Yellow Bellied Sapsucker

There really is a bird called the "Yellow Bellied Sapsucker."   Some name.  It sounds like an insult.  Break it down and it's a string of smaller jabs: "yellow," "sap"  and "sucker."   It could have been named "Gold Breasted Woodpecker" or "Masked Stifftail,"  but "Yellow Bellied Sapsucker" it is.
Who came up with this name?  Was he mad at them?  Did a flock peck up his orchard? 
Maybe he was simply blunt: "It's got a yellow belly, doesn't it?" he might have said.  "It sucks sap outta trees, right?"
Imagine if this guy had been in charge of naming other birds:

Owl:  Flat Faced Mouse Muncher

Pelican: Sack-Jowled Fish Scooper

Hummingbird:      Needle-Nosed Necter Nibbler

Duck:                    Web-footed Dinner Dabbler

Vulture:                 Ball-headed Carcass Craver

Seagull:                 Squawkmouthed Dumpster Diver

Turkey:                 Pin-Headed Pending Poultry Product

Hawk:                    Rust-Feathered Rodent Reaper

That being said, I wonder if he had something to do with naming the Blue Footed Booby...

Soul Scan

(this is fictional but I could see it happening...)

  It was a cartoony machine- a large screen perched on a wavy stand with two eye like scanners that bobbed like day old helium balloons.    "See your soul for a nickel!" the sign said.   A poster  showed the possibilities - a  a dumpy woman looked at the screen and saw Venus rising from the sea..  A scrawny kid with a bad haircut became a god shooting lightning bolts from a mountaintop.  "What strength and beauty lies within YOU?" it asked.
I inserted a nickel.
"Hold still, please" the machine said.  The "eyes" floated over to me and looked carefully, as if searching for concealed contraband.    On the monitor, a fuzzy picture emerged.
I wasn't expecting a goddess or a glistening, ethereal form.  Even a angel or fairy figurine- the plastic glittery kind sold in drugstores-  would be a stretch.  Still, I thought  a cute bobblehead doll  or a windup toy were real possibilities.
Then my result appeared.
"A rubber chicken?" I said. "That's my soul?"
"Yep," said the machine.  "That's you..  Funny, but neither useful or original."
"I want my nickel back!"
"A cheap rubber chicken," it continued.  "The plastic kind where the eyes and wattles are crudely painted."
"Stupid machine,": I said.
"A rubber chicken is thin skinned." the machine said.  "A shallow, empty headed prop. A novelty that wears off quickly and becomes annoying..  Self centered and self absorbed, yet oblivious to-"
"I'm not self centered!" I said.
"If you're not self centered,  maybe you'd have noticed there's now three other people waiting to for their reading, while you're holding up the line." it said.
I stormed away, avoiding eye contact with the others.
In retrospect, I probably should have asked if there were any constructive steps  I might take to upgrade my soul to a rubber duck or a lawn flamingo. 
I still want my nickel back.

Digital Drawing Board II

Here's an update of the picture I posted earlier.  Dialog (and some details) have been toggled off so I don't spoil the story in advance.

Pow!

Another Dueling Banjo Pig offering.

Digital Drawing Board

(click picture for larger view)
Even my digital desktop gets cluttered sometimes.

Bad Dreams

What's up with these nightmares?  My life is easy.  I've never been traumatized.  Never done mind altering drugs.  Yet  every night, when the dreams roll in, they're bad.  
This week I was chased by  a swarm of batlike things.  Batbugs or Mothbats.  There was a switch in the room to turn them off but I couldn't find it because they were biting my arms, shoulders ears and cheeks.
Then I found myself wandering up a sidewalk, after dark.  Rain fell.  I could taste the drops.  Gloomy jazz music played and a narrator chimed in "abandoned by her friends and family, she was never seen alive again.  Her savagely beaten and strangled body was found in a ditch..."
Where does this stuff come from?

