christmas!

Yo, happy belated holidays. Lots of fun in the last few days up here in ATL.

We trolled through an abandoned prison farm, ate too many cookies, and have had an overall kicking and relaxing time.

I've made a couple mini-comics as well, one for Kate and one for fun since Kate's came out so well.

yeah yeah yeah

Scored a nice gig, and got a few nice lil projects coming up. Things looking good.

Ran into a couple fellas I met on the road in Santa Cruz. The spirit of the road brings all wayward travels to each other if your open to it. Folks you meet and connect with, even for a second, on the road have a way of gravitating to you in time over unimaginable distances. It's a bond that can't be broken. People that don't shake everything of and get some weary, long road behind them will never understand that kind of connection....or maybe they can. Sorry I didn't mean to get all hobo elitist.

I got to do some pages for Tug Benson for the first time in maybe three months. Very exciting....

Selah

Ben

Cover Art

Here's a cover I did for a submission. I'll keep up for a while, though I'm not sure if I'm supposed to, the company might own it if thy hire me, which is unlikely. Sigh...freelance blues.

....stuff like and you know....

Hey folks

I just started re-reading all my trades of BPRD and Hellboy to get myself re-into the wonderful heroin high that is comix. I haven't done a new Tug page in almost a month, what with moving and now with freelancing sucking up all my energy. BUT NO LONGER! I'm going to kick this freelance crap to the curb and re-engage!...kind of. I'm still trying to get side jobs. I found a pulp novel start up that's looking for cover artists. So I've been drawing hardened looking gents and sexy legs.
Here's a sketch I did and then when over with a sharpie

.

Sorry I still don't have a scanner, I had to shoot this with photobooth.

Here's a whaler:

Okay that's all for now.

For moms

My moms b-day was during Thanksgiving/ National Day of Mourning, so I made her a bike poster. She's a pretty avid rider in her own way, and got me riding when I was young and round.

Also, as I said before I've been trying to swing freelance since I got to NOLA. On gig is ecards. Here's a couple rejects.

I know I know, the pinnacle of revolutionary iconography, these'll go right next to the Che' head and red fist.

That's it really, I'm just trying to post more often so folks are up to date on the Ben front. So there consider yourself updated.

jokes on me I guess.

With luck I'll get a few bucks making e-cards. I'll be making sexy images that accompany phrases like "I <3>

Sunlight? What is this sunlight you speak of? Crazy....

I've been spending hour upon hour, and days upon days scouring the inter-webs for random gigs. So far I've scored an album cover, gallery showings in LA and NYC, and a feature on a culture blog coming up. All of this is fun, and exciting and took a hundred e-mails (not exaggerating.) and before mentioned hours and days. My back is sore, I've lost what was left of my night vision, my girlfriend has lost all memory of the touch of a man, and I'm still pretty well broke! The good news is that I eat trash and I still have a virgin ass.

Moving on! While I was trolling through craig's list I found a site called Afropunk, which is a social networking site for, you couldn't have guessed it, black punks. Who knew so many existed as to render a networking site? Obviously I joined immediately. That led me to a guy named Kaos Blac, who writes an extensive art/music blog using his name-sake.

The first of the two shows that my work'll be in is at Webster Hall in NYC on Dec. 18th. The Second is at the Catalyst Artist Collective in Los Angeles.

So if your like me and you spend hours on the inter-webs looking for messily crap side work take heart, you're bound to find something. But, you're probably going to come out hunched, squinty, and pale.

Back in!

Had a nice late start today, which is nice after the tight schedules I tried to run on the road. I posted up on Tug a new page, well old in that I did two months ago in Ontario, whatever. Also another bike poster I did was awarded a front page spot on newgrounds.

Nar Reaper gets kudos!

So I've been going to newgrounds since my early teens playing pico, and space fucks (or whatever). But recently I've been throwing up my work there for shits and giggles. Anyhow I got awarded a frontpage spot, which means nothing other than instantly thousands of angry little teens get exposed to my work, which is pretty cool. Most of you have already been subjected to this and other bike posters and my vain attempt for your approval, but if you'd like to see it again it's here.

