all the time. It doesn’t occur to them that the person has made an extra effort in order to make sure the rest of the already overburdened team doesn’t have to do one more damned thing.

I know. I know. I need to take care of myself first. I’m working on it.

Mugshots

This week’s process gif features a few of the folks who survived and thrived after an apocalypse (or three), I’ve had a version of this illustration in my head for years now. My friends Jarred Wallace and Adam Scott Glancy used to do a video blog called Podcast at Ground Zero in which they discussed various End of the World books, films, tv shows and games. Jarred had asked me to do a banner illustration for their page – sometime, whenever I got around to it.

I finally got around to it.

This image is available on a mug in my Zazzle store and all kinds of schtuff in my Redbubble store.

This is my 3rd mug design of 2022. 49 to go!

Have a good week. Take care of yourself (even if it means being less of a team player). See you next Friday!

Skook WIP #8

Welcome to the eighth issue of the Skook Works in Progress newsletter. Thank you for reading! Or at least looking at the pictures.

Greeting Card Conversions

As usual, we’ll look at a few before (ink and marker/colored pencil drawing) and after (Photoshop edited) greeting card designs. The final versions are all available in my Zazzle store.

Out of the Depths

The Creature from the Black Lagoon is my favorite of the Universal Monsters. Hanging out in the sea with fish seems like a cool way to live. I’m pretty sure I saw Revenge of the Creature before I saw the original movie. Of course I did a cartoon bunny version of the character!

All the Creature wanted was companionship. It was the last of its kind. Sure, it killed a few people but a lot of those people had it coming. If they’d left it alone it wouldn’t have gotten so aggro.

Hmmm. Companionship. Solitude. The eternal conflict of the sensitive soul.

Cuteness and Cuddles

Kermit claims that it’s not easy being green. It seems more likely that it’s just not easy being Kermit. A lot of my favoite things are green.

This critter has no problem being green. She’s got her ragdoll for company and a good set of specs to see the world in all its wonderful detail.

 

A Little Bit Shy

I mentioned last issue that I like dragons but I don’t often draw them because there are already a lot of great depictions of dragons out there. Still, once in a while, a dragon must be drawn. Even shy, self effacing dragons can make demands.

Yes, shy dragon. We see you. You’re a handsome critter. Please don’t set the furniture on fire.

Fox Music

I will not make a joke about a horny fox.
I will not make a joke about a horny fox.
I will not …

Ooops.

Shhhh. Don’t interrupt this solo.

Drink This

Greeting cards are momentary expressions. A mug is a necessity. One of the best surprises of my daily sketch project in 2019 is how many of those sketches were good drawings. And good bases for mug designs. Here are a couple of repurposed illustrations of two Fletcher Hanks’ most famous characters.

Stardust Superwizardry

Stardust is a superwizard. He uses highly advanced technology to punish evildoers.

When need arises he can multiply himself for extra wizardry. And to show off.

Fantomah Will Get You

Fantomah hates you. Fantomah hates just about everyone. Fantomah is not a people person.

If you value your safe human existence you will stay out of Fantomah’s jungles.

Influences – Norman Rockwell

I chose the following three Saturday Evening Post cover illustrations to represent my love of Norman Rockwell’s work because they are great comic strips. It’s fun to imagine that in some alternate world, Rockwell drew a Sunday comic. Or produced graphic novels.

Rockwell was prolific. Over 300 paintings for the Post. Over 4000 published paintings in his lifetime. Book covers. Interior illustrations. Movie posters. I love the detail and expression in his work. Every person depicted is unique. Every object seems to have a history. His images are moments captured, snapshots of an ongoing story.

Every time I look at his work I’m inspired to be a better artist, to pay more attention. To think about the story an illustration is encapsulating.

These Days …

I got lucky. I had a week off from USPS when Seattle got hit with a heavy snowfall. Snow was predicted at the end of that week so we got as many chores and errands out of the way as possible early in the week. We had light rain and clear days. It didn’t seem like snow was acoming.

We went to bed Friday night with a cloudy sky but that’s typical for Seattle. We had canceled plans to have a friend stay overnight because we were worried we wouldn’t be able to give her a ride home in the morning. It looked that might have been too much caution. We woke up with a few inches of snow on the ground and more falling. Between Friday night and Sunday afternoon we got 11 inches. On Sunday evening it started to rain. By Monday afternoon the roads were as safe to drive as they ever are.

