End of the Week

If you haven't checked out the new site yet, you should do so. Go here. I still don't have the comics up yet, but I'm hoping that I can remedy this situation over the weekend. Also, I'm going to try and post next week's comics on there as well, so the site will actually be doing what it's supposed to. Imagine that. You aren't imagining, are you? Oh well...

I guess that if you don't want to imagine, that's cool. But I do command you go to this site and spend some time. I've never felt like someone tapped into my brain and created the things that would fill me with joy--even though I didn't know what these things would be. Seriously, go here. (This one is my favorite.) Because of this man, I've decided I need to add more movement to my characters. I suppose that is what I get for deciding on a single panel comic. Perhaps I'll have to break my own rules--or just have an occasional off-shoot like my friend suggested. We'll see.

And as you peruse the vast library of goodness that site has to offer, I hope you have an enjoyable weekend. We've got a movie-fest set up for this weekend. In the past it has been a 24-hour fest, but this year is a bit shorter as we made the mistake of planning it over Superbowl Sunday, and the interest is lower than last year. Will take pictures and post some of them, maybe. Either way, I'll see you back on Monday.

+Ultimate Love Song+

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Mild Success

As angry as I've been with my Facebook updates recently, cursing anything having to do with computers, I got WordPress to upload and ACTUALLY come up when you type in the address.

I had to work it out in a roundabout way, something that will probably rear its ugly programming head at some point, but it works for now, and that is enough for me. You can check it out by typing: www.gibberishthecomic.com into your browser--or just clicking the link. And while I'd like to get this up and running ASAP, it will probably be a bit, as I'm still learning how to do things one at a time. So if you check back on a regular basis, a color might change here, an element might disappear, etc. In the meantime, keep coming back here for new comics, and I'll let you know when the site is up and running--even then, though, this will remain my "official" blog.

In other news, my wife and I bought Rock Band, and that was a bad idea. Sleep has been lost, and my ankle/leg is sore from the stupid drums. Holy crap, though, that game is fun.

More Gibberish tomorrow. Peace. And tacos.

+Too Far+

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Making out with Edgar Allen Poe's corpse would be pretty awesome. He probably foresaw as much years ago in a drunken vision.

(Sorry about the late post, I totally spaced getting this lined up the other night.)

As Promised, the Art Show

I figure the best way to do this is by way of pictures. So, here. Have at it.
(Click on any of them for a larger picture.)Here is a pretentious self-portrait.

A detail of my starry/3D works

Detail of the entire wall

Guest Comic and Thanks

If you haven't happened to notice my new link section, where I have my guest comics listed, here is the latest guest comic I worked on. It was for The New Adventures of Sam by Ross Foad. You can find more of Sam's adventures here.

And I want to thank you all for coming and checking out Philippa's amazing comic yesterday, I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.

Also, my art show ended last night, so it has been taken down. I promise to get some pictures of that up next week, and perhaps some of them will find their way to an Etsy shop or some such. Have yourselves a good weekend, and see you on Monday.

+Party Time+

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As promised, here is the special guest comic by the amazing Philippa Rice. The fact that Philippa took the time to put a Gibberish together makes me happy beyond all reason. Her comic, My Cardboard Life, is one of my favorites on the web, and both her blog and personal site are filled with wonderful and whimsical characters and doodles and creations. Do yourself a favor by spending some time at any, or all, of her sites. And if you enjoyed today's comic, be sure to let her know (philippa(at)philippajrice(dot)com). It's rare, and an awesome feeling, to have a reader respond to your work--unless, of course you're the guys at Penny Arcade, I'm sure they're told of their awesomeness all the time. So be sure to tell Philippa just how awesome she is.

Synecdoche, Website, and Guest Artist

Since I've finally brought the world back up to speed, I'm free to comment on whatever I want once again. There are two things that might interest the avid Gibberish follower, and the other is simply a rant/musing on a recent flick I saw.

Firstly, Gibberish is getting its own site here in the near future. As this blog was set up to start a webcomic, it has fulfilled its purpose, even if it was set up to start another comic. The more I've thought about it, Click-Track Heart will be more of a graphic novel and needs to be plotted out moreso than what I do with Gibberish, or have done with Filmmedium.com. Be on the look out for the new site.

