Redirect and Intention

So, once again, it's been a while since posting something up here. My apologies. Sincerely.

Over the past couple of months, I have been working on a number of projects involving social media at various levels, copy writing and ad creation, brand management, positioning and creative strategy. Needless to say, I have spent a fair bit of time reexamining my own personal brand; that which those of you who follow me know as "RocketFuelSushi".

As a result, I have started to focus my intention for the purpose of this blog as well as the eventual redesign of the aesthetic interface. This blog began as a way for me to put my voice out there and to sort of force myself into a place where I was regularly "publishing" myself in some form or another. As a result of this somewhat nebulous goal, the content has ranged from deeply personal and cathartic to the cursory to relatively mundane style-experiments and pseudo-political rantings.

Over the past couple of months, I have been very concerned with content strategy, appropriate positioning, creating relevant content and creative strategy. As a result, I have begun to rethink my approach to this blog.

As a result, I hope to begin over the coming weeks to provide more quality content as well as a redesigned face and more pretty pictures for you to look at and some shots of the work we've been churning out at the studio.

Some of the changes you can expect over the coming weeks and months are: more regular, targeted articles; a new face; a new home (this blog will soon become attached to the coming www.rocketfuelsushi.com); feeds and links to Facebook and Twitter; and etcetera...

So, although this is really just a teaser, keep an eye peeled for upcoming changes and possibly, just possibly, some products and new work. Thanks for staying tuned and taking an interest!

Out to lunch, Out of gas

This is another bit I did of an old character from my sketchbooks I named Helicopter Hal.

Observatory

So I found this site courtesy of Abduzeedo and fell in love over the weekend. It's basically a stripped down paint/sketch program. The really cool thing about this though is that not only does the site save the sketch for you, it also creates a little video playback of your process. My first one is right here:



...pretty cool, even if the final result is pretty rough. I like this for two reasons (I mean beyond the obvious Holy Sh@t!! this is so COOL! factor). 1) It's extremely helpful to be able to go back and see how your process worked like this and be able to edit the process itself. And 2) it's really cool to be able to go in and check out other artist's processes. Learn from their mistakes and successes.

Fun stuff. Expect to see more of these.

um...separation of church and state anyone?

Ok...so watching the morning news with my flakes and berries this AM, I'm accosted by this ad talking about "Vote Yes on 1" ... I should back up and give some perspective here:

For those of you not living in the Great Up North and not paying attention to the gay marriage debate, here's the scoop: this year, the Maine legislature passed a bill making same-sex marriage legal and equal to so-called traditional marriage. YAY! Another step for civil rights and equality in a supposedly just and liberal society!

But, wait, there's more! The reactionary right came out of the woodwork with support from lobby groups out of state in order to "protect" marriage and managed to collect enough signatures to file a "people's veto" so that the bill was suspended pending a popular vote in November.

So now, both sides are digging in as the state of Maine has become the next battleground for this fight for equality.

And that's the short story. So this morning I'm eating my cereal and I see the first of what is sure to be a barrage of anti-Question 1 ads between now and November. And the jist of this is--Vote yes on question 1 to ban same-sex marriage. Why? Because otherwise our poor, innocent children will be subjected to education on same-sex marriage in school and our sacrosanct institute will somehow be diminished. Protect traditional values. Protect traditional definitions of marriage as one-man-one-woman.

...where to start, where to start? OK, first off--since when do we teach Marriage in school? Maybe things have changed since I was a kid and I don't have kids in the system, so maybe I missed something here, but I certainly don't remember Marriage Class after Gym and before lunch or whatever. So really, why would we suddenly start teaching marriage if same-sex marriage was legal? Um...two-plus-two-equals-twenty-two, anybody?

