This is the last painting I completed in my Television series, it is entitled “Bobby Cope” after a friend, well a friendly acquaitance more so than a close personal friend, who took his life back in the early Nineties. He was also an artist and a far more talented one than myself in my humble opinion and many others. I appropriated the suicide scene from one of my favorite Altman movies MASH and added a bunch of distortion from photographing the image off my television. One thing I’m going to miss in our new digital television era is organic distortion patterns. They are some of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. Sometimes I wonder how successful Bobby would of been if he stayed alive. To see a larger version of the image click on it once.

This one’s named after that damn jezebel that hung out with the Lord and savior. I think this was taken from the first Iragi elections. Started school again and I’m completely confused with what I’m doing. I’m akin to a little lamb lost, it seems. All I want is to have enough time and money to do this ridiculus webcomic. There are moment’s when life takes a look at you, and you look back at life, and your just not seeing eye to eye. Oh well, things will work out.

There are many things that I’ve been surprisingly happy about with this online venture, one of them being William Hung. One thing I have not been happy about though is the constant bombardment of spam to my comments section. I’m sure many of you would appreciate getting excellent deals on prescription Viagra and pornography but this is not the site to investigate those opportunities. Because of this circumstance I’ve decided to suspend activity on my comments section for the near future. If you’re actually interested in my webcomic and want to ask me questions about it you can go to my MYSPACE ACCOUNT and ask your questions there, or you can e-mail me at howtobebulletproof@gmail.com. Hopefully I’ll be able to avoid crude amounts of spam through this method.

A friend of mine told me about this video of a pigeon being eaten by a pelican. I find this video a bit symbolic of this spam situation. I’m just a pigeon who wants to eat some grass and fly around freely in this concrete jungle of a society we have. But instead of living your life a pelican comes over and tosses you into his gullet, and just completely fuck’s with your day. It’s kind of like that whole Russia/Georgia thing, Russia being the pelican.

Part One: The Planting of the Seed to Sprout Forth a Mighty Tree

Hello Dear reader, I am the author of this fantastic story that you are in the process of viewing with your wary eyes. Some part lying deep within your subconscious might be passively pondering how a story such as this comes into fruition. One thing is for sure it takes a lot of hard, earnest work. That’s mental work along with physical, kid.

Truth be told I can’t really answer how something is created, you either do it or you don’t. You do it the best way you can with the options presented before you. I can’t say anything more than that. It’s real easy to start spouting off techniques I prefer to use and how the majority of comics/webcomics/graphic novels are done this or that way. It’s easy to throw out a bunch of rules and say your adherence to these principles makes or breaks you as a professional. But to me, that’s all bullshit, excuse my French.

You either enjoy doing it or you don’t and whether that enjoyment translates to the audience or not is secondary. For me, trying to make something that people will enjoy takes the love out of what I’m doing. That’s because first and foremost I want to make something I will like, something I will love till the end of days. If I wasn’t in it for the love I’d be an Accountant. Hell and high Heaven knows I don’t get any money for doing this book, and as long I get this fucking project done I don’t care. I got it planned out to be 8 wonderful issues of pure pulp bliss. There will be romance, adventure and unforgivable acts of bestial carnage the likes of which have yet to be seen (in my book). It is a story for all ages, yet primarily meant for those older than twenty-odd years.

The origins of how I came across this tale is unimpressive. It began when I was working as a Key Frame Animator for a local Animation house in the Bay Area. It was a terrible project that didn’t make itself to print due to some miscommunication between our studio and the overseas studio. The final product looked terrible, nothing was on model, key frames were off, and the production was bad. This eventually led to the folding of the company and my source of employment. Anyways, that’s not the point, the point is I was working on a Beatrix Potter cartoon and during it I thought, “if I was the restless dead I’d possess an animal to seek out vengeance against those who wronged me.”

Around the same time I read an article in The SF Chronicle about Boz Scaggs’ son dying in a ratty crack hotel on Valencia street, The Hotel Royan. At the time I was living in a Crisis Residential Program; not for drugs but for crazy, so the story hit me in a straight sort of way. Hotel Royan is the hotel where Joe Blue overdoses in our harrowing and beloved story “How to be Bulletproof”.

