My City,

It's valentine's day,  or at least I think it is.  I have felt a little lonely.  Not that I have any desire to have a significant other right now.  I am happy to be on my own.  My first long term serious relationship was just about nine years ago,  and I've only been on my own for a few months.  Which doesn't really count,  I was clearly broken hearted.  So the loneliness is actually quite nice.  I'm that kid that could go any where,  pick up and hit the  road at a moments notice.  Of course I already did that.  Here I am, sitting in a coffee shop in P-town.  My list of friends I could count on my fingers,  half of them are roommates,  The other half work frequently,  or just have enough of their own life that I don't see them that often.  Which is good,  I don't want to party,  I want to draw and write.  In six months I'm sure I will meet and befriend a number of people,  and I will miss this time,  when the city was mine.  I lived here ten years ago for one year.  I have lived here again for a little more then a month.  Of course it is much more some one elses' city then mine.  But when you spend your days o your own.  Ordering a cup of tea being the most you talk outside of the house.  When you feel like the lady selling the homeless newspaper is your friend 'cause she says hello two days in a row.  And when you walk blocks and blocks,  that turn into tens of blocks and then a hundred and some...  well into the night.  When those numerous streets exist both beneath your feet and in the passages of your mind,  then in your singular experience,  it is your city.  There is no one to tell you otherwise.  I should choose my friends carefully,  for I am living in a state of bliss,  if only I could recognize it.  It may be that my synapses cannot adjust very quickly to what my rational mind knows is the best for me.  Eugene was the exact opposite.  It was like living on the set of cheers.  Every moment was an invitation,  "c'mon let's hang out."  Which I am glad I had.  Being a kid who has traveled allot sometimes I thought I would never have good friends I could get stoned and watch TV with,  I felt I would always be an outsider.  My brother always told me success was a lie.  The minute you achieved it you had in essence failed.  I don't know how much I took his words to heart.  He was a philosopher at the age of seven,  and had dedicated himself to writing by eight.  So he started working me over at an early age,  being two years older.  But I don't believe that.  I believe in the purity of motivations.  I think secretly Gabe craves success,  and because of that,  If he achieved it,  it could very well be his down fall.  And he protects himself by sabotaging himself,  and maintaining a state of constant penance,  like a monk afraid of his god.  What does this matter and why have i been distracted from my original theme.  I was just wondering that myself.  Let us conclude by saying,  here in this city I claim as my own,  I believe I may face my success.  It's not in the cards yet,  or in my skills to draw a story,  but it is brewing.  And I believe if you pray to and honor your art form every day,  then you will be respected as an artist,  offered a chance to continue your commitment,  and eventually one day honored yourself.  And then success doesn't even matter,  we've got stories to tell!!       
         Happy valentine's day my love,  I promise to spend more time with you.  More time rendering your characters,  more time plotting your stories,  more time paneling and laying out.  More time with me,  because you are the stories inside of me,  and we will walk this earth together.

