This is How I Dance When Nobody's Looking...

Haven't really posted anything significant recently, I've been super focused on completing the first issue of Cliffhangers. So far I've got all the first draft pages of Immaculate done, (I'm probably going to redraw maybe two pages.) I'm currently wrapping up The Girl I Can't Forget and I'm progressing through Red Vag of Courage rather nicely. As for how my life is going, I finally got my new glasses and the job has been going pretty well, I like the work. Last weekend I received my first pay check and I worked my first Double shift. (and my legs were killing me all of Easter Sunday) I opened a savings account with my pay check for that new computer I've been meaning to get for my art and I used my tip money from the weekend for my basic needs and for my recent efforts to increase my swagger. (I ordered some new clothes online that'll fit me better and I got a new hair cut.) I also went to the library and went through my father's CDs to broaden my musical horizon. Here are some of the bands/artists I've been listening to a lot lately;
Billy Bragg, Jenny Lewis, Aquabats, Arctic Monkeys, Barenaked Ladies, The Dandy Warhols, Electric Light Orchestra, Feist, Hefner, Metric, Neko Case, The Pooh Sticks, Sondre Lerche, The The, Maroon 5, and Weezer.
I've checked out some Graphic novels that looked particularly interesting and are more in the genres that I tend to write about. I read Hope Larson's Mercury cover to cover last night and I'm currently in the process of reading Craig Thompson's Blankets. I highly recommend both for their amazing use of graphic story telling.

The Second to Last Unicorn...

While I Was Out Part 14: The End; Legendary Day and The Last Week of Maple.

A little more that two months after it all actually happened I've come to the conclusion of my recap of my time as a member of Maple Unit class 16A of the North Central Region. One word to describe how the first Maple Unit went out; Legendary. Headed by the now equally legendary Mike Kamen, Legendary Day was a day about Class 16A forever leaving it's mark on not only the staff of North Central, but also the Braille school and the community of Vinton as a whole. The day started with a pot luck breakfast between all the teams. I made my Mom's Potato pancake recipe with the help of Blaze. All the teams were then given projects through out the community and the Braille school.
I was given the task of leading Maple 4 (plus Blaze and Autumn) in painting two murals for the School's future Recycling and Compost areas. (I was given the task because I had designed both Murals.) The day ended with another pot luck this time open to the community of Vinton hosted by us, and after dinner we all sang altered versions of Johnny Cash's "I've Been Everywhere"(We changed the locations of I've been everywhere to locations that our teams went to through out the ten months.) and the Beatles "Hey Jude" which we changed to "Hey Jody" and sang it to the lovely Jody Burns our Deputy Regional director of programing.
Later in the week was our awards banquette which I hosted. (And later turned into a nightmare for me.) To my surprise I a was given the award for the most outstanding personal growth in the entire corps which the night go a lot easier for me. And then came Feb. 4Th. A tearful morning filled with goodbyes and hugs and shuttles to the airport. My first flight was filled with fellow Maples as we were bound for Chicago looking to catch our connections home, and then flying to Cleveland it was just me again, alone. So now I'm home again, this time in Lakewood, I've got a job and now I know I get to do it all again come October, this time in California. Hopefully the next time around I can keep my postings of these events a little more current.

Big Things to Come...

I just penciled the first page to "Red Vag of Courage" which is the secret origin of the Vaginal Avengers I'm going for a Powerpuff Girls parody (I was a fan of the show as a child, my favorite Powerpuff being Bubbles.) for this whole short comic so I basically followed the opening to the show frame by frame. Expect to see more soon.

