Radiant Comics

I’ve been completely out of the movie loop lately. I haven’t gone to the movies in ages nor have I been able to sit down and watch a movie at home. It’s weird and I don’t know why but I think it’s because TV shows have gotten so much better and just out compete movies for my attention.

TV shows now all have plots and characters that develop over hours and hours of story time yet with each individual show telling its own small story. TV shows have become novels with each episode being a chapter in the book. No matter how long the movie it’s always a short story in comparison.

The one thing movies have going for then is spectacle. The big screen and the loud sound. People love spectacle which is why so much movie time and money go into special effects. One of the first things out of my friends’ mouths when describing a film is usually, “The effects were great”. Or the opposite.

I’ve never cared about special effects. I don’t know why but they never make or break a movie for me. Maybe I can’t get into them and forget they’re effects like my friends do. They are always just well crafted or poorly crafted effects to me. I prefer well crafted but they don’t make me believe fantastical things better than poorly crafted ones. It’s the writing and acting that make me believe. Not the ray guns.

So while I couldn’t bring myself to sit down and watch any movies lately I did just sit and watch all of season three of the TV show “Dexter”. It’s a show I never thought I’d get into because I found the concept so dumb. It’s about a serial killer who’s victims are other serial killers. Sounded dumb and unbelievable to me but the writers and actors pulled it off.

Dexter works for the police as a lab tech/blood spatter expert so he has access to police expertise and can learn of killers who have escaped the reach of the law. Plus a policeman adopted him as a child, recognized the signs of a young sociopath killer and gave him a code to live by. Dexter only kills those who deserve it, covers his tracks, and tries to act normal even if he is not. All that makes the show believable to me and I never expected it to be.

Another show I just sat through was season four of “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia”. This was my second time around with these thirteen episodes and they are funnier than any movie I’ve seen in years. The show stars four people you’ve never heard of and Danny DeVito. They own and run a bar in Philly but that’s not what the show is about. The show is about whatever funny, absurd and tasteless hijinks the cast gets into any given week. The characters have bad judgement, limited social skills, aren’t as bright as they think they are, and don’t let common sense get in the way of hatching a plan.

If I were to go into the plots and shenanigans that go on in this show I would never be able to do them justice. Suffice it to say that they’re funny. If you don’t like absurd and tasteless humor brought to you by characters with little redeeming social value than stay away from this one. But if you like funny then this show is funny. It’s the show that makes me laugh out loud to like I was a little kid.

Those are just the two of the shows I’ve been watching lately instead of bothering with any movies. I also managed to track down some copies of an old yet to be released on DVD TV show that was a favorite of mine. “Two Guys and a Girl”. I got some grainy low res copies that were better than nothing and watched an episode or two at a time all summer long. The show held up pretty well. Better than any silly “Tranformers” movie that I will never watch. And now that football season has started who needs movies? Not me.

I’m kinda burnt out this weekend. All week I’ve been working on a photograph of a friends’ wedding plus doing a bit of paying work. I got it all done but it took a while. The photo was especially tough for some reason. Between the two things I ended up working ten to twelve hour days all week. It’s not like I haven’t done that before but somehow it’s tougher with fewer projects to work on.

I’ve worked that many hours countless times before but usually I’m switching between three or maybe more projects. I can burn out on one and move to the next. That is unless it’s paying work that has to be done. Somehow it’s less taxing working a few projects rather than on one or two things that have to be done no matter what. My brain gets in more of a rut. I don’t like brain ruts.

I think I’ve got that big photo done. I’ll have to look at it again next week because I’m too burnt out on it right now to see it clearly. That happens when I work on something intensely for a long time. I cease to see it as it is. Especially at the end of working on something. I’ll put a piece away for a week and then look at it again to see if it needs any finishing touches. Sometimes it does and sometimes not.

What to work on next is always the question I have. Shopping for a new car sure has cut into my personal art time and that task has yet to be finished but I still want to get things done. I’ve been working on my web comic strip and will continue to the best that I can but I also have to work on getting the site it’s going to appear on up. That’s no where near as interesting as working on the strip itself. But it has to be done.