Shelf Life

An Illustration is appearing on a lit and art blog called shelf life Magazine.

http://shelflifemagazine.com/

Normal Words presents The Siren

Normal Words., a web mag, presented a version of my story Siren in their latest monthly addition. Good on them, and good on me I suppose.

ill.

Been trying to do odds and ends work for money and nibbles of international fame. Here's a color comp/ sketch for an illustration I submitted for a poem anthology. 

Hell of a week.

Well, I've pulled up stakes and made it to Burlington, ON a couple of days ago.  Finally, finally, finally, I've got a good bit of land between me and the south, for now at least. 

"Damn the Man" Hanrahan and myself packed a 17" foot U-Haul almost a week ago with all my useless odds and ends (RPG with Trotsky's face on it, poison tipped U-Locks, ect.) and headed west for The Old Dominion (Virginia) to stay with my dad in Lynchburg for a night.

Good times were had by all. Scott wiped at Wii tennis so I ripped his cable line right off the side of his trailer with the U-Haul. Oh well; maybe he can get it fixed with all the money he saved not paying my child support.

After Virginia we roared up the low valleys of Massachusetts to my mothers to store my pile of junk. We got stuck on the Taconic Parkway, a road in which our truck was restricted. Unfortunately, Mapquest doesn't account for truck drivers. I said damn it all and we zoomed onto the thin winding road through New York state, that is until a trooper pulled us over. I was fined with 25 dollars, which I balefully added to the cost of the truck, it's gas, and a storage place in Mass. I don't now if you've heard; living is expensive people.

Brandon came to pick me up in Mass. There was a hectic mix up getting "Hotter than a firing pan" Hanrahan to the Albany airport and an inexplicable loosing of my passport.   

But folks, without regaling you with too many of the in and outs of my woeful trails, I'll say I made it to Canada safe as a safe. That is until Berkshire county put out a warrant on me for unpaid taxes. Good God! I have to get to things in Mass to resolve the problem, but if I cross the border they'll slap me in cuffs for sure. 

Hells bells!

I'm in good spirits though. We set out for a week long canoe trip in northern Ontario, which is some of the prettiest land the crown managed to swipe from the natives.

I've been sending out short stories to small literary blogs and magazines, as well as doing a illustration for a poem anthology that I hope will bring in 100 dollars and a publishing cred in Canada.

Tonight we trolled all about Burlington to rifle through potential dumpsters. Many of the places here are newer and therefore under heavy lock-and-key. To be honest prospects looked poor. The bulk bin rendered me nothing but a  slimy bucket and a huge gash on my shin from slamming it onto the rusty corner of it's dumpster. I was downcast and peeved. Then the dump diving demon smiled on us and we found three prime dumpsters almost in a row.

At a health food store we dug out 2 bags of rice biscuits. Then from a fast food place we found fruit. But The heavy load was to come. In a mart dumpster we found:

8 containers of soy milk

10 Kool-laid   juices

three cinnamon roll tubes

2 bags of cashews

1 bag of chocolate covered nuts

several bags of pasta

and some other odds and ends

This was only a portion of a gigantic pile of perfectly good food. The bin was stuffed full of goodies. We were almost caught by a sketchy guy in a four door, quick thinking won me kiwi-blueberry drink for the week. 

 

looking ahead

finished this today. I don't usually write in verbal affectations, but I thought it would be fun with the little sister Keller. 

Since I'm not coloring these pages I can whip em out speedy and move on. It's a good feeling to get a mass of pages under me. 

Also, I've been trying to learn St. James infirmary on the harp. I suck at third position so I can't play the cool version of the song. One day I'll be slick at the mississippi Sax like a levy or Howlin' Wolf.  

It's been salad days for the last week, what with all my submissions sent out and the jaunt to the north coming up. These afternoons are filled with Whoopee parties and hops through the surf. So sweat. 

 

as the world turns

Hey party people,

I sent more submittions packets out to Fantagraphics, Dark Horse, SLG, and Penny Farthing respectively. I've stopped packing them with my work though, and taken to sendiong them nude photos of my girlfriend. Atleast now I'm more likley to get a call back.

The big move from Georgia is happening on Sunday followed by the u-haul trek through Virginia and on to Massachusetts and the Great White North.

