New Cool Meat

Quitely

2011-04-01T07:36:00.000-07:00

I googled myself yesterday to find that the three first image results were all drawings that I had done for Project Rooftop. Not sure how Google's search filter thing works but I'm guessing that means that those are the drawings that got the most exposure to people online. What's funny about that is that for Project Rooftop, I intentionally try to draw like someone else, Frank Quitely.

So, I wish I could articulate to those of you that don't know who that is, why he is as awesome as he is, but I'm sure if you look around, you can find people to do that to a far greater effect. In fact, here's one.

Even though I have tried pretty consciously to mimic Quitely because he's become one of my favorite artists, I generally fail pretty hard at doing that because my basic drawings aren't very good. Here are the pencils for a Wolverine drawing which was the first time I got an honorable mention.

It's pretty old. Wolverine's face is hilarious and not Quitely at all but this is before I just tried to straight up ape him completely. Here is that drawing colored. In the one that comes up in google there are more drawings on the side of it but those sucked so I cropped them off this one.

This also shows up in that google search eventually, it was a comparison of how I drew in 2005 compared to 2010. As you can see, 2005 was an unfortunate time for me. And yet people never told me how bad I was. Enablers. Very nice guy saw this on twitter and put it on his Firestorm blog. So that's why it shows up.

Another Project Rooftop contest was Aquaman. I love Aquaman so I had to enter it. Here are the inks for that. Never scanned the pencils because they were too light and loose. The benefit to trying to draw like Quitely for me has been that I can draw way less initially because I do almost all the rendering in ink. Maybe that's a problem.

Here's that drawing colored. That splashing behind him was a lot funner to draw than to color. I'm sure that shows because I didn't bother coloring it. Also, that A on his chest in gray looks really weird. I thought it worked even though it feels completely out of place. I've never been a very good designer either.

When Dwayne McDuffie died recently, there was a call from Project Rooftop for Static drawings and so I did one. I can honestly say, I never watched the Static Shock cartoon nor did I read many of McDuffie's comics but his impact on the industry was undeniable and I wanted to draw something to honor that with the other people that contributed in that.

And so I did another shameless Quitely inspired drawing.

Lately, I've been drawing stuff that I really liked and drew growing up because I think a lot of the things people my age were into growing up is starting to become nostalgically cool. So I drew the Power Rangers. The idea was to make it like those awesome covers that Quitely does that are sparse but have a big impact. Yeah. About that. Didn't work out.

But you know, eh... whatever.

I think there's something really helpful about drawing like people like Quitely who has a very distinct style because it seeps into your drawing when you stop drawing and the more you do that with different artists, the more you get a style that is a Frankenstein's monster of cool people. Right now, I don't think I have a monster but we'll see how that goes.

Ditko

2011-03-01T19:53:00.000-08:00

This is a drawing of the Creeper, Hawk and Dove, and Shade the Changing Man.

They are all DC characters created in part by Steve Ditko or completely by him.

They prove that you can make interesting superheroes that aren't interesting because they're violent or angsty. They don't shoot guns. They don't kill. They don't wear black. They're awesome.

JLA

2011-01-31T08:02:00.001-08:00

This is my drawing of the JLA. Just the pencils.

The idea was that a year ago, I really wanted to draw the JLA at their best. Because I was, and am, convinced that every comic book character is the best when Grant Morrison writes them, I made sure to use the line up that he used when he wrote them in 1997ish. But it's not 1997ish, it's 2011ish so I updated the costumes appropriately. These are the inks that I did on my computer. Because in 2011ish, drawing on a computer is a cool thing to do and I desperately want to be cool. These are the inks. Notice, I completely changed Wonder Woman and Batman's costumes but none of the anatomy mistakes I made last year. That's a commitment to mediocrity.

When I colored it, I used a lot of color holds and only bright colors. This bold, over the top, pulpy interpretation of the Justice League is how I look back at Morrison's JLA run. When I read it, I didn't know who Grant Morrison was, I only knew that the stories were insane and the faces, drawn by Howard Porter mainly, were usually ugly to me. Also, that batman had shoulder points offended me on some guttural level that, to this day, makes it hard for me to go back and read what are surely some of the best comics ever written. At least that's what people tell me. And I want to believe them because I want to fit in.

But who doesn't?

Look at Batman.

FIGHT.

2010-06-21T19:35:00.001-07:00

So back when I was getting ready for Free Comic Book Day and apparently thought I wasn't stretched thin enough, I offered to do some drawings for a few of the shops that could give away or raffle or sell or keep or essentially do WHATEVER with them if they wanted them. So basically, I thought a fun theme would be to take a prominent character from Marvel and DC and have them fighting because who doesn't love a good fight? Nobody. Everyone loves violence so I figured why NOT do it. I drew them pretty fast, about one night each and had a lot of fun inking them surprisingly.

One thing I will note is I drew them on a non waxy side of cheap poster-boards that I bought from the dollar store because I saw that they sold poster-boards two for a dollar. Me being cheap, thought it would be an excellent opportunity to not buy pricey bristol board. The problem was that the non-waxy side of the paper was super spongy which meant all my inklines bled a bit. That is not to say my inking was great to begin with, but... well... that certainly didn't help.

So here's the first one. This is Batman fighting Wolverine. I used the new Batman costume worn by Dick Grayson because its fun and different and if I was going to do this, I might as well have made it fun for myself. This went to The Launch Pad in Lodi but as I don't visit that shop too often, I have no idea what happened to it. Hopefully something happened to it but as I didn't put too much commitment into it, I'm not too concerned one way or the other.

This is Superman and Thor. Superman is just plain old iconic Superman but for Thor i went with the Chris Samnee design for his new series which looks incredible. I messed up the design a bit but the majority of it is what he had.

And here's by FAR my favorite of the bunch. Green Lantern who I love and Iron Man who I don't hate. The Iron Man was a pain to do because I used his new costume and for those of you that can't tell the difference, that new costume is a pain. Still though, I liked how it turned out mainly because it has lots of shiny stuff to distract from my lame drawing. Thank god for shiny stuff.

Curiouser and curiouser...

2010-06-09T17:16:00.000-07:00

Here's a commission I did for a friend. Painted it all and put it over some yellowed paper. I thought it turned out pretty nice all things considered. It was a lot creepier but I scaled it back

#2

2010-05-24T18:11:00.000-07:00

Wierd.

Just last year, it felt surreal hearing that Slipknot's debut album, which I had in the sixth grade, was ten years old and now the bassist of that band, Paul Gray, is dead. In all honesty, it's been a long time since I've listened to Slipknot. It's been even longer since I felt the same ambiguous rage and desperation that they were able to channel in their music that is perfect for middle and high school kids. That said, every once in awhile, when I'm in the right mood, nothing is better than that first album.

I remember a cousin Matthew taking me to church with him in his blue Camero and asking if I'd ever heard of Slipknot because I had just hit the age where my friends fell in love with Korn and Limp Bizkit and Slipknot was in the same vein. He played it too loud for comfort. I stepped out of his car and walked into church with my ears still ringing and how amazing that felt.

I remember too when I was in the eight grade, an aunt of mine got me a Linkin Park shirt for Christmas. I was never really a fan of Linkin Park so I asked my mom if it would be okay to take it back and get something else and when she said okay I used that money and I got the Slipknot shirt I posted a picture of up there. Back then, the black was a little less gray and the image was a little less cracked but it was the first of many slipknot shirts I would waste money on through out high school. At one point, I could wear a different shirt every day of the week and they would still say Slipknot on them.

I remember going down to San Jose with my stepdad to go to my very first concert in 2001, my freshman year of high school, and feeling a nervous excitement as we waited through the line and Christian protesters shouted that all who entered would be struck down by god for worshiping satan.

