Happy Inktober!

October is my favorite month for both media and breakfast cereals. I've never really loved Christmas specials, and since the grocery store stopped carrying Christmas Crunch (Christitize me, Cap'n!), Halloween has stepped up to fill the void. 

Boo Berry aside, lots of artists (me included) participate in Inktober, where we put aside tablets and pencils and sing the praises of the ink through drawing. I'm also participating in Drawlloween, with a different Halloween-themed drawing prompt every day! Let's see how I'm doing! 

Oct 2nd: devil (handsome devil is more like it, reeowr.)

Oct 8th: zombie (ahh, the classic. Drawing the walking dead will never not be fun).

Oct 15th: amulet (yes, it's pretty. It's also evil. All pretty things are.)

Oct 17th: demon (what's as simultaneously cute and disturbing as a cat with goat eyes? Nothing, that's what.)

Funny Face

Anyone who's the Funny One of their friend group can relate. Thankful for the friends I don't have to always be "on" for. 

If You Smell Something, Say Something.

Jon Stewart (and indeed the cast and crew of The Daily Show as a whole) is one of the great political satirists of all time. And unless you’re both ignorant to news and politics and have some kind of genetic defect that makes laughing physically painful, you’re already aware that Stewart ended his tenure as host of The Daily Show last night.

Jon made a career out of poking fun at politicians, executives, world leaders and people in power in general. And nobody was safe- while most on the Conservative Right thought of Stewart as a mouthpiece for the Liberal Left, it’s easy to find plenty of examples where Stewart took Democrats to task.

The world is full of bullshit. Politicians are corrupt. Elections are bought and sold like commodities. Wages have been stagnant for forty years, and the current generation is having a harder time moving into the middle class than any previous. Extremists want to kill everyone who doesn’t believe what they believe. Our most vulnerable people are still sick, homeless or hungry. It’s easy to become cold and jaded in the face of everything the state of our world has to offer.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart looked into that dark void and saw something funny. That’s because where bullshit exists, especially when it comes to people of great money or power or influence, it has to be not only pointed out, but ridiculed. To be shamed with comedy.

To be made a joke of.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart did this better than anyone else.

Now, it’s up to us. We have to take up the baton of satire. It’s our duty as humans to call out bullshit where we see it, to ridicule those who would try to pass it off as genuine and never, ever stop trying to make the world we live in a better place.

Thanks Jon, for showing us where bullshit lives, and equipping us to wipe it out. Pun intended.

This has been a reflection on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart from an unapologetic smart-ass.

You Don't Even Want To Know What Garrison Keillor Looks Like

Have you noticed that when you listen to a radio personality for years and years, eventually you start to develop a picture of them in your head? Something in their voice influences the way your brain thinks they should look.

Ever notice how that image NEVER looks like the actual person?

I have. But that's because I imagine that all radio personalities are actually talking animals. For instance in my head Terry Gross, host of NPR's "Fresh Air", looks like an otter wearing glasses and a cardigan.

No, I don't know why. Yes, there are others. Yes, I plan to draw them.

If you're not watching Agent Carter, re-evaluate your priorities.

Seriously. If you're not already watching Agent Carter, you need to sit down and take a breather, because you've been completely wasting your life. Even if you don't like comic books or super heroes and think Captain America was lame (which may or may not make you a communist), check it out. It's one of the most fun shows I've watched in a long time. 

So fun in fact that I drew Agent Carter herself. 

Part of a balanced breakfast

Cat owners, ya'll know what I'm talkin' about. 

Grab your sled.

On Friday, history was made in America- marriage equality was ruled the law of the land by the Supreme Court of the United States. Finally, any two people, no matter their sex or gender, could have their marriage legally recognized by all fifty states in the union. The single most important Supreme Court ruling since Roe V. Wade was something to celebrate.

Unless of course you're a big stick-in-the-mud conservative. Look guys, the fight is over. If you're not gay and don't think that gay people should have same rights as everyone else, you lost. On the plus side, your life will be wholly unaffected by gay people getting married, so at least you have that small consolation. 

No, the playing field still isn't completely level. Yes, there's still a lot of work to be done before all people are truly equal, not just in the eyes of the law but in the eyes of humanity. But this is a huge step in the right direction. And if we can make a step this large, I have to believe that we as a society are doing something right. 

And if I hear one more "slippery moral slope!" argument, I might tear my hair out.