While I Was Out Part 13: Crossroads for Youth, The Fourth and Final Round

So round four was the last one for us and the boys and girls of Maple One spent it in Oxford Michigan, working with Crossroads for Youth. Crossroads is a rehabilitation facility for children who get in trouble with the court system. Our job was split between painting various rooms on the grounds during the day and serving as mentors for the children in the evening. Legally I am not sure as to how much more information I am allowed to disclose about my time there on this blog so I'm just going to leave it at that. Our time in Michigan was smack dab in the middle of the holiday season so it was real convenient for me to go back home for thanksgiving, but less so for Christmas. (before we went on our winter break we were required to report back to the Iowa campus for a few days of training and meetings and from there we were allowed to go home.)
I had to take one miserable bus ride home from Iowa to Ohio where this one weird guy who smelled of B.O talked to me for the entire time from when we got on at the Iowa/Illinois boarder, until we got to Chicago. Between all the trips the team took from Iowa to Michigan we saw a lot of Chicago. (Chicago was our half way point in which we'd stop driving and call it a day.) One of the nights we decided to go out and see the city which was cool because we got to see Chicago with of it's Christmas decorations out, but man it was freakin' cold out.

Northstar and Dazzler

So recently I'm managed to get a copy of the X-Men: Nation X TBP. (that includes Tim Fish's Northstar short story). I've really liked the direction that Uncanny X-men has been going in lately, (though I haven't gotten the chance to read anything post second Comming) between moving to San Fransico, then to Utopia, and then with Cyclops leading army of like every X-Man that ever existed plus Magneto and Namor. Two mutants part of the current line up are Northstar and Dazzler, who were always some of my favorites though they never really got that much of the lime light. A trend I've started to notice with these two that inspired this piece of fan art is that ever since they've rejoined the team they are always together. Getting Pixie drunk, protesting Prop. X, fighting Dark Beast, stopping crime, saving Magik from Limbo, these two are inseperable, which leads me to the conclusion that Northstar is Dazzler's gay boyfriend. It makes sense all my chick friends have one, why not Dazzler. Though Northstar is certainly not a sassy gay friend, like most of my chick friend's gay boyfriends, he's more like a witty gay man, like if Emma Frost had a penis, was French Canadian, and acted manly. Dazzler could certainly use the company too, what with that mullet fashioning Longshot running around with X-Factor always forgetting who he is and making all the ladies fall in love with him and stuff. I just hope that with the start of the new Alpha Flight series, (yeah cause if history has shown us anything it's that Alpha Flight is a series that really lasts.) that they don't pull Northstar away from the X-Men thus breaking up this totally platonic gay boy/ straight girl love affair.

A First Day, Good News, and a Hell of a Party.

This past week was certainly eventful for me. Friday was my first day of work at Great Lakes Brewery restaurant as a busser, which has been going really well for me. The job is pretty simple, though it's a job that a lot of people depend on you to do right and though it's nothing glamorous I'm really liking it so far. The first day was a bit difficult without my glasses, (I couldn't always see if a table was ready to be cleared or not and being taught where everything is located is a lot harder when you can't see where everything is located.) But day two, after my dad gorilla glued my glasses back together, (which are now super annoying to wear with the large dried gorilla glue lump rubbing against the bridge of my nose.) was a lot easier and I've started to develop a flow for the work. My uniform is all black, a t-shirt (when my boss gave me my shirts he told me they were out of mediums but I was pleasantly surprised that a size small fits me just fine these days.) pants, shoes and an apron. Also as a perc from work I get 50% off food during my shifts which is good because they have got some good food. They also have a complementary post shift beer but alas, being the 20 year old that I am I can not partake in the consumption of the shift beer. That same day I also found out that I've been conditionally accepted into the Fall 2011 AmeriCorps NCCC class in Sacramento California. Being conditionally accepted means that as long as funding for the program remains available (which the republicans seem real gung ho about cutting it.) I will be part of the next NCCC class starting Oct. 6th. I'm so excited and surprised that I got picked, from what my staff contact through the whole applying process was saying it's not exactly common for there to be second year corps members, and the fact that I got in and at the campus I was really hoping for just makes it all the more better.
I then finished the week with going to Rob and Carri Jackson's annual book party. This year's book was The Divine Comedy, which I thought, prior to reading it, I'd like more than I did. But anyway the party was fun, the house was decorated to fit the three parts of the comedy, (Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso) and all the food was Italian. Towards the end of the party Rob and Carri's youngest daughter was asking us all "Would you rather..." questions one option which seemed to keep coming up in these scenarios involved chanting "Butkiss Tort" on top of a building naked for everyone to see. A good time was had by all.