Next up--how about separation of church and state? Anyone remember this one? At all? I remember this being one of the core foundational elements of our country and our Constitution. Here's a little news flash--"marriage" is not one umbrella status. "Marriage" is both a legal status and a religious sacrament (and you'll have to forgive the Catholic-centric term here, I was raised Catholic and though I know the term is not the same across all religions, I do know the concept is universal. Let's just make the contextual jump here and keep moving...). I think there's a huge confusion in this debate among the folks trying to "save marriage". Legalizing and recognizing same-sex marriage does nothing to diminish what you believe. While I don't agree with religions that forbids this, it's religion and you're free to believe what you want. The recognition of same-sex marriage does nothing to force you or your religion to recognize it as a valid spiritual union. It is strictly legal and speaks only to the legal definition of and institution and rights of marriage. Let's try to be adults about this and recognize that there are two separate institutions of "marriage", one legal, one governed by the church and, per our constitution, ne'er the two shall meet.

Or, and here's another solution: let's abolish marriage altogether for everyone. Gay, straight, bi, tri, whatever. No more marriage, just Civil Union for everyone. Everyone gets the same rights, it's a new name so there's no such thing as a "traditional" Civil Union and there'll be no more semantic confusion about marriage. If you want to get married in a church or other religious edifice, by all means--find one that will sanction your particular preference and get married there. But that marriage alone will not afford you the benefits now associated with "marriage"; for that you need a Civil Union. Same rights and benefits and protections as everyone else. Simple.
(*I actually have to give credit to Brian K. Vaughn, creator and writer of Ex Machina for this concept. Volume 1 or 2, I think--good read, go check it out.)

Finally, "marriage" is something else beyond the legal and the religious. Well, it's actually several other somethings beyond those two, but I want to talk about "marriage" as a cultural more. Marriage as we understand it now is a cultural institution among whatever else it may be. It shapes the way we think of ourselves as a society as well as the image the rest of the world has of us. We like to posture about being a progressive nation, and pride ourselves on being accepting and a melting pot and socially just and champions of equality. However, despite our wars and our propaganda and the lies we tell ourselves and our children about the nature of this country, we are rarely any of these things anymore. We have lost sight of Reason and Justice as guiding principles in our thoughts and actions. We have largely become so immersed with our quabbles with the people we disagree with, that we have forgotten the things that once made this country great--Truth, Justice, the American Way; Life, Liberty, the Pursuit of Happiness; these promises afforded to EVERY American. It is written into the very foundation of this country. And yet, what many of us want to do is restrict a significant segment of our population from achieving that promise. And it is shaping our cultural landscape and poisoning the foundations of what we once understood to matter most to the human condition--freedom from persecution.

So, in closing, what I saw on TV this morning just pissed me right off, and since I don't have the ear of the legislature or even those ont he other side of the fence, I figured I'd just spout off about it here. Feel free to comment and leave your opinions, I'd love hear what you have to say.

running images

so...a little on the late side here, but figured I'd post some visual proof of the race from two weekends ago now, courtesy of my own personal paparazzi: Guido Geneseo.

This here is a shot of about the half-way point in the "downtown" of Cape Elizabeth. I love the patriotism of the Cape Fire Department--Go Big or Go Home, right?

And the proof is in the pudding here. And no, that wasn't a fat joke. But, I suppose this is proof that even fat guys can run. And run a bit faster than slow, to boot!

All said, this was a great experience. Still a little giddy about how well I did in comparison to my expectations. But getting back into training mode is proving to be a little on the trying side.

Having said that, I'm optimistic (perhaps falsely so) about both the Portland Trails to Ale 10K sponsored by Shipyard at the end of September as well as the 1/2 marathon in Conway at the end of October that I'm still trying to psyche myself up for. (More to come on this point.)

But all things being equal, I feel like I've started to embrace being a runner. 'Course this would've been immensely helpful say, 18 years ago when I was hating track and the long road workouts in the cold and the icy "track" workouts on a makeshift track in the school parking lot. But, I guess better late than never, right?

results y'all. I'm sayin'...

OK, first off some major thanks are in order. To all the volunteers who made the Beach to Beacon happen today--thank you! You're the best and I'm in absolute awe of your efficiency in moving and cleaning up after over 5,000 human machines! Truly amazing! Special thanks to each and every person that handed me or sprayed me with sweet sweet H2O! Honestly, I never realized how much of a difference water makes while you're running (I never ran any kind of distance race before, so lay off, huh).