                             Yours Truly,  the creator

My Bag

This blog is an ode to my bag.  It is a couriers bag and has always been through it manifestations.  There have been three.  The first I received in high school.  It had been my fathers.  I don't remember it perfectly anymore.  It was a dark navy blue on the flap that opens,  the rest was black with gray inside.  It was made by a company in Boston,  their symbol was Hermes I think walking away naked with a courier bag slung over his shoulder.  I lost that bag on the Williamsburg bridge in 2001,  my bike had blown a tube in the lower east side,  it was late and I was walking it back to Classon street.  I got to the Brooklyn side,  the top of this long ramp that slops down to the street. (it's not there anymore) These two guys beckoned me over,  I shrugged my shoulders and walked over to them.  One of them whipped a knife to my throat. I don't remember being particularly scared I never believed they would hurt me. They wanted my money obviously.  I believe it amounted to about a buck fifty,  it might of been less.  So I don't remember when they got my bag,  but they got it and rode down that ramp with it.  I yelled after them,  because there were people walking up the ramp,  like three or four people.  No one really did or said anything.  And that was that.  My bag was gone.  It was full at the time because I had just dumpstered all this bread.  That was the joke,  that my dumpstered food was good enough to steal.  So I walked home.  Looked for my bag in the alleyways around there the next day,  but nothing.  My bag,  a sketch pad,  some pens and pencils,  a cassette walkman,  and bread.  But the bag itself was hard to get over.  Until my budy Sayre gave me his old courier sack.  It has a yellow water proof coated inside,  and a black canvas on the outside.  The only thing that frustrated me was it didn't have snaps,  It had these straps that you had to loop through a metal clasp and then reloop it back and underneath.  So it slowed you down,  but I love that bag,  I have had it repaired,  and only finally made it my secondary about eight months ago.  It doesn't have a name so I cannot give it a toast,  but I can poor some beer out on the curb for it.  Thanks Sayre.  Now we arrive at the present day.  I bought this bag of f my bud Arrianne.  Now I say bought,  but she sold it to me for about half what she paid for it.  Yeah I know.  And this feline is a high class courier bag.  Black on black in black,  Like night rider.  All I got to do is install the moving red light that talks.  actually the symbol is red,  It's sorta like a hawks profile and a P.
       Now why my bag.  My bag is always with me.  I am part tortoise,  part marsupial.  I have hitchhiked,  moved,  traveled and been all over the country,  and some of the world.  I go out to coffee shops almost every day.  And each and every day there has been one of these three bags slung over my shoulder.  I wear my bag straight across,  wedged over my shoulders.  I wore it the same way in NYC.  that's for walking long distances,  no better way,  'cause there is little weight actually on your shoulders.  Oh yeah  I carry weight,  Sketch pad Twenty odd comic pages I'm working on,  pens,  pencils,  now my computer,  maybe a spare layer and a snack.  Yeah it's heavy,  and I've been miles. But this is my bag,  this is my companion,  been around more then any friend,  more then any lady,  family member.  Been physically attached to me more than anything has or will be in my entire life.  I continue to travel,  and plan to go all over the wold,  and if you ever see me,  chances are I'll have my bag slung over my shoulder,  or someone will have a gun to my head,  'cause a knife ain't gonna be enough next time.

One more reasessment,

   Like my comic book,  I need to step into my shoes,  and get going some place.  One point is thinking and planning my blogs out,  but then once I sit down I have over thought them,  and am swamped with ideas.  There is so much to tell,  and if I don't make a point to do it why would I think that any of the people who don't follow my blog should start following it.  I have always maintained that you have to first produce something that excites you,  and then maybe other people will check it out.  It is exciting.  I have so many decisions to make almost every day.  I am working solely on comic books.  attempting to get three done this month!  I cannot decide weather I should look for work here, consider working a few days in Eugene a week,  just live comics,  go to school,  or move to the huge island of trash in the pacific and start colonizing.  SO MANY POSSIBILITIES.  I don't know any one in this town.  Even though I lived here ten years ago.  Or more accurately every one I used to know seems to have moved,  and the few people I do know are from Eugene.  So I feel like I am building from the foundation as an comic artist.  I wanted to write articles for the Eugene papers about comics and just mentioning it here makes me want to do it again,  but I am also now designing a comic strip.  It's fun,  and sorta easy compared to comics.  Though it does posses it's own challenges.  It has to be SO brief.  I think I might do a comic strip and an adventure strip,  give one to my budy Elliot in Eugene for his publication and solicit the other around town.  My comic is not going to get sold until I get my name out there.  And I see no better way then a weekly strip.  So here I come Portland.  I am not sure of the title yet,  but I think it is pretty funny.  I don't think strips are that good.  I would always read Calvin and Hobbs as a kid,  that was great,  sometimes magnificent.  I have developed a deep appreciation of peanuts,  but other then that,  OK you can't be funny all the time,  but these people make a living at consistently SUCKING.  I repeat SUCKING.  OK I'm better now.  So I just started my strip last week,  but I think it is pretty good.  It makes me chuckle.  It is about a superhero lady,  well not actually a superhero,  I haven't figured out what her power is yet,  something awesome,  like an ability to sow a costume in a matter of minutes,  or moon walk on uneven surfaces,  yeah something awesome.  And I haven't figured out her name yet either,  it will be awesome too.  So she is kinda like Charles Xavier,  she runs a school for gifted people,  but it is more like a closed donut shop where people who want to dress up in costumes take classes from her on Sunday nights.  She also does private lessons,  deals with "superheros" who are out of control, and hangs out with her superhero friend who has the power convince women to do what he tells them,  except his powers don't work on her,  it is unclear weather his powers work on anyone.  She actually thinks he's a douchbag,  but since he's a superhero,  they're tight.  Well I have to ink in the first three strips.  See I knew I had but loads of stuff to write about

