Creepy Christmas Classics #2: Baby, It's Cold Outside

Hey, it's Christmas Carol time again! Everywhere you go this month, you'll hear all the classic carols you've heard ten thousand times before, whether you want to or not. I often wonder how some of these songs ever became classics in the first place. My theory is that the public hears them so much that they don't listen to the lyrics anymore, rendering them meaningless. If they did actually sit down and listen, half of these so-called "classics" would be stricken from the list.

Another case in point: Baby, It's Cold Outside. This seemingly innocent duet is an admittedly catchy song, but can someone please explain to me how it became a beloved holiday classic? Scratch the surface even slightly and you'll reveal a dark, sordid current flowing underneath.

Anyone who thinks this song is an acceptable Christmas carol has obviously never listened to the lyrics. It's pretty much a heartwarming Yuletide ode to date rape. Seriously.

Don't believe me? Let's examine the lyrics, shall we? As I mentioned earlier, it's a duet, so I'll put the woman's lyrics in black, the guy's in blue. My comments are below in bright rape whistle red.

I really can't stay - Baby it's cold outside
I've got to go away - Baby it's cold outside
This evening has been - Been hoping that you'd drop in
OK, these three lines seem innocent enough. Stay tuned though, it's about to get worse.

So very nice - I'll hold your hands, they're just like ice
OK, that one registered a little on the Creep-O-Meter.

My mother will start to worry - Beautiful, what's your hurry
My father will be pacing the floor - Listen to the fireplace roar
So really I'd better scurry - Beautiful, please don't hurry
The woman just realized she didn't tell her family where she was going, and there's not another living soul on Earth who knows where she is right now. The guy totally blows off her justified concerns and starts pouring on the sleazy charm.

Well Maybe just a half a drink more - Put some music on while I pour
Ack! What the hell is wrong with her? She just begged the dude to put a roofie in her drink! Notice that he wants her distracted while he "pours" her drink.

The neighbors might think - Baby, it's bad out there
Say, what's in this drink - No cabs to be had out there
What'd I tell you? Roofie in the drink. She can taste it. Any minute now she'll start slurring her speech, saying, "Something... in... drink. Can't... think... straight." The guy might as well be saying, "Go ahead and scream, we're miles from where anyone can hear! Bwah ha hah ha ha!"

I wish I knew how - Your eyes are like starlight now
To break this spell - I'll take your hat, your hair looks swell
Yeah, she's starting to get drowsy now. The guy deflects her protests with empty compliments, and even starts hiding her belongings so that she can't easily leave.

I ought to say no, no, no, sir - Mind if I move a little closer
Shields up! Red alert!

At least I'm gonna say that I tried - What's the sense in hurting my pride
Well now here she's apparently given up and accepted the inevitable.

I really can't stay - Baby don't hold out
She's beginning to repeat herself in her delirium. The guy can't seem to fathom why she might find his greasy advances repugnant.

(Together)
Ahh, but it's cold outside
Baby, it's cold outside

I simply must go - Baby, it's cold outside
The answer is no - Ooh baby, it's cold outside
He's hoping that if he repeats the weather report enough times that she'll eventually believe it. And no means yes, right?

This welcome has been - I'm lucky that you dropped in
So nice and warm - Look out the window at that storm
Yeah, the kind of warmth that envelopes you after you fall through the ice.

My sister will be suspicious - Man, your lips look so delicious
My brother will be there at the door - Waves upon a tropical shore
My maiden aunt's mind is vicious - Gosh your lips look delicious
She remembers that no one in her family knows where she is, and visions of police tape and chalk body outlines fill her thoughts. She tries some weak and vague threats, but the guy just keeps up with the phony compliments, even running out of material and repeating himself.

Well maybe just a half a drink more - Never such a blizzard before
OK, even I have to admit she's asking for it here.

I've got to go home - Oh, baby, you'll freeze out there
Hey, she's lucid again! Maybe she'll get away after all. Seeing that the shallow compliments didn't seem to work, he's bringing up the grisly image of her freezing to death if she tries to leave.

Say, lend me your comb - It's up to your knees out there
I...wait, what? OK, she's delirious for sure here.