I remember being fairly timid as a kid and yet, the more I embraced that music, that culture, the more I was able to open up and be more confident in myself even when that confidence was pretty unwarranted. Had you asked me then who my favorite band was, I would have answered Slipknot without hesitation. It wasn't even a question, really.

The reason I'm writing this is because Paul Gray, the bassist of slipknot died today, or at least he was discovered dead today and it feels a little weird. I didn't know him and he alone didn't have any significant impact on my life but he was definitely a part of something that did and it's an uneasy feeling to deal with that. In high school I played bass because I wanted to be cool like Paul Gray. I got a mohawk because I wanted to be cool like Paul Gray. I even started wearing ties because I wanted to be cool like Paul Gray. And then I didn't. I hope his family is okay.

An old painting I did

Frank And Elenore In... Raining Blood on Prom Night

2010-05-06T22:16:00.000-07:00

Hey everybody, here is the comic that Adam and I made for Free Comic Book Day. I thought I'd share it with you because odds are if you are seeing this online, you won't be able to buy it unless you live anywhere near us and if you do, we're selling it for one dollar. It was very fun to make even though it was a lot of work but you know... worth it.

Also, I should note that it was drawn on 8x11 sized paper folded in half so each page you see here is half of that so the writing is a bit large because you'd have to read it on a pretty small piece of paper.

Odds are if there are any typos its been fixed by Adam's awesome wife Alicia who handles all the technical stuff I'm usually way too tired to deal with. But these are the rough files she got so that's what I'll upload.

New Guardians

2010-03-01T03:16:00.000-08:00

You guys... Blackest Night is awesome.

Magnus... THE ROBOT FIGHTER!!!

2009-12-03T01:29:00.000-08:00

Okay, so there was this older comic book character named Magnus. He was very high concept back for that time in that while other superheroes fought all sorts of different variations of evil, Magnus had a specialty. Yes, in theory he could fight tyrants, thugs, and mad scientists but he did not. No, instead Magnus focussed the core of his fighting activity towards the asswhooping of robots. Why robots? Who cares, Magnus was around to fight them and them almost exclusively. That's why I did this drawing showing Magnus doing just that.

Here's the pencils

Here's the inks

Here's the thing all done

I don't feel like labeling the whole thing but I'll just give a wordbank of characters and you can place the names where you may.

Terminator, Iron Giant, Robocop, Astro Boy, Rosie, Maria, A femmebot, Optimus Prime, that kid from A.I. whatever his name is, the Bad Robot, Bender, R2D2, C3P0, A.W.E.S.O.M.O., Alpha, and the robot from Lost in Space. I know its not a complete list of all robots and you may be wondering, "What about robots like Data, Gort, and Wall-E?" Well my answer to you is this: I don't want Magnus to fight them. Because he would crush them. And I don't want that. Thanks for looking.

The X-Men

2009-12-03T01:20:00.000-08:00

Here's an X Men drawing I did. This one I've been wanting to do for awhile because growing up I loved the X Men. Of course I didn't read the comics, but the cartoon, that was the shit. I remember drawing on the back of papers from kindergarten my own stories with the X Men that said things like, "They all think beast is dead but Magneto knows he is not but they all think he is."

It's brilliant, I know.

All the characters seemed so awesome back then but looking back now the costumes seem a bit well... "dated". Basically, I cut out any pouches, crazy shoulder pads, and random straps around legs and arms and I think they look really iconic. But that might just be because I loved the show so damn much.

Hey look, I drew Batman and Robin. Unusual..

2009-11-28T05:13:00.000-08:00

I think I've drawn Batman and Robin pretty much more than any comic book characters ever. That's just because they are awesome. When I'm bored, and I scribble stuff, most likely my doodles are of them two. It's just like... an uncontrollable urge. Some people can't help but hit people over the head unconscious, drag them home, carve them up into pieces dipping parts that would identify them into a vat of acid and eat their flesh but I draw Batman and Robin instead. Anyhow, here is the latest picture of them. This is an homage or swipe or whatever you'd personally like to call it of an iconic Carmine Infantino drawing

And here is mine.

The pencils:

The inks:

The flats:

And finally the finished one with lots of airbrushing and effects to hopefully distract people from the fact that its not all that well drawn.

Thanks for looking.

The Defenders

2009-11-24T06:40:00.000-08:00

Here's another collaboration I did with the San Joaquin Graphic Arts League (yes, that's what we call ourselves, impressive huh?) This time around we decided to do The Defenders because it was another super hero team that consists of four reasonably popular superheroes. Technically, it was my pick and that was all the logic I put behind it. Next time up we'll be doing either Jem and the Holograms or the characters from Wizard of Oz fighting flying monkeys. It should be awesome. Anyhow, here are the individual drawings that I received from Frank Stone who was kickass enough to ink all of the drawings for us.

Okay, so this is my Silver Surfer...

This is Mike Dimayuga's Doctor Strange... To see more of Mike's work go here

This is Frank Stone's Namor the Submariner... To see more of Frank's work go here

And last but most popular, this is Betsy Luntao's Hulk. To see more work of Betsy's work go here

I would also like to note that Frank named all of these files DefJam_charactername which I think was pretty hip of him. I certainly didn't think of it ever the process of working on this jam picture until it was pointed out to me by him in his file naming.

After some coloring and cutting and pasting and frankly, sorcery, I was able to come out with this here...

I was going for like a cool mid nineties alternative feel with the unsaturated colors and the squished font. I think it worked. And it conjures up the idea of bananas I think because it's so damn yellow. That's still pretty edgy and stuff, I think. Bananas, I mean.

Thanks for looking.

A Casual Stroll Through the Lunatic Asylum

2009-11-01T01:26:00.000-07:00

So here's a picture I did on Halloween almost entirely to have something to do on Halloween.

Something fun, I mean.

It's festive though, right? They're all scary and stuff.

Avengers Assemble! If you feel like it... No hurry....

2009-10-12T15:56:00.000-07:00

So it's been awhile since I posted anything and I should post more not less. That's just how things should work. Anyhow, here's a drawing of the Avengers I did awhile ago. I thought it came out pretty good. Because I made an effort to remember, here are the steps I took to put this one together.

The pencils...

The inks...

aaand I'm done.

It's Supergirl

2009-08-16T22:49:00.000-07:00

I have no idea what it is, and it's certainly not some kind of perversion, but some of my best pictures are when I draw Supergirl. Why? Not quite sure but here are two older drawings I've done of her that I particularly like...

Granted those are older so they actually are not that good in comparison to things I do now but I still think they are pretty decent in comparison to the stuff I was doing then. You know what I'm saying? Of course you do. I just think its impossible not to draw Supergirl pleasantly. That's just her factory setting, you have to work to make her look pissed off or slutty but a real sweet looking Supergirl? That's just fun to do in between scowling Batman and enraged Wolverines.

Anyhow, My buddy Frank Stone who is a phenomenal artist was saying I should bring him something to ink so I thought about it and figured If there was one thing I wanted to draw back when I was sketching for something to bring him, it was Supergirl and so...

That's exactly what I did. I'll note it was a long time between the Supergirl holding a puppy drawing up there so I felt I could do the whole "somebody holding an small animal" thing again without any guilt. Also I sort of forgot about it till just right now. So I handed that off to Frank at the aforementioned artwalk and he sent me this email the next day.

Now, I dunno about you, but I thought that was awesome. Probably the best inks over any of my drawings primarily because they were not done by me. Huge thanks to Frank again, and again you can see more of his work over here... So later on that night I was able to get this done.