Not a lot of diving happening these days. The summer turns all the dumpsters into ovens and bakes evrything before I get to it. This means I've got to get up and out earlier, which is it's own war I can tell you. No, the closest thing I've done to dumpstering is rip the library off for a mouse pad and some fonts.

well as always there's new posts on the Tug Benson site, though these days the new pages won't be in color. This might piss some people off, but until I'm settled down again I can't do colors.

Anyway Kate's cooing over rescued Bengal cats and I've got to work defense before we're over run my an army of limping 3 foot miniture tigers.

Stay clear.

Tom and Jeremy

Yesterday was riddled with death. In the morning we heard that a good guy we knew shot himself and then, as I was processing it in the way that you does, I learned that a great professor, Jeremy Mullins  had fallen off a cliff to his death. Terrible.

Can't say much more about it really, only that when friends died before I used to think about all the things I'd do so that I'd feel settled when I die. But you can't cheat death, it comes rudely when you least expect it.

Tom and Jeremy were good men.

ready freddy and the big haul

Sent twenty pages to Top Shelf for review today, very relieved to have that bench mark over with. Now we play the waiting game.

Also, I scored:

three loaves of bread (still getting over my phobia of dumpstered baked goods.)

one tomato

two squash

one head of lettuce 

one apple

one lime

from a dumpster that I hit only once before and found had found nothing. I was in the neighborhood and it was raining, but I had just enough time to stuff my bag full before it really started to come down. I could have filled the back seat of a car with all the stuff in that bin.

I also scored:

bread

two zucchini

bundle of collards 

from a free veggie bin downtown. In total I've got enough food for the week!

I also worked on a new page for Tug, that gives a good over view of the Hooverville.

   

 

Tender Reading

I may be reading my story Tender at the student center on Montgomery, on May 7th at 7:00 and then again I may not; more on this later.

The Siren

This is my swan song to the edges of a woman I remember.

I like to recall the days I'd pop it off at the Queen's Head Tavern on sweaty August nights. Keller would lick and spit a lilted rendition of Somewhere There is a Mansion over a crowd of lumbering dancers.  I'd tie one on from high noon to well under sun down, letting it all hangout for God and Devil alike. The nights wound me up into a frenzy as I chased Violet, the barkeeps daughter, and made friends that came as quickly as they disappeared.  

I met her while she simmered on a corner stool, tossing her red hair in agitation. I waded over through waves of smoke, ash, and liquor.  Her name was Rose. She was a fine girl in design and spirit, and led with a hearted translucent piety. I clapped my arm around her, she snarled and said," Is this how you want to be when Jesus comes?"

Specifics escape me but I think I made crack about selling the pearly gates for grass money. She got sore; not because she wagged her finger at blasphemy, but because even a skid row floozy wants thimble's worth of respect. She was the a fine counter point to the Queen's low patronage. 

" You think your king shit, don't you boy," she hissed cooly.

She played coy, but nobody saddles up to a dingy bar looking to avoid side-talking skulkers like me. Little Rose was giving me more time than I could ignore. There's no fooling a man with bared teeth after he's smelled blood. She had the same carnal notions as I.   

"Lord knows everybody loves a cowboy," I grinned out.

She smiled.

" Shit, I don't know if I can abide by your type," she said.

Keller blew into his rattling Special Twenty and I swung Rose to Sugar Baby. Her hair swirled about me as we stomped around the bar, while Violet stewed in a corner booth. Rose grinned a big grin and I sang out, "Rose's red, Violet's blue; don't you know it's cause I'm smitten with you?" 

The Queen's white lightening hung on Rose and I like a heavy quilt as we stumbled up the board walk to the seaside. She spread out in the sand, burying her fingers and toes. I leaned against a decaying jetty and swayed in the whipping sea breeze.  

"I've always loved the ocean, mom said it was because god gave me a conch shell for a heart," Rose yelled out at me. I lay down next to her low and pressed my ear to her chest.

"I can hear a gail going in there," I said.

"Boy don't be stupid."

We married.

Our love was like the tide. We knew the rush of bitter winds of October and the retreat of Day-lilies  when the moon rose.