You've really been grand - Your eyes are like starlight now
But don't you see - How can you do this thing to me
There's bound to be talk tomorrow - Making my life long sorrow
Bound to be talk tomorrow? Yeah, on the police band radio. The guy's starting to get a little whiny here.

At least there will be plenty implied - If you caught pneumonia and died
Oh, now she's worried about her "reputation." The guy seems to be showing a bit of genuine concern here. Is he feeling guilt? Or just not wanting a messy police investigation?

I really can't stay - Get over that old out
Nope, he's not guilty. Just impatient for the "festivities" to begin.

(Together)
Ahh, but it's cold outside
Baby, it's cold outside
And as the song ends, she echoes his statement, and it's heavily implied that the guy had his way with her. What a lovely way to end a Christmas song.

Amazingly it was originally written in 1944 (!) by Frank Loesser, who sang it with his wife at a housewarming party. So it wasn't written for the holiday season after all, which again raises the question, how the frak did this ever become a Christmas song?

Anguished April

I've got this daily journal (it's not a diary!) that contains calendar pages at the beginning of every month. Since I do the exact same thing every single day of my life, I have little use for the calendar pages, so I've been filling each day's square with a doodle.

Here are the calendar pages for April. I don't know why I'm posting them out of order like this. I started with August, then started working backwards. Who needs order?

I guess that's the Easter Bunny there on the 4th. That's a very suave dog there on the 12th. And is that Joan Rivers next to him on the 13th? I don't know what that's supposed to be on the 20th. Some kind of half man, half robot thing. Hey, I do these in pen, so I only get one chance to draw them, and if they don't come out right, I'm stuck with them.

The guy on the 21st is upset that "Secretary's Day" is now apparently known as "Administrative Professional's Day." I don't blame him. There's RoboCop on the 24th, inaccurately drawn from memory. The guy on the 26th has appears to have had too much fat injected into his lips. There's Angry Gumby on the 30th. And the guy who snuck in on the non-existent April 31st has been censored.

SantaTaur Little Moldin' Book: Behind The Scenes

Now that my 2010 SantaTaur Christmas Card/Book is finally finished, I thought I'd post a behind the scenes look at how I made it, for the two or three people out there who may be interested.

As you'll recall, last year I drew and posted a SantaTaur book cover and posted it here on my blog. I decided to expand the cover into a full blown book for this year's Christmas card. I was able to reuse last year's cover (seen on the left) for this year's book (on the right). Unfortunately the old cover had totally different proportions, and it took a surprising amount of reconfiguring to make it work for the new book. I hated the simplistic town on the original cover, so it went through a lot of modifications.

I was able to reuse the endpapers and back cover from last year's Gronkorr book with no changes.

On the left is the original sketch for the title page. As you can see it went through a lot of changes by the time I got to the finished product. I wasn’t happy with last year’s SantaTaur logo, so I redrew it (in vector in InDesign) for the book. Sharp eyed readers will note that the two logos are virtually identical, but I cleaned up some lines and angles and things that were bothering me about the original.

This was the first page I worked on, and it taught me a lot about how to draw the rest of the pages. The final version is fairly close to the sketch.

I did a couple of sketches of the elves, but I didn't have time to think about their color scheme until I started on this page, so I just sort of came up with it on the fly. I thought elves that dressed in red & green were too much of a cliche, so mine are dressed in blue. They're Jewish elves, don't you know.

Note that in the sketch the calendar read December 20th, but after I thought about it that seemed a bit late in the month for Santa to start conducting all his experiments and building his equipment, so I changed it to the 1st. Yeah, I really put that much obsessive thought into this thing.

I knew this was going to be a tough page, what with all the elves working down on the factory floor. I drew two armless elves (facing different directions), then used Photoshop to clone them over and over until I had an assembly line. Then I drew arms on each one, handling various toys. It’s hard to see, but each elf really is working on a different toy; dolls, robots, balls, rockets, etc. I had to keep making the elves and factory floor lighter and lighter so that it looked like they were off in the distance.

There's also a whole landscape there outside the windows.