Look at that, the picture from start to finish. That's pretty rare with me to do that kind of breakdown. Might do it again sooner because it looks kinda cool all laid out like that.

Just another Artwalk...

2009-08-16T22:30:00.000-07:00

So my club, the San Joaquin Graphics Art League (or some such variation of those words)missed out on last month's art walk and we thought we should go ahead and make it out to this month's. When we arrived we were a bit apprehensive as there were no other artists in the plaza and we were not exactly sure if the art walk was actually being held that day but after talking to one of the people working there they assured us that it was so we unloaded all of our stuff. Unlike the previous attempts at setting up at art walk, there were no designated spaces on the plaza which was a relief. Not that we don't appreciate being able to participate in art walk, but the month before last they had placed us outside of the movie theater courtyard and down the street in front of an abandoned building. So not the most traffic heavy of areas. That day we were told we could set up in the plaza granted there was nobody else in the spot we wanted and i believe nobody else showed up that month either so that made it easy.

The weather was nice. There was no loud band for most of the day until there was one, a Christian worship group that was somewhat confused as to what direction they should go in. They had no drummer so they resorted to playing around drumbeats generated by the keyboardists super fancy Casio number but even then they stretched that poor little instrument to the breaking points crossing genres from stereotypical hokey Christian worship band singing tunes about Jesus being awesome, Carlos Santana covers, and at one point playing the backing music for a Christian rapper who brought the audience of literally four or five vanned in fans to the brink of spiritual reawakening. I was given an invitation to an event that boasted "The Promise of Miracle Healing is for you too!" I some how doubt it. It's not that I think the people that believe in Miracle Healing are ridiculous, I heard testimonies from the band that all of them had been miraculously healed of their crippling drug addictions with the wonders of Miracle Healing. Oh wait, I actually kind of do.

But the point is, I made a drawing that day. See?

I love drawing Batman. I love drawing Robin. Together? Psh, can't get enough of it. Especially all fast and unrefined like this. It is to me, what crippling drug addictions were to all those people that are being Healed Miraculously.

What's this? Oh look, another collaboration...

2009-08-11T03:27:00.000-07:00

So here's a collaboration I did with my friend Frank Stone who's work you can see here http://fredmast.deviantart.com/ Now this was done almost over a year ago if not more but I came across these drawings not too long ago and remembered that I was supposed to put them together and color them up so I did just that. I think it should be apparent if you've seen any of my other art on this blog that I drew the very crude looking Question drawing...

and Frank being the classy refined guy that he is drew the Blue Beetle...

We are supposed to be doing another one of these pretty soon with two of out other friends and you can believe when that's done I'll post it up here with a little more expediency this time no doubt. We'll be doing the Fantastic Four this time.

And Then I Got a Tablet...

2009-08-11T02:58:00.001-07:00

Alright, so here's the thing. Back when I first started coloring images on my computer using gimp, I never thought I would progress to the point where I would even fathom investing in a tablet because it was essentially just a hobby. It would feel like buying a grand piano because I felt like playing around on a keyboard every now and then. And I have no desire to do that either. But a tablet just seemed like such a professional refined tool that I would have never really imagined employing one back in the days when I didn't know that by saving a file with a .psd extension I could save multiple layers. It was just above my head back when I did this, my first attempt at digital coloring.

Ugh, I'm sort of embarrassed to post that here but I guess it shows how far I have come if I used to think that was pretty good, right?

Anyhow, more to the point, here is a picture I did of my friend Brandon's design for the Carrie Kelly incarnation of Robin which can be seen here...

You'll notice this probably isn't one of my better drawings but the thing about this one is that it's completely done on the tablet which led me to a couple conclusions about my using a tablet to do art. 1) I can do it for the most part and it'll look pretty decent. 2) It's time consuming as all hell. Now that might not be the case for everyone but I've found that when given the option I will work very close in on the image and what I get is a few good spots of the drawing that probably don't pull together very well in the end. But more importantly I've come to the conclusion that I have some awesome friends because I didn't take any great financial risk in acquiring this tablet, but it was given to me because they were already using tablets and this one was passed down to me. Awesome, right? I thought so.

Justice League Of America

2009-08-11T02:45:00.000-07:00

So here's some coloring I did for my good friend Craig Cermak. He was going up to Chicago Con or whatever the hell that particular convention is called this last week and asked me to color a pin up he did of the big seven. Anyhow, this is the result.

I thought it looked pretty good. I think I'm starting to get a little better at coloring but some parts still annoy me, I wont bother saying which parts because really, who cares all that much? Probably not you and certainly not me by now.

To see more of Craig's art check out his deviantart page here...

Some Recent Drawings

2009-06-11T22:38:00.001-07:00

Let's talk about... Student of the Week.

2009-05-23T02:13:00.000-07:00

In the fifth grade I had a teacher named Mrs. Alexander. I can remember my teachers names all way back till about fourth grade by this point and I'm not sure how far back other people can remember but considering I'm about 21 and I don't blank back a good... ten years now, I'd say I'm doing pretty good.

But I was talking about Mrs. Alexander.

I'm talking about her because like most primary school teachers, she had an activity that was meant to boost her pupils' self esteem by choosing one amongst them to become student of the week.

Ah, student of the week. It was a hell of a title because it implied that whoever was chosen was the most special of them in the entire class room, nay the school, NAY THE WORLD! Could you imagine how special that student would be? It wouldn't matter how inferior you may have viewed yourself in the mirror or how other students would treat you on the playground or at lunch or during group time. That shit was unimportant! Being student of the week transcended that trivial grade school nonsense that would make other kids feel bad about themselves. It was magnificent!

A young Ramon Villalobos would hide his anticipation for weeks and then months until it was his turn to take his rightful place in front of the Recess lines. He would daydream while other students got to keep a journal of the dirty stuffed mascot (Bernie) that the student of the week would take in his or her charge about the far more magnificent journal entries he would transcribe.

There would be no mind-numbingly mundane adventures of a family trip to grandma's house or an afternoon at the park watching siblings play baseball in the the inconsequential town little leagues. That was kid stuff! A young Ramon Villalobos thought tirelessly about the things he saw on TV and transpose himself into the blatant Blair Witch Project rip off specials about aliens and come up with a fantastical adventure that would blow the entire fifth grade class away. It would come time for them to write special compliments about him and draw pictures for him and the other students would pontificate about how cool he was, how funny he was, and of course, how good of a friend he was. Sure, when it was time to write compliments for his classmates, there was always a feeling of awkwardness as he always got the sneaking suspicion that the other kids in class didn't like him or trust him. He would scribble something and try to relate his compliment to the story they had shared in front of class. He'd write, "That sounded fun. You're[sic] story was good. You are a good student of the week. I hope you have a good week last week." Like the unintelligible little liar the public school system had brought him up to be and hope whoever was on the receiving end of the compliment didn't notice his insincerity too much. That they didn't realize that the story sounded boring, that it was awful, that he or she was in fact a HORRIBLE student of the week, and that he could give a crap what kind of week they had. He'd squirm as they would receive a bound book of compliments that following Monday of class and it was time to choose a new student of the week.

How Mrs. Alexander appointed a student of the week always seemed to mystify me. It was seemingly random but such an important decision could not have been handled with such indifference. She would have been toying with fate to choose a name out of the hat. No, there was a method of her madness that always evaded me. Until, of course, I was chosen. At that point I understood that with two months left of school, she had ran out of truly special students and was scraping at the bottom of the barrel before she could end the charade and rack her brain for other ways to fill an elementary school week that could keep the students busy while she sat in a corner wondering why she had a doctorate in Mathematics. I remember finally being chosen after my equally uninteresting friends and even after Anthony, one of the bigger class misfits. My only saving grace was that I was not chosen after Heather, easily the biggest reject in the fifth grade. No, two months away from the cut off point was good enough for me.

