Bohemian Zen

I’ve been on a weird mode lately.

This morning I awoke directly into a weird mode. I’m not prescribed any drugs for this condition, nor do I have an official diagnosis. I’ve spent the last few months observing my conscious state when it veers into the abnormal so as to find ways to work with it creatively and functionally rather than against. Sometimes I get a disconnection between my mind and body that is a disturbing feeling at best. I woke to that this morning, which was a bit troubling as I was intending to finish pencils on a splash screen. (one half standard comic page in ration to a computer screen). On it in layouts are a bunch of perspective grids defining a wall of buildings, sitting behind a giant mecha-lizard monster who is reacting to his tail being sheared off. Lots of empty space to fill. I pop two adequately researched safety nets, and hope for the mental vertigo to subside well enough for me to conquer this mountain. The perspective and layouts are properly lain down, but there is still plenty of undefined space and areas of ambiguity. Lots of empty space.

It was about here that I came to a conclusion. I don’t know how this applies to other artists but for me it fits too perfectly. For me, the process of drawing a page of artwork, is the process of overcoming fear.

The horizon is scary. The horizon is the absolute worst. If the horizon isn’t right, it all falls apart.

Generally, when I start drawing a page that has a lot of important perspective, that first line is the horizon line. Whether it is aware of it or not, that line is holding up everything that will be in that final picture, and where it decides to focus its attention will define everything on the page. The horizon takes that abyss of blank paper and gives it it’s first division. It gives the page it’s first experience of itself, and subsequent divisions will give rise to further self-experience. This is quite similar to the creation of existence, but that’s a much longer thesis for another day.

This division and subdivision creates smaller, more manageable abysses. Abysses with defined borders. This is done until we get to a point where we have vortices of fear small enough that they are no longer intimidating. This is where I’m free to screw it up as I please, and it will still be satisfactory in my eyes.

Love to hear what you guys think of this epiphany. Now back to the abyss.

3!LL

I’ve got a bunch of new pages I’ve yet to even scan so I’ve been working, but I’ve also been hiding from my writers for no good reason. I do that sometimes, just keep to myself for a couple of weeks. Actually, I do it a lot.

This past Monday I had to get a rotten wisdom tooth pulled, and the subsequent few days after I’ve done nothing much more than play Lego Star Wars and whine about my sore gumhole. I’ve got another out in a week or so, but I may put it off. At the end of January they start drilling and filling on the negligence of the past few years.

Also, I played Super Mario Galaxy last night. It’ rawks. I’ll be nice to have something I can pick up and put down that keeps my interest still.

Now time to see what the hell this Triggit thing does. I’ll post something juicy soon, promise.

3!LL

For me, it started on April 14, 2007. I was checking out the digitalwebbing.com “Talent Pool” and came across an ad from an artist looking for writers. It caught my attention because the voice used was frenetic. The artist obviously had ideas knocking wildly inside his head, causing him no small amount of creative discomfort. He needed writers to shape those ideas.

The artist was 3!LL. The project was Special Edition.

I couldn’t find 3!LL’s original post, which is a shame, but I did locate my email response.

“Your post on DigitalWebbing.com caught my attention. I’m interested in a number of those topics, especially death and the afterlife and bingo ladies, the latter of which I believe is seriously under-used in pop culture. I’ll admit though vampires fighting werewolves doesn’t do a thing for me unless the vampire is Kate Beckinsale in her fantastically sexy tight black leather from Underworld and I’m the werewolf, and then only if the fighting is fueled by a sexual tension the both of us can no longer deny. It might be the beers muddling my brain but I’m not certain whether you have a story in mind and you need a writer to shape it or if you’re looking for a writer to collaborate with you on the idea and ultimately write it, with you supplying all the lovely colored pictures. Either can work for me.

“Now, this email will either catch your attention in a positive or negative way. If positive and you wish to learn more about me the process is rather simple. You can check me out at http://caperaway.wordpress.com or drop me an email. If the reaction is negative, I’m afraid there is no cream available, but I’ll wish you all the best in your future endeavors and maybe that will reduce some of the rash.”

Typically, I respond to ads in a very professional manner, but 3!LL’s ad required something different because I could tell from his post he was looking for something off the norm. His post was witty and bold, and I thought he deserved a similar response. It was a gamble. Fuck it. I had nothing to lose. Sometimes you have to put your balls on the table and risk the hammer fall.

Today, almost two years later, the first, completed panel of “Hero for the Ages”, one segment in the epic Special Edition, was published on this here blog.

Making comics is hard. 

Ideas are easy. I have answered my share of help wanted ads from artists looking for writers and every one of them had an idea that, in the right hands, would make for great comics.  One of the first ads I ever answered was on June 10, 2006 and the story concept is still one of the best ideas I have come across. Like so many other projects or collaborative efforts being worked on out there in the big wide world, the concept never saw the light of day in finished form though scripts were written and no shortage of artwork produced.

