HAPPY YEAR OF THE RAT, EVERYONE!

January 2020 has actually been going alright so far after a rocky, emotional start.

I'm making good progress on issue six of Slimepunk, and I'm hoping I can have enough done so I can start posting again next month. The pages that are finished so far are being shared on Patreon with folks who are subscribed at the $5 tier, if you want a headstart on everybody else.

My first painting of the year, depicting a bellydancing friend in an inflatable Godzilla costume, can be seen over here. I also did my first real fanart work last week, my own attempt at drawing Shin Ultraman:

And I've posted another weird, personal, NSFW painting on my weird, personal, NSFW account End of April, if you follow that, with some words about my figure drawing friends who appear in it.

Speaking of figure drawing, the first Defining Bodies meetup of 2020 was this past Sunday, and it was absolutely what I needed. I've updated the figure drawing album on here with some recent work, but it's time to promote my Patreon again by reminding you that $3 subscribers get to see EVERY drawing I do at our monthly meetings, no matter how bad or ugly they are, along with rambling about what I was trying to do.

The Shin Ultraman and NSFW painting went up over there first, too. Basically, most everything I do now goes on Patreon at least a few days before it goes anywhere else. Even just a dollar a month gets you access to a bunch of process posts and things!

It's also where I first revealed Ninel's return in a two page dream comic I made called Another Dream: Mutual Friends. The comic itself is up on Other Sleep's website now, but patrons got to see the full process for it, from the original thumbnails and scribbled dialogue to the finished pages.

So yeah...not a bad way to kick off January, I guess. I have several other, more personal goals I'm working on this year too. Last year I managed to keep track of my spending habits, and this year I'll attempt to do a better job of saving money. I've decided to stop drinking alcohol for at least this year, just to see what it's like. I made the decision to quit last month, so I already have a good head start.

I had some other, bigger goals last year that I never managed to pull off. Rather than try again, or double down and try to make up for it, I'm trying to think a little more modestly this year. My big exercise goals always fall through, so this year I'm scaling it back to just a little light jogging and/or some pushups here and there each day rather than trying to stick to a demanding routine. Washing my face daily too, it's a small thing but it's reasonable, and I can build off of it.

I dunno, I'd read something last year that talked about how, if we try to make a bunch of changes all at once, we're doomed to fail. It's better to start small, build a good foundation that you can later expand on. I've always felt like I'm super scatterbrained, and maybe there's no way to completely rewire myself out of it, but I realized last year that part of the reason I never feel like I know what I'm doing is because I never really spent time building any foundations.

Studying anatomy for months last year was a good, solid thing to do. I didn't feel super productive when it came to making finished work, but it helped me regain at least a little confidence, and I want to keep at it this year, relearning and better understanding what I'm doing with my art, how I'm doing it, and how I can improve, rather than sitting paralyzed and directionless.

Things aren't stopping: I will be printing the first collected Slimepunk volume this year for sure. There will be more dream comics with Ninel. I'm working on a cool project with my friend Mark O. Stack that will have a Kickstarter next year. I have so many paintings I want to do and I'm getting a clearer understanding of how to make them. I will be at KapowCon in May and RobCon in June. Defining Bodies will continue to meet monthly as long as I can host and convince people to come model and draw.

And if I fail to succeed at any of these things, if any of it falls through? It's not that big a deal. I can start again, and I think I finally know how to look at my failures and learn and grow from them, making the next try a little easier.

It's hard to look at everything happening in the world and not feel despair. But I think it's important to know how to work on in despair. Take care of yourself, and if you have the strength, look after those around you as well. See you soon.

We're now a third of the way through the October Game, and a third of the way through my existential android hitman comic. When the whole thing's done, I'll give it its own page, but for now, here's the finished cover and complete first chapter.

Hey kids! I have a special announcement to make!

Remember when I participated in the Bill Counts October Game last year, in which I did a new finished piece of art every day of the month? In case you've forgotten, you can check out the gallery here as a refresher.

I'm planning on participating in it again, because I really got a kick out of doing it last year despite how torturous it got to be from time to time. Also I'm a horrible masochist. I'm something different this time around, though...

