When Your Own Artwork Makes You Nervous Despite How Tame It Is
Opening banner for something I’ve been working on for well over a year now…
I should try to finish this, since I’ve been working on it for nearly two years now. Thing is I keep seeing panels I hate and I have to do them over again and I get discouraged.
Bear with me here please…
There’s an element of risk in giving the world a glimpse of your libido, which I suppose is why most writers of erotic fiction use pseudonyms. It’s especially true if your libido tacks in a different direction from most. I suffer here from a double penalty of both being gay, and being an American gay male who isn’t all that into guys that look like they model for superhero comics. It makes me nervous even talking about it. Yet I spent my formative adolescence on a diet of underground comix, men and women who were heroically…some might say a little Too heroically…willing to honestly write and draw about human sexuality and their own specifically. Howard Cruse is one of my heros in that regard, but there were so many others that gifted their talents and insights to Gay Comics. Even so I’ve struggled with how transparent to be in A Coming Out Story.
My initial concept of the character that represents my libido was he would simply be…in the underground comix tradition…a naked me. I tried drawing that over and over and was never comfortable with it. I just couldn’t do it. And then I thought…wait…that’s truth. And the first four episodes came immediately to mind, and I knew I had something I could go with. This is why the libido character is always wearing a fig leaf. As he says in that first episode “I’m your libido, not Robert Crumb’s libido.” Truth.
So I’m not the most brazen of cartoonists (my mild mannered fig leafed libido is a running gag in the story), which means I get nervous whenever I venture into this territory. Whenever I attempt something like You Can Leave Your Hat On (it’s a riff on a song by Randy Newman…the banner here is a riff on R. Crumb’s Keep On Trucking comic (which he now hates) which was itself a riff on a blues song Truckin My Blues Away by Blind Boy Fuller) I have to get the artwork as right as I can. That way if it provokes jeers I can shrug them off because I’m satisfied I got it right.
Some years ago I showed a cuteness I’d drawn to a gay guy I no longer hang out with, who cracked that he looked like he was one estrogen shot away from a job at Hooters…
Which only goes to show that even gay guys can be sexist jackasses. People like that are why males blessed with that beautiful angelic face often have a bad attitude about it.
Thing is, even allowing for the misogyny of it, there is still the coarseness by which people draw their lines around what is male and what is female. You’d think gay folk of all people would know better, yet I have been asked repeatedly (by that those same guys I no longer hang out with) if I’m really gay because the guys my libido alerts on just aren’t ripped enough, look too feminine, just aren’t manly enough.
Much of this is gay guys reclaiming their masculinity from a culture that blasts a torrent of abuse at gay males over gender conformity. So I get that pushing back thing. But I’m a solid Kinsey 6 regardless of what you think of my tastes in men. In A Coming Out Story episode 20, I have this argument with my libido who assures me that “You like Y chromosomes, just not the big overly muscled ones.” The punchline is when he asks me about photographing the next swim team meet. Even in some gay circles that kind of thing makes me weird. Hey guys…we’re gay…we’re all weird by the majority’s reckoning. Get effin over it!
So…anyway…I was struggling with this one because while I knew exactly what I want it to be I could not get comfortable with making it as sexy as I needed it to be to get my point across. For a while I was going to really go for it on this one and make it completely not safe for work…and I just couldn’t. But I think I know now how to walk right up to that line and still get my point across.
And yes..that’s Mr. Short-Shorts and Go-Go Boots. I first drew him around the same time as I heard You Can Leave Your Hat On played at a club in Laurel where I went to see classmate Rev. Billy Wirtz play. I assumed it was about a straight guy talking his girlfriend into dancing naked for him, but there was a lyric that jumped out at me…
Suspicious minds are talking Trying to tear us apart They say that my love is wrong They don’t know what love is I know what love is…
That spoke to me, obviously, as a gay man. And then this entire cartoon…mostly…came to mind. When it happens like that I know it’s something I have to get out of me. But this one’s been a struggle.
Cats And Their Little Ways Of Expressing Displeasure
I get just a little late putting food out for the calico and when I do go to put it out I step in my bare feet on dead bird remnants that are all over my doormat. I need to start looking down first. Yes madam, I was late. I need to put BEWARE OF THE CAT signs around my feeders.
