HAPPY NEW YEAR!! I kind of had a slight nervous breakdown earlier today, maybe. Over my art. Heh.

I've been working on some paintings for this art show that starts next week at the Bristol Grind House. Here's the flyer I put together for it:
Watercolors and Microns on canvas is what I'm doing, because I'm a masochist. I've been working on them for two weeks now maybe. Well, two of them anyways, the other two I started on just last week. It's a narrative, but uh, I didn't really know what the narrative was until the other day? Yep. It was supposed to be just three canvases, then it ballooned into four. When I do things, I have to go about doing them in the most punishing way possible.

Anyways...I had them all in what seemed to be a finished state this morning, and I sat them all side by side, and...and I hated them. And I started to think, "fuck, this was a terrible idea, why did I do this, I should've done something else, fuck fuck fuck." And I contemplated painting over at least two of them, abandoning the narrative and just doing something more thematically tied together? Or throwing all but one out and maybe trying to do something different over the next few days.

I spent three and a half years in the graphic design program at ETSU, and in that time I sat through way too many critiques that would go on for literally two or three days sometimes. I failed my portfolio review three times and shouldn't have gotten another chance. Why they gave me four tries, who knows, but I passed that fourth. What I'm getting at here is that school was really rough on me, my pieces were never really terribly notable during critiques, and a small group of professors I was unfamiliar with mostly thought my work was lousy and I just really had to fight in order to graduate.

So all of these memories were going through my head as I was staring at these paintings, thinking about how they'll be up for a good two or three weeks, seen by dozens of people, people I've never met, never will meet. And they'll be judging them, judging ME based on them, even if they never do meet me or see any of my other work ever again. These four paintings are all I have to make a good impression, to convince these people I've never met that I don't suck. And I'm absolutely blowing it, only ONE of the paintings was really strong, the rest were flat and vague and ugly.

I gave myself a bad head rush and a case of the hiccups as I paced around, panicking, trying to think of what to do. I didn't want to throw them all out and try to do something new when everything has to be done by Sunday for Sterlin to hang. And I didn't REALLY want to paint over the canvases, but I was getting desperate and thinking that was the only way out, I was tired of looking at these crappy paintings.

I told a friend on Facebook that I wish I could just erase three and a half years of art school critiques, to which she responded "Keep this in mind: You're an artist, not an art student...and a really good artist at that."

And that...kind of snapped me out of it. I kept thinking about all the lousy critiques I sat through, being told by professors that my portfolio wasn't good enough for the BFA program, all that negative stuff. And her comment reminded me that people DO enjoy my art, and then I remembered this guy who wrote me on deviantART last week, telling me my gallery was his favorite that he'd seen in years.

So I stopped, took some deep breaths, collected myself, once again looked at the paintings, this time more objectively, and set about working on them once again, all afternoon, until once more they looked like they were pretty much finished.

And I was satisfied this time. I was able to figure out how to strengthen each painting and make them stand on their own while still telling a complete story. All it took was a kind word from a friend to help me step back and clear the black clouds out of my brain.

I guess the moral here is, if you like someone's art? TELL THEM. Let them know you appreciate what they're making. Because artists, we're neurotic as fuck. I often find myself in this hole, hating my work, hating myself for hating my work and not being any good, and it's discouraging. But a comment or two is all it takes to get me back on my feet. 

Anyways. Show goes up on Sunday. I'm gonna take pictures of the individual paintings tomorrow once I've deemed them complete, and post them some time next week. Stay tuned.

(originally posted on my Tumblr)

I’ve stumbled upon something that absolutely breaks my heart in a way that’s hard to put into words.

