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"NOTES OF A SECOND CLASS CITIZEN, PART ONE (INTO THE BASEMENT)" SPLASH PAGE

Above is the splash page for a new section I'm working on for FOLKTALES, and will run, in part, as a feature story in the River front Times. The character from these "notes" is the same character whose ruminations were placed as vignettes in between the stories in ABANDONED CARS. I always planned to continue the character's narrative in that same fashion into FOLKTALES and THE BELIEVERS (the 2nd and 3rd books in the trilogy of graphic short stories kicked off with ABANDONED CARS). The character has developed considerably, though: So much so that I'm considering taking his story and making it into a graphic novel in it's own right. We'll see where things go from here.

"BELLY GUNNER" SPLASH PAGE

This is the splash page for a new story, "Belly Gunner" - a new graphic short story for FOLKTALES. It is a first for me on a couple of fronts: 1) It's my first war story, and 2) it's the first story that is entirely based on someone else's true story: Earl Burke, who was a ball turret gunner on a B-17 during World War II. I was so moved by his story, that I merely told it - except for a little editing for the sake of brevity - as he told it in Ken Burns' "The War". You might say I'm directing it. Like many people, I'm fascinated with World War II for a multitude of reasons. I'm particularly amazed by the kind of bravery it took to do things like climb into a sperry ball beneath a B-17 - and extremely claustrophobic space to inhabit - and blaze away at German Messerschmitts from 20,000 feet without the cover of Allied fighter plane support. I try to imagine myself having to do something like that at nineteen years old, and it seems like a nightmare. FOLKTALES will include a few war stories. I'm very interested in the impact World War II and Vietnam had on American culture, and how both wars played integral roles in shaping two successive generations. Of course, there is no shortage of World War II stories, both in comics and other mediums, but I feel compelled to take a shot at my own versions. The trouble with the glut of war stories out there is that it's easy to become desensitized to them. I'm most interested in the human side of war. What I liked so much about Burke's story is just that. I hope I'm able to make it resonate.

BELLIGERENT PIANO "SMOKE SIGNAL" INSTALLMENT, #2

SMOKE SIGNAL is truly a great comics anthology currently being produced through Desert Island in Brooklyn, NY (for more information, go to: http://www.desertislandbrooklyn.com) - absolutely democratic in it's intent: Which is to publish the well-known alongside the very talented but not (yet) so well known comic artists at large. I've been producing installments of Belligerent Piano in SMOKE SIGNAL. Below is the the most recent intro page to the second installment: ...and here's what a full page of the installment plus the intro looks like:

"THE PASSENGER" SHORT FILM

...Well, maybe not a film exactly: I think of it more as an audio-visual experiment based on one of the new short stories meant for FOLKTALES, called the PASSENGER. You can see the original comic version in the spring issue of MOME. You might notice that in earlier posts, The PASSENGER has been adapted to a spoken-word "radio drama". The below "film" is something of an adaptation of an adaptation - a collaborative piece put together by my partner-in-crime, Franklin Oros, and myself. All credits are indicated at the end of the short, so I won't state them here. But, again, the principal idea here is to expand on character and story, increasing the amount of nuance and subtlety allowed for the reader/viewer/story-recipient to collect in order to create their own unique vision of the story. Ultimately, the idea is to give you a bunch of puzzle pieces, from which you create an imagined version of the story. Or, as Joey would put it: "Blah, blah, blah, blah...." http://vimeo.com/13992153 Here's the leather coat illustration from the film. I drew it in my sketchbook and it made its way into the film: And speaking of sketchbook drawings - on a completely unrelated topic - here's a drawing of the 1963 Corvair that I almost bought this summer, if it hadn't been for the wisdom of my close friend and fellow artist, Ron Laboray, who pointed out with extraordinary detail just what a pile of lousy crap it was (exhaust pluming into the cabin: A death trap, sadly, in more ways than one). I owe Ron my life, literally. But I've always been a Corvair fan, and this one was difficult for me to pass up (note the various haiku I wrote in homage to the loss!). Why do I always fall in love with such cars? This is the second time I tried to buy a corvair. The first time was when I was in my mid twenties. The car was 1967 Corvair with the funkiest automatic transmission system I'd ever seen. Similar problem, though: Exhaust leak into the cabin. Apparently a common problem with air-cooled engines (the Corvair's engine was in the back, like a Volkswagon Bug; the Corvair had the distinction of being the first and last American car ever to try a rear-engine set-up.) PS: Thanks again, Ron, for saving my life.