Next, to all the spectators who cheered us on--a big fat Thank You! Never realized how much of a boost that simple cheer and that beautiful sideline enthusiasm can make. Really, I felt like I had a can of NOS in my back pocket every time I came into a group of spectators. Thank you for turning out!

To Julie Lake for carting our sweating, stinky hides around--thank you! You're the best and it's been far too long since we've seen you! Glad to have you back in our lives! And to Guido for making the long haul up here to the North-country wilds just to take a picture and slap me five--meant a lot! And I know Becca appreciated talking to you after her accident!

So, by this point, you know that the Beach to Beacon is over, I finished and I had a great time and am exceptionally thankful for all the people along the way. Really, I don't know if all races are like this one, or if B2B is an exception (and I mean that doubly in the sense of "exceptional") but DAMN! what a great event! And for how awesome everyone was, I feel like I need to commit to volunteer in some future year should I be denied entry.

And as long as I'm giving shout outs and mad props, I need to give a mad-dopeness award to my lovely wife for a truly Herculean effort. For anyone who doesn't know the back story on this one, Becca & I registered for this hootenanny together with the intention of training together and of using this race as a motivator to start getting back in shape. Well, as the cosmic whoopie cushion would have it, B got sick not too long ago. With a heaping helping of pneumonia. As in double-barreled. Yup. Both lungsacks. And at the same time, even. Needless to say, that put a little bit of a crimp in her stride. AND...then, after getting past the worst of the lung-buttery goodness, she was exposed to and tested positive for the old oink-oink. Yup. H1N1--the so-called Swine Flu.

So again, Becca has not really been able to train for this race. And then (yeah, as if that wasn't enough, right?), after she decided to walk the course so that she could at least finish, take this as Day 1 to train for another race, etc. her walking partner wound up in the ED last night. So, as we approached the stat line, Becca was resigning herself to having to walk this thing alone. But big thing here was that, in my humble opinion, I thought it took great big sacks of juice to step up and say "the past two months have pretty much sucked from a health point-of view, but eff it--I'm going to finish this thing any way I can." Big-ass awesomeness, right? Made me really proud, anyway, and if the rest of you disagree, you can flip the eff right off.

So, and this I was not there to witness, but Becca linked up with a couple of other gals that were walking the course and they were walking together, making good progress...until...wait for it....the girl walking directly behind my wife, gets run and knocked over by some kid on bike not paying attention. All three girls went down and needed tending to. The girl in front of Becca wound up in the back of an ambulance en route to Maine Med for her injuries. Becca, after getting cleaned up by the paramedics on scene, refuses to go to the medical tent and decides to walk back to the car to wait for us.

After doing the math, we realized, after the fact, that Becca actually completed the full distance of the race, just not all of it on the course. So, the sum up to this part of the race coverage: my wife, still recovering in one lung from pneumonia (yeah, it really takes that long to get over, believe it or not--just ask someone who's had it) and injured still managed to do 6 miles, give or take. In my book that's pretty awesome. And I think it deserved extra-special mention, since if you look at her name on the site, you won't see a completion time since she never crossed the finish line. In my, somewhat humble opinion, she won her own race.

Anyhow, watch for us on the Trail to Ale 10K that we start training for this week. Race is September 29th (I think). We'll be there and running our hindparts off for that beer at the end.

And finally, all that nervousness must have just channeled into my running. In the end, I had a great race, had a lot of fun, and finished in what I think, again in my humble opinion, is a very respectable time, especially for a beginner.

Results: Gun time - 1:20:06
Net time - 1:13:26 (in other words, the time from when I actually crossed the start line)
Pace - 11:49

Which is to say, better than the 12:20 pace I expected based on my last distance run. All in all a good day for a run. ...but next time, I'll remember to actually use the sunscreen...

Nerves

So...the last post in an otherwise post-lethargic month. Today is the eve of the Beach to Beacon, a road race run in Cape Elizabeth for a distance of 6.2 miles. For the uninitiated to the world of running, this distance is affectionately known as a 10K.