Secondly, tomorrow's Gibberish will be a VERY SPECIAL installment, as I have a tremendous guest artist that is gracious enough to share her extreme talents with me and you, so be sure to check back tomorrow. Her name is Philippa Rice, and you can have a sneak peek at what you're in for at her site, here.

And finally, I watched Synecdoche, New York the other day, and I can't get the thing out of my head. I've been dreaming about it and thinking about it, and I can't remember the last time I watched a film that got into my head like that. It's not much by way of a real story, but the ideas and presentation of them is worth enough on its own. Kaufman puts one ton of questions and ideas to you, without much of any answers. If you are in need of a good think, I highly suggest you take the time to track this film down and check it out.

Until tomorrow.

+Wattles+

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They just have different names.

Residency

Happy MLK day. I hope most, if not all of you, can have a bit of a holiday, on this a celebration of one of the greatest men to ever live.

As I said on Friday, I'd keep this brief, and basically catch everyone up to speed on what happened over the two week period where my retelling of Nutcracker Prince occurred.

This last portion had to do with my MFA program and the twice a year residencies that I attend. Unlike past residencies, this one was quite low key, going to bed at normal hours, still fighting off my sickness, bringing in the new year by playing Rock Band, and watching such films as The Triplets of Belleville, Godzilla: Final Wars, and The Big Lebowski. The true highlight of the whole thing came in the fashion of being paired with an amazing mentor to carry me through this final semester as I scramble to finish my thesis/novel, and whip up an interesting lecture to give this coming summer. My mentor's name is Karen Gettert Shoemaker, and she is an unbelievably intelligent woman that I believe will do everything she can to push me through the final goal posts. Her collection of short stories, Night Sounds and Other Stories, is not one to be missed.
That's really about it this time around. No real drama or craziness.

And that brings you all back up to speed, and allows me to finally comment on my recent comings and goings. Gibberish tomorrow, with a special guest artist on Thursday, so be sure you check back--at the very least--for that one. I'll introduce her more thoroughly on Wednesday.

Have a good one.

Trip Pt. 5: Christmas and the Rest

(Sorry there is no pictures. I forgot to download them onto my computer.)

Anyway, Christmas was quite fun--even with the fact that we were basically crashing another family's holiday. They were more than gracious and adopted us into their family. We even got stockings. Gifts aside though, it was a great day of games, Little People, and awesome food.

As for the rest of the trip, there's not much to report. We ate a heap-ton of Tutti Bella's and Del Taco. I FINALLY got to play Little Big Planet (holy crap, do I need a PS3 just for that game). And I still battled with my sickness.

Luckily, the flight home was completely uneventful--as long as you exclude the screaming child on the flight from Vegas to Minneapolis. On the way back, I even had the oddest coincidence of not only riding on the same plane as someone I knew from my MFA program, but also she sat beside me. We had a nice chat on the short flight, then parted ways as another of my friends tried to smother me with her dogs on the ride home. Not really, actually she was nice enough to make and bring tea for a sickie like me.

After that, it was off to residency, which I will give a brief synopsis of on Monday, then finally be caught back up and can give you all the day to day grind and thoughts that spill from this one odd boy's noggin. Toodles, and have an amazing--and hopefully extra long--weekend.

+Bad Idea #002+

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For serious.

Trip Pt. 4: Return to Vegas

That, my friends, is a urinal. Don't ask me why I had a camera in my pocket, but seeing as I did and no one else was in the the bathroom, I took a picture. And why shouldn't I have? This thing is bizarre. The only reason I even knew it was a urinal was from the small homemade sign next to it that said, "Urinal." Apparently this gas station wants its customers to piss in style.

There really isn't much else to report for the ride home. I was tired, we all were, yet I still stayed awake for the sake of my brother-in-law. (And for those of you rather tired of this trip report, don't worry, I'll finish up on Friday. More Gibberish tomorrow.)

+Hair+

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Ha ha?

Trip Pt. 3: Disneyland

I figured that the best way to talk about Disneyland was to show Disneyland. Even with the rain the second day, it was awesome, eating turkey legs, seeing the Haunted Mansion all decked out with Nightmare Before Christmas stuff, and laughing at the bizarre portraits of Captain Barbosa painted on Pirates of the Caribbean. Despite being sick, it was a blast and makes me wish I lived, at least a little, closer to it.