That is how it began, a down an out kid from privilege dies from a heroin overdose and then possess’ a vicious dog to hunt down those who got him hooked. Next I needed to get an owner for Mr. Blue, who would be better than someone with senility? I’ll answer that question kids, NOBODY! If you were a hungry ghost walking the earth who decided to possess a dog, you would want an Alzheimer’s patient as an owner.

My experience with those afflicted with Alzheimer’s is limited. I’ve met two poor individuals with the disease. The first was a man who came walking through the door of my Dad’s Town House when I was in High School. The second was an elderly woman who entered the room I was staying in when I was at Monterey Hospital. Both thought I was someone else invading their space, violating them in someway. The hospital had a nursing staff that took care of the woman fairly rapidly, calming her down and what not. But when the old man entered my Dad’s condo through the front door I was by myself and had to talk to the guy all by my lonesome until his son came and got him. He was threatening to call the cops, and nearly got violent, and the only thing I could think was how sad the entire situation was. It’s a tough disease, no matter how you look at it.

From these experiences, my fascination with tattoo legend Jerry Collins, and by mixing my Mother’s racism with my Father’s constant negativity Joe Blue’s owner, Sailor Mick, was born. At that point my other phobias and fantasies bled into the work creating the rest of the cast. Before I knew it the plot formed like a delicious broth of soup.

Here’s a painting of the Questions and Answer Guy in one of my favorite late night infomercials offer a quick and easy guide to getting grants from the government. It’s a small, powerful painting with dimensions ranging from 6″ to 8″.

In other news I just have to thank Ambush Bug and the guys at AICN for reviewing my humble webcomic. It was something they had no need to do but they did anyways so… I guess I’m grateful. I’m hoping during my next semester I’ll have more time to work on my book but I’m taking Physiology so I might be a bit busy. I feel I kind of need to complete HOW TO BE BULLETPROOF as fast as I can but logically I know it will take a while.

In final news, for the last month WILLIAM HUNG’S website has advertised on my site nonstop and it is one of the most exciting things I have experienced in some time. I’m a big fan of Hung and he is honestly the only singer I have followed from American Idol, out side of Clay Aiken of course. I’ve even heard that Hung has a movie out in Honk Kong and I’m in desperate need of seeing it.

And finally, they found water on MARS. Maybe I’ll dedicate my next post to this discovery, not this post but maybe the next. Maybe.

Until next week, live long and prosper.

A friend of mine inform me of how bad my News essay was this week so I decided to augment my previous statement. To abbreviate what I originally wrote, here’s a video I found through AIN’T IT COOL NEWS and my comic is being reviewed by AICN this week. You can find the review here at AICN COMICS.

This piece is titled “Stephan”. Like the majority of my other works it is 24″ x 30″ and executed in oils. The initial image is taken from COPS, one of the most depressing shows ever allowed on network television.

On another note I saw THE DARK KNIGHT and it was fun, too bad we won’t be able to see Ledger in that role again, I think he did a great job with it. What a brilliant Summer movie season we’re having, actually what a great year and a half of film. Starting with ZODIAC things have been looking up, so many popcorn and intellectual classics have come out. I just hope it keeps up.

To conclude the WOWIO site is down and will be up again shortly and HOW TO BE BULLETPROOF #2, in its entirety, is available at INDY PLANET for 3 bucks by mail order.

Other films that were not mention in my List of Magnificent Science Fiction Films Honorable Mentions List that deserve… mentioning are Starship Troopers, Total Recall, Jurassic Park, and the first tolerable sci-fi film aimed at an audience 8 years old and younger…Wall-E. It’s probably the most politically minded Pixar film to date. This week the painting commemorating my lack of film recognition is entitled Andrew. I think it’s taken from Sunny Chiba’s Street Fighter 2, I might of already posted it in one of my previous news postings. Let me state something that might of not been stated if this picture was indeed posted prior to this posting. It’s named after a friend of mine who worked coat check with me and he is a FUCK’N loud mouth!

Here’s a painting, another one based off of appropriated television imagery. I gave this painting to my neighbor and two days later he gave it back. He said he bought a painting of a boat and felt more comfortable having that hang in his room than my image. I can’t blame him, I guess.

I was going to complain about something but I can’t remember what it was…hmmm.

This is one of the strangest films I have seen in a while. I had to share my amazement of this cartoon with you, my readers.