Comics on the Road to Nowhere? Pt. 6 of 11: Thrift Store Wheelchair

I am going somewhat out of the order of creation by this point, but I have my reasons. Chiefly, I just wanted to get this comic up before the others, because we almost forgot about it when these were being scanned, and we found this one especially amusing while it was being drawn. The twist on this one is two-fold: it related to a story of which I was not aware when the comic was set up (and which I will not fully relate pending the approval of my brothers), but the boys were laughing quite a lot when it reached my hands. Obviously there was a joke that was beyond my ken at the moment, but I went with it, asking them not to tell me the whole story until my participation in the comic was concluded. The second twist is that the first panel was totally completed when I first saw it. I began writing from the second panel forward.

The major kick was how much we were all laughing over Chris beating the snot out of Mark in the comic, and of Chris bulking up to more and more Hulkian proportions with each succeeding panel. It is probably a case of "you had to be there" when I tell you how much fun this was, but you could probably say that about all of these comics, whether you find them amusing or not. We are mainly feeling a residual sense of the joy we found in creating as a team, and of being together again, much older but, as usual, still playing like the kids we have always been and always will be. Nothing better than that...

Here is comic #6, which I shall title "Thrift Store Wheelchair." Have fun...

Comics on the Road to Nowhere? Pt. 5 of 11: Guppy Hunter

So, this strip was the point where we actually started to do our best to try and mess with the other guys. I still don't how or why the trio of pine trees showed up, but there they are. And I kind of love them, just like a coniferous Huey, Dewey and Louie. I also love the croc and I sorely wish the Rare Monster-Jawed Guppy hadn't, presumably, bitten it at the end, because I really wanted the character to talk. Somehow this silly strip actually worked out, and while I can't speak for my brothers, this was a huge surprise to me.

Here is comic #5, titled "Guppy Hunter" by Mark "Otis", Chris "The Eel" and Rik Tod Johnson. Enjoy...

Comics on the Road to Nowhere? Pt. 4 of 11: Trick or Treat?

My brothers continued to try and goad me into drawing, but I wasn't having it. I was already having too much fun writing these comics to even entertain the thought of drawing them too. Just not ready yet.

Besides, they served me up a softball of an opening panel. How can I resist a Halloween theme? And this is the only one of the series which came out to a conclusion which more or less represented what popped into my head upon initially seeing the first picture. I suppose that this really isn't supposed to happen when games such as this are played. After all, the point should be to see what lies ahead without considering the possibilities, rather than seek to control or guide the initial story back to where you imagined at first. But I am a control freak in many ways, especially with my own words. So this outcome is not surprising at all.

The question I would pose to my brothers would be: what popped into your head early on in creating this page?

My idea at the beginning was that the guy would be gutted by the jack-o'-lantern, and I wonder how early in the process this thought occurred to either of my brothers. Perhaps we all willed this direction. To me, it was only logical course in a game that should be guided by an utter lack of logic. Did I betray the intentions of the game, or did we all?

Here is comic #4, titled "Trick or Treat?" by Mark "Otis", Chris "The Eel" and Rik Tod Johnson.

Comics on the Road to Nowhere? Pt. 3 of 11: F'ugly Mermaid

The third of our comics experiment definitely started things going in a direction that I preferred, feeling more like the product of an underground comic than the previous two. This also shows signs of my getting more comfortable with the new game. The truth is that this was being drawn while the first two were still unfinished, so the fact that I consider it more successful derives more from the fact that the experiment simply worked better overall here than in the rougher pair with which we began (though I love how the first two came out).

I asked Mark a couple of days later if his opening panel characters on this page were meant to impart a mermaid and three eels underwater, which is how I interpreted his drawing. He shrugged and said he was just drawing figures and didn't attach anything to it. The "mermaid" could be seen as just a hideous girl in a bikini strolling through a garden while a trio of worms protrude from the top of a flower, and if it is so, I rather like that the drawing actually works both ways. You might note that definite water elements don't actually enter the comic until after I establish that she is a mermaid.

