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Ten Pounds of Man In a Five Pound Bag's LiveJournal:
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| Sunday, August 15th, 2010 | | 9:50 pm |
Movin' On Up, To the East Side (of Williamsburg)
Well, after four glorious years in Vermont I'm moving back to Brooklyn. At the end of the week, as a matter of fact. I've got a buttload of packing to do. Robyn and Morgan and I are moving together to a 3-bedroom in Bushwick with a yard. I should probably post some pictures of the place. Maybe later. Since it's been about two years since I made a real post on here, I guess I've got a backlog of stuff to talk about. So what's been happening for the last couple of years? Oh, you know. This and that. I'm very excited and happy to be moving back to New York after such a long time away. I ordered a bike wheel to replace the twisted one on my bike because I expect to do a lot of biking. We reserved a truck from Budget, which we will be picking up in Claremont Friday morning. We're having a drinkity get-together at CJ's Than Wheeler's in downtown White River Junction tomorrow night. Friday, we're inviting people to come and help us move, and then we'll feed them Eggplant Richard Nixon in the form of baba ghanoush. I should probably post photos or video of that, too. Later. I'm having a meeting with Vanessa from COHI (Community Oral Health Initiative) tomorrow morning to talk about next steps with their website and social media presence and all, and I guess also to find out how much longer she'll be working there and how I'm going to manage being the "Webmaster" from Brooklyn. (I'm really uncomfortable with that title, by the way. It implies a level of computer-savviness that I just don't have.) I'm going to need to finish writing up new Web copy for CCS some time this week if I want to keep my job working for them. There's so much going on. Now that I'm realizing how much, I'm really starting to feel overwhelmed. Breathe, man, breathe. Today was the last day I got to play soccer with the CCS folks. It was also the last day Robyn and I volunteered at the co-op. Those are two things I'm really going to miss about this place. The co-op is a bright, cheerful place full of happy people who were always nice and generous to us. They really treated us well. They're good friends. The weekly soccer game is something that I found myself looking forward to all week sometimes. I never got that good, certainly not as good as some of the more athletic guys. But I always had fun. Probably my biggest regret is that I didn't make deeper connections with more people from the CCS community. I feel like the students and alumni didn't know what to do with me. I wasn't a student or a teacher or a famous cartoonist. I'm the boyfriend of the woman who tells them to clean up after themselves and gives them grades. They never got to know me, really. I never made the necessary effort, either. After soccer, I tried to express how much I appreciated the weekly game, how much I appreciated being a part of it. But the whole thing felt awkward. They just don't know me. So I guess I better start looking to the future. Maybe I'll start a weekly soccer game in New York. It might be harder to find a field that's free every week. It might be harder to motivate people to show up. I'll test the waters. Current Mood: contemplative and optimistic | | Friday, October 30th, 2009 | | 9:58 pm |
| | Tuesday, July 29th, 2008 | | 12:40 pm |
| | Monday, July 28th, 2008 | | 10:24 pm |
News, and Cartoon #3 for ChelseaGreen.com
There's an overabundance of superhero movies right now. That's probably why I didn't enjoy The Dark Knight as much as I think I would have under different conditions. Even so, I enjoyed it enough to see it again last Thursday.
Alec officially moved to town Sunday. I and a handful of other people helped him empty his U-Haul truck into his new apartment above the pizza place and next door to CCS. We met his girlfriend, and then the seven of us went to Yama, the pan-Asian restaurant across the Connecticut River in New Hampshire. The soondubu chigae (spicy tofu pudding) was so delicious I kept making noises like I was being fellated under the table—and that's about the only thing that could have compared.
I spent the weekend fixing bikes. Right now there are five bicycles parked in our driveway. I'm waiting for some bike tools I had to special order, and I'm confident I can get three of them in just about perfect working order. (My folding bike needs more extensive work, and our other Huffy is only good for parts at the moment.)
There were two barbecue potlucks on Saturday—one at Jason Lutes' house for the birthday of his two-year-old daughter, and one at Bryan and Amanda Ann's place to celebrate Dane Martin's birthday. Robyn made two vegan apple pies from scratch that were scrumptious and a big bowl of vegan potato salad that was just about off the hook. The good thing about all that food was that one of the pies was untouched, and we got to resubmit it to the Stones' potluck that same night. The perfect crime!
