The other day Audrey handed me a monster specimen of a cherry tomato and warned me not to choke on it. The first image that came to me was what you see in the most recent comic. The thought of some oxymoronically sized nightshade being eaten in the completely wrong manner was too good not to draw. The comic was also an interesting study in the sense that I've never drawn Audrey as a cartoon before. She didn't complain, so mission accomplished. Now if only she'd let me repost the Victorian corset-clad portrait I did of her way back.

I still haven't eaten the tomato in question. It really is pretty big- almost normal tomato sized. I don't even know where to start. Biting into it conjures images of John Noble's character King Denethor feasting alone in a great hall, amidst a battle where his own son rides to his demise. While a hobbit serenades in the background, the king ravenously eats scraps of food, which includes some cherry tomatoes, the sloppy juice running down his chin. Every time I see John Noble or a goddamn cherry tomato, I think of this scene and I shudder a little.

It took me a whole season to get over it watching Fringe. 

Granted, most of my meals are eaten above the kitchen sink in my boxers at odd intervals during the day. Like 3pm and 1:50am. But to just bite into it and risk chin dribble? Barbaric.

My other option is to break out cutlery to carve up the gargantuan vine-fruit, which just seems like it's too much. Using cutlery on hand-held foods is reserved for Chipotle burritos, and it smacks of snobbery. Because what's important, when in my boxers at the kitchen sink, is that I don't seem elitist. Its like when Mickey Mouse, in his Jack and the Beanstalk story, wherein the poor bastards only had one bean to eat and they portioned it into transparent slices. Pathetic.

Scratching these two methods off the list pretty much leaves one option: swallowing the whole thing. This is clearly the desperate move of a man stymied by his preconceived notions of how not to eat, decided by memories of old cartoons and fantasy epics. John Noble really did ruin tomatoes for me. Godammit.

Eddie found himself next on my list of subjects. I opted to use a softer brush to bring out how pretty and regal he is. The man practically glows in the greased lens of his majestic life. YAWN. Though I do think I hit the mark. A bit more stylized than I'd like, but he really does have saucer eyes.

Now I just have to combine my two feline subjects into the most flattering, yet ridiculous portrait ever. I'm worried that the two styles will clash, but they already have this Yin-Yang thing going on.

What with Eddie being a white cat with conventionally perfect features and cool composure, while Ferdinand represents the flawed, primal side; frantic and wild in nature. The portrait itself will be hyperbolic in its mockery of the whole photo-portrait genre. Some of you may know where this is going, the rest will have to wait.  

In the meantime, here's Ron Livingston, the reason I don't sleep anymore. 

I just can't stop hitting repeat!

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Audrey wants a portrait of the cats for her cube. I had to start with Ferdinand. No offense to Eddie, but he's easy. Ferd's so damaged, but proud, it presented an immediate challenge in capturing his likeness. 

I leave for upstate New York tomorrow afternoon, and since I'm not going to take my 'sploded laptop, tonight was a bad time to start a new painting, but I just had to start SOMETHING. My portfolio is very much lacking in wholly painted works, which I know I can do, but my work for Auxiliary tends to favor fast, graphic work. I love laying the groundwork for a painting, but I often get bogged in the blending, which when painting with gouache, is automatic and unavoidable. Especially so, when you paint like me, barely thinning the paint to the point where it goes down more like oil than water-media.

Speaking of paintings, I just bought a shmancy all-in-one wireless printer to replace my crummy inkjet and Canoscan Scanner, which still works GREAT despite being about ten years old! Unfortunately, Canon no longer makes drivers for my particular model, so it became obselete when I switched to a 64 bit OS. Hopefully, with this new printer, I'll be able to crank out some nice prints to sell. This step of my success ladder has long been overdue.

"Gee Maki, you have some great work on the site. Can I buy some of it?"

"Uh, well. That one's actually 3 different canvases photoshopped together, and the new stuff doesn't even HAVE a physical analog–"

"Well, I guess I'll just have to spend my money on a Thomas Kincaid painting. Look at that lighthouse!"

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!"

So you heard to here first… as opposed to elsewhere. I'm going to start putting together a page where you can buy my stuff pretty soon. I hereby pledge to use the money earned from said bought stuff to buy beer to pour out for my retired scanner. Then I'll drink the rest of the 6-pack and rest on what little laurels trickle in. FAME.

Oh man. It. Is. HOT. I checked weather.com out of morbid curiosity and this is what it told me. Thanks weather.com. What it really feels like is that the sun lives downstairs. It's so damn hot out that everything feels hot, not just objects exposed to the horrible sunlight. The floor is hot. THE FLOOR IS HOT. I am almost 100% sure this is one of those warning signs you learn as a child about fire safety.

• Carefully check the floor for heat. If the floor is hot, it means there is a fire underneath it. Good luck.

