Getting the Fix In

Problem with reporting a story to a local paper led to my finally being able to suggest something I've wanted to ask for, for a LONG time.   Here's a suggestion:  a press officer.  Especially for official departments during an emergency.

Clallam Bay has a very small and dedicated fire department, who do excellent work in all areas of firefighting and emergency care, and in getting their message out.  The chief should be especially commended for taking time to organize PR in non-emergency situations. 

The Sheriff's department always has a press contact.  Of course, it has a much larger manpower base, and a larger budget.  But it knows the importance of getting an accurate message out to its community.

I know it will pose a hardship for such a small fire department, but even a quick cell-phone call to me (I'm the local, after all, and can get there sooner), and details when available within the evening if possible, would be a huge help in centralizing information, especially when it will cause suffering if mis-reported because there are no official sources (ie only neighbors).  The fire chief isn't always available; fires can take off again, and the moment for an interview can be missed, at least that night.

When I called the editor of the Forks Forum to advise him of mistakes, he gladly gave me the information he was able to get with his longer deadline.  He also paid attention when I told him the information was iffy -- that most of the people I was able to talk to said, "I don't know.," or were distracted by the fire.  He has helped me out on pooling resources for local papers before, so I was able to get some official information back to the other paper, if only tardily.  Cooperation between local papers is very laudable in community information support.

Normally, a reporter could be sent right out to a street address, but up here, a wrong position can lead to hours of lost time, by which time the emergency is over.  Often, out-of-area papers think everything up here takes place in one community, IE Sekiu.  We take time to check out actual addresses, and I still end up running up and down switchbacks because the editor didn't make the contact to get a gate unlocked.  If I were a full-time paid employee of the papers, with benefits, this wouldn't be so much of a problem for me, but it still leads to missed opportunities.

I do have to say that I'm not going to wait around for up to four hours in the rain for the sheriff or any other officials any more, because I get paid minimal freelance rates.  I've had two cameras ruined by weather (have a nice waterproof one now).  It may lose the local communities coverage, but I have to prioritize work based on payment, and my fans and readers just pay better than these small side newspaper jobs. I'm not trained or really paid as a reporter, but am a fiction writer and artist.  Journalism is a full-time specialty.  Out-of-area papers are just going to have to pay the gas mileage to get their people up here. 

The Forum, which is in the west end, does take this into consideration when asking me to do a story, thinking about mileage and time, and pinpointing places. The former editor, Denise Dunne Devaney instituted a page for the West End in the Forum, and I've tried to keep it live.  A lot of the local community work with me to keep that page in place.  Thanks especially to the Three Sisters of Clallam Art Gallery and the co-op and community gardens in getting their news out.   And holding still long enough to get names spelled right!  I'm sorry your photos have been cut up by the layout people, but space is at a premium for ads in a print newspaper, and it's an editorial and layout decision to chop your heads off.  I try to send them photos they can't chop, but once the paper's got it, that's their business.

Prediction re costs of printing newspapers:  paper may stay around for newspapers, at least for the life of the aging population, but as weeklies, putting up daily news on the internet where it can be quickly corrected.  The Forum already has that system in place.  

The only thing that might save paper printing is making paper out of fiber sources other than wood.  It makes terrible paper, very high in acid, and takes a huge amount of resources to produce.  It's an antique technology, though, and usually once such a technology is thoroughly integrated into an empire's system, it can't be shifted and adds to the burden of the failing economies and systems that appear at the end of an empire. 

Beowulf; Somebody Else Knew There Was More Story.

I've FINALLY figured out what bugs me about "Beowulf."  It's an Excuse Tale, like an American western:  what the invading society tells itself as it wipes out the locals.  I KNEW it was true because there is a "Mother," and "son;" those are signs of a news report.  

I'm not a very good reporter myself, or at least not in the modern AP style.  But struggling to be a freelancer has taught me where the seed in a story is hidden. 

There is such hate for these obviously nonexistent characters -- there are, after all, no demons from hell or dragons or sea-hags or sea-serpents -- such ego-pumping, long-told and long-developed, that it's probably representing repeated ancestral behavior.

If anything, it's the conquest-tale of the Indo-Europeans as they take out the European locals, especially any that refused to accept defeat or hid or resisted.  You Finns and Hungarians may be proud you've still got your language after the ancestral Beowulf gang got done with you.

The dragon?  We've all got a little file in our basic mammal brain that pops up an image of the 3-foot dinosaur that used to gobble us up by the millions over the millenia.  Scare a heron and you will see it, yellow with green stripes.  Some of our tiny mouse-sized ancestors escaped the long toothy jaws, and felt the hot breath.

Proof that dinosaurs were hot-blooded?  That Grendel really was the last of a tribe?  I'm just asking, and wondering.

Oh, the comment on this post reminded me:  I just saw a really fun movie based on a rethink of the old story:  Beowulf and Grendel.  Don't miss the special features and the commentary.


And OF COURSE a there's a lot of pissing in it -- there's a lot of GUYS in it.  That's the most reasonable way of getting a torch down a cliff I've ever seen.  And the funniest.  There's a law in movies: if it comes in from out or moves out of the sides, it reads as funny.  How ELSE would you get a torch down a cliff if all you had to descend was a knot rope?  I bet they found that out by accident.

Stinz to the Rescue

Cartoonists Northwest auctions art at their Toonies Awards banquets.  They need funding right now.  Like most artists, I got more art than cash, so offered to do them some art for the banquet.