Here's a peek at a "lost page" from the book. I really, really wanted to include a page where Santa gazes at his reindeer and suddenly gets the idea to combine himself with them, much to their dismay. He turns into a half-reindeer centaur after all, so it seems like there should be at least one reindeer somewhere in the book. I wanted him to shout the idea out loud and have one of the reindeer overhear him and have a horrified look on its face.

Unfortunately there just wasn’t room to include this page. Because of the way books are made, to add this one page I’d also have had to add three more, and that just wasn’t practical. Plus, if I had him disclose his plan here, then he'd be saying pretty much the same thing on two pages and it would kind of ruin the big reveal on page five. So I had to settle for the line about the “reindeer grinding and sifting process.”

I think this may be my favorite page in the book. I tried very hard to make the elves look like they were “acting” on each page. I wanted each one to be doing a "bit" rather than just standing around.

I wanted Mrs. Claus to look like a severe and humorless old harridan. She went through a couple of versions before I was satisfied with her. I’d like to redo her boots though. It’s supposed to look like her boots have large “cuffs” at the top, but it looks more like she’s wearing black capri pants under her dress. There just wasn't time to correct everything.

I spent a lot of time on that door, too. As you can see from the sketch, I wanted it to look like light was streaming through from inside the lab, to imply that Santa was inside conducting dangerous experiments. I tried drawing the streaming light a hundred different ways, but I just couldn’t get it to work. I’ve learned by now that that’s the signal that you should just drop an idea. The reindeer motif at the top was a last minute addition.

Of course when Santa writes a note, he writes it in a Christmas-y Old English script font.

I had fun with this page. The chalkboard drawing went through a lot of revisions (it wasn't even a chalkboard in the sketch!). At first it was a Santa shape + a reindeer shape = a SantaTaur shape, but I couldn’t get that to fit no matter what I did. I decided that revealing SantaTaur here lessened his impact when he finally appeared, so I deleted him and added the two DNA strands.

If you look closely, you can see that Santa is holding a blueprint of the Magic Gift Bazooka. There’s also a drawing of the Transmorphicatation Chamber on the wall above him as well.

I like the elf in the foreground that doesn’t understand what the hell Santa’s going on about.

This page went through a lot of revisions. Many times something that works in a sketch just doesn't work when you draw it for real. I kept adjusting the size of the Transmorphicatation Chamber and the elves until I found a happy balance. All the characters were on multiple layers inside separate folders, so it was easy to alter their sizes. Good ol' Photoshop! What would I do without you? Remember that, gang: Photoshop layers and folders are your friends!

I drew all four elves and then hated them, so I scrapped them and drew them all over again.

The elf throwing the switch gave me a lot of trouble. The elf with the clipboard kept obscuring the Switch Elf. But if I took out Clipboard Elf then there was an unsightly blank space in the corner. I finally hit on the idea of putting the Switch Elf up on a box so he'd be visible.

The Transmorphicatation Chamber is an homage to the teleport pods in the Jeff Goldblum version of The Fly. I didn't want an exact copy, but something reminiscent. The elves' white protective suits are a shout-out to the ones worn in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, still one of my all time favorite movies.

Once everything was laid out, the page seemed kind of meh. It just didn't have any energy. I stared at it for a long time and then tilted the Chamber like it was an out of balance washing machine, to give the impression it was churning and working. That did the trick (well, for me anyway). The swirls of energy and atoms were a last minute addition.

This was a very troublesome page, but it turned out to be my second favorite. In the original sketch, SantaTaur stood there in the center of the page, arms akimbo, as the elves looked on in astonishment. The trouble was, SantaTaur was standing directly in front of the Chamber, making it nearly impossible to see it. It wasn't clear that he'd just emerged from it and looked like he'd suddenly just appeared in the center of the room.

I tried moving the Chamber over to one side, but that just made it look like I didn't know how to lay out a page. So I scrapped the whole page and did some more sketches.

Finally I got the idea that instead of showing him already out of the Chamber, I'd show him in the act of emerging from it. That was the answer! I like the smoke and steam pouring out of the doorway of the Chamber, as if dangerous fumes were involved.

