| day forty five. |
[Dec. 1st, 2009|07:13 pm] |
I REALLY hate it when I see people who draw comics immediately follow their comic with some kind of commentary; I think it shows an overall lack of confidence in the actual comic strip itself. Just let it stand on its own, why not? That being said, I can’t resist mentioning that I really struggled with this one… and even now, I don’t know that I got it quite right. If I held onto it any longer though, I think I would crushed everything I even vaguely liked about the comic.
I also thought I’d mention the girl in this strip also appeared in the comic a few months ago and is (as always) a composite of several students I’ve had over the years. I hope that by the time a year of this comic closes out, there will be some familiar student faces, but so far I know that hasn’t happened yet. It’s something I’m working on. |
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| day forty four. |
[Nov. 30th, 2009|06:56 pm] |
As this is being posted, the swine flu epidemic has fallen to the back pages of the news, but I can tell you that it remains a problem for public schools- attendance is still off what it was last year to an incredible degree.
Donate a small amount on DonorsChoose this holiday season! I have a couple of projects awaiting funding, including one for a digital camera for our soon-to-be student newspaper and another two for books to add to our lending library. Your contributions are tax-deductable and a great way to support public education. |
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| not teaching comics - kneel before zod! |
[Nov. 27th, 2009|06:16 pm] |
No comic today, but I wanted to point out something I found online today. Hey You Guys! is a charity movie screening and silent auction benefitting DonorsChoose.org and they’re having an auction on Monday. If you are looking for something cool to hanging your wall this holiday season, there are some truly amazing pieces of 1980’s movie inspired artworkon offer... including this one from Superman II that made me geek and laugh when I saw it.
Now seems as good a time as any to mention my own DonorsChoose profile; At this festive season of the year, it is more than desirable to make some slight provision for the poor... and in many respects, that includes our nation’s public schools. I have three project currently awaiting funding: one to benefit my classroom’s small lending library, another that looks to expand that library’s insanely popular graphic novel selections, and a proposal for a digital camera to re-start our school’s lapsed student newspaper. A great way to support the comic is to donate to my classroom! |
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| happy turkey day! |
[Nov. 26th, 2009|09:12 am] |
My current Facebook drawing. Hope everyone here in America is having a nice Thanksgiving and, if you're don't happen to be American, a wonderful Thursday. |
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| day forty three, part three. |
[Nov. 25th, 2009|08:32 pm] |
I know I sort of beat a dead horse with this week’s batch of comics. I felt like they were a little self-indulgent, but then I remembered that this whole concept of drawing a comic about my life is, in and of itself, the height of self-indulgence, so I just went ahead and indulged. |
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| Geek Out Saturday |
[Nov. 21st, 2009|01:37 pm] |
When it came to action figures, by 1993, I was caught in a pre-adolescent rundown. At twelve years old, I still desperately wanted to continue playing with my X-Men and Aliens figures but was getting the sense that it was time to put childish things away. Becoming a toy collector was a great way to split the difference between my love of toys and my worry that I would be ridiculed for being interested in toys.
The problem with this scenario was two-fold. Firstly... where I was living, distribution of the toys I was interested in owning was spotty at best. I vividly remember the frustration of pawing my way through aisles of unsold Flintstones and Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers looking for just ONE Jack Skellington toy, only to come up empty-handed. This is still a problem today!
The other thing holding me back from being a first-rate collector is that I had absolutely no restraint when it came to keeping figures in the box. Although I would usually make a passing attempt at keeping a toy mint in the box after buying it, only a few days after it would inevitably be ripped from its packaging.
These two conflicting toy desires came to a head in the last weeks of '93 when I, flush with cash, stumbled on a Wal-Mart with a COMPLETE set of Kenner's Legend of the Batman action figures for sale. I'm sure these toys haven't aged well, but the first series of Legend of the Batman were, I think, pretty damn awesome. Instead of giving kids endless variations on Batman, Legend of the Batman gave us different versions of Batman.
This will be a fine distinction to most people I suppose, but it's one that always bugged the heck out of me as a kid. I neverwanted fifty versions of the same Batman ("Oh, here's one with his Arctic Blast suit, and here's one with his Lava Walk suit!"), I wanted different BatMEN. Legend of the Batman fit that bill, essentially giving kids the Elseworlds versions of Batman. This way I could have a plain ol' normal Batman standing next to a Batman with a whacked-out robot theme and it made sense to me.
