Pen and brush: better together!

One of my roommate’s last name is Horak, which sounds like a Stan Lee monster name, but is actually Czech for Man of the Mountain. (Which seems really long for two syllables – maybe Mountain Man just has too much of a negative connotation?) Last week in drawing class we went to a poet’s house and drew Mt. Ascutney, which is a mountain way bigger than the wimpy little Green “Mountain”s. This week we went up it. In between, I made this comic.

The one nice thing about moving away is that suddenly all of my friends want to see me all of the time (and if they don’t, obviously they’re not my friends). I’ve been inebriated at some point of almost every day for the last two weeks.

Before our tearful goodbyes, Dan McCool and I had two days of serious brotimes. On Monday we got stoned, we walked all over the Village, we were this close to getting matching T-shirts at Uniqlo, but there was nothing good in Dan’s size, although we did get cool sunglasses on the street and we also looked at this sweet mural at Houston and the Bowery. As we were chomping down on some falafel, I got called to duty making corrections on not one, but two, illustration jobs. This was a big disappointment because it cut our broday short. We were hoping to have an afternoon Drawing Adventure, but had to go home instead. We made up for it by jammin’ on some comics, one of which is below, the other of which is on Dan’s blog. If you can’t tell (again, that probably makes you not my friend), I kicked this one off, Dan continued it, and backsy-forthsy all the way. We did the two simultaneously so we could both be drawing at once. (If you click it, you’ll enlarge it.)

Well friends, it’s countdown to Escape from New York. I’m really sad to go. I love this place, and I love all my pals that live here. But I’m leaving this Saturday.

I’ve been meaning to show the page below for a long time. It’s from a few months back when I was fleshing out chapter one of Petrified Girlfriend (only available in the impossible-to-read-titled Oak & Linden – I’ll make an Etsy page or something when I move to Vermont if you’re interested in a copy, Blogiverse). You may recall that Caitlin and I stomped around the Museum of Natural History taking reference pictures for it. Well, a pivotal moment occurs in the Hall of Ocean Life, which has had a wonderful lighting effect ever since it was remodeled sometime this decade. The hall’s skylights, which were painted over in the let’s-paint-over-everything 1960s, are illuminated with the blue, shifting ripples that you see on the sand under the ocean water. It’s gorgeous. And it took me a while to figure out just how to depict it, as you can see. This objet d’art features some coffee stains by me and also one of my collaborator Caitlin Martin’s inimitable lists.

Caitlin and I are in the process of moving downstairs. The new place has a bit less square footage, but way more cubic feet cause the ceilings are twice as high. The huge windows bring in more light, the kitchen is a better shape, there’s a little deck on the back, and a marble “ornamental” fireplace in the front. Real estate. New York. It’s pretty nice, but I’ll only live there for a month before I run away to Vermont and Cait finds a roommate. This further solidifies the fact that I’m leaving for real which is quite distressing. Of course, the idea is I’ll be back next summer to do the second year from Brooklyn, but I don’t know. I don’t know how I’ll be able to pay rent here while I’m still in school. I wish at least one of us had rich parents. I don’t even care if that would make me a brat anymore. I just want my twenties to be easier. Now you say, “I’m afraid that’s all the time we have for today. I’ll see you for another session next week, okay?”