Television Without Pity on addiction

This is a screed I never posted from a few years ago, from Television Without Pity. The site is closed now, although you can still read all the recaps, but I'm really sad there won't be any more. I 'watched' entire seasons on that site, and it told me more than watching some of the episodes myself would have.

From a recap of Weeds, season 4, episode 8.

Did you ever read Infinite Jest [by David Foster Wallace]? It's good as a novel, like as a literary thing, but it also says the smartest thing about addiction and recovery. You could say the entire novel comes down to this idea, which is that the thing that gets you into it is the thing that gets you out. You become addicted to something little by little, minute by minute, day by day. Nobody goes from trying a little blow to giving blowjobs for crack in the space of a week: it's little by little, moment by moment. The moments start to spread out until your objective sense of time is so out of whack that you are unable to count the days. And the thing about recovering from addiction -- and I'm not a great believer in mantras or conventional therapies because I believe strongly that the smarter you are, the crazier you get to be, because you have more answers for everything and you could conceivably justify yourself all the way to dead if you wanted, and people often do, and Nancy Botwin is the smartest person alive so she gets to be the craziest too -- is that the thing that gets you in is the thing that gets you out. Little by little, minute to minute, you don't feed the bear.

Jacob Clifton was my favourite writer on the site. Read all the True Blood recaps, you'll understand.

Egg salad recipe

Whenever I visit my mother, what we love to do is eat. One of our staples! (Please forgive the scan; this notebook doesn't open very well.)

Noodler's flex pen and Inktense pencils in Winsor & Newton heavy cartridge sketchbook.

drive by comic

the other green-eyed monster

Feeling frustrated this week. Collage journal.

Hulk from Jung-Geon Yoon's cover of Avengers World #2, cut out from Previews Magazine. No actual comics were harmed in the making of this image. Winsor & Newton inks and watercolours with Sharpie on a handmade paper journal my friend Jamie gave me.

all change, please

Breaking news: I have moved to a new, closer location for work and a more regular time. On the plus side, I can wake up later, come home earlier, and my bus ride is shorter. On the minus side it's now split into two, which means the drive by sketches will have to stop for now. I will get some colour into them in the meantime.

On the other other hand, I now have more time to do things like this:

Day 7-8: invisible elf thing

I am exhausted by massive bureaucracy today--which is also why I couldn't post last night, had to go to bed early--but for related reasons I had plenty of downtime while waiting in queues today, and here's the result:

Invisible woman wears...Jil Sander? Armani? Will look it up when I'm not so tired.

And some observational sketches from today:
There was seriously a woman in the most bizarre conical hat, a very redcap- or gnome-like hat, except it was cream with navy stripes, wearing a top and trainers of matching sky blue. She looked just like a particularly dorky elf. So I drew the tree she was standing under so she'd feel at home.

And now good night.

my heart is like an island...

...where does the ocean go?

Bon voyage; see you soon.

(Image from Corbis)

A Public Service Announcement

This is a SERIOUS PROBLEM OK, do you even know how many pictures I have of...ok, non-disclosure policy has kicked in. Phew.

Sorry about the scan quality and the ugly word balloons, my computer is in the shop and I'm using Windows editing software. About the only thing I can do to my satisfaction is resize.

Here's what the strip looks like without any word balloons.

Pentel brush pen, Prang watercolours, Berkeley watercolour pad.

In related news, I used spray mount for the first time since leaving art school. It's just as horrible as I remember, but it does magically turn ordinary paper into Post-Its, which is almost worth the stink and the sticky fingers.

Neil Gaiman Predicts Your Present

Today I was feeling annoyed and mildly upset, and I went and spoke with Neil Gaiman's Wonderful Oracular Journal, and it (he) said:

Arguments about aesthetics and art tend not to get into simple easy right and wrong places.

That wasn't at all what I was annoyed and mildly upset about, but I feel better anyway.

I swear this happens every damn night

it's happening right now