We went and picked up our bibs yesterday and I found that I now have a knot of wet oatmeal-cement-worms that immediately took up residence in that area of the abdomen generally known and referred to as the bread basket.

Now I have to admit, I really don't think I've had nerves this bad since I ran track (badly, I might add) in high school. And, despite the fact that I know this run is against myself more than anyone else (something I could never quite grasp in high school and perhaps one of the many reasons I was so bad at it then), I still find myself in an excessive state of nervousness.

I'm fairly certain that this will pass once I've got past the official starting line and am solidly under way, but for now, I'm doing what I can to keep my (still somewhat sizable) stomach in its proper place. And for now that will have to do. I'll update you all with my official time tomorrow and fill everyone in on the (hopefully not too) gory details.

But until then, you'll have to wait. Or go to the Beach to Beacon site...

All injuries in the name of competition are glorious...

...or at least I think I had a high school gym coach that proclaimed some such nonsense. However, I must say, I feel a certain measure tougher since getting stepped on with cleats during last night's match. I feel even tougher having won the fight and come away with the ball.

all of which is to say that I'm not really that tough and need to take what I can get...

All in all a rather disappointing loss to Olympia, but not for lack of a valiant effort and a few scrapes and bumps all the way round. Good game to the T.Doc team and nurse your bruises well...

My Kinda Church!

So a couple of weekends ago, me and the lovley wife took a little pilgrimage to the woodsly goodness and visited the inimitable Cathedral Ledge. We had a fantastic day, filled with scenery, strategery and a couple of stinky climbers that needed a good-natured lift down to the bottom.

When we got down to the bottom, we found the Ledge looking positively cathedral-y.

A quick pseudo-self-portrait taken in the window of the car...


And Cathedral Ledge looking much like its namesake. Could be a stained glass window on reality here. God looking over the edge? mmmmm...could be...

...just a small taste of our adventure with a side salad slaw. Maybe once I crack that book on didgital photography, I'll be able to post up some half-way decent pics for y'all to feast your hungry little eye-holes on. Yup. Check back for more of the goodness and stuff your little pot-bellied optic nerve-nesses full to bursting and then get some more!

so it's been (almost) a month...

...and I haven't written or posted anything for you, my faithful readers. Bad blogger! Bad!
On the up side, it's been a fun-filled month and there are pictures aplenty to be showcased. Although not today. I still have to download them all before I can get anything onto the post here. But rest assured, I will have some eye candy for your orbs to feast before long!

Much of what I'll be showing will be shots of the woodsly goodness (as so-named by the inimitable Albie Rock on his self-named blog) and similar. The wife and I have spent no small amount of time out Conway...um...way over the past month and must admit that "the woodsly goodness" though not all-encompassing, is an apt name for the goodness to be found out in the more primordial, less built up areas of this world.

So you can expect some photo documentation of our travels in the coming days. Also being worked on is some graphic goodness. And though I can't promise a date for it to begin, I will be, starting this month, posting some mini-comics and exercises in graphic story telling. I won't promise anything as related to quality as this will largely be an experiment by which to get into practice for the quickly approaching 24-Hour Comics Day, but as I'm planning to post these as experiments, I would greatly appreciate any and all feedback on said comics.

That said, I'll be signing off now to go work on some of those pics and drawings. Keep your eyes peeled and your souls real.

Peace.

like an eagle...

...perhaps like a fat sparrow would be more appropriate. The pics that follow are a few snap shots of a first flying lesson, graciously provided by my lovely better half for my birthday.
This lovely little aircraft pictured above is a Cessna 152. No joke--smaller than the inside of my Honda!

Below is a sample of the inspection we go through to make sure nothing falls apart in the air.


The author looking decidedly (non-) TopGun-ish. No digital rear-view in this little bad boy; strictly by your own two eyes.

Taking off on the next runway over...


Views of Casco Bay and Scarborough...I never would've guessed Maine water could look like that!


Landing (yeah, I brought it in a little crooked on the final approach) and the pilot and his lovely photographic assistant back on the ground after tying the Cessna down.

