Radiant Comics

I was just reading a review about a recent comic book series, “Blackest Night”, when it struck me why I don’t like many modern super hero comics. Especially the earth-shaking cross over events that happen every year at Marvel and DC. I also just read “The Death of Captain America” omnibus and that probably added to it too.

“Blackest Night” and the Cap book are both about dead super heros. “Blackest Night” has a bunch of zombie/reanimated/returned from the dead (I don’t know which because I didn’t read it) super heros and villains fighting a bunch of Green Lanterns and such. The Cap book is about everyone around Cap carrying on after Cap is killed.

Here’s my problem with them and lots of other comics: Schrödinger’s cat. You can read about it on Wikipedia where they go into it in much more detail but Schrödinger’s cat is a thought experiment by an Austrian physicist named Erwin Schrödinger. He was pointing out the problem of quantum physics’ notion of sub atomic particles existing in many states at once by creating a thought experiment where, by the rules of quantum physics, a cat can be both dead and alive at the same time. An impossibility, an absurdity, and a paradox.

How does this relate to Marvel and DC super hero comics? Because I realized, in my mind, that all their characters have become Schrödinger’s cat. They have killed off so many characters and brought them back so many times that there is no longer a distinction between a character being alive and a character being dead.

In the story line of the moment a character may be dead but we readers know that the character will be brought back to life fairly soon. This has happened so often that I no longer even know which characters are dead or alive at any given time so that all the characters become both dead and alive in my mind. It’s absurd and distances me from the story.

DC killed Superman in the 1990’s. Anyone who was reading his comic knew he was eventually going to be brought back to life. And he was. DC Comics recently killed Batman but are now in the process of bringing him back to life. In the last Captain America omnibus I read they brought back Cap’s old sidekick form the 1940’s, Bucky. They resisted bringing him back for decades but now he’s here again. I could go on for a long time listing characters who died and then came back.

I read the whole “Death of Captain America” omnibus knowing that Cap is already alive again. It was a well done book. The writing and art were fine but it was dripping with absurdity. Here was a whole big comic book, 350 pages or so, of people dealing with a character’s death that every reader knows will be alive again so he’s not really dead. He’s dead and alive at the same time. A paradox. It made the fictional world that they were trying to create not very believable to me.

Plus a lot of these crossover events from Marvel and DC deal with multiple universes and time travel. They constantly creating alternate versions of their heroes and villains who they kill off as they wish within the story. It’s gotten to the point where I see some new version of a familiar face and I know there’s a good chance he’ll be dead by the end of the story. And then maybe be reanimated.

Comics used to be a world where a villain’s death was meaningless. Sure it looked like the Red Skull died but we, and even the super heroes in the story, knew he’d be back to plague the hero sooner or later. But now life and death for both the hero and villain are meaningless. Every hero and villain dies and then comes back to life or is brought back as a zombie. There is no distinction for me between life and death in a lot of these stories. That is bad for the drama of a story.

So now whenever I read any of these big event comics or any comic with time travel or multiple reality elements every character becomes Schrödinger’s cat. And that’s not a good thing because Schrödinger’s cat is meant to point out the absurdity in a system that doesn’t quite work as it should.

To reference or not to reference? That is my question. I’m working on yet another idea for a comic strip. It’s actually and idea that I’ve been working on for a while but I’ve gotten nowhere with. Primarily because of the drawing. That always takes the most time. That and my vision for how the art should be done doesn’t jibe with what I like to do.

I don’t much care for doing “Realistic” drawing or illustration these days. I find it tedious. It’s always the same. Decide what you want to draw, gather resources to help the drawing (photos, live models, computer models), use resources to execute drawing. I find that it is, at best, like putting together a puzzle.

In my younger days I used to enjoy this process but now I don’t. It was a challenge then but now it’s a burden. I was never especially good at illustrative drawing either. I’m not bad at it and do some realistic type work but on a small scale. Developing and drawing a comic strip like that is a much larger scale and I don’t think I have it in me.

So where does that leave me? I’m not sure. I still want to work on developing this strip but I have to clarify my vision of what it will be. That’s what the creative process is all about. Clarifying your vision. It’s a hard thing to do because it means that something has to get done. As everyone knows it’s not easy to get things done. Not doing anything is much easier than doing anything.

I’ve had some interesting ideas on the structure of the story too. Ideas I wish I could pull off. I got them when I was thinking about the new Apple iPad. There are a whole bunch of people coming up with new content for that machine but all I’ve heard of so far is basically repurposed content that already exists. I am thinking more about the structure of how a story is told when a person reads it on an interactive touch screen. I think we’ll be seeing a lot of new things in the years to come on the iPad and other devices like it.