I love arcades. Love them. I’ve spent so much time in them. Whenever I’d go on vacation as a kid, I was always more interested in the arcades than in, say, Dollywood or waterparks or whatever. It was always about the arcades for me. When I was in middle school, my best friend and I would go to this local pool run by the YMCA, and during the weird breaks where they’d make everyone get out for 10-15 minutes or whatever, we’d hit the NeoGeo cabinet and play the hell out of Metal Slug. And as lousy as our local mall here in Bristol has been, that was always one advantage that it had, the Tilt arcade, where I could go play House of the Dead, Time Crisis, and Metal Slug to my heart’s content.

It’s been…quite a few years since I’d been in Tilt, and once that little pool had gotten rid of the NeoGeo cabinet, replacing it with the ultra-crappy Tekken Tag Tournament, my friend and I just stopped going altogether. But if a bar or restaurant has Galaga or Ms. Pac Man or something like that, then you bet I’ll give it a go if I’ve got some quarters on me.

Anyways, after years of not bothering going into the arcades in Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg, and never having time for Tilt any time I found myself in the mall, I decided I really wanted to blow a load of quarters on some House of the Dead, or some other old game I would play as a kid. That’s how I came to notice this disturbing trend.

Last week, I went into Tilt for the first time in years, mostly on a whim and out of a strong desire to play some Metal Slug. Things had changed, though, and not in a pleasant way. For one, all the games were in their own sections it seemed. All the crane games stuffed with Annoying Oranges and Angry Birds were grouped together in the front, all the racing games down one wall, with the shooters and the fighters down the other wall. This organization bugged me to no end, shouldn’t arcades be mazes that are nigh impossible to navigate? Isn’t half the fun of an old arcade finding some game you’ve never heard of, tucked away in a corner between a basketball hoop and DDR? Gone was House of the Dead, gone was my beloved NeoGeo cabinet with Metal Slug and Samurai Showdown. What good is an arcade without Daytona USA? Time Crisis 2 was still there, but it just didn’t feel right. They had House of the Dead 4, but the guns are the uzi-looking things, fully automatic, and difficult to aim with. The thrill of scoring precise headshots was replaced with the dull task of just mowing down crowds of zombies, spraying bullets blindly. It just wasn’t fun.

The oldest game there was, I think, Marvel Vs Capcom. That doesn’t feel right either. No pinball, no Pac Man, only one or two Skeeballs? What the heck? All of the emphasis was now on those crane games, and those other weird games where you could win an iPod or PS3 or something, and those are no fun to me.

Over the weekend, I went on a trip to Pigeon Forge with my girlfriend. We wandered down to Gatlinburg in the morning to kill time and wait for the weather to clear up. There, we went into three or four different arcades, and it was all the same crap I saw in Tilt. That horrible House of the Dead 4 cropped up a lot, and I noticed a couple other new shooters: Project GHOST and Terminator Salvation, both of which are also played with big automatic rifles against hordes of enemies. Again, precision no longer seems to matter much anymore, and those guns are just too awkward to handle, especially for a lefty like me.

The arcades in Dollywood weren’t much better.

But, I kept telling myself, there is hope. The Arcade in Asheville is a two story arcade with a bar. On the bottom floor is where you find all the old 80’s classics like Donkey Kong, Burger Time, and motherfucking Tron. Joust and Centipede too! Upstairs is even sweeter, with a line of pinball games and skeeball, the Simpsons game (which my friends and I beat one night, spending WAY too many quarters), the Star Wars Arcade game, and my personal all-time favorite: Virtual On. I haven’t been there since January, though, and I just recently heard that they removed the pinball games and are in the process of converting the upstairs area into a club. Which probably means the removal of more games, including Virtual On. And that breaks my heart in so many ways.

I mean, I get it. People have been saying that arcades are dead now for years, so I was honestly shocked that House of the Dead 4 and a Terminator Salvation game even existed. Times are changing. Consoles, Steam, and smartphone games have flooded and conquered the market. The only way for an arcade to survive anymore is to offer ludicrous prizes for people to throw their money at. I think I saw a crane game in Dollywood where you could win a 32” TV. If you want to play shooting games, there’s Call of Duty, who gives a damn about Time Crisis? DDR is now a thing of the past too, a fad no one wants to bother with anymore.