Digital drawing exercises: flamelady

Quick sketch based on a pose I saw that I liked. Started the sketch of flamelady on paper, photographed and finished in Photoshop. I’m feeling a lot more confident about my digital drawing! 

Yeah. Probably.

I was looking through my old posts today.

Furiosa (or, The Last Cartoonist on the Internet)

If you haven't yet seen Mad Max: Fury Road, first let me say, welcome to the surface world! I'm unsure when you went into your apocalyptic bunker, but rest assure the world is not the irradiated wasteland you thought it would be. I'll give you a moment to catch your breath. 

Go see Mad Max: Fury Road. It's amazing. Even if you're the kind of person who doesn't appreciate the fact that the creators made a movie about a female Road Warrior and snuck it right under our noses, it's still an amazing special-effects action-packed braingasm of a movie.

Also, this arrived yesterday. 

 Ut-oh. 
Alright, so I'm the last cartoonist on the internet to draw Furiosa in all her axle-greased-up glory. Time to rectify that.

The Brown Shadow Strikes

Still getting the hang of doing original stuff on the tablet, but it's getting there. This was a birthday gift for my brother-in-law; he has three beautiful dogs, and sometimes he imagines his English Springer Spaniel as a masked vigilante (I mean, who doesn't?). 

Hipsters.

The next thing hipsters are going to bring back: horse-drawn carriages. Until one of them reinvents the covered wagon. 

Doubt.

My self-perpetuating doubt spiral, ladies and gentlemen. 

"Retro", Ch.4 - Continue? (part 3)

The epic saga of four boys trying to alter the past to save the future of gaming continues! 

Lost? Get caught up! Here's Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, and Chapter 4 part 1 and part 2! 

I always wanted a tattoo, but never got one. Here's why.

"Retro", Chapter 4: Continue? (part 2)

Sometimes, in the defense of things we love, we have to take drastic measures. Like raiding a costume shop and dressing up in front of strangers in order to change the future.

Unsure what's going on? Get caught up with Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, and the first part of Chapter 4! 

The internet belongs to everyone.

We can't forget that. Yes, we have to pay for it, and we should- something this great and open and powerful does have an intrinsic value. 

It should also remain open and unobstructed. 

For that reason, we have to support Title II of the Communications Act.

The gist of it is this: Right now, cable companies charge you a rate based on how much bandwidth you want (with options ranging between 4 and 12 megabits-per-second for most broadband providers, on average). You can do whatever you want with that bandwidth- you can stream Netflix, or write a blog post, or buy used schoolgirl panties on Ebay (no judgement).

But the cable companies want more. 

They want to monitor what you bring through that bandwidth (remember: that you're already paying for!) and charge content providers more based on that information. 

This is bad. This is bad bad bad bad bad bad BAD.

Take this scenario as an example: 

Comcast (or any cable provider, really, but here I'll be using the broadband equivalent of Beelzebub himself) notices that a lot of their users are streaming Netflix. They call Netflix and say, 

COMCAST: "Hey, you're slowing down the traffic for our users; we need some more money from you. Like right the hell now."
NETFLIX: "Uh, no."
COMCAST: "Well, if you insist." /Throttles all bandwidth from Netflix servers to a crawl for all of their users/
NETFLIX VIEWERS ON COMCAST: "OMGWTFBBQ I CAN'T WATCH ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK NOW I'M GOING TO HULU PLUS INSTEAD".
NETFLIX: "Wait! Come back!" /Turns to Comcast/ "Fine, take your blood money, Faust."
COMCAST: /Cackles madly as lightning flashes in the background/
NETFLIX: "Well, now our profits are going down. Can't have that." /Raises the monthly rate for all their viewers/
NETFLIX VIEWERS ON COMCAST: /IMPOTENT RAAAAAGE/

Aaaaand scene. 

We can't let this happen! But the good news is, we can still do something about it!!
Contact your representatives. Let your voice be heard. 

It's your internet- fight for it!!

"Retro", Chapter 4: Continue? (Part 1)

This is it! After weeks of work, the first chapter in the finale of Retro is complete! After accidentally eliminating the existence of video games from all of history, our four friends are headed back in time in an attempt to undo the damage they've done! Is it too late? Will they be successful? Will children be forced to just go outside and play for all time? Find out now! 

Missed out on the previous chapters? Get caught up right now! Find Chapter 1 here, Chapter 2 here, and Chapter 3 here!