Truly a fantastic experience that pictures don't do justice and we couldn't have asked for a better day! One for the scrap books!

little nippers and such

cute lil' bugger, ain't it? Yup. That's what I looked like 33 whole years ago today. Check out the super-seventies-tastic couch Mom'n'me are chillin' on there, right? Straight awesomeness!

Considering the straight dopeness of bullheads everywhere, I figured today would be as good a day as any to give a big old trumpeting welcome to the Taurus club to two new little additions to the world.

May 14th saw the arrivals of one Cameron Nicholas Geneseo (my 1st nephew), weighing in at 7lbs, 8oz and 20 inches long and of one Ms. Lula Moren Dockendorf (daughter of a good friend of mine) coming in at a whopping 6lbs & change and 21 inches. WOW! Those are some small-type beings, right!

Well, regardless of size and signature, welcome to the club to both of you; you're in good company!

city screaming

This is a piece I've been slowly working on and have been pretty happy with the way it's turning. Not much to say about this one really, as it kind of speaks for itself, right? The many-flavored denizens of an idealized summer-city in the sky. And a big ol' balloon in the distance, cuz it just wouldn't be the same without it. This one is pencil on paper, scanned and cleaned up a little in Photoshop. Eventually, this will be transferred to panel for paint...I think...

Birthday Wishes

How'd ya like to find this big galoot on yer doorstep with a candy-gram for your cupleanos? Probably not so much.
But we'll go easy on the poor fella as he's still a bit rough...

In any case, mad birthday wishes go out to our fiendish friend Jamie, my cool cousin Dean and my mad mother. And to anyone else who shares this most dope of birthday days.

And finally, happy National Cartoonist's Day to you all. Yup, that's right. National Cartoonist's Day. Who'd a thunk it. So here's the skinny on that: the first comic strip The Yellow Kid was first published on this day in 18...uh...something, something (I forget the actual date, sorry y'all). So, in appreciation of all cartoonists everywhere, go out and get yourself a comic or pick up a collection of your favorite strips.

Enjoy the day. Live it hard.

Guru

So I've been a little dormant on the blog-front through April, but the sketchin's staying active and getting better (at least in my humble opinion). Here's a recent piece from the wire-bound catalog. A guru just this side of the Sand & Surf (if you know Long Sands, you know the break I'm talkin' about and may even recognize the silhouette in the background), chillin' & checkin' out the line up. Waitin' for a set.

Vidiot

So here's another creation from the deep dark pages of my mind-on-paper. In techni-color awesome-ness, no less.

Keeping a promise...

So, awhile back I mentioned that I'd be better about posting up some thoughts and visuals on a more regular-like basis and then, apparently, promptly dropped the proverbial ball, seeing as how it's been over two weeks since I last dropped any science, Gs.

So, here's some raw sh@t straight outta the notebook to give y'all summat to peep.

This is a little strip I did last week to appease the drawing demons gnawing away in my guts. Kind of a -steam-viking-bot hard-style exorcism of those very same worm-demons in pictures.

As this is meant as more of a work-in-progess, expect to see some cleaned-up, techni-colorized goodness yet to come.

the moving gallery

So those of you who know me, know that I tend to fight the whole bigger, better, faster, more paradigm of personal technological gadgetry on the grounds that, for the most part I equate it with electronic masturbation. However, I had cause this morning that I absolutley kicked myself in the dirty hind-parts for not having a phoen with a camera in it. And, yup, you guessed it, I'm'a gonna tell y'all why...

Pulling onto Brighton Ave this fine, frigid-@$ first part of the day, I got stuck at the train crossing. Now, normally, I bring the hard-hearted hate when I'm behind the wheel. I mean really, with the sheer number of sh@theads that are allowed to have licenses and feel it necessary to drive at the same time of day that I need to, I feel downright obligated to drive offensively. Straight CARWARS-stylee. For those of you not down with Steve Jackson, that means I drive like MadMax as a matter of course. Why? Cause stupid should hurt and the weak need to be culled from the roads...but more on this later.

The point being, normally when I get stopped at a railroad crossing, it turns into a self-directed maelstrom of hot hate in my car. However, with the self-discovery trip I'm on right now, I chilled, pulled into the left lane and watched the cars go by.

