‘Bout time I posted something you hafta look away from, isn’t it?

In conversation with Joe Lambert, I realized I may have been unconsciously inspired by his Too Far story [bottom-left page in the preview]. It’s in his new(ish) I Will Bite You! book, and also in a digest-sized anthology he put together with One Percent Press.

We’re just barreling through the summer, aren’t we? I can’t remember the last summer I’ve been so busy. I’m passing up $75-an-hour work for comes-out-to-minimum-wage work because I love it. I’m thinking big thoughts about the future, and saying goodbye to close friends on an almost weekly basis. Still, Caitlin and I are wallowing in rivers, pounding cold ones by the grill, going to movies, and just plain having a gay old time. It could be much worse, friends.

As had been promised months ago, the real story of how I got a new tooth. Careful observers may notice the typical fat outlines are missing in this strip. I tried primarily using the pen. How do we feel about that?

I confess, it took me a long time to sign on to this project, and even then I dragged my heels. It’s already been done, I said. And, why should we step on the ladies’ toes, I whined. But Josh Kramer can pursuade with a fearsome diligence unheard-of since Henry Clay. So, I contributed to the Beef Steak 2011 calendar. Canto made an impressive list of contributors (with links), and calendars are available from him and from Josh.

Each month pairs up to CCS (and environs) cartoonists drawing each other doing manly jobs. I was matched with Jesse Mead, a funny cartoonist and deft stylist, and we got the month of February. February is ripe with holidays to riff on, but what could be sexier than signing bills in the Oval Office on President’s Day? It must get all hot and steamy every time that quill touches parchment.

I know that maybe it’s unfair to consider the presidency a manly job, but that’s been the precedence so far. Maybe the Tea Baggers will get some sort of momentum behind a female candidate someday. You know, the kind who always talks about motherhood and promises to strip women’s rights in the uterus and at the workplace. The kind we can rally behind for promising to slash funding for needy families, like school lunches, head start and health care. Oh what a day that will be.

You may have noticed that this and the last posts’ drawings are particularly sexual and wiener-oriented (I checked the spelling Cait, it is “ie,” not an exception to the rule – I <3 U), blame Alfred Kubin. A few weeks ago Caitlin and Danielle and I went to the Neue Gallerie and looked at a show of his drawings and watercolors. It had sort of hokey mood elements, like creepy silhouettes behind windows and a room with period artifacts and brooding German music, but this stuff actually did its part in adding to the atmosphere, especially because it was relegated mainly to the hall and away from most of the artwork. I had no idea the man existed until Danielle said we should go see the show. Exquisitely disturbed, monstrous stuff. Sex and death and terrible beasts and bleak landscapes.

And speaking of terrible beasts, you can bet this wang would have been longer if I had known from the beginning that this was a horse man.

This might be a week late to say, but how bout the Boss? He totally compressed every single thing he would do at a normal E Street Band concert into twelve minutes, plus Super Bowl fireworks, of course. Let’s see, there was…”Is there anybody alive out there?” jumping on a piano, losing his voice, solo from the Big Man, getting the crowd to sing the hook, power sliding (I contend it was the cameraman’s fault for putting his camera so close to Bruce’s balls – reminiscent of Goldfinger, with the laser moving steadily, inexorably toward Connery’s junk), bringin’ it down for a minute, and finally, “Hey Steve, what time is it?” “It’s Boss time!” But you know what’s totally freaked up? The stupid NFL keeps removing YouTube videos of the performance, and what’s worse, not offering up an official version. As Jen (or Wayne) would say, get the net!

A philosophical question for you: If wieners and vaj’es are drawn on impy-headed creatures, but still pretty explicitly, does that count as NSFW?

I don’t what to tell youse, the Internets, except that The Office finale was awesome, and so is River City Ransom.

Here’s another drawing from last week’s Met trip. These two statues are on either side of a wide entranceway of the European Sculpture courtyard where the Academy students make those really carefully rendered drawings of the statuary. I cheated them into some close interaction, changed the angles – you know. For kicks. For narrative. For love? Everyone who sees this says it’s a drawing of Girlf Caitlin and me.

I like how drawing in color lets me be overly self indulgent. To put textural detail on too many things, but still not lose them sort of frees me up. Also, it might lead to less sophisticated picture design. Still, a sketchbook’s a sketchbook, nah mean?

These are the gates outside my back window. They’re really pretty elaborate, and they’re in front of the most austere, boring ’70s row houses. I live in one too; they really dominate our corner of Bushwick. I have no actual factual truth here, but I have a hunch they were all built after the huge riot and fire that tore through the neighborhood then.

P.S. A dumb joke came into my head when I was writing labels for the post: The Bush over Bushwick