Tuesday I went back to work. The mail for my route had not been delivered for three days. Saturday there had been too much snow and only the regulars delivered parts of their own routes. The mail for my route got cased up and left. Sunday was a regular day off. Monday was Presidents’s Day. There were Amazon parcel deliveries both days but I’m guessing they only concentrated what they knew they could get out. I started work at 6 am. I had a tub of unsorted mail left by carriers who didn’t know my route. I did a parcel run before I started sorting my route and I still ended up with a truck overflowing with parcels. (Literally. For the first two hours parcels would fall out of the back of the truck every time I opened the back.) Once it got dark I had to slow down. I put in a 15 hour day. It would have been longer but the night supervisor called me back to the station. I had to bring back two swings worth of mail.

I had spent my week off hanging out with Sarah, doing a lot of art and watching some good series via streaming. (No cable. We haven’t had cable in a decade.) I knew that my route would be a mess. I knew that mail would be heavy. I had gotten some rest. The sun came out and the day was relatively warm. So those 15 hours had some annoying parts but I did enjoy a lot of the day. I feel satisfied making chaos into order and getting mail and parcels to their proper places.

It didn’t hurt that I had Wednesday off. My body hurt but I got a day to recover. I got new tires installed at Costco. I have one of my old tires put in the trunk so I finally have a spare. During the last big snow (in 2018) I had run through a hidden pothole and shredded a tire. I discovered that my car didn’t come equipped with a spare in the trunk. Yes I should have checked sooner but since all my other cars had had them I just assumed that spares were standard. I am clearly not a car guy. Further evidence – my “new” spare is just a tire. It’s not a wheel, ready to just be popped on if needed. I had expected a wheel despite clearly not having an extra rim hanging around. Silly me. But it’s better than the nothing I had before.

My big sister came by with another “Corona Cooler” of her wonderful cooking. Puerto Rican pork ribs and red beans. Gluten free corn muffins. Lentil sausage soup. Gluten free Mexican chocolate upside down banana cake. She often exchanges the new cooler with the previous one after we’ve gone to bed but this time the sun was still up. We got to chat and give each other air hugs.

Thursday was a much shorter, easier day than Tuesday. Rain. Lots of parcels too big to carry in my satchel and therefore requiring extra trips. Still easier and shorter.

And now it’s Friday. Other parts of the country are getting a snowpocalypse that makes our weekend look like a tea party. I’m happy to complain about my week but I know it’s minor compared to the mess in Texas. If you’re in the middle of it I hope you are safe and warm. If you’re somewhere else I hope you’re safe and warm as well. Everyone should be safe and warm.

That’s all I’ve got for this week. See you next Friday!

Skook WIP #4

It’s Friday! Time for another set of before (original drawings) and after (ready for print) images, a few words, an appreciation and a few more words. All you folks who have subscribed in the last couple of weeks – THANK YOU! Time is precious and I am honored that you’re spending some of your time here.

All of the final designs below are available in my Zazzle store. I’m mostly concentrating on creating greeting card and coffee mug designs right now but I will be creating other products down the line. Feel free to make requests!

Grizzly Bear Boogie

Yes, the Crocodile Rock was amazing but you haven’t gotten down until you’ve done the Grizzly Bear Boogie! The original version, as performed by actual bears, not the lame covers performed by tiny humans.
The above image is larger than most of the others in my card design series. It was originally done as a commission. Below is the version that appears in my shop. 
Koala Cone Contentment

When I was a kid, books about wild life told me that panda bears were not actually bears, that they were actually more closely related to raccoons. This was before DNA was used to determine animal ancestry and relation. It turned out that pandas look like bears because they are bears. Their divergent diets and odd “thumbs” are the result of evolutionary adaptations to their environment.

Koalas are not bears. At all. They don’t wear polo shirts and slacks either but I’ve taken liberties. I did an internet search to see if koalas are known to like ice cream but nothing turned up in the early results. I’m guessing they do. 
Koalas are also not blue. But with all the other liberties I’ve taken, what’s one more?

Any guesses as to what flavors he’s enjoying?
Not a Bronto

When I was a kid there was a dinosaur called a Brontosaurus. Unlike the Panda, who was misclassified, the Brontosaurus was misconstructed. Or, to be more precise, misreconstructed. When its fossil remains were displayed it was given the wrong skull. The skull actually belonged to a dinosaur named the Apatosaurus. The Brontosaurus was retired. Scientifically. But the Brontosaurus (the “Thunder Lizard”) was, to the general public, one of the most known and popular dinosaurs. Eventually the original fossil skeleton, minus the Apatosaurus skull, was designated Brontosaurus. Again.

That’s the simple version of the story. The above illustration isn’t based on any known species of Apatosaurus or Brontosaurus. It’s likely that neither species was pink. Or orange. But we’ll probably never know.

Little Monster Bubbles

This little monster knows how to blow some big bubbles!