First thing I thought of was Baldy (that's my grandfather, you sickos, getcher minds outta the gutter) and watching the trains out behind the greenhouse when I was a kid. Such a simple thing and yet whe you're a kid, that kind of thing is the hotness. Period.

The next thing I noticed (and here's where I start ot bring it back in. watch...) was that the quality of the graffiti on the cars was far and away better than most of what we see up here in the southern northern reaches and I was seeing the work of several writers recurring. I'm a fan of graffiti, but one of my big pet peeves is the schwag bollocks that passes for writing around these here parts. This stuff was waaay beyond the stuff we normally get around here. It was on the level, yo.

And I really wished I had a camera in the communicator-box or a real-camera to document and capture the images and give props to some pros who truly set me day spinning in the right direction.

So, my apologies to my faithful readers for having failed in being able to share the dopeness, but I guess I'll throw out a little moral, if you'll indulge me: keep your eyes open. You never know where the dopeness will hit you...

Tick Tock Tick Tock

Just a quick update to let you all know I'm still think 'bout'cha. Got a couple of pages of sketches I'm working on tidying up for post and hope to have those up by the end of the week.

Saw Watchmen this weekend and I have to give the powers behind it some credit--it wasn't as bad as it could have been. In fact, it really wasn't a bad translation of the book, taken point for point. Casting was pretty good, effects and set design were excellent and the story was faithful, almost to a fault.

So what, then, is it that's got my boxers in a bunch? There have been a couple of things that stuck in my craw--Malin Ackerman as the Silk Spectre II--good job physically casting her, but kind of flat and nowhere near the intensity that Laurie had in the book. A little more gratuitous sex?--sure but didn't really add anything to the movie except it was obviously thrown in for the "I still live in my mom's basement and haven't had a date since the first Bush administration" crowd; somewhat annoying, but expected, sadly. The over-the-top bloodshed?--again, not wholly unexpected, though not entirely horrible, in and of itself.

No, I think what really bothered me about this movie was more subtle. The book was dark. Grim. There's no arguing that. But the book focused more on the senseless violence of society against the individual as opposed to the film's focus on person to person violence. And I think that's where it started to unravel for me.

The next thread that let go was in the fact that in the book, the characters were complicated and developed and entirely human. There was a lot going on from frame to frame and the story was told in such a way that the reader is never allowed to get fully comfortable with any given character. No one in the book is innocent, no one is "the bad guy" or "the good guy". The labels that litter the conventional superhero comic book are turned on end and parodied by Watchmen and used to mirror the horror and beauty of modern life.

And that was my big gripe with the movie. It wasn't so bad, and really as far as translations between media go, it was pretty good. But only as a stand-alone thing. In comparison to the source material, the movie is really nothing more than a thin shadow that, at its best, will serve to pique the audience's interest in reading the book.

And that's all I've got for now...

no art tonight...

apologies, mein freunds, but no new artwork this fine, frigid evening. no, I apparently have been far too involved in the small screen of late. and by that, I mean the computer. this beast of a PC dino-puter is taking up much of my precious minutes in the pursuit of mastery over the social network. yes, my friends, I have succumbed to the Facebook and am in what I hope to be the initial addiction phase of membership.

I must admit, the interaction is fascinating to watch. how people find you and find their way to you. how you find your way to them. the level that people are content to leave their "friendships". it is all enthralling. like digital Soma... it makes one wonder, yes?

but back to the makey-makey. as I said, no makey-make tonight, but perhaps I will doodle up another sketch to post up or bring the noise with some pages from my hard-hearted, hoo-doo, heat-holder; my MAIN sketchbook, y'heard.

I must say, that it is strange to see my own work posted up and out there for anyone to see. it's almost motivating. especially when I can look at something that started off as a sketch in my notebook and say "hey, that's not half bad." which is certainly saying SOMETHING, considering how hard-hearted I usually am towards my own work.

so, although I have no art to post up tonight, I promise, O faithful readers and viewers, there will be more ORIGINAL artsy-farsty to follow.

SOON.

and till then, go look at some Dave Gibbons, yo.