Unfortunately, the stuffed animal adventure was not in the cards for me and I had to hope my own natural charisma would shine through in my less than exciting retelling of my week spent with Bernie. To this day, I forget exactly what happened with me and that damned sack of disease ridden cotton but I do know that whatever it was that happen, I didn't sell it to the best of my abilities. I was dead on my feet, floundering as a sea of fifth graders stared at me bored, heads tipping back and I tried to pass the time allotted for student of the week.

And I did.

The real tragedy of my tenure as student of the week was still to come though. I knew that I should expect my book of compliments to be filled with thoughtless gestures, obligatory kudos that came with being the student of the week but I didn't earn through being a legitimately interesting person. But that's not really what happened. Yes there were a few dollar store sentiments (the same I scribbled out on a weekly basis) in the stack of recycled line paper, but to my surprise a number of students commented about what a great artist I was. How fantastic I could draw. How they wished they had my talent.

But I didn't buy it.

I probably never will.

Let's Talk About... Star Trek

2009-05-08T02:36:00.001-07:00

So I saw Star Trek today and usually I'm not one to go all, "Let me share my feelings about this movie I like so much." But what can I say? I'm compelled. And, a little tired and lacking the proper restraint to just turn off my computer and go to sleep.

The movie starts off to a pretty great start. There is an Enterprise looking ship named the Kelvin investigating a weird lightning storm disturbance that they can't explain and onboard is none other than George Kirk. Who? Well that's Captain Kirk's dad who seems to be every bit bad ass as Kirk without any of the charisma but who the hell is Captain Kirk without charisma? (coughRikercough) Nobody that's who. Despite my having no real feelings for this dude who takes helm of this vessel after the first captain is all "Oh no, this Romulan dude with a face tattoo just stabbed the shit out of me," the scene that follows of his pregnant wife evacuating the ship whilst giving birth to her son and talking to George as he stays aboard to fight as his ship gets epically owned by those aforementioned tattooed Romulans is pretty damn moving. It could have been the over the top score or the flashy colors that were quite frankly, blowing my mind, but I thought it worked tremendously well and I got a little choked up as little James Tiberius Kirk was being named and his father knew he was right about to die.

From there, we get some shots of little Kirk stealing his step dad's car and rocking out to Beastie Boys and a scene where little Spock beats up a bunch of dickish little Vulcans for talking about his mom. You'd think its the 90s but it's not. Then of course, they age to right where they should be so the movie can get on with it. I'll be a little more ambiguous about the plot from here because that's entering some mighty dangerous spoiler territory and in the interest of those of you who want to watch this movie based on what I have to say about it (ha!)

What I will say though, is that walking into this movie, I had a pretty fair amount of faith in Zachary Quinto as Spock but I knew my enjoying this movie would be totally dependent on what I thought of Chris Pine as Captain Kirk. If he sucked this movie would suck and if he rocked this movie will rock and I am pretty happy to say his performance much more closely resembles the latter option. Yeah, I'm sold. Chris Pine fucking ruled in this movie. Without doing a lame Shatner impersonation, Pine walks a very fine line between confidant and asshole and manages to be likable whilst getting his ass handed to him in nearly every fight of the movie and being a dick poor little Spock. It was the small things like the way he tilted his head and gave really breif pauses and subtle but odd emphasis to certain words that made him acceptable as Captain Kirk as the real thing is off doing the Raw Nerve and is not... you know... a spry twenty year old that is going to jump around shit like he's Batman the way Chris Pine does.

Which brings me to another thing I liked about this movie. Star Trek has been done a thousand times by now but I must confess, only The Original Series and Next Generation did I feel were worth my time. I felt like beyond that, they just tried too hard to be fresh and new and when I saw ads that said this isn't your grandpas star trek and star trek isn't JUST for nerds any more I got a bit uneasy in the stomach. Roger Ebert's big criticism of the movie seemed to stem from the fact that where the Original Series offered a lot of interesting moral dillemas, social commentary, and philisophical view points expressed in the form of oddly painted humanoid aliens, the new movie has shit blowing up. And that's a valid point but I don't think this movie was without its "ideas." Like the first Planet of the Apes, this Star Trek film seems to have a pretty strong question about free will and becoming who you are supposed to be. Sure, that's been done to death, but how many times has it been done with lasers and people with pointy ears? Don't answer that. Ebert seems to have been liking a lot of movies where the characters spell out the points of the movies in these big budget movies that are supposed to appeal to geeks. He loved The Dark Knight where they speak like characters in a Greek tragedy and pretty bluntly express their motivation which I can overlook because I get they aren't doing it for me. He similarly loved Watchmen for spelling out in plain speech all of its big ideas that were in the comic book but I'm not sure always needed to be said in a live action movie. Then again, a lot of the Watchmen stuff went right over a lot of people's heads anyways so maybe it wasn't so plain... Nevertheless, Star Trek brings more ambiguity to these ideas and I applaud them for giving the audience a tad bit more respect than to talk down to them like seven year olds the way I felt when Joker would break into a "we are so totally alike, Batman" monologue.

The point is, this movie adds a lot of the action and the shit exploding that the other series never really were able to have because of technology or budget issues or lack of vision or whatever. They just never had it and because the movies were a little drier than say, Star Wars, I think a lot of people rightfully couldn't get into it.

There are a lot of mythos to Star Trek that I think makes people more hesitant to watch movies called Star Trek but J.J. Abrahams and crew seem to wrap everything up in a shiny package and still maintain a lot of the elements that those damn Trekkies will love. I'm not the biggest fan relative to those crazed lunatics that get parodied all the time, but in the short time I've been into Star Trek, I've gotten pretty damn well acquainted with it and this movie does not let that part of me down.

So anyhow, Instead of trying to write a coherent review (not my strong point) Instead, I'll make a list of things that were awesome about it.

- Simon Pegg as Scotty. I was going into this with the totally biased standpoint that this would be the highlight of the movie to me because I love Scotty and I love Simon Pegg so... its just put two and two together, isn't it? He was just the same drunken, crazed, lunatic genius bastard that I expected to and wanted to see.
- Kirk destroying that Kobayashi Maru test, I didn't see that coming and it had the audience laughing like crazy.
- Spock Prime's first spoken line in the movie. Holy crap, I got a little teary eyed... but that might have been just because I had other things going on in my head.
- Checkov tweaking out and a bunch of people saying his name so it sounded like "jackoff"
- Sulu being a bad ass. Very rarely does fencing come in handy. I think when you have a super bad ass folding sword, and you are fighting on a platform that is shooting a giant lazer underneath you it just adds a little more drama to the occasion.
- Captain Kirk getting a proper heroes quest. Because every iconic character needs his very own hero quest Joseph Campbell style.
- That big freaking Romulan ship. Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't the Romulan's with their cloaking devices used to be a little more subtle than creating massive black holes that their massive jacked up space ship that was constantly turtle-poking around in. Nice touch, doing a direct 180.
- McCoy. That is all.
- Not a Klingon in sight. Don't get me wrong, I love Klingons. They are such violent assholes, how can you not love them? It's just... they are so the stereotypical Star Trek bad guy. Romulan's are a little more off the map and won't turn off the people who probably associate Klingons too much with the overly geeky Trek image.
- Spock beating the living crap out of Kirk. He was just mad because he got so dissed by Kirk. There is a reoccurring trend where if you talk about Spock's mom, he has to go street justice on your ass from now on.
- Winona Ryder not getting beamed properly. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! What the hell you creepy little Russian!? I thought "You can do dis!"
- That obligatory Red Shirt Casualty. He was sooo dispensable.
- San Francisco getting jacked up. They just can't stay away from Cali, these space dudes.
- The smug satisfaction that this movie looks technically more impressive than ANY Star Wars movie by far and Star Wars has very little breathing room to make a legitimate rebuttal. OWNED.

