writing is hard

I read a reprinting Bukowski's letters to editors and friends during the 60s and 70s. He was crazy and brillant. Though I'm happy I'm not an old jaded drunk stooped over a rusty typewriter, I still wish my letters were as cool as his. Oh well.

I don't usually object to rejections from agents or publishers, mostly because I don't have that much time, but also because there's nothing more of putting that a pleading, tired, stress author. I broke my rule to respond to the last one I got. I've reprinted it here:

Thank you for your interest and you critique. I spend some much time drawing the book , it can be hard to look at it with fresh eyes.

I found your compliments really heartening.

Though I agree that D&Q and Fantagraphics would seem to be interested in this, they're not. I haven't had much luck with them.

I know Pantheon and Ballantine have put out books similar to mine in the past. My sense is that this book, because it's a little denser than many other Graphic Novels put out by alt publishers, will appeal more to book readers that have been recently turned onto graphic novels than veteran comic fans.

I know Memoirs are in vogue right now, but I think that many graphic novel readers are going to get tired of reading memoirs and are going to want something new and different. Persepolis turned a lot of folks onto comics who were unaware of the genre as an art form. I think these new readers are just jumping at what they know first and will move on.

I know you want to represent something that's a guaranteed sell and I want to make something that everybody's going to want to read, but I don't think this is only achieved by reproducing what's popular.

Once again thank you for your time, I know you must get mountains of submissions.

In the world of publishing this is a vengeful railing against the status quo.

Anyway, I think I pissed him off a little.

I've been racking my brain over this problem all yesterday. I had a lot of racking time while we were being an angry (but civil) crowd for the Treme tv show. It seems like folks would want good books, not books that are good in the same way. I try not to over state my skills, but really, a lot of these agents (not this guy, but most of the others I've talked to.) pedal total shlock. Wouldn't they like to put their name on a good book that doesn't sell a lot but that was worth a damn? Not that I think Tug is the next great american G.N. (not sure we've had a first.). Sorry, I'm ranting. How're you?

My month break from freelance is over after this weekend, which'll be nice in that I'll be looking forward to money. I will not be looking forward to gleaning through all the crazy folks for the one legit J.O.B.

Enough from me,

here's a cute hobo.

My favorite subject, me.

Did this for the Art House Co-Op in NYC.

Not settled on it, it's missing something I think.

some scratch

hey hey
colored the scratch board visigoth and banged out a cossack visigoth one on a dirty scrap one.
I must be feeling idle.

Vis(God)th Of War

ink on scratchboard. I've been trying to take on hindu, catholic, and Krishna iconography into my Visgoth and Red Star Bike Brigade (yeah still doing it.) series.

So I lost one of my comics gigs. The guys doing the PIano Man story went with another artist, which is a bummer.
But it looks like the other project with the folks that did Battle Hymn a couple years ago is still on! So I'll keep everybody posted.

Gnar Native in Space

This is a poster I did for my friends show.

fan art

This isn't my normal kind of thing, but I wanted to do something for newgrounds after getting work and decent exposure there. This is the finished version of what I posted earlier.

so...woop there it is.

some of dee skecheez.

doin some fanarts

workin on some fan art for Castle Crashers.

The Gospel Of Tug Benson: End Of Chapter Three.

Just finished the last page of Chapter three of the graphic novel. It's been a long run. The book is at page 67 of 200 hundred pages, so it's a pretty nice bench mark. Of course ya'll won't be reading the last page until March eleven because I need time to polish the script for chapter four.

I'm going to send out more submissions to publishers this week so hopefully we'll get some grease there. Anyway, pray to Lenin for me (Communists don't pray, ha!).

Big Gulp: The Revelation.

Hey hey!
So you know how I was taking about compromising my morals for dollars? I told the client where to go and I took what was what he hired me to do and turned it into the "Big Gulp" image. I turned a sexist lame-ass project and turned it into something a little more fun.

Also I got to try my hand at screen printing for the first time. We've got a 5 dollar screen printing work shop in the CBD that's pretty sweet. I took the opportunity to bang out some Visigoth prints for my friend and my tourin bike gang. The skully guy at the top is the image I used. I'm going to run off a bunch, so if some folks want a back patch I'll send them out.

There's the the album cover I did for Kid Heru as well up there. Pretty pretty proud of how it turned out.

Alright that's it.

burn on compromise

I broke a lot of personal rules recently. In the spirit of getting over my ego I'd accepted two jobs that, at first glance (and second and third.), totally went against values I hold. I wasn't killing kittens, but I was doing work that was superficial, false, and/or exploitive. For pennies to boot. Both times I've got burned by the client, who turned out to be superficial, false, and definitely exploitive (who would've called it?). I've decided starving is better than doing shlock work for beans.

There's a balance between taking an uncompromising position and selling you (and your work.) short. I'm over feeling guilty about turning my nose up at certain jobs, because of some deep working class shame around working and not working. Or that I have the leeway to pick and choose what I want to do. At the end of the day who do I want to be? How do I want to feel about my work? When I look back on these years do I want to feel like I made a serious go at making the work I want, or do I want to regret that I spent the whole of my time drawing trams in bikinis or some douche's sports cars. This is a no-brainer, I think. Some folks have to take what they can get, but I don't have to.

When I was biking through Big Sur in California I felt like I really owned by life, that I was really stretching my potential to it's limits and I'd like to experience that here, in my daily working life.

Maybe I'll start writing poetry. Got ya!

Lesson learned. I hope this informs someone else.

Anyway on a happier note, I got the chance to feel like a teenager again when my friends, Kate and I got caught by seven Winn-Dixie employs rummaging through their compactor. We had to sprint with boxes and bags of veggies, eggs, bread, moon-pies, and a breastmillker through the parking lot and do the skedaddle out of there.

still photo from Hooverville Massacre.

posted more pages to Tug Benson, so we continue to be on schedule!

Very exciting, the chapters coming to a dramatic end as well, so stick with it folks.