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!

Just Another Day After the End of the World – B&W

The End of the World that human beings worry about is primarily a collapse of their cultural world. The world – Planet Earth and the life upon it – will go on after human civilization fails. It went on after an asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs. Something else will evolve after humanity has made everything but insects and stupid yappy dogs extinct. Life will endure even after the arrogant apes with delusions of grandeur pass away. Heck, maybe some of those apes will figure out a way to stick around.

New Flesh for Old Mutations – B&W

I’ve given away a lot of my drawings over the years. Friends will kid me that they are hanging onto them until I become rich and famous. Then they can cash out. Silly people. I’m pretty sure I was never on a path to fame, much less fortune.

Recently one of my more sensible friends sent me photos of some of my drawings from back in the day – the “day” being some thirty years back – sometime in Eighties, a time of big shoulder pads and nuclear holocaust. She said that she was reducing her possessions in advance of a move and some of the drawings were going to get reduced along with the rest of the stuff.

I’m fine with that.

The work I did before the Nineties has life and energy but a poor awareness of anatomy. I thought it would be fun to do new versions of some of the characters in those old drawings.Mutant_Baby_OriginalsI thought the two fellows above looked like they’d be good traveling companions so I worked up an illustration that featured them both.
MutantsBWI just noticed that the big mutant is lacking the earrings I gave his original. Aw well, I haven’t worn my earrings in years either.

Preview Sketches

Here are some of the sketches I plan to turn into colored illustrations over the next few months. No doubt I will get distracted and work up new sketches before all of these get completed. I’ve also started work on a graphic novel commission that I expect will take up most of the time that isn’t currently filled by my day job. This week I’m just posting these previews and a few other, older illustrations that haven’t made it to this site yet. There may be some weeks where I don’t post. Hopefully not but … minisketches2017001 minisketches2017002 minisketches2017003 minisketches2017004