I think the CCS students are immune to this from being around him all the time, but I'm still tickled and a little starstruck when I have a realization like, "I'm playing bocce ball with Jason Lutes." Our team lost, by the way. I'm sorry, Jason! I let you down!
Below I'm posting the third in a series of cartoons I'm drawing for ChelseaGreen.com. It's expanded from a concept Jesse, Jonathan, and I came up with during a brainstorming lunch. Enjoy.  Click for the larger version. | | Sunday, July 20th, 2008 | | 11:19 pm |
Busy, busy weekend.Thursday was 4-square in the park, Friday was The Dark Knight—I liked it—Saturday was the Galactica-thon and potluck, and Sunday was working at the co-op in the morning, then working on comics for several hours, then a barbecue at Bryan and Amanda Ann's place, followed by more working on comics. Saturday I woke up feeling like hell. I had a splitting headache that kept me in bed, curled up in a little ball of pain and nausea, for hours longer than I wanted to be. I felt like I had a hangover, even though I only had a beer to drink the night before. Halfway through my morning shower I was fighting nausea so hard that Robyn heard me moaning from the living room (I was trying to keep down the paroxetine, ibuprofen, multi-vitamin, breakfast tea, and water I had consumed in a vain attempt to feel a little better). I lost the fight and had to jump out and vomit violently for a few minutes. Not fun. Maybe food poisoning? Maybe a really tenacious virus? I don't know. I do know that it made the Galactica-thon preparations way less fun than they should have been. But it all worked out in the end. Robyn and Morgan came through with their robot/android-themed shorts, we had a good turnout, and everybody had a good time. Below is the illustration I mentioned in my previous post. Jesse is going to use it to illustrate a future Chelsea Green blog post about the weight of the book industry on the planet.  | | Thursday, July 17th, 2008 | | 10:49 pm |
 This is going to be the image on the front of the postcard I plan to send to retailers with a copy of my book. It will have ordering information on the back for easy, old-school style ordering. I'm also going to send a different version to reviewers—I haven't decided what exactly to put on the back of that one yet.
So it turns out my comic was featured on the front page of the Indy and Alternative sections of MidtownComics.com on July 3 (for July 10 ordering), but I somehow missed it. I talked to Gahl and he said it was selling through very well, so they were pretty happy about that. I checked their web site and it looked like they had sold all but 1 copy of the 60 I sent them. I should be getting my check soon—maybe today. This is a busy weekend. I organized a 4-square game in the park yesterday, a group of us are going to see The Dark Knight tonight, the Battlestar Galactica-thon and potluck is tomorrow  and Sunday there's a barbecue at Bryan Stone and Amanda Ann's place.
Yesterday, Jesse had me draw an illustration for a blog post at ChelseaGreen.com. I finished drawing and inking it, but I had some time left before 5:00 so I started coloring it. I didn't get a chance to finish, so I'll probably do that this morning and post the finished illustration here on Monday. | | Wednesday, July 16th, 2008 | | 2:08 pm |
| | Tuesday, July 15th, 2008 | | 9:46 pm |
Went to Burlington last week with Robyn and biked the scenic bike trail with her and our gracious host, John Chad.  You can read all about it on Robyn's blog. While we were there, John Chad introduced me to the Hunt 107 nib, a supple and versatile "skinny" pen. Normally I stay away from them. The Hunt 102 has too much give, and the Nikko is pretty good but a tad unyielding. Also, skinny pens tend to scrape up the paper (at least, they do the way I use them) and it's hard to get a good flow if your ink is even a little thick. But I thought I'd give it a go, and this cartoon seemed like a good place to experiment.  This one's scheduled to run on ChelseaGreen.com early Thursday, I think. So check it out there. Or don't, since you just saw it here. I'm also working on a SAS postcard to send to comics retailers for easy ordering of my comic(s). I'll post that up as soon as I'm done working on it. | | Sunday, June 29th, 2008 | | 10:45 pm |
We finally got a lead on a decent apartment today. It's huge. It was advertised as a 2-bedroom, but it's more like 3 and a half, depending on how you divide up the space. We could afford it on our own, but we could easily fit a roommate in there if we found a decent candidate. It has a few downsides. It's about a hundred bucks more per month than we're paying now. Also, we'd have to pay rent for the month of August on two places (but the landlady would hold the apartment through July for a $50 deposit towards the first month's rent). Heating is spotty and we'd have to rely mostly on electric heat through the winter months, which could get pricey. (We contacted a previous tenant, an old CCS student, and he said the electric bill got as high as $120 a month during the coldest winter months.) Also, it's at the top of a steep hill that's had major construction work done on it for a year or more so far. And it's farther from both our jobs than our current place (0.9 miles versus 0.3). But the upshots: #1) It's huuuge. #2) They'll allow a pet. #3) It's not really that far. #4) We'd have an entire month to move. There are one or two more places we're looking at, but we feel pretty good about this place. And it's a pretty big weight off our shoulders. For a while there it was starting to look like we wouldn't be able to find a place we could afford in downtown White River Junction, or that if we did it would have to be super-tiny.