Pink bubbles for a blue monster. It’s only blue in color. It’s very happy emotionally. 
Stardust in Your Cup

Stardust is a comic book character that has fallen into public domain. He’s fun to draw so he’s made a few appearances on my website. The image below was one of the daily drawings I did in 2019. 
I did those daily drawings in landscape format and I’ve found that they look pretty good on coffee mugs. The original drawings don’t cover the entire mug so, when possible, I’ve extended the illustrations to better fit the “canvas”. Below is the version of the illustration that appears on the mugs. 
And here is the mock up that I’m showcasing on Zazzle. Drink up! Stardust can’t be everywhere. You might need to take on an alien supervillain or two yourself!
Inspiration: Bill Peet

I own more Bill Peet books as an adult than I did as a kid. We owned a lot of books but our budget was limited so we didn’t just buy a book when we wanted to read it. Usually we checked it out of the library. My brother and I read a lot. We’d visit both our local library in Sebastopol and the main branch in Santa Rosa. Different branches had different selections of books. I think you could have books transferred from one branch to another but that would have required talking to a librarian. I did become friends with librarians when I was older. At picture book reading age I was much more reticent to ask grown up for things so I just read what the library had on its shelves.  
I’m not sure which of his books I read as a kid but there a couple that stand out. Cappy Boppy made a huge impression. I’d never heard of capybaras before. A giant ginea pig as a pet? Cool! I don’t currently own a copy of the book. If you’d have asked me I would have told you that the illustrations were in color. When I looked for example online I discovered that they were black and white. 
His other book that really impacted me was The Wump World. The Wumps were cute capybara type critters whose planet gets colonized by aliens in big ships that looked like Nixon heads. I don’t remember if we read this or Cappy Boppy first. I do own a copy of this book. 
Peet created his illustrations with a nib pen and colored pencils. The characters in the drawings are animated and lively and have clear, wonderful expressions.  I reread a few of his books as I was writing this entry. His stories were anywhere for 32 to 48 pages (and longer) and included a good chunk of text. They make me want to do my own childrens’ books.

These Days … 

My wife, Sarah, and I are gods. Small gods of a small universe with small furry worshippers. The universe is our apartment. The worshippers are our two cats, Chemo and Sabe. Sarah is the god of comfortable laps and food that can be sniffed but not tasted. I am the god that provides food and refreshes the litter box. For Chemo, the younger cat, I am also the god that throws toy mice and provides an auxilary lap when the god of comfortable laps is not available.

Some folks would suggest that we are not gods but simply servants to our cats. But what are gods? Gods are big mysterious beings who provide things according to their own whims. One prays to ones gods for boons but there’s no guarantee that the gods will follow through. Gods are, for most people, powerful yet unreliable personal assistants with too much responsibility and a poor respnse time who can’t be fired.

Chemo is very direct about his prayers. He makes them loudly. “This door is closed! Why is this door closed? I know you’re in there! Open this door! You’re home! Time to throw the mice! You’re sitting! Pick me up! Put me on your lap! Is it Tuesday yet? What is a Tuesday?”

Sabe is more subtle but more insistant. He sits at my feet and stares at me. If I fail to respond in a timely manner he bites my toe. It’s not a hard bite but it’s definitely noticeable. Answering his prayers is pretty easy. If he’s asking for my attention he probably wants to be fed. I sometimes try to pet him or provide him with a lap but, while he sometimes goes along with getting a good scratching, unless I follow through with a feeding he’ll be back there biting my toes.

This relationship seems to work for all of us. Yes, Sabe occasionally attempts to escape his small universe in order to explore the larger universe he has observed from the windows but those attempts are done with minor force and are easily countered. Yes, Chemo will yowl outside our bedroom door in the middle of the night. I’ve learned not to let him in. He isn’t planning to curl up and go to sleep. If I let him in he’ll wander around inside our bedroom yowling. Sometimes gods don’t answer prayers.

We keep them fed and warm. They provide us with attractive beings who we can love who don’t need to be taken on walks or borrow the car or watch stupid comedy shows or otherwise disturb the rhythms of our lives. Our divine responsibilities are manageable and simplier than our secular obligations. The cats seem more satisfied with their gods than many humans are with ours.

Thank you for reading. May your gods keep you safe and warm and answer your necessary prayers. See you next week!

December the 23rd, 2019

There are self made monsters – people who, through selfish intent and callous deeds, cut themselves off from warm company. And then there are the so-called monsters – creatures who, in their uniqueness, stand out from the crowd and cannot fit in, no matter their desire to so. For the former I have nothing but contempt. For the latter I have much sympathy.

Happy Birthday to:
Joe Carr

December the 17th, 2019

The NANC1s were designed to look friendly, even a little maternal. They were meant to be the antithesis of the Changlings. Safe. Protective. Good marketing for good monsters.

Happy Birthday to:
Nick Gucker
A.M. Noel
Brian Sammons
Shawn Churchill
Angela Ingersoll