Snip Update

Well, it's been over two weeks since I cut the cable, and I'm happy to say I'm still here. Life goes on without television.

So far it hasn't been much of a hardship. I realize now that I didn't actually watch much of what was on TV; most of the hours it was on I was just using it as background noise. It's quieter in my house now, but that's about the only difference.

I'm getting a lot more done. I'm tackling some landscaping in my front yard that I've been putting off for years, and I'm drawing more too. And I've finally going through my "to watch" DVD pile when I have the urge to watch TV.

There was a time in my life when the thought of living without television would have been inconceivable to me. It's amazing how little I miss it.

A week or so ago I tried to see if I could get any over the air broadcasts, but all I got was static. I bought my TV around 1995, so I'm pretty sure that was before they built them with digital tuners. So I sent for a coupon to get a digital-to-analog converter box. I got the $40 coupon last week. I went to Target to pick one up, and they were on sale for $40! So I got the box for free. Can't beat a deal like that.

I brought the box home, plugged it in, it began scanning for channels and found... nothing. Apparently I live in some sort of TV No-Man's Land where reception is non-existent. I guess that means I need an antennae. That's not in the budget right now, so it looks like I will continue to be TV-less. Honestly, I don't mind a bit.

If you've been on the fence about cutting your cable cord, I wholeheartedly recommend it. You won't be missing anything you can't live without.

Hottest Things In Town Auto Ad

I used to work as a graphic designer at a newspaper in the automotive department. For seven long years, I churned out automotive ads five days a week.

Most of the ads were variations on the same theme day in and day out; headline at the top, a grid of car photos with pricing and info, and then the dealership's name at the bottom. It would have been dreary if it weren't so monotonous.

Occasionally I would try to spice the ads up a bit. Not just for the sake of my sanity, but to make the auto dealer's ad stand out a bit in a sea of uniformity.

To that end, this was an ad I proposed to a local auto dealer. It wasn't as complicated as it probably looks. Contrary to what it looks like, I didn't sit down and draw 500 different buildings.

The city and buildings were drawn in Illustrator. First I laid out a city block, complete with sidewalks, then cloned it until I had a whole grid of them. Then I distorted the grid of blocks until it was at a 45 degree angle.

Next I drew 4 or 5 different buildings (at a 45 degree angle). I drew the buildings so that they were modular; I could delete stories from them to vary the height. That made each building look completely different, even though they were all built from the same parts. I then cloned the buildings endlessly and arranged them on the various blocks until I had a city. See, not as complicated as you thought.

I added some streetlights and numerous cars to populate the streets. Again, these were all drawn once in Illustrator, then cloned.

Next I drew word balloons, then placed clip art of autos inside them. The red text at the top was made with the 3D filter in Illustrator. Lastly I added the text and dealership info.

We showed it to the dealer and he said it was unusual and that he liked it, but ultimately he passed on the design. Never one to throw in the towel, I changed the logo at the bottom and we presented it to a different dealer. Surprisingly this one loved it, and ended up running it in the newspaper. Finally!

Comic Book Auto Ad

I used to work as a graphic designer at a newspaper in the automotive department. For seven long years, I churned out automotive ads five days a week.

Most of the ads were variations on the same theme day in and day out; headline at the top, a grid of car photos with pricing and info, and then the dealership's name at the bottom. It would have been dreary if it weren't so monotonous.

Occasionally I would try to spice the ads up a bit. Not just for the sake of my sanity, but to make the auto dealer's ad stand out a bit in a sea of uniformity.

To that end, this was an ad I proposed to a local auto dealer.

It was fairly complicated, and required the use of both Photoshop and InDesign. I found stock art photos of the autos, then used Photoshop to add a heavy outline around them, as if they'd been drawn and inked. Then I used a filter to add halftone effects to the background.

Next I used InDesign to lay out a grid of comic book panels. I imported the auto images and placed them into the panels, and then added the comic book style text over them.

Then it was back to Photoshop where I added the shading and staples in the middle of the page.

The empty top box was where I would have added the headline, and the bottom two panels were for the dealership's logo and contact info.

