Ren has some chalk, and it makes a thing on the wall that you can walk through! In today’s Freewheel!
This is the last page of Chapter Seven, by the way. Chapter Eight begins on Wednesday, and I am pretty excited about it because there are many things about the Freewheel world that I haven’t been able to openly talk about without revealing all kinds of spoilers. But not so after a few pages of Chapter Eight go up!
This weekend is SPX in North Bethesda, MD (the DC area)! I will be reminding you of this for the rest of the week because I have a few things going on there that I want you to know about!
First of all, here’s where my table is! I’ll be at table H12, which is here:
Just follow the pink trail! I’m in the same spot that I’m in pretty much every year, so it’s pretty easy to find if you’ve seen me at SPX before.
I will also be on a panel at 1pm on Saturday! Here is the description (it sounds totally awesome):
Comics and Worldbuilding 1:00 | Brookside Conference Room
This panel will consider the challenge of developing original settings for comics, individual artistic processes, and how the medium of comics is particularly well-suited to creating convincing invented worlds. Evan Dahm will lead a conversation with Liz Baillie, Aaron Diaz, Carla Speed McNeil and Spike Trotman.
Last but not least, I will be hosting the Ignatz Awards on Saturday night at 9pm in the downstairs area of the Marriott. Even if you have not been nominated for an Ignatz Award, I have made it so anyone in the room can win an award that is literally made of candy. Come check out the awards ceremony to see what I mean!
They are on the train! In today’s Freewheel! It only took, what… seven chapters before anybody got on a train? Originally I had Jamie getting on a train at the end of Chapter Five, but then I changed a bunch of stuff.
In my line of work, which involves a lot of sitting at a desk drawing tiny lines over and over, it can help to watch movies to break the monotony of the less-exciting aspects of drawing comics all day, every day. They have to be a certain kind of movie though – absolutely no subtitles (you can’t read while drawing), preferably not too much visual plot-furthering that requires you watch a bunch of silent stuff happen for ten straight minutes in order to know what’s going on, and also it helps if you can understand what the people are saying so you don’t have to try to read their lips (once again, hard to do while drawing).
This week I’ve been on a Cillian Murphy kick because besides being a ridiculously good-looking dude, he is also an incredible actor (and the Irish accent, in the movies where he has it… automatic swoon for all American ladies, I think). So right now I’ll review three Cillian Murphy movies I watched this week based on their ability to be enjoyed while simultaneously drawing.
Disco Pigs (2001)
This movie is INSANE! Not only is it about two insane people (one of whom is naturally played by Cillian Murphy) but the plot itself is totally wacky. From what I’ve read, the movie script was adapted from the script of a play by the same name, with the same part of Pig played by Cillian Murphy for the stage as well as the screen.
The movie’s about two friends born hours apart in the same hospital who have a disturbingly codependent relationship since birth and who live next door to each other. As they enter their seventeenth year, the boy (Pig) realizes he is sexually attracted to the girl (Runt) and things start getting creepy, especially as Runt begins to realize there are people to meet and friendships to forge outside of the bond she shares with Pig.
As far as drawability, this movie sucks balls. Not only do Pig and Runt speak in a nearly unintelligible Cork accent, they also speak in a weird baby-talk dialect of their own creation. The combination of these two aspects of their speech make it sound most of the time like they (especially Pig) sound like drunk Rastafarian children. The following clip is not for children:
I don’t know what he just said but I know it was fucking filthy.
So not only is much of the language completely unintelligible, but a great chunk of the movie is told through visual elements that you really need to keep your eye on. All in all, if you’re going to watch one Cillian Murphy movie while drawing, DO NOT MAKE IT THIS ONE.
Breakfast on Pluto (2005)
In this one, Cillian Murphy plays the super hot 70′s era main character of indeterminate gender, Patrick “Kitten” Braden, who is also known as Patty or just Kitten depending on the circumstances. The movie’s mostly just the story of Patrick/Kitten from birth until present day, which I’m guessing is mid-20′s, where through a complicated and amusing turn of events, s/he is being accused of setting off an IRA bomb in a bar. We also learn of Patrick/Kitten’s origins as an orphaned baby left on the doorstep of a priest and raised by a foster mother who clearly hated him/her. There is much fabulousness throughout the film from Patrick/Kitten, despite whatever troubles s/he encounters in life and in love.