Intense sweating means that drawing is out of the question. But then I thought, "Hey, I have a MACBOOK! I can take that and my tablet into the living room with the AC!" Brilliant! But like Steinbeck said, the best laid schemes 'o mice and men are…often…

Well I'm sure the rest is crocheted on a pillow somewhere.

Now, let me clear this up right away. I am a PC. My middle name might as well be Hodgman. My mac only gets used when I travel, want to have a computer in a remote location, or need street cred while in Williamsburg. It rarely goes outside of its protective bag. So when I pulled it out to find the battery panel peeling off, I shat a brick.

My first thought was,

"You moron, you put something on the bag and somehow pried the panel off"

My second thought was a familiar one used for broken objects and disembowelments,

"Put it back in, put it back in!".

But try as I might, I couldn't get the panel back on, and upon further inspection I noticed that something inside had swollen and busted out of the battery. One quick google search of "swollen battery" later and my fears were assuaged. Apparently this happens a lot.

"I wouldn't call it a safety feature, but if the battery didn't swell and break out, it would explode from the pressure instead" -Anonymous Apple Tech

Lucky me. Because I don't use it often, the damage could have occurred anytime between February and yesterday. At least it wasn't 'while it was on my gonads'. The techs asked me to bring it in for inspection. Fine. Alright. Back to my room ON THE SUN.

"Who is that Bald Hipster at the Top of the Post?"

You take that back right now, you bastard. That, my friends is a drawing of the lovely and charming George Hrab, who I had the pleasure of meeting this past Saturday. George is a musician, songwriter, singer, podcaster, and overall really really chill guy.  He was in NYC celebrating the release party for his 6th album, Trebuchet, which is available from iTunes or CD Baby.com. 

I've been a big fan of the Geologic Podcast and his music for a few months now, and my girlfriend Audrey can attest to how much I'd gush over his smooth character and snazzy fashion sense. But not only that, but he runs a very very well produced show that never fails to entertain.  Like his resume, the show covers a medley topics, most listener submitted, ranging from interesting fauna to musical anecdotes surrounding his career as a drummer in a funk band. George finds a perfect balance in taking everything he loves, wants, and believes in and channeling it into his craft. 

The party itself was great and the turnout was pretty good for the space. Part of me would have loved to see 700 people show up to congratulate George, but I'm glad it was a more intimate crowd. This was my first skeptically themed event so it was doubly great to meet not only George but area skeptics too. The smaller space contributed well to just interacting with total strangers talking about Phil Plait's skepdude calendar photo, which came up way too often now that I think about it…

Anyway, congratulations again to George, and I highly recommend you check out his podcast and music, whether you are a skeptic or not.

"Where's That Cartoon You Were Talking About?"

It's finished! In case you didn't know, I was working on a video super short for the sketch comedy podcast Superego. HUZZAH! I shoved it out the door, it was met with glee, and I sighed a breath of relief. I'll have more info when they release the collection, but for now, I've posted some still! Enjoy!

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It’s OVER NINE THOUSAAAAAND!

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How am I supposed to work in this weather!?

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John Hodgman. He's a PC.

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George Hrab's new album Trebuchet

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Erotic, at best.

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PENNY ARCADE EXPO EAST 2010

The last week in March was the East Coast's first PAX ever and Nadir, some friends, and I gathered our dice and slogged over to Boston, fueled by disgusting energy drinks and raging boners. This made for interesting bus rides and absurd sleeping arrangements. I now have the utmost respect for any woman who has ever put up with sharing a bed with me after the experience was described to me as 'sleeping next to a bear-shaped tornado'.

I will not name names. This was totally Bromosexual.

Being an a novice to conventions myself, I had no idea what to expect, really no idea. NO IDEA. Upon finally getting into the Expo via a serpentine of like-minded semi-costumed gamers, my infantile expectations were utterly shattered. The Hynes Convention Center is HUGE. Big enough for an expo floor, an auditorium for concerts and larger panels, and riddled with smaller rooms in which tables and chairs were set up to accommodate every game from Warhammer to Dungeons and Dragons Clue (REALLY!).

Then there was Will Wheaton's keynote address in which he dove into his past as a gamer and geek and then like some boyish oracle, foretold the experience we were about to have and how it would change our lives forever. He spoke of how great it is that the gaming community has come together and overcome opponents who would seek to label us as violent deviants and how now, thanks to the internet, the lone kid with no friends clutching a binder full of character sheets is all but unheard of. He related his experiences playing games from his very first D&D set to games like Dragon Age that are becoming, for all intents and purposes, as much of a narrative vehicle as a feature film, if not moreso because they put you in charge of the plot. Speaking from experience, Dragon Age was a whirlwind of greatness. Which is much like a bear-shaped tornado, but with less hair.

Will's sage advice before releasing us unto the expo floor?