Ultimately the dealer didn't buy it– he said he liked it, and agreed it would stand out, but he was concerned that it only featured three cars, and as his ads normally contained 30 or more vehicles, he didn't feel he would be getting his money's worth. So in the end he ran the same grid full of cars like he'd ran in the newspaper every day for decades. Story of my life!

Marketing 101

Here's a little marketing quiz for you.

Question: Let's say you run a movie studio that owns an obscure little vampire film from the 1980s. Your movie has quite a cult following, but is largely unknown to the general populace. You feel the time is right to re-release your cult film on DVD, but how can you ensure that it sells as many units as possible?

Answer: Have your design department whip up a cover that's reminiscent of another popular little vampire movie that recently came out. Wait, did I say "reminiscent?" Sorry, I meant "blatant ripoff."

Yep, this is the brand new DVD cover for the 1987 vampire movie "Near Dark." If you've not seen it, it's definitely worth checking out. It's well written and has an awesome cast, but it's absolutely nothing like "Twilight." "Near Dark" is a violent and brutal tale of a kid who gets caught up with a gang of vampiric psycho killers, falls in love with one of their members and eventually becomes one of them. It's a love story too, of sorts, but it's nothing whatsoever like the "Twilight" mope-fest.*

Oh, and the vampires in "Near Dark" don't get all sparkly in the sunlight. They burn.

Let's compare the new "Near Dark" DVD cover with that other cover, shall we, and see if we might find any similarities. Let's see, stormy background? Check. Star-crossed lovers looming large over the title? Check. Scruffy vampire gang at the bottom? Check, check, and check. Brooding hero with golden vampiric eyes? Check. I think that pretty much covers it.

Let it be known that at absolutely no time in "Near Dark" do the hero's eyes ever appear golden, as they do on this cover.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is marketing at its most brazen. Seriously, they might as well have just taken the "Twilight" cover, crossed out the title and scrawled "Near Dark" on it with a silver Sharpie. There's absolutely no way these similarities are coincidental; it was deliberate with a capital "Del." Every aspect of this cover was designed with only one thing in mind: to dupe the hordes of fervent "Twilight" fans into buying it, thinking it similar to their beloved movie. They'll be in for quite a shock when they actually watch it.

They even manipulated the cover so that Caleb (our hero) looks pale and vampiric while Mae (his true love) looks human. This is exactly the opposite of the events in the actual movie. In "Near Dark" the girl is the vampire, and ends up turning the guy into one as well. Talk about misleading!

Also, by aping the "Twilight" cover so precisely, the designers have managed the difficult task of making a 1987 movie look like a pale imitation of a 2008 film! Well done, design team! It's pretty tough to make a 20+ year old movie seem like the copycat, but you pulled it off brilliantly!

What's especially frustrating about this is that in my opinion, "Near Dark" is the superior film. It can easily stand on its own against "Twilight." It doesn't need to leech off its success. "Near Dark" deserves better treatment from its parent studio.

With all that said, I hereby nominate the new "Near Dark" DVD cover for a new award I just made up: The Brayzee! It's the award that honors the most brazen example of shameless marketing in all of advertising. Congratulations, guys! With any luck, you'll take home the trophy at the end of the year!

Just for fun, here' the original DVD cover for "Near Dark," which was released 3 or 4 years ago. It's exactly the same as the theatrical poster. A bit dated, perhaps, but there's nothing wrong with it. Certainly nothing that called for it to be replaced by a clone of the "Twilight" cover.

* Interestingly enough, both movies were directed by a woman. A female director in Hollywood is a pretty rare thing these days, but for two of them to have both directed vampire movies is quite the coincidence!

Another coincidence: "Near Dark" features three actors from "ALIENS": Bill Paxton, Lance Henrikson and Jenette Goldstein (Hudson, Bishop and Vasquez).

One last thing-- at no time in "Near Dark" is the word "vampire" ever uttered. The creatures in the film clearly are vampires, but for some reason no one ever comes out and says it. Kind of like how zombie movies (usually) never contain the "zed" word.

Christmas In July

Last December I decided to make my own Christmas card to send out to everyone, because buying cards from the store is for suckers!