I have more photos I want to work on. I recently made a masked street photo and want to do some more of them plus I have another large photo collage, like the one I just made of my friends’ wedding, to finish up but I’m a little burnt out on photography right now.

I recently started a cover recreation but didn’t finish it. For some reason I wanted to recreate an old golden age cover by Alex Schomburg. I was doing a pretty good job of it. I remade all of the logos and trade dress on the computer and traced/re-penciled the cover art. I printed the rebuilt cover out in blue line to ink it but got bored with the whole shebang about halfway through inking it. It’s still sitting there undone. Maybe I’ll finish it and maybe I won’t. I don’t know yet.

I also have handful of “Covers to comics that have never existed” that I have yet to finish. Those are the pieces I do that look like old comic book covers. They are all originals and not recreations of anything but I haven’t mustered up the interest to actually finish one of them all summer. Weird.

Another thing I want to start is a t-shirt store. One of those online ones where I would post designs and the web site would make the shirts if anyone actually orders one. I started one of these stores years ago but barely did anything with it. The money to be made on such a site is miniscule and wasn’t worth the time spent but for some reason I want to give it a go again. I’ll have to crunch the numbers and prove to myself all over again that it’s a waste of time. We’ll see. It could be fun to make t-shirt designs.

I have to do some drawings for a group of paintings I’ve been meaning to start. I stretched many canvases early in the year and never quite started what I wanted to paint on them. I painted and finished other things but somehow never these particular ones. I’ll have to see if I can get them going.

I could also start some more of my new dark charcoal drawings. They only take a few hours to do and maybe would fit better into my shopping for a car time frame but I still don’t have a real handle on them yet. They are a work in progress as far as a genre of work for me.

So that’s it. Once again I am wrestling with the eternal question of what to do next. Isn’t everyone?

Some nights I wish I had something to say but I just don’t. I’ve got nothing but nothing. No insight and not even it’s lesser cousin observation. That’s been one of my criticisms of some comics about “real life” that I’ve read lately, “Lots of observation but little insight”.

There is nothing wrong with observation. Seeing the things that people do in a clear way can be quite interesting. Observation isn’t always easy either. A person’s own prejudices and perspective can distort his vision of things and make his observations reflect inward instead of outward. It’s not an easy thing to see clearly. My criticism may slight observation more than I mean to.

Still the “clear sight” part of things is the lead up for me. It’s what gets me pondering on why things are the way they are and why people act or behave as they do. I find it fun to try and figure such things out. Sometimes things can be figured out and sometimes not. Most time not I would say. But it’s still fun to try.

That is why I got nothing. When I write I like it to be about something. I like it to be about ideas. I generally don’t like to write much about my personal life because I find it boring. It’s pretty much the same as everybody else’s personal life. I have no greet insights into love, life, family, or money. Occasionally I’ll have some small insight into one of the above topics and might write something about it but in general if I’m broke, flush with cash, heart broken, happy, directionless, embarrassed, pleased, or melancholy I’m feeling or thinking the exact same things that any other human being would in those states.

The idealess state I’m in now is certainly not unique but is the realm of fewer people. You have to be a person who comes up with ideas in the first place in order to experience an idealess state. Or maybe this is the natural state for people who don’t come up with ideas? I’m not sure.

I’ve always hated the “Writer with writer’s block” clichéd stories that get written when a writer allegedly has writer’s block. They are always the same, “Oh no, I have writer’s block and can’t write anything how terrible; oh look I’ve written a whole story about having writer’s block; aren’t I clever”. Beside I don’t have writer’s block I just have no interesting insights to write about.

I don’t think I’ve ever had writer’s block. Maybe because I’ve never been a professional writer of any sort. There are sometimes I can write and sometimes that I can’t but it doesn’t matter if I have nothing at any given time. If I can’t write than I don’t. If I give it a day or two I’ll be able to come up with something.

I’m an artist more than a writer anyway. That’s what I spend most of my time doing. And there is no such thing as artist’s block. An artist can always make a bad piece of art. It’s easy. That’s the difference. When writers say they have writer’s block no words come at all. The blank piece of paper never gets filled. The tap is turned off. As an artist the tap is never turned off. You might make bad drawing after bad drawing but that’s something.

