Forbidden Falls Kourier

Kreation Stories

2012-02-04T07:16:00.008-05:00

WannaBeatles

Creations are like rivers. A lot of different tributaries combine to form it. Lots of contributaries.

I like improv shows, like Whose Line Is It Anyway? And jam comics are a form of improv where each artist has to make the story up on the fly. Mulling over the possible variations in this theme, I thought a fun idea would be to do a jam comic under one of Whose Line's games of Song Titles. All text and dialogue has to be actual song titles. Of course, given that going from artist to artist over the course of time you could dip into the vast array of songs that exist right now, researching quickly online, to get just about anything you wanted to have happen in your panel. Where's the challenge in that? So maybe limiting it to one artist or group. A well known classic with a decent discography. Maybe the Rolling Stones or the Beatles.

Although we've never met, I've known Luisa Felix since she contributed to my funny animal tarot project, KARDZ. I like her retro animation style character designs. They are very well crafted and unique. I've thought a long time about trying my hand at actually drawing some of them.

At some point I thought of both of these ideas in close enough proximity that I combined them. Not really a jam comic, but still using only song titles in a story using Luisa's characters. I have more Beatle records than Stones, so I looked through them to see if I could construct a story, and the ideas came through quite easily. I asked Luisa for permission and she was excited by the idea.

I took my rough script and started tweaking it as I worked on a pacing layout. How many pages would I need, shape size and placement of panels on the page to fit the storyline, etc. I asked Luisa which of her characters she wanted me to use. Continuity isn't a problem for her as she views her characters as actors, so they can be put into any scenario. It's usually just a question of finding the right character for the role.

First and obvious choice for one was Candy Blondell. Luisa's primary character. But I also needed a male. First suggestion was Nicholas Neurotic. You can see him in the first pencils. With the characters chosen, I could start doing more detailed pencils. In figuring out how I wanted the people placed, I realized I didn't have enough references to full body shots or non-frontal views and I asked Luisa for some material to draw from.

She sent character studies of Candy and a different male lead, Tom London. So I changed all Nick's sketches to Tom. Then I carefully went in to try and tighten up the art and get it as "on model" as possible. Then went in and inked them.

I had concentrated on the characters only, not the setting at all, because I figured that's how I usually drew. I was thinking vaguely of having them be in a city setting, but gave it no further thought. Until I had to draw backgrounds. It took me forever. Well, about a year.

I actually don't just draw the backgrounds in afterward. I tend to think of the characters in setting as I am composing the page and while my first thumbnails usually only have stick figures and no background, the set is in my head. When I start to do the actual drawing in the panel, I do concentrate on the character(s) but always know where they are and always have at least a sketch of their background in place. I rarely ink the people before I have most, if not all, the rest of the panel drawn so that I can make changes in the figures if needed.

I didn't do that this time, so I had a big blank spot in my head as to where they were.

I had to study what I had drawn, try to figure out what angles would show what and it which panels. I decided they were on a sidewalk, so from one angle they would see the buildings close up, from another, far away. The far away ones were easiest and most of them got done relatively early on. Relative being a key term. I went with a cartoony representation of buildings I had used before. I had a couple of full body shots at that angle that meant I had to draw the street as well. Those were the last done.

The closer buildings I just had to get past a drawing block and get it done. Looking back, there are things I would have done different at each step, though the further I go back, the more I would have had different, starting with doing the art more as a whole, tweaking the character designs as the last step of the process.

Still, for what it is, I like it.

If you don't have a copy of the mini-comic and want one, let me know your address.

For a larger view of any picture, click on Candy's lips.

Happy Kemmer Tiara Day

2012-01-13T02:44:00.005-05:00

Kemmer Tiara Day at the Maine State Museum

Kreation Stories

2012-01-08T15:12:00.007-05:00

A recent post on his blog from Dale Martin about enjoying reading fellow creators' creative process along with something similar in some emails we've exchanged has prompted me to write a little bit about mine.

You can break down what I do into two parts. The art and the writing. Sometimes one begets the other and sometimes they have nothing to do with each other.

I was making some envelopes with Tarzan wrestling a tiger in anticipation of the upcoming Edgar Rice Burroughs postage stamp release. This led to my thinking about if I were wrestling with a big cat, it would be for play. I then wrote some thoughts about it.

Carrie and I are constantly doing various wordplay with each other: punning, rhyming, alliteration, etc. Doing something like this in the middle of the night does happen. I wrote about it. The art had to go along with the text to really work. I was reading a collection of Secret Agent X-9 comic strips and admiring Al Williamson's skill in doing more than just talking heads (panel 3) in the small panels allowed in newspapers. He often will focus on active hands (I did feet) and he can have more than one plane in the panel (Qwill in foreground, bedroom in back.)

Most of the time what I want to write and what I want to draw have nothing to do with each other. In my first kard of last year I felt like drawing a cavern, but had other things to say. Still, I try to do some tie in anyway, even if it's only symbolic. In this case I had me carrying a lantern as if in search of something. the text ended with "if I can find the time..."

If you have some of my other postkards handy, take a look at them and try to guess which category they fall under.

click between the panel borders to enlarge a kard

Trucked Again

2012-01-02T16:10:00.011-05:00

In the early 90's Keith needed to replace the Toyota Tercel he'd driven from Massachusetts to Arizona. Knowing how useful it would be to have a truck, I urged him to get one. He wasn't keen on the idea. "Why don't you get a truck?" he responded. I couldn't think of a good reason not to, so I did. I found a 1987 Nissan pick up, beige, with a campershell. It had super low mileage because its first owners used it only for weekend camping. Anticipating adventure, I named it Yachimata Hiko for the Japanese god of innumerable roads.

Yachi doing what Yachi did best: roadtrip!!!

Yachi earned its name. I drove it for daily commutes to work; memorable roadtrips: San Francisco, Sedona, Monument Valley, Canyon de Chelly, Montezuma's Castle, the Painted Desert, the Petrified Forest, the Grand Canyon, Albuquerque, and the more obscure corners of Arizona like the Bouse Intaglio and the Congress Frog; and to get to a new home in Maine. Much less pleasantly I also experienced a freeway-speed blow-out, sliding into a guardrail on the ice, mechanics who didn't know their asses from their elbows, and the trip to Maine was made with a dog and four truculent cats!
Almost 20 years and over 300,000 miles passed, taking their toll. A recurring oil problem became multiple leaks requiring either an engine replacement or a whole truck replacement. Sadly, I faced facts and began looking around both locally and on Craigslist. Yachi must have wanted to make the split easier for me: leaving a friends' house one night the battery light went on and we lost our brakes! We were able to pull over to the shoulder and coast to a stop without difficulty, but had to be towed home as there was no trusting Yachi's drivability after that. Rotaries and hilly roads at night?! No. Just no.
The next day Keith drove me to Portland for a second look at a truck I was considering. It's a 2001 Chevy S-10, white, with a campershell plus a remote starter and a full additional set of wheels and tires. It had high mileage, but seemed in good shape. I wanted to be sure so I made an appointment to take it to the one garage that was open on a Sunday: Sears. They looked it over and pronounced it a good deal with only rusty brake lines to whittle down the asked for price. Legal tender crossed palms, and I was again mobile!
With winter fast approaching I wanted everything to be tight and ready for bad road conditions, so I took the new truck in to my local mechanic, Leo. Keith & I like him because he's proven himself to be assute, skillful, accomodating, affordable, and personable. He was also very thorough in busting Sears inspection: the rear brakes were shot with the emergency brake fused in place. He fixed it, but that was money I could have saved by negociating down the price. DON'T TAKE YOUR VEHICLE TO SEARS!!!

Keith suggested the name Blitzen because of its rack and the fact that I bought it close to Xmas. I took it hoping that after the brake fiasco lightning wouldn't strike twice!

Yuletide Greetings

2011-12-24T17:23:00.006-05:00

One of our previous holiday kards.
For a larger view, click on any reindeer's nose.

Jalapeño Chip on the Shoulder

2011-12-03T16:28:00.005-05:00

My favorite flavor potato chip is jalapeño. The best ones I've ever had are the Poore Brothers brand out of Arizona. When we first moved to Maine, that was what I missed most. At first the only jalapeño chips I came across were hard to find and jalapeño/cheese flavored. Eventually a couple of the smaller companies had jalapeño as one of their flavors, so I could get a fix when I really needed to. But then our local supermarket started carrying the Kettle Brand jalapeño! Kettle makes a very good chip and has my second favorite flavor, Spicy Thai. So, even though some other bigger labels are now making jalapeño chips, Kettle is my local favorite.

Today at our regular supermarket Kettle Brand potato chips were all on sale at 2 for $5. All except jalapeño. That was 50% off, reduced to clear! Argh! Carrie grabbed a clerk and we voiced our displeasure and requested they keep it in stock.

"What does not destroy me, makes me stronger"

2011-11-30T11:47:00.004-05:00

We had a very strengthening holiday weekend.

Wednesday morning we were up early in anticipation of needing to clear the driveway of accumulating snow due to the storm moving in. There was about 3 or 4 inches at this point. It was wet snow, so I needed to stop the snowblower to clear the clogged discharge chute. Restarting the blower, the pull cord snapped. The snow was still wet snow, so I still had to clear the discharge, but now I had to keep the blower running while I did so. Not as dangerous as it sounds as I could disengage the blades while keeping the motor running. However I had to keep a grip on the safety lever on the handle. You let go of the snowblower and it automatically shuts off. But the lever was diagonally opposite where the chute was, so a bit of a stretch and I was doing it one handed. A longer than anticipated time to do the driveway. Snow was still coming down, so by the time I was done there was another inch already on the part I first cleared.

