It's a Hell of a Town

If you haven't been by The New Yorker's online presence, you should check it out (yes, I'm telling you what to do). You should also send me cash.

The New Yorker website has lots of articles and fiction and pictures. But I mostly just go for the cartoons. Each week they put up a new batch of cartoons. And starting about six months ago they started a cartoonist-of-the-month blog. One of their cartoonists blogs for a month about whatever strikes their fancy, as long as it has something to do with their cartooning (and sometimes when it has nothing to do with it). Granted, it's been hit or miss. June's blog by Michael Crawford was a definite hit (click here to see the blog). He showed his cartoons, other peoples' cartoons, pictures he took, paintings he painted, and even mashup-fiction written by Anton Chekov (not from the Enterprise) and Raymond Chandler. Starting this month it would appear that they've gotten rid of the guest cartoonist blogger and have started a more free-for-all cartoon blog, called the Cartoon Lounge, which will feature multiple cartoonists each month as well as guests and secret societies. Or so the voices in my head keep telling me.

Judge For Yourself

Here's a new design for The Rough Suspect T-shirt Shoppe. I took an old ad for cosmetics, I believe, and played with the image in Corel Painter X. In the ad she was applying lipstick, but Shannon thought it'd be funnier to have her smoking. Then the picture below showed up unannounced. I told it to leave, but it began judging me and I crumbled like a wet paper sack full of wet paper sacks. Okay, that would actually be pretty heavy and probably wouldn't crumble at all. Such is life. So on Cafepress (where the t-shirt shop resides) they have all sorts of products, like t-shirts, magnets, mugs, as well as women's thong underwear. It cracked me up putting this design on a thong. Okay, I didn't really crack up. But I grinned. Kinda. Aw, c'mon, it's a little cute.

click here to go to Rough Suspect

Rodent Infestation

Didja know that the mouse was invented in 1963? Yeah, me either. Here's a video from 1968 demonstrating the device. Click here to read an article about the first mouse (and ultimately the demise of the mouse).

McNasa-ty

I put up one of my old cartoons (the year on it says 2002, but I first drew it in 1996!!) on Spanking Bananas and it was a moderately big hit over the last couple of days. Here's the pic if you haven't been over there.

click to embiggen

I'm rather surprised by the response so, of course, I thought: How do I make money off this? Ah, greed. And that's how it came to pass that I put the design up on Cafepress (The Rough Suspect T-shirt Shoppe, if you recall). Here's a t-shirt with the design:

click to go to rough suspect

Just a Random Day

Hey fellow bloggers, here's a cool widget for showing a random post (I'm looking at you, Andy). I just installed it on my cartoon blog (www.SpankingBananas.com). It seems to work just swell. From the link below, I added the script to the "head" section of my template and then added the href as a new HTML page element, sticking it under my blog links. Wonder if there's a way to get the href into the actual blog-link page element. Perhaps from within the HTML editor. Hmmm. I shall take a look at that. Anywho. Enjoy. [UPDATE: You can add the href via your HTML editor to an already existing page element. Take a look at Spanking Bananas to see how it looks, under the "Spanking Bananas Links."] [UPDATE to my UPDATE: I went ahead and added the "Random Blog Post" widget to this blog, it's on the right. No, lower, up, up, there.]

Click here to go to the widget.

Connie Kicks it Locus Style

Local (as in she lives in Greeley) incredi-writer, Connie Willis, just won a Locus award for her short story collection, The Winds of Marble Arch and Other Stories. If you don't know who Connie is, she's a heckuva sci-fi writer and a really cool cat. Check out her website, click here to go there.

Locus is an industry mag that writes about the doings of science fiction/fantasy/horror writers. Click here to go to the mag.

New Roommate Totally Rocks

The new college roommate just moved in and he totally kicks ass. Watch his sweet, sweet air hockey moves:

Spank You Very Much

Sorry, haven't posted in a few days. Been working on my cartoon blog. Okay, that's not really an excuse because, obviously, there's more than enough time to set up the cartoon blog and also blog here.

Mmmm, cookies.

I came up with (meaning my wife thought it up) the name of the new blog:

Spanking Bananas

What? Oh, settle down. I like it, so shut up.

The Evils of Left

Here're two more drawings done with my left hand. The first one is a freehand of, well, Batman (duh). The second one was traced. Both I tried to draw fairly quickly. What surprises me is that the Batman drawing, while crude, is spatially fairly accurate (I got the proportions right). Go figure.

click to embiggen

click to embiggen

Janky Town

Seriously, people, if you haven't checked out Andy Ard's "blog" you need to. There's funny sh--crap over there. But, you know, sh--crap in the good way.