I figured that while my card was wishing everyone a happy yuletide, it might as well pull double duty and promote me and my little freelance business while it was at it. What better way to celebrate the birth of our Savior than by blatant and shameless self-promotion? So I plastered it with my logo, email and Flickr page info in an attempt to drum up some business. Too bad it didn't work. Now that I think about it, I mainly sent it to my friends and family, who don't generally need a lot of freelance work. Oh well, there's always next year...

The idea of the card was to make it look like an old-time boxing poster from the 1920s, starring Santa Claus and his made-up rival, Anti Claus. Nothing says Christmas like a card promoting two characters beating the tar out of one another!

I laid out the card and all the copy in InDesign, because I don't like working with large amounts of text in Photoshop. It's much easier to typeset and adjust text in InDesign. Writing the old timey text was fun; trying to match the archaic hyphenation and phrasing.

I then imported everything into Photoshop, where I drew and colored the characters on the graphic tablet, and added some aging effects.

I guess the aging effects were successful-- I sent a card to my boss and when he saw it he thought his wife had bent the top right corner of the card when taking it out of the envelope!

Here's the full outside and inside of the card. Note the very subtle self promotional text. You have to look carefully or you'll miss it.

Here's the original sketch of Anti Claus and Santa. The final versions are pretty much identical, other than Santa getting flopped (ouch!) so that he'd face the opposite way. I'm still not happy with the fact that Anti Claus is brandishing a crowbar. Originally I was going to have him holding a large candy cane as a weapon. That was definitely Christmassy, but it didn't seem very dangerous (unless maybe Santa is a diabetic-- a real possibility considering he's overweight). In the end the only other thing I could think of was a crowbar, so I had to go with that.

Birthday Card

I made this card for my sister's birthday. She was quite touched by it.

Buying greeting cards is for suckers! It's much more economical, not to mention simpler, to brainstorm a concept, write and edit the copy, design the layout, produce the illustrations and print out your own cards. Easy as pie!

The front of the card was drawn in Photoshop on the graphic tablet. Then I imported it into InDesign, where the card was laid out and inner text was added.

Kentucky Frak Chicken

This item actually came out a few months ago, but I didn't have a blog back then and it's worth dredging up again.

When the SciFi Channel finally got around to airing the final 10 episodes of the re-imagined "Battlestar Galactica" series earlier this year, KFC decided the time was ripe for a promotional tie-in. It was high time too, because as we all know, when you think grim & gritty outer space drama, you think fried chicken, am I right?

So in an extremely transparent attempt to appeal to the geek crowd, KFC tried to get cutesy and use some of the space-y terminology from BSG, specifically the word "frak." The KFC Marketing Team christened their brilliant promotion the "Frak Pak."

What the marketers and the suits at KFC apparently didn't know is that in the BSG universe, "frak" is the ubiquitous curse word that in no uncertain terms means, well, "f*ck." Every character on the show has said "frak," frakkin'," "fracked up," and the ever popular "frak you" at least 75 times, often in a single sentence.

Obviously no one at the Colonel's headquarters ever bothered to watch even a single episode of the show, or they would have known what they were really saying and this promotion would have never got off the ground.

So congratulations, KFC; you officially endorsed a "F*ck Pak" as a promotional tie-in. If you look closely, the banner even boldly proclaims, "KFC Proudly Salutes BSG And It's Frakkin' Awesome Fans!" Thank you, KFC Marketing Team, for making my day. Well done, sirs, well done. The Colonel would be proud. Frakkin' proud.

What made it even more hilarious is that about a week after the Frak Pak debuted, someone in the KFC marketing department opened their office window and heard the entire country snickering behind their back. Cringing in horror, they apparently called an emergency meeting to discuss damage control. How I wish I could have sat in on that pow-wow. The result? They hurriedly changed the promotion to the KFC "Cant-Say-That-Word-On-TV-Sweepstakes." Brilliant!

Sadly, the "Frakkin' Awesome Fans" were now downgraded to merely "Awesome Fans."

This hastily revamped promotion didn't fix things at all, as obviously you can say "frak" on TV, since as mentioned earlier it was uttered on the show dozens of times every week. This made it appear that they were no longer talking about the made up "frak," but the very real "f*ck," or something even worse. Their so-called "fix" was actually worse than the mistake!

So congratulations, KFC Marketing Team. The next time you do a tie in, it might be a good idea to actually familiarize yourself a bit with the show you're promoting. Better yet, just hand out some coupons.