Most ideas never make it that far.

Having a great idea is not enough. An idea has no shape. It is not a complete tale. It may have a beginning, a middle and an end, but that is just the skeleton. Where is the skin that hangs on the skeleton to make the being whole?

Turning the idea into something that can be made into a finished product is the hardest part of the process of creating comics. Each character needs a story, a setting needs a history, a tone needs to be established, a voice crafted, and sequence of events mapped. Only then can the tale be told, and this brings us to the most terrifying moment of the creative process: Applying ass to chair and bringing the tale to life.

If self doubt has not killed your project by now you are among a fortunate few, but that murderous bitch is not dead. Self doubt is going to come back with vengenance. Am I good enough? I’m not good enough. This isn’t as good as (insert famous writer here). This isn’t as good as (insert famous artist here). So, why should I bother? My work is turd. What’s on TV?

But before you can wrestle those demons, you have to avoid all the things in life that keep you from creating: a day job, family, girlfriends, boyfriends, video games, vices, television and so on and so on and so on until dust settles on your handwritten notes, pages that have since turned yellow at the edges.

We creators of the Special Edition stories have fought our own demons and have, at time, fallen victim to procrastination and the grind of daily life, but there was always one of us who would keep the energy going, reviving the rest  with a few choice words and plenty of solid kicks. The whip needed to be cracked on more than one occassion.

Get ass in chair and get to work.

That is the only way shit like this gets done.

It ain’t easy, but it is worth every painful, terrifying moment.

In light of recent events, I wanted to write a little bit about John Harvey Kellogg.

John Harvey Kellogg was a Seventh-day Adventist until the middle of his life, and applied his beliefs to the care of  his patients at the Battle Creek Sanitarium.  Here he promoted healthy living through techniques such as hydrotherapy, phototherapy, breathing exercises, and… well pumping yogurt into patient’s butts, apparently.  He also advocated a “plain and healthy diet”, consisting of very little meat (if any), and the avoidance of stimulating food and drink.

Much like Rev. Sylvester Graham, Presbyterian minister and the inventor of Graham Crackers, Kellogg believed that the sexual arousal could be curbed by the eating of bland foods.  He was a proponent of sexual abstinence, and devoted large amounts of his educational and medicinal work to discouraging sex, even passionate sex between married couples.  Though married for over forty years, he claimed to have never had sexual intercourse.  He and his wife had separate bedrooms their entire lives.

Bland foods to curb sexuality?  A person has to wonder whether he had this in mind when he invented Corn Flakes with his brother, Will Keith Kellogg, founder of the Kellogg Company.  However, let’s try not to jump to conclusions.

John Harvey Kellogg had some other interesting beliefs on masturbation.  He didn’t see it as a national pastime to be enjoyed in one’s youth, but rather a “solitary-vice that caused, among other things, cancer of the womb, urinary diseases, epilepsy, insanity, mental and physical debility, and death.  He worked on rehabilitating offenders through extreme measures such as mutilation, genital cages, the sewing shut of the foreskin, and electrical shock.  When describing this torture in the book Plain Facts for Old and Young, he wrote:

“A remedy which is almost always successful in small boys is circumcision, especially when there is any degree of phimosis. The operation should be performed by a surgeon without administering an anesthetic, as the brief pain attending the operation will have a salutary effect upon the mind, especially if it be connected with the idea of punishment, as it may well be in some cases. The soreness which continues for several weeks interrupts the practice, and if it had not previously become too firmly fixed, it may be forgotten and not resumed.”

“In females, the author has found the application of pure carbolic acid [phenol] to the clitoris an excellent means of allaying the abnormal excitement.”

Sounds kinky to me.  Actually, it sounds more like the actions of a sexually frustrated psychopath, but again, let’s not jump to conclusions.

When not making bland breakfast cereal and sexually traumatizing young children, Kellogg managed to find time to co-found the Race Betterment Foundation in 1906.  He donated a large portion of his shares in the Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flake Company, which later became the Kellogg Company, to the foundation, which became a major player in the new eugenics movement in America.  Kellogg was in favor of racial segregation, claiming immigrants and minorities would damage the gene pool.  He also suggested the establishment of a eugenic registry that would create a pedigree of proper breeding pairs. The registry would contain prospective parents who met their strict standards of racial hygiene.  Their children would have pedigrees based on the physical characteristics they inherited from the parents, and would compete in contests where they would be awarded for their pedigree.

“The only way to improve the race is to exercise care in selection and to permit only healthy people to marry. No science of sanitation or hygiene will raise the standard of the race one inch”
In accordance with Godwin’s Law, we’ll move on.

John Harvey Kellogg had a falling out with his brother William, both personally and in business, the end result of which was the two forming two different companies; John formed the Battle Creek Food Company, and William, the Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flake Company, which later became the Kellogg Company, manufacturer of Corn Flakes breakfast cereal.  The two had a legal battle over the rights to the recipe.