THE COWBOY'S LAMENT

As with other elements of the BELLIGERENT PIANO story (as with ongoing audio/audio-visual/multimedia explorations for stories in FOLKTALES), I'm experimenting with various ways in which the characters from the tale might be expanded or elaborated upon through the use of mediums other than comics proper (please see MTH OF JACK RADIO HOUR posts previously included in the BELLIGERENT PIANO category of this blog). Below is a very rough, first shot recording elaborating on the character of  "the Cowboy", who as of yet remains nameless (and possibly will always remain so, depending how far I want to push the homage to Eastwood and Sergio Leone). I recently read this piece live at NOIR AT THE BAR (just last night, in fact), so I quickly decided to record it, as well. I'm sure Frank Oros and I will refine, collaborate on it, and very possibly turn it into something new altogether....but I'm excited by this rough recording, so I want to share it with you. Think of it as an inside glimpse into the process of expanding nuanced layers of a character and the conceptual cross-pollination from one medium to another. Incidentally, if you're currently following the BELLIGERENT PIANO weekly strip, you'll notice that this piece is an elaboration on exactly what is happening in that narrative.  Although neither are exactly the same, they compliment one another and occupy the same space in time. Below are both the recording and the original written word text:

cowboy's lament_take 2

THE COWBOY'S LAMENT

The sweaty toad is crying now;

the cowboy can hear his fragile,

effeminate sobs rising up from under

the barrel of his Smith & Wesson M&P

Victory Model –

the officer’s revolver Smith & Wesson

manufactured to commemorate the Allied

victory over the Nazis and the Japs

as yesterday’s war came to its

abysmal close.

Meanwhile, the toad, down on his knees,

hands clasped behind his back, begins to

press his tongue gingerly to the tip of the

cowboy’s brand new snake skin boots.

“Now I want you to clean the sterling toe

of my boot,” the cowboy instructed,

“I want you to clean it with yer tongue.”

The cowboy’s boots were of the elaborately

decked out Cadillac variety: A beautifully

handcrafted mix of embossed and etched

sterling, embroidered leather, snakeskin,

and hubris.

…the toad is sweating profusely,

sniffing back the tears.

Some people secretly wish to be

humiliated, and there’s always

somebody willing to accommodate.

People of opposite-but-similar needs

have an uncanny way of finding each other

in this windblown life.

…but the cowboy isn’t thinking about that;

the whimpering fearful groans of the

grown man on his knees before him might

just as well have been a radio show playing

crackly from another room.

No, the cowboy is thinking about

something else entirely…

He’s thinking about Vera,

the accordion player,

the songbird

who he saw earlier that night.

….He’s thinking about her sweet tune,

the one filled with the words he didn’t understand,

but somehow it didn’t matter.

…He’s trying to think of whom she reminds him of.

Gene Tierney? Jane Greer? Lauren Bacall?

He knew all of these women intimately:

He was an avid moviegoer;

didn’t matter what the picture was about.

Anyway maybe it was Veronica Lake,

although she doesn’t particularly look like her.

No, it was something else –

something likeable

and vulnerable

and illusive,

something otherworldly –

something he didn’t have the tongue

to articulate.

He’s thinking about Corrina,

that girl he’d known in Fayette,

who he’d stop in to see from time to time back then;

that precious porcelain Jane who finally off’d herself

without ever leaving a note.

His mind stretches like an urban weed

all that distance without losing

a single willowed detail.

He’s thinking about life before the war;

about those dusty tumbleweed winds;

those raven clouds cascading

like thunderstorm ghosts

above the flattened wastelands,

blotting out the sun over

Dodge City in 1935…

the year Kansas was swallowed

by the Apocalypse

and the Wizard of Oz

and suffering and suffering and suffering…

He’s thinking about the black plumes of soot

covering the withered and barren fields

that once had prospered…

those black plumes of soot

that filled the depressed lungs

of leathered old men

with the black remains

of once-fertile topsoil.

He remembers the sting of that dirt

carried by the violent, determined wind;

he remembers it ripping at his sweaty skin

like pellet-like shards of icy-hot glass

as it blew westward toward the mountains,

taking with it histories

and tightly-bound families and legends;

folktales, businesses, towns, livestock,

hopes, dreams.

…and he could’ve sworn he’d felt the spirits

of those families who’d perished

in those rolling billows of black dust

blowing right through his chest,

tattering his clothes,

warning him that it was time to press on,

catch-out, beat it out of town.

He knew it was time to leave;

it was time to find something

else to do to earn his keep.

He was a true son of the cracked earth

and busted-down fallen weathervanes.

The prodigal son of the prairies

and gold fields and farmhouse clotheslines.

But all of that was gone now.

He remembers the dead cattle carcasses,

tents of bone covered in empty hides;

he remembers the sign on the fence posts

that read:

CONGRESS CREATED

THE DUSTBOWL.

And without knowing it, he’d left himself there,

left himself for dead.

Those were the days of a different chapter in his life;

now he was something else,

something that he himself was afraid of.

Because something important of himself was buried

beneath that dust or had blown

like flakes of gold into an oblivion

of the ever-changing, eternal earth.

…. He’s thinking about the suit he just bought

with the money he’d earned,

and how hard it had been to find a clothing shop

that sold suits in the western fashion.

He’s thinking about his new bolo tie –

the one with the bull’s head dead embossed into it

like a silver coin;

the one he bought instead of

the Gene Autry ribbon variety.

Gene Autry, he thought, had always been

a little too flamboyant in his opinion,

but he liked Autry’s taste in two-tone shirts

and elaborately embroidered boots.