"Don't be dicks."

Preaching to the choir, Will, because this was the friendliest, fun loving group of thousands and thousands of people I have ever shared a cramped space with (and I ride the subway every day). Only at PAX will you look down from a balcony to an audience lighting up with a sea of Nintendo DS's between shows as people hopped on picto chat. Only at PAX could you embrace a random stranger who was lying in wait for 20 minutes in order to pounce on you …and THEN …win a T-shirt. Stupendous! Social networking at its very basic.

Some highlights? 

• The Behemoth's new game, Battle Block Theater, wherein you compete in varied smash brothers-like gladiatorial stages for the amusement of an audience of cats.
• Red Dead Redemption, where a member of our party just had to see if he could kill a horse and subsequently freaked out the Rockstar employee showcasing the game to us "I've seen a lot of weird stuff but I've never seen anybody run back [away from the mission] and kill their own horse"
• The pile of free t-shirts I snagged! At one point on Sunday I was wearing eight.
• MC Frontalot. Holy crap. Sure I was half asleep by the time he came on, but I bought his album anyway and am happy to have him join my list of awesome, dapper, bald musicians.
• I KNOW I'm forgetting a few. Hopefully Nadir will remind me when the photos start rolling in. Stay tuned!

The costume count was tame compared to Comic Book conventions, but we did manage to capture some gems. I'm sure more will follow as my buddies unload their cameras. Enjoy!

Auxiliary Magazine April/May Issue

Here by the skin of my teeth! The sleepless nights are totally worth it!

Finally, Stuffed and Unstrung by the Henson Company

I had heard snippets about this Improv Puppet show featuring Brian Henson (son of late, legendary, Jim) geared towards an adult audience (albeit less adult than Avenue Q) but I truly had no idea what I was missing! Audrey snagged two tickets, we went to the early Saturday showing and promptly laughed our asses off! Not only was it comedically brilliant, but technically too. It was really neat to be able to see the puppeteers scramble around stage, and the craftsmanship of the puppets themselves shows that the Force still runs strong in the Henson family. Oh, and the Barry the Usher bit was a masterpiece of multi-layered video-looping goodness. I may just be easily impressed, but c'mon, if you saw it, you laughed. 

Being an improv show, results may vary, but I think our funniest skit was the one where they invite an audience member to puppet-up and join in. What was funny about our guy is that he couldn't hold his puppet up high enough, point him in the right direction, match his mouth to his voice, or bob him as he walked! So the whole time Henson behind the crab puppet was yelling "WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT?"   "HE'S SLIDING ACROSS THE FLOOR!"  "STAND UP!"   "HE'S SPEAKING TO US THROUGH TELEPATHY!" The sketch was outright BEDLAM.

BEDLAM! 

Incidentally, the prospect of being dragged on stage to take part in the show terrified Audrey, and caused me to quickly scribble up this comic which details the aftermath of getting pulled up on stage and molested by puppets.

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It was called the Angry Wizard.

Mana Potion and Vodka *HURL*

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How awesome is that painting he's standing under?!

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George Hrab and MC Frontalot

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Old news by now, but the October Issue of Auxiliary Magazine is out featuring spooky halloween themed fashion tips, music reviews, and an interview with Doc Hammer of Venture Brothers fame! Auxiliary is run by friend/classmate/one-time-roommate Jennifer Link whose design and photography background lend to a beautifully constructed periodical. As usual, I contributed some frantic doodles this issue, which I posted below.  Click on the link above to view a definite up-and-coming alternative life/art/music/fashion magazine! 

BONUS: These should have been different posts, but I’ve been lackadaisical in my updates. Below are some sketches and recent entries into my facebook group ‘Ozgur’s Photoshop-Arama’ now affectionately known as OPA!!!!

 Oh man, this post is looking like a cheesy motivational poster already. Right below the clouds should be:

OUR GOD IS AN AWESOME GOD

Which happens to be what the placard out in the hall outside my new apartment in Crown Heights, Brooklyn reads (I have an awesome new landlady who decorates the hallway of the building). I have to admit, the phrase has grown on me. But before you begin to wonder if I rediscovered religion, just put it outside of its Judeo-Christian context. It sounds downright boastful, and I love it. If you still aren’t seeing it my way, here’s a little comic for you:

This is what goes on in my head when I read that quote. And it feels even more fitting for a neighborhood dominated by East Indians and Orthodox Jews. I only wish today’s webcomic was as inspired as the little gem above. Herein we have a classic case of ‘Maki thinks of the punchline and tries to mad-lib the rest’. I’m not sure how well it worked. Sometimes I feel like I’m a brilliant writer and sometimes its a mad-lib where somebody has scribbled swear words into all the spaces. To make matters worse, my bum-ass computer kicked the bucket and all my fonts are on that drive. So today you get Comic-Sans and a generic block type. Sigh indeed. 