I’m a little jealous of those who are developing new types of story telling for the iPad. It’s beyond my means and abilities to develop a comic for the iPad. That’s the sort of thing it takes a company to do. It’s bigger than the lone artist that I am. Sometimes I wish I were part of a team who could handle such big projects. But alas that is not the path I’m on.

Meanwhile back at my own comic strip I’m still struggling with how I should do it. I actually did do some illustrative and referenced character design already but I’m not sure if I want to gather reference for the whole thing. It’s almost like I know exactly how it will come out if I do it that way and it bores me to know that. That method leaves me less room for creating late in the game than I would like.

Of course I don’t have the method worked out just yet to get me where I want to go. So far I think I know what I don’t want to do but not what I do. I think I’ll do a little painting first anyway.

“Drifting and Dreaming”. That’s the name of this new comic strip that I have come up with. As with many of the things I have to come up with names for I have no idea what this name means (besides being an old song title). Plus the strip isn’t really a strip. Kind of weird, I know, but my work is normally kind of weird. Here is how it came about.

For the last two months or so I’ve been trying to develop another comic strip. A totally different one from “Drifting and Dreaming”. I have gotten virtually nowhere with it and working on that strip was clogging up my creative process. I was running in circles and getting nowhere. It’s frustrating getting nothing done and going nowhere.

The only thing I seemed able to get do was some art cards. Those are little baseball card size drawings or paintings. I think it was because of their very “Unfinished” nature that I was able to complete them. There is little pressure when making something so casual. Then I made some more.

Somewhere in my making of these art cards I stared making some “Cartoon cards”. They are pretty much the same thing except they have a word balloon above a cartoon character’s head. Each character is saying something. The cartoon cards talk to you.

The character’s faces are all drawn in ink right off of the top of my head. Whatever crazy thing comes to mind. No erasing and no real thinking about them before hand. I just see what comes out as I’m drawing. This makes for some odd characters.

After I draw the cards I figure out what the characters are saying. I haven’t always been sure why they are saying what they are. I was just trying to make them say something interesting. I like short form writing and how it can be so clear yet mysterious. The things I make can be a mystery to me too. That keeps me interested.

So this is how I make a “Drifting and Dreaming” strip. I pick three of my art cards. Two of the cartoon card ones for either end and one of the art only ones for the middle. I’m not sure how they are all going to relate and fit together as a cohesive whole but that is what interests me. The fitting together.

I then write “The Middle Story” which is another short piece of text. I look at the middle card as I write the Middle Story and see what strikes my mind. Once again it can be a mystery to me too.

This is a once a week strip since “Four Talking Boxes” will continue to run on weekdays.

It took a turn for the colder around these parts as it’s likely to do in March. I had the coldest bike ride of the three weeks I’ve been riding this year today. Thirty seven degrees Fahrenheit and windy. My finger tips were getting real cold as I rode with my thin gloves on. I can do without too many rides like that.

Lot’s of people that I know got real excited about last weekend’s warm weather and were posting their excitement on Facebook. I did my best not to dampen their enthusiasm by pointing out that end of May weather in the middle of March might not last but I’m not sure if I succeeded one hundred percent. Sometimes I get cynical when I think people are getting over excited about something.

The “Star Wars” movies are something that make me cynical. Well, it’s really the enthusiasm and excitement so many people I know have for those movies that makes me cynical. Somehow, among people of a certain age, “Star Wars” was some sort of transcendental religious experience. I don’t get it. To me it’s just a movie with spaceships and ray guns.

At least “Star Trek” I understand. It’s trying to be something a little more than the average TV show. The “Star Trek” makers want to make the world a better place by offering a little insight and uplift. I can understand the people who want to dress up and live in the “Star Trek” world. It’s a better world than ours and they would prefer to live there.

“Star Wars” on the other hand, no matter how good it actually is, is just another kids’ movie. I think that’s the fact that makes so many of the original “Star Wars” fans angry at the newest three movies. There is nothing transcendental about them. They are just kids’ movies and bad ones at that.

Kids born into the “Star Wars” era see nothing wrong with the last three movies. They are just another thing to be a fan of and buy toys about. I find that an interesting split. And it proves that they really are kids’ movies. That and the millions of “Star Wars” toys.

We’re well into the NFL’s off season these days. For almost three weeks the NFL networks filled their broadcast days with the draft combine. Three weeks of guys running football drills while coaches and scouts all watched then. And the NFL Network’s talking heads analyzed it all. More boring TV you could not find.

