Still not enough sleep around here.

Kristie's been working hard on her ceramics stuff in preparation for her national TV debut. I've managed to pencil 6 pages in two days time. Tonight I've laid out the rest of the story. I didn't have a steady enough hand to ink, so I'll save that for tomorrow.

Kristie's been up until 4 the last few nights working on her stuff. I just stay up as best I can, I don't have the willpower to stay up like I used to.

I did manage to make my best batch of Welsh Rarebit ever tonight. Kristie even hate it. She responded with a round of cinnamon toast - a Duncan staple of late.

We're watching To Kill a Mocking Bird now. These people sound like they're from Georgia, not Alabama...

I tried to be nice to Kristie, but she made ugly faces at me. I guess I've learned my lesson.

Fluke is next weekend!

Later.

A desk, some pages, a cat, and a tour of walls.

So here's my current work set up. You may notice the fancy set of Rapidograph pens that I got for my birthday. Or you may notice that I use a sock to clean my brushes. Or you may notice the mug of earl grey tea in the floor - the mug is from the same set as the mug I keep at work. It's not that I like the mug, but I can't seem to find one that I like better. And we all know that anyone who drink earl grey does so only because Capt. Picard did. You may also notice that the Real GhostBusters/TMNT curtains have yet to be replaced in my office. This is of course despite the fact that Kristie's put fancy nice ones in the living room. You may also notice that Randy Travis is playing on iTunes (just between Iron&Wine and A3 on shuffle).

Here are a few of the pages I've been working on, spread about on the floor in an "oh, I've dropped these drawings" dada sort of way.

Our cat Bunny found a better perch for bird watching.

--------------
Now for a tour of the things that we've got hanging in our house. Today we'll focus on art work.

This is a painting by Drew from Toothpaste for Dinner. It's called Space Hamster.

This by a fellow that terrorized Tucson with in Grad School. Little does Mr. Ian Kimmerly know that I'll be visiting him in April... Hmm... Patrick, too, for that matter.

Here's a painting by Jamie Adams, a recently married friend with whom I shared much time in undergrad in Montevallo. I haven't sent him a wedding gift yet. Not even a card. I did used to have his email... Not even a call (I don't have a phone #). Surely he'll stab me next time I see him.

A toner drawing by Ken Procter, a professor in Montevallo. He traded me this for a drawing of Kristie playing Nintendo.

I tried to take a picture of the tiny Barbara Chapman drawing I have on my wall, but it was too blurry (even worse than the ones I did post).

I guess that's it for today. I also updated the links over there on the side -->

New banner and other things as well.

Oh, blogger - you're changing so much. I can't even figure out how to manage this mess of a weblog. I've thrown together a new banner - that's really the best I can do now. There's some other mysterious errors on the page somewhere (who knows). Blogger has some sort of fancy design mangager untility that scares me. I'm too used to butchering html to let it go. I'll get up the nerve some day. Maybe I should do some sort of fake test design blah blah blah.

Here's a cruddy four-page thing for my Grad Studio's class anthology (80s Cartoons is the theme). Mine of course is the worse of the bunch, granted I didn't have pressure of getting a grade for it. I could explain the idea behind it, but there is really no excuse for how sloppy it is.

As it turns out, the e-Learning folk didn't really go for the crazy photo, so I had to try again...


I've been making progress on my short Gobnobble story. I'll get a few shots sometime tomorrow maybe. I've been trying to take of some stuff around the house (as well as wrapping up school stuff). I guess I've still got some more scad stuff to do...

Ugh.

Now what do I do?

You may not believe this, but I just finished my Survey of Sequential eLearning course. I submitted my last set of captions for the 546 images used in the course, an example of my own work, an image of myself trying to look professorish, and a suggested set of readings for Unit 3.

Of course there may be a few edits here and there in terms of typos and spelling errors, but nothing major. They have a proof-reader who will catch all that stuff. I've also requested that I get a final read-through before it goes up for official consideration. Other than that, I'm done. DONE!

So now what do I do? I should grade work from my Intro class, but I left it at work. I'll get it tomorrow sometime. Should I run around the neighborhood? Nah, I'll wait for Kristie to get home. I've been working on this class since the summer. I left all of my inking supplies at school, so I don't guess I'll be inking today. I'll get on that tomorrow.

I'm going to spend tonight finishing my research organization for my Moonshine Murders book. The 50 years worth of newspaper articles are a bit of a beast.

I've been watching the Twilight Zone all day and must admit that finishing this eLearning course feels a bit like a Twilight Zone episode. Rod Serlin's ominous voice: "Professor Duncan thought he finished with his onLine course, but an email that he would recieve shortly would bring his new found sense of optimism crashing down around him."

Students who take my online course will think I look like this:

A Fine Powder of Bitterness.

The past few weeks have come and gone with little in the way of truely gratifying progress in any of my endeavors. I've got a few pages inked, but not enough to get excited about. I've been working on the captions for the 546 images that are used in my Survey of Sequential Art course. The developer has begun to rush me on this step and the quality of the work is suffering. This has happened as EVERY STAGE of this process. If SCAD would rather have quantity over quality, then that becomes their legacy. I'll be happy to be done with it.

Teaching 5 different classes is killing me. Every night I'm working right up until midnight only to get up at the crack of dawn the next morning to do it all over again. Ah, the daily grind has ground me to a fine powder of bitterness.