For some reason, it’s nearly impossible to find a good scene on YouTube, so this trailer which really doesn’t explain much will have to do (I can forgive it for its inclusion of a T-Rex song):
This is a pretty good movie, especially if you are like me and are attracted to movies about gender variant people, Irish accents that are understandable, 70′s glam rock, and anything to do with the Ireland/North Ireland/English conflict (which has interested me ever since someone told me that being part Irish and part English, which I am, is some kind of paradox or oxymoron).
Overall, I had a pretty easy time understanding what was going on without looking up too much, so I’d say if you are trying to draw while watching a Cillian Murphy movie, you could certainly do so while watching Breakfast on Pluto.
The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006)
This is one of the rarest kinds of Cillian Murphy movies in which he does not play someone who is in any way out of the ordinary, be it a psychotic murderer, zombie killer, or fabulous gender variant individual. In this one he’s a doctor in rural Ireland, circa 1920, whose brother is in the IRA. He is about to go be a doctor in England when he witnesses a few acts of horrific violence inflicted on his fellow Irishmen by the British army and decides he will instead stay home and fight for Irish independence from Britain.
This is a pretty typical period-piece type movie about a big important war, specifically taking the thing people always say about civil war being “brother against brother” completely literally by making a movie about two brothers working together, but eventually pitted against one another, during the Irish Civil War. It’s definitely a good movie if you like those kinds of movies (I do) and most especially if you have a specific interest in either the Irish War of Independence or the Irish Civil War (I do).
As far as drawability goes, this one is somewhere in between Breakfast on Pluto and Disco Pigs. If you have an interest in the subject matter, definitely try and watch it while drawing. Some of the accents are difficult to parse, but for the most part are pretty understandable. Some of the action requires extended watching-without-looking-down, which makes it hard to draw, but most of the movie you should be okay just drawing while only occasionally looking up.
So in order of drawability, with #1 being the best and #3 being the worst, here are your top Cillian Murphy Movies to Watch While Drawing:
1) Breakfast on Pluto
2) The Wind That Shakes the Barley
3) Disco Pigs
Of course, this is just of the three that I watched this week. I didn’t include any of the others I’ve seen, but I may do another review going over some other movies at some other point in the future.
Looks like they made it to the yards! Damn, that train took a long-ass time to draw. In today’s Freewheel!
The whole train culture aspect of Freewheel is something I have a really hard time properly researching. I mean, I can find tons of information but something about the actual act of drawing trains relatively realistically is very difficult for me. I’m not an engineer (despite the fact that my grandfather spent most of my life telling me I should be one) so I don’t understand how all the parts of the train work together, let alone what sort of order the cars are supposed to be in, which car does what, which cars wouldn’t be on the same train as other cars, etc. I try my best to be as accurate as possible without making myself crazy over details that wouldn’t really matter to the average reader. As much as I would love the train culture aspect of Freewheel to be perfect in the eyes of railfans and other railroad enthusiasts, I’m just never going to have the time to delve in depth into the inner workings of the railroad. Not as much as I’d like to, anyway.
But that’s not to say I don’t do any research! On the contrary, I do TONS of research! Every chance I get to watch a documentary about railroads or tramps and hobos, I take it! I also spend a lot of time following links on the internet, anything that seems like it might be applicable to the Freewheel universe. Recently, in my link-hopping adventures, I came across this pretty neat invention of a railbike!
Now that I know what it is and I’ve had a chance to look up the term, I’ve found all sorts of cool stuff, but this is the thing I found initially that I thought was truly rad:
photo from the Black Butte Center for Railroad Culture's site
I saw this on the website of the Black Butte Center for Railroad Culture’s site. Theirs was one of the websites I randomly came across in one of my many searches for railroad-related information and reference photos. I’m hoping at some point that I can use a railbike in Freewheel!
I also found a video of someone on a DIFFERENT railbike, after searching on YouTube I realized railbikes are actually a “thing.” Pretty awesome! This one has a cool steampunk feel to it and can be motor-powered as well as pedal-powered:
Also in my searching, I found that not only is the railbike totally a “thing,” it’s even got a name: the draisine! They were used in much the same way handcars were used in the U.S., but were used mostly in Germany, Sweden, Norway and Poland. Fun facts!
