But the Good News Is…

Holidays are coming up! I know I posted my Christmas List Wish but that was all B.S.

What I really want for Christmas is one of two things:

1. To be able to hire Scott Shaw, the original artist for Captain Carrot & His Amazing Zoo Crew, to draw a page or two of World Wildlife Federation of Justice. I found out his page rates today and they are not unreasonable. They mayyyyyyy be in my price range for a single page. Especially if I just get the pencils done.

2. I want to start a ‘battle music’ station for Live365 radio. This basically requires time and a bit of scratch.

I think either of those things would be incredibly cool. And by cool I mean nerdy.

Things of the Day

At the old day job we have a ‘job board’ with all the different jobs on the go. It’s very seldom full. It is currently…full.

Today the chief went on a 2 week vacation leaving me in charge.

Anyone want to intern at a screen-printing & embroidery place? Mwoo-hahahaha!

So the “upshot” (I dislike that word…reminds me of trailer park dialect for some reason) is that I have 3 fewer hours a day to keep up on my art jobs. Let’s look at those, shall we?

  1. Reggietown. 38 page comic book. Pencils & Inks. Paying. Due now.
  2. Secret project. 5 page comic. Pencils & inks. Non-paying. Due now.
  3. Monkey project. 13(?) page comic. Pencils & inks. Non-paying. Due now.
  4. Logo design (4) for Thai sauce purveyor. Paying. Due in a few weeks.
  5. WWFJ Mutants & Masterminds supplement. Writing (with help from Theo), drawing, inking, colouring. 95% done. Pays percentage of profits.  Way overdue.
  6. Spaceship Zero. 5 page comic. Writing, pencils, inks. Non-paying. 4/5ths done. Due in February.

Plus misc.

Common Lawful Neutral

Under Canadian law, in one month I will be in a common-law relationship, and then these will be my common-in-law nephews and neice.

shaunavon2009

Worth Repeating

Here’s a good one from passiveaggressivenotes.com

nick in tampa, florida says the sodas in his small office used to be free, but now they cost 50 cents. and yet, when they’re left out “unguarded and unsecured, naturally, people steal them,” nick says. eventually, one coworker thought instilling the fear of god would make for a good theft-deterrent…which inspired another coworker to quote scripture in protest of the new drink policy.

Speaking of Jesus, why am I still awake?

This one’s good too:

The Oasis of the Prairies: Bone Creek Basin

I awoke in Shaunavon with a very special request. Deanna’s nephew had asked her teacher if I could come and teach his class art. Everything was in place pending my consent, which naturally I gave.

I was chauffeured over to Christ the King elementary school and welcomed to a group of 15 kids. In the limited time I had to prepare I came up with the idea of quickly going over a simple lesson on head proportion and then creating a pirate & her mascot. This quickly devolved into me simply drawing whatever the kids shouted out, mainly Batman, Spider-Man, a transformer, and suchlike. I did draw a few World Wildlife Federation of Justice characters. I managed to restrain myself from slipping in any anti-theistic innuendos but I did make a point of having the gamma-irradiated mutant cyborg parrot be environmentally friendly.

Poll-E gets ready to take his bottles in for recycling
Poll-E gets ready to take his bottles in for recycling

With the class consisting mainly of 12 boys and 3 girls I did make a point of having the pirate be female, and I talked extensively of Octopussycat‘s origin and powers.

I reviewed all the kids’ drawings and noticed some real talent. One kid was obsessed with drawing swords and he even had an earth sword with an earth at the tip of the blade, the pommel, and both ends of the crossguard. Another kid made his own Superman comic (don’t tell DC)! At the end of it all I got a Christ the King pen and bookmark.

click to embiggen
click to embiggen

A reprieve from the kids allowed some much-needed internet time but after that I drove the two boys (Layne had tap practice – more crying commenced) to the T-Rex Discovery Centre in Eastend. There they have “Scotty” – one of

Ammonite drawing courtesy tonmo.com
Ammonite drawing courtesy tonmo.com

the finest tyrannosaur skeletons in the world, plus various other exhibits including a brontothere, T-rex coprolite (fossilized poo), and ammonites (they’re all the rage in the Selandian age). I was very disappointed in the lady who gave us the tour because she not only mispronounced ‘ammonite’ but she also mistook a mosasaur fin for a plesiosaur fin. Perhaps I should take the $40k/year job posting there.

We stayed as late as they’d let us and got some souvenirs – I got a “COPROLITE HAPPENS” T-shirt. Who doesn’t love a good paleontology joke? We drove back to Shaunavon and enjoyed some pizza that Deanna’s sister made (brownies too) and then whiled away the evening painting more dinosaurs and watching The Simpsons.

More crying commenced when Layne’s bedtime came around, so I had to tuck them in. They’re so cute standing on their hind legs like a little Rory Calhoun.