Imagine Buffaloaf here dancing to the theme song to Benny Hill. It’s a really slow, bouncy dance, and his arms don’t drop the whole time. He just hops from foot to foot, really. Occasionally, he spins and shakes his tail back and forth. Kevin James comes to mind.

I want to try to make my drawings look like they have weight, like they take up space. If you have some feedback about this, lemme know.

In the room of project ideas in my head, the cartooning-bug, once dried-up and dead in the corner of the ceiling, has become juicy again, glowing, and has swooped down and bit me. SPACE started it, after meeting people like Matt Hawkins. He draws “Cowboy Clyde and the Pirates,” my favorite find at SPACE. He had me laughing out-loud a lot. I recommend it, especially if you find yourself working a job that you really don’t like but need to keep to pay the bills. Also described as a “G.O.O.D.” job, (get out of debt.)

I’m glad I finished my little Emet and Jhomm stories. I’ll probably come back to them. But the cartoony stories and characters are easier to think up right now. Guys like Buffaloaf, Figgle and Gweeb seem to really live and talk and over-eat and make uncertain noises. I hope to finish off a nice-sized graphic novel some day, and I think the first one will be made up of short stories featuring cartoon characters. (It’s important to make your goals specific. I also hope to travel somewhere someday, and to learn more about something.)

Steve set me up with a “Faber-Castell PITT artist brush pen” at SPACE. Andy told him about the brush pens.

I’m-a love the pen! I’m a-want the pen, and I’m a-need the pen.

I’m slow and messy, and this pen reduces the amount of brush and ink-bottle maintenance I have to tend to when I’m inking. The pen got me into inking again. The pen is mighty. Go to your local Dick Blick and kneel before the pen.

I found a tutorial on how to use the “Art History Brush” in Photoshop. I didn’t know anything about it before, but I think it’s kind-of cool. It does make me question a lot of digital art now, at least the stuff that looks photo-realistically proportioned. (I don’t think the art at this link was done in Photoshop, but when I see this type of artwork, I know it can be, and faster.) Even that type of digital painting takes an artist’s eye-hand coordination and plenty of knees-bent-advancing behavior, so I’m not knocking it. Just questioning how it was made.

I used the Art History brush on cat’s fur. Don’t like it as much as the flat tones, but I shouldn’t have used it with the ink drawing. Would have been better fully-painted.

Worked hard on Jhomm this weekend. I’m doing a full-size rough. 28 pages, 5.5 X 8.5 inches. That seemed to be pretty standard for most digest-size books I saw at Borders. All that manga.

Anyway, story’s written. 7 pages are roughed out. Going to need lots of boat and inuit photo reference.

I’m just about ready to print up the cover, too. Going to do a 2-color silkscreen cover on some kind of colored paper. Should be sharp and give it a homemade feel. I wonder if print shops can put different color toner in their copiers. I should check.

I’ve made more progress with my little “Jhomm” project than any other comic I’ve tried to create before. Still, I’m woefully behind my schedule and I don’t think I’ll have a finished book in time for the SPACE con in May. It’s time to start thinking creatively about what I CAN do. Some of my thoughts:

A.) A pamphlet with an excerpt from “Jhomm: Shell of Stone”, the bigger story. Maybe a nice action scene. I just don’t know if I should try to sell an incomplete snippet of a story. Unless the art was really good, I would feel cheated out of a buck or two. My art chops are not up to speed yet.

B.) A pamphlet with a new Jhomm story. I like this idea, but it was so excruciatingly difficult to come up with “Shell of Stone”, I’m intimidated by the task of coming up with another story, even a short one.

C.) No pamphlets at all, just buttons or badges or cards or stickers promoting the upcoming graphic novel. Boring.

I’ll decide something soon - probably option B, if Inspirato’s quarrel strikes true.

Oh yeah, there is a website for Jhomm in the works. I can’t give you the link yet, but you might be able to figure it out. In the words of my high-school-self when responding to my art teacher, “It’s not finished yet!”

Ryan of Solid Wood Productions, the brains behind Geocaching’s “First to Find” card game, posted a brief history of how the card game came to be.

Hopefully you’ll be able to check out First to Find at Geocaching.com soon.

I just read this post on the “Creating Passionate Users” website:

Build Something in 24 Hours.

It describes a “jam” strategy for creating something in a set amount of time, without the need to shift your brain back and forth between your different lives. It’s similar in concept to the 24 hour comic. Where it differs is that it involves working with a group of individuals to not only brainstorm but actually put pen to paper, hand to mouse, finger to guitar string, whatever. Lots of application. Just need a lodge and a couple of people to get started. Hmm.