Tag Archives: drawing

May 6, 2014 · 12:34 am

The Book of Life (an Eight-Syllable Poetic Photo)

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(An old drawing of Milt Morgan, the magical-me portrait)

The book is opened to page one…

A boy is born in a blizzard…

Page two reveals the night that he…

Stayed up for first steps on the moon…

And page three sees the girl he loved…

Though he never spoke the real word…

Page four ends with high school’s pain…

Loneliness and some self loathing…

Page five reveals in college days…

That one can achieve anything…

But page six admits the truth that…

One will always be a young child…

And page seven tells the sad tale…

Of teachers in the monkey house…

Page eight is twenty years and more…

In middle school, the wonder years…

Page nine is learning competence…

Is only in your mind and heart…

Page ten is learning all again…

And digging toward the hidden light…

Page eleven reeks of hard work…

 And making lives grow solidly…

Page twelve makes doubts seem useless dross…

And faith in men truly returns…

And page thirteen brings some sorrow…

For endings inevitable…

And so I do not turn the page…

For every book must somehow end…

And I am not yet finished here…

There’s so much more to see and read.

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(Me as I was about to start teaching in South Texas)

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The Girl on Skates

The Girl on Skates

Honestly, I only saw her from afar at the Wright County Fair in the Summer of 1977. She was perfect. She could skate backwards as well as I could skate forwards. She dipsy-doodled all around the rink, never noticing me watching with my mouth open. Beautiful auburn hair and a smile that could melt butter better than the August Iowa weather… I wasn’t sure how old she was, the main reason I never tried to talk to her. I was already a college sophomore at the age of twenty. I suspected she was a mere high school girl, not yet eighteen. All I felt safe doing was looking and longing, wishing only to adore and draw near. This Paffooney of checkerboard and stripes is not actually her. It is inspired by my niece and some actress from the musical Annie. But it makes me remember. A sweet, sad summer crush that never went anywhere but into a sappy old Paffooney post. Forgive me. I am old. And just maybe I will soon be a dirty, evil old man.

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May 3, 2014 · 12:34 am
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I am Mickey

I am Mickey

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.”

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April 30, 2014 · 1:37 am
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Life is as Hard as Bowling with a Moose (A Poem)

Life is as Hard as Bowling with a Moose (A Poem)

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!

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April 26, 2014 · 3:12 am
April 25, 2014 · 12:56 am

Making Fan Art

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.

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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.

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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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The Elf with the Bow

The Elf with the Bow

Sometimes I just get all Middle Earthy!

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April 23, 2014 · 1:04 am
April 19, 2014 · 8:13 pm

Publishing in the 1940’s

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.

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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.

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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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April 19, 2014 · 2:27 am

The Wizard

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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.

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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.

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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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Young Buster Crabbe

Young Buster Crabbe

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.

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April 18, 2014 · 3:25 am
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Ray Guns for Sale!

Ray Guns for Sale!

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.

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April 17, 2014 · 2:04 am