Click the dang link: Janky Vision

Cartoon Cartoon

Hmmm. Nothing really to show today (though I did draw Batman freehand with my left hand, I'll probably show that one tomorrow). I've been toying with the idea of starting a separate blog for just my cartoons. Maybe do a couple of different kinds. A "slice-o-life" cartoon and then just funny stuff (well, attempts at funny, anyway).

Why not just jump in and do it? Have you read the title of this blog? Hello ... McFly! On one hand, I know I can do the cartoons often enough to have decent blog production. But on that damn other hand, I know I could become bored or, yes, discouraged, and just give up after about two months. Such is my life.

What will I do? I'm sure I'll jump in and start the new blog. Probably sometime this week, actually. It's a month or two from now that I worry about.

Left of Center

Here are two more left-handed "drawings." The first I did two days ago, using the same tracing method I used on the first two. I really took my time with it, trying hard to make it "exact." Ratbert (yes, that's Ratbert. Be nice) I drew yesterday in free-hand, using the stuffed Ratbert I keep on my desk and drawing fairly quickly.

click to embiggen

as big as he gets

Workout Bib

Here's a slice-o-life cartoon:

click to embiggen

Leftist Experiment

Starting yesterday, I've begun drawing with my left hand. Well, kinda drawing. I'm tracing the image (have the reference photo in Corel Painter X and then on a different layer I outline the picture). Wow does my left hand not want to cooperate. Very shaky and sometimes it just wanders off without telling me.

Why am I doing this? I'm experimenting to see if it opens up something in my brain. See if it helps my creativity or ... something. Work that side of the brain that rarely gets worked like this. So far (being only the second day) the only thing to occur is a stiffness in my left shoulder blade. Here're my first two attempts. The first one I tried to do quickly. The second one I slowed down and tried to really draw the character.

Bats and Robin

Here's a really quick sketch of Bats and Robin in their classic caught-in-the-spotlight pose. I'm trying out a new brush from Corel Painter X that I'm kinda digging. It seems to lend itself to a gray, rather than black, color of line. I think I might try some cartoons with this brush. Neither of these pics (the small one here and the bigger one when you click on the image below) really captures the coolness of the brush, though the bigger one comes closer. The small one mashes the nuance of the brush stroke into a solid gray line. I'll have to play with that. Ah, well.

click to embiggen

Champagne and Spoons

So quite some time ago I heard the tale of a spoon placed in the top of an open champagne bottle (uh, pretty much has to be open to place a spoon there) keeps the bubbles in the bottle. I assume this is an urban legend. But I've done it twice now, and both times the bubbles have stayed in the bottle. Just today I took champagne out of the fridge that was opened on Friday (so the bottle has been open, counting Friday, six days). Certainly not as many bubbles as when it was first opened, but there were still lots of tiny bubbles. It fizzed up in the glass nicely.

Now I guess I gotta open two bottles of champagne, drain them to equal depths and place them both in the fridge, one with spoon and one without. But it seems to me that the bubbles should be long gone after sitting open for six days in the fridge.

Reading up on this on the Great Big InterWeb, people have tested this. It appears that putting the cork back into the champagne bottle is the worst thing you can do! Leaving the bottle open was always marked fizzier than re-corked bottles. However, there doesn't appear to be too much difference between open with spoon and open without spoon. Like I said, I'll have to do my own testing, even if it means drinking numerous bottles of liquor.

Science!

Worst ... Superhero ... Costumes ... Ever

I found this site while researching an idea for another blog (thanks to Andy). It's a collection of the worst superhero/supervillain costumes (click here to go there). Funny stuff at times. Here's an example:

I know drawing celestials or other-dimensional characters presents numerous challenges — how do you represent something truly alien? — but surely if another world evolved some sort of ultra-powerful, face-eyed sentient tree trunk, it wouldn’t have the crippling lack of self-confidence necessary to don James Kirk’s rug.

Tasty Tip 7

Well, in searching for a "new" recipe for whiskey, I came across the glazed duck (click here to see where I got it from, it's in a comment at the bottom of the post).

Yikes, wrong glazed duck

Simple recipe that tastes quite good. I like it:

1 shot Grand Marnier
1 shot whiskey
server over ice

Simple and to the point.

The Graduate

Are you trying to seduce me, Mrs. Piserchio?

I'm so proud of my wife. Yesterday she received her Master's Degree from the University of Denver. Click here to read her full story.