The next night I dreamed that I hadn't slept for three days. Then I looked out the window and saw flames and smoke topping a nearby hill. I went outside and discovered distant flames in each direction, miles away but getting closer.
Stupid fire season! I thought.It gets worse every year!
I tried to comfort myself that I'd "only" die from smoke inhalation before the flames reached me.  Then I figured a blaze this big was  hot enough to roast me from a distance, the way a campfire gloop-afies a marshmallow without touching it.  Was I doomed?
Wait!  There was a way out, to the southeast.   I scampered up  the road to safety.
BOOM!
A fifty foot plume of flire rose ahead of me, blocking my escape.
"Someone's doing this on purpose!" I yelled.

Crazy dreams!

Hot Tub Banjo Pig

(Click picture for larger image.)
My latest  submission for Dueling Banjo Pigs.

Koala Chicken

Here's something I did for an acquaintance who needed a picture of a "Koala Chicken" and didn't have one handy.
The double thumb isn't a mistake- koalas really do have two on each hand!
I drew and colored this in ArtRage.  I wasn't too familiar with the brush I used to color it, so it turned out a bit flatter than what I had in mind.

Bacon Banjo Hula!

High Note off the Hog

Created for Dueling Banjo Pigs.

Nightmare at Fifty Feet

My friend Frank* went to a street fair with his friend.  They hopped on
 a ride called "The Zipper."  It's something like an oblong Ferris Wheel.  The  cars
 swing and flip (you can see one in action here).
It started out great," Frank recalls.  "Music was playing, the car was rocking and there was this incredible view as we rose higher and higher."
"Then the car leaned backwards.   Suddenly, this fire hose of vomit sprayed down from the car above.   There was a safety grid but it let everything through.  And it kept coming!  We tried to move out of the way but there was nowhere to go."
"So it's all over us and we're going 'Stop the ride!  Stop the ride!'".
It didn't stop.

"The operator guy saw what happened!"  Frank says.   " I'm sure he heard us too, but he kept the ride going anyway!  We were trapped in a puke-spin-cycle for another three minutes.  Or maybe it was longer.  I think he let us ride a few extra rounds, just to be a jerk."
"Finally the damn thing stopped and we got out.    We were soaked!  My friend punched the operator.  Meanwhile I'm running  the fair, stripping off my shirt and pants and shoes and looking for a place to wash them.   It sucked!"
"Ever have a moment go from perfect to pure hell in seconds?"


*name been changed

Tail o' the Hack

I was proud of this blog for a long time.  I didn't think it was the best one out there, but I thought it was amusing.  Funny pictures!  Smartass observations!   Look how  clever I am!
Then this occurred to me: If the blog was really that special,  it'd have way more visitors, way more returning visitors, and a Technorati authority higher than one.  Ha! I scolded myself.  You're a self-absorbed hack.   You can't draw, you can't write, and you can't draw a crowd.  Nice work.
Then I got a surprise.
My visitor counter recorded a sudden influx of visitors, all from a network of people I know.  What was this about?   Was I being rediscovered?  Maybe my blog wasn't so bad?
Then learned this.  Minutes earlier, someone had shared an app which lets you deface (a snapshot of) any website you choose.   They were picking this site so they could blow holes in it and splatter it with blood!
Well, I'd always wanted to entertain a larger group, right?

Another Preview Pic

Another picture from my mini comic, drawn with ArtRage.   I'm having fun drawing it but it's taking longer than I planned! 

A Bear for Punishment

My home computer has been mangled by a spyware and my laptop won't connect to the internet, so I haven't posted anything new.
In the meantime, here's a Warner Brothers cartoon I like.
When I was little, I couldn't understand why Paw was so cranky. As an adult, I think he's the most sympathetic character.

Those !!#@%^! Dolls.

Troll dolls are supposed to be cute, but I think they're ugly:  The headlamp eyes, the matted hair, the orangeish skin...   ...and that cloying "pwease be my fwiend" expression! Yecch!
 I've seen cuter stuff floating in formaldehyde.
Who the heck buys these things?
Obviously, lots of people do.  They've been a big hit since the 1960s. 
Then this occurred to me:
Troll dolls = hideous things
Troll dolls = loved worldwide, iconic.
This blog = not loved worldwide (only a small percentage of visitors return), no iconic status.
Therefore his blog is more awful than those !!#@%^! dolls.

The troll dolls have something I don't.
Bastards!