As you can see from the sketch, this page went through a lot of changes too.

At first I drew the building on the left and then flopped it for the building on the right. It looked a little too obvious, so I scrapped the right-side building and drew a new two story one. I drew one Christmas tree and was able to clone it and reuse it to make a small forest. I cloned and reused one elf, but the rest of the crowd are tiny individual drawings. Even though she's in pretty much the same pose as she was on page three, that's an all new Mrs. Claus, not a copy.

Originally SantaTaur was taking off and flying to the left, but when I put the book together I saw that there would be two very similar "flying to the left" pages placed side by side. To help change things up a bit I flopped this page so that he was flying off to the right. I then had to reverse the "Naughty" & "Nice" text on the bazooka to read right.

I knew this page would be a major headache, and I was right. The sketch seemed a little claustrophobic to me, what with the houses packed so closely together. I wanted to open up the page to show a vast environment. But that meant I'd be drawing hundreds of buildings. Oy.

I did everything I could to keep from having to draw a couple hundred individual houses. I even tried modeling a 3D neighborhood in Google SketchUp. That didn't turn out so well-- trying to combine precisely rendered 3D houses with a painterly background and character just didn't work.

So, I gritted my teeth, sat down and started drawing houses. I was able to take advantage of technology somewhat to make my life a little easier-- because it was center point perspective, I drew the houses on the left side of the page, then flopped them to fill in the right side. I then added random cars and shrubs to the neighborhood.

At first I had four images of SantaTaur flying over the houses and firing his Gift Bazooka, but that was a little confusing. I was afraid it would look like there were four SantaTaurs instead of one. Plus it made the layout way too crowded. So I deleted the extra Santas and just kept the Bazooka zaps. Hopefully it still reads that you're seeing a kind of time-lapse image of the path he's taken through the sky as he fires gifts at various houses.

The green zaps mean the resident of that house was Nice and got a good gift; and of course a red zap means they were Naughty and received coal.

You'll notice that SantaTaur's sporting a wreath tattoo on each arm. Did he have those before he transformed, or did the Chamber add them? I'll let the viewer decide.

Once I got everything laid out it seemed like something was missing. Then it hit me-- it's Christmas! Houses have Christmas decorations! So I added Christmas lights to most of the houses (and if you look closely, a few lit trees visible in some windows).

This page started out predominantly blue, but the color scheme looked way too much like the previous page, so at the last minute I altered the color to a bluish green to help it look a little different. That's one of the greatest things about drawing on the computer. If I'd have actually painted this page and decided to change the color scheme I'd have had no choice but to start over. On the computer, changing the color is as simple as moving a few slider controls. How did we ever get any work done before computers?

This page also went through a lot of changes. In the sketch the kids are in their bedroom when the gifts come crashing through the ceiling, but later I thought it would make more sense to show the living room instead. That's where your presents are placed, right? The living room started out yellowish orange, but I changed it to green to give the book some variety.

Note that in the sketch, the boy got a sack of coal. Did he get one in the finished version as well? I'll leave that to the reader's imagination.

Once I had it all drawn, the room seemed a little bare, so I added the torn Christmas decorations near the ceiling.

This was another problem page, and the one I saved for the very last. It went through a lot of revisions, mostly onscreen. As you can see from the sketch, it was originally going to be pretty much the same as page nine. I decided that was a bad idea, and changed the perspective a bit.

In my mind I pictured homes in the foreground and a city in the distance, to give the impression that SantaTaur's reign of destruction was worldwide. That was harder to draw than I thought it would be. Luckily if you add enough trees and obscuring flames you can get away with a lot!

Have you ever seen a photo of a jet breaking the sound barrier? When it does, a white disk made of superheated air or something forms around the plane. I drew such a sonic boom disk around the tiny SantaTaur in the sky to imply that he was breaking the sound barrier as he sped off, but it just looked dumb (plus I was afraid readers wouldn't understand what it was supposed to be), so I dropped it.

The sky on this page was also dark blue, which made three dark blue sky pages in a row (well, almost in a row). Boring! So I changed the overall color scheme of this page to red, which made a lot more sense since the world is burning.