So anyways, yeah. That's what I thought of the new Trek movie after like a little thinking and no sleep. Totally deserved its positive Tomatometer rating. I'll leave you with this.

Marvel Boy and Oubliette

2009-05-06T03:35:00.000-07:00

Brave and the Bold

2009-04-10T14:57:00.000-07:00

Weekly drawing thing I am doing that got a little carried away this week. Generally I do sketches but for some reason I finished this one out.

Robin the Boy Wonder

2009-03-30T22:41:00.000-07:00

Another month another comicbloc contest for me to waste inordinate ammounts of time on. I managed to sneak a win last month with my star sapphire picture that I despised but I didn't pick that months' challenge, so I had little say in the matter. I did win this months so of course with Battle of the Cowl coming out and all the former boy wonders going all crazy and shit. I have been using nonphoto blue pencils so you'd think this work is cleaner right? Wrong. The awesome nonphoto blue prisma I was using is out of stock where i bought them before which meant i am using these shitty ones that don't erase. Ah well.

Now just add water and throw them all together...

It's a Miserable World.

2009-03-11T18:57:00.000-07:00

Walked through Delta college and noticed a lot of people sitting idly by. From my experiences there are a lot of lazy students at this school that would rather socialize than go to classes, makes for a horrible environment. I saw a group of black students shouting at each other. Saw a group of white students shouting at a mentally handicapped man. Saw a different mentally handicapped man shouting at no one at all. Pretty horrible environment for learning. Still probably not why about half of the students drop out.

At Delta, there is a child care service where people can leave children during the day while they go do any number of things. I do not judge, some people just need children taken care of to work, so be it if they work the system to facilitate this. Good for them. Saw a mother picking up her daughter and the teacher told her mother that she will miss the daughter when she graduates to kindygarten [sic]. It's not the first time I've heard kindergarten called this and recalled my experiences of learning absolutely nothing in kindergarten because while I am not a Spanish speaker, because of my ethnicity I was placed in a Spanish speaking class. It was probably there I developed antisocial behavior. The word "kindygarten" annoys me. It's too cutesy for my taste and I wish I didn't listen to other people's conversations.
I saw a woman pushing a stroller with a lit cigarette in her hand over the baby as it cried. I chuckled. Maybe it will get cancer before ever having an opportunity to enter kindygarten. The woman and the man with her looked deviant. The woman wore a pinstriped black business suit and the man black slacks and a red shirt with a black tie. This would have been fine had the man not had a shaved head with flame tattoos on his temple with a long black goatee that made him look something like Anton LaVay. Woman walked into Sears and the man stayed outside with the baby who no doubt appreciate not suffering any longer the side effects of second hand smoke. Good for the baby.

Let's talk about... Wondercon

2009-02-28T23:48:00.000-08:00

So how was Wondercon 09, my first ever convention of all time, ever? Well, it was pretty damn wonderful. I mean, the day started off great and everything went according to the plan, which is rare. But Adam and I planned to leave my house at 6:45 to get to my uncle's house at 7:45 to get to the con at 9:00 where we would meet up with our hosts from Tao Toys which we conveniently saw as soon as we stepped foot out of the parking lot and things seemed to be going a little TOO smoothly.

That's when it seemed like our spirits pretty much fell to shit.

Instead of having like... a table and perhaps a chair to sit on and the poster we paid 9 whole bucks to have printed out hanging up behind us, we had nothing. The booth that Tony and the gang set up was pretty well set up to suit their needs at the convention and I was pretty damn impressed by their effeciency in comparison to some other booths at the show yet for our goal of setting up our fresh off the printers run of 100 comics and maybe like a place for me to do free sketches, it was pretty dismal. Not that I blame them at all, mind you.

This isn't a bitch fest and I am extraordinarily grateful for Tony, Nick, Hollis, and ESPECIALLY Logan for helping us out as much as they could and getting us into the show for free. It's just, when you spend a coulple hours crammed in a corner with a thin table that had legs that couldn't properly fold out into a stable 90 degree angle hoping it doesn't tilt over and all your comics will be crushed by something while conventioneers pass by you knocking into your feet as you try to do free sketches for all the people that have no idea why you are sitting partially in the isle shilling comic books in the vendor's area when the artist alley is probably a more appropriate location... well let's just say you get to feeling a little glum. A lot glum at times.

Luckily, there were litterally DOZENS of awesome people who did come up to the table to purchase a copy of Psychotronik Comics Presents #1 from Adam and myself. That made me happy and reaching into the pouch of my sweater and feeling the wad of one dollar bills from sales pretty much alleviated what could have otherwise been a pretty shitty state of mind. That was the problem, you see? There were simply too many people, who cared far too much about the comic I was presenting for me to feel too horribly upset about the convention. No matter how much I would have liked to be a pissy little asshole in San Francisco today, it was pretty much impossible.

Also, while there some really awesome stuff happened. The team of Adam and Logan were all over the Moscone center shoving PCP into the hands of a few highly respected comic book artists and writers undubitably trashed the book once we weren't looking. Who are these creators? Oh, do the names Erik Larsen, Brian Azzarello, and MIKE FUCKING MIGNOLA ring a bell? They should. Because they rock. Mignola was even gracious enough to sign my copy of Gotham by Gaslight and a badass Legends of The Dark Knight issue he did. Azzarello signed the inside of my Doctor 13 trade (which ranked among the top 5 trades in my collection even before it was signed). Unfortunately, Jim Lee wasn't there Saturday so I couldn't get my hardcover of All Star Batman and Robin signed and I had totally forgot Ryan Sook was going to be there, I really wanted to get something signed from him too and my friend Mike showed me an awesome sketchbook he was selling, I would have probably splurged and bought one for myself had I known... Bastard me.

Anyways, that's the jist of it. This is so late because I'm a lazy bastard.

Here's a sketch that didn't get given away at the con.

Frank and Elenore

2009-02-10T00:30:00.000-08:00

So as some of you know, and given that probably no one but like a few people who work on the comic with me, I do a comic book called "Frank and Elenore In..." for Pyschotronik Comics with one of my best friends and the super talented Adam Messinger. It's pretty awesome if I do say so myself and its a lot of fun...

Anyways, the point of this blog is that, that comic is part of an anthology ingeniously called Psychotronik Comics Presents and in that we have rotating covers where every issue one of the artists does the cover for his story. Well number two is mine so I thought I'd share that cover.

After being far too classy and original the first time around, Brandon, the editor in chief type indivdual asked me to do another one. Of course I bitched about it and tried to avoid more work but he insisted I didn't capture the tone of my own comic and asked me to reconsider.

I did.

So this is the result of my humongous cave in. An overworked mess.

Which became a colored overworked mess.

Brandon is gonna dress it for me but is holding out for new art from the other contributors. I await seeing that because it will mean we are inches closer to publishing number two of this thing. I'm hoping i can have it distressed a little so it looks like an older looking comic the way they have been doing on the varients for Death Defying Devil... other things too, I'm sure but I just can't think of any others, those just are at the top of my head. The point is make it look like an old comic.

Soo... yeah.

SUBMIT

2009-01-31T04:52:00.000-08:00

The following is my artistic statement for a sculpture class. My "art" will all fit this general theme. I am going to share it with you.

SUBMIT.