The first series included a lot of characters that fans had been dying to see cast in plastic for years, including Nightwing. I had wanted a Nightwing figure ever since the Eighties. I owned a ToyBiz Batman and Robin around the time that the Tim Burton flick hit theaters, and I was comics-savvy enough to know that Nightwing was the original Robin all grown up... but there were no figures of the character.
Further, finding the not-Batman characters in any toy line was always an unbelievable pain in the neck. I always imagined even if Kenner DID make a Nightwing figure, it would be impossible for me to find.
...and yet, there he was, along with the rest of the first series, including Catwoman, Knightquest Batman, and a couple of other genuinely cool variations on the Batman Theme (Cyborg Batman is one I remember pretty vividly). I bought them all, as I was flush with Christmas money from various relatives.
Then the waiting began. I knew I should leave them carded. I knew they'd be a great collectable someday. I put them up in my closet and tried to busy myself with other things. After about two days, I couldn't hold out any longer and decided to take just ONE out of the box. The choice was pretty easy.
I don't know that these toys hold up today. They suffer from that annoying super-posed look that really inhibits play; Nightwing is always crouched in permanent fighting stance, one hand opened to hold his ridiculous large and yellow rocket launcher. Still, the toy really held my attention. I loved the fact that the yellow armor that hung over Nightwing's shoulders was removable; it was fun to "suit him up" when he was about to go fight whatever random toys I used as villains for my characters (castoff Ninja Turtles, mostly). Still, I had quite a bit of fun with Nightwing back then. He's earned permanent display in my classroom where he and a collection of old toys from my childhood sit on top of one of my chalkboards.
I probably made the right call, seeing as you can find these toys for about $3 bucks if you look on Amazon.com.
.........
I don't know if this is of use to anyone, but in the past month I've become obsessed with the website Slick Dealss. It's sort of a clearinghouse for good sales and deals across the Internet and beyond. I've seen some truly good stuff that's well beyond my means as a lowly public school teacher with two young children and a mortgage, but there have been some awesome stuff I've been able to take advantage of. They usually have about two or three amazing deals on magazine subscriptions a week, and I subscribed to a couple for my classroom, like Nintendo Power.
This week they had a promotional code for a free Papa John's pizza that totally worked- we got a pie for the cost of delivery!
Anyway, with the holidays coming up, there have been all sorts of "slick deals". If nothing else, it's a fun site to check out every once and awhile. |
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| not teaching comics - sheeeeee-ra! |
[Nov. 20th, 2009|05:14 pm] |
Our next-door neighbor is currently in the process of cleaning out his house. He's taken a real shine to my son and every couple of days, he catches us outside and gives us some kind of toy or book he's come across for Elliot to play with. A few weeks ago, he gave Elliot a bunch of Paint by Water books. I used to love these as a kid, but I haven't seen them very much in recent years.
One of the fun things about these books is that they're vintage 1980's. Included in the collection are Disney's The Fox and the Hound, Emmett Kelly (the sad creepy clown) and, much to my delight, She-Ra. Elliot and I painted a couple together when I was sick a few weeks ago.
Bow (who appears in both of these pictures) was sort of the Rhett Butler to She-Ra's Scarlet O'Hara. I always thought his costume was unbelievable feminine, but I never knew that he shot arrows with HEART tips until we did these paintings together. How unbelievably non-threatening! Especially when you consider that the OTHER side of a heart would make a perfect arrowtip! What was he thinking?!?! |
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| day forty one. |
[Nov. 18th, 2009|05:27 pm] |
A big hello to all the new readers of the comic- it seems I've picked up quite a few in the last few days! |
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| day forty. |
[Nov. 17th, 2009|07:50 pm] |
I'm not one to toot my own horn very much, but I don't mind saying that I am pretty happy with the way my Edgar Allan Poe came out.