Zane and I had not even been together a year before I started begging him for a dog. I had always wanted one growing up, but always lived in apartments that didn’t allow them. I didn’t even care what kind of a dog it would be, I could’ve just walked into the pound and picked the one that called to me most. Zane, however, was adamant about what type of dog we had to get. He’s always been more into the scaley creatures than the furry ones, so if we were to get a dog it would have to be a brindle boxer. Not just a boxer, not just a brindle dog, but a brindle boxer.
I sort of had my heart set on a pit bull by this time (if you know me, you know I did a TON of research on different dog breeds before adopting) because I had read they were the most loyal, and were athletic and hearty enough that they could take a bit of exercise. However, I was willing to go with Zane’s brindle boxer, even though I really wanted a pit.
What I found, after a few false starts and phone calls, was Ginger. A brindle boxer-pit mix. Perfect! She was also about a year and a half old and already housebroken and knew a few tricks, which was exactly the type of dog I wanted. No muss, no fuss, no having to go through training a puppy. She had previously lived with a family who did have her from puppyhood, but the husband had a stroke and Ginger’s hi-octane antics were a bit too much for the family to handle in the wake of that.
Zane and I disagree on when exactly we got her – I say his birthday, he says Christmas – but either way, no matter how much Zane said he didn’t really want a dog, Ginger was his from the moment he saved her from the pound. We got her from a shelter in Long Island, where his mom lives, so she drove him to the shelter to get her, and then we brought her back to his mom’s house for a while before bringing her home to Brooklyn. At first, she wouldn’t even look at me, she only had eyes for Zane. She literally ignored everyone who wasn’t Zane. So much for me getting a dog, eh?
In time, Ginger became my dog too. I mean, technically, she was our dog, but there was no question that she and Zane had a special bond. When we first got her, there was a period of about six months when she would not sleep at night unless he was curled up next to her on the floor or on the couch. When we took her to the beach for vacation, I slept in the bed by myself as he lay curled up with Ginger on the floor. I didn’t mind… much.
In time, she became more comfortable with us, and we with her. Christ, we even took her on our honeymoon with us!
Ginger in the woods on our honeymoon in the Catskills
When I started running a few years ago, Ginger was my running partner. When we lived in Bushwick, Zane put a harness on her and let her run straight down the empty street while pulling him on a skateboard. One time, while on a walk, she pulled me so hard that I fell down… and she dragged me a few feet along the sidewalk! She was a bit dog-aggressive so we couldn’t take her to dog parks or let her loose during off-leash hours in the park, but we did our best to keep her entertained and in good shape. Every summer we’d take her to the beach at least once or twice, where she’d get to run free on long expanses of abandoned beach.
She was incredibly smart, too. The Dollar Bill Story is famous in our household. Once, when Zane and I were going through a particularly difficult financial period, we were sitting on the couch trying to figure out how we’d pay our bills that month. Ginger trotted out of the room, pulled a dollar bill from a book that Zane was using as a bookmark, brought it over and placed it in his lap, then sat there happily wagging her tail, as if to say, “See? I’m a useful member of this household!”
She was an especially expressive dog, too. You could always read all her thoughts and emotions right on her face. One look in her eyes and you knew if she had been a good dog that day, or if she had destroyed something, or if she felt sick, or if she needed to go out. She had ways of “telling” us she needed to go, and the few times she’d have an accident in the house, Zane and I would inevitably look at each other, one or both of us exclaiming “But she didn’t even tell me she had to go!”
Above: Ginger expresses shame and sadness after being caught in the act of having brought a chicken bone all the way home after a walk. She is clearly hoping that I can’t tell she has a bone in her mouth.
One of the most wonderful things about her, and something that really betrayed the pit bull in her, was her extreme loyalty to us. I never once felt afraid walking her at night, because Ginger was the kind of dog when people saw her coming, they’d cross the street or get out of the way. She looked tough as nails, and you could see it in the faces of everyone who saw her walk down the street. The few times a stranger approached me while walking her at night, I warned the guy that she might bite, and as if on cue she would immediately begin maniacally barking and growling at him. I loved that about her.