Cha-Ka Has A Sna-Ka

A really quick little illustration (about an hour). I'm definitely in "Land of the Lost" mode this week-- the TV show, not the movie. I wanted one more shot at Cha-Ka before Will Ferrell sullies his name forever.

For years I've wished someone would do a big screen version of LOTL with a proper budget. I was excited when I first heard the news that they were finally making a movie, but then cringed when I read that it was going to be a WIll Farrell vehicle. Why couldn't they have made it a straight action-adventure? Why did they have to turn it into another fart comedy? And why did they have to change Cha-Ka from an innocent little ape boy to a horny breast-groping adult?

Oh well. I can still watch my DVDs of the old series.

Speaking of the old TV series, as I mentioned a few posts ago, when Cha-Ka and his family spoke, they weren't just saying "Ooga booga." The producers hired a linguist to come up with a simple language for the Pakuni. You can see some of it here. My favorite Pakuni phrase was "Uganza besasa," which means "big magic." I loved the way Cha-Ka would say it; "Oooo-GAN-zaaa bee-SAH-saaaaa!"

By the way, you may wonder why I drew Cha-Ka's ear way up on the side of his head like that. Believe it or not, that's the way his ears were on the TV show!

Drawn in Photoshop on the graphic tablet.
Here's the original sketch for Cha-Ka. The final drawing changed quite a bit, most likely because I drew the sketch from memory, and then did a little bit of research for the final drawing. His hair got poofed up a lot more, I moved his ear up higher to be TV accurate, and I took the bamboo shoot out of his mouth.

Holy Pole-y!

Who says insurance has to be a boring topic?

I honestly don't know what to say here. I saw this sign here in town and had to turn around and go back to take a photo. It was on both sides, so I don't think it was sign vandalism.

Maybe the insurance company wants you to learn the proper way to pole dance so you don't throw your back out and cost them a sizable settlement? Or perhaps business is slow during the Econolypse, and they're branching out to make ends meet?

Cha-Ka vs. Sleestak

I had this illustration in mind for a long time, and I moved it to the front of the line so I could finish it before the new Land of the Lost movie came out and crapped all over my memories of the 1970s TV show.

It was inspired by the fact that the Sleestaks (the big lizard men on the TV show) were portrayed by UCLA basketball players, including a young Bill Laimbeer before he went on to the NBA! The minute I read that, this image popped into my head.

I loved Land of the Lost when I was a kid. It was one of my favorite Saturday morning shows. If you're too young to remember, it was about a father and his two kids who stumble into a strange, self-contained parallel world where dinosaurs still exist, along with an ancient lizard-men civilization and a less dangerous primitive ape-men tribe.

The writing on the TV series was far above average for a kid's show, and featured scripts by actual sci-fi writers, including David Gerrold, Larry Niven, Norman Spinrad, Ben Bova and even Walter Koenig (Star Trek's Chekov!).

It was a pretty elaborate show for Saturday morning TV, with fairly high production values, including huge jungle sets complete with caves and pools. It irks me when I hear people badmouth the show's special effects. Naturaly it looks cheesy when judged against today's standards, it's over 30 years old! But back in the 1970s it was quite advanced, especially for a Saturday morning program. I don't think any kid's show had ever attempted stop motion animation on a weekly basis before that time. I will admit that the scripts were sometimes a bit too ambitious for their limited budget though.

People also tend to dismiss LOTL as just another kiddie show. It was anything but! It had some very grown-up themes for a Saturday morning show. This wasn't a friendly jungle; the Marshall's world was a dangerous place. They were constantly in danger of being eaten alive by dinosaurs, captured by lizard men or dissected by aliens. They were also constantly foraging for food-- if they didn't find anything, then they didn't eat. Pretty serious stuff for a kid's show.

Many scenes stick in my mind to this day. In one episode, Will and Holly (the two Marshall children) are tied up in a pit in the Lost City, awaiting their sacrifice to the Sleestak "god" (some sort of unseen dinosaur, or worse). As their hopes for rescue begin to fade, Holly asks Will if he ever prays. "Sometimes," he admits. "Does it work?" she asks. "Sometimes," he says. That threw my 14 year old brain for a loop! You'd never get away with that on a kid's show today!