From birth, people in modern society are taught to believe that individuality is the ultimate goal of self growth. To be special. To be unique. To be loved.

Ironic that, considering the social equation that is supposed to produce a product of idiosyncratic behaviors is the same that creates the rampant conformity that spreads through civilization like the poisonous venom coursing through the veins of a snakebite victim.

But why is that so bad? If this contradiction should be resolved, why not eliminate the indiviuality that is throwing the balance of things asunder?

Submit.

Submit to the current sociopolitical landscape.

Submit to the bitter reality that there is no control, people are just groups of atomic firestorms going through the motions set into effect by the big bang.

Submit to beautifully uniformed chaos.

Submit to the vacuum of truly original human thought and submit to the concept of a universal subconscious that controls us all.

No one is special. No one is unique. No one is loved.

There is no real meaning of art. There is no real meaning of god.

There is no Jesus Christ. No Ward Cleaver. No Superman.

Submit.

Everything is going to be okay. Nothing could be any other way.

Submit.

Submit.

SUBMIT.

The Seven Soldiers of Victory

2009-01-31T04:15:00.000-08:00

This is another contest I entered just for the fun of entering contests and it's a pin up of the original seven soldiers of victory. The theme was golden age and I think the group represents everything awesome about the golden age of comics. You got the big time pulp hero in Crimson Avenger,

you got the western stories with Vigilante,

the fantasy with Shining Knight,

you've got the superheroes with a child being put into extreme danger... and tights in Star Spangled Boy and Stripsey,then of course the same thing but with bows and arrows in Green Arrow and Speedy. Because archery is badass!

Hmm, if the blue turned just a bit ago, that is totally not intentional. Sometimes I just can't control the font that appears on my screen. Hope that isn't a link to nowhere...

Anyways, so I put these all together with some magic and no computer work whatsoever and this is the end product.
Feel free to click it and see its true size. I think it will show in full size anyways, its done so in the past.

Anyways, hope all of you (YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE) like it and stuff.

Victim of Resizings...

2009-01-31T03:53:00.000-08:00

Well, I had some pretty big pipe dreams of entering this project rooftop Batman 2.0 challenge thing that's going to go down soon and I spent a lot of time working on a high resolution image of Dick Grayson as Batman with a cheesy Japanese hero/batmobile/batman beyond mash up of ideas that probably didn't work out as well as I would have hoped they did... Anyways, I uploaded the bastard on photobucked and say how silly it looked shrunk down so I went into Gimp which is what I use to color and work on it at 427 pixels wide which isn't very big... then I save OVER the psd file! Argh, huge headache and now all that high res work I did is essentially ruined with only a rougher draft left as a relic of the image that I had going. I am going to use that one to show anyone reading this blog here and now:

Course you click on it and see it at its full size.

Anyways, so here was the one I ended up emailing to the fine folks over there at project rooftop.

So there you have it. It's not very different from the first one and its not like extremely tiny but the angle is different the background is lighter and there are just some minor differences that I was getting really caught up over that became my undoing in the end when I couldn't go back to the pre-image scale version.

I probably won't even be in the little mentioned ones because the more I look at this, the more I see everything that's wrong with it.

DC Superheroes

2009-01-24T02:50:00.000-08:00

Some of my favorite dc characters done in a similar pin up style that I have a lot of fun drawing.

Let's talk about... Wonder Woman.

2008-12-29T18:55:00.000-08:00

See the thing with Wonder Woman that I respect is that She is a strong feminine character but what I can't stand is that everyone has to let me know that she's a strong feminine character. I feel like with this character I am told too often that she is beautiful and wise and noble and powerful but I rarely told this in an organic fashion. Even in the best interpretations of her (I don't read the Simone book but I should) like George Perez's acclaimed run on the book, its a lot of putting her in this grand position in the DC Universe. I think the character is done proving herself and there was a simpler time when the character was created that she was allowed to act independently of her status as a symbol and could be degraded and bound and beaten like you know... pretty much every other character does. That same equality isn't there and by making her a feminist symbol that is always this stoic figure, it feels like a contradiction to me.

MR. A.

2008-12-29T18:48:00.000-08:00

Man is a rope stretched between the animal and the Super Wal-Mart

2008-12-20T00:14:00.000-08:00

A rope over the abyss.

A few years back, my sister had a friend that was a foreign exchange student from Germany and at the end of the year, before her departure back to Europe she took pictures of various of the somewhat mundane features of Manteca California. I guess if you are from a place where you just don’t see large groups of cows and fields overgrown with weeds it is a sight to behold but what was more interesting was that she made a note to take a picture of Wal-Mart of all places before leaving this humble country. Wal-Mart, I thought, what a strange think to want to remember. Yes, they guarantee Always Low Prices, Always but beyond that I didn’t really think it different from the other mass market retail outlets like Target or K-Mart but I was wrong. Wal-Mart is far more
culturally significant, but would I qualify a trip there an event? No. That’s why I went to Super-Walmart.

Underneath one roof is nearly anything you could imagine from snow tires to Christmas decorations. From garden rakes to an economy sized case of Oreos. From a 5-dollar DVD featuring 5 classic episodes of Little House on the Prairie to a brand new pair of shoes. The sheer volume of product crammed into a single building was a little overwhelming yet everyone else seemed to mindlessly gravitate from lighting fixture to fresh produce to hunting equipment aisles as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Because wandering aimlessly is not nearly as eventful as following blindly, I shadowed a gentleman in a leather jacket, pressed slacks, silk shirt, and a cowboy hat with the word “Rodeo” stitched into the brim proudly. Initially, he seemed to have no more of a purpose being in the store than I did and I was regretting my decision to follow him but as he cruised casually down the halls, running his fingers over socks and searching through a massive bin of DVDs he started to show his motive. First, he found a pair of women’s snow boots that he was particularly fond of so he found a salesman and seemingly tried to talk the price down. When the hapless employee showed no signs of willingness to haggle, the man left placing the boots back as if he didn’t really want them but as he walked away threw them longing glances. He then walked through the woman’s clothing section lifting the sleeves of shirts carefully looking at each intricate design before moving on to the next rack. Nothing seemed to satisfy him though. I followed him almost out the door, caught up in his dismay when suddenly his head whipped around; something had surely piqued his interest. A bouquet of roses! On sale even. The man I had been following was a romantic. He was suddenly vitalized with a burst of optimism. He looked as if nothing could stop him now and triumphantly walked towards the checkout aisle when he realized something, a light bulb went off in his head. He sprung towards the medical and sanitation products section of the store and quickly returned this time with a box of provalactics. Stories are told in how people shop, its live theater with every customer.

More maddening than the barrage of merchandise though was the blatant talking down to the consumer. It would appear that taste has no place in American culture, not when you are being drilled constantly on what to buy. Walking through the store I couldn’t help but get caught up in different sensations just because I saw entire rows of shelves dedicated to that product. For instance, I had never once expressed a desire to see what this Hannah Montana “thing” is but after spending an hour walking through Super Wal-Mart I was convinced she was bigger than the Beatles. Who else but the Beatles could have their faces on the cover of not one but two specialty themed board games, dolls, pillows, video games, coloring books, cereal boxes, and really anything big enough to have her face printed one… and don’t get me started on DVD’s and CD’s. Within Wal-Mart there is an insurmountable blitzkrieg of forced celebrity that is constantly pushed on unsuspecting youth. Unlike stores where the shopper is respected, Wal-Mart has harsh lighting, a harsh McDonalds at the front of the store next to a bakery, and blaring speakers every other aisle almost to the point where there is an effort made to deliver a full on assault to the senses. What’s worse is the whole thing is masked in a shroud of convenience because everything is in one store and supposedly much cheaper, but at what cost?