In case you're wondering what Carrie was doing, she had a shovel and was doing touchup and clearing spots I couldn't use the blower on.

I had to work that day, so while I drove the hour and a half crawl in to work, Carrie first tried finding somebody to repair the snowblower. The machine is too big to fit in either of our vehicles, so we needed a housecall. The earliest anybody would get to us was Friday.

Carrie got to work to find somebody to plow the driveway. We expected about 12 inches on top of which the street plowing was sure to pile it in front of the driveway and I would need to get my car off the street. She did get someone who agreed to come out in a couple of hours. That was around 10:00 in the morning. A couple of couple of hours went by and she tried getting a hold of them again. Eventually they called her and Carrie now expected them at 5:30. Still plenty of leeway as I normally get out of work at 5:00 and was going to be driving slowly home afterwards.

As I pulled up to our driveway in the dark, I saw Carrie shoveling snow. I put on my hazard lights and got out to help. We cleared enough to get my car off the road.

The plower called later on saying they would be here in 15 minutes. They finally showed up around 7:30. And did a lousy job.

During the day, between calls, Carrie noticed her truck had a flat. She got out the jack and spare tire and started to change it. But for some reason, her jack would not lift the truck high enough for the spare tire to have room to be put on. I asked if it could wait until morning for me to tackle it.

Thanksgiving morning I got out my car's jack and used it on a piece of wood to raise the truck off Carrie's jack. I intended to put hers up on some bricks to get enough height to put the spare on. But the truck decided to shift forward, bending my jack and falling off it. Adrenaline rush as it topples in front of my eyes and I know I cannot catch it in my bare hands as much as my impulse tells me to. Argh! Guilt because it's Carrie's truck!

Carrie's jack caught the truck frame in a different spot before the wheel hit the cement floor. Whew! So I had to use the 2 jacks in a series of careful lifts to get the truck high enough and another series to lower the truck back down. My jack still works, but it's a lot more difficult to raise and lower it along the new bend. I went back inside and changed out of my now filthy clothes.

Every Thanksgiving since we moved to Maine, Kemmer has come up to visit and this year was no exception. The drive up from Massachusetts was pretty easy until she got off the highway and noted how the roads could use another plowing. As she signaled her turn into our driveway she hit an especially slick spot and spun, almost into a tree. The poor plowing job left enough snow in the way to stop her car before reaching the tree. With the help of a neighbor we dug and pushed the car out of the snow bank and she got safely into our drive.

We didn't wait too long to head out for our dinner. Carrie had won a free Thanksgiving Dinner for two at the Hilton Garden Inn in Auburn. We figured to get a plush meal for three at the price of one. The main course of turkey was actually turkey loaf! Other parts of the meal seemed equally fabricated. They actually had some fresh vegetables and fruit for salad makings that was almost the only thing that wasn't extremely disappointing. It was buffet style and my first round I loaded up on meat and starch. My second round had fruit and veggies.

They had live music there. After my stint working in a mall I can usually tune background music out, but the faces Kemmer kept making about it made me alert to it as well. And it was pretty bad.

Kemmer and Carrie had a girls day out to go to a couple of farm stands' last sales and a visit to the Cora Shriner Temple's special christmas tree show. A very loud, crowded, and uninteresting bunch of trees it was.

Back at home, Carrie started a fire in our wood burning stove with a chimney we'd just recently gotten cleaned, only to have all the smoke pour into the house.

How was your weekend?

Guess Who's Coming to (Avoid Ending Up as) Dinner

2011-11-24T15:42:00.003-05:00

Happy Thanksgiving, Everyone!

Happy Anniversary

2011-11-09T05:19:00.001-05:00

Today is our 20th wedding anniversary. People who have seen us together can attest that we are very happily married. Some people marvel at how happily in love we have stayed. One of the reasons is that there so many things we both like. Following is a list, in no particular order, of a small number of them. In honor of the anniversary, that number is 20.

Sedona
Japan
Hellboy
Usagi Yojimbo
Whose Line Is It Anyway?
Monty Python
Seasons
Dia de los Muertos
Cats
Gerbils
Tonari no Totoro
Casa Blanca
Books
Ethnic Music
Road Trips
Big Yards
Trees
Gargoyles
Indian Cuisine
Artisan Bread

Happy Hallowe'en

2011-10-31T09:54:00.005-04:00

We used these two figures one year for a Hallowe'en photokard. Carrie converted them from store bought figures to be us. She added glasses and hair, even giving me a ponytail. The dog on top didn't make it onto the kard though. It was intended to be Miriam, our dog at the time.

We definitely miss the Dia de los Muertos celebrations we got to see when we lived in Arizona.

WTF?*

2011-10-30T12:29:00.013-04:00

It's not fair! We had over a month of fall creeping up on us. Does winter show the same restraint? No! In less than a week from my last post a nor'easter sends us

from this... ........................... ... to THIS!

Beauty spots still exist, but the peak has probably been cut short. Temperatures are predicted to be in the low 50's later this week so, really, this snow won't be hanging around. We'll shovel and sand the driveway and wait to see what autumn has left to show us.

In the meantime, Happy Hallowe'en, everybody!

*Wha'hap'n To Fall?

Leafing Home

2011-10-23T09:00:00.023-04:00

Throughout September and into October fall was slowly sneaking up on us. You could see an overall color shift in the foliage: dark kelly green becoming more olive-toned, as if the trees were tarnishing. This is a view of the Penobscot Narrows Bridge. There's an observatory at the top of the left tower.

Then: FWOOOM!!! Everything deciduous in our neighborhood turned color overnight! Red! Scarlet! Orange! Gold! Maroon! And the yellows especially abound, from the brassy maples to the butter-pale witch hazels. As for brown: we got 'em. And as Keith would say: who knew browns could be bright? Caramel, mahogany, and frequently multiples from above blending on the same leaf!

A lot of it faded pretty fast. Going...

...going...

...gone.

But there are still a lot of beauty spots to be found by just driving down almost any random street. These pictures were taken on the shores of Lake Auburn.

These trees are in Freeport, just a little way down from the When Pigs Fly bakeshop.

Some trees near Bates College are just getting started.

We will doubtlessly find more as we continue to explore Maine!

Samurai Slate

2011-10-01T16:38:00.004-04:00

Many many years ago I came up with an idea for a 20 to 30 minute video I wanted to do featuring a private eye character called Samurai Slate. It was going to be filled with lots of word play and visual puns somewhat akin to the movie Airplane. Logistics to make this happen were just more than I could, or was willing, to undertake, so it never happened.

But I was making mini-comics around that time, so I decided to use the main character for one. I didn't use the same storyline as I'd planned for the film, and I don't have any notes about it in my files that I can find, so it is lost forever.

I do, however, still have the original art from the mini-comic. You can read it on Facebook here.

I realized recently that he was the perfect vehicle for the kind of comix I want to write right now, so my newest postkard, mailing out this weekend, brings him back for a new adventure. If you aren't on my mailing list and want to see the new comic, let me know your address.

Sam was named partially as a nod to famous fictional private eye, Sam Spade, and partially after my former roommate, Shannon Slate. Shannon even had a trench coat. And enjoyed odd adventures as seen in the photo of him below.

How much island would I land on if I could land on Wood Island?

2011-09-25T16:49:00.012-04:00

Last weekend on September 17th we celebrated Maine Open Lighthouse day once again. This time we opted to go to one of the island lighthouses, which meant travel by boat.

Wood Island is not very far from shore, so we were quickly there. That's our boat making a quick getaway to gather up more tourists. The only problem was that the boat dropped us off at the point closest to shore rather than closest to the lighthouse.

We had a boardwalk to travel on, so it wasn't a difficult hike, just a long one. But it was pretty much the only option as the shore nearest the lighthouse was not very boat friendly...

...as you can see here.

The lighthouse was pleasant enough looking and it was a fine day to be out and about.

The stairs were quite narrow and steep. Railings had only just been put in. You can see they haven't even been unwrapped yet.

It didn't have the most spectacular fresnel lens we'd ever seen, but they are always interesting to look at. And, it was the first green lighted one we've seen.

We did get to see the lighthouse from sea as the boat did a circuit of the island on our way back in.

To enlarge any photo, find the lighthouse in it and click on its beacon.

San Andreasphault

2011-09-18T15:18:00.026-04:00

As happy homeowners (well, us and the mortgage company) we decided each year we'd do one major home-improvement project. Last year we had the wood burning stove reconnected. After a winter of our snowblower picking up rocks from our increasingly rutted gravel driveway it was pretty clear our next priority was to have it paved. We collected quotes, I got the professional opinion of a man reparing a parking lot, and Cooper Paving was hired.

Monday, September 12th at 7:00 AM an energetic team of half-a-dozen or so gentlemen arrived. They stripped down the old gravel, sand and abundant weeds then laid down a bed of pulverized stone. Then they put down the asphault, taking special care to slope it to access our garage, front porch and entry to the road.

"It followed me home. Can I keep it?"

It's kind of strange, looking so clean and new.

We like special touches so we were delighted when the installers agreed to sprinkle in some loose turquoise nuggets we had. Posh, neh?