This one goes out to Paul,

When I lived in New York,  this must of been in the summer of 02,  I had a dream.  A dream I experienced vividly.  I was in a small band of people.  We were on the move constantly,  like a band of Gypsies.  There was a feeling the we were being pursued.  Not that anyone was right on our tails,  but that we had to keep on the move,  if we ever actually stopped we would be apprehended.  We were in the woods when they caught us,  Some of us escaped but they took me and another guy in,  maybe they had three of us. they took my sketch books.  They questioned us for a while and then let us go.  when they released they gave me back my sketch books,  but they weren't the originals,  they were replicas.  We rejoined our friends,  even more apprehensive,  not sure why they had released us.  Then we were in these cavernous ruins,  and they were coming.  as we ran through the ruins, it was as if we were running through the foundations of different societies.  When we emerged we were in grass lands,  with roman columns shattered around us.  We climbed over a marble stone,  and there before us was line after line of suits.  Just like the bad guy in Matrix,  lines of them,  in military formation.  And every ten seconds another squadron would run into a hole leading below.  We watched as seemingly endless legions of suits ran below in unison.  We knew they would be coming back our way,  so we ran.  Of course it was futile,  The suits caught up to us half way across the field.  It was a slaughter this time.  I felt someone grabbing me and pulled out the only weapon I had,  a pencil.  The last thing I saw as I awoke,  my hand stabbing in the air,  was a pencil sinking into the neck of some faceless business man.  That was my dream.  My grandmother,  who is a Jungian psychologist,  told me the dreams meaning would become more apparent to me in time,  it has. 
         

I'm back

O.K. I have thought about a dozen different things to write about in the last month but never found the time to bring them into fruition.  It's been a busy twenty four hours and now here I sit in my pajamas and a new pee coat in Portland.  I'm unemployed and all geared up for some drawing.  For the first time I have Internet at my house so I can be on the  computer and in my pajamas researching and talking about comics 'till the wee hours of the night.  Fuck yeah,  I am happy about this turn of events in my little life.  I got to see a marvelous friend of mine Morgan Hager,  and have a beer with her and Matt Watkins. That's my kind of night.  Since I was moving out of town my friends took it as an excuse to rope me into one late night debaucherous fiasco after another.  And my jadedness set in each morning with the dense fog hanging behind my eyes.  And I wonder why can't we go for walks down to the river and talk about what we really are thinking,  and afraid to be thinking,  instead of downing beer after beer until we can't talk or walk.  Now don't get me wrong I have problem with a tasty drug acting as our most effective social lubricant in a lonely society.  I just think what brings us together is the quality of the time we have with each other and the more we gather around drug abuse the more we aren't really doing what we intended to do in the first place,  appreciate the people we care for.
       So that's the end of my good bye Eugene rant,  let us proceed to the hello Portland rant (much better).  I have only been here for a few hours.  Morgan drove her dad's '64 Mercedes down and once she got to Eugene it started to leak every fluid but water.  So she had it towed to Portland.  I got home from Meiji (the bar I was working at) at five thirty in the am.  She had already called the tow truck,  and I was coming from a pu pu platter of smooth whiskey tasting (just after I bad mouth booze).  The tow truck didn't come 'till seven.  We quietly sat at the kitchen table,  I wrote a letter to Brett and Melissa thanking them for welcoming me into their home for the last two months.  I will have to call them and see if it made any sense.  Then the truck came,  loaded that classic beauty on it's flatbed,  we loaded ourselves,  and we were off.  A friendly guy with tats on his hands and a handle bar moustache was delivering us from a town I will describe now as small,  sad,  and sorry.  No better exit can I recall,  cops questioning a guy on the porch while the morning joggers go by with head lamps on like miners in the night.  Warm air being blasted on my legs,  and knowing the minute I feel it that no matter how hard I try,  my lids are going to come crashing down.  It was a good goodbye.  You should always leave a town at dawn.  And it took me back.  But now I am in a city again after seven and a half years.  I am going to have to take a long walk tonight.