Here is the political cartoon I did for Chelsea Green. If they like it, it will go up on the web site. If not, well, I still get paid. Be kind.  | | Thursday, June 26th, 2008 | | 11:18 pm |
Today is the second to last day of the Create Comics Workshop at CCS. I haven't been too much a part of it because I have to work 9 - 5, Monday - Friday. But I have met some of the people, and from what I've seen and what I've heard, they're a good group this year. I think my favorite part of this whole experience has been seeing Alec and Aaron and Jon Chad (who's been sleeping on our futon). They have great energy and a refreshing perspective. It's going to be so cool having Alec around and, knock on wood, John, too. My second favorite part has been all the free food I get to mooch. There was a barbecue two days ago on the back porch of the Main Street Museum. I should have taken pictures, but I didn't. If there's another big event—say, a farewell dinner for the boys—I'll be sure to take some pictures of that. I fully expected to be posting some scans of my inaugural editorial cartoon for the Chelsea Green web site. However, I got pulled away from that by some more pressing business. I'll explain in a minute. Yesterday (Was it yesterday? Maybe it was the day before.), Treehugger.com picked up one of our blog posts and posted it on their front page and our traffic saw a big jump. Our number of visitors went from a Monday average of 6 - 800 to 1600. Next? We've been talking to the people at Huffington Post about hooking up with them. They want a lot of the original content we can provide—author videos, podcasts, blogs, etc. We want to get their attention. So Jesse enlisted me to do some illustrations. This is why I got pulled away from the cartoon. I did some illustrations for an upcoming blog post about humanure (composted human waste). There's nothing people love more than poop! It's great that I get to do this at work. (Unrelated: Alec just told me that we need to work on karaoke duets with some synchronized dance moves. Hell yeah!) And here's the drawings:  
Also, Fat Thor.  | | Wednesday, June 25th, 2008 | | 8:50 am |
What's on the menu this evening, sir?
The Create Comics Workshop started on Monday. Robyn organized a karaoke night at Than Wheeler's, an earthy subterranean local bar. CCS rented out the entire back room and it seemed like every one of the 40 attendees was there. I think Robyn did it mostly for Alec Longstreth and Aaron Renier's benefit. They love karaoke. I'm not gonna lie. It was probably the greatest karaoke I've ever been to. Colleen, the quintessential quiet, mousey librarian type, sang "Hot in Here" and knew all the words. A group of seven—four boys and three girls—took on the B-52s' "Love Shack" and actually did an admirable job. Most important, they had fun with it. Denis and I performed a double-Den[n]is "Johnny B. Goode," a song made famous to our generation by Back to the Future, probably the greatest movie ever made. Later, I took it back to the early 90s and performed "Interstate Love Song" by Stone Temple Pilots. I really hammed it up and belted it out. But, of course, the best part was when about twenty people went up on stage and did Weird Al's "The Saga Begins" (a parody of Don McLean's "Bye Bye, Miss American Pie"). Vaughn the Karaoke Guy didn't have the Weird Al version, so they put on the Don McLean version and just sang the Weird Al version from memory. It was absolutely amazing.
Last night I worked on the ol' web site and then went to Elixir for some post-movie night hang-outing with the CCSers. My old friend Magic Hat #9 was on special from the tap for three bucks. And you know something? It was special.