I guess I’m just an old man now. I hate being nostalgic, but man, I miss being able to jump from Virtual On to House of the Dead 2 to Daytona USA to Ms. Pac Man in the space of 20 minutes before seeing a movie at the local theater. There’s no real way to replicate that kind of experience anymore, switching games on the PS3 just isn’t the same as navigating a dimly lit cavern full of cacophonous noises and flashing lights, digging in your pockets for more quarters.

Ah well, at least the theater has Crazy Taxi, at least. And a machine with both Ms. Pac Man AND Galaga. Now if only they would show some movies that would give me a good reason to go to the movies...

[Brett]

(pasted from my Tumblr)

(Stolen from Corey Lewis, comix warrior)

1. What did you do in 2011 that you’d never done before?
Passed works in progress, graduated college, self-published a book and handed it out to people, got comics published regularly in ETSU’s newspaper, and other stuff.

2. Did you keep your new years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I usually never make resolutions but I have one for this year: Be awesome, make more comics.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
I don’t think so.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
Somewhat close, my old guitar teacher did.

5. What countries did you visit?
None…

6. What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011?
Traveling. More friends. More notice of my work.

7. What date from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
The reception for Embrace Infection, and graduation, for obvious reasons.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Same as above.

9. What was your biggest failure?
I regard the majority of the first half of the year as a bit of a failure, despite some things.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
I don’t think so, no.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
All six volumes of AKIRA. Or the PS3 and new TV…not sure.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
David, for having the balls to go to Korea for several months.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
Old roommate, a close friend, and some other people.

14. Where did most of your money go?
Food, comics.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Self-publishing Burst Reach 1 and getting to do comics for the East Tennessean! And Embrace Infection!

16. What song will always remind you of 2011?
TSOL - Fuck You Tough Guy was my personal anthem.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder? Happier. School is over, I burned some bridges, I’m ready to continue moving forward.
ii. thinner or fatter? Neither. My weight has hardly changed in the past few years.
iii. richer or poorer? Richer, yes.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Traveling, comics.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Uh, the stuff I did during the first half of the year when I was bitter and angry and all those other things.

20. How will you be spending Christmas?
Spent it playing Skyward Sword and eating.

21. Did you fall in love in 2011?
Yeah, but it didn’t go over all that well.

22. How many one-night stands?
Zero.

23. What was your favorite TV program?
Top Gear, hands down. Also the IT Crowd, even though it’s not newer.

24. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
I don’t think so? I mean, I guess last year I already hated my old roommate, but that hatred grew exponentially this year.

25. What was the best book you read?
Either the Girl With the Dragon Tattoo or John Dies at the End.

26. What was your greatest musical discovery?
I have no idea. Non-sucky witch house, and a few random songs that I just got stuck on.

27. What did you want and get?
New TV, PS3, great comics, a senior show, published comics.

28. What did you want and not get?
To travel, I guess? To do more comics.

29. What was your favorite film of this year?
Hanna, followed closely by Troll Hunter and X-Men: First Class.

30. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
Traveled to the Arcade in Asheville with Leif and Sterlin. I turned 23.

31. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Corey wrote, “having a solid creative team to enforce my creative goals…” and I agree with that. Getting out of that apartment sooner. A solid relationship, maybe, if we want to get emo here.

32. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2011?
Same as always: Jeans and a shirt.

33. What kept you sane?
Netflix, the Pixies, my work (even when it felt like it was driving me mad), determination to overcome bullshit, Crank 2: High Voltage, seeing the awesome work that guys like Brandon Graham were putting out.

34. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Uh, I dunno. Scarlet Johannson?

