So, here’s a picture of Michael Mouse surrounded by friends and admirers of all sorts. I can’t help the surrealism any more than Salvador Dali could, but the point here is that I, like Mr. Mouse, am a Mickey. I am filled with Mickey-ness. I am a part of all of Mickey-dom… but never Mickey-dumb! “Sweet Mickey, warm Mickey, little ball of yucks… Cool Mickey, wry Mickey, nyuk, nyuk, nyuk.”
Life is like Moose Bowling,
Because…
In order to knock over all the pins,
And win…
You have to learn HOW TO THROW A MOOSE!
My homage to “the Ghost Who Walks” was carefully chosen. I scanned my Phantom comics from Charleton looking for the right pose. I found an image of him punching toward the viewer. I thought, “Why don’t I put that view on horseback and have him riding toward me and punching.” Why did I think that? Who knows? As an artist, I’m kinda erratic and crazy that way. I guess that’s why I claim to be a surrealist. I do believe all comic book artists have to be surrealists to do their job. That’s true whether they do super heroes, ducks who hoard money in vaults and wear spats, pigs who wear a coat and a tie but no pants, or alien monsters hungry for the nearly naked flesh of Dale Arden. Uh… maybe I’m revealing way too much about my thought processes here… So here’s step one, the pen and ink.
Then I had to give it some colored pencil treatments. Black and white with crosshatching is cool, but it is also like bare bones, without life and energy. So I used the powers I have over cheap Roseart pencils and madly scribbled in colors carefully balanced to show just how truly chaotic my perceptions of action and adventure really are.
Now, I know the Phantom’s horse is either black or pure white, depending on which version or generation of the Ghost Who Walks is being depicted, but I did a yellow horse. I know… I know… I did pansy colors when I really should’ve gone fire red or all bloody crimson. I’m completely violating continuity. But I never completely do what I intend to do. If I don’t screw it up at least a little bit, then it really isn’t me. Besides, what else is there to yell at myself about and twist words around to make it sound like I’m being all comedically gifted and funny?
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Yes, I think I was born entirely in the wrong time. I could’ve been a great pulp fiction cover artist. Of course, I would’ve done great work and starved to death, because that’s what most of them did. It was, however, a time when art was blazing with brightly-colored surrealism. I was inspired by the artwork in this book; Pulp Culture, the Art of Fiction Magazines by Frank Robinson and Lawrence Davidson.
I used to find secret treasures like this in my Uncles’ bedroom when I played there at Grandpa’s house in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s. They were full of cowboys with sixguns, pirates and skeletons, poisonous snakes, nearly nude ladies, and science fiction heroes from the future. So I decided to create one of my own.
What’s it all about? Surrealism’s quest to make life more like art. Pretty heroines can strike back at the heart of evil with goodness, and sweetness, and most importantly, nearly nakedness. We can skew the future by applying the wisdom learned in the past. You know, pure unadulterated fantasy. And hopefully we will be making a skew towards goodness and the light, not darkness and evil.
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Yes, I have become a wizard. It isn’t just my author-beard and my Gandalf-hair. It is a matter of wisdom. To be a wizard, you must be a wise guy… in more than one sense of the word. I am a wizard because over the past 33 years, I have had about everything that could possibly go wrong in a teaching career go totally wrong. I have also had things go totally right. I have gotten teacher evaluations that are so high that you can’t score any higher. I have also been evaluated so low that I was dropped immediately, It took two years of substitute teaching to get another job. I have been accused of being stupid, of being evil, of being a child molester… none of that proven… except possibly the stupid part. I have been a department head, a gifted and talented program coordinator. I have taught every kind of kid there is. I loved many of them with the love a teacher feels for those he must reach… and then does. Experience makes you a wizard. Now that I am retiring, I am not giving up the magic. I am still going to reach people. I will have to do it mostly through words and ideas.
So, I am thinking a lot now about my magic. I am still working at my craft. I am practicing by trying hard to post a blog post every single day. You have to stretch ideas all out of shape. Mash up old ideas and rehash old drawings and paintings. Make something new out of something old. Shuffle things around, pair them with something different… You have to rearrange the matrix of the mental world you live in. Okay, enough stretching and mashing. I am a wizard of words, and this that I am typing now is my magic.
So have a little bit more of my magic. This little wizard is young Prinz Flute. Drawings are part of my magic too. You wouldn’t believe how much teaching I did with cartoons on the board, on the overhead projector, on handouts. Drawings make the ideas go around.
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I have always been fascinated by science fiction B-movies. Flash Gordon battling Emperor Ming on a black-and-white paper mache planet Mongo… The Soviet-paranoia of Invaders from Mars… Cowboys and dinosaurs… Frankenstein in space… Godzilla… You have to love what they used to accomplish with imagination, enthusiasm, and creative use of Styrofoam.
After the invasion ended in defeat for the frog people from the planet Telleri, I found I had a leftover box of these Zillokahsitter Skortch Rays. Zillokahsitter makes a very fine ray gun, not that I ever bought any before, but a couple of my little green friends told me so. They are very useful for removing old paint, unwanted neighborhood dogs and cats, grouchy relatives you don’t really want around any more… Did I mention they disintegrate things completely? Atom by atom? The only drawback is… once a thing is skortched, you will not be able to put it back together again. That’s what happened to my wife’s hair dryer… but please don’t tell her that. I’m not sure how to price these. I was thinking about selling them for the five dollar shipping and handling only. I have to get rid of them before my kids play with one again. The principal at the middle school may never be the same again.
Being a collector of stuffed animals and all manner of twelve-inch dolls and action figures, I often find myself staring into painted eyes. What do they see when they look back at me?
I am kind and caring when I deal with dolls. I handle them carefully because wear and tear reduce their value. I am guilty, however, of all kinds of crimes of fashion visited on defenseless Barbie dolls and G.I. Joes. I have a pile of naked Goodwill Barbies, some missing limbs, some missing heads… I use them all for replacement parts. I dress figures in anything and everything that I have available. It results in some very embarrassing costumes.
What would happen if they were given a chance to do to me what I have done with them? Such thoughts led me to the somewhat creepy Paffooney that I’m posting today. I certain some dolls would very much like to decide how to use my arms, or put a dress with big red hearts on it upon me whether it fits or not. Of course, I used a girl who might play with dolls as the subject of the picture. You wouldn’t want to see a partially naked fat old man with white beard and lots of hair. Believe me, you wouldn’t.
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In many ways all my fiction is actually historical fiction. I am very careful about settings, times, and histories of my characters, since many of them are real people. I can only conceal who they are by changing their histories in the slightest of ways. The way of life I am trying to depict is always the real one I experienced, even when I dip back into the past beyond the reach of my memory. I can call upon the testimony and witness of others. I have relatives that tell stories about what life was like on the farm before there was electricity, before there was TV, before there was such a thing as a horseless carriage. I know what my little town was like a hundred years ago. I know who the important were. I know how things functioned all the way back to 1855. These are things that not only make my writing have purpose, but make it vibrate the very roots of my being by resonating with the stories of my ancestors and those who came before.
Catch a Falling Star 