Question to those with websites: Would anyone be interested in linking to my Wordpress account? I get a decent amount of traffic over there (especially in the last few weeks) and I'm looking to put together a list of links. Doesn't have to be a comic site, although I would imagine our audiences would be similar. Anybody interested in trading a link for a link, let me know! |
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| day thirty nine. |
[Nov. 16th, 2009|07:31 pm] |
We're FINALLY at the end of October with these comics... which also means we're at the end of the first quarter! I was thinking of doing a limited collection of all four semesters if interest was great enough. The first collection would likely include comics not published here and some other stuff as well. If anyone's interested, let me know! |
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| (no subject) |
[Nov. 14th, 2009|11:02 pm] |
While most of the Internet was abuzz with the cancellation of Joss Whedon's Dollhouse this week, I was far more interested in this brief interview with Maggie Friedman, the executive producer of ABC's Eastwick. Eastwick also got the axe this week. I've never seen the show, but I found Friedman's comments about the cancellation are very telling about the nature of television these days. She opines how upset she is that the show is cancelled and how disappointed she is that they will not be able to give the fans closure on the show, given that Eastwick received the cancellation at a point where all the ordered episodes were in the can.
I love how Friedman couches the cancellation into terms of how the premature cancellation of a TV show is a snub in the face of the fans of said show. I mean... is there anyone out there who is a RABID fan of Eastwick? Anyone? She makes it sound like Eastwick fans are legion and they're going to storm the corporate offices of ABC if they don't make more episodes. Certain shows do inspire an insane amount of fan loyalty. Hell, Dollhouse sort of is one of those shows... although I do think when it comes to Dollhouse, it's less about people liking Dollhouse and more about people liking Whedon's previous shows and holding on hope that Dollhouse would eventually get better.
Still, this is a tactic that has worked in the past with marginal shows like CBS's post-nuculear Jericho. Get the fans vocal and they'll show the networks that your show has potential. The problem is, I feel like the ship has sailed on that kind of thing. The viewing audience is so fractured these days that a TV program is always going to have some audience... and even in those instances where networks have given those marginal shows a stay of execution, it hasn't really helped matters. I was actually a fan of Jericho and I didn't think much of its abbreviated second season.
I find it so interesting that higher-ups are starting to be clued into using this kind of language to talk about their shows.
.........
Thought I'd mention a nice value for fans of holiday movies I noticed this week. Turner Classic Movies has been releasing these inexpensive DVD four-packs over the past year under the banner "Greatest Classic Films Collection". They're bare bones releases with no special features to speak of, but they're a great value for the money. For example, in their Best Picture four-pack, you can get Casablanca, Gigi, An American in Paris, and Mrs. Miniver... four great flicks for under $20 bucks!
Last week TCM released a Holiday four-pack and it's got some really good movies included. For only $15.99 you get Christmas in Connecticut, It Happened on 5th Avenue, the 1938 version of A Christmas Carol, and The Shop Around the Corner. Now, I haven't seen It Happened on 5th Avenue, but even if you took that movie out of the mix, $16 bucks for those other three movies would be a steal. The '38 Christmas Carol is not my flavor (for those playing at home, when it comes to Scrooge, I worship at the alter of Alastair Sim, thanks much) but it's not a bad adaptation. Christmas in Connecticut too is a fun movie... but really, the best reason to get this DVD collection is for The Shop Around the Corner.
Now best known for being the inspiration for the 1999 romantic comedy You've Got Mail, Ernst Lubitsch's The Shop Around the Corner is my preferred Jimmy Stewart Christmastime Movie. Starring Stewart and Margaret Sullivan as rival at work who are unknowingly falling in love through exchanging letters on their off-time, it's a wonderfully crafted movie with great character bits not only from Stewart and Sullivan, but from the rest of their co-workers. Of particular interest is Frank Morgan as the beleagured boss. Morgan is best known to people today as The Wizard of Oz in the 1939 movie, but his role in The Shop Around the Corner is so nuanced and sad and hopeful that it's worth a look for anyone who's never seen him in anything else.
The Shop Around the Corner is a bit of a cheat as a holiday movie (it's one of those movies where it's Christmas only in the last third of the movie) but it rings truer to me than It's A Wonderful Life ever has. Buying TSAtC as a stand-alone disc online is somewhere around $15 bucks and the only special features it seems to boast is a theatrical trailer. If you like romantic comedies... or hell, even if you don't like romantic comedies, you'll probably like The Shop Around the Corner. |
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| not teaching comics - sketchbook page |
[Nov. 13th, 2009|06:22 pm] |
A sketchbook page from a few weeks back- I’ve been considering having more teacher interaction in the comic in the next few weeks, so I’ve been doing some designs. |
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