A September to Remember

2011-09-05T06:10:00.008-04:00

Summer's not over, yet we're seeing a few leaves starting to get their autumn colors. So where did the summer go? We have been busy, but not posting a lot. Partly because we've been busy, partly because I've concentrated on mailing out my PostKards since I don't have a camera. What I've posted here are photos off Carrie's camera, Kemmer's phone, and my scanner.

We went to Old Hallowell Days out in Hallowell. We were disappointed in the "big" church sale, but had some luck in the Library book sale. And the parade had a giant puppet as seen on the right. That night we stopped by Sheila and Fred's place on the river for a close up view of the fireworks shot over the river.

As you may have guessed we added a new cat to our household, Persephone. Named for this goddess of the underworld mostly because she likes to be down (in the sunken living room, down the cellar stairs) or under (under the bed, under the couch). Not that she's shy, she just likes to attack from under cover, or have a more three dimensional playing area. She is young. Officially she was listed as a year old, but we think she was a few months short of that. She has grown since we got her and is fitting in well with our household. She and Qwill play once in a while, when Qwill is willing, but otherwise she is almost always begging us to play with her. She isn't a cat who likes to be held, but we'll see if she stays that way come winter.

Kemmer came out to visit us twice! The first visit we showed her the Sabattus Pond public beach area. Not very big, but not very crowded. She's thinking that maybe she'd like to live there when she retires. Not an ocean beach, which she prefers, but near us, which we like. Second time we went on a trail that follwed the Androscoggin river. Interesting tree trucks were seen on the shore. Almost spider like with the long roots as seen to the right here.

We survived Hurricane Irene. Power was out for almost two days, but since Carrie had the foresight to freeze numerous containers of water the only food we lost was some cornmeal that got wet from melting ice. Our yard is full of sticks and leaves and I anticipate a few more rounds of pick-up-sticks before I can safely mow.

How's your summer been?

Persephone

2011-07-09T08:50:00.002-04:00

Ancient Art 'n' Facts

2011-06-18T14:50:00.005-04:00

Many moons ago, I was helping out a guy who owned a print shop. He decided he wanted to publish comic books and I helped him actually get one out before he got distracted by another project idea. I helped him out in many of these projects, mostly with some design work, for which he printed my own projects for free. For a while he was poised to be one of the first to enter the PC computer game field. I not only designed many of the characters for the various games he wanted to do, but he let me start to develop my own idea, Koyote in the Land of the Dancing Cactus.

Above is a scene from that project, which never did get completed. But I do remember playing around with the saguaro cactus form to try and make distinctive characters. It was to be a simple quest kind of thing, with the cactus scene being the ultimate goal.

One of the characters I was asked to design was Dr. Attitoad. I have no recollection as to what he was about. I do remember going to the library to see how Beatrix Potter's Mr. Toad was constructed and sketching various possible body basics until I got one I was happy with. My sketch book also shows some sketches of real toads, mostly their heads and eyes.
After I got the body down, I played with costumes. Maybe he was supposed to be Sherlockian as that seems to be the type of clothing I was trying out on him. Below left is the final version.

On the right is my Hanged Frog tarot card. Back when I was doing KARDZ, the Funny Animal Tarot, I got involved with a number of tarot groups, which lead to a number of tarot people seeing some of my work. Cynthia Giles, who had written The Tarot: History, Mystery, and Lore (a highly recommended book) asked permission to put this image in her new book, The Tarot: Methods, Mastery, and More. I suspect that I drew the card because I didn't want to waste the earlier design, but changed it to a frog to avoid any conflict.

Family Afar

2011-06-11T18:14:00.028-04:00

Last month I got a call from my uncle Bud back in Illinois. Aunt Jean had been hospitalized for having fainting spells. Investigation revealed that her heart was only operating at 25% capacity. At the age of 92 this is ominous. I decided that if I wanted to talk to her without a Ouija board I'd better get out there soon. Since Ross hadn't been back to the aulde sod in 33 years I took him along. So it was on Saturday, June 4th, we flew from opposite sides of the country to meet at Ohare airport in Chicago. Both flights went remarkably well, with Ross getting a surprise upgrade to first class! Our timing was perfect with me landing just before a thunder storm broke and Ross landing after it left. One rental car later we were on the road south to Pontiac, IL. I was feeling good enough that the 2 hour drive passed easily. Pontiac has 4 motels so I was optomistic about room availability, never guessing there was a baseball playoff that had every room booked for Saturday night! A sympathetic clerk recommended the tiny burg of Chenoa, just 10 miles down the road. Yup, there was room at the Super 8!

Sunday morning we returned to Pontiac and went to Uncle Bud and Aunt Fern's condo. We chatted until it was time to go to lunch at the Rose Garden in Streator.

We were met there by Cousin Gayle and her husband, Tim. One minor itch was scratched when I had a pork tenderloin sandwich. I grew up eating these. In the Phoenix area I knew of only 2 places that had them. In Maine they are totally unknown, so yeah: it was a big deal! After lunch UB & AF took us on a drive to see the local beauty spots. Pontiac had been a site selected by the Wall Dogs who did a number of murals for local businesses.

Supper was pizza with Cousin Reid and his wife, Denise. We overnighted in Pontiac, the playoffs being over.

Monday morning we headed north to Sterling. Cousin Donna was at Aunt Jean's nursing home before us. Aunt Jean was frail and somewhat vague, but in good spirits.

When it was time for her lunch we left for ours. Cousin Donna took us out and showed us some place from our past: our grandpa's old place of work and the house our dad built where we lived as babies.

Inspired to go on with the roadshow we drove on to Clinton, IA. There we saw our old house and visited Eagle Point Park.

Turning east again we zipped through the rolling fields and made it to Aurora, IL before stopping for the night.

Tuesday morning was breakfast and becoming reacquainted with rush hour traffic in a high population area, but we made it to the airport in time to make it comfortably to Ross's flight. Ticket and security lines were long enough to devour the 2 hour gap between Ross's flight and mine so there was not even a thought about sight-seeing.

Antique Lawn Comics

2011-05-29T11:18:00.008-04:00

It's been a very rainy past few weeks and the yard loves it. You can see how well it's growing with Pandora just peeking over the grass. We pulled out our riding lawn mower last week, on one of the few not raining days, and discovered the battery was dead. We now know we should bring the battery inside during the winter. Carrie bought a new one, now I just have to figure out how to get the thing primed again. Hopefully we'll start the mowing process again over this long weekend.

Last weekend we went to the Maine Comic Arts Festival in Portland. First convention type event we've been to since we moved up here. We bought a handful of comics. Actually, Carrie bought most of them. I made sure she saw the ones I thought she might like and she bought all but one of the ones I thought I might also like (that were not overly expensive.) So I did buy one.

Carrie got a free Tiki drawing from Daniel Edwards. He had an interesting children's book, that we'll probably want to investigate once he's turned it into comics or a cartoon. He's been drawing some tarot cards to use in the story line so we chatted for a bit about comics and tarot and Sita Sings the Blues. Tikis are getting featured in his next book.

Another artist was giving out free sample panels of his comic. A couple got Carrie to laugh out loud, so she bought a copy of his sampler, Secret Harbor.

Upstairs was even bigger and more comics were bought. Kitty Hawk had the best cover in the place, and I want to read the webcomic now. A couple of books had artwork very similar to Jeff Smith's work. Grune was the one we picked up. The Underburbs looked good enough to buy the first collection, but they were sold out, so only issue one was purchased.

Carrie bought a mini-comic about cats from Gynn Stella, but what brought me to the table was the banner hanging from the front, especially the art you see to the right. Back in the days when I was playing in fantasy role playing games, I had a character named Meep who was a were cat. Guess this is from one of his as yet untold adventures...

Weather was cool enough to wear my Love & Rockets the band hoodie, and this time I wore my Love & Rockets the comicbook t-shirt underneath. The shirt got a lot of compliments. And a couple of people even noticed the hoodie.

This weekend we started by traveling down to visit Kemmer in Massachusetts. We went to a few antique stores and ate at a Thai restaurant. And I am contemplating the purchase of an expensive toy. It's made out of wood, just over 3 feet high, 4 and a third feet long, and in need of severe TLC. But expecting to be quoted a price in the thousands, I was stunned to get one in the hundreds. Carrie and Kemmer both seem to think it would be a good buy for me. I'm still a tightwad, so am sitting here today talking with Carrie about where to put it. We already think we can do enough repair work to it ourselves to make it look good enough and not fall apart. But if it cannot be placed somewhere safe and yet well displayed, there is no sense in spending the money. If I can talk myself into it, I'll go again next weekend and see if it's still there.

As always, click on a photo to get a bigger view of it.

Keith of the North

2011-05-21T06:05:00.004-04:00

My high tolerance for the cold was noted even before I moved to Arizona. One roommate in Massachusetts called me Keith of the North.

Not long after my move to the desert, the Holt decided to take photos for the yearly calendar. At my suggestion a number of us headed up north to get some pictures of us as elves in the snowy forest. In the first pic you see me as an elf with big ears and no glasses.

Afterward as we were loading ourselves back into the cars and getting ready to head back home, a Native American came over to me to ask for money. I tend not to give beggars cash (though I have been known to give them food.) Carrie knew this, and stepped between us to say she was the one who handled the money. The guy then looks at me, me, who talks to animals, me, who juggles knives, me, who wanders around in the snow wearing a loincloth, and says "You wouldn't make a very good Indian."