Here's something I'm working on for the next con. It's the first of—possibly— a series of screen prints. Theoretically. I mean, I still have to learn how to screen print.  Sorry for the crappy quality. I scanned it at work this morning. *Update* I re-scanned the image on a better scanner. | | Sunday, June 22nd, 2008 | | 10:43 pm |
Most of this past weekend was taken up by making books and programming widgets. I spent most of Saturday at Jesse's house (Jesse is the other half of the Chelsea Green Web department—he does all the hard stuff I haven't learned how to do, plus he blogs) where we had pizza and beer and tried to create our own widget for the Mac dashboard. Did it work? Well, sort of. I'll let you know. One of the pizzas was anchovy, bacon, and onion. I recommend it if you like salty meat. Not bad—the onions really tied it together. One of the two six-packs we got was this organic local beer that looked like it was made by the producers of NPR morning shows and tasted utterly foul. The beer I picked was Magic Hat #9, because I don't mess around. Just a hint of apricot. Delicious. Jesse's been talking to other green blogs and green web sites about maybe trading some content and doing cross-promotion to get our number of visitors up. On Friday he talked to the people at treehugger.com for about an hour. Apparently they're excited about doing stuff with us. We have a lot of unique content we can offer. They specifically mentioned this drawing I crapped out with a ballpoint pen and copy paper: (Yeah, I don't really understand it either.)
 They want to use it. Cool!
I've been updating my web site here and there, little by little, when I can find the time. Check it out. I added a teaser for the next issue. It looks something like this: 
Here's a cover concept I sketched out for the "Zero Issue" of Neon Girl:  It's a riff on an old Hulk cover. Should be fun to draw and, eventually, screen print. Two colors, maybe? | | Thursday, June 19th, 2008 | | 8:54 pm |
Homeless in Vermont
Well...not quite. Because we told our landlords that we were leaving in August, and because we signed our lease over to some incoming CCS students in preparation for that New York move that now isn't going to happen, we have to find a new place to live. Somewhere within walking distance of both Robyn's and my job, because we don't have—or want—a car. Someplace that allows pets. We've been putting out feelers, but so far we haven't had much luck. Here's a drawing Robyn and I did together for a flyer we're putting up around town advertising our apartment-hunting status.  If you hear about an apartment opening up in White River Junction, let me or Robyn know. | | Monday, June 16th, 2008 | | 7:53 pm |
Neon Girl goes global! How's that for setting up big expectations up front? Well, it's not quite as big as all that, but still pretty good. I got a call today while I was at work from Midtown Comics. They saw my new book, Neon Girl #1, and they liked it so much they ordered sixty copies! Not only that, but they're going to feature it on their web site that week (with a headline along the lines of "former employee makes good" or something)!!  Midtown Comics is the biggest online comic book store in the Northeast, or possibly the Eastern Seaboard, unless I just made that up. Anyway, they're pretty big. And after selling out at MoCCA a week and a half ago, this is the icing on the cake. (Unless this is the cake and that was the icing.... But, wait, the cake has to come first....)  OK, so maybe I don't have an established fan base, I'm not distributed by Microcosm or published by a big publisher, I don't have a book deal, and sixty copies really isn't all that many—but still. This feels pretty good. Especially since I jammed my finger playing 4-Square on Saturday and Jon-Mikel had to drive me to the hospital. That did not feel good.  If you didn't get a chance to pick up a copy at MoCCA, and you want to order my comic directly from me instead of from a comic book store, that would be even better because I don't have to take the hit from selling it wholesale. That three bucks is pure gravy, baby! Just go to pigeonholepress.net, check out the eight-page preview, and shoot me an e-mail—my contact info is at the bottom of the page. For those in the Williamsburg area, you can also pick one up at Desert Island. | | Sunday, May 4th, 2008 | | 2:50 pm |
I've been on an Elvis Costello jag lately (downloading new albums, burning CDs for friends, jumping around the apartment and singing loudly all karaoke style). I had to go online and try to find video of the incident when he went on Saturday Night Live in 1977. Costello wanted to perform Radio, Radio, but Columbia Records forced him to perform an established song ( Less Than Zero) to tie in to the U.S. release of My Aim Is True and This Year's Model. So... And he was banned from SNL for twelve years. So rock and roll. PS: This is the first time I've seen video of the entire performance, since the show's producers immediately cut away when he departed from the script. | | Tuesday, March 11th, 2008 | | 8:57 pm |
And while I'm at it...