The NFL draft is on a Thursday night this year instead of the usual Saturday afternoon. That insures I won’t watch it because the only reason to watch was for the socializing. A few friends and I would get together and hang out on a spring afternoon with the draft on as an excuse. A little football oasis. Now it’s another boring TV show to be ignore on a Thursday night.

I’ve been playing an XBox 360 game lately. When my XBox 360 broke I pulled out the old Nintendo 64 just so I could play 1080º Snowboarding again. That inspired me to try a new snowboarding game: Stoked – Big Air Edition. I’ve been enjoying Stoked but I’m not sure if it’s better than 1080º. Stoked has more of an emphasis on tricks rather than racing which was 1080º’s forte. I prefer racing. Stoked has some good racing but 1080º’s was so well tuned it’s hard to beat.

I’ve been eating tangerines lately. Besides the fact that they taste good I’ve also been eating them because they have pits. Because they have pits I have to slow down and have a seat when I eat one. They have actually helped me relax a little more. I didn’t plan for that to happen when I bought some tangerines but I’ve embraced that it has. I now see extra value in pitted fruit.

I’ve also changed the way I eat apples just to slow down and relax a bit. I started off but just cutting them into slices but somehow that wasn’t enough. Now I cut them into slices and before I eat each slice I cut off the skin and eat that first. Then I eat the meat of the apple slice. It makes me slow down and relax during my day. It’s a bit meditative. Think I’ll have an apple. Later.

It’s a sweet sunny day out as I write this. More like a late May day than the ides of March day it is. I’ve had my bike out and have been riding for a couple of weeks. Even before the weather was as nice as it is now. I usually try to get on the roads buy mid March. By then I am really sick of riding the stationary bike. Pedaling a bike to nowhere really dull. It tests my resolve to keep active and exercise.

The key to getting on the road in late winter is dressing warmly. That and having no ice on the roads. Driving a bicycle on ice is not a fun task. It’s easier to cycle when it’s cold out in March than it is in November. First off the rides are shorter. In March I’m just starting out again and I’m at my stage one ride as opposed to my stage four ride when I’m at my peak. Less time in the cold obviously makes it easier to ride

Second is the psychological factor. In November I’m always wondering when the snow will be coming and when it will be too cold to ride. I pull the bike out and think, “Is it still warm enough to ride today?”. That takes an unexpected amount of energy. Usually when it drops down into the 30’s F is when it’s too cold but the wind can kill you too.

One thing I did last year to keep going in the cold was shorten my ride a little. I moved back from a stage four to a stage three. That cut out the biggest hill from my ride but also motivated me to keep riding despite the cold. That big hill would melt my resolve to continue cycling outside because the cold and wind really sap my strength. Moving the route back to stage three was better than the boredom stationary bike. More exercise too.

Last year I bought some new thermals for riding in. They helped. My old ones were getting quite tattered and not offering as much warmth as they once did. The new ones were that thinner type they have nowadays compared to my old thicker waffle like ones but they work just as well. I still like the look of those old ones though. They look rugged rather than sleek.

The one thing that really helps in the cold is a windbreaker. I don’t know how many years I rode out in the cold without one but it was many. Every year I would say to myself, “I should really get a windbreaker” but somehow I never did. When the wind would cut through my many layers, and you need a lot of them without a windbreaker, it would be really frigid. I didn’t ride as late in the year as I do now because of it.

It was a few years ago I saw that Amazon.com had a sale on windbreakers. I must admit that one of the reasons I never bought a windbreaker is that I never saw one in a store. I didn’t look especially hard but a thin plastic windbreaker with no lining is not a common item. The ones on Amazon were college windbreakers and were only about ten bucks. I ordered one of the University of Tennessee. I’ve never been there and have no affiliation with the school but their team color is bright orange and so was the windbreaker. Bright colors are good when riding.

I want to be seen when I’m on my bike. I want every car on the road to take notice of me. I don’t want to be run over because some driver didn’t see me as I blended in with the background. No blending thank you. When not wearing the windbreaker I have on a bright green Orlando Thunder football jersey. They’re a team that only existed briefly in the World League of American Football from 1991 to 1992. No one remembers them but they had cool and unique jerseys. After it gets too warm for a jersey I wear a bright green T-shirt.

I never got into wearing cycling clothes. It’s probably because I’m cheap. That and I possess the typical artist’s distain for joining groups. I don’t know why that’s a common trait for artists but it is. I have also found that a lot of cycling outfits look like some sort of SS officer rec uniforms. They’re a little too fascist for my taste. That could just be sour grapes though.

Any way you cut it I’m glad to be off the stationary bike and back out onto the road. Not only is it a better form of exercise but it’s a lot more fun too. Zooming down a hill is always a good time.