As always, click on a pic to enlarge.

Floral Tribune

2011-05-15T17:40:00.031-04:00

It's rain. Not great for yard sales or other out-and-about errands, but great for the plants. The dim light makes the new greenery glow. Good thing we like the look, because the weather report has it rainy and/or grey all this week.

Blooming is in full swing. The previous owner here had landscaped using a rather over abundance of pink and purple flowering plants. I like some pink, but when the azaleas, rhododendrons, and peonies get going it's like walking down the Barbie isle at Toys 'R' Us!

This unknown ornamental is more like it.

As for wildflowers: this week we've got semi-wilds. The backyard has clouds of tiny white violets, along with not-appearing-in-this-blog flowers. In the front we have a white viola that showed up as a volunteer in some soil I'd got for potting.

Also in the front was this pileated woodpecker who was excavating around a dead log for breakfast.

Stand Up Comix

2011-05-14T12:22:00.006-04:00

The light shining through the hole in my head makes my eyes glow.
Click on my glasses to see better.

The first Saturday in May is Free Comic Book Day, so that was the basis for our plans that day. Carrie wore her Hellboy t-shirt and I wanted to wear my Superman shirt with a Love and Rockets hoodie over it. The hoodie I won at Cover Me, a music blog I visit once in a while. In case you didn't know, Love and Rockets is both a band and a comic book. The band was named after the comic, which annoyed one of the creators of the comic as he wanted to form a band with that name. So you can see how I wanted to show off my geeky knowledge to the crowd. But, in spite of cool weather before and after that Saturday, it was a darn nice day, too warm to wear either a sweatshirt or even multiple layers. Needing to wear long sleeves because of my sensitivity to sun exposure, I just wore the plain blue shirt. I have no long sleeved comics related shirts. But I did wear a small Usagi Yojimbo pin.

Our first stop was J & R Comics and Cards in Brunswick. We discovered them last year when they had a person parading around a more main street with a sandwich board announcing free comics and free food. Their selection of comics is pretty small, but they were such nice people I wanted to try and give them some real business. I bought 2 comics while there, but they didn't have the storage supplies I wanted. I'd held off on buying them, hoping to give J & R the money. They didn't have any free food this year, but did have plenty of free comics.

We met up with one of my coworkers, Sheila, and her husband Fred at the store. I'd gotten Sheila hooked on Carrie McNinch's minicomix and wanted to expose her to some more. Fred turned out to be a long time MAD fan, so I picked him up an issue of Groo. After the shop we went over to Bombay Mahal and had their buffet. Carrie and I think this is the better of the 2 Indian restaurants in Brunswick. The four of us got to chat for a while before heading off on our separate errands.

Next shop to hit was in Topsham. A new gaming and comics shop that we saw a few months ago. At that time they had next to nothing in comics, waiting for the shelves they said. Well, even though they weren't on the Free Comic Book Day website, they were still participating. We went in, saw they had little improvement, and left.

So third and final comics stop was Casablanca Comics in Portland. That's the shop in the above photo. They give out a good selection of free comics, their choice mostly. We usually get our comics here because it is the largest comics shop in the state, even if it seems small compared to the ones we used to go to in Arizona.

We did other things that day, but why talk about them when this was a celebration of Free Comic Book Day after all.

2011-05-01T17:58:00.008-04:00

With the arrival of spring I've decided to start contributing again to the Kourier. I was thinking of including some pictures of local flora and fauna when the opportunity arrises.

Starting out: Happy Beltaine! I celebrated by dancing around a maypole, doing some yard work, planting some more seeds, and taking some pictures. First is a daffodil I planted last year.

From domestic to wild: here's a purple trillium back in our woods. Normally, they're the second or third wildflower to make an appearance, but this year they sprouted and bloomed in just a few days.

While in our woods I found this ungulate skull. We're not sure what it is, but a little online research might provide an answer. It was a strange find for a life-affirming holiday.

All the News That Gives Fits

2011-04-24T14:12:00.005-04:00

This may be my earliest appearance in the newspaper. I'm the kid in the back with the glasses. Interestingly enough, this foreshadows a couple of my later interests: autographs and post offices. I no longer have the two autographs, but I ended up working in that post office.

It's pretty obvious which one I am in the below clipping. Notice that everyone but myself and the principal are looking at the camera.

click on my chin for a bigger look at the past

Spring Runoff

2011-04-17T15:46:00.004-04:00

In May of 1988 Carrie came out to Massachusetts for our first actual face to face visit. One of the things I set up was for her to get to participate in an SCA type event held on Lyle Gray's family's farm. Trees were just starting to bud, but the grass was already gung-ho green.

No, Carrie didn't run all the way from Arizona, she flew most of it. She ended running because her arms were tired.

Humor in a Juggling Vein

2011-04-03T13:32:00.007-04:00

This has happened to me several times. I stop to watch somebody juggling and they decide to challenge me to see if I can do it. . .

You realize this means war!

2011-03-19T13:52:00.008-04:00

I believe this was in 1986. My roommate, Shannon, was heavily involved in Boffers, a Live Action Role Playing System (LARPS) and as his parents had a hundred acres to play on, he hosted a few games.

Jon, Jo, and Mark set off on their adventure.

The adventurers approach something cautiously. Who, or what is it?

It's the Shannon Troll. Wait, troll?????

Run away!

Guess Who's Coming To Dinner

2011-03-13T15:55:00.009-04:00

For a while I lived on the third floor of a three story apartment building. We had big wooden porches in the back with an external stairway. One day I heard some kids outside sounding like they were chasing something alive around the area. The noise was coming from the street, so I went out to the back to escape it. After being out there for a little while I noticed a pair of eyes staring at me from the dark of the overhead rafters. It was a raccoon.

After talking to her for a while and offering some dog biscuits, I got her to come down and visit for a bit. She was very scrawny and kinda mangy looking. She started coming by on a regular basis to visit and get some handouts. She slowly began to get fat and her coat was looking nice and eventually she was coming inside. I even introduced my roommate to her.

Then she stopped coming around. I didn't know if she got sick of my food, found better offerings elsewhere, or became roadkill. Probably just as well, I thought, because I had been looking to move pretty soon. I'd even found a new place to rent and was due to move out about two weeks after I'd last seen her.

My last day at the apartment I was taking a look around to make certain I'd not forgotten anything and guess who was on the porch? I went out to talk to her one last time, relieved she was alive and worried about what might have kept her away for so long. She looked so skinny!

Looking up in the rafters I saw the reason. And the reason for her dramatic weight loss. She'd brought her kids over to introduce them to me.

Sorry, no pictures of the young ones. My camera was at the new place. I hoped the new tenants liked raccoons.

Moonlighting

2011-03-05T15:48:00.004-05:00

For a while I worked at Moondance Comics in Massachusetts. I started part time and made it to manager fairly quickly. We had a pretty unique customer base, really into alternative comics partially because we were close to a bunch of colleges and partially because we who worked in the store were into them and happily promoted them. We did well enough with Cerebus that Dave Sim told us our numbers actually registered in the total sales figures.

That's Dave at the table on both the b&w pictures. He's talking to Dainis (one of my employees) and George (one of our customers) on the right.

The top photo shows me (in the Cerebus shirt) next to Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird (far right in the photo) who came in to talk to Dave. They created the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

I used to see the two of them around Northampton a lot. Even ran into them atop Mt Holyoke when Carrie and I went for a hike on her first visit to me.

More of those kitties

2011-02-27T18:35:00.007-05:00

The first two pictures are taken with an instamatic. The rest from my Pentax 35mm. The kitten above was my favorite. Below you see Mama cat being very concerned over her baby climbing.

Memories

2011-02-22T11:24:00.010-05:00

Why do we take pictures? For most of us, it's to keep a memory. Places, people, or events that seem important to us. Most of my photos are like that too, though I do indulge in an occasional photo for art sake like the one at left.

Back around 1982 I was living with a bunch of people in one of the townhouse apartments in the house in the first photo. I am going through my photos from that time and deciding what to keep and scan, and what to throw away. There are definitely some memories to keep alive there. One being that I had just bought my first 35mm camera and these are from the first couple of rolls of film I took.

I took pictures of some of my housemates, that's Mark and his girlfriend Chrissie. I lost touch pretty much as soon as I moved out and don't see any reason to keep any of those pictures. But I am keeping the pictures I took of the next door neighbor's cats. That's the very protective Mama Cat (that was her name) below with one of her brood.

My camera purchase came with a roll of color film and I wanted to use it up quickly and then move on to black and white. I was thinking I might want to print/publish my photos. I had no problem with taking pictures of the kittens. I liked them, they liked me, they were cute.

What makes the kitten photos especially keep worthy is the memory of Mama Cat's trust in me. As I stated above, she was very protective of her litter. She kept an eye on them almost constantly. It was easy when they were really little and didn't venture out of their apartment, but once they could manage the step down to the front porch they started exploring. I lived next door, and so their first adventure was to come into my apartment. They were there for a while before Mama realized they were missing. She went tearing around in a frenzy trying to find them before she came in to see them with me. You could see the relief in her as she saw they were not only okay, but safe with Uncle Keith.

She trusted me with her kids. That is a treasured memory.

She kept near them when they went outside after that. She worried when they climbed on things and chased away dogs.

And I do have some people pictures from that time. An old apartment mate that I got along with great. We had nothing in common though. This is a picture of him at one of his motorcycle races. Later that year he was in an accident and lost the memory of that summer. I gave him copies of all the photos I took at that race. A poor substitute for real memories.