The forth-coming 5-year plan that I will undertake as SEQA Assessment Coordinator is like a giant looming on the horizon. Of course it will run me over sometime next month. Sounds like fun.

Maybe next quarter will be nicer than this one.

Hello...

IT has been a very long time since I was able to take the time to update this thing. Since last I posted I have finished developing my history course for the most part. 150 pages of text and 500 scanned iamges later, all I have to do to finish is write captions for all those pictures - which is no small feat.

I've been putting all my focus on school work for the past few months. I'm teaching 5 classes, developing this on-line comics history class, and working as department assessment coordinator.
It's a busy time, but it's almost over. I've been honing these new classes that I'm teach, so that's really been the toughest thing.

Next week is a good week here in the Sequential department. On monday illustrator and comics artist Peter Kuper will be giving a lecture at the school's Red Gallery. Then on thursday comics guru Scott McCLoud will be giving a big fancy lecture at Trustee's Theatre. Plus, get this, my Graduate Studio class will be having a critique that day and Scott McCloud will be participaiting in it. What fun. I teach Studios I & II and Dove teached Studios III & IV. For this critique we will combine in to one class (about 20 students total). It should be fun.

My personal work as suffered greatly because of the history class and these other classes. I have manged to pencil 12 pages and ink one, but as soon as I can I want to blaze through this story and get started on my murder mystery so that I can have part of it ready to present at APE (scad is sending me out there) in late April.

Back home from going back home - with stuff to do.

It's been a while since I've had time to put something here, as usual. Kristie and I just got back from Thanksgiving in Alabama. It was nice to spend time back home with people I only see twice a year.

While I was at home I was able to drag my dad back around to a few places. This picture was probably the most exciting to get. We had to climb under fences and hike down from the main road to this spot. It's right where Turkey Creek runs into Locust Fork River. Excuse the camera strap...


This is Crooked Creek down in Sardis. I think I've figured out that Sardis Road used to be called Crooked Creek Road and Mt. Olive Road used to be called Buckshort Road.

This is under Buckshort bridge. That's Locust Fork River.

While I was home I was also able to go to one of my favorite book stories: Reed Books. It's a huge loft that filled to the brim with old books. I found a few books while I was there. I found a lot more that I wasn't justified to buy. I'll sneak back one day when I can spend more time digging around. Here's what I got this time:

An old book of recipes from cartoonists, some I've heard of, some not.

A book on cartoonist Rube Goldberg, an artists who's name has become associated with the crazy machines featured in his comic strips. He's one of the few cartoonists who was able to work in every aspect of newpaper cartooning: strips, editorial, panel, etc.

I've become a collector of Comic history books. Writing this course for SCAD has made me even more interested in ths history of comics. If you have any that you want to get rid of, just let me know. I borrowed Bob's copy of Harvey Kurtman's history book and I don't want to give it back until I find one of my own. I love comparing different accounts of the same events. It's impossible to trust any historian.

Reed books also had a perfect stack of old Eclipse comics. In that stack I found:

The first issue of Scott McCloud's Zot! I think it's interesting to see McCloud's early work. I use his Understanding Comics as a required text in my Introduction to Sequential Art class.

Chris Ware's Floyd Farland: Citizen of the Future was my most exciting find. It was published 3 years prior to his inclusion in Art Spiegleman's Raw magazine in 1990. Easily is least recognizable work and, although it's a fun book to read, I doubt that he'll ever let it go back into print. It goes for almost $2oo on eBay for rugged copies. I paid a buck for a mint copy of it. Ha!

I also found a book on successful cartooning by Carl Anderson (creator of Henry). It's by my bedstand right now, though.

--------------------

I am currently finishing up the history course for SCAD. As I continue to work on it, I am spending more time working around the house and finally starting my new Gobnobble short story. I also have other paperwork that I'm doing fro SCAD. It never ends. Sometimes I feel like I've sold my life to SCAD. I would feel the same teaching anywhere else and not be anywhere near as happy as I am here.

It's been rainy today.

CAF XIII this week at SCAD!

I'll try and get a better image to put on here, this is all I could find right off.

This is the official press release thing, so it's a bit formal.
I had to edit it down.
------------------
COMICS ART FORUM XIII
12 artists this year. A reception where their artwork will be displayed. It will take place at Pei Ling Chan Gallery, 324 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., on Thursday, Nov. 9, 6–7:30 p.m. Anyone interested in meeting them is invited to visit Pei Ling Chan Gallery at that time.
Workshops (10 a.m.–1 p.m.) and portfolio reviews (2:30–5 p.m.) for sequential art students on Friday and Saturday. The panel discussion (6–8 p.m.) in Trustees Theater, 216 E. Broughton St. is open to the public.

This year's visitors:
Rodolphe Guenoden
R. Kikuo Johnson
Tracy Yardley
Tommy Lee Edwards
Mark Schultz
Adam Hughes
Phil Craven
Nick Dragotta
John Paul Leon
Cliff Chiang
Paolo Rivera
Scott Hanna

Scary House.

Kristie turned our house into a monster house. It's not easy to get a good picture.




I'm frustrated about not being able to work on my own work. I'm busting my backend trying to do all this work for things that aren't what I want to be doing. I'm anxious to get to a place where I can balance work for school and work for myself.

Hand-Lettering & Typography in Comics

Easily one of the coolest things about teaching here in Savannah is that I can design and teach a special-topics course. Here's a poster for a class I'm going to be teaching in the Winter Quarter.