This year I'll be drawing a complete 30-page comic called Shouting at the Void.
I've been slowly plotting this thing out since the idea hit me early last month. Shouting at the Void is about an android hitman named Mint who lives in the desert city of Los Azules, where the appearance of a mysterious portal starts to shake things up in his life.

Every day of October I will draw a new page and post it online, over on the Facebook page for the game, on deviantART, on my art Tumblr (where you can see a couple of other early mock-ups), and on this site as well. To hopefully make things easier, each page will be drawn on smaller paper, 6x9 inches, which is the size of my medium sketches that I do at conventions, and the size that I drew the above concept piece. This is also the size that comics genius Moritat draws at these days, and is slightly larger than the size I print my zines at, so maybe when it's all over I can do a printed copy to sell.

In addition, I already have the story written out, and am in the process of breaking it down page by page as a script and still working on design stuff. If I have time, I'll be thumbnailing the pages out too. The idea is that if I get all of this done in advance, all I'll really have to worry about is drawing the pages themselves when next month hits, and I'll theoretically also be able to work on the final chapter of Other Sleep at the same time, yeah?

My only REAL concern is, well, um, see the new banner at the top of the page? That's an x-ray of my mouth. The "suspicious area" in the corner there is apparently a cyst or benign tumor that's been developing INSIDE of my jawbone. They're gonna have to cut that out, obviously, which means surgery. HOPEFULLY the surgery can be done this month. If not, well, we'll see what it's like to draw while doped up on painkillers, right?

So there you have it. A 30 page comic about an existential android hitman, to be drawn and serialized every day for the month of October. It's going to be pretty exciting, I think. I hope you'll all follow along when it happens!

Oh, also? Chapter 8 of Other Sleep will be up soon, some time next week I imagine. So I'll be definitely getting a head start on the final chapter before all of this begins. Still working on that art show for February too!

That's all for now. See you again soon!

[Brett]

Hey everyone! Chapter 7 of Other Sleep is finally completed and online! 20 pages of Ninel swearing and punching things and getting bloody! It was a lot of fun to draw and color, so go check it out!

My goal is still to get the two final chapters online by the end of the year, which means I have 50 pages to draw, color, and letter in the next 5 months. No pressure.

On top of that, I've added some stuff to my Gumroad profile. Burst Reach 1 and 2 are now available together as a bundle, along with collections of chapters 1-3 and 4-6 of Other Sleep. And they're only a dollar a pop! How can you pass up a deal like that? Go get'em!

Finally, in case you've forgotten, Rob-Con is this Saturday! I found a hidden batch of my Distinguished Gentlemen/Exciting Tales! collection, so I folded and stapled those and will be giving them out for free. As always, I'll have my posters and buttons, the first chapter of Other Sleep, I'll be doing sketches, and I'll have copies of Burst Reach 3 as well! It's going to be a blast, and you're an idiot if you pass it up!

Aaaaannnnnndddd that's about it for now.

[Brett]

So it’s been a while since I’ve done something like this, and I’ve been wanting to flex my writing chops a bit in this manner for a while now. Here we have, in no real particular order, a bunch of thoughts and feelings on a bunch of things I’ve been reading, watching, and playing lately.

BioShock Infinite: Damn good game with a crazy ending that really got people talking, which is more than most videogames even strive for these days. After beating it, I became increasingly disappointed in several of the choices made in the story, especially the way it shifts away from Columbia and the crazy racism and religious beliefs and started focusing more on Elizabeth and Booker. I was much more interested in the game’s social commentary than in the quantum mechanics stuff, and I’m hoping some of the upcoming DLC will shift the focus back on those aspects. That ending is a really good visualization of…of…multiple universes and such, though, and I like a game that doesn’t hold your hand and expects you to have at least a passing familiarity with early 20^th century American history in order to kind of grasp what’s going on.

The Hunger Games: On a whim, I tried watching the movie on Netflix. I made it maybe 20-30 minutes in before giving up. It’s atrociously shot, more like a Shinya Tsukamoto film without the drill penises and screaming. Seriously, just the worst camerawork I’ve seen in some time. Unwatchable. I’ve started reading the book, and noticed that just from what little I watched, the movie also expects you to have already read it, which is a terrible idea. The book itself? I’m not far enough into it to have a decent opinion on it, but I am enjoying it somewhat. I’m not seeing how it caught on and became so enormously popular, but it’s not bad at all.