What prompted the scanning and reminiscing of this particular time period was a recent email from long time friend Dot, who sent me the above photo from a visit to me at that place.

And in that photo are other memorials. The ram skull from my stay in Texas. The Indian Pipes scratchboard which was done by a friend in college. Right behind my head is a scrap of paper from when I was in California and part of my job was cleaning old id numbers off computer chips and printing new ones on them. I had to clean the printing plates starting with several passes of a blank piece of paper. This one I saved because it looked like images of the moon.

Happy Valentine's Day

2011-02-14T05:28:00.002-05:00

We are in, and on, Love!

Where's Carrie?

2011-02-13T19:02:00.003-05:00

Click on the Lion's nose for a larger view.

It's All About Me

2011-01-30T15:20:00.003-05:00

Many years ago, my parents went on a cross-country vacation and came across this store in Salt Lake City, Utah. It used to be a big deal.

Lone Star State of Mind

2011-01-15T17:29:00.012-05:00

Many years ago, after college, but before meeting Carrie, I went cross country on a bicycle with only my cat Pete to keep me company. I had plans to meet up with several people during the journey, staying at their places long enough to rest and visit, but somehow the two folks I was going to see in Texas weren't around when I got there. I was fortunate to run into a couple who owned some land in Texas and invited me to stay at their place while they toured the Mexican border and tourist dollars during the summer.

First picture is Petronius, my travel buddy. Second is the mobile home I stayed in while I was in Texas. The couple in the picture are just neighbors. The guy on the right, Manfred Franke, and his wife Marisol (not pictured) were my hosts. The guy in the cap was Crenshaw I think.

The trailer was on a 50 acre lot in the middle of nowhere, 5 miles from the nearest paved road and 13 miles from the nearest store, a convenience store I got a job at. Got it easily enough because I was not a local "cedar-hacker" and looked to have more than an ounce of brains.

My trip in to work (borrowing the Franke's car) was always interesting. I saw lots of wildlife. These are all actual pictures I took on my commutes.

Yes, even the zebra. There was a wild animal park in the area and they didn't always stay on their property.

Happy New Yadda Yadda

2011-01-01T07:23:00.000-05:00

christmas presence

2010-12-27T06:42:00.005-05:00

Carrie's brother Ross came out to visit us from Arizona and we all went outside to play in the snow. Ross and Pandora had the most fun. She is normally shy around strangers, but must be able to sense kinship because she has always been happy to see Ross and my sister, Kemmer.

I got the newest in the series of the hardcover reprints of the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents comics as well as a couple of Avengers (the TV series) books. Also a couple of Hong Kong action movie DVDs. The present I'm playing with most, though, is my new 1 terabyte external hard drive. I'm going to use it to store all my photos and artwork scans. I've already put more than 12,000 photos on it and that is just a drop in the bucket of its capacity.

Today we're having a blizzard. I got out the snowblower and cleared enough to get my car out, then Carrie took over while I got ready for work. Just before leaving, though, I called in to work and found out the office is closed. Snow Day!

Sneezin's Greetings

2010-12-24T14:16:00.003-05:00

Anybody want to color this for us?

Holiday Mail

2010-12-19T13:37:00.007-05:00

There's something wrong with my camera, so I may have to resort to scanning things to post here for a while. First is a special bonus in an expected mailing from Deane. She asked me if I was still interested in getting town themed postcards since she and Dan were planning a trip. Of course I said yes. They came recently. Quite a few of them. Along with a couple of smashed pennies. The pirate one was nice, but look at this one! Cool!

Thanks Deane!

Catwalk

2010-11-25T16:39:00.017-05:00

After our usual holiday dinner at an ethnic restaurant, we went to do the Riverwalk. Somebody did graffiti to make it a catwalk instead.

We saw a black cat
a white cat

two cats
two cats meowing

a cat with a lightbulb
a lightbulb meowing

and a cat with a lightbulb meowing.

Happy Thanksgiving

2010-11-25T05:07:00.001-05:00

Looking forward to Kemmer's visit today.

Fishmas Shopping

2010-11-14T15:37:00.005-05:00

We spent the weekend doing shopping and yardwork. While at LL Bean, where I bought myself a nice hat, Carrie found an Eskimo Trout.

Yes, those are live fish in this picture.

Happy Anniversary

2010-11-09T05:26:00.000-05:00

The above picture was taken 19 years ago.

Season's Greetings

2010-10-30T17:14:00.004-04:00

Aren't you jealous?

2010-10-25T19:19:00.004-04:00

The photo to the left was taken on a recent stroll through the woods on our property.

The picture below is the view of our front yard from the bay window in the studio.

Click on each picture to get a bigger, more glorious view of fall foliage.

Weevil Remembered

2010-10-18T13:19:00.010-04:00

The last couple of months we could see he was getting bonier and more feeble. We were bringing him into the vet's a bit more often and were slowly transitioning him from dry food to wet. Which he liked very much. We had him on medications and even had him at the vet's on Saturday, but the two cancerous tumors in his head were too much for him.

Sunday Carrie and I were taking turns watching him, mostly because he no longer had a good sense of balance, but also to make certain the other pets didn't pester him. He was always seeking out the company of humans, even if we didn't do anything with him, he still liked to be with us.

Around 1996 or so there was a yearling white cat hanging around behind the cotton lab near where Carrie was working. One of her coworkers picked up this lovable kitty and brought him to the vet for shots and stuff. She was going to just let him go. Carrie said we'd try and find a home for him instead. Unfortunately, we couldn't find anybody to take him. The only people interested in getting a cat we could find at that time wanted kittens.

I say unfortunately, but I mean it was unfortunate for the people who turned him down. We ended up being very happy to be "stuck" with him. And why did they want a kitten anyway? Was it because they are so cute and playful? Weevil was that all his life. In fact, I used his love of play to overcome his fear of being covered. He didn't like being inside boxes or anything like that. But after a bit of play therapy, he eagerly climbed into and under things, waiting for us to bring him a bit of play.

It was probably good for him to be stuck with us, not just because we're good parents, but because Carrie and I both have respiratory problems and were very sympathetic to Weevil's. He had a slightly runny eye (sometimes squinting with it to look like Popeye) and sneezed a lot. If only we could have taught him to use kleenex, we would have saved a lot of cleanup time.

Sunday we spent a lot of time with him and started talking about quality of life. He was having trouble even just walking with the tumors throwing off his sense of balance, and he was no longer in control of his bladder. But we discovered Monday morning he spared us making that decision by moving on.

I'll be doing a bit of digging up on the hill behind our house. We miss him already.

Pepper Spray

2010-10-02T05:30:00.003-04:00

A coworker brought in some habanero peppers recently. (The small orange ones.) After noting how happy I was at the prospect of trying them, another coworker brought me a selection of peppers from her garden.

I took a very small nibble of the habanero, knowing their reputation for heat, and got nothing. I took a bigger nibble and felt it. Not enough to go running for coolant, but enough to know a full bite would have been difficult. No flavor to speak of.

The largest of the group is the sugar chili. My coworker tells me that the crop this year is extremely variable in its heat level. I ate this one plain with no heat felt at all. Pleasant, but not strong flavor. A little sweeter than usual.

The yellow one, ho Chi Minh, is supposed to be the hottest of the group after the habanero. Slightly sour taste, no heat.

The round one, cherry, has a nice fruity taste and heat that accumulates. My first bite held no heat, but by the time I finished it my mouth was fully in flame. Yum!

The fat red one is the chilipeno. No heat, mild flavor.

The curly red one is the Portugal. Slightly fruity taste, not so much as the cherry. Heat was evident right from the start and lingered on for a while afterward.

Not shown are the bell peppers Carrie is growing for me. I like those in sandwiches.

The Leaves They Are A Changing

2010-09-26T05:27:00.003-04:00

Back in August when we had the cold snap, a few trees got fooled into thinking autumn had started. Most notably those early changers, the sumacs. But then we had the heat wave. (90 degree weather in Maine is a heat wave.) In our yard, one branch of one maple tree turned a lovely red. It still is, but a few other trees are now starting their color show as well. Nothing in our yard is as spectacular as that one maple branch yet, but yesterday we took a walk down the street and I took a few pictures. The new header is one of them. Nice time of year to be in Maine, eh?

Open Lighthouse Day

2010-09-19T07:35:00.006-04:00

The second annual Maine Open Lighthouse Day saw us travelling up to Owls Head (see picture to the left) and Rockland (top photo). We, of course, stopped at yard sales and post offices along the way. We'd been to see both of these lighthouses before, but Owls Head is not normally open to the public to actually go inside (with its stunning views) and the Rockland Breakwater Light was too dangerous to travel to, walking over the looooong walkway during a storm. We saw the lightning that day, we weren't planning on feeling it.

Chim-needy

2010-09-15T16:33:00.006-04:00

<-- before

after -->

The previous owner of the house had the woodstove hooked up into the single chimney. Since it was already carrying two outputs (furnace and hot water heater) that was a bad idea. Since it was hooked up to the furnace, any creosote leaking down to the furnace would be an extra bad thing. We opted not to use the woodstove until we had a separate chimney for it. Now we do. It has a slight crook it it because it was otherwise a choice of moving the stove too close to the rug or cutting through the roof rafters. So a curve in the pipe was acceptable.