There are few creatures in this world that you can say would literally kill for you, or die for you, if it meant you would be safe. Ginger would have gladly done either, or both, without hesitation or reservation. That’s love.
Over the past three or four months, she started slowing down, didn’t have the same kind of energy she used to have. She started losing weight. The light in her eyes was fading, you could see it. I had a feeling from the first time I noticed her slowing down on walks, not pulling as hard… I knew she wasn’t going to live much longer, but I didn’t say anything for a while. We took her to the vet and hoped for the best, and after a long, laborious battery of tests and vet visits and hospitalization, they still couldn’t definitely say what was wrong with her.
Eventually they said it was probably lymphoma, but by that time she was so miserable we chose not to put her through any further tests. We knew she was going to die, there was no point in putting her through any more crap at the vet’s, her most hated place. They gave us some medication that was supposed to help dogs with lymphoma feel better for a while, but unfortunately it only gave us a few good days with her before she quickly took a turn for the worst.
I’m still very thankful that we got those few, last good days with her. Even though it was only a few days, I got to see some of the old Ginger that I used to know, and that was a priceless experience. We did the best we could for her, right up until the end. We fed her fresh chicken and rice when she wouldn’t eat anything else. We spent whole days cooking chicken stock just for her. Zane carried her up and down the stairs to take her out every day. We cleaned up the pee, the diarrhea, the vomit, and we never got upset about it or got mad at her about it. She was a good dog, and we knew she would never “go” inside unless she was sick. She couldn’t help it. Every time she made a mess in the house, I just hugged her tighter.
Yesterday, we finally made the decision to take her in and have her put to sleep. Over the weekend, she had suddenly spiraled very far down; in a matter of days, she had several baseball and golf ball sized tumors on her neck and legs, and one of them had become infected and leaky. The whole front of her chest was wet with the pus that was coming out. Zane called a car service and we took her in. The vet agreed after taking one look at her – it was time. At her last weigh-in, she was 64 pounds, down from her healthy original 96. That’s like 30% of her body weight, gone.
They gave us a comfy blanket for her to lay down on, and we placed her head on a rolled up towel that we used to use to bathe her. They gave us a bowl full of fresh chicken, which we fed to her and she hungrily gobbled down until she literally couldn’t eat another bite. We were actually worried she might vomit, since that had been her M.O. the last few days (eat a ton of chicken and then barf it up), but she didn’t. It took them a long time to find a suitable vein for the catheter because she was so weak that her veins were collapsing when they’d try to put it in. Zane curled up next to her on the floor, hugging her from head to tail, as I stroked her face and she passed peacefully from this world. It was quiet, there was no last gasp or visible twitch or anything. She was already lying so still that I almost couldn’t tell the difference, just that she wasn’t breathing anymore.
Zane was able to get the vet to extract a tooth after she died, which he plans to make a necklace out of. We’re having her cremated individually, and I plan to scatter her ashes in Prospect Park (where we took her every day on walks) and Breezy Point (where we took her to run around on the abandoned beach every summer). I’m also hoping to have her ashes mixed into something like clay maybe, so I can make a necklace out of it.
Anyway, rest in peace, Ginger. You were a good dog, a great friend, and the best bodyguard I could ever ask for.
It’s a secret tunnel that leads to… somewhere? Maybe the yards? Probably the yards. In today’s Freewheel!
Release the Bats! is still up for preorder for a little while longer!
This weekend I watched an amazing movie called Long Gone. It’s a documentary that follows a few different tramps and hobos over the course of a five-year period and is possibly the best documentary about hobos that I’ve seen (and I’ve seen quite a few). It did a great job of portraying basically every type of modern-day hobo: the people who’ve been doing it forever because they came from broken homes, the flat-out alcoholics, the old men who had lost everything and decided to spend the rest of their days riding the rails, the crusty kids from happy, middle-class homes giving a middle finger to mom, the crusty kids that become junkies, the young woman who falls in love with an older tramp and ends up having his baby… I could go on!
I was most struck by the subjects Joshua Long Gone and his “Irish twin” brother, Horizontal John. Both men are in their late 40′s but look 20 years older and were born a year and a day apart. You hear them refer often to “our birthday” as if they were actually twins and from looking at them, you might even think they were! As the movie begins, both Joshua and the audience are immediately aware that something’s not right with John. He has a lot of trouble just moving around it seems, and later in the film it’s revealed that he’s sick in some way. He claims it’s just a cold or maybe walking pneumonia but for whatever reason delays his trip to the doctor.