I still see a few tweaks I need to make…but this is pretty much finished. I’m really coming to love Procreate’s charcoal sticks. I’ve tried a bunch of digital drawing apps and none of them get the charcoal sticks right. Procreate gets them almost perfect. Now if it only had a torn kneaded rubber eraser.
[Update…] Okay I’m done here. Tweaks made, I’m satisfied with it. Now to move on to the next…
Whenever I do one of these I keep thinking about a cartoon R. Crumb did in “XYZ Comics” back in the day, that had a panel in it of him drawing (it looked like he was using an old Rapidograph) one of his sexy ladies (he had a very distinctive type of full figured gal he liked) with a caption to the effect that he drew to get the objects of his desire. But I suppose we all do that. Look at this…
This is the sculptor Luo Li Rong and one of her works. This isn’t just an artistic reverie on the female form. Check out some of her other work. That’s a muse. Those pieces of hers ache with desire struck awe.
I will never be near that good. But I have my muses. They keep me feeling alive.
Pride organizers and the city government came to the decision together, according to a Heritage of Pride press release. Mayor Bill de Blasio has canceled all in-person gatherings in New York City through June due to the pandemic, which has hit his city particularly hard.
It is the first time since the Stonewall Riots that the parade has been cancelled. But this time there was no other way. I’m sure there will be online celebrations. This was always a parade about defiance against the darkness, survival, and love. And we will go on, defying hate, surviving, and loving and taking care of each other, as we did before, while they that say plagues are gods wrath come on us are packing their stadium churches and sharing their viral loads with each other more recklessly than what they accused us of during the AIDS crisis, and drinking bleach.
Thirty years ago today (April 24), Hubble launched into space on a mission to open humanity’s eyes to the wonders of the cosmos. In a new Hubble image released today, the telescope captured two neighboring clouds of cosmic dust and gas: the giant red nebula NGC 2014 and a smaller blue nebula nearby called NGC 2020.
…and here’s a shot from Hubble’s 25th, taken in front of the Space Telescope Science Institute at Johns Hopkins, Baltimore Maryland. (click for larger view)
The astronauts participating in the last servicing mission are front and center. Institute crew and some of their lucky kids surround them. Steve Hawley, in the red tie in the center, lifted HST out of the shuttle on the robot arm. Next to him is commander Scott Altman. The guy in the red shirt off to the right with the camera is expecting to wake up from a dream at any moment…
From our Thump Your Pulpit In Lieu Of Climbing The Walls department…
This came across my Facebook stream, via Songwriter Janis Ian…
Evil does not need malice to spread, or even to exist. Malice is probably the least of its needs. What really gets it going is that absence of empathy. Or as I like to say, sympathy. It’s when other people simply become a means to your ends, whether economic or emotional. It’s when your neighbors in this life stop being people, with their own hopes and dreams, their own human desires, and needs, but become faceless means to whatever your needs may be. And there is no more needful thing than empty pride.
“Our greatest pretenses are built up not to hide the evil and the ugly in us, but our emptiness. The hardest thing to hide is something that is not there.” -Eric Hoffer
They say faith can be a source of strength and inner peace, but the hard lesson to learn is faith is utterly neutral. It can give you strength to stand side by side with the oppressed. It can grant you peace as you turn away from them. It can be the calm self assurance that persecuting them is both righteous and just. It is Himmler telling his troops after they’d just massacred a village in Poland that because we can do such as this and still remain moral men is what makes us strong. It is Ntakirutimana telling the Tutsi congregation, about to be slaughtered and begging for his help, “You must be eliminated, God doesn’t want you anymore.” Their faith was strong. The evil that grew within them found it a completely willing ally.
“Absolute faith corrupts as absolutely as absolute power.” -Eric Hoffer
I’m in my sixties now and I think I can look back on everything I’ve seen in this life and make a few judgements now. And as to faith, I’ve seen it give battered hearts hope, but I have also seen it take people’s brakes away. Faith will come to the aid of whatever a person has within them, whether good or evil. But I have seen the most miniscule shred of sympathy in a bitter person finally soften a heart I was certain had been hardened beyond any hope of redemption. I have seen it turn people away from great wrongs they had been calmly certain of being good and righteous, and atone for them. It isn’t faith we need in this life, it is sympathy. Even if it’s just the size of a mustard seed. It will save your soul.
I have seen 160,000 sunrises and sunsets, more than anyone could hope for. Circling hundreds of miles above the surface of our big blue marble for 30 years, I’ve had a remarkable view of the universe. I haven’t always been comfortable up here, but thanks to many of you I have outgrown a host of problems and found a purpose far more expansive and satisfying than anything my creators envisioned.