Super Wal-Mart is a Mecca of conglomerations where major corporations converge to push a true free market out of the equation and bring people to their knees by offering cheaper and often inferior products. It’s a place that condescends its own clientele constantly with no remorse and will gleefully exploit buyer habits and turn people into drones with wallets that buy things they probably don’t need for a quick bargain but its also a true sign of what American civilization is about. You can be idealistically loyal to a brand easily when there are only a few to choose from. You can buy into a product thinking you need it because it’s popular without knowing why. You can bow to the alter of Super Wal-Mart with all its wares and all it wants you to surrender is your wallet.

Note: this blog was turned in for a grade to my Civilization class and I got full points. Score.

Let's talk about... The Big City

2008-12-08T17:24:00.000-08:00

I guess you never really understand how much of a small town you are from until you venture recklessly into a major metropolis. Compared to the central valley, San Francisco is as major metropolis as it gets, its Chicago or Tokyo or New York. Cluttered with vehicles and buildings and people, it’s a culture shock the likes of which you just don’t encounter in the tri country area. Wanting to visit an exciting new place to break the mundane routine of small town life, some friends and I took a trip to the city and decided we wanted to get a taste of what its like over there. So of course, the least San Franciscan place to visit is absolutely first on the agenda.

Pier 39 is perhaps the most nauseous place on earth and for 7 dollar an hour parking I am surprised we were able to spend two hours there. Basically once you step foot on the pier, unless you want to pay something like fifteen dollars to visit the aquarium, a glorified silent zoo underwater, there is nothing you can see on the dock that you couldn’t see in any middle America mall. The shops and food outlets are essentially the same with the bitter taste of sea water mist constantly flushing into your lungs and there is a hopelessness and despair amongst the people working in these places that is hidden a quarter of an inch beneath their phony smiles as they great each and every person that steps into their shops and looks at their overpriced wares. Then there are the tourists. Unlike every mall in middle America, there are hundreds of people from around the world packed into the pier all trying to take pictures next to restroom stalls and garbage bins to show their family back home. And for some of them, I understand. If I was from Japan and saw a certified American payphone, I’d be giddy with the lack of functionality too, but peppered among the legitimate foreign tourists there were Texans and Minnesotans taking photos posed in front of a Hard Rock Café or the Wacky Cap store. That was beyond my comprehension.

But this culture was not contained to this one pier. No, no, that would be far too convenient, instead it had overflowed all the way down the street to the Fisherman’s Wharf and down the entire street across. Everywhere one looked there was a souvenir stall that sported striped shirts poking fun at the island prison of Alcatraz and all the violent criminals that once had to be contained by an ocean to be kept away from society. There were veterans turned vagrants, charity donation collectors, and colorful street performers every five feet you walked along the main street all asking for the spare change you gave to the person before him that were full of contention once you informed them of this. Upon sitting on a bench watching the notorious Silver-man, we were asked up front if we smoked pot and if so whether we would be interesting in purchasing some. This surprised me as it was about eleven in the morning and they all seemed pretty open to committing a crime with police not far away, even going so far as to hold it out to show us how much they had and how good of a quality it was after we told them we were not interested. I’m sure this area of the city was not always this way but over the years of people visiting it has become a seedy, plastic version of what it once was. Even the seals looked complacent, boxed in from the ocean and laying on man-made wooden platforms floating lazily on the ocean.

Let's talk about... the Flea Market

2008-12-06T05:49:00.000-08:00

There are very few places in American society quite like the flea market. It’s a place that seems to run rampant with illegal activity, yet it is publicly condoned and upon entering the city of Galt, I couldn’t help but feel like the sign right off the free way directing drivers to the flea market was an indication of just how much the people of that town valued the marketplace. They seemed to pride themselves on their flea market the way the people of Gaza must pride their strip or Giza pride their pyramids. It’s not simply a place to shop, it is a hotbed of activity and the place to find everything you want and need in life. I certainly hoped upon arrival it would live up to that promise.

What I find most intriguing about the flea market is that it’s not a particularly pleasant place to go. It’s hot, sweaty, smelly, there are potholes everywhere and extremely crowded in the aisles yet as I found out, people flock there in drives. Why? Well that became utterly apparent as I walked inside, everything is cheaper than you would find it at a normal store. This is not to say that its dirt cheap as one would expect shopping at a flea market, I encountered a gentleman selling a large ceramic brontosaurus sculpture complete with saddle for nearly two thousand dollars, that couldn’t possibly be the going rate on ceramic dinosaurs with riding accessories. But what must motivate people to go (other than perhaps the incredible bargain on tube socks and pineapples) were that they would be in like-minded Company. It is a melting pot, the flea market, in that different races all converge at this parking lot all with the same primary objective; if you are a buyer you want to leave with the most stuff and spend the least amount of money and if you are a seller you want to leave with the least amount of stuff and the most amount of money. They share the same ideals the way all church goers share the same commandments, flea market dwellers share the same basic philosophy whether they are black, Hispanic, white, Asian, or Middle Eastern.

During my time spent at the flea market, I was compelled to buy a lot of things, a hat embolden with an NFL team logo, a luchador wrestling mask, perhaps a decorative sword prop from the film 300, a slew of DVD’s no one is really interested in watching, and of course a pineapple. I bought none of these things, but I felt like if I would this would have been the best place to buy these things. Unlike anywhere else you might find these items, bartering is still widely accepted but I got the uneasy feeling like if anyone was upfront in lowering a price there would be conflict. A friend of mine who was with me hinted that he only had a certain amount of money and the vendor was more than willing to cut the price down as long as he took everything my friend had in the process. It’s a game of give and take, of playing off of your opponent with the same acute attention to strategy as involved in a game of chess. It’s a delicate balance as a low offer could break the deal and offend the seller and a too steep of price could turn off the buyer and lose a sale. Which is why most people walking around at flea market have an uneasy tension to them. Not an uncomfortable tension, but the tension that comes when you are a snake ready to strike at any moment walking past t shirt stalls and cell phone accessory booths alike. Everyone wants to be sly and everyone has their eyes on the person to their left.

Yet surprisingly, there are not nearly as many violent confrontations at the flea market? How could this be? In a sweltering pit of asphault filled with desperation and corruption, how is it that childred are allowed to roam freely without being snatched up and ending on ebay the next day or how do women manage to peruse the nearly endless stalls of thongs and and hoop earings without being the victims of a malicious raping? I would think it's because every one seems to enter the flea market with a common understanding that the person they decide to antagonize, no matter how defenseless that person might seem, is potentially backed up by a large unseen army of thugs and brutes that may not be so defenseless. This is why I believe that flea market's have the potential to be models for a perfect utopia, because if you look at any respectable t-shirt stand, there will always be a shirt that has a bleeding Jesus dying for the salvation of humanity right next to a shirt glorifying the Mexican Mafia.

Let's talk about... God.

2008-11-01T04:02:00.000-07:00

Most of the current sects of monotheistic religions, hell any kind of religions, drive me nuts because they are based on the idea that the best way to be holy and closer to god is to be pious and humble in the face of a higher power. But the people that believe that tend to overlook the fact that usually the most pious among them are chosen as their leader. Doesn't that seem like bullshit? If a person is humble enough to be a leader than why does he want to lead the faithful to begin with? It's like Willy Wonka saying the kid who liked chocolate the least would be given the golden tickets and inherit his chocolate factory. It's a direct contradiction that I only noticed when a pair of Muslim ministers spelled it out directly to me.