In another episode, Holly meets a mysterious shimmering woman who tells her how to rescue her family from some sort of danger. Eventually she finds out that the woman is in fact her adult self, who came from the future to help. As Future Holly leaves, she says, "Cherish your father and brother, Holly, because they won't always be around!" Yikes! Talk about ominous and unsettling!

The producers even hired a linguist to come up with a language for the Pakuni (Cha-Ka's people). They weren't just saying "Ooga booga," they were speaking actual words and phrases. You can see some of the Pakuni language here.

So as a big fan of the TV series, I was understandably excited when I heard there was going to be a LOTL movie. For years I've wished that someone would film a remake with a proper budget. Naturally, Hollywood jettisoned everything that made the original series special, and are taking the low road, turning it into a lowbrow "comedy." Typical.

Drawn in Photoshop on the graphic tablet.
Here are a couple of sketches I did for this drawing. This one fought me every step of the way. Cha-Ka (that's the official spelling) was pretty easy to draw, but I could not for the life of me get the pose of the Sleestak right. I went through dozens of sketches before I found one I could live with.

Part of the problem was that I don't think I've ever drawn a Sleestak before, and when I drew him from reference photos he kept coming out too "realistic" as it were, and didn't match the more cartoony Cha-Ka. So I had to learn to draw a Sleestak the normal way and then figure out how to "cartoon him up."

Then it wasn't enough to just draw a cartoony Sleestak, he had to look like he was actually guarding Cha-Ka and blocking his shot. So getting the pose right took a lot of effort too.

One more thing: it probably looks like a mistake, but it's not-- Cha-Ka's ears really were way above his eyes like that on the show!

I'm A Grown Man And I Bought This: Space: 1999 Eagle Transport

You no doubt remember exactly what you were doing on September 13, 1999. The tragic day the Earth's moon was blasted out of its orbit by an enormous nuclear explosion, hurled into deep space and taking the crew of Moonbase Alpha on a strange and exciting journey through the stars.

No? You don't remember that happening? Well, truth be told, neither do I. Maybe I was home sick that day.

But that was the premise of Space: 1999, one of the more odd sci-fi shows of the 1970s. Or any decade, for that matter.

When I was growing up in the 1970s, sci-fi TV shows were few and far between. Unlike now when there's an entire Sci-Fi Channel, back then we pretty much only had reruns of Star Trek. There was a Planet of the Apes TV series that aired in 1974, but it only lasted one season before it was canceled.

So I was very excited when Space: 1999 aired in 1975. Not only was it a brand new weekly sci-fi action/adventure show, but it looked great as well! Star Trek's special effects were fairly advanced for a weekly TV series in the 1960s, but Space: 1999 blew them out of the water. Every week they featured movie quality effects, comparable to those in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

But you can't have everything. Space featured some great actors (Martin Landau, Barbara Bain, Barry Morse) but just didn't have any characters as appealing or iconic as Kirk and Spock. The series also suffered somewhat from some murky script writing and a glacial pace.

It also had a pretty preposterous premise. Earth begins storing nuclear waste in vast dumps on the moon. After a few years this stockpile of waste reaches critical mass and explodes, blasting the moon out of its orbit and into deep space. The crew of Moonbase Alpha (a large base built on the moon) have no choice but to go along for the ride. The entire moon, in essence, becomes their space ship. Somehow the moon ended up encountering a different alien race every week, despite the fact that even at the speed of light it would take decades for a space ship (or a moon!) to travel the vast distances between solar systems. The moon must have really been booking along!

One other little thing that always bugged me about the show was its time frame. It aired in 1975, so we were supposed to believe that in 24 short years we would have entire cities on the moon and regularly travel there as easily as we now fly to Vegas, along with artificial gravity and ray guns. This type of immediacy in science fiction has long been a pet peeve of mine. Note to screenwriters: when you're writing sci-fi, make sure your story is set far enough into the future that the current audience won't still be alive to see your predictions fall flat.

To make matters worse, the characters often referred to events like "The Jupiter Mission back in '79," the "Deep Space Probe in '85" or "The Mars Uprising of '92." Even a dumb kid like I was back then knew that there just wasn't enough time between then and 1999 for all that stuff to plausibly happen.

