Posts made in September, 2010

Portrait of the Artist When He Isn’t There

Posted by on Sep 30, 2010 in Blog | 0 comments

Just in case you were wondering how it all came together.

Enough of this! This weekend I’ll hopefully have new drawings of actual people.

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PotAWHIT Board

Posted by on Sep 29, 2010 in Blog, Uncategorized | 0 comments

Last of the five drawings I did for “Portrait of the Artist When He Isn’t There,” a head-on diagram of my trusty bulletin board. Among these treasures is a flyer I designed for the Philolexian Society to promote the 2005 Joyce Kilmer Memorial Bad Poetry Contest, an oversized postcard depicting Al Capone’s luxuriously appointed prison cell from when I visited Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia, a weird polaroid of me and my friend Andrew Liebowitz, and two postcards from Vox Pop. One bears the clever slogan “Man is born free, and everywhere is in chain-stores, and the other is this gorgeous reproduction:

It’s “International Solidarity of Labour” by Walter Crane, drawn in 1897. It may not live up to our PC standards today (why are the American and Australian white? why is the Angel of Freedom white? etc) but this was 1897! Who else was promoting an image of total racial equality at that time? Practically nobody but the socialists, that’s who. The central motto is, of course, “Workers of the the world, unite!” It was true when Marx said it, it was true when Crane drew it, and it’s still true today.

One last explanation: the long skinny drawing tacked above the bulletin board is the original drawing of Theo crawling through the desert that I incorporated into this “animated” jpeg used to advertise SNitLoE on the internet:

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Translations for Page 64

Posted by on Sep 29, 2010 in Blog | 0 comments

Hoo-boy. Apologies for my handwriting, spelling etc. to any of you who actually read these languages:

1.) The Gayatri Mantra is a popular Hindu mantra, here written out in Devangari Sanskrit. (Very) loosely translated, it means “We meditate on the glory of that Being who has produced this universe; may He enlighten our minds.”

2.) This is from the fourth part of a very common series of Jewish prayers, meaning “You favor a man of (or with) knowledge, and teach mortals understanding.” I love that repetitive biblical syntax; indeed, I adore that redundant grammar.

3.) This verse from the first surah of the Qur’an, “al-Fatiha,” “the Opening” is recited as many as seventeen times a day by observant Muslims. It means “show us the Straight Path.”

For all three of these, I tried to find prayers that were very common, that Theo conceivably could have learned in their original languages during his brief dabbling in each of these religions. I also tried to use prayers united by a similar sentiment – that of imploring God for guidance in a time of confusion. Because Theo is lost, but he’s also… lost. DO YOU GET IT!?!?!

Except I broke the pattern for the final prayer in Greek. Though I found many nice Greek Orthodox prayers, they were more mercy/forgiveness-based than knowledge/guidance-based. Moreover, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to quote Mark 1:3, wherein Mark describes the o.g. freaky desert zealot, John the Baptist, with these words, cribbed from Isaiah: “The voice of one crying in the wilderness “prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.”

EXTRA CREDIT: The observant reader (and aren’t you all?) might wonder, why is Theo facing LEFT for his tfila and RIGHT for his salah when both Jerusalem AND Mecca are EAST of New Mexico? Good question; there are two possible explanations. One is that, because this is a splash page in the open desert with no panel borders or natural landmarks to serve as reference points, the “camera” p.o.v. has actually rotated 180 degrees around Theo between prayers two and three, but you the reader do not realize it – this is a gross violation of traditional comics practice, but, I think, a valid aesthetic choice. The second explanation is that Theo is completely “dis-oriented” (haha!) couldn’t find “east” if his life depended on it.

WHICH IT POSSIBLY DOES!!!!(?)!!

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PotAWHIT Desk

Posted by on Sep 28, 2010 in Blog, Uncategorized | 0 comments

When I got to Portland, I knew I’d need a drafting table for comics. I bought one from somebody’s grandparents and brought it home on the bus. The driver was not happy.

Hanging to the left of the bulletin board is a print that I bought of one of my favorite webcomic strips ever, a guest strip for Pictures for Sad Children by KC Green.

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PotAWHIT Rack

Posted by on Sep 27, 2010 in Blog, Uncategorized | 0 comments

Here’s part three of “Portrait of the Artist When He Isn’t There,” my coat-rack. Found it on the side of the road near the Hollywood Max stop. Prominently featured are:
– the cassock and supplice I wore during the Byrd festival
– my limited edition t-shirt: “Local Roots Farm Team 2009: This Bunch is Rad-ish”
– my hat from when I worked at Brooklyn’s greatest coffeeshop, the late Vox Pop.
– my piece-of-s*** shoes

I am still a little distraught by the foreshortening of the ellipses in this drawing. As you can deduce, my eye-level was about 75-80% up the full length of the rack (I was sitting on my bed). Maybe the rack itself is bent a little bit.

By the way, tonight was a rad party for the release of Stumptown Undeground’s “Birthday” issue. My “screaming baby” piece made the inside front cover, probably because they didn’t want a blood-spattered infant penis on the front cover.

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