More troubling to me though, is they feel it necessary to bow down to a higher power now that human's have achieved so much in spite of the ideas that are preached in ancient texts? It was fine when these books and philosophies were written to succomb to the powers of nature but we as a species have overcome the will of nature, we've bent it over our knee and manipulated it to the point that we can build anything, anywhere and do things with technology that would make ordinary citizens look like gods in the days Jesus walked the earth. Walking on water doesn't seem so fucking grandiose when there are men that walked on the moon.But there are billions of people that read bibles and think that the shit in those books still apply and that seems to me like reading textbooks from the 1920s.

I just think the concept of submitting to a higher power is absolutely absurd when you take a step back and see what we are becoming and we have become as a people. There are people that want holy wars and the world to end in the name of religion and it seems to me like that should be the opposite of the direction you want. I hate the fatilistic attitude that the faithful endorse, that there is an end times and that when that day comes we'll be hopeless when god decides to take everything away. It's sort of like this whole time we have been building an awesome city in legos and god is the jerk that has told us eventually he's going to walk around stomping it all down because he feels like it. That we have to be scared of the fact that any minute now he is going to crush our lego sky scrapers but he won't say when, that we live in fear. Damn, now that I think about it, it sounds a lot like god is a terrorist.

But no, these books were product of "divine inspiration". I don't agree with that, they were books like any other books, they've just been around a little longer. But to indulge a few branches of Christianity for a minute, let's say that god is everywhere, in everything, and in everyone's hearts if they let him then EVERYTHING is inspired by god.

Just for argument's sake.

Jesus please be in my heart. There yet? Good.

Okay, I'm getting something... straight from Jesus... I think this is going to be divinely inspired so you better get ready for this...

The peel of an apple is probably better to feed octopusses than styrofoam sculptures of Samantha from Who's the Boss.

Wow, Jesus. That sure felt inspired. And you were in my heart the whole time you say? An omnipotent god has proved to be the most dangerous one because it has allowed man to force the philosophies of a man who claims to be inspired by god on the weaker (though not less pious) without much afterthought by the listeners at all. The fact that the Holy Bible has a horde of texts excluded from the bible that were selected by a group of MEN inspired by god and that the included texts have been many times over translated by another group of MEN means that even assuming the book was told from god to his prophets, that message has been so mangled by men that may not have been.

It seems like most religious people don't have problems using computers, driving cars, eating food and living in houses which are all things that are products of man made technological advancements. It's hypocritical to say that these inventions and this technology is okay because god would approve yet for some reason, new ideas like stem cell research offend them because it is "playing god". Or at least treading a dangerous road that leads to playing god. Well good. Great, even. God has had enough alone time in the sand box.

Nietzche said that god is dead and that we killed him. He was right. I think men created god to serve a purpose but we have grown beyond that and god is outdated technology that just hasn't gotten a new model yet. It's like people are still using 8 tracks instead of Mp3 players. There was a point in the course of human evolution that we should have decided to take our faith and put it in one another and worship mankind instead of a hollow abstract concept that used to be a placeholder for the answers to our questions because we have found the answers. The concept of religion used to inspire hope but now it feels like the purpose of many world religions is to instill fear. To constrain people. To make people hate things that are new and different because the that hope has become more of a security blanket that people are afraid to let go of. But people being afraid to rock the boat does not lead to innovation and that's the most frustrating thing about religion. I understand when people don't agree with abortion and homosexuality (which seem to currently be the two popular big no-nos) but I cannot understand the sentiment that its entirely wrong because the bible says so. The bible says a lot of things. The bible says that if you have had a vasectomy you don't get into heaven and if you betray your father he is allowed to kick you out of town and/or stone you to death. It's unheard of to try to use another perspective because the one that you are told is so handy that anything else is wrong.

One thing I want to make clear though is that I do not hate religion. Pretty much all religions have pretty swell ideas of how to live your life. There are good basic morals like don't kill people and don't steal shit that doesn't belong to you. These are the sorts of things I can get behind because I know people who are good Christians and good Mormons and good Catholics and good Jews and good Jehovah's witnesses; by and large they are not religious fanatics, they are the nicest people you can meet. It's refreshing because while I disagree with a lot of these people's basic philosophies, they are not usually as cynical as the proud atheists among us.

So I dunno, maybe there is something to this "god" thing?

Then again, maybe it's just the people.

Who cares?

Let's talk about... Me.

2008-10-29T02:05:00.000-07:00

So in signing up for this blog, I went through the aggravating process of choosing a username to go before .blogspot.com. As you can see by reading this here blog, I ended up with brigante133.blogspot.com because my email address brigante133@gmail.com uses brigante133 and so I figured it would be good symmetry. It's genius, I know.

But anyways.

What I found while randomly typing in different variations of my actual name, which would have been awesome to have instead of my email address and various chat client usernames, was that a few people have already taken up the easier to look up ramonvillalobos.blogspot.com and ramonvillalobos.com. The latter I can live with, I never planned on buying or renting that url address however that may work, but Ramon Villalobos of ramonvillalobos.blogspot.com, you sir are a vile and inglorious human being. You have not only beaten me to the punch and staked your inconsequential stake no less than two years before I ever thought of starting up a blog. This is an irredeemable act and if you should happen to wander across this blog, I hope you know that I will hate you from now until the end of time.

This is not to say that I am not used to sharing my name. I have lived my entire life knowing that there were at least two other Ramon Villaloboses around as I am the third in a patriarchal chain to bear the name. But those bastards never ate up the pristine ramonvillalobos username on blogspot. They are men that I know and have known my entire life, I do not know you and I never want to. From what I understand your blog is about a leadership class that you took in April of 2006. And that's it. There is no wit, no humanity, no ideas worth sharing to any other human being that would require you to start a blog at all. I am not offended that you have taken my name, I am offended that you have wasted it.

What would happen if someone other than me stumbled upon your blog and assumed it was me? They would think that I watched Norma Ray and thought it was inspirational and I do not think that at all. Not one bit. I don't even know who Norma Ray is! According to Wikipedia she is some washed up french singer that is married to a soccer player... Sigh... What to do with you, Ramon... You are a lost cause. I sincerely hope that whatever you have done with your leadership tutelage since the year of 2006, it has led you to great things. Maybe one day you will blog about them. Maybe someone will read that blog. Probably not. It's probably lame.

Now onto that aforementioned Ramon Villalobos of RamonVillalobos.com. I'm not going to lie, once I got over the shock of seeing a ramonvillalobos.com, I was pleased to see that you or your web designer has a bit of taste. It's a pretty classy little set up you have going on.See what I mean? Look at that picture of you, it couldn't be more pleasant and inviting. Look at the way the R and V are capitalized and bigger to leave the viewer with the sense that you are someone of importance. But Ramon... can I call you 'Mon? No? Okay. So Ramon, you have a much cooler set up than the lame blogspot Ramon Villalobos, so much so that I wouldn't even hazard to guess that you are one and the same. It just couldn't happen. You have too much class. But looking at your site... I get the feeling you could be doing more with it. I mean you are trying to sell a story that I don't even have any vague interest in and of all people, Ramon Villalobos should be interested by the life and times of Ramon Villalobos. And Ramon's not interested, Ramon. Not at all. Yes, you are a salt of the earth guy who would give me the shirt off your back if I for some reason needed or wanted such a shirt, but that's not good enough to keep my interest. I just really feel like you took an awesome name for a website and you have squandered its potential with zero regard for the rest of us Ramon Villaloboses. Mainly this one.

But anyways, sorry for the tangent anyone still reading. I appreciate you doing this because what is a blog without readers? Oh right... that. But back to the topic at hand, welcome to my blog. I hope you don't think that I am any reflection of the other various incarnations of Ramon Villalobos.