Bidding for this piece starts at $200.00 -- I'll be posting more details once they get them to me.

How to Draw a Horse -- The Short Version

Note on Facebook, and thread:  Get your team-leader to hire me to supervise the horse jobs. Why? When your movie comes out w/badly-drawn horses, it says to the female audience "This crap is good enough for YOU," and WE DON'T SHARE THE MOVIE WITH OUR FRIENDS. Girls go on WORD OF MOUTH. Can we say "TITANIC?" or "TWILIGHT?"

Okay, quick horse-drawing course: 

"A horse is a box with a leg at each corner."

Its front "knees" are its wrists; its back "knees" are its heels (hocks). 

It's walking on its fingernails. 

The neck is a springy flat curve.

The head is a parallelogram, w/long crocodile jaws inside (joint under the ears, not under the chin). 

The tail has bone & meat in it, like a dog's tail.

It has a big belly, viewed from above. 

It can take 10 lbs out meat out of you at a bite.

The hind-leg kick releases the same level of energy as a hand-grenade explosion (the leg extended by a movement of the upper hip-joint, lashing out the entire limb).

With this in mind, go watch moving horses on YouTube, and see if you don't improve.  Send me your pictures or links and I'll post 'em here.

Okay?  No more excuses, like that mess in the movie Beowulf.  And THEY had real horses, for crying out loud, and they still managed to produce marshmallow horses.  

First submission, from Wendy Parker, an old friend, army buddy, and now civil engineer assigned to obscure posts in the snows of Alaska:

Wendy's notes: 

"I know you are not supposed to teach us dweebs about drawing  for free, but since you gave some advice, I attempted to do what you said.
 

"Here it is after three hours of erasing.  The hardest part was the head, and the legs, getting them the right length. Not sure how I did on that.  Anyway, here is my horse with a stick up his butt.  I think I did his tail okay though....from the spine."

My critique:  "Your first horse?  Nice, solid weight on the earth, excellent work on the feet.  And yes, that IS the hardest part, getting the legs right.  The head is very nice.

Remember there's a dog-like tail under that hair.  And that everything a horse does with the ears and tail is a language, and they have many different positions.   The heavy, straight hair flows around the tail as it whips about.

I'd say this horse is calm, but with some ambivalence; that ear and the slight switching of the tail telegraph emotion very well."


I should point out Wendy has owned horses; being around real ones helps.  All these notes may help you understand your own process of learning to draw.

Next step:
Wendy:  "I did what you said and looked up a page on drawing horses.  My goal was to draw a horse with his head down like he was sniffing for grass. I found this site that dealt with the horses muscles and skeleton. Anyway, it still took forever, and, I'm not sure about the legs.  They look better than they did because they reminded me of Gumby or that super hero that stretches lol!. I don't think any of your friends would believe that I couldn't draw a decent horse before.  I thought maybe the neck wasn't long enough, but the way the horses head is tilted meant it should look shorter because she is looking this way.  Am I right?  I thought about the back leg, and it occurred to me that it looked like a leg bent at the knee and the hoof was a foot.  So when I approached it that way, it came out better.  I know I have a long way to go, and I'm not sure I will even go there, but I did what I did.  Nifty eh?"

My critique: "Here's another drawing hint:  stew a chicken, then slowly pull off the meat, paying attention to all muscle masses and bones.  Most muscles and bones are the same -- evolution is a very simple tool-box we all dip back down into (we have a lizard collar-bone, for example). The neck is exceptionally well done for a first tie.  Pat yourself on the back! REMEMBER; the horse walks on a single fingernail and the hock is YOUR heel, and the knee is up against the body.  The rest of the leg is "buried" in the quarters.  Remember there are bones under these forms.  Think of them as rebar.  To draw a hock, feel your own heel and ankle."

A post-DADT Christmas

Joyce Farmer sent this lovely card for the 2010 Christmas, just in time for DADT to bite the dust.

Joyce has a new book out!  Special Exits -- life with Mom.

A great review of the book.

Primitive Art

How we used to do it.

If you're a traditional (old) creator, you'll laugh (and cry?).  If you're a kid, you'll go WTF?

The Grandmother's Hive -- Happy Reader

A reader who posts her rather wonderful KrautGrrl art and stories (go look!) over on Deviantart sent me this little review, and gave me this permission to post it. First our little conversation about that:

Donna:  "I am so happy you like that! Did they get it from here? [link]

And I'd like to thank them for getting it for you! Which shop is it?

The book was written as a kid's book, but it's probably too much for most kids. I mean, it would have been fine for me, but most kids would probably not get it. I had a lot of fun with internal art puns, as I recall (couldn't point 'em out now)."

June: "Oh I would have loved it as a kid. And I have no idea where he scavenged it from. That shop is crammed full of so much -- and I didn't think to ask but I shall next time I see them.

It's called "Buried Under Comics" in Manchester, Connecticut."
 

And now the review:

"So... while it seems unlikely I'll find anything peachy in my stalking or under the tree -- my good friends at the comic book shop remedied this.

The Grandmothers' Hive ... I don't even...know where to start O_O
gah it was like some sort of whimsical trip minus the anxiety of waking up not knowing where I am.

I mean...in everything!!! the story, the words, the text, the pictures! I had to re-read the pages several times to soak everything in...

it is utter eye candy...

I could go on and on about how much I enjoyed this work but well...I realize I must pester you so often with my fan-girling...

point is... it's the best Christmas present I could have hoped for.

Marvelous Work, as always."