Intellectual Dishonesty

I'm not going to claim I'm the most honest writer in the world.

I play mindgames, set up traps, lead readers off cliffs. I borrow from other writers and historians to back up plots I want, no matter what, so there. I do this with my tongue stuck out of the side of my mouth, giggling my head off.

I don't pull crap like this:

1. Claim I re-spelled the word "daemon" and gave it a new definition, when any reader with the least background would know the word had been used to mean the personal spirit since forever. I certainly wouldn't use it in an obvious rewrite of a steampunk Japanese anime (note: I really like steampunk and Japanese anime; but they're genres).

2. Chop out wholesale and drop into the middle of a fairy tale a paper doll of the commandant -- complete with scared servant and tortured spirit -- from Schindler's List, and then try to make out I'm doing this great original spiritual thing. There's stealing with genius -- and then there's just cut-and-paste.

How I Use Color

Another artist visiting my Deviantart page -- who usually uses a computer to color -- asked how I handled hand colors. I thought this answer belonged in the creator blog:

"Hm. Well, the obvious answer is practice. I picked out a close range of cool colors and a cool brown. That way it didn't get too noisy.

I don't think much how I do things any more; over 50 years of practice has dumped all the process into the hands and lizard brain.

Negative space is nice -- don't fill up too much, leave some air.

My color sense comes from a lazy brush style. I never used a palette when painting with acrylics -- I mixed on the brush, a bit at a time, and "cleaned" a brush by sprinkling the color across the painting, binding the design together, sometimes just wiping the brush dry on a cloth before tipping the brush in the next tube. I would slightly roll part of the brush in one tube, and part in the next, being careful not to muddy the tube. Then I had a mixed color that wasn't too smooth; there were flashes of both colors suggesting the final impression of color. My own version of pointilism or impressionism, I guess.

I'd choose 3 or four colors for the painting, maybe add some touches of others at the end. A small selection of flat brushes, whose corners I used like chiseled rounds.

It partly came from wanting ease of travel. Three small tubes, a couple brushes, a rag, a canvas -- ready to go.

It ended up forming my color use and eye."

Barr Wars and Somebody.

Chris Dunn posted the original Barr Wars pages. Kinda hinkey scanning, but it's all there. Somebody says this thing is still going on, for all those years. I dunno. I just googled "Barr Wars."

If nothing else it's got some very early appearances of some of my characters. Not my best work, but a hell of a lot of fun.

What happens during research.

This is what happens when I'm researching other things for somebody's commission story -- you know who you are!!

Okay, The Hurtin' Albertans sing "Horse Soldier, Horse Soldier!" Here are the Lyrics. I dunno if I'll buy the album, but I like some of the songs. Ya gotta love ITunes.

Quite the list of cavalry actions! Somebody's done their research. I could name a few more, but what rhymes with Florian Guyer? Oh, why not try (BAD POETRY ALERT)?:

"I rode the steppes with Florian Guyer
and the commissars we hung higher
than the wolves could grab their feet.

And the ladies of Valhalla
With their winged-helmet wallahs
Swooped in where the battle wasn't sweet."

You get the idea. Oh no! Have I begun a new tradition of writing bad historical cavalry verses for "Horse Soldier?"

House Projects done for the winter

Now THESE are out of the way, I can settle down and get many more pages done, colored, posted, laid out, published and write some more so I can do them, color them, post them....


Chicken coop. A colleague has more chickens than she needs, and we're negotiating for three.


Garden (with potato towers)


Greenhouse materials for spring 2009 -- scavenged from a building site, wrapped for winter -- killing grass I won't have to fight in the spring.


Kitchen -- part professional, part pieces from Waste Not Want Not in Port Angeles.


And finally, the very professional porch. Figured THAT was going to be nice, safe, legal and lookin' good.

More Desert Peach and Stinz on WebcomicsNation

It's going to take months to run all the new Desert Peach and Stinz AFTERDEAD strips at Webcomicsnation.

I have a whole new 64-page book to scan, including a lot of color and a night at the roller derby.

I'm getting closer to just putting all the books up at Lulu Going through distributors almost doubles the prices on all books, even more on color books.

Why should retailers and customers pay so much for books when they can just go get it from Lulu? They even have cheap shipping and bulk rates.

Throw pennies at the artist

Remember the two mad musicians in the Pixel short, begging for pennies?

Now YOU can throw pennies at an artist! Head over to the AFTERDEAD page and buy a ProjectWonderful ad.

Advertise your own book. Share your pictures. Or your own blog. Or your LOLkatz. Or just tell everybody how much you love my stuff (you know you do).

All you need to do is build a cool little banner and buy some micro-payments ads.

Our grandmas know how to do that now!