Lester Dent Plotful Insights

Lester Dent was a prolific pulp writer during the golden age of pulps. Under the house name of Kenneth Robeson, he wrote most of the Doc Savage novels for Street and Smith Publications.

Even though I read what I considered a whole bunch of them, I really hardly scratched the surface of the 181 Doc Savage novels written between 1933 and 1949. You might be interested in knowing that Superman borrowed from Doc Savage. Doc was known as the man of bronze (Superman was the man of steel). Doc would get away from it all to his Fortress of Solitude (ditto for Superman). Doc's real first name? Clark (Clark Savage, Jr.).

And so for no reason that I can think of, I'm going to share Lester Dent's Master Plot formula:

This is a formula, a master plot, for any 6000 word pulp story. It has worked on adventure, detective, western and war-air. It tells exactly where to put everything. It shows definitely just what must happen in each successive thousand words.

No yarn of mine written to the formula has yet failed to sell.

The business of building stories seems not much different from the business of building anything else.

Here's how it starts:

1. A DIFFERENT MURDER METHOD FOR VILLAIN TO USE
2. A DIFFERENT THING FOR VILLAIN TO BE SEEKING
3. A DIFFERENT LOCALE
4. A MENACE WHICH IS TO HANG LIKE A CLOUD OVER HERO

One of these DIFFERENT things would be nice, two better, three swell. It may help if they are fully in mind before tackling the rest.

A different murder method could be--different. Thinking of shooting, knifing, hydrocyanic, garroting, poison needles, scorpions, a few others, and writing them on paper gets them where they may suggest something. Scorpions and their poison bite? Maybe mosquitos or flies treated with deadly germs?

If the victims are killed by ordinary methods, but found under strange and identical circumstances each time, it might serve, the reader of course not knowing until the end, that the method of murder is ordinary.

Scribes who have their villain's victims found with butterflies, spiders or bats stamped on them could conceivably be flirting with this gag.

Probably it won't do a lot of good to be too odd, fanciful or grotesque with murder methods.

The different thing for the villain to be after might be something other than jewels, the stolen bank loot, the pearls, or some other old ones.

Here, again one might get too bizarre.

Unique locale? Easy. Selecting one that fits in with the murder method and the treasure--thing that villain wants--makes it simpler, and it's
also nice to use a familiar one, a place where you've lived or worked. So many pulpateers don't. It sometimes saves embarrassment to know nearly as much about the locale as the editor, or enough to fool him.

Here's a nifty much used in faking local color. For a story laid in Egypt, say, author finds a book titled "Conversational Egyptian Easily Learned," or something like that. He wants a character to ask in Egyptian, "What's the matter?" He looks in the book and finds, "El khabar, eyh?" To keep the reader from getting dizzy, it's perhaps wise to make it clear in some fashion, just what that means. Occasionally the text will tell this, or someone can repeat it in English. But it's a doubtful move to stop and tell the reader in so many words the English translation.

The writer learns they have palm trees in Egypt. He looks in the book, finds the Egyptian for palm trees, and uses that. This kids editors and readers into thinking he knows something about Egypt.

Here's the second installment of the master plot.

Divide the 6000 word yarn into four 1500 word parts. In each 1500 word part, put the following:


FIRST 1500 WORDS

1--First line, or as near thereto as possible, introduce the hero and swat him with a fistful of trouble. Hint at a mystery, a menace or a problem to be solved--something the hero has to cope with.

2--The hero pitches in to cope with his fistful of trouble. (He tries to fathom the mystery, defeat the menace, or solve the problem.)

3--Introduce ALL the other characters as soon as possible. Bring them on in action.

4--Hero's endevours land him in an actual physical conflict near the end of the first 1500 words.

5--Near the end of first 1500 words, there is a complete surprise twist in the plot development.

SO FAR: Does it have SUSPENSE?
Is there a MENACE to the hero?
Does everything happen logically?

At this point, it might help to recall that action should do something besides advance the hero over the scenery. Suppose the hero has learned the dastards of villains have seized somebody named Eloise, who can explain the secret of what is behind all these sinister events. The hero corners villains, they fight, and villains get away. Not so hot.

Hero should accomplish something with his tearing around, if only to rescue Eloise, and surprise! Eloise is a ring-tailed monkey. The hero counts the rings on Eloise's tail, if nothing better comes to mind.
They're not real. The rings are painted there. Why?


SECOND 1500 WORDS

1--Shovel more grief onto the hero.

2--Hero, being heroic, struggles, and his struggles lead up to:

3--Another physical conflict.