In making a drawing, which is how a lot of art gets started, you can just make a line on a piece of paper. That line changes the context of the whole piece of paper. The next line can be in response to the first which changes the context again. It’s easy to start a drawing. Not so easy to make it interesting and finish it but easy to start. Hence no artist’s block

Writing is different. Words really exist in a space in our heads. Writing words on a piece of paper doesn’t always help. They can look out of context and meaningless on the page if they’re not right in that space in our head. A paragraph isn’t like a drawing. Each new word might not put the ones before it into some new context but obscure them and make them meaningless. Or the words might not be there at all. Hence the writer’s block.

Both are marks on paper and a person would look almost the same doing each activity but there are totally different things going on inside the head of the person who’s doing them. Two different forms of abstract thought. I wonder where each comes from? I’m not sure and wish I had some insight into it. But that’s life. Can’t always get what you want.

Anyway I got nothing tonight. No insight into the world. It’s all a blank. Yawn.

So what is happening you ask? Well I’m just kicking through some of my unread comics today. That and running my fantasy football league’s slow motion e-mail draft. Neither is particularly exciting to write about but that is par for this end of August course. It’s hot and not much is going on.

I have been looking into buying a new car this week. That’s a challenge in and off itself. I’ve never bought a new car before so the process is unknown to me. I’m alternately nervous and looking forward to the challenge. Nervous will not win I can assure you. I’ll have to go out to a dealership and test drive some stuff.

The car I’m driving right now is a 1988 Ford Escort. I got it from my grandmother five or six years ago and though it still has only 40,000 miles on it I just don’t trust it anymore. It hasn’t broken down in a year but every time it does that’s $500 out the window. And it usually stops running about once a year. Things always need to be fixed during NY state inspection time too. I don’t drive it very far for fear it will break down. Nervousness wins out in this case and I hate that. What good is a car that you can’t drive?

The twenty one year old Escort also has the bad habit of not starting on some days. Ninety nine days out of a hundred it starts up fine. The hundredth day it refuses to. It will start up the following day though. But you never know when it won’t run. Since I only start my car up about every second day maybe it’s even forty nine days out of fifty. Either way doesn’t fill me with confidence.

The Escort was the first car I ever owned. How I got to be in my late thirties, living in the suburbs, and not owning a car is a wonder in itself. The Escort has served me well but it’s time I replace it. After all I don’t trust it to bring me places anymore. And I feel like going places.

Where you ask? I have no idea. Maybe just joyriding. Everybody goes joyriding when they first get a car. I never really did. Understandable since I got my first car in my late thirties and it wasn’t a “long distance” one. I can’t do any joyriding now since every time I turn the key I wonder if the car will start. And in the winter, let me tell you, that’s when I really don’t trust the old car. Not that it’s run any worse in the winter but the thought of breaking down on a twenty degree night will keep me from driving anywhere. Those are the thoughts that will keep a person locked up.

I’d especially like to get out on days like these. I got nothing going on (besides the draft and that is an unusual occurrence) no paying work to do, no plans, and am too burnt out to make any of my own art. That’s a fine time to get the hell out of here and go for a joyride. But not quite yet.

The thing about new cars is that they are freakin’ expensive. I can only afford the very low end of new cars and that is $16,000. And of course that has to be financed because who has that kind of cash lying around. That’s another thing I’m learning about, financing. Interest on a car loan specifically.

It turns out that when they lend you money at 7% that’s not really 7%. It’s 7% a year on what you owe them. If I borrow $100 and pay you back 7% then I give you $107. Right? Not when borrowing from a bank over time. That 7% ends up being about 25% of the original amount over it’s lifetime. Yikes! No wonder banks have been so eager to loan before the crash. They can make a fortune in interest.

The advantage I have going in to the dealership is not much money and not much credit. I’m a hard person to talk into doing something he doesn’t want to do and talking me into spending money I don’t have is nearly impossible. Plus with nearly no credit history they are not going to want to talk me into spending more than I want to. Not in this environment.