But even with its flaws, it was the only game in town back then, and I watched it religiously.

Probably my favorite thing about the series were the Eagle Transport Ships. They were an amazing mix of Apollo era space technology with just enough of a fantasy "cool" element thrown in. They were sci-fi, but looked like something that could really exist.

So when I saw this new Eagle One Transport vehicle, I had to buy it.

I bought it at WhoNA a while back. WhoNA is an online/warehouse store that mostly sells Doctor Who merchandise (along with items from a few other British sci-fi shows). That in itself isn't particularly amazing until you realize they're located in Indianapolis (!). How something as British as a Doctor Who store cropped up in the middle of the land of corn and basketball is anyone's guess.

Whona is primarily an online store and not open to the public. However, if you're ever in the area, if you call them and ask nicely they'll let you come in and shop. The owners are very friendly and helpful.

According to the box, the Eagle was manufactured by Product Enterprises. It's a fairly heavy piece; so it would probably be better to display it on a shelf rather than trying to hang it from the ceiling.

I'm not exactly sure what to call this type of item. It's not a model, as it came pre-painted and assembled. It's definitely not a toy though, as it's got lots of fragile details that wouldn't last 30 seconds in the hands of a kid. I suppose the best term for it is high end collectible.

The Eagle is very highly detailed, featuring lots of exhaust ports, access panels and other fiddly bits that make a model ship look real. I was very impressed that the makers took the time to include details underneath the support struts. Look at the photo above– just to the rear of the nose cone you'll see support struts that form "X" shapes. If you look closely, you'll see that there are small boxes & structures lying underneath those struts! Now that's attention to detail! I had a model kit of the Eagle that came out back in the 1970s, and it wasn't nearly as detailed. The X struts on the old model kit were flat, with nothing underneath. So I was very pleased and impressed that Product Enterprises took the time to add that little bit of extra detail.

The Eagle also features lots of neatly painted orange panels, and is covered with tiny Moonbase Alpha decals that my rapidly aging eyes can no longer discern.

There are no moving parts, but there is a detachable passenger pod.

The box proudly proclaims "Diecast Metal!" in several places. I'm stumped if I can figure out exactly what the metal parts are. I ran a magnet over the entire ship, and it didn't stick to anything. The nose cone and the passenger pod feel like they could be metal, but if they are they're a non-magnetic type. Actually, this is pretty much par for the course in the toy world. Japanese robot toys regularly boast they're made of diecast metal, but are usually 95% plastic. The presence of one small metal part is apparently enough to justify the diecast label. It's not a problem for me; metal or not, I'm very happy with the look and feel of the ship.

There are several different models of the Eagle available (most are the same except for the removable pod), but I chose the most identifiable and iconic one.

There's only one small feature that I wish they had added. On the TV series, when the Eagle would touch down, the landing gear would compress a bit, as if the weight of the ship was settling on shock absorbers. In a perfect world they would have included this feature in the model. But that's a minor issue, and overall I'm very pleased with the quality and detail of the Eagle Transport.

As I mentioned earlier, the Eagle is pretty solid, but there are a number of fragile plastic pipes and tubes on it. I wanted to display but also protect it from damage. I went to the local Hobby Lobby and bought a Plexiglass display case, the kind that are usually for displaying model cars. To customize it a bit, I found an image of the lunar surface online, printed it out and cut it to size. I placed the lunar photo on the bottom of the display case, set the Eagle inside and closed the lid. Instant customized Eagle display case!

Your best bet, should you want one, is to order one from an online store or comic shop. It's not the sort of thing you can swing down to Walmart to pick up.

Sketchbook Pages

Looking through my posts, I noticed that I'm always talking about my sketchbooks and how most of my illustrations are based on doodles drawn inside them. So I thought I'd scan a few pages and post them. They might give you a "behind the scenes" glimpse into my thought process when I draw. Or you may well view them as a cry for help.

Those of you with small children may want to leave the room now.









Although they look like I used a pencil, they were all drawn with a plain old ball point pen.