Sexy Sketching…Quarantine Climbing The Walls Edition
Plinking around with Procreate on my iPad Pro, to keep my mind occupied and myself from climbing the walls during quarantine. It’s bad enough we have to severely limit our outside travels, but it’s been raining almost daily here in central Maryland and that’s been keeping me indoors far too much. So I really need to keep my mind occupied with Something.
And what better something than sexy sketching, I ask you…
I do confess that skin tight short shorts and go-go boots thing the ‘phobe was going on about a couple years ago still intrigues me. I could muse on this for hours. Days even.
[Update…] I went back and revisited that blog post from July 4, 2018 (“I Get My Best Ideas From Homophobes!”) and discovered the correct quote was “skin tight short-shorts and go-go boots”. I didn’t get it quite right when I posted this sketch to my Facebook page, probably because the “skin tight” part goes without saying.
There has been talk for a while now about asymptomatic carriers of COVID-19. This New York Times article came across my Facebook stream the other day and it contains within it an understanding of how that might be…
Even patients without respiratory complaints had Covid pneumonia. The patient stabbed in the shoulder, whom we X-rayed because we worried he had a collapsed lung, actually had Covid pneumonia. In patients on whom we did CT scans because they were injured in falls, we coincidentally found Covid pneumonia. Elderly patients who had passed out for unknown reasons and a number of diabetic patients were found to have it.
And here is what really surprised us: These patients did not report any sensation of breathing problems, even though their chest X-rays showed diffuse pneumonia and their oxygen was below normal. How could this be?
Read this article if you read nothing else today about the virus! Apparently due to the way the virus invades the lungs you don’t notice any discomfort for a while, as you would in the usual course of a pneumonia infection. But doctors can see it when they measure the amount of oxygen in your blood. That’s the tell that something is wrong with your lung functioning.
There are simple inexpensive devices you can buy at the pharmacy or online to measure blood O2. I bought one of these after I had the heart attack last October, along with a home device for measuring blood pressure. There are also, so I’m told, clever smartphone apps that use the built-in light. Normal O2 should be between 95 and 100 percent as taken from one of these.
As the number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 surges past 2.2 million globally and deaths surpass 150,000, clinicians and pathologists are struggling to understand the damage wrought by the coronavirus as it tears through the body. They are realizing that although the lungs are ground zero, its reach can extend to many organs including the heart and blood vessels, kidneys, gut, and brain.
“[The disease] can attack almost anything in the body with devastating consequences,” says cardiologist Harlan Krumholz of Yale University and Yale-New Haven Hospital, who is leading multiple efforts to gather clinical data on COVID-19. “Its ferocity is breathtaking and humbling.”
Go read the rest. This new virus is the stuff of nightmares. If you ever find yourself getting frustrated with the quarantine…and I know I do from time to time…read it again. Then go wash your hands and rededicate yourself to safe distancing, and staying home unless it’s absolutely necessary to go anywhere.
This came across my Facebook news stream this morning…
A friend posted this with a comment about how it reminded him of that iconic photograph of the solitary Chinese man standing in front of a line of tanks during the Tiananmen Square massacre. And if you think that’s hyperbole recall how in Charlottesville Virginia a neo fascist drove right into a crowd of people peacefully protesting the Unite The Right rally there killing one and injuring 28. These were more of Trump’s Very Fine People in those cars.
These healthcare workers were risking their lives here. Which, yes, they do anyway. But they shouldn’t have to do it like this.
What Pollen Should Have Already Taught Us About Touching Your Face
Wrote a very important letter today, and went to mail it off. Once outside I see that my car is covered in pollen. It’s that time of year here in the Mid Atlantic. I’m thinking as I get into the car that not touching your face and eyes with your fingers should be standard operating procedure during pollen season anyway…
In Which The Abyss Gives Up A Ray Of Sunshine And Hope
Per my previous post…not so afraid now. Concerned yes, but lord have mercy the ray of sunshine I just got was very much appreciated, after so many weeks of worry.
Now I need to send a letter to a friend from long ago. I’ll say more later, maybe, when I get a reply.
When The Abyss Looks Back Into You And Speaks A Name
The people I let into my life, become friends with, hang out with, enjoy the company of, get the very rare crush on, are broadly folks who are smart, have big hearts, are curious and imaginative, and…just don’t quite fit in. These tend to take two very different paths through life. I have walked them both.