Festival Weekend

2010-09-15T09:16:00.013-04:00

Saturday we had two festivals to go to. The first was Greene Village Day. Just something for local organizations and vendors to set up booths with a few displays of this and that, and a bunch of things mainly geared towards kids. There was also a parade, but we started out too late to see that. I did pick up a Greene t-shirt. Showing support for the locals through participation and purchase. We also gave some money to a cat group.

Next we went over next door to Lewiston and found the Greek Festival. The live music and dancing are only in the evenings, so we were disappointed about that. Carrie got some lamb kebob for lunch and a loaf of apricot almond bread for later. I enjoyed going into the church and reading their comics. The image to the left (note the word balloons) came off their pocket calendar.

In between, we did stop at a few yard sales. I got a hutch to put on the second computer desk. Our puppet population has been booming and now there is more storage/display space for them. Unfortunately, Neil the Horse's spot on the wall is now covered. I did some rearranging of pictures, but he still can't fit in the computer room any more. Now he's in the bedroom. Moving him also prompted us to do some more picture hanging and we have the bedroom now mostly covered along with a couple of things in Kemmer's room and a few other places around the house.

But that was on Sunday. After the two festivals on Saturday we still had plenty of time so did a little more exploring of the area. Carrie brought me to an antique store she'd found earlier. We're going back with trade items for sure. And we also tried out a couple of parks. The riverside one, with an old converted to pedestrian use railroad bridge was best. We'll be going back to that also.

Folk in the Eyes

2010-09-04T11:32:00.010-04:00

Last Weekend we went to the annual Bangor Folk Festival and listened to lots of music. An oud player, a Korean drumming group, a couple of Celtic groups. The Quebecois style of Vent du Nord appealed to us enough that Carrie bought one of their cds. Note in the clip above that the guy in the middle is doing the percussion.

Spam I Am

2010-09-04T11:10:00.004-04:00

Several months back we heard that Spamalot was coming to Maine and we were determined we would go see it. Well before it was to play I went to the theater's website to check what the prices for tickets were. I quickly realized that it was already close to being sold out, so with Carrie at hand I reserved a couple of seats for us. Good thing, too. That weekend they were sold out.

First thing I thought as I was watching the theater fill up was how old the audience seemed to be. Aren't Monty Python fans younger, college or high school age like I was when they first were shown in the US lo, these many years ago? Oh. They'd be my age now. Right. Nevermind.

The show itself was fun. We both are glad we went, but have no desire to see it again. Carrie thought it didn't bring enough from the movie and deviated from the movie too much. I thought it drew too much from the movie and didn't have enough original material.

Fence Sitting (part 3)

2010-09-04T10:34:00.005-04:00

The fence did get finally set up, a few days longer than expected. It even has 2 gates. The next step is to put up the wire on the inside to keep Pandora from roaming. We're hoping to have most of it done during this long weekend.

Spamalot Sunday

2010-08-24T18:57:00.002-04:00

Guess what we went to see last Sunday.

Dead Reckoning

2010-08-15T17:34:00.005-04:00

We decided we wanted to go to the Montsweag Flea Market today. I checked for nearby Post Offices and found one before Montsweag, in Woolwich, and one after in Wiscasset. But in checking the maps, I noticed a place called "Ancient Cemetery" that I thought we should go check out.
.

We did a couple of errands in the morning, then headed out. We took the pictures of the two Post Offices, we stopped at the Montsweag Flea Market (where I got about 40 different postcards, most for ten cents each), and found the Ancient Cemetery pretty easily.
.
There were a lot of interesting headstones for as few graves as the place had. The best was this one with the creepy eye at the top and the winged cherub.

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Click on the image and take a good close look at the cherub. It is supposed to have two gourds with it. Gourds. Right.

We slowly made our way back home after checking out a couple of shops, and still found time for some stops before we headed for Bombay Mahal in Brunswick for supper.

Family Ties

2010-08-15T05:22:00.007-04:00

To my mind there are two kinds of family: family through blood and family through choice.

You get born into a family with people you like or hate or a mix of both, but you're pretty much stuck with what you were given.

My sister Kemmer is family like this, but it's okay because I like her. She was up visiting last weekend. We didn't do a lot, but she's one of the few people I seem to be able to sit and talk with for long periods of time, so we did a bunch of that.

Many years ago, when I was managing a comic book store, I hired a guy named Shannon Slate. We became friends and apartment mates and I went out to his family's house a number of times for gaming sessions with Shannon and a few of his other friends. I am not always good with new people or authority figures, but Shannon's parents immediately made me feel welcome and a part of the family. Enough so that if they called me up and said I needed to come up that weekend to help with the haying, I would've. When Carrie made her first visit to me, I brought her there. They were family by choice. Decades later I still feel that way.

Bob and JoAnn (Shannon's parents) were up in Augusta yesterday and managed to squeeze in a quick visit. It was, of course, great to see them. Except for JoAnn's hair being gray and Bob having less hair, they looked the same as I remember them. I got caught up a little on some of the other members of their extended family and then they had to move on.

PS: I brought Carrie to see Kemmer during that first visit too.

Fence Sitting (part 2)

2010-08-14T14:27:00.005-04:00

The first section up on Thursday.

Friday two sides are all but done, with two sections next to the shed also up. Click on a fence post to get a better view.

Happy Kemmer Tiara Day

2010-08-13T18:00:00.001-04:00

I forgot to post this morning!

Fence Sitting

2010-08-12T17:19:00.002-04:00

Most of the new fence looks like this section of it, but the installers have started. They are supposed to be done tomorrow.

Saturday Morning Car Tunes

2010-08-01T08:03:00.006-04:00

First, we stopped of at the Greene Post Office so I could mail off the last 10 of my envelopes to get the Sunday Funnies first day postmark. Then we took the long and winding road to Freeport to buy bread (pineapple jalapeno!) and pet food. Afterward we continued on to Portland for a stop at Casablanca comics.

But we took all day to do this because we were constantly stopping at yard sales. Amongst our purchases are such diverse elements as: a small shelf to hold my plush Bullwinkle villains, a floor lamp for the studio, a side table to put next to Carrie's chair, and a Godzilla puppet.

On one of the yard sale pursuits, we came across this house. It's not a real lighthouse, and is nowhere near any body of water that would need one.

Your Cheeta Heart

2010-07-25T06:28:00.002-04:00

Dan Piraro had a cartoon on his website mentioning Cheeta, so I thought I'd post my autographed photo of this celebrity. Obviously he didn't write my name, but did the scribble below it as his "autograph".

Sunday Funnies

2010-07-18T14:11:00.005-04:00

The stamps were released on Friday. The Post Office in Greene actually had them! I bought mine, have you bought yours?

Sending off the first batch of envelopes to get the first day cancel. I need to paint a few more envelopes before I can send the rest off. I'm doing a total of 25, 5 for each stamp.

Having a Blast

2010-07-05T16:48:00.016-04:00

Saturday we didn't do a lot, but did take a short hike in the nearby bird sanctuary Carrie found a few weeks back. They allow dogs on leash. And the birds have a really nice fireplace.

Sunday we took a road trip up to the Penobscot Narrows Observatory high atop the new bridge. It's the only one of its kind in the US and the tallest in the world.

click on any photo to enlarge it

While in the area, we decided to go next door to Fort Knox. Yes, there is another Fort Knox. This one doesn't have piles of gold, but has rambling old tunnels that we wandered around in.

En route to and from we made a lot of stops. I added another 8 post offices to my collection of photos of post offices I have been to. I found a ceramic figure of Sandy, the dog from Little Orphan Annie, bought a bunch of old post cards at non-collector prices.

We also stopped at Sandy Point Beach and saw an osprey nest complete with parents and chicks on some old pilings!

Monday we have done yard work, watched videos, and played on the computer.

Stamps and Comics

2010-05-29T17:37:00.001-04:00

I've mentioned stamps about comics before. Today I found comics about stamps!

Canned Laughter

2010-05-09T08:53:00.002-04:00

Kemmer is visiting us this weekend. As a rainy day activity we went to the Maine State Museum. They had a giveaway comic there that I grabbed. The funny thing is, Maine had the last sardine cannery in the country until just recently. It closed down.

Spring is Sprung

2010-05-03T07:47:00.003-04:00

And in Maine that means half the state can still be getting snow as it was in the middle of last week, and then we go through a weekend with temperatures into the eighties. It also means we have chickadees in the lighthouse birdhouse Carrie put in the backyard, and the Totoros and ospreys are coming out. There's a nest on top of a powerline tower not too too far from our house that we thought was long abandoned. But we've seen a pair of osprey hanging around it lately. We hope to see some babies there soon.

Free Comic Book Day

2010-05-01T19:54:00.011-04:00

Carrie takes her comics seriously.

We headed out early for a long leisurely drive down to Portland's Casa Blanca Comics to take advantage of Free Comic Book Day. A national event that has been happening every year since 2002, though this is the first year I've actually been able to participate.

We planned to stop at a Post Office or two so I could buy some Animal Rescue postage stamps as well as the new Flags of Our Nation series. About five Post Offices later I finally get the Animal Rescue ones. Still no Flags of Our Nation, even though this is the second weekend we've been trying to find them.

We also stopped at a lot of yard sales. I got a wig head, a Darth Vader mask (that is now on the wig head), and a binder of more than 150 First Day Covers! Though I actually bought that at a store. But its contents looked like a yard sale.