I kept meaning to post this, but I never got around to it till now. In White River Junction you have to make your own fun, especially if you aren't a CCS student and don't have family or deep ties to the area. So in December, and again in February, I went back to my roots and revived an old tradition.  (I made this flyer for the February Dwarf-o-thon.) Surprisingly, there are a lot of Red Dwarf fans at the school—some die-hards, some casual. Enough to make it fun. I even managed to get Robyn into it. Indian food and a selection of some of the very best episodes. A good way to kick off my 30th year tromping around on this big old mudball. | | 8:17 pm |
Hi, all y'all who still haven't bothered to remove me from your friends list, Robyn has a new blog all about her comics and life in White River Junction. It's updated weekly. You should check it out: Unpopular Comics | | Friday, January 18th, 2008 | | 9:43 pm |
I am a published illustrator
Be sure to check out the new Peter Barnes book, _Climate Solutions: A Citizen's Guide_, published by Chelsea Green Publishing. You'll learn how you can change climate policy for the better, and you'll enjoy some lovely illustrations, courtesy of yours truly. Chelsea Green previously published the New York Times bestsellers _Don't Think of an Elephant_ by George Lakoff and _The End of America_ by Naomi Wolf. (They're also--full disclosure--my day job employer.) Peter Barnes' previous books are _Capitalism 3.0_ and _Who Owns the Sky?_ If you hate global warming, you'll love _Climate Solutions_! Illustrated by Dennis Pacheco! That's me! It won't be officially released until April, but you can pre-order it now on Amazon.com. | | Sunday, September 30th, 2007 | | 7:43 pm |
Me: >sigh< Maybe I'll blog something. Robyn: Yeah. You like to complain. And so, I vow, this will be a complaint-free post. *** We posted an invitation to our semi-semi-regular-ish Sunday drawing get-together on the CCS and non-CCS message boards, cleaned the house, and hoped for the best. Colleen Frakes ( http://www.cowboyorange.com/Pages/Frames/Frames.html), of the first CCS graduating class and a heckuva cartoonist, showed up, and so did Kubby, a new student I don't know much about. But she seems like a lovely person, too. Colleen brought home-made steamed basil dumplings, and I made bean dip and Robyn made iced tea and we rearranged furniture and watched "Wizard People, Dear Readers" on dvd while we drew. Harry Potter movie and book on tape fans will want to check it out. Um... If I can't complain, I don't really know what else to say. How's life on your end, readers? *** Oh, here's a comic I've been meaning to post for a while. It's important to note that I cranked this out in 5 hours. Consider it a preview of the upcoming _Kiss and Tell_ anthology / flip book by Dennis Pacheco and Robyn Chapman.  | | Friday, August 31st, 2007 | | 10:32 pm |
Marty spayed
We had Marty spayed a couple of days ago. I've never had a pet before so I didn't know what to expect, but I was afraid for the worst. Robyn rented the community car and took her while I was at work. They shaved a little rectangle of fur off one of her forelegs for the I.V. They made an incision in her abdomen, it looks to me about 2 inches long. She doesn't have to go back to have the stitches removed because after a couple of weeks they'll just be re-absorbed in her body, they said. On the way home, Marty peed all over the pet carrier and got urine all over her self. I guess she couldn't hold it in. And she hates riding in the car. She was probably scared and in pain. When they got home Robyn gave her a bath with shampoo. Then I came home from work and we read the instructions from the vet and they said not to bathe her at all for 3 weeks. That just made me worry a little more. They said not to bring her back unless she stopped eating or the wound started to turn red or she started behaving abnormally in any way. We checked on her incision the first night and it looked too pink to me. We had to hold her down and squirt some pain medicine in her mouth. She ate. She ate quite a lot, actually, and we were relieved about that. Her abdomen is sensitive and she's not running around anymore. It worries me that she's not half as playful as she used to be, but I guess that's to be expected until she heals. Still, it makes me sad to see her lying around all day, as cute as she is. I guess the good news is she's probably twice as affectionate as before. She's such a good little kitty it just breaks my heart. |
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