These pages actually did come from a sketchbook, but the majority of my sketches are just scribbled on note pads, Post-Its or any other papers that hold still long enough for me to draw on. I've got folders full of loose pages of sketches in my file cabinet, waiting for me to have time to turn them into illustrations (although some of them should probably be tossed out!). Maybe now that I don't have cable TV anymore, I'll have more time for drawing.

Weary Moon

When the moon was in his awkward teen phase, did the other kids ever call him "crater face?" Thank you ladies and gentlemen, I'm here all week! Try the veal!

I've got kind of a half-baked idea for another Weary Moon piece, if I ever find the time.

Drawn in Photoshop on the graphic tablet.



Here's the original sketch of the moon. I didn't change much, other than cleaning up some of the lines.

Snip!

I finally did it.

As of Thursday, June 25, 2009, I am officially no longer a cable TV subscriber.

I've been loudly threatening to cut the cord for several months now, much to the annoyance of my friends, family and anyone within earshot. It's been a long time coming, but I finally took the box back to the cable company today at lunch (funny how they bring the box out to you, but you have to take it back when you don't want it anymore).

And you know what? The world is still here. It didn't end after I gave up cable.

There are a number of reasons why I decided to pull the plug. Cost was certainly a big factor. I got tired of paying $70 a month for 100+ channels that I never watch. The lack of viewing time was another reason. Lately I've been doing a lot more illustrating, as well as yard work & home improvement. I started noticing the amount of time I sat in front of the Idiot's Lantern was growing ever shorter.

I also grew weary of having to sit through at least 12 minutes of commercials in a supposedly 30 minute show. The networks can deny it all they want, but the number of commercials has mushroomed lately. Why should I even have to watch commercials on a TV network I'm paying to see?

But the main reason I finally summoned the gumption to dump cable is because I just have no interest in what's on anymore. I don't like to watch sports on TV, so there goes a huge swath of the dial right there. I don't care for most modern sitcoms or all the autopsy dramas either. I don't really like to watch people cook, or eat and then describe what the food tastes like. And I have absolutely ZERO interest in any kind of Reality TV. I'd rather eat bees that sit down and watch "Dancing With The Stars" or "John & Kate Plus 8" and their endless ilk.

When I started thinking about it earlier this year, I realized that out of all the hundreds of TV shows on the air, I regularly watched only 4. Yep, FOUR. Battlestar Galactica, LOST, The Office and The Daily Show. Galactica is finished; it ended its run a few months ago so it's not even a consideration anymore. Thanks to hulu.com and the internet I can watch the other 3 shows online. For free. With fewer commericials. And I can watch them when I choose, not when the networks decide.

I got tired of my hard-earned money subsidizing shows and channels that I don't watch. That's just crazy.

So I already had plenty of reasons to cut the cord, but the absolute last straw came last weekend.

This past Sunday I watched a show called Parking Wars. If you haven't heard of it (and I envy you if you haven't), it's yet another reality TV show and is about... parking meter police. I kid you not. The cameras follow various meter men & women around different cities for a thrilling half hour as they write parking tickets and slap them on car windshields, much to the dismay of the agitated owners. Occasionally they spice things up a bit by following a citizen to the impound lot in an exciting attempt to wade through the bureaucracy and reclaim their car.

And that's it! That's all there is to the show. They literally follow a city employee around on their crappy job as they write parking tickets. No plot, no stars, and most of all, no point.

So it's come to this. This is what passes as television entertainment these days. As I sat there watching in amazement, I thought to myself, "Am I really seeing this? There's really a TV show about parking meters?"

So that's it. I'm out. If that's the best that the TV networks can manage to come up with in order to entertain me, then no thanks. I'll be just fine without cable. I have hundreds of DVDs I can watch, and tons of books to read, and thousands of illustrations I want to draw. Or better yet, I may just get out of the house and go for a walk.

Battle-STARE Galactica

As I like to keep pointing out, I work as a graphic designer in a marketing department, so I have more than an average interest in advertising and packaging design.

That's why when I see something like this cover for the Battlestar Galactica Season 4 DVD Boxset, I am totally and utterly astonished:

How does something like this happen?

Whenever I design something, it doesn't end with me. It has to be approved by my boss, various department heads, and a compliance officer. At least six or seven different people have to sign off and approve my ad before it's sent off to the printer.