I changed a lot of color schemes on various pages once I assembled the book and saw all the pages together. You don't realize that you've got too many pages of one color until you seem them all side by side.

This page came out pretty much like the sketch; there weren't any major changes other than flopping the image. It was a little tough drawing SantaTaur's foreshortened finger though, and that went through a few versions before it looked right.

The "Merry Christmas Everyone" text was hand drawn in InDesign.

Creepy Christmas Classics #1: Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas

Hey, it's Christmas Carol time again! Everywhere you go this month, you'll hear all the classic carols you've heard ten thousand times before, whether you want to or not. Oftentimes I wonder how some of these songs ever became classics. My theory is that the public hears them so much that they don't listen to the lyrics anymore, rendering them meaningless. If they did actually sit down and listen, half of these so-called "classics" would be stricken from the list.

One of my all time LEAST favorite Christmas carols is Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas. This slow, dirge-like lamentation is the ultimate downer. The tune is languid and soporific and the lyrics are downright suicidal. It's a sure-fire guaranteed mood killer. I am honestly mystified at how it became a beloved holiday song. In fact whenever I hear it I usually turn it off if I can.

Every time I hear it I can't help but picture some lonely, down on his luck guy in a wife-beater shirt, sitting at the kitchen table in his dingy apartment lit by a single bare bulb. He's taking shots from a bottle of hooch and when it's empty he's going to pick up the revolver on the table, jam it under his chin and pull the trigger.

The song was written for the 1944 Judy Garland film Meet Me In St. Louis, which as you can probably tell from the title, isn't even a Christmas movie. It's the story of a family who has to leave St. Louis right before the 1904 World's Fair and move to New York City. In the film, Judy Garland sings the song to cheer up her little sister, basically telling her she'd better enjoy this Christmas, because next year's really gonna suck. Believe it or not, the lyrics were originally even MORE depressing than they are now.

Here's the original version:

Have yourself a merry little Christmas, it may be your last,
Next year we may all be living in the past.   
Have yourself a merry little Christmas, pop that champagne cork,  
Next year we will all be living in New York.
No good times like the olden days, happy golden days of yore,  
Faithful friends who were dear to us, will be near to us no more.
But at least we all will be together, if the Fates allow,  
From now on we'll have to muddle through somehow.  
So have yourself a merry little Christmas now.

Quite the peppy little ditty, eh? Hopefully you didn't rush to the kitchen to stick your head in the oven after reading those lyrics.

Garland supposedly thought the song was a bit too morose (you think?), and asked the songwriter to lighten it up a smidge. Folks, when chronically depressed pill-popper Judy Garland thinks your song is too dark, you know you've gone over the top.

So the lines, "It may be your last / Next year we may all be living in the past" were changed to "Let your heart be light / Next year all our troubles will be out of sight."

That helped slightly, but it was still pretty funereal.

In 1957 Frank Sinatra wanted to sing the song for a Christmas Album he was recording, and asked his composer to punch it up a bit. As you don't disobey the Chairman of the Board if you want to continue owning kneecaps, he complied.

Frank's composer changed the line "Until then we'll have to muddle through somehow," to "Hang a shining star upon the highest bough."

These lyric changes helped somewhat, but the central problem remains unchanged: the slow, dreary, melancholy melody. Marlene Dietrich sang peppier torch songs than this.

So there are now three different versions of the song, in various strengths of depression: Downer, Depressed, and Extra-Strength Suicidal. Many singers like to go back to the song's roots, so you'll hear at least two of the versions this holiday season, guaranteed. If you're unlucky enough to be exposed to this holiday dirge, I prescribe staring at a basket of kittens or playing with a litter of puppies for half an hour. You have been warned.

Christmas Card 2010: SantaTaur Is Comin' To Town!

Here's the reason I haven't been posting much for the past month! At long last, my 2010 Christmas card is finished! Like every year, it was touch and go there for a while and I wasn't sure whether it would be done in time for Christmas.