Kingdom Come, by JG Ballard: Ballard’s final novel before he passed away, about a dome-enclosed supermall in England and the crazed culture that builds around it. Like Columbia in BioShock Infinite, it’s an atrociously racist society, with consumerism as the primary religion. It starts off as a murder mystery, the novel’s protagonist looking for the man who shot and killed his father, and spirals into something larger and scarier from there. Not exactly what I was expecting, but this was my first time reading any of Ballard’s work outside of a few of his short sci fi stories.

Copra: Michel Fiffe’s self-published monthly action comic pays tribute to superhero comics of the 70’s and 80’s with explicit references to Dr. Strange and Suicide Squad, while simultaneously putting to shame every single book Marvel and DC are putting out today. The sixth issue dropped this month, concluding the first storyline, and it is the best monthly comic I’m reading right now. Fiffe is a beast, and every issue has at least a good two or three incredibly inventive sequences. Drop whatever crappy cape comic you’re reading right now and go pick this up. The first three issues are collected in the Copra Compendium, with the second collection coming soon.

Hawkeye: Having said that up there, Hawkeye is pretty good too, largely due to the crazy tricks David Aja has been pulling in the artwork. It may not deserve half the Eisner nominations it got, but it is quite enjoyable and a breath of fresh air compared to all the other crap that the Big Two print.

Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon: I have never played a Far Cry game before. I don’t really know what they’re about or anything like that. A friend convinced me to play this, however, by getting me to listen to the insanely good synthesizer soundtrack and watching a couple videos of the game in action. The game is every 80’s action/sci-fi movie cliché rolled into one, taking place in the dystopic future of 2007. The dialogue is hilarious, and the game’s hints during loading times are great, as are the tutorials. I’m usually not incredibly fond of shooters, but I will enjoy anything that’s drenched in neon with a killer synth score.

Adventure Time and the Regular Show: Fucking hilarious, wonderful cartoons. How have I never watched these before? They’re just so great. And weird. Good weird. I shouldn’t have to explain them to you.

Ren & Stimpy: Man, that first season holds up well. Weird, creepy, hilarious, unsettling, and a lot smarter than I remember it being.

Iron Man 3: Much better than I was expecting. Plot is full of holes, the villains’ motivations are…fuzzy, to say the least, and the final showdown at the end almost put me to sleep, but there are some really genius bits in there. I wish the movie had dialed back on the humor a little and focused a bit more on Tony’s PSTD/anxiety attacks. That could’ve developed into something really interesting, but in a movie with a ton of other stuff going on, it just becomes almost pointless as it gets buried in fanservice. I loved the handling of the Mandarin, and that entire Miami sequence in general is great. I heard some people this past weekend at the comic shop complaining, about how Tony is barely in the suit throughout the movie? I was okay with that. I liked that more, that it was trying to show Tony as more than just some handsome smart guy who says funny things. Still, WAYYYYY better than the Dark Knight Rises, that movie was just crap…

Upstream Color: The movie I have been waiting to see since it was first announced. It’s my movie of the year so far, and I kind of doubt anything else will top it. Shane Carruth’s Primer is one of my favorite films and I never imagined he would be able to top it, but he has. The soundtrack is wonderful, feeling like you’re in an aquarium, and is a big part of the movie’s atmosphere. It moves like a dream, showing more than telling, making you pay attention and search for clues, piecing together what’s happening as it happens. I need to watch it again, as I still don’t completely grasp it all, and I’d like to write something more on it, but I just haven’t chewed on it enough yet to come up with anything worth reading, especially regarding the (forced?) romance between the two main characters and how it appears to be a literal representation of how it feels to fall in love. Still, it’s sublime, you can pause it at any moment, frame it, and hang it up in a gallery, it’s that beautiful. The sound design is incredible. In a perfect world, we’d have more beautiful, intriguing movies like this to think and talk about. I can’t wait to see what Carruth does next.

