The Küelox #500 nib flows fast and smooth like a Sable brush, and requires very little pressure. A light grip and fast strokes is all you need to get good lines, which requires a little getting used to, and until then, some lines will wobble, but they will still be very alive. Not a nib for noodling; ink is laid out thick as far as nibs go, but still offers a pretty broad range in line weight. Overall, it keeps you from getting sucked into ornamentation, and instead forces you to think about the broad shapes and only the very necessary of lines.

Which is a good thing.

#Journal #Work #Tools

New goodies have arrived. As far as nibs go, I've only ever inked with a G (center). Excited to put the rest to the test.

Generally speaking, I find that the more I use nibs and brushes, the less I enjoy working with pens.

Digital I've come to loathe.

#journal

Two new lovely tributes have arrived in honor of The Lit One. A children's book by none other than John J. Muth, who I had no idea even did children's books (I know him from a couple of his more grownup oriented comix), and a can of Robin Sloan's own brand of olive oil, Fat Gold!

No sender information came with the Muth book, but huge huge thanks to the anonymous sender. I will likely get a kick out of poring over it numerous times before Moony every manages to.

The olive oil came from a dedicated group of very fine individuals who frequent my forum, Restricted.Academy. I gotta say, I dig how it comes with a funky risoprinted single-sheet zine with a little info on the making of olive oil, a recipe, and some recommended reading (Can this olive oil get even more tailored to me?! I don't think so!).

Very lovely surprises to find in my mailbox.

In other news, congrats to my friends at Radix Media who after only 1 week into their kickstarter have made it to 50% of their target! Very excited for their graphic narrative collection, but of course I'm biased given that it includes a 10-part hardcopy serialization of THE SOLAR GRID, delivered monthly starting April 2021!

#Journal

Six days since my last entry, which although not entirely blasphemous is still not ideal. I want to get back into the habit of blogging everyday, because it helps keep things arranged in my head, and gives something of a metronome to my otherwise very fluid existence.

Knowing that kids learn by observation more so than telling, I'm trying to be mindful of the amount of screen-time I spend per day, because even if my child is only a couple months old, he... he stares. He stares at me intently all the time, and I don't want the unshakeable image he registers of me to be daddy-staring-at-screen, be it computer or phone.

But with that being said, I'd still like to blog everyday. I imagine entries will start being a bit more concise.

Today and yesterday he helped daddy fulfill orders, getting quite a kick out of the sound of folding paper and cutting tape :)

#journal

First restaurant experience since March! It wasn't even that long, maybe an hour or hour-thirty tops to make it back home in time for Moony's next feed. But man did we need it.

Next up is to re-institute some socializing practices. Still with proper precautions and social-distancing measures in place, but it's really unnatural and unhealthy (at least for me) to completely eliminate any and all social interaction with other humans for so, so long.

Over six months in with no clear end in sight, it's high time we starting devising new ways to go about living. A pause might work for a time, but not forever.

Exercise is another thing. It took me months to get into the habit of hitting the gym daily, and once I finally did it was only a monthish before Covid hit and since then my excercise regiment has been on hold. We're finally just now taking steps to building ourselves a little home gym. Had we moved on this as early as May, we would've been in much better shape both mentally and physically.

Was updating Ganzeer.com, including my comix section, and realized that the only year I put out more than one chapter of THE SOLAR GRID was 2016! And then there was literally no release in 2017, and none in 2019! Fucking shameful. Both those years did involve moving between states, but still. I do feel pretty fucking crummy about it.

With only 3 months left before the end of 2020, the year is kind of almost over already (sorry to have to break it to ya). If I can squeeze in one more THE SOLAR GRID release before year's end, I'll be happy. And if by 2021, I manage to tap into some of that 2016 energy, I should be able to pump out 3 more chapters of The Grid, which would finally bring the graphic novel to a close.

Imagine that? 😶

Other than that, I'd be happy if I did nothing else but take on a couple of installations and unloaded a painting... or three.

Oh, but I actually have another wicked book with Colla in the works. And may put together one single-edition artist book of my own.

We'll see. Don't wanna bite more than I can chew.

But who am I kidding?

#journal

Finally got around to photographing WALLS OF (UN)FEAR, a large triptych I finished in 2019! 🤪

(What is time anymore?)

They're quite large, about 121.9 x 269 cm each (that's 48”x106” to the isolationists) which means they're not particularly easy to photograph. They involved photographing each one in parts and then stitching the pix together in Photoshop which pretty much consumed the entire weekend (with, in my opinion, only passable results).