So what excuse does Universal Studios Home Entertainment possibly have for this piece of work?

I'm sure the designer meant for Lee Adama there on the left side of the cover to be staring meaningfully into the distance, pondering the fate of his race. But instead, he ended up taking a long, hard look at Starbuck's ample rack.

Universal is a professional corporate entity that no doubt has hundreds, maybe even thousands of employees. A hundred people probably looked at the proofs of this box cover and approved it before it was printed. It boggles my mind that not even one of those people noticed Lee's inappropriate gaze and said, "Maybe we should use a different photo of him. One that's not quite so... sexual harrassmenty."

Poutbot™ 3000

As with any new technology, robotics is for now very a very practical science; its only purpose to serve and assist humanity. Robots currently perform dozens of useful functions in our society, such as building cars, vacuuming floors and dancing.

But as a technology matures and eventually fills all the useful niches, it tends to start producing products that no one needs nor asked for (the Snuggie, Slap Chop and Tater Mitts).

Enter the Poutbot™ 3000. Its sole purpose is to get its feelings hurt and then stalk off to its room where it will slam the door shut and sulk for a couple of hours. No amount of pleading or offerings of cookies and milk will get it to open the door; after a randomly generated time period it will get over its pout and silently emerge from its room, ready to start the cycle anew.

The Deluxe model will even tell its owners that it hates them and didn't ask to be born.

Drawn in Photoshop on the graphic tablet.


Here's the sketch for the Poutbot™ 300. As you can see the sketch was pretty rough, so I cleaned up the lines and made them look more machine-like.

Unused Boy Band Labels

Since the dawn of recorded history, there have always been Teen Boy Bands. Or maybe it's just been since the 1980s. Whenever they started, every boy band has legions of shrieking tween girls who follow their every movement and spend billions on any and all merchandise plastered with their sparkling grins.

Undoubtedly the most important part of every boy band are the labels. Each member has a short and descriptive label that sums up their superficial personality traits so that the fans can easily tell them apart. There's always "The Cute One, or "The Smart One, "The Funny One," "The Shy One," and so on.

But it seems there's a great untapped wilderness of labels that the bands haven't yet begun to use. As a public service, I present here a list of these Still Available Boy Band Member Labels:

• The Sardonic One
• The Morose One
• The Regretful One
• The Contagious One
• The Moist One
• The Morbidly Obese One
• The Sticky One
• The Binge & Purge One
• The Tittering One
• The Calciferous One

• The Gangrenous One
• The Standoffish One
• The Virulent One
• The Inflamed One
• The Sullen One
• The Fetid One
• The Malignant One
• The Ornery One
• The Colicky One
• The Toxic One

• The Musty One
• The Unsavory One
• The Garlicky One
• The Arthritic One
• The Voluptuous One
• The Swishy One
• The Pallid One
• The Seedy One
• The Nine Toed One
• The Clammy One

• The Noisome One
• The Tedious One
• The Dingy One
• The Mincing One
• The Adulterous One
• The Incontinent One
• The Fleshy One
• The Meaty One
• The Effete One
• The Living Dead One

• The Pudgy One
• The Convicted One
• The Cursed One
• The Excommunicated One
• The Reanimated One
• The Noxious One
• The Sashaying One
• The Executed One
• The Moldering One
• The Fictional One

• The Tainted One
• The Atrophied One
• The Festering One
• The Beefy One
• The Puny One
• The Delicate One
• The Flaccid One
• The Frail One
• The Corpulent One
• The Shaky One

• The Sickly One
• The Torpid One
• The Flatulent One
• The Decomposing One
• The Prancing One
• The Nervous One
• The Palsied One
• The Flabby One
• The Feeble One
• The Inaudible One

• The Implausible One
• The Bionic One
• The Indisposed One
• The Lily-Livered One
• The Brittle One
• The Cowering One
• The Burly One
• The Retired One
• The Haggard One
• The Senile One

• The Leaky One
• The Woozy One
• The Limp One
• The Litigious One
• The Fabulous One
• The Paunchy One
• The Doddering One
• The Jittery One
• The Shrieking One
• The Meek One

There are no doubt many more, but that will suffice for now. Boy bands, feel free to use as many of these labels as you want!