4--A surprising plot twist to end the 1500 words.

NOW: Does second part have SUSPENSE?
Does the MENACE grow like a black cloud?
Is the hero getting it in the neck?
Is the second part logical?

DON'T TELL ABOUT IT***Show how the thing looked. This is one of the secrets of writing; never tell the reader--show him. (He trembles, roving eyes, slackened jaw, and such.) MAKE THE READER SEE HIM.

When writing, it helps to get at least one minor surprise to the printed page. It is reasonable to to expect these minor surprises to sort of inveigle the reader into keeping on. They need not be such profound efforts. One method of accomplishing one now and then is to be gently misleading. Hero is examining the murder room. The door behind him begins slowly to open. He does not see it. He conducts his examination blissfully. Door eases open, wider and wider, until--surprise! The glass pane falls out of the big window across the room. It must have fallen slowly, and air blowing into the room caused the door to open. Then what the heck made the pane fall so slowly? More mystery.

Characterizing a story actor consists of giving him some things which make him stick in the reader's mind. TAG HIM.

BUILD YOUR PLOTS SO THAT ACTION CAN BE CONTINUOUS.


THIRD 1500 WORDS

1--Shovel the grief onto the hero.

2--Hero makes some headway, and corners the villain or somebody in:

3--A physical conflict.

4--A surprising plot twist, in which the hero preferably gets it in the neck bad, to end the 1500 words.

DOES: It still have SUSPENSE?
The MENACE getting blacker?
The hero finds himself in a hell of a fix?
It all happens logically?

These outlines or master formulas are only something to make you certain of inserting some physical conflict, and some genuine plot twists, with a little suspense and menace thrown in. Without them, there is no pulp story.

These physical conflicts in each part might be DIFFERENT, too. If one fight is with fists, that can take care of the pugilism until next the next yarn. Same for poison gas and swords. There may, naturally, be exceptions. A hero with a peculiar punch, or a quick draw, might use it more than once.

The idea is to avoid monotony.

ACTION:
Vivid, swift, no words wasted. Create suspense, make the reader see and feel the action.

ATMOSPHERE:
Hear, smell, see, feel and taste.

DESCRIPTION:
Trees, wind, scenery and water.

THE SECRET OF ALL WRITING IS TO MAKE EVERY WORD COUNT.


FOURTH 1500 WORDS

1--Shovel the difficulties more thickly upon the hero.

2--Get the hero almost buried in his troubles. (Figuratively, the villain has him prisoner and has him framed for a murder rap; the girl is presumably dead, everything is lost, and the DIFFERENT murder method is about to dispose of the suffering protagonist.)

3--The hero extricates himself using HIS OWN SKILL, training or brawn.

4--The mysteries remaining--one big one held over to this point will help grip interest--are cleared up in course of final conflict as hero takes
the situation in hand.

5--Final twist, a big surprise, (This can be the villain turning out to be the unexpected person, having the "Treasure" be a dud, etc.)

6--The snapper, the punch line to end it.

HAS: The SUSPENSE held out to the last line?
The MENACE held out to the last?
Everything been explained?
It all happen logically?
Is the Punch Line enough to leave the reader with that WARM FEELING?
Did God kill the villain? Or the hero?

Roughing Up the Suspect

Huh. I woulda thought I'd have blogged about the online t-shirt shop my wife and I run. But t'would appear I have not. So, um, we have a, you know, online t-shirt shop.

Cough.

We started it a couple of years ago. It's not been a big money maker, but it pays for itself plus a teeny little bit extra. When coming up with the name we somehow decided to look through euphemisms for self enjoyment. We both laughed at roughing up the suspect, and that's how The Rough Suspect T-shirt Shoppe was born (or the name, anyway). Carl, a co-worker at the time told me about Cafepress.com, which runs the whole shebang (shebang). We just gotta get designs made and up on our page. It did take quite a bit of HTML encoding to get it the way it is, but now that it is the way it is, it's not a tough upkeep. Where we (or maybe just I) fall down is in the addition of new designs. I have spurts of design creation followed by months of non-creation.

Here are some of the designs. This one is our biggest seller.

The next one is our second-biggest seller. Keep in mind that "big seller" don't mean a whole lot in this instance. We ain't retiring off the proceeds anytime in this or several dozen lifetimes. This one comes in a man or woman design (same woman as above).

The following are just some random designs, some of which have probably never sold a single item. Sigh. I take that back. Looking at them I think they've all sold at least one item. Glamazon and Cheese have sold multiple items.