The bond of love between these two brothers is simultaneously inspirational and heart-breaking. Inspirational because I think just about everyone longs for an unconditional bond like these two have; heartbreaking because, well… just see the movie, okay?
Also of interest in the romance between rugged Dog Man Tony and young, fresh-faced Erin. Despite their marked physical differences and an age difference of what must have been more than 20 years, the romance that we watch unfolding between these two just about makes your heart melt. Unlike another fresh-faced young girl in the film who I found to be quite irritating and unlikeable, Erin is all smiles and optimism and quite likable indeed. Before long, their romance yields a wedding and a child, and with the responsibility of that child comes the untimely split between Dog Man Tony and Erin.
There are several other great stories in this film as well, but I’ll let you hear them for yourself. Go rent Long Gone on iTunes for $3 or buy it outright for $10 by going to iTunes and doing a search for “Long Gone.”
Oh, and watch the trailer here. Did I mention this movie has several original songs by Tom Waits, some of which were composed for this film? What more could you possibly ask for? Nothing, that’s what! Go watch Long Gone already!
I think I forgot to mention in my last post that Release the Bats! is still available for preorder! For a cool ten bucks you get over 100 pages of short stories I’ve done over the past ten years from various anthologies, websites, and other randomness. I just approved the proof yesterday and now I have to pay the bill, so if you’re gonna preorder, now’s the time! All preordered copies will come signed with a sketch inside! Do it today! I will continue to accept preorders until the week before SPX, but the earlier you do it, the better!
How can you resist this handsome cover?
In other equally exciting news, I’ve got some cool SPX-related stuff to announce! Besides the obvious being-at-SPX-in-general stuff, I’m also MCing the Ignatz Awards for the second time this year! Be sure to come check it out, as I’ll have some fun surprises in store for everybody! And of course, afterward is the chocolate fountain, and who can resist that?
BUT THAT’S NOT ALL! I will also be on a panel that I’m sure will prove to be AMAZING! At 1pm on Saturday, Sept. 11th I’ll be on this super rad panel put together by the awesome Evan Dahm:
Comics and Worldbuilding
1:00 | Brookside Conference Room This panel will consider the challenge of developing original settings for comics, individual artistic processes, and how the medium of comics is particularly well-suited to creating convincing invented worlds. Evan Dahm will lead a conversation with Liz Baillie, Aaron Diaz, Carla Speed McNeil and Spike Trotman.
How’s about that panel lineup, huh? I feel very honored to be on the same panel with comics worldbuilding luminaries such as those listed above! I have a lot to say about the world of Freewheel, so if you’re interesting in hearing about it (or any of the other artists on the panel of course) come check it out!
I’m still running with Team Comics to raise money for Women for Women’s Congo Program on September 25th! Go here to donate if you haven’t already! As I mentioned before, I also have some friends running to help find a cure for breast cancer with the Race for Cure (the same weekend as SPX, which is why I’m not running with them). You can also donate to their team, Warriors Mobilizing Against Cancer if you are so inclined, or if you feel more drawn to the cause.
See you at SPX! Only two weeks left! EEP.
Also it’s my big brother’s birthday today! Happy birthday Alec!
Is it just me, or does it sometimes seem like everybody loves Ren except for Jamie? In fact, Jamie seems to be the only one so far to have anything negative to say about her at all! In today’s Freewheel!
Okay, so remember how I’ve been telling you all about how I’m running with some of my comics friends like Kate Beaton and maybe Sally Bloodbath and some other people to raise money for Women for Women’s Congo Program? Well, in case you forgot, we are all running a 5K on September 25th to raise money for this great program that helps women in war-torn regions recover from the trauma of war and take leadership roles in the rebuilding of their communities. Our team is called Team Comics and as I type this, we’ve raised a jaw-droppingly great amount of $1325! Go team! You can still donate on our team page here if you like.