 

As soon as I finished my 2009 card/book last year (which you can see here), I immediately started worrying about how to top it in 2010. Sometime around January or February of this year I came up with a half-baked idea to make a small calendar featuring twelve of my illustrations. Then around September I decided I'd rather do another book instead. But what to write about?

I thought about it for a while and remembered that last year I drew an illustration of SantaTaur, a half man, half reindeer who delivered presents via a magic gift bazooka. That was it! That would be my book.

I sat down and fleshed out the story of how SantaTaur came to be and sketched out all the pages. I had everything planned out and then... the delays began.

In September I started working about twenty extra hours per week (for a total of sixty!), which severely cut into my illustration time. Then I spent much of October helping a friend recover from an operation. Then I was sick for almost two weeks and didn't feel up to working on it. It wasn't until the middle of November that I kind of remembered some vague notion I had of drawing some sort of card and began working on the project in earnest.

Looking back, I was insane to start such a project so late in the year. Last year's Gronkorr book was a scant eight pages with relatively simple illustrations, just two characters and minimal (sometimes no) backgrounds. The SantaTaur book, however, was going to be much more complex. It would be twelve pages long and featured multiple characters set against very detailed backgrounds, all of which needed to be designed before I could start drawing. What the heck was I thinking?

In addition to the added complexity, there was also the style. Normally when I illustrate something, I draw the outline of the figure and color it in (much like in a comic book). However, I was trying for an old school Little Golden Book style here, and most of them were typically painted. No outlines allowed! When I realized that, I sighed and grimly set about the task of "painting" the book, which took about ten times longer than the way I'm used to working.

When I drew the Gronkorr book, I was able to save time by reusing many elements, such as the fighter jets, helicopters and background people, on multiple pages. Unfortunately I had no such luck on the SantaTaur book. I was able to reuse the front cover (with some major retooling), the endpapers and the back cover, but that was pretty much it. Because of the way it was laid out, everything else had to be drawn from scratch on each page.

I had to take advantage of every free moment I had to work on the thing just to get it out the door while it was still 2010. I even spent all of Thanksgiving Day working on it!

It was my intention to create an homage to the classic Santa's Toy Shop Little Golden Book, which is still one of my all time favorite books. Not an exact reproduction of that style, mind you, as I could never hope to be as good as that artist, but to try and capture the look and spirit of that book.

As I worked on it I hopped around from page to page instead of drawing them in order. I reasoned that by working that way,  the front pages wouldn't look more primitive than the back ones as I found my bearings and got used to drawing in this style. I also trashed a couple of finished pages that I didn't think were working and started over from scratch. I was dreading working on pages 11 and 13 though, and put them off as long as possible. I knew that drawing all those little houses and buildings would suck, and I was right. Those two were the last ones to be finished.

I "painted" all the pages in Photoshop. Once they were done, I put them all together in InDesign and printed out a test book to see how it looked. I then did a LOT of tweaking to each page. It's amazing how a page will look OK to you when viewed alone, but will look awful when you see it in context. I changed a lot of the color schemes as well, so that there wouldn't be too many pages of the same general color in a row. Every time I thought it was finished, I'd spot ten more things that needed changed.

The text went through a lot of revisions as well. Once I saw the pages all together, I realized the story needed some clarification in order to better explain the plot and make it flow more smoothly. I slashed and simplified the text as much as I could, but I still think a couple of the pages are too wordy.

The "SantaTaur" logo was hand drawn, as was the "Merry Christmas, Everyone!" on the last page.

I'm fairly happy with the way it turned out, but as always, there are things I'd still like to change. There comes a point when you have to stop though, or you'll end up working on a project and tweaking it the rest of your life.

The end papers and back cover feature many special guest stars from my Flickr stream.

As I mentioned above, everything was drawn in Photoshop on the graphic tablet, then assembled in InDesign.

Things I've Noticed: Outdoor Vs. Indoor Temperature

Just something I've noticed about my home now that winter's here.

When I was a kid, every winter my dad was always telling us that 65 degrees was more than warm enough inside. He kept the thermostat under constant surveillance and wouldn't let anyone else touch it. I hate to admit it, but now that I'm paying for my own heat, I finally understand him.

