Important dates:
October 13th, I’ll be doing an event with my friend Steve Ellis at Heroes Your Mom Threw Out Comic Shop 130 West 14th St. Elmira Heights, NY
October 15th, Opening at Bronx Brewery art show 6-9 I’ll post more details when I get them!
October 19th, Signing with writer Matt Bors at Everyone Comics in Long Island City
Monday already! Self imposed deadlines behave just like deadlines from clients. I think it’s a taste of time travel. I already feel the difference from changing my Substack coming out on Monday. Last Thursday and Friday seemed less stressful as I went in to the weekend. But as I’m pulling my thoughts together this Saturday evening, I’m feeling that familiar urgency I was formally feeling on Thursdays!
I’m not quite sure that I’ve recovered from Molly’s big birthday celebration from the previous weekend. I know our space hasn’t. Most of the furniture is back in place but I managed to hide things by accident. You know, when you are totally positive that you will remember putting that thing in an old sock that you put under a pillow in the corner of a closet just temporarily for the event. The next day you are in a panic as you clean up thinking you’re going to have to buy a new iPad because you were too clever for your own good. That’s when I see a squirrel rummaging around in a park and we make eye contact and just shrug.
Thursday I saw Brian Greene in conversation with Janna Levin at Pioneer Works in Red Hook, Brooklyn. It wasn’t too deep into String Theory but it was just enough for me. I was by myself, so I played creepy eve’s dropping guy. The crowd seemed to be the usual type that will show up to see two physicists talk. You overhear, “… but his last book wasn’t as groundbreaking… … I put in my concept to find that mystery particle at CERN… “, blah, blah, blah. It’s fun because I feel like I’m observing a whole world that I would never just bump in to if I was only going to places I was comfortable.
I bought Mr Greene’s book “The Elegant Universe” which I’ll be attempting to read this month. The reason for the talk was to celebrate 25 years since the first printing of Elegant Universe. I have the paperback. Not sure if that’s a metaphor for some thing in the physics world. They like to use things to represent the concepts. I guess that’s why I have the delusion that I grasp the concept of space/time and all that. I did get one of those moments part way through that triggered new ideas and thoughts about things I thought I knew. I just found that I wasn’t able to articulate the thing in my head very well so I didn’t strike up a conversation with anyone even though what better crowd to spring my dumb thoughts on?? The bus ride out of Red Hook was it’s usual entertaining trip. About 10 or 12 people from the event were on it. One guy was jabbering away about some bar where all the cool physicists meet and talk about whatever.
Molly volunteered our place to host a fund raiser for Comedores Sociales de Puerto Rico last Friday night. They serve their community with free meals and other things in Caguas, P.R. The traumatic memories of Hurricane Maria are still affecting thier area. The party was a manageable 15-20 people. Molly’s assistant, Vee, put her former occupation as bar/restaurant manager into gear and organized a nice set up that included a vat of Sangria. I had too much Sangria. Well, it was actually an ok amount, I just didn’t plan for the 2nd party that Molly said we could go to. A birthday party with cool international people.
The host was an Egyptian friend and there were a number of other countries represented. I ended up hitting the bourbon with a guy from Greece. He was really fun and we traded stories about our adventures there. I was able to walk home under my own power but Saturday was kind of a write-off. Mostly I cleaned from the night before. I might have sold a painting that day so in my optimism I took Molly to dinner and we walked around the neighborhood before going home, to work of course.
Speaking of work, I started issue #4 of Toxic Avenger last Monday. My days at Marvel and DC had been so long ago that it wasn’t until midway through issue #3 that I remembered which Bristol worked best for me. Strathmore 500 series 3-ply Hot Press Bristol. I had a bad experience with Strathmore a while back but I think it’s safe to use for inking. I just hate drawing on it with pencil, the surface is so slick. I’m sure it would be awful for paint. I ink with a brush and I like to ink on that surface since there is almost zero resistance to the brush. Plus I think it goes a lot quicker.