Some make their way up the economic ladder. They eventually snuggle into some small nitch where they can use their minds in ways they either enjoy or at any rate are very good at, and in which their odd little quirks, as seen from the herd, either don’t matter or add decoration and color to the workplace. Many of my own group of friends eventually found work in Information Technologies where we’re kept safely away from the public, behind our computer screens where we can can geek out to our heart’s content. But some I know are lawyers, musicians, cartoonists, theater people…
For a while I was earning a bare bones living as an architectural modelmaker. It was as basic a lifestyle as could be, but I was enjoying myself. At various points in my life I’ve tried earning a living as a photographer, an illustrator, a political cartoonist. It wasn’t until I got work as a computer programmer that I could breath economically. That’s typically how it goes. The arts kids I know generally don’t make a lot of money, some of them live hand to mouth. But if you’ve ever tried to make a living as an artist you really have to respect anyone who has managed the trick, regardless of how low income their lives are. Most have their “day jobs”. Work they hate but which allows them time and money to do the work they love.
But there’s another, darker path some of these take: they go down the economic rabbit hole. Then they find themselves living on the edge of society. They never get the break they need, never find the good nitch to occupy. They become drifters economically, then eventually if they can’t find their nitch, transients with no fixed roof over their heads.
Invariably these attract the attention of the police, too many of which seem to thoroughly enjoy harassing them. And one minor offense snowballs into another and another and late in life they’re in and out of jails and/or halfway houses. If not sleeping on the streets.
That is how the economic system in this country works. Oh, you don’t have a bank account? Oh, you haven’t held a job longer than a few months? Oh you don’t have a mailing address? An automobile? A phone? Good people. Smart, decent, big hearted, beautiful souls who could make their contribution to civilization if they could just catch that one lucky break. But not only are they a bit odd, they’re in pain. The kind of pain doctors can’t cure. They may not even know they’re in pain because they’ve just lived with it for so long. Hemingway knew the risks of having that big heart inside of you:
“The best people possess a feeling for beauty, the courage to take risks, the discipline to tell the truth, the capacity for sacrifice. Ironically, their virtues make them vulnerable; they are often wounded, sometimes destroyed.”
I have seen the system get hold of one of these and grind them down just for the shear pleasure of doing it. Because they can. These are not violent predatory people but they are easy marks for bullies. Because the inner beauty still there within the destitute man in front of them is a rebuke.
As I said, I’ve walked both these paths, though luckily not to the degree I’ve had repeated run-ins with the law, or been homeless. A classmate gave me a place to live when I had nowhere else to go and I was mowing lawns and doing Manpower jobs to make ends meet. Then I got my lucky break and now I’ve a nice little Baltimore rowhouse and a wonderful job and a very good income. But it could have been lots different. Within I am no different from a bunch of people I know, who are living hand to mouth and just couldn’t catch that break. We’re all just a bit odd. If you can’t make your oddness work for you the culture tosses you into the garbage heap without a second thought. Well, he shouldn’t be so odd, he needs to straighten up and make something of himself. But he was something. And now his contribution is lost to all of us.
Straighten up and fly right. Yes. Quite. It’s a double whammy if you not only happen to be a bit…different…but also gay. Particularly my generation, or older, or a bit younger. Maybe you clawed your way out of the closet. Maybe you accept yourself, as the old song goes, just as you are. But growing up under a torrent of social fear, hate and loathing does it’s work on you all the same. And especially so if your own family has abandoned you. You avoid confrontation, stay hunkered down lest you step on yet another social landmine. Risk aversion is wired into you. You accept being less than you could be, because good enough carries with it less personal and emotional risk, then being all you can be does.
It is the ball and chain you wear every moment of your day, and maybe you don’t even know it’s there anymore it feels so familiar. It degrades your economic life, and for certain it impacts your love life. How can damaged goods see themselves, present themselves, as a worthy lover?
Why am I telling you all this? Maybe in a day or two I’ll explain. Or maybe not. It isn’t about me. Mostly. I am however, very much afraid.
This blog is powered by WordPress and is hosted at Winters Web Works, who also did some custom design work (Thanks!). Some embedded content was created with the help of The Gimp. I proof with Google Chrome on either Windows, Linux or MacOS depending on which machine I happen to be running at the time.