After all, even cowboys have a sense of fashion.

And every western man, like any other man,

needs at least one sharp Saturday night

honky-tonk suit.

…He’s thinking about peace and quiet;

about the way things sometimes are.

…he’d had enough of idiots and sinners;

he’d had enough of himself.

He’s thinking about peace and quiet

and the warmth of a woman’s arms.

Not just any woman’s arms:

A woman of poetry,

a woman of the earth and salt

and incomprehensible words.

Someone musical.

Someone who didn’t talk too much.

He’s thinking of all the weary miles

between himself and his salvation.

…. He’d had it bad and he’d had it good;

he’d been rich and poor:

Now he was just trying to get to Heaven

before they closed the door.

BELLIGERENT PIANO WEEKLY STRIP, EPISODE #23

I've decided to post next week's episode of BELLIGERENT PIANO early, mainly out of excitement. I mentioned the fluidity in narrative exploration and character development that this weekly strip allows: Well, here's a perfect example of that: Within a quick sequence of recollection, we get a broadly brushed idea of the cowboy's past. I hadn't really expected the narrative to move in this direction, but am very glad it did. Again, this is why working on BELLIGERENT PIANO as a weekly strip allows for character development in a unique and exciting way - it allows for these digressive pockets of opportunity, making the writing process very improvisational and spontaneous. BELLIGERENT PIANO, from its inception, was always meant to be an epic graphic novel exploring the characters of THE GREAT AMERICAN MYTHOLOGICAL DRAMA in a surreal, fictitious world - a fantastical world of myth - American myth. The weekly strip format, with its calculated pacing, is truly proving to be a perfect format for meeting that ultimate goal.

I also really like that, during this intense moment, where the cowboy has the Loser down on his knees cleaning the tip of his boots with his tongue, pistol pointed at the Loser's sweaty forehead, the cowboys daydreaming - not even really in the moment at all.

"SPIKE" RADIO DRAMA

Spike_Bounce_July_10 Above is the radio drama adaptation of the graphic story "SPIKE" (see earlier posts in the FOLKTALES category for pages of the original story) - one of the new graphic stories meant for publication in my book, FOLKTALES. I intend FOLKTALES to be packaged with an accompanying CD, which will include audio elaborations on a selected group of  stories from that volume (see earlier audio post in the FOLKTALES category, under the title PASSENGER). All of these audio experiments were produced in collaboration with Frank Oros. Rare indeed it is to find a collaborator who is so like-minded; I was extremely fortunate the day I met Frank. Also a special thanks to Andrea ("gee, honey...you look all done in") Taylor, who supplied her wonderful voice and acting skills to both the 'wife' in the AMERICAN STANDARD AIR commercial, and the voice of the unnamed young hobo. Frank supplied the voice for the insane, older tramp, the announcer, and the AMERICAN STANDARD AIR jingle. I'm the NIGHTCRAWLER and the 'husband' in the commercial skit.

Be forewarned: There's graphic violence, racist language, and other disturbing content in this radio drama.

BELLIGERENT PIANO WEEKLY STRIP, EPISODE #21

I'm finding out that one of the great benefits to working on a weekly strip is that it allows for a huge amount of character development. This new character, this cowboy - who is as of yet unnamed - is turning into a really interesting guy for me to excavate. He's practically writing himself, as they say. I originally came up with this character back in the late 90's, and his first appearances in my script sketches only faintly resemble this current incarnation, who is, on one level, my homage to Clint Eastwood - specifically his iconic Man with No Name character from the Sergio Leone films - in my opinion the greatest western anti-hero, with all of his understated dialogue and moral ambiguity, to ever appear on the big screen (If you hear Clint's quietly menacing voice while you're reading the dialogue for my character, that's all right with me. I hear him, too). This touches on the experience I'm having with producing a weekly strip, in general. After having spent most of my time learning how to tighten a short graphic story into something where every word matters, producing a strip allows for so much freedom and exploration (and arguably digression); it feels a bit like being a jazz soloist (trumpet, preferably) riffing on a pre-established musical theme. End result: Extraordinary fun; endless room for exploration; enjoying the ride without being hung-up about "what happens next". I feel a little like Alice falling into the rabbit hole. Now I know why Gould was so insane! Not to say that there isn't a pre-established arch to the Belligerent Piano story - there is, and always has been. But it has always been intentionally epic, and more about character interaction, so the weekly strip format really allows for character expansion - you can really investigate every crevice and improvise (or "riff") on segments of the pre-established script. Very fluid and organic experience! Very surreal. It reminds me of the surreal fluidity of a Dylan song like "Tangled Up in Blue" or "Black Diamond Bay". In terms of following a story line, the experience of creating Belligerent Piano is like knowing your destination (or at least having a general idea about where you want to end up, as well as specific landmarks you want to visit along the way), but taking your time getting there: Exploring all the backroads and little towns you stumble upon in a free-wheelin', ramblin' manner...knowing your route, but allowing for the unexpected.