Kitchen Confidential, by Anthony Bourdain: My girlfriend got me into Bourdain’s No Reservations shortly after we met. I love that man, and this is the book that made him famous. I’m only a little more than halfway through it, I confess, but it’s wonderful, and reading it before bed is a bad idea because it always makes me hungry. Bourdain writes in a way that is intoxicating and addicting to read, and it’s his own personal account of his experiences hopping from one restaurant to the next, an ugly but exciting look at what goes on behind the scenes in the industry. I’ve got another book or two of his waiting to be read, and I hope they’re just as good.

Change: This 4-issue miniseries written by Ales Kot, illustrated by Morgan Jeske, colored by Sloane Leong, and lettered by Ed Brisson is incredible. Dense, too. I need to reread it to really wrap my head around it, especially since I kind of read the issues out of order on my first go, but it’s unlike anything else in comic shops right now. It’s strange and dense, vibrant and alive, and I love it. Like with Upstream Color, I want to see more like this.

There are so many more things I’d love to write and talk about, but not enough time and space here, and I’m kicking myself for just realizing that I’d left out the music I’ve been listening to lately as well: Colleen Green’s Sock it to Me, the Shirks, Electric Ills. I’d like to talk more in-depth about Power Glove’s soundtrack to Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon, Slime Girls, the new song Anamanaguchi dropped the other day from their upcoming new album, and more. But alas, I cannot.

So. What have YOU been reading, watching, playing, listening to? What’s been on your mind lately?

[Brett]

HELLO INTERNET. IT’S TIME FOR BRETT TO TALK ABOUT FREAKING OUT OVER ART THINGS AGAIN.
I’ve been insanely busy. This Saturday is ETSUCon, Johnson City’s premiere (I think?) comic/anime convention thing at, if you haven‘t put it together from the name yet, ETSU. I’ve got a table in the artist’s alley and as of yesterday I have everything together for the thing.
I’ll be selling FOUR different posters (two from Other Sleep covers, two variations of show posters), three different buttons, three different postcards of my October Game work, my remaining copies of Burst Reach 2 (the first one is sold out and I have no plans of reprinting it), a second printing of the first chapter of Other Sleep, I will be doing sketches, and I will be just GIVING AWAY my remaining copies of the Distinguished Gentlemen & Other Exciting Tales!
Oh, and after ETSUCon? Free Comic Book Day is NEXT Saturday, May the 4^th (be with you har har har ugh) and I’ll be part of a big shindig going on downtown at Mountain Empire Comics. They’re closing off 6^th Street to traffic and allowing anybody with anything nerdy to sell to come set up a table. I’ll be one of multiple visiting artists, including my main man Jeremy Massie, Matt Smith, and the one and only Dionysis. Here’s a link to the Facebook event for the thing. OH. Prices for everything at these two appearances, here:
Simultaneously, I’ve also been working on Burst Reach 3. You’ve seen the first page of the comic about a dream about an owl already, here are the first pages to two other comics that will be in it. The first is a comic about a girl who grows a second head, entitled HEADACHE:
And the second is a 10-page comic drawn ENTIRELY IN PENCIL called STRANGER RAINS, which is based on my painting series, the Same Mistake, and takes place right after the events depicted in those paintings:
…So you can imagine how busy I’ve been these past few weeks, scrambling to get things together. I was worried the copies of Other Sleep wouldn’t come in on time, the postcards were a last-minute idea suggested by a friend (got those in the mail yesterday), and I’ve been buying and gathering tools left and right, printing and cutting business cards, tweaking everything, you get the picture. Oh, and I’ve also begun painting a nursery for a soon-to-be-born nephew, but I’m doing that more to RELAX than anything else.

With ETSUCon just days away, my initial plan was to just hang loose, kick back, and rest until this weekend. Then my brain started screaming “NO BRETT YOU NEED TO PRACTICE DRAWING EVERYTHING WHAT IF SOMEONE ASKS YOU TO DRAW CAPTAIN AMERICA OR JAKE THE DOG OR A WASHING MACHINE.” My arm hates me right now. A lot.
I had this bad dream last night where I made it to the con with all my stuff, but had to punch in a bunch of info in this old computer like the kind you used to see at the DMV and things malfunctioned and messed up and I couldn’t get my table, or even into the con at all. And then I couldn’t find a drink. I don’t have nightmares, I just have dreams where horrible and ludicrous inconveniences happen. Also? Despite what you may think, Super Mario 64 is NOT a good game to play when stressed out and trying to unwind, it just leads to a lot of shouting and grumpiness.

