breakin the beast

new mini comic comin soon. I've been lousy busy for the holidays but I've been able to experiment with watercolors a bit. I did a little painting in college with them, but much like the key of C major, it's hard to make not feel sort of lame. I just think of geriatric nazi sympathizers wasting away on an Argentinean beach painting scrawly penguins on the beach...or is that peru with the penguins? So this is a cover, Kate and I sitting on some weird nest being folky. Moar to come!

scatter

I've just been reading Cecil and Jordan in New York Stories by Gabrielle Bell. Her stories just make my mind explode. They're so quiet and painful, and beautiful.

I'm now officially a regular at the fuel coffee. I was dubbed so yesterday when the teenage barista greeted me with my order (before I asked!) and a wink that lets me know that my daily habit of ordering a 2 dollar thing and holing up in the corner of their store all day is A OK! As you all may know I'm rancidly (not a word) insecure, so I spent the next couple hours wondering if I'm that creepy, musty smelling guy you see at every coffee shop, screen pointing away from view, rapping and clicking away with chipped coffee stained nails, and swearing about socialism. You know, that guy.

Here's a couple more Girl With A Black-Hole For A Brain pages. I realized that I never really read cartoonists blogs that have pieces of their work, I much more prefer to see some completed pages and usually pass over the various sketches and wot not. The exception is Gabby Shultz, Joseph Lampert , and Sam Bosma, because everything they do it gold! There That's my weak attempt to make friends with them, flattery on the internet. Thus I conclude my scatter shot submission this week!

the real

Here's the first Gospel Tug Benson anyone's seen in a while! So that's cool.

I just got back from a brief trek to NOLA for some filming for the movie The East, a strange indie romp into the tofu and gasoline soaked world of a radical anarchist cell. Actually I think it might be slightly more well considered than that... They just filmed for a couple hours ranting about the state and the church, stuffed me full of hummus, and threw me back on to a plane. So what insights do I have about this my first foray into film? Have my deeply overcompensating convictions about capitalism in entertainment been shaken after rubbing shoulders with film stars and directors? Have I traded my spotless image as a @ by playing one on the bug screen? Probably. To honest I vowed to auction my authenticity the moment I shook Ryan Gosling's hand just to be near him. No no no, I feel a little dirty about the whole thing and will likely donate all my earnings to the Raging Pelican in penance. Feel free to do the same.

Speaking of reaches at the real, I wrote a small article the latest Raging Pelican about the struggle of ARA and people of color in the NOLA occupy movement to get issues around housing, police brutality, prisons, education, and whatnot, heard by the rest of the occupiers.

A lot's happened in NOLA since I wrote the article. The population of homeless folks spiked in the camp, the city kicked the occupation out and then was forced to let them back, and the radical black community seems to be working with the occupation more and more. That last bit is particularly heartening, since an occupation in NOLA is nothing without the hard working folks of color in the city. ANYWAY, if you wanted to hear by bleeding liberal cries you would've just read the article.

"Hey Ben aren't you an cartoonist, why haven't we seen a comic in a hot minute?" you say.

Well the answer is that I'm up in New England, surfing the tundra on my drawing table and swaying to the sound of npr born world music and mom's schemes to infiltrate the catholic church so that I can bring you a bevy of completed shining tomes! We're nearly done with the first issue of The Midnite Hours, written by the really amazin B Clay Moore. I've been slaving away (SLAVING!) on a mini series written by Rory McConville called The Girl With A Black-hole For A Brain, pages of which I will post soon. For now you must continue to bear with my spotty communication with you all and in time I will come through! I guess.

It's been a couple weeks since I landed here on the far reaches of Western Massachusetts-ia, home of maple candy, shoe buckles, the eye-roll, and vague compliments. All things considered (also invented in Mass...that's right, NPR reference.) things are goin well, I have plenty of time to work what without NOLA's rolling black outs, biblical storms/environmental calamities, and dwarf directed cobra battles (you didn't know about those?). The thing is though I haven't seen anyone my age in weeks, there are teenagers and there are middle-aged and elderly folks exclusively. When I can get a hold of mom's twig and jesus clad wagon I spend my afternoon's making references that no one gets because I am a generation apart from EVERYONE!

So I stay in my tower diligently scrawling toons and writing songs, my only respite from the dull hallow Berkshires. More comix soon, Here's an interview incase you didn't catch it(LOVE ME!!!), and don't forget you can holler at a copy of NOBODIES, which is an ill anthology with some DAYGLOAYHOLE(in color:0) as well as several other great comics by amazing artists.

Okay okay, that's enough from me.

Oh wait, one more thing.