So that’s the dullness of my life today. My head is filled with thoughts of car buying instead of thoughts of making art or some such. No wonder I want to get out and go for a ride.

I’ve pretty much had it with video games. There are very few that can hold my attention these days. Most are awful excuses for games that they want sixty dollars for. Even the ones that get good reviews I find are bad. Case in point: Gears of War.

I rarely spend more than twenty dollars for a game these days and thirty dollars is the exceptional high end for me. I no longer have any need for getting the newest games as soon as they come out. Been burned too many times for that. But I really wanted a new game because I played the excellent Halo 3 all they way through on it’s hardest setting and was hooked on video games again.

I checked all the review sites for the highest rated games that were sort off like Halo. I know no two games are the same but I just wanted something similar. I settled on Gears of War because is got such great reviews and looked like fun. I even payed thirty five dollars for a used copy of it. That’s how much I wanted a good new game.

It started out okay in the very beginning. The weapons were fun and the controls interesting. I don’t give a crap about the story in any video game so I ignored that here too. The first learning missions were okay. I had a good felling. Then it all came crashing down.

Gears of War is a squad based game. That means that along with you are three other guys in your squad that the computer controls. Non Player Characters (NPCs) is the old role playing lingo for them. A problem throughout video game history has been the fact that computer controlled characters are dumb and often more a hinderance than a help. But this is a new modern game with load of programers and processing power to make thing right. Right?

Wrong. The NPCs were dumb as dirt. At least once we got to this one spot. It was in a town. In the center of the town was a fountain or some such. It was circular and offered very little cover. Enemies could attack it from every which way. So where do my NPCs go? Right t0 the center of the fountain. Dumb asses.

After a frustrating few times of trying to make a stand there I decided to take a different tact. The enemies you have to fight come out of holes that magically appear in the ground. If you don’t throw a grenade down the hole more and more enemies keep coming out of it. I decided to try and take out the holes while my squad made their suicidal stand.

After trying this about a million times and blowing up hole after hole as my character died time after time I couldn’t take it anymore. I realized with all this technology, programing, and fancy graphics the game came down to throwing a grenade into a hole over and over again. Not much of a game.

And the fact that enemies came out of holes in the ground was annoying on its own. That is such a shortcut video game cliché. The enemy generator was a concept that worked fine in Gauntlet back in 1985 but come on. Come up with something new. If the terrain was thought out well (as in Halo 3) there is no need for randomly place enemy generators.

So then and there I gave up on Gears of War. I had no interest in repetitively throwing grenades into holes. I haven’t even tried to find a good console game since. And this happened last fall.

I did just pick up the John Madden Football 09 Anniversary Edition. I’m a New York Giants fan and wanted this just because it was the one that was released the year after the Giants won the Super Bowl. I wanted their Super Bowl roster. I waited until now to get it because it is twenty five dollars instead of sixty. No way is a Madden game worth sixty bucks.

I’m glad I did wait too because I find the game nearly unplayable. It’s pretty awful. To start with the play diagrams are practically unreadable. I have never seen football diagrams in a video game take up so little screen real estate. Maybe it’s readable in high def but on my regular 27 inch TV each play diagram is about four inches square. And the game plays as horribly as all Madden games have for a decade now. Makes me wonder why I wanted it.

The only good game I’ve played in while has been Advance Wars (whatever number) for the Nintendo DS. I played that one to death this past winter. All the Advance Wars games have been good so I knew I couldn’t go wrong with that one.

It’s a good thing that my iPod touch has become such a good gaming platform. It’s the only thing I’ve been playing lately. There are a lot of cheap games for it and some good ones. Plenty of crappy ones too but who cares if they are just a couple of bucks a piece. And there are actually games to be had. Not just fancy graphics with very little thought put into gameplay.

And yet I still miss the good console games. I’m sure there are some of them out there. I like the Call of Duty and Halo games but they are few in number and hard to find. Maybe I’ll give Fallout 3 a try if it ever comes down to a reasonable price. Until then I’ll continue with the iPod games.