comment number four

Sound like the worst title ever,  well it is.  I am writing these blogs to the imaginary comic fan in my mind,  but they are rants.  My rants.  I guess that is want a blog is.  I want this to be a little more.  Because making a comic is an adventure.  And I also believe in comics.  They are the medium of the moment.  I ride my bike all over town every day,  and there are these two streets that I have to cross all the time,  sixth and seventh.  They are busy four lane,  one way streets.  You always got to kick back and wait for the light to change.  and as I am perched on my bike I think,  none of these people racing by me in their cars read comics,  but each and every one of them could find a comic/graphic novel that they would enjoy.  That might be too optimistic.  I give comics to my brother all the time.  He reads them.  But I do not register any enjoyment from him.  Of course he sometimes inhales them in the same manner he inhales a hamburger,  in three bites!  so it might be a comment on his ability to enjoy things in general.  As I was saying,  even though people are always getting them out of the library,  they are still pretty much underground.  Which is sad.  I think it should be as common for someone to have a collection of picture books as it is for people to have word books.  And granted the style and subject matter is not as varied,  but that is what we should change. In the next decade I think the production and consumption of comic should explode.  Explode.  Did I say EXPLODE.  And why not,  all people need are stories,  and they are easier to read then books.  Nobody reads much any more.  So where are people getting their stories.  Movies and TV.  Which, I don't know if you've noticed,  happen to SUCK.  Movies are the biggest billion dollar industry of unoriginality I can imagine.  And TV is only starting to look good to some folks because their standards have been so completely decimated by endless CGI explosions and hollow plots in films.  I will sometimes get stoned when watching a flick,  and if it is a modern one,  my brain is shocked by their trite and stupid attempts to manipulate my emotions.  Now I can dig a classic flick.  I recently watched the sweet smell of success, with Burt Lancaster and the recently deceased Tony Curtis,  Phenomenal.  I got stoned and was sucked right in.  One of those gems that I love stumbling across.  Oops,  I got completely side tracked.  Let's get this train of thought moving again on comics,  comment number four.   The big industries are still predominately producing flashy super hero stories with oddly proportioned characters.  That's where we,  the small guys,  step in.  I just approved my proof at the printer today.  And ya know it didn't look too great,  there are still some spelling errors,  I forgot to write in that I wrote and drew the second two stories,  the edges aren't all perfectly straight,  the pencil smudges couldn't be taken out completely,  the title letters aren't well defined and sort of blobs into each other.  But you know what,  it looks like my comic,  at the stage that I am right now in my graphic development.  To me it is gorgeous.  Like Dorthy coming home to Kansas after escaping Oz (Hollywood),  my meager little home is mine,  and I love it.  and you need to do that.  Draw your stories,  and strive to make them great,  but accept yourself,  and where you are at.
   Maybe one day I will start to get this blog on track.
      Signing off
                   JulesBoy

Still Adapting To This

Damn,  Hectic last three weeks,  and it is only two days till one of my bosses Iumei has her baby.  But I have found some time to try to squeeze my ideas out.  Also in the news of my life,  I got the comic book to the printer!  Unfortunately the only person who really Knows is Gen because she helped me scan the originals,  or rather she scanned them while I stood around.  I am sure I mentioned it to my other friends,  but making comics is much more of a personal thing for me,  which is one of my main motivations for wanting to move to Portland.  I work on comics allot,  but I think about them all the time and that becomes this private side of myself that is really why I started this blog.  Back to the issues at hand.  I was going to talk about concealing your lines or flaunting them,  I don't want this to be a strait tutorial,  'cause that's not what I am interested in.  I want it to be more about what it takes to pull a comic book out of yourself.  What thing you have to figure out technically and then the things you go through emotionally.  Because it is an Adventure,  but how do I convey that.  O.K. o.k.,  concealing lines or flaunting them;  One of my all time favorite comics is Akira.  It is a set of massive volume after massive volume,  but if you look at it panel to panel it is never ending action,  So when you sit down with the colored comics or a much larger black and white volume,  you are unlikely to get up,  unless your house is on fire,  and then you probably have time to finish another page,  and another,....    So it has that wonder full absorbing quality.  It also is beautifully rendered,  I mean immaculate and gorgeous.  That would be my definition of concealed lines,  when you look at the panel the image is all you take in,  everything is rendered to the degree that they exist in your mind.  That is your mind doesn't think that's a drawing of a gun,  it just sees a gun.  Now when people,  non professional comic book artists attempt to draw their own comic they are often let down by their inability to render an image to that degree,  ie it reads as what it is.  Don't worry too much about it.  As long as the reader can recognize that it is a gun they can read the comic,  I try to choose what gun I am drawing and draw a recognizable smith and Wesson,  or snub nosed 38.  Smith and Wesson is not a good example,  I should be more specific,  what model and make,  get a picture.  But always remember it doesn't need to be perfect it needs to be recognizable.  I think that might be my most important lesson.  ( I don't know if I have said this already )Your favorite artist drew for a looong time before they did what you love.  My example of this is Frank Miller,  Ronin,  was my fave of his.  Before he got as stylized as Sin City,  or Dark Night.  He was still doing allot of line work. But if you go back to his Daredevil days you can see him still developing,  his human build is correct but it doesn't look nearly as cool as once he really found his style.  And he was still a professional artist with a major title to his name.  I always thought Kirby would draw these weird panels sometimes,  and he was the godfather of the silver age.