Comix is a momentum game. Break your momentum and it's very hard to get back on track, and I knew my brisk excursion to Philly would do just that. The talk went well, and it was great meeting all the panelists in person, as well as meeting other people in the city, so I have no regrets about opting to do the event in person instead of remotely.
It may have been the particular circles I moved in, but I got the sense that every other person in Philly was a queer radical non-monagmous artist, writer, or musician. In short, my kinda people.
Returning to Houston has been a rollercoaster of troubleshooting, only having gotten around to resolving most of it today. Should manage to be back on the TSG grind by early next week.
Tonight in Philly – Imag(in)ing Revolutions: Traditions of Unrest for an Anticolonial Art Praxis
Can't be on the East Coast without indulging in a morning bagel, keto be damned (which I'm very easygoing about anyway).
An idea for a novel made its way into my head that I can't seem to shake away. Granted it is a very experimental idea that no publisher in their right mind would want to take on, but I cannot shake it away nonetheless. Design-heavy book in the vein of heady non-fiction books, filled with an assortment of illustrations, infographics, documents, photographs, and ephemera. A visual feast, not just straight prose. And instead of all that visual material acting as mere illustrations for the prose, the narrative itself would be weaved through the sequential reading of all said material. Nonfictiony title though, in the vein of those self-help books. This is bad, need to not think about this anymore. Filing for later (much later), after wrapping up THE SOLAR GRID and also TIMES NEW HUMAN which I may potentially have good news about later this year.
My instagram feed seems to have become populated by more targeted ads than content from the actual people I follow, a less than surprising development, I s'pose. Many of the ads seem to be hawking solutions for dealing with extended fatigue, which I have indeed been suffering from lately. Is this something that just happens in your 40's?
I've never been much of a drugs or supplements person, but it may just be time for that to change. Unless I've been brainwashed by advertisements to believe that that's exactly what I need. It's hard to know for sure anymore.
#journal
TSG pencils gliding along at an average rate of about 2 pages a day. Minor disruption abounds next week as I will be traveling to Philly to partake in a panel discussion organized by U-Penn's Wolf Humanities Center.
Booked additional storage space today, to separate art & paintings from personal belongings, which I will need to sort out today.
Also need to get a haircut, either today or tomorrow. Sometimes I wish all my bodily needs would just halt so I can focus on doing the things that need getting done. Must be the effects of living in American capitalism for as long as I have.
Back to reading Asimov's FOUNDATION trilogy after having taken a break to dip into FREE PLAY and HITCHCOCK TRUFFAUT
Typing this out on the patio. In February. And I'm reminded why it's good to be in Houston.
Shit, it's February already?
Hippy, capitalist, guru, grocer: the forgotten genius who changed British food — Really interesting long read on the Guardian, which I feel I will be returning to time and time again.
#research #subculture #history #uk
Penciled 2 pages of TSG today and packed up the remainder of my belongings in the old garage. Booked a mover for tomorrow morning, which should mark the end of my interaction with a big part of my previous life (one of my previous lives anyway). It feels like I've started a fourth life in many ways (or entered a fourth phase of my life if you will). Looking forward to having an out-of-town friend crash at mine tomorrow and through the weekend. First such occurrence at the new [not quite finished] home studio.
Inboxes at a combined 97, which I'm trying to get through tonight, along with the RSS feed which is now at 192. Too much, may have to eliminate a couple blogs from the feed.
The forum, Restricted.Academy is now being resuscitated, and I'm looking into an alternative to substack for the newsletter, Restricted Frequency.
And I really need to update Ganzeer.com. Not sure I've added much material since early '22!
And that is the last TSG script in the bag. The chapter is coming out at 48 pages, quite a lot, but certain scenes need to breathe and as much as I'd like to be done with the thing sooner rather than later—something a smaller page-count would certainly help achieve—I just can't find it in my heart to condense it much further. It's mad and beautiful and gloriously demented and I cannot wait to draw it all.
#work #comix #thesolargrid
One time I went to pick up my kid from daycare and the minute he saw me, he started crying. Not because he didn't wanna be with me, but because he was in the middle of putting a puzzle together and he wanted to see it through before leaving.
I saw that and knew exactly where he got it from. Working on this last THE SOLAR GRID script and finding myself incapable of stepping away from the thing and doing other very necessary things, like, y'know eating or exercising or going through my inbox or, or or.
Terrible habit.
Smoking is another one I seem to have picked up in recent months, which is funny because everyone knows it's something you start as a teenager, not in your 40's for fuck's sake.
#journal
On page 30 of the last THE SOLAR GRID script & thumbs. Need to wrap everything up in 10 pages or less (I never did abide by corporate comicbook specs, potentially to my own detriment). Feeling good about it though.
Temperatures dropped drastically the other day and hot water still isn't running and I need to drop something off at the post office and also box a bunch of things up in the old garage.
A ways into book 2 of Isaac Asimov's THE FOUNDATION TRILOGY, and enjoying it a great deal. Finding aspects of its ideas to be quite ahead of its time (and in some ways ahead of this time even) except for the fact that it has so far been a big sausage fest. Seriously, not more than one female character appeared in the entirety of the first book, and even then only in a couple pages.
But I do appreciate the long view of the story, unfolding over several hundred years with no character appearing for more than a single chapter or two. Quite unconventional in that way.
#journal
Huge LED artwork I had manufactured just arrived. It feels significantly larger in my small abode than I had anticipated. Between the piece itself, the box it came in, and the plant I knocked over during the unboxing process, the serenity of my space and the writing I have been embarking on have thus been sufficiently disrupted.
Reminder to self not to make or buy anything new at all until I'm done with my godforsaken graphic novel.
#journal