Here is comic #3, titled "F'ugly Mermaid," drawn by Mark "Otis" Johnson and Chris "The Eel" Johnson; dialogue by me.

Comics on the Road to Nowhere? Pt. 2 of 11: Cranky Weather

[EDITED August 19-20, 2009] - The title of this series -- Comics on the Road to Nowhere? -- can be construed as rather mean, if you live in Idaho and know that I am referring to our road trip there at the end of July.

It's not meant to be mean towards Idaho. It's actually a slap at myself and my preconceived notions about going to places of which I know nothing. The truth is I quite enjoyed my first extended stay in my parents' new home in Idaho, found much to recommend about the place, and look forward to visiting again soon. But on the day on which this artistic adventure began, not knowing the fun and natural beauty that waited ahead of us at Craters of the Moon National Monument as we careened down the highway on a 100-degree-plus day, it seemed like we would never get there, and so the title is appropriate to my feelings. At least I attached a question mark to the end of the title to make my statement indefinite, and to show that our actions on this trip would prove the title a lie.

As the first comic page continued to be created and those of us without the page sat around waiting eagerly for our turn, brother Mark decided to start another page to have something else on which to work. As my turn came, staring at a picture of two clouds of differing attitude, without any thought as to how the story would proceed, I applied two sentences to the opening panel: "Fair amount of weather we're havin'!" and "A-yup!" Just the first things that popped into my head, but what else would clouds say to each other upon meeting? This is part of the fun of the game: sheer improvisation. The other fun in the game is not knowing where it will actually go, even though you can imagine where it might, and then seeing what will worm its way into the other participants' heads leaping off from what you had put down onto paper.

A third comic started very soon after that, and so on. Before long, we had a pile of comics slowly trading hands for the duration of the trip.

Here is comic #2, titled "Cranky Weather."

Comics on the Road to Nowhere? Pt. 1 of 11: Tod's Balls

As a placeholder here on the Pylon until I get myself together long enough to actually go back to writing regularly again, I present the first of several posts which could, were I more inclined to the obvious, be entitled "How I Spent My Summer Vacation." Since I do not recall ever having to create such an essay educationally, it will not happen. But this is how I did spent part of my summer vacation, which encompassed a four-day gathering of my brothers, sister-in-law and nephew in Seattle, a boys-only road trip through Oregon to my father's home in Idaho for his 70th birthday party.

Out of a brief camping trip to the Craters of the Moon National Monument (a stop that I highly recommend, and of which I did not know previously), came this: a series of comic pages mostly drawn by my brothers Otis and the Eel (Mark and Chris) and written by yours truly, at first on some very bumpy roads, then gathered around a camp table while being assaulted cutely by chipmunks, pikas and increasingly weird bugs, and finally in a severely sleep-deprived state in the dwindling light around a cramped Winnebago dining table.

The comics arose out of a surrealist game in which my brothers love to engage called Exquisite Corpse, which I have participated in before at parties chiefly in a literary sense, though I have also drawn them before. Assuredly, the game popped up again midway on our journey to Craters of the Moon, as Mark and Chris each took turns finishing halves of a folded page, in which the first artist leaves small lines trailing over onto the remaining half for the second artist to complete. The unfolded page reveals the full work of art, created by divers hands but representing an artistic whole. They played the game with both a single fold into halves and two folds into quarters.

But they wanted me to play. My current discomfort with drawing is a far cry from my old state, where I would gladly scrawl out anything despite all evidence pointing toward my having a decided lack of talent in that area. When I did draw, it came with a torrent of grand insecurity, and every line, redrawn over and over until imperfectly perfect in my mind, was suffused with the torture of my actions. And now, after years of inactivity though with a longing to pursue it once more to provide myself with an additional font of creation, I am at a standstill. I cannot force myself to draw.