While we were in Brunswick we got diverted by a guy with a big sign proclaiming Free Comic Book Day and BBQ. Carrie had a little to eat while I picked up some comics at JRs Cards. We never knew there was a store that sold comics so close to us. Unfortunately their selection is very limited.

Casa Blanca Comics has a pretty good selection of new stuff and we got our usual titles along with a bunch of free comics. Since they were having a buy 1 get 1 free sale on hardcovers, I picked up 4 volumes of Starman. They didn't have any of the titles I am already collecting in hardcover.

We also stopped at a cemetary Carrie found on one of her recent ventures. It's a locked cemetary, but the bookstore across the street has the key. I hope all the people that wandered in while we were there wandered out before we left. We locked up after ourselves. New to us were the rather Celtic take on the old skull design. Some knotwork along the sides of the stone are visible here as well.

click on the headstone to make it larger than death

Lawn Ranger

2010-04-25T07:02:00.006-04:00

Saturday morning saw the delivery of our riding lawn mower. Yup, it's a John Deere. The company gets lots of recommendations. A random worker at Home Depot just bought the same model and loves it. The salesman said bad things about the similarly priced other brand. The delivery guy swears by the company. I drove it around a bit, then mowed a bit. Carrie and I picked up some of the sticks and pine cones and I mowed some more. Carrie is already talking about getting attachments for it.

Fire Pit Stop

2010-04-19T07:14:00.010-04:00

We're planning on a visit to Home Depot today to buy a lawn mower. While the 3.67 acres we own isn't all lawn, enough of it is that we want to get a riding lawn mower. It may cut down on some of the work, but it's still going to be a lot more than we had to do with the yard in Arizona. We'll be doing a lot of picking up of debris first. Pine trees, of which we have quite a few, shed a lot. Not just pine needles, which we'll want to move to keep both the grass and mossy areas alive, but pine cones, twigs, and branches. Pines are very brittle creatures with pieces constantly breaking off from temperature changes or just high winds. I've tried to do a little bit of picking up almost every day when I walk Pandora around the yard, but in spite of the accumualtion you see in the pic above, there is a lot more to gather. Like the fallen trees. And pine doesn't do well as home heating wood as it burns too hot and fast. We'll have plenty of other fallen trees to use for that once we have the wood stove set. We'll need to get a burn permit (good for one day or one weekend) to use that fire pit though. And we'll undoubtedly need to do it several times.

Also at Home Depot, we want to get some hardware to mount wall shelves in the studio. We still have a lot of stuff yet to be put out. And after helping Kemmer with her spring cleaning, we ended up with more books that need to be put somewhere.

And while we're looking around the store, maybe some adhesive to try putting the floor tiles back down in Ross's room in the basement now that the repair work is done.

Creative things have not been a high priority, but I've done some envelope painting for the upcoming Sunday Funnies postage stamps, but I've already mentioned that. I'm also working on a mini-comic with somebody else's characters. I hope I'll have more to report on that soon.

And we're both working overtime at our jobs.

Typical Maine Weather

2010-04-18T08:29:00.002-04:00

Last weekend was warm and sunny, shirtsleeve weather. This Saturday we wake up to find it snowing with three inches of accumulation already on the ground.

With no wind and lots of sheltering trees, there are areas you can see the grass that has already grown enough this year to need mowing right next to the covered trees.

Welcome to Maine.

3 Piece Suite

2010-03-30T07:40:00.007-04:00

Three of the pieces of original artwork I have hanging up in the computer room.

The Totoro piece was done by our friend Paige Sullivan and shows not only one of our favorite films of all times, Tonari No Totoro, but also two of the characters Carrie and I created for the Arizona Elfquest fan club Carrie helped to found.

Jed Dougherty drew this for the cover of one issue of my attempt to become a semi-pro publisher, Kluttered Visions. We always love the amount of extra stuff Jed puts into his work. He's been doing background work for Howard Chaykin last I heard.

Because I introduced Steve Crompton, creator of Demi the Demoness, to Perry Lake, creator of Cassiopeia the Witch, they drew me into the crossover story they did together. Demi is actually topless in the original artwork. I made the modest change to keep me from getting in trouble with the blog police. If you want to see the real artwork, you can buy the comic or come visit us.

As always, click on a pic to enlarge it.

Happy Birthday

2010-03-27T07:11:00.007-04:00

I hope you had a chance to celebrate Akira Kurosawa's birthday this past week. When I got home from work that day Carrie had Stray Dog on the TV, was cooking gyoza, and had purchased the latest issues of Usagi Yojimbo.

Un-tile we meet again

2010-03-21T12:57:00.007-04:00

The basement repairs are slated to happen at the end of this month. It will involve digging up the concrete along several stretches of wall, including 2 of the 4 walls in the finished room we'd given over to Ross for his visits. So to save the baseboards and tiles for reuse, I have spent the weekend prying them off. The contractor only wanted a couple of rows removed, but I did 3, to be safe. I hope we can glue them back down.

There is a small, but definite crack in the concrete floor in the closet, so I am hoping that is the source of the leak and not the wall. I will still cut out at least a section at the bottom of the wall to try and make sure. As well as to check the insulation for any mold.

Been starting to work on some of my hobbies lately too. I've sent for a few special postmarks for that collection and just received a postcard from Greece for my world postcard collection. My goal is to get at least one from every country.

I've also been drawing a bit with plans to do more. With the upcoming Sunday Funnies postage stamps has come some inspiration. I'll probably do 5 sets and have already got a couple of subjects complete. For Calvin & Hobbes I have done 5 different drawings. One with Calvin, one with Hobbes, and three with both together. Here's one of the envelopes:

I have been trying to find a bit I wrote some time ago. I came across it recently and decided I wanted to draw it using somebody else's characters. I've gotten the okay to do so, but now can't find the piece!

Snow reason not to

2010-02-28T11:04:00.006-05:00

Above is a view of our driveway heading out toward the road. Below is Pandora in the backyard. A couple days ago we were looking at a much greener landscape around here. With the rain and warmer temperatures the snow was all but gone. Suddenly, boom! Several inches of snow. Welcome to Maine.

I haven't shoveled or done any snowblowing yet because the temperatures are supposed to get into the 40s. If that happens and goes on for most of the day, it would be a waste of time to bother with snow removal. As the day wears on, I might have to do something, but for now...

Turtle Dreams

2010-02-28T10:59:00.002-05:00

A few years ago, Carrie got me this drawer/cabinet knob. She wasn't quite sure what I might use it for, but thought it too neat an item not to get.

Well, in our new house, one of the few things left behind by the previous owner was a computer desk. It has a cabinet that was missing a handle. Yesterday Carrie put this on in its place.

Sunday Funnies

2010-02-28T10:56:00.004-05:00

Coming in July.

Happy New Year

2010-02-28T09:45:00.010-05:00

Yeah, a little late to wish you a Happy New Year. Even if we mean the Lunar New Year. That was February 14th. But there were special events planned the weekend before and the weekend after in Boston's China Town. We took a little road trip for the last one, which was the Lion Dance Parade.

Different troups were sponsored, much like Little League Baseball, by various businesses. There were at least half a dozen wandering around the streets. Different color costumes, different numbers of lions, and different types of support players helped differentiate them all.

Local businesses put out a head of lettuce and an orange for the lion to "eat" which makes them drunk and a little unstable. Then the firecrackers come out and chases the lion off to the next stop. There was a lot of shredded lettuce all over the streets by the end of the day.

Thanks to Kemmer, we didn't have to try and find parking downtown with its outrageous prices. We parked outside the area and took the subway in following her directions. That also caused us to drive near a Trader Joes, so we stopped in on our way home and bought stuff. Yum!

Click on the lion's eyes to lion-size the photo.

Kleaning

2010-02-20T10:32:00.002-05:00

I have attempted to clean that photo up a bit.

The Old is News

2010-02-16T18:30:00.007-05:00

I'm currently scanning old family photos and emailing them to my niece, Stephanie Coble.

The one below is the oldest in the collection. The lady on the right is my great grandmother, Clara. She was around during the Civil War.

The one on the right is, hopefully, the only nude of me that will ever show up on the internet. Even then I knew the value of a high fiber diet!

Komputer Room

2010-02-14T07:31:00.003-05:00

The computer room has its furniture and major organizational demarcations all set. Lots of smaller organizing still needs to be done and may undergo several waves of redoing. Above is the major computer desk with internet connection. Scanner to the left with all my USB cables hanging on the side. Most of our hand puppets are on the upper shelf, and our 3 big puppets are on the bookcase to the right. That case holds trading cards and autograph collections. I also have part of a stereo there. Eventually I will have a turntable set up so I can transfer a lot of vinyl to mp3 files.

This second photo shows more of the room continuing toward the right. The second desk currently holds the printer and second computer. Our 2 filing cabinets here hold mostly mundane files. Most of my art files are up in the studio where I'll be doing most of my drawing. The bankers box on top holds most of my postage stamps. On the wall next to the window is my uncut sheet of The Avengers trading cards. The shelves hold mailing materials as well as related collections of foreign and US postcards, first day covers, etc.

The closet on the right holds more than I want to keep there right now, but eventually it will be just for overflow clothes and supplies for this room's collections.

The bench on the right wall is where people will sit when doing Puppet Improv. We'll be opposite the computer camera set up so we can see what we're recording as we do it.

The rug is a bit of excess cut from the recent carpet installation in the studio.