I’ll be fine. I know I’ll be fine. I’m sure it will all go well. It’s just my brain being stupid but geez, I wish it’d lay off already. So there we go, come to ETSUCon and the FCBD celebration and buy stuff from me, and if I’m looking disheveled and weepy, maybe give me a hug or something and tell me it’ll all be okay? Yeah. And then I’ll draw Deathlok for you.

[Brett]

So last week was Beat About's one year anniversary show. I got asked to do a poster for it by Sir Jesse Mutter of Ungodly Hour Aftermath. I'd been itching to revisit the Metal Zombies of Mars, so I busted this out for them:
In case you haven't seen it or had forgotten, here's the original appearance of the Metal Zombies, for an illustration assignment where we had to do a fake pulp magazine cover:
Ahhhhh, memories.

Next Saturday is the final punk show at the Bristol Grind House, and I did a poster for it as well, using an old photobooth pic I found on the side of the road at work:
I've been listening to the Shirks A LOT this week. I'm so excited. I hate that the Grind House is closing, but the good news is that Sterlin is still bringing punk bands to our sleepy little town of Bristol, with Colleen Green coming to Machiavelli's on the 17th.

I plan on writing a longer, more thoughtful thing about these shows, the Grind House, and Sterlin's efforts. Probably next week or something?

In other local news, Burst Reach, Burst Reach 2, and the Distinguished Gentlemen comics are all available now at the Purple Loon downtown! Once I get the first chapter of Other Sleep reprinted, I believe it will be sold there as well! Exciting, yes? If you haven't gotten a copy of either of the Burst Reaches or the Distinguished Gents, better hurry and head over there or talk to me, because I don't have too many left, and I have no plans on reprinting them again. I MIGHT do a pay-what-you-want pdf kind of thing, if only so that I can read them myself on my new Kindle Fire. We'll see.

Other stuff I've been into:
I've been sketching pictures of some friends of mine as Embrace Infection style mutants. Zombie portraits are kind of popular at conventions and things these days, so this my alternative take on that. I'm hoping it's neat enough that people will want to give me money to turn them into something out of a David Cronenberg movie.

If all goes well, I'm doing THREE conventions this year: ETSUcon (which is a new anime convention), Heroes Con, and of course, Bristol's own Rob-Con. On top of that, Rob is putting together something big for Free Comic Book Day. The street that his shop is on is going to be closed off to traffic, with dealers and artists outside selling our wares. 

Oh, ALSO!
I HAVE BUTTONS!! And they're awesome! All the credit goes to Haley and Steve at Self Destruct Buttons, they did an amazing job. I look forward to selling these babies...
Finally, I just finished up a 4-page silent comic for an upcoming Pizza Flag zine. No clue when it's coming out, but I'll of course let you know when it drops. I also did a...poem/narrative/comic/photodistortion thing for a Pizza Flag/William Birdcock zine that I think is dropping some time in April. Can't wait to post that. The owl comic will also be in Burst Reach 3, which I'll be releasing...um...sometime this summer. I'm still working on it, but trust me, it's gonna be great. I feel like Burst Reach 2 was a little bit of a misfire, not quite as frantic and entertaining as the first one, so I'm trying to make up for that.

That's all for now. Lots of stuff going on, considering we're only now just a quarter of the way through the year. It's just going to get better, hopefully. Stick around!

[Brett]

If January is any indication of how the rest of the year is going to go for me, then 2013 is going to be a crazy busy year.

First off, here are the four watercolor paintings, a series called the Same Mistake, that I did for the art show that is currently on display at the Bristol Grind House:

Secondly, I drew a 10-page, silent sci-fi western snowstorm comic over the course of a few days, completely on a whim after a massive snowstorm hit us. You can "read" the first five pages of that HERE and the rest of it HERE. You can also check it out on deviantART HERE and HERE. Maybe I'll post it all on here. I guess I should do that.
 

Also? I’m kind of an amateur stand-up comedian now. After watching my friends do it for quite a few months now, I decided to give it a try myself. I’ve done it three times now. I'm not so sure how good or funny I am, it's really impossible to tell when you're up on stage, but it's a new and fun and terrifying and beautiful creative outlet for me to play around in.