Anyway, I’m not here to bug you for more money for our race (though you can still give if you like)! I would actually like to call your attention to a different race called the Race for the Cure, which raises money for cancer research. I have some friends from my dojang (Korean word for “dojo,” where I train hapkido) who are running the Race for the Cure this year, so if you were thinking about giving to Team Comics but haven’t yet, feel free to direct your funds towards Warriors Mobilizing Against Cancer, the team name that members of my dojang are running under (cleverly also an acronym for our dojang, World Martial Arts Center). As I type this, they haven’t raised much (maybe $200) so they could surely use some more funds for their cause!
I actually can’t join my dojang to run in the Race for the Cure because it takes place during the weekend I’ll be in Maryland for SPX (Sept. 12). However, I can still try and drum up some funds for my dojang family, so I hope you’ll forgive my shameless internet panhandling! It’s all for a good cause!
Speaking of SPX, I’m not only MCing the Ignatz Awards for the second year (which you should definitely check out, I have some fun stuff in store), but I’ll also be on an awesome panel that my buddy Evan Dahm put together about world-building in comics! It should be pretty awesome! I’ll let you know as soon as I have a date/time for the panel, as well as who else will be on it (some stellar names so far!).
Looks like Serenity may be re-evaluating her general distaste for Jamie! Or y’know… not. In today’s Freewheel!
Just this past Sunday I went to an extremely well-attended live recording of the Ink Panthers Podcast at Bergen Street Comics here in Brooklyn. I woke up at 10am and went online to find that it started at 11am, not 1pm as I had thought, so I rushed to get ready and ran out the door!
Even thought Bergen Street is a relatively quick trip on the subway, it’s just close enough (2 miles) that I can walk it in a decent amount of time, so I brought one of my two dogs, Ollie, with me. The show was advertised as “pet-friendly” and I know Alex Robinson brings his dog Wrigley just about everywhere, so I figured bringing Ollie would be a pretty safe bet. The little guy’s getting chunky anyway, so I knew the walk would do him good! Ollie’s relatively mellow, friendly nature is pretty well suited to social situations, but our other dog Ginger is dog-aggressive and HUGE, (not to mention pretty sick, and wouldn’t be able to make the long walk) so she had to stay home.
Once I got there, I realized the place was PACKED, and I had just finished walking Ollie through the rain and the mud for two miles, so I gave him some water and let him dry off a little before we went in. It was so full of people that there wasn’t anywhere to sit even only half an hour after the advertised start time! Usually things like this start about half an hour later than advertised, so I figured it probably hadn’t started yet, but boy was I wrong! I didn’t mind standing the entire time but poor fat Ollie had nowhere to lay down! Eventually he just sort of slumped onto the floor in the middle of the aisle and I had to move him every time someone passed by, which I felt a little bad about, but the poor guy was exhausted!
After the show ended, Ollie got plenty of attention from children and adults alike who wanted to pet the adorable fluffy dog, and since getting petted is his favorite thing (second only to snuggling with people on chairs and couches) I think it’s safe to say he had a pretty good time! Once we got home, the total 4-mile walk really tuckered him out, and he went right to sleep.
So it turns out that the ladder leads to a little hideout! And guess who’s in that little hideout? That’s right, it’s Serenity from back in Chapter Five! What the hell? In today’s Freewheel!
Don’t forget – Release the Bats is still available for preorder! Over 100 pages for only ten bucks, and all preorders come signed with a sketch inside!
She’s through the gate! But… what’s that ladder lead to? In today’s Freewheel!
So me and Kate Beaton and probably some other people in NYC have decided to run this 5k thing for the Women for Women’s Congo Program. We are seeking donations for the program and you can donate any amount right here to our team – Team Comics! Women for Women is a great charity that is deserving of your money – you can learn more about what they do right here, but basically they help women and girls in war-torn regions who have lost everything to first recover from the trauma they’ve experienced, helping them to build themselves back up and into leadership positions in their villages and actively participate in the process of rebuilding their communities. It’s an awesome cause, and you can donate via the Team Comics fundraising page!
We’ll be running the 5k on September 25th! If you live in the NYC area you are welcome to join us as part of Team Comics!
Donate any amount to receive a free desktop wallpaper!
I recently smashed up my laptop and had to buy an all-new computer so all donations are greatly appreciated and will go towards paying off the credit card bill for this very expensive purchase!