More Work in Progress

Click image to see a larger version.
Here's a near-finished version of the comic panel I posted earlier.  It won't make much sense out of context.
Looks like I need to fix some spelling too.  Where's my left brain when I need it?

Oranges and Lemons

Just a quick 'n' silly illo I did to try out my new painting software.
It's me vs. marauding citrus fruit.
This didn't turn out as dynamic as I'd hoped.  Then again, if this were a "real" project I'd posed for  reference photos.

Stuff I'm Bad At

I'm not bad at everything.  I can draw (depending on whom you you ask)..  I can rotoscope hair, throw my voice, and solve 3d puzzles.   I can usually coax a toy out of the crane machine.  But what fun is boasting?
I'm bad at stuff too.   I can't really catch a ball or throw a Frisbee.  If my age were my bowling average I'd be dead.  My handwriting is a mess and I can't grip the pen properly. 
A lot of things on my "bad at" list are stuff I don't like to do anyway.  I can always blame lack of interest or practice on these things.   Not so with the Big Three.  The things I've always liked doing, yet do oh so badly:
Singing:
I love music.  Folk songs,  jazz, rock,  even opera.  I can read music.   I can identify instruments and tell you that a vuvuzela squawks a b-flat.   Might I add that it squawks a b-flat way better than I can.   I first heard a recording of my singing voice in fifth grade.  Listening to it was like being slapped. That off-key dolt was me!

Dancing:
 Nothing's like dancing to a fun song.  The problem is what I think I'm doing and what I'm really doing are laughably different..  I'm uncoordinated, miss the beats, and am about as graceful as a rhino falling down steps.  I display "doesn't she realize how stupid she looks!?" moves.
Acting:
This is a real shame because I have a strong imagination. and can keenly picture myself anywhere.  As a kid I adored pretend games.  Acting enchanted me and I tried to weasel my way into any play I could.    I vividly imagined I was a naughty kid, a member of the royal court, a fairy etc.., yet  stomped through each role like Godzilla, sounding as sincere as an automated "overdue materials" message from the library.   Never good get the volume right either- I was always too loud or too quiet*

But "didn't you see the bumper sticker?" Some may ask.  "You gotta sing like nobody's listening and dance like nobody's watching!"   Yeah, right.    Whomever came up with that glurge would quickly change the "like" to "when" if they saw me in action.  Some things are best done alone.



*A problem I have in real life too.  Both the volume thing and the stomping like Godzilla.

Works in Progress

Here's some panels I've been working on. 
 Painter 8 isn't perspective friendly.  This floors me because it's supposed to be a drawing program.   Where's the diagonal guides?*  Where's the precision?  And don't get me started on that klunky "perspective grid" it offers.   I'm getting nostalgic for my T square and triangles.  
I found an inexpensive drawing program that offered way better tools,  but there were graphic card problems (a first for both of my machines). 
If you know any drawing programs that let you make guides are diagonal and vector based, or anything that's perspective smart let me know, please.

*I made diagonal lines for reference, but I can't snap anything to them.

"I Take the Stairs!"

When I learned my new office was on the sixth floor I thought I'll take the stairs!  I'll get a workout!  I'll get in shape!
Then I learned that "getting into shape" involved discovering how out of shape you were.
Some people sprang up the flights like gazelles.  Not me.
The first flight or two weren't bad, but by the sixth floor I'd be staggering and gasping like I'd been mustard gassed.   Hopefully I'll get better at this.
My shame at being such a wimp was tempered with pride.
No elevator for me I thought.  I take the stairs!
Soon I caught my self wedging this boast into every conversation.
"Beautiful weather, today" someone says.
"Yes," I'd say.  "I saw the view in the stairwell windows on the way to the top!"
"There's donuts in room 1313!" someone says.
"Oh boy!" I say.  "I think I'm entitled to one, since I make myself take the stairs each time."
"A meteor the size of a bus struck my office!  Help!" someone texts.
"Hope there's a good fire escape.  If I a meteor the size of a bus hits my building I'll have a chance 'cause I know where the emergency exit is, being that I take the stairs every day."
Okay, I made up the last one.
Say, did I tell you I took the stairs today?