Bizzy Winter

2010-02-07T16:25:00.009-05:00

Looking out over our driveway toward the road.

I drive 45 minutes each way to work, work an 8 hour day with another hour in there for lunch, then usually work at least an hour of overtime. With the days getting longer I'm now seeing daylight in the morning, but the drive home is still in the dark. And Carrie has a longer drive and a lot more overtime than I do. In other words, we don't have a lot of free time these days. When we do, we're often doing needed errands or chores.

We had a bit of snow during the first part of the winter. Carrie has even done a few turns at the snow blowing. But it was up to me to shovel off the roof. I hadn't been keeping up with clearing the edges with our roof rake, so an ice dam was starting to build up. We weren't certain how much the next precipitation, a rain storm, would wash away the ice or add to it, so I had to get up there with the shovel. Fortunately, that was all that was needed to ensure the rest got melted in the rain.

Inside, with no photos to post just yet, we've got a lot of shelves up in the studio and all my comics are now accessible. I just have to put them in order.

The main part of the house is starting to feel like it's actually ours now that we've been putting out our bric-a-brac and hung a few things on the walls.

Snow Curl

2010-01-03T08:34:00.009-05:00

With the wind blowing fiercely and the cold snow coming down, we ended up with this interesting bit of frosty gingerbread on our house.

First view from the door onto the lower level of the deck.

Second view from the studio's bathroom window.

While we're looking around the studio, here's the view onto the upper deck. We're pretty snowed in up here!

To enlarge any photo, just click on the magic snowflake hidden in the image.

Snow Trouble Et Al

2010-01-01T11:54:00.006-05:00

Carrie took this photo on our property earlier this week. We got some more snow yesterday, and it is snowing even as I type this. There is a big weather system sitting just off the coast of Maine, spitting at us right now, but we are expecting a couple of feet to land on us tomorrow.

Now that it's cold again, our basement is fine, but just after Ross left, it was leaking. One crack in the walls we knew about. the previous owner said she'd had it fixed. It created a big puddle, but didn't really impact on anything important. The other crack, which we never knew about, is behind the finished walls of what we've made Ross's room. We're glad it didn't occur while Ross was here and the portable electric heater was on the floor.

Carrie has contacted our insurance company and a repair guy. Hopefully it is repairable without too much destruction needed to get to the cracks.
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Slip Sledding Away.

2009-12-25T14:29:00.003-05:00

In case you haven't guessed, Carrie's brother Ross is visiting for the holiday weekend.

Yuletide Greetings!

2009-12-25T07:09:00.001-05:00

Picture Envy

2009-12-20T14:38:00.005-05:00

Yes, I took the new header photo. Yes, it's in our woods on our property.

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Feeling Blue

2009-12-20T14:28:00.001-05:00

We finally have a carpet on the studio floor! Much bluer than I thought it was supposed to be, but much nicer looking than I feared. We've started moving our boxes and boxes of books, comics, art supplies, and crafting materials up there. We might even have the living and computer rooms pretty close to what they're supposed to look like by christmas!

It's Snowtime!

2009-12-06T08:40:00.012-05:00

It's been a while since anything got posted here, but that's because we've been quite busy. Carrie is very often putting in overtime at her job and the past couple of weeks has seen me doing the same at mine. The overtime actually makes the job less obnoxious because I'm not manning the phone bank during that time, so the percentage of phonetime goes down, even if the actual time spent on the phone is the same. It's all relative.

Thanksgiving Kemmer came up to see us as our first guest. She was even able to stay overnight! Kemmer surprised us with some belated birthday gifts (more Tarzan for me!) and we did the same for her. The Thai restaurant we had called earlier this year to ask if they were open Thanksgiving wasn't answering the phone when we tried to confirm, so we went with the same Indian restaurant we'd been to last year. Later we watched and made fun of the new Star Trek movie. As most reviews said, it's good fun if you don't think about it too much. The next day Carrie had to work, so Kemmer and I talked a lot, watched some more stuff, and I got to show off the acreage in back of the house.

Carrie then had both days of the weekend off, though only Saturday of this weekend. We get to do shopping for food and whatever new bits we need to advance on getting the house together, watch some cable tv (mostly Mythbusters and Whose Line, but we did Bollywood Sunday once!) and other domestic stuff. Recently, both Carrie and I have slipped on the steps going down into the living room. The day after my fall, we went out and bought a roll of no slip tread and Carrie cut it into a much less boring shape.

I sort of caught myself when I slipped, but not really because I landed hard and not quite straight on my left hand. Nothing broken, but it got a little swollen and painful. I cannot grip anything more than loosely. It's very much better today than it was yesterday, but it still is going to keep me from shoveling or using the snow blower. Which is bad because it snowed last night! Looking out the window we thought Carrie was going to be in big trouble because of how deep it was, but the driveway didn't get too covered at all. We think it must be the protective trees.

As always, click on a photo to supersize it.

Booked Solid

2009-11-15T08:10:00.002-05:00

Saturday was our day off together and Carrie noted a number of flea markets and craft fairs being held mostly in the Augusta area. The first one we stopped at wasn't even on the list, but was the best one for me. 30 different Edgar Rice Burroughs paperbacks for $25. I owned most if not all of these in the past and only recently decided to start collecting the Tarzan novels again. With this purchase I now have 17 of them along with 11 of the Mars series and 2 of his westerns.

Happy Kemmer Tiara Day

2009-11-13T06:21:00.001-05:00

Happy Anniversary

2009-11-09T05:43:00.001-05:00

18 years of wedded bliss!

Back to the Land

2009-11-08T06:15:00.006-05:00

Just a couple of photos of our back property.

Winterizing

2009-11-07T06:12:00.003-05:00

Friday morning looking out the back door.

After the Fall

2009-11-07T05:30:00.009-05:00

We had a very rainy autumn this year, so although the trees were showing lots of color, the leaves got knocked off rather quickly. No long vistas of beautiful foliage lingering on as it slowly turned. This tree at work was one of the slower changing ones.

Greene House Effects

2009-10-31T07:20:00.006-04:00

The front of the house:

The back of the house:
The back yard:

Click on a tree for a larger view.

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2009-10-31T06:09:00.000-04:00

It Ain't Easy Buyin' Greene

2009-10-25T07:24:00.005-04:00

Part 1

In spite of this story coming in chapters, it is still an abbreviated account. There was an awful lot of waiting on things to happen.

After looking at about a dozen houses each weekend for months, we finally had a list of five houses we thought met our needs, and the Greene house was one of them. But when we asked to take a second look, it had been pulled off the market because the owner had decided to rent it out instead of selling.

We went through the process of inspecting and bidding on two of the other houses, each failing in turn. The other houses also not viable for their own reasons. We then heard the Greene house was back on the market! We went back for our second look, got some more questions answered and reaffirmed our opinion that the house was a good fit and bid. We got outbid.

We started looking at more houses.

The other bid on the Greene house fell through. We negotiated and settled. Got the inspection and it passed easily. Were we buying a house?

Not yet. Before any bidding was done on any of the houses we had gotten a letter from our bank showing we were pre-approved for a mortgage loan in the approximate amount of our estimated maximum. Before we got to the bidding part of the Green house adventure, we got a letter from the bank saying very simply our loan application had been denied because we had insufficient credit history.

Carrie and I do not have, have never had, and do not intend to have credit cards. We don't have car loans to pay off because we both paid cash for our vehicles when we bought them. The only loan we'd ever had was the mortgage for our previous house in Mesa which we paid off early more than ten years ago. Ten years being the limit of what the credit reports see. Our credit is spotless because we have nothing there.

The letter we'd received didn't say the bank would like us to provide alternate credit information or let's try a different type of loan application. It just turned us down flat.

Of course I was on the phone trying to talk with the man who'd taken our application in the first place to get an alternative. We knew there was an alternative because how else would we have gotten our first mortgage? Carrie even went in person to the bank. What we finally ended up finding was that the first clerk could only handle ordinary straight forward mortgages. His supervisor was apparently even less versed. We had to talk to their specialized loan officer who worked the region and so was only sometimes in the bank.

Eventually we connected with her and found the info we would need to provide for the alternate mortgage application. Bank statements, recent paystubs, and letters of credit. Mostly they were interested in a full year's history of good customer with landlord and utilities.

A full year's.

We had not, at that time, been officially lodged in Maine for a full year.

Still, we got the letters from the landlord, the power company, and for our cell phone accounts. Mine was just over the one year point and Carrie's was even longer, so there was that one at least. We also got a letter from the local vet, since we'd already been going there, and got one from our previous vet in Arizona with its decades of our history. We also added the insurance company and AAA which were both respectable and long time. That, we thought, should do for their requirements.

When the time came, we brought all this in, after setting up an appointment with the wandering loan officer, along with the official signed agreed on price. The officer asked why we hadn't provided all this beforehand so we could have gotten the ball rolling earlier. Because we had only just gotten to the final signed agreed sale price, which per her email was one of the required documents. Oh, no, we could have provided her with the other stuff sooner. Why didn't she say so in the first place???

To be continued...

On the Move

2009-10-17T10:23:00.002-04:00

Today we're making (hopefully) the last push to get all our stuff from the Freeport rental to our permanent home in Greene. Shehbek's pointy pinfeather, we have A LOT of stuff! Next week the cable company will be by to give our household a nodding aquaintanceship with the 21st century as far as TV and computer access is concerned. We should be burning up the networks again soon.