And Now For Something Different...

This is going to be the cover to a collection of short comics by me that I will eventually be giving out to my friends who are graduating from Baldwin Wallace this year. The collection is called Cliffhangers from the B-Side Dimension and will include the first chapter of Immaculate, a short comic based off a Fountains of Wayne song, and the newest adventure of The Vaginal Avengers, Red Vag of Courage. The explanation for the cover which is not finished, is that my teammate Andrea once said that guys only dream about three things; Dinosaurs, super heroes, and boobs. I thought that was particularly funny and I liked the imagery so I decided to combined the three and turned it into a cover.

A Moment of Person Greatness Swiftly Followed By a Moment of Personal Fail

In loving memory of my glasses. You made it through Junior and Senior year, six months at the Cleveland Food Bank, several trips to Canada, ten months of NCCC, four job interviews, and several times of accidentally following asleep with you still on. Rest in peace my dear friends.

So today has been a day of mixed feelings; I found out that I got the Busing job at the Great Lakes Brewery Restaurant in down town Cleveland and then shortly after that my glasses broke. How did they break? I have no idea! I was just wearing them and was on the computer when they just all of a sudden snapped in the middle and fell off my face! I've always had the worst luck with breaking glasses, (One of the reasons I've been wanting to get contacts since I was 14.) but this is pretty ridiculous, I didn't even do anything this time! I kinda need them to because I am horribly near sighted and I'm discovering that drawing and reading things on the computer with my face basically pressed against the paper and screen has been really bad for both my neck and back. But hey employment! Whooh! Today's events have been illustrated with this drawing also serving as a tribute to one of my favorite comic series of all time Scott Pilgrim. If you know the series you'll get the reference.

Celebi Event 2011

Yes it's another Pokemon related post because clearly I have one very nerdy problem, it's kinda like Felicia Day's character with World of Warcraft in her web series the Guild. (speaking of pokeposts correction on my last post there are 646 Pokemon as of this generation and three additional ones that have yet to be released anywhere rather than 466 as I said before. By the way I'm only six away from having caught them all again I'm really OCD about this kind of thing.) So I drew this a couple months back when Gamestops across the country were distributing Celebis to DS versions of Pokemon. (This was the first Celebi event in North America since the original Gold Silver for the Gameboy Color ten years ago. Before the only way to obtain Celebi was by getting a Japanese one over the Global Trade Station or by obtaining the Japanese Gamecube promo disc for Pokemon Colosseum for the Gamecube.) This Celebi has a special purpose in The Heart Gold and Soul versions of the game as well as the new Black and White versions. In HGSS once taken to the shrine in the Elix Forrest the Celebi will unlock a special part in the games story that takes you and character's gender equivalent back in time (because Celebi's the time traveling Pokemon.) where you're suppose to learn that Giovanni the absent leader of team rocket is in fact the father of your rival, which they didn't clearly state in the English versions of the game like they do in the Japanese games, which really erks me. (I will repeat; nerd, problem, I have.) You then get to battle Giovanni as he tries to head to Goldenrod City during the Team Rocket take over but is stopped by you. In Black and White once you transfer Celebi by a special means in Castellia City you can receive the Pokemon Zorua as a gift. This is the only way to obtain this Pokemon aside by breeding it's evolution Zoroark which you can only capture in the game by transferring one of the shiny legendary beasts (from a previous gamestop event.) by the same means as celebi. So yeah, really wanting that job 'bout now the videogames and Internet life style is really getting kinda old.