Though if I got anything out of this, its that I like painting clouds. The ones you see here were sitting happily outside my window. Happy, dancing little clouds. I can see this as a comic I’d come back to. Maybe scramble the dialogue a little bit or enter a blank into the next Ozgur’s Photoshop-a-rama. Stay tuned and enjoy!

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This Mad-Lib brought to you by Nadir, though I’m surprised there isn’t a shamcock somewhere on there.

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[Edit] I wrote this thing to announce a related comic, which can be viewed by clicking above. My absent mindedness is fittingly ironic here.

Today we delve into the line between fantasy in reality and fantasy in subconscious. Some people like to read into dreams, but my dreams are usually so direct and so insultingly simple, that it’s too clear and obvious what they ‘mean’. Thus I have no problem having a dream about swimming with my iphone and thinking ‘Gee, I guess I’m worried about breaking this thing’ or jump kicking helicopters and thinking ‘Ok, that was too much game time before bed.’ I buy into the camp that believes dreams are a subconscious and often irrational manifestation of everything from anxieties to a weird mix of what you did that day. So having dreams about work usually worries me because I shouldn’t be thinking about it that much.

Self-analysis describes me pretty reliably as an escapist. I love movies and video games for the total immersion, for that moment where you forget where you are and what you have to do later in the day. This is why I never go to see documentaries at the movie theater because I see a movie to get away from reality, not to have it put in front of me during my special escape time. You watch that movie about Darfur, I’ll be over in the next theater watching Star Trek. This love of escaping has been with me for quite some time. As a child, I was a chronic daydreamer. School was always a colossal battle of me vs. my attention. And when I wasn’t actively daydreaming, I was trying to make it look like I was paying attention. That or pushing on my closed eyes to get a fireworks display in my head. School was kinda rough. I still find myself daydreaming, but it limits itself to the occasional lapse in attention, while listening to music (I direct music videos in my head.), or when talking to you, because you’re boring. Oh ha ha ha, I’m only kidding, loyal reader. Without you around I’d just sit here and enjoy the light show. Which doesn’t sound like a bad idea actually. TTFN, folks.

P.s. For you folks who love podcasts, I highly recommend the Radiolab episode on sleep for some great stories about studies done on tetris dreams and if I can find the episode, the story of Robert Louis Stevenson, who wrote his books based on narratives played out by little people in his dreams. Wacky.

Auxiliary is available for free in PDF format on the website, but you can purchase print editions as well.

Also, a few days ago I received an e-mail from comic book writer David Doub informing me that he has collected his Dusk series into massive 4 chapter volumes, and they are available on Amazon.com! I worked on Dusk back in 2005 as the penciller of the first two chapters. In fact, it was probably the first comic book I ever pencilled. Ha!

I should be receiving a copy to review soon. Volume 1 is available now, with a second volume on the way. You can purchase it on Amazon.com and view some of the original pencils in the sequential artwork section of the gallery! Hurrah!

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A lovely heartwarming Christmas present for the parentals…

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…and for Nadir. This used to be a John McCain action figure. GET IT? HA!

Ah dreams. Last November I bought myself a newfangled iPhone as a self-congratulating birthday present. Though it has more than paid for itself in usefulness, I find my recent dreams strangely haunted by it. On more than one occasion I have had a dream similar to the one depicted in this week’s comic. Some folk have tried to glean a deeper meaning from these dreams, but I’ pretty sure I’m just afraid of breaking the damn thing. In any case, you can read the first in what I hope becomes a series here. Enjoy!

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Cooking Mama App!!!!!

The Buck’s Rock Camp Arts Exhibition is a celebration of creativity inspired from the 67 years of providing teens with learning and growing opportunities within the creative and performing arts. The show features over 400 works of art, including 270 works from over 130 campers from the summer of 2008, and 150 works from 60 alumni, spanning a 43 year period of Buck’s Rock Camp’s creative history. It will show the world the unique experience Buck’s Rock can provide for teens and teachers, and the influential effect the summers spent there have continued to have on their lives as they have grown older.

Over 100 pieces of art are for sale, including Glass, Ceramics, Paintings, Jewelry, Drawings, Prints, etc.  The artists will receive 80% of the proceeds, while 20%  will go to the Buck’s Rock Scholarship Fund.

The Art Directors Gallery: 106 29th Street (btwn 6th and 7th Aves.) 212 643 1440
2008 Reunion: Sunday, December 7th, 2 – 430 p.m.
Art Exhibition Opening: Sunday, December 7th, 5 -7 p.m.

The exhibition will also be open from 10am – 6pm, Monday Dec. 8th through Friday, Dec. 12th. I will be showing Octopus Jesus, Gibson Girl, and a piece from a collaboration with Snoozer Loozer! Images coming soon once I get a chance to breathe.