I'll be OK as long as we don't have any more ice storms like we had here last year. It knocked my power out for FIVE days. That's five days with no heat, in February, when the high temperature outside was 17 degrees and the temperature inside my house hovered around 50. That was not a good time.

Drawn in Photoshop on the graphic tablet.

Xmas Gift Tag Repost

I posted this last Christmas, but it's buried deep within the depths of my blog, so I thought I'd dredge it up again.

Tough times call for tough measures! Due to the plummeting economy (and the fact that everyone in my family has too much crap already), I decided to severely cut back on Christmas gifts this year. In order to soften the blow a bit, I made this gift tag and attached it to everyone's presents.

Santa was drawn in Photoshop on the graphic tablet, as well as the sketchy green oval. Everything was then imported into InDesign, where the text and the outer tag shape were added. Then I printed a bunch, cut them out with an X-Acto, punched a hole in the side and tied them to everyone's gifts.

Feel free to download it, print it and attach it to your own cheapskate gifts!

Milking The Franchise

Now this is what I call milking your franchise! Take a look at this new 2 disc DVD set. It features four of the main cast of the original Star Trek appearing in bit parts in episodes of various TV westerns. Other than that it has nothing to do with the Star Trek franchise wqhatsoever. In fact, given that it doesn't actually say Star Trek anywhere on the cover, I doubt it's even released by Paramount. You'd have to be a very, very hard core Trekkie to order this.

I will say that of the four of them, DeForest Kelly looks the most at home there in the old West. I'm not buying Shatner as a cowboy at all. It almost looks as if his face was Photoshopped onto another body. James Doohan was Canadian, so he seems a poor choice to play a Native American. And Leonard Nimoy as an Indian in a bad wig? If there were Ukranian Jewish Indians, then OK.

This may very well be a nice disc set, but it's so blatantly trying to part Trekkies from their money that I feel it's my duty to mock it.

The Walking Dead Season 1, Episode 6: TS-19

This week on The Walking Dead:

We find out that Shane wasn't exactly lying when he told Lori he thought Rick was dead. The gang finds refuge inside the CDC. Dr. Jenner, the only person left inside the center, offers them food and shelter, but mysteriously clams up when they ask for information. Rick drinks too much wine and confesses to Dr. Jenner that he's a reluctant leader, afraid he's going to make a mistake that kills everyone. Shane tries to explain his actions to Lori, but comes close to raping her instead. Dr. Jenner's wife was Test Subject 19. The CDC refuge turns out to be a bad idea when the gang finds out that it's scheduled to be "sterilized," killing everyone and everything inside.

Well, that ending was a bit underwhelming, wasn't it? The CDC blows up real good, and then everyone high-tails it off screen before the camera runs out of film. At the time the series was filmed, the producers had no idea if it there would be a second season. What a terrible SERIES finale this would have made. Luckily for us we're getting a second season, so it ended up being a satisfactory SEASON finale.

Rats, my final episode prediction didn't come to pass. Honestly I didn't know where they were going with this CDC plotline, so I don't feel so bad about being off the mark. For the record, (SPOILER! Highlight at your own risk!) I predicted that, like in the comic, the characters would find out that dead bodies become zombies whether they were bitten or not, and they are all indeed "The Walking Dead".

As I've mentioned before, in the comic the cause of the zombie plague is never revealed. The characters are too busy simply trying to survive to worry about the hows and whys, which seems very realistic to me. I was desperately afraid that this CDC plotline was going to go into the cause of the plague and ruin everything. They danced around the issue to within a razor's edge, but thankfully didn't get into the actual origin, for which I am extremely grateful. We don't need to know why there are zombies, there just are.

For those of you who watched the episode live, what the hell is wrong with Quiznos? Have they ever actually watched one of their commercials? Hiring your five year old child as your head of marketing is not a good idea.

After all that buildup and importance they placed on Merle in the early episodes, isn't it odd that we never saw him again? This only reinforces my belief that he'll return next season as The Governor.

So Shane really did think that Rick was dead. Sort of. Maybe he's not quite as big a tool as he seems (apart from almost shooting his best friend and lusting after his wife). He gained a few points for this revelation, but then immediately lost them by trying to drunkenly rape Lori.