So what was it that caused the rift between them?  Was it the genital mutilation, or the appalling xenophobia? Nope, it was sugar.  Will wanted to add sugar to the recipe.  John, however, must of thought that too stimulating for his beliefs.  If it hadn’t been for that, who knows, the two brothers could have had a long and happy business career atop a cereal empire.

So the next time you sit down at the breakfast table with a bowl of Kellogg’s Corn Flakes, remember that it was invented by a sadistic racist for the purpose of killing your libido.

Dammit, and I was trying not to jump to conclusions.

My special day came one day after Chad Boudreau’s. On April 15, 2007, with less than a month to go before my graduation from Syracuse University, I saw and responded to a Digital Webbing advertisement with the title “Writers, You Fuckers!”

Who. The. Fuck.

Half-crazed and entirely curious, I sent my own inquiry in response to heavy metal rockstar William “3!LL” Blankenship’s advert:

“I was innocently browsing Digital Webbing today when suddenly I got pelted in the nards by your vulgar subject line. I decided to adventure within to (a) find out what the crap you were calling me a fucker for, and (b) to see if I could get some ice for the marbles. I got the former, still waiting on the latter.

What you’ve got assembled over there looks pretty hefty. Individually I’d be interested in any one of those themes, but all blended together? It’s kind of like throwing everything you own in the pantry into the blender, hitting pulse a few times then seeing if your concoction will make people barf or give them eight foot boners. I’m hoping for the second, but would not necessarily be disappointed by the first. Either way, I’m very curious to see and hear more about what you’ve got going on inside your creative kitchen. Maybe I can even bring some shit to the smorgasbord.”

Like Chad’s, my “cover letter” was a risky approach that has paid off in spades. I’ve worked with a number of artists in the past couple of years but there is something about 3!LL’s diseased brain that never ceases to terrify and amaze. I mean, just look at that big dude squeezing man juice out of his man thing… I don’t know whether I should sever all ties with this seemingly insane artist or send him an overnight FedEx of the most high fives ever.

What I can say with certainty is that the initial complexity of the project has grown in spades since I’ve delved deeper into Special Edition’s world. I’ve written three (maybe four?) scripts for this series so far with many more to go. By the time I’m done, I’m sure I still won’t understand half the shit 3!LL is telling me to write. But I do know this: I will write it all with glee and boners. Nothing instills glee and boners like writing Special Edition – except, hopefully, reading it.

I’m keeping this short because I’m about to head off to New York Comic Con. While I am at the con representing Comic Book Resources as a journalist, there are ulterior motives as well – I’m trying to pitch my in-progress graphic novel The Regulars. I’ve never been more terrified in my life. The creative process in comics is like having a baby in private. No one has seen my infant yet, though I have cared for it and loved it for years. Finally, the day comes that I must unveil it to the public. Either the shadows and lack of light has rendered my child an unseemly mutant, or the top-secret cultivation has yielded an outcome so beautiful that the masses can’t resist stroking its uber soft skin. In either scenario, I am a terrified mother that is about to display my pride and joy to others for the first time. Who knows, maybe I’ll get turned around as soon as I approach a publisher. Or maybe I’ll meet a cheery dude who not only is happy to read the thing, but actually loves it.

I’ll never know if I don’t try.

So follow your dreams, kiddos. Don’t be afraid. Pursue your shit. Have many babies and display them proudly. Either the world will “oo” and “ahh” or they’ll collectively soil themselves at the sight of the fabled daywrecker. At the end of the day, you go down in history as either a winner or as a loser – but at least you went down in history.

Josh Wigler~ 02-06-09

As you can plainly see Bohemian Zen hasn’t been updated in over a week now.  I deeply apologize for this as unforeseen circumstances put me in a position where I’ve had to focus almost primarily on paying work.  I’ve been thinking about the way we release stories on the site and after Spak Dexler’s first tale is finished we may change that somewhat.

I was mildly depressed by the realization that as of April 18th it’s been two years since I first was contacted by the writers who would eventually become our stable of Wordsmiths.  The fact is, if any of us would have realized that it would have been that long to get things rolling, we may not have even bothered.

I’ve been doing commision sketches for extra cash, and have been saving it to make an attempt at getting down to Heroes  Con this June as it takes place on the weekend of my Birthday, and my good friend Charlie Harper has saved half of his table for me.  Right now it’s on the fence, but with the luck of the Gawds on our side we may just pull it off.  If your in the U.S. or Canada and you’re interested in some original art for a fair price, check out our commission section.  I’ll be updating it later today with new samples.  If there’s any of you out there who are well off, we are not above charity.  There is a donate button on the site.  Know that any money you donate will be put to good use.

I went to the Steel City con this past weekend, just to walk around with for a day.  Got a chance to bullshit with both D.J. Coffman and the folks from Comic Geek Speak Podcast.  It was very enjoyable.

We should have something new to show you next week.

3!LL