(As a quick aside, I witnessed a freak out like no other. You know how when you were a kid, two of your relatives or older friends or whoever would stand on either side of you, take a hand, and start swinging you? Well, such a thing was being done to a small child. He swung and giggled and screeched, and everyone was having a wonderful time, at least, until the boy's hands slipped free and flying through the air like a long-jumper, landing on his bum-bum, and hitting his head on the pavement. Luckily, he was wearing a hood, though it still probably hurt like the dickens--which was noted by his shrill cry. However, he was not the loudest, as his father, behind the swinging boy and pushing a stroller, FLIPS OUT, screaming "OH MY GOD. OH MY SWEET JESUS. OH GOD," then proceeds to coddle his child, while simultaneously pushing the swingers away and cursing at them. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm all about a father protecting his child, but when a father demands that the swingers--most likely family or close friends (who else do you let swing your child?)--apologize to the child and him and then stands around talking in funeral tones for over 30 minutes, doesn't this seem like overkill? Maybe it's just me, but it was truly an odd thing to witness. Sorry, I guess that wasn't so quick.)

Trip Pt. 2: From Vegas To the Magic Kingdom

Once we arrived in Vegas, we were stuck at THAT airport for an additional two hours, as we didn't have a ride to our final destination and didn't want to spend the money for a cab. (We killed the time by eating a killer hot pastrami sandwich and filling ourselves with more Dr. Pepper and Mtn. Dew.) The rest of the day was spent trying to get some sleep, on this horrible hide-away bed, then a mad rush to finish up a chunk of my Nutcracker comics--those things were so much more work and took so much more time than I ever thought they would; you better have enjoyed them.

We didn't actually leave Vegas until 10:30 p.m., which was after midnight my time. This wouldn't have been so bad, as I could've slept on the drive--that is IF my wife and sister-in-law would've helped keep the driver, my brother-in-law, awake. Instead, that task was up to me, and we didn't roll into our hotel, which was across the street from the big MK, until 2 am-ish, California time. The trip wouldn't have been quite so long if a cop hadn't shut down the freeway and forced us to take another route (I still wonder what happened that night.).To make matters worse, we were given a room that seemed to have someone already staying in it or, at the very least, was forgotten when the turndown service came around, the sheets tousled, pillows strewn across the floor, and a brand new box of Disney's assorted chocolates sitting on the dresser.

If the stint in the Omaha airport didn't make me sick, this extra lack of sleep didn't help any, considering we were then up at 7 am to get ready for one of our two big days.

And with that suspenseful note, I'll leave you to your weekend. Have a good one, and I'll see you back on Monday.

+Happy New Year?+

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Nothing like another year going by. Tick, tick, tick.

The Trip Pt. 1

Because of that bizarre snowstorm a few weeks back, this is me stuck at the airport. It is still early in our 36 hour stint at Omaha's Eppley Airfield, and let me tell you, of all the places to get stuck, this is one of the WORST AIRPORTS EVER. There are about five different meal options, all the stores close by 7, and their little announcements run every 6 minutes. I was told to keep my bag with me at all times more than 100 times. My wife and I were about to go crazy. Crazy.

Luckily, a pair of our friends were also stuck with us for the first 12 hours or so, and we whittled away the time by playing spades, watching Scrubs, and obsessing over Topple on my friend's recently won, iPod touch. (By the by, Topple is the nangle.) After they left us behind, my wife and I tried to sleep in shifts--which amounted to me getting a total of 5 hours of sleep out of 48. I blame this on why I ended up sick for this trip.

I don't think I've ever been so happy to see, board, and squeeze onto a plane. I wanted to cry. Instead, I rocked out to my Zune--as it was working at the time, but more on that later.

+When I Think of You+

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I'm Back

I'm half dead and have half a ton of stories to tell, but as things are still incredibly busy--as you can see by this late post--you'll have to wait until Wednesday to hear about my latest ventures.

Also, don't expect an earlier Gibberish tomorrow. It probably won't post until sometime tomorrow night. Thursday, though, should be right on time AND have a guest artist. Cool? Cool. See you Wednesday.

+Three Words: The Nutcracker Prince, Part 12 of 12+

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Depressing. Maybe. I don't know. Just hope you enjoyed it.

Thanks for reading. Be back on Monday.

Miss Part One? Click here.

+Three Words: The Nutcracker Prince, Part 11 of 12+

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Urine always lessens a tragedy.

Miss Part One? Start here.