Oh, and I drew this for my friend Sterlin:
FURTHERMORE, I’m doing freelance design work for the local newspaper now, which brings in a little extra cash and lets me use a different part of my brain. I just wrapped up a logo for a thing recently. Not as steady work as I'd like, but still, hopefully this will open up to more opportunities, right?

And finally, I am in this art show at Floating World Comics in Portland. Zines are available to order and stuff too, so check it out! There are a LOT of talented folks in there, all of us paying tribute to the Incal by Alejandro Jodorowsky and Moebius. Really, I feel like I don’t deserve to be in there next to artists like Dave Taylor and Sloane Leong. It's like I pulled off some sort of heist. Here's the panel I did, which I somehow failed to post when I did it back in November:
Yeah, it’s February and I’m in two art shows at roughly the same time? I don’t know how that happened. I’m savoring it, because it will probably never happen again.

Um, obviously, chapter 6 of Other Sleep isn’t done yet, but it will be soon, I swear. Look, here’s the cover for it!
And I think that covers everything, right? Now I must get back to work! THERE'S MORE TO COME.

[Brett]

I feel like I open every one of these posts by saying the same thing, but: I've been busy lately. Not just with work, but with other things. Like the sudden development of a social life, which is kind of awesome and terrifying at once. 

So chapter 4 of Other Sleep is finally online! I put it up last week! You should go read it! It's um, a bit different from the others, a little weird, but still alright.

And I made this:
Yep, my good buddy, Pizza Flag editor, and stand-up comedian Sterlin has convinced another punk band to come play in Bristol, and once again I put a flyer together for them! This one was all digital, starting with a photograph I took of my teeth. I'm pretty damn happy with it, it's quite a bit different from other stuff I do.

And here's the cover I designed for Eye Alive 2, also from Pizza Flag:
I'm really proud of this dude, completely tokusatsu. I had bought a recent issue of Famous Monsters of Filmland that was ALL ABOUT giant monster movies and TV shows from Japan, so that was my big inspiration.

...If you haven't noticed, I LOVE giant monsters...

Saturday was a big day for Bristol, with a band I have never heard of called Mumford and Sons playing that night and a bunch of other bands and things going on downtown. I got invited to hang out at Mountain Empire Comics and sell my comics. Once more, I was teamed up with my partner in crime, Dionysus Metalcult. In his words, we're like a Spider-man/Dr. Strange team-up from the 80's, and that's quite appropriate. There were a LOT of people out and about all day, but unfortunately not many of them were big on our weird self-published comics. Nevertheless, a good time was had, despite a total lack of funnel cake.

Seriously man, it's not a festival if there isn't funnel cake. What the hell?

That's all for now. I did a weird illustration for Eye Alive 2, but I won't be posting it just yet. Now I must dive back into Other Sleep and get to work on chapter 5, yeah?

I leave you now with a photo of me with a bow in my hair, for no reason:
 

[Brett]

Hey! You! What are you doing Saturday? Seeing the Dark Knight Rises? That's cool I guess, but what you SHOULD do is go to Rob-Con at Viking Hall!

Yes my friends, go to the Tri-Cities biggest comic convention and feast upon the thousands of comics and toys and stuff that will be there! Meet some zombies, check out the Batmobile! And then come by my table and BUY MY STUFF.

I'm debuting Burst Reach 2 there, packed with comix greatness:
As well as the collected Distinguished Gentlemen and Exciting Tales! strips, the first Burst Reach, AND chapter 1 of Other Sleep!

I'll be doing sketches for stupidly cheap, too! Here's the flyer I made for my table:

You see that? For under 10 bucks you can buy ALL FOUR of my books! There's no reason NOT to! Unless you just don't like comics in which case, why are you even here?

Seriously guys, I'm stoked for this. That show I did in Gray, back in April? That was weak. Free Comic Book Day was fun, but it's nothing compared to Rob-Con. This is gonna be BIG.

Also I'll be dressed really nice, which doesn't happen often. You don't wanna miss that!

Besides, you don't HAVE to see the new Batman on opening weekend you know. That's when all the crazy crowds are out, who wants to deal with that crap? COME TO ROB-CON.

[Brett]