In any case, this work finally has an entry on Ganzeer.com, which includes larger pix, a few closeups, and a little backstory into its making.

A bit more website maintenance tomorrow along with some administrative stuff. Hoping to get back into the creative stuff come Tuesday (then again, what is time anymore?).

#Journal #Work #Art #Painting

Just back from a 3-day beach getaway with the wife and child, where I learned to enjoy existence without ever looking at my computer. Our days were divided between laying on the sand, dipping into the sea, eating delicious food, and being wholly absorbed by our books. I've been alternating between Simon Roy's HABITAT and Roger Zelazny's LORD OF LIGHT, which go very well together. The latter I started in Denver a couple years ago only to reluctantly abandon it when shit got real and I got a little too caught up in the everyday to-do's and stresses they involved. It felt very fitting to escape back into it with my short escape to a pretty secluded beach town, and what an escape this book is.

I'm only midway through, but it's already got me wondering how most of fiction was ever written afterwards. The bar is set so high with this one that 99% of the books adorning the shelves of bookshops seem so frivolous in comparison. A great and marvelous work that encompasses everything any creative act should set out to do.

Back in Houston reassessing how I go about my days, which I'm hoping will no longer involve my phone or computer first thing in the morning. All in all, a successful and long overdue time outside the house, despite a sea full of jellyfish and relentless assaults by mosquito.

(photo by the wife)

#journal

New power unlocked: MOBILITY!! 😈

Not that I'm going anywhere anytime soon. But still, this massive 19.5” x 11.6” clipboard is a nice way to take my work away from the drawing table from time to time, maybe over to the sofa, the bed, the floor, child's room, wherever. Just a way to keep me from being hunched over a table for hours (days?) on end.

I've tried going full digital before, but discovered that I don't enjoy staring at a screen all day for literally everything I do, and not to mention eventual technical glitches you have to deal with and various troubleshooting things and all that stuff.

Good day today, in general. Instead of scheduling a mail pick up, figured I'd do a post office drop off instead and make a long 1 hour walk of it, my first in like... 6 months?

Inbox down to just 2, and updated my to-do strip with a new batch of deadlines for the month (which I'm sure I'll have a hard time hitting).

And finally, adorned my drawing table with Wally Wood's 22 panels that always work, something I've been wanting to get to for awhile now.

Although, I do feel like in the process of creating THE SOLAR GRID I've been developing a bit of my own [visual] language. Let's see if I can riff off Wally and see if I can come up with my own set of 22s when it's all over.

#journal #work

On August 15, I received a message from Mustafa Sameh Hassanien, currently held in Egypt's infamous Tora Prison.

I met Mustafa in passing, on January 25 of this year in New York City. A student of cinema studies at the College of Staten Island, Mustafa struck me as a passionate, bright, and incredibly creative young man. On May 14th, he boarded a flight to Cairo to visit family he hadn't seen in a long time, but upon his arrival at Cairo International Airport, he was taken aside and questioned, likely about an opinion or two he might've expressed online in regards to the Egyptian regime (helmed by Trump's “favorite dictator” Abdel Fattah Al Sisi). He has since been in custody.

It is my understanding that in the three months since Mustafa's detainment, Egyptian National Security has been building a case against him, something they like to do with pretty much anyone who has... well, an opinion.

Earlier this year, another young filmmaker by the name of Shady Habash withered away and died in Egyptian prison. He was only 25 and had already accomplished so, so much. It would crush me to see Mustafa, aged 22, see the same fate.

Three months in custody just for deciding to pay your folks a visit is already a terribly long time. I'm betting Mustafa has legal counsel and people working to get him out, but I imagine he must be getting exceedingly desperate at this point. Why else would he use what limited access he has to the outside world to address me, some dude several thousand miles away in Texas with nothing at his disposal other than pencils, ink, and a bunch of paper?

#FreeMustafa #Journal

New interview up at LOVE AND LOBBY where I am described as “Egypt's Pop Infant Terrible”. Not the first time I've been described as such so there must be some truth to it. 2009 or 2010 was the first time, I think, but at least back then I did in fact live in Egypt and never in a million years would've anticipated living anywhere else.

It's been over half a decade since I last set foot in Egypt, and it all feels like a distant dream at this point.

Peculiar how that works.

#Journal #Interview