On a fall night we had a row  through piles of cracking orange leaves. After our set-to I found refuge in Violet's arms in a corner booth at the Queen. Rose appeared, much on the will of the barkeep as her own. When she saw Violet and I,  it looked as if the gail in her broke the shell.Her riches always lay in her rancor, which was enhanced with the bit of old Jim she held in a jar in her clenched left hand. 

"You're a swine," she shrieked. 

Rose raged through the Queen, hurling bottles, glasses, pool balls, and anything else she could snatch in her path. Keller got half-way around a Little Walter tune before a flying cue moved him to duck. 

Violet got a shooter to the teeth. She sprawled out onto the floor cupping her mouth.

At that my little spitfire was content, but tuckered. Rose spun on her heels and shot outside. Too soused to pursue, I lay on my belly in the cigarette butts and whimpered after the tips of her hair bouncing into the distant shadows of the night time. 

a nor'easter tore into our town that night. I curled up under the high bar with crates of empties and my thin coat, soaked in Violet's blood, wrapped around me. 

In the morning I found Rose half submerged in the beach. An oil stick blanket of sea foam caressed the edges of her salt worn blouse. Gone away was the color of her skin and the sun in her hair. A Jacob's ladder of chiggers spun over her and ascended to the sky. This is my wife. This shell held her heart, the songs she sang over the bar, and the nest of our unborn children. But now, her life has wriggled out.   

When our romance was green we'd take long walks along the crooked stream that wound and cut through the meat packing plants. There thin trees sparred in the wind above us, porcelain mixed with pine needles, and the shallow south bound water churned diesel. There I saw grace and beauty in the dregs. This was us. This stream, this tacit alabaster backyard jungle covered in purple prickers and car tires. Our love was twisted with our nature, and so was my mourning. From what well should I have learned to forgive myself for driving my Rose to her cold, shallow end? I bore her death like a ball and chain and slugged swill like I was trying to drown myself.

The Spring found me in Queen's one afternoon with a couple of broken longshoremen.

"Your wife died on the beach yonder," one asked over his mug.

I nodded.

"Love is the peacock in the nighttime; often mistaken for what it really is: foul," he mumbled. 

His friend scowled. "Don't bear his poison," he said. "You've got to love what's left."   

When the Mirror Talks Back

Kept close to the ground.

The straw cats are hip to the inclinations 

hiding out in the corners of your mouth.

Strange though;

you don't show them much.

The corners I mean.

You nestle behind a vision of calm,

of deep concentration. 

Your as the dark top of shallow pool;

someone's apt to skin a knuckle from reaching into you too deep.

Savannah Zine fest

Hey folks,

I'm going to be at the 09 zine fest in Savannah, reping with the Recess zine and hopefully selling some copies of my comics. I'm selling intro to my book as well as the first chapter in separate books.  Above is the cover for the introductory book.  

NYC Comic Con

So I went to my first comic convention here in New York City and I have to say I have never felt so markedly separate from the rest of the comic community. Way more grown people in anime costumes than I'm comfortable with. Other than that the con was amazing I nerded out over Dave Johnson, who I know from the 100 bullets covers and David Mack, who is by far one of the most innovative cartoonists out there. I got a copy of the now unprinted jungle by Upton Sinclair and then illustrated by Peter Kuper. I bought it right at Peter's table and wanted to geek out over Richie Bush, but he was busy. 

I also made ten mini comics of my first chapter, which everyone will be able to see on the site in a few weeks, and handed them out to several publishers(dark horse, penny farthing, abrams, vangaurd, Oni, and a couple others.) The VP of Editing was pretty complementary. I went to see Top Shelf's Editor Chris Staros, we've already spoken a bit before about my book and he really likes and may want to publish me as I get more done. So all in all a good con.

Later I saw Beirut in Brooklyn, which was of course out of the park.   

The 3 am

I'm making some mini comics to hand out at the NYC con. this is the cover for it.

AAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!

New York is very gray, very, very gray. I dig this chilly rainy weather more than most. And the most is the problem, it seems everyone is cosmically burned out by the city. 

I'm still trucking along with the comic. I got a little good news from one publisher, who really liked it. No real grease on it yet though.

be well all.