And neither could my brothers. Chris especially pleaded with me to join them, but I was happy to read my book on the Air Pirates v. Disney trials and leave them to the pleasures of drawing.

But then, via a massive adaptation to the game, they got me involved. On an empty sheet of paper, with his line given an unwanted but oddly compelling flourish by the steady bump of the RV on the Idaho highway, Chris drew the opening panel to a comic page of a homely looking sad-sack buzzing a doorbell. He offered it to me to fill in a caption to the panel, but I turned him down. The comic page sat on the table for several minutes while I slowly realized what a sourpuss I was being after having an initial six great days to this trip. Finally, playing off a road sign we saw as we wandered around Oregon looking for a reasonably attainable picnic spot (we were a little lost), I filled in the opening panel, and then left a caption in the next wholly empty panel, leaving it to await its own picture to be created.

The game was afoot. Mark then picked up the next two drawings, it came back to me for a flurry of words in panels 3 & 4, back to Chris for drawings in 4 & 5, and so on. It was played without the secrecy element so necessary to true Exquisite Corpse -- no folds here -- but this game evolved, after a while, into trying to subtly influence the following panels with slight changes to your next efforts, or using them to bring a story back to that which you imagined nearer the beginning. There were more developments to come that night and over the next couple of days over how we approached the game, but more on that later.

For now, here is the first comic Mark, Chris and I created as a group, based on the sign we saw that read "TODS BALLS 400"...

Why I Don't Fight (and Why I Must)...

So, where'd I go? How come I have not posted on this blog for well over a month? What happened to my rather recently pledged resolve to soldier on with my writing, battling through my idiotic depressive states and bouts of low self-esteem?

How does an upper respiratory infection and bronchitis hit you? How does constant wheezing and coughing and nasal dripping and not being able to breathe for the last four weeks sound?

To me, until late last week, this round of illness has been pure exhaustion, and the last thing I have wanted to do was sit at a computer and concentrate on writing. Writing about anything, even half-assed notes to my friends and family. I even found it straining to use Twitter, and so my tiny little bon mots and pocket reviews found themselves largely reduced, almost to a standstill, for a couple of weeks, with only an occasional attempt to right the ship. I would play a couple of songs on a Sunday morning on Blip.fm to cheer myself up, to try and convince myself that everything was all right, even when I was drowning in mucus and growing ever sicker of the echo of my own hacking cough. And then I would decide that melting into the pile of pillows and blankets on the couch, where I have largely lived for the past month, would be a far more comfortable and smart choice.

And so I have hardly written in well over six weeks now. Yes, in the last two weeks, I have begun to respond more and tweet more and catch up on what has been going on with everyone. After a misfire with Urgent Care left me taking antibiotics which didn't seem to do me a lick of good, I finally hit a real doctor, who put me on an inhaler (AdVair) which has cleared me up enough where I am breathing, the infection is apparently gone (at least the florescent green, bugfuck-weird stuff has subsided completely), and my cough sometimes seems like a mannerism out of which I need to trick myself. My energy came back last Thursday, and I am now sleeping comfortably most nights (for the first time in ages), and my increase in energy has been absolutely evident to my friends and co-workers, even though I start up a death rattle of a cough once in a while, and then continue to cough for another ten minutes before I can relax my throat enough to actually speak. And then there is that glorious sizz-urp (that's what Raw Meat, via his beloved gangsta rappers, calls it) -- I don't like to take it during the day because it does make me weary, and perhaps I haven't taken it enough, not even halfway to fully recommended prescription. But it sure works wonders for me at night, when I don't have to worry about the dizziness and lack of coherence. And I am now at the point where I can spend an entire day (yesterday) not coughing at all, and then have it trigger on me all through a movie (Bruno) and into bedtime.

Clearly, though, if I can muster up enough concentration to sit at a computer for a couple of hours at a shot rather comfortably now, shouldn't I be at the point where I can begin writing anew?