35. What political issue stirred you the most?
The Occupy movement, this SOPA bullshit, and NDAA.

36. Who did you miss?
Ricky. So long as he’s in Washington I will always miss that bastard.

37. Who was the best new person you met?
…I have no idea. I met David Liebe Hart, that was pretty fuckin’ cool.

38. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2011.
Don’t stop moving, don’t give up if you don’t quite win, don’t let the bullshit slow you down, and www.presentcat.com is a great cure for depression.

39. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
“Hey! Fuck you, tough guy!”

Rejoice, because I have finished and printed all but one piece for Embrace Infection! Well, two. There's one I won't print at all, and one that I, um, forgot to print. But I'll get that next week. Anyways, all of them are now uploaded to the gallery here on the site.

Most of the pieces are also cut down as well, which leaves the mounting and, well, the show itself in November. I'm ahead of the game.

And now I'm at a loss at what to do next. I had written a script for the first chapter of a graphic novel, but a few days later deleted it because I thought it was crap. I've done a decent number of sketches, but not much else. And I did this:

This is from a pose I really wanted to use for Embrace Infection, but I couldn't make it work. And so I went back to playing in Illustrator again! Yay!

But no, it's bugging me. My head feels empty, and like it's not on straight. Technology has been rebelling against me all week, I've been draggy, I keep making stupid little mistakes and forgetting little things, it's like I'm not really myself. Maybe it's something to do with the death of my old guitar teacher last week, maybe dad's words hurt more than I thought, maybe I have the bird flu and I'm dying, I don't know, but I'm stuck in a rut and must find my way out.

If you'll excuse me, I'm now going to go and uh, draw something.

[Brett]

...Well that was somewhat awkward. Just a little bit.

Given the nature of my art, I always do wonder whether or not I'm going to offend someone. I want to make people a bit uncomfortable and disturbed, yes, but still keep them entertained, you know? Of course, also given the nature of my work, I don't show a whole lot of it to my parents, because they're not really anywhere NEAR my target audience, if I uh, have a target audience to begin with?

So it was unexpected when dad, seeing a couple of finished prints, asked me why I'm doing "that stuff." And was quite upset about my having left the two prints in the back room at work, where I wasn't expecting anyone to see them anyways. But he was so uh, repulsed, I guess, that he stated he never wants to see "anything like that" over at work or in the house...

...Now I know who I'm NOT inviting to the closing reception for the exhibition in November, heh.

Of the two pieces in question, this is one:
The other one isn't uploaded yet because while I think it's finished, after I had printed it last week, my adviser looked it over and made an idle suggestion about doing just a little more work to it. I think the reason dad hated it is because it has full frontal male nudity. Dudity. Heh.

I really wasn't expecting him to react as if Satan himself rose from the depths of Hell and farted in his face, but hey, whatever. It hurt, a little, but hey, at least now I know my work is capable of provoking strong reactions! That's always a good thing, so much better than indifference. I can sensationalize this, though. If I were doing adverts for the show, I'd put up some silly slogan like, "THE SHOW DAD DOESN'T WANT YOU TO SEE" or something.

(I actually SHOWED both prints to mom, who had already seen some of the original drawings and test prints, and her reaction was a confused "oh that's really good!" Actually, that's her reaction to a LOT of things I do. She can still come to the reception, hehe)

Moving along, here's last Thursday's Exciting Tales! strip. Yeah, two Exciting Tales! were printed last week.
Once more I must offer my gratitude to Sterlin for the poem. I still need a copy of Museum For Dead Clowns, man. And you still need a copy of Burst Reach!

And here's today's strip. Because there were two Exciting Tales! last week, this week will be two Distinguished Gentlemen:
There's one final strip to this storyline, to be printed Thursday. After that, the Gentlemen travel to ANTARCTICA. Because, um, penguins. Or something. I don't know, I've only drawn the first one.

I've been kind of lazy this past week, not a lot of thinking or drawing or writing done. I'll try to make up for it this week. Maybe.

[Brett]