Rick is either very dense when it comes to his wife's relationship with Shane, or very good at denial. Shane appears at breakfast with scratches all over his face, and Rick accepts his answer that he "must have done it in his sleep." Maybe Rick was too hung over to think about it clearly.

I continue to be impressed with the way they handle Carl. He reacts exactly like a real child would and isn't some super-intelligent, wise-cracking Hollywood kid.

I was saddened to see Jacqui decide not to go on, but as she was a redshirt (not a character from the comic) I really didn't expect her to survive for long. I can even sort of understand her motivation. So now the only members of the group who weren't in the comic are T-Dog and Darryl.

So was Dr. Jenner just nuts, or did he honestly think he was helping what may be the last survivors of humanity to die a merciful death? Personally I think he's feeling guilty for lying to Truman Burbank all those years (too obscure?).

When Andrea announced she wasn't going to go on, I almost plotzed. For a minute or two I actually believed they might kill her off. But when Dale said he wasn't leaving without her, then I knew they were just playing with us. Andrea and Dale are major characters in the comic, so I knew they wouldn't kill them both off. Yet...

So what did Dr. Jenner whisper to Rick right before the end? Did he place his katra inside his head, and say, "Remember?" My guess: SPOILER ALERT! Highlight at your own risk! He told Rick that Lori's blood test revealed she's pregnant. That would be in line with events from the comic. But who's baby is it? Rick's or Shane's?

There seemed to be a definite LOST vibe in this episode, what with the survivors finding refuge inside a "hatch" and Dr. Jenner refusing to give straight answers to simple questions. You can find some other LOST parallels too, without looking very hard:  Rick = Jack, Lori = Kate, Glenn = Hurley/Charlie, Darryl = Sawyer, Dale = Locke, Andrea = Juliet, Shane = Michael.

So much for Season 1! It wasn't perfect, but all things considered, I thought it was pretty darned good. I never thought I'd see a no-holds barred zombie series on TV! I'll bet AMC regrets ordering just a six episode season! Bring on Season 2, stat!

No, No, November

I've got this daily journal (it's not a diary!) that contains calendar pages at the beginning of every month. Since I do the exact same thing every single day of my life, I have little use for the calendar pages, so I've been filling each day's square with a doodle.

Here are the calendar pages for November.

That appears to be the Tin Man on the 1st. The guy on the 6th feels pretty. The monster on the 7th is pissed that he has to set his clock back an hour, while the guy on the 11th is doing some housecleaning.

What The Heck's Up With Spencer?

Holy Crap, when did Spencer Gifts become a porn shop?

OK, time to go into Old Man Rant Mode here. I went to the mall today for the first time since, well, since last Xmas. As I was wandering through the crowds I walked past Spencer Gifts and thought, "What the heck," and went inside. Imagine my surprise to find out that they're now a full-service porn shop! If I'd been wearing a hat it would have flown off my head in shock.

In my day Spencer Gifts was always the go-to place for black light posters, Over-The-Hill Birthday supplies and fart-themed items. Now most of their inventory appears to consist of adult novelties and sex toys.

I'm not talking about the fairly tame "naughty" items they always carried in the past; this is some serious stuff, like vibrators, lubes and fishnet body stockings. That kind of stuff has its place I suppose, but not right there in the middle of the mall. There were dozens of pre-teens wandering around inside, getting an eyefull of all the x-rated merchandise.

I'm not sure if this is a nationwide trend or something peculiar to my local mall, but I never thought Spencers would need to post bouncers at the door to check IDs.

Space Dweebs

 

It's the adventures of the Space Dweebs!

I feel like they have some potential, but I have no idea what to do with them. I need to let them simmer some more.

This is a vector illustration, drawn all in InDesign.

 

This illustration started life as just the yellow alien. I'm not sure why, but it just didn't do much for me. Maybe because he didn't seem all that dweebish to me. So it was back to square one and I reworked him and added his two friends.

  

Here's the original sketch of the Space Dweebs, which admittedly isn't much to look at.