Practically any time our nation ends up in any form of war -- and I will not go into justification nor political asides here -- the media of our nation are fond of putting out varied films or publications with this constantly rehashed title: WHY WE FIGHT. They may even do this in other countries as well, but Americans are particularly prone to using this blueprint for the media's reassurance and justification to the general public. Usually the resultant pieces are formed from their creators' editorial take on exactly why our men and women take to battle, for whatever cause it might be or against whichever enemy, and uses the pulse of recent events and popular hysteria to construct an outline for exactly how and why we got to the point where we had no other choice but to take up arms and attempt to destroy the enemy. This started out with propaganda films in WWII, and now the phrase seems to get hijacked anytime a magazine or writer wants to explain the Big American Purpose of the war at hand.

My constant enemy, as with many others who attempt to make even greater nonsense of their lives via the written word, is my own psyche. I have written at great length previously about my battles with self-diagnosed depression, and how I have to keep a frantic, almost relentless pace of creation in order not to get lost within myself. In fact, some of you might be sick of hearing it, and I understand this. However, it is part of who I am, and I have to do very well to recognize the symptoms as they surface, and do my best to battle them. if there is a recurring theme on this site, it is the continuation of the battle that has consumed my entire life: the struggle between what I have been all these years and what I could have been with a little more focus and initiative.

And yet, until I write these words, I have done nothing over the last six weeks to stop myself from sinking back into the blank, comfort zone of zero creation and laziness.

So, WHY DO I NOT FIGHT?

Because it is so much easier not to do anything at all. Every day or so, I hear the call of the keyboard... and then I ignore it. I turn my ear away, but I can't shut off my mind. I tell myself that I just don't feel like writing, and I stare at the keyboard for ages, close the laptop and shuffle back to the couch. But then I feel so much more terrible that I am doing nothing at all, and I head back to the computer to stare at the keyboard some more. Every morning begins this way, often with the impulse to begin creating again, and then the impulse swiftly dissolves into ennui and I just start floating around the internet or popping in another movie. And then this tug-of-war leaves me exhausted.

This is not to say that I have not been plotting my return.

Before the illness, in the last piece I posted, I mentioned a new project I was planning to undertake, tentatively called "The 44 Times 30 Or So," and to say that I haven't begun work on that would be a vast understatement. Just before I got sick, I had created, from a variety of solid sources, a massive list of films from 1964 (the year of my birth) through the current year, most of them award-nominated or highly acclaimed films within each year of the list. Over the last six weeks, I have been watching films constantly -- scads of films, droves of films -- sometimes, in the days when I couldn't leave the couch, five or six a day, and on just plain, normal days, averaging between two to three per day. I have already watched 95% of the films that make up my must-see list for 1964, and huge chunks of 1965 and 1966, along with scattered films throughout the first two decades of the list I created for the project.

The groundwork has been laid to initiate the attack on my reticence; the unleashing of the dogs of war remains, as in: the actual writing, my summation of what I am discovering on my new journey through film history within my lifetime. This time of illness has proven fruitful in one major aspect, and that is I have had a lot of quiet time in which to reflect. Any time that one reaches a certain state of middle-agedness and then becomes sick, and then celebrities famously drop dead left and right over the course of your illness, your own mortality becomes an issue as well. It is hard not to think about it. Layer this with the fact I was intentionally launching a personal film-watching project beginning with my birth year, and the reflection gets compounded even more.

So, clearly I am on the verge, if this ridiculous missive from the front is any clue, of finally getting back to the keyboard. The truest question now will be: what form will the summation of my current project take? I have been mulling over and experimenting with various possibilities, but I haven't yet decided on my final presentation as of yet. But, clearly I have taken the first small step towards victory by engaging the enemy -- my twisted fears and laziness -- in battle again. Sure, I know victory is impossible, but it won't be the first or last time that war has been perpetrated on a complete and utter falsehood.