My life UP until now

Here's the synopsis ... ummmm, hmmm.

Blogging seems to be a skill that I have lost, I am unsure as to why. Is it possible to lose your blog-mojo ... your Blogojo?

The problem is that I have such a diverse life that the Collossal Adjective has lost it's specific meaning - I could blog about growing truckloads of vegetable matter in my backyard ... I could blog about my bizarre workplace ... but I don't think you'd understand ... no offence - I don't mean you specifically, I just mean every person I try to explain it to doesn't understand ... and I don't mean that in "Oh why does the world misunderstand me so much" kind of way ... I KNOW why the world misunderstands me ... it's because I work in community forensic mental health in Tasmania. I could also blog about my music ... but although I have lately completely changed my direction into new and abstract forms ... which I think is terribly exciting ... the problem about blogging about it all is that it's all so terribly abstract that I don't know what to write about. I could blog about my brewing wines and beers ... actually that's a GREAT topic - a friend just gave me a pressie for my 30th which was a book about brewing sacred beers with herbs and weeds from various parts of the planet ... sooooo cool. I could also blog about my comic drawing ... but similarly to my brewing ... by the time I've actually got something completed which is worth writing about ... I'm so far into the process that even talking about it seems like old news ... I could also talk about home-renovations ... but there's lots of that on the net ... I don't think I have anything new to add to the world except for my witty banter about not having anything to mention.

Incidentally ... I just bought two new CDs that I am terribly chuffed about and I think that the world should know about my attitude as it may just influence you strongly to go out and buy these damn round pieces of plastic joyness. The first was Laurie Anderson's "HOMELAND" which is freaking AWESOME!! The second is PVT (formerly Pivot until they got threatened with legal action by a band called Pivot ... so they cleverly became slysdexic - top move boys), their album is called "Church with no magic" and it's a little challenging for rock ... which I am certain means that it is a classic ... it'll just take about twenty more listens before I get on their wavelength and then WAMMO!! I'll be hooked for life.

First Images last

Here's a possible first page for my future hopeful release of "the Long Weekend".

It's an image of Craig, the author/narrator of the article of the same name that I am adapting into a comic ... so the adapted comic will be Craig writing the article ... so here he is thinking ... and grappling with the concepts that he is writing about. I don't have a scanner for A3 currently so I have just stitched together two half pages ... hence the wonderful line in the middle ... I think that it kind of adds something to the whole ambience of the piece ... and perhaps I'll just continue the trend rather than try to fix it up for the rest of the book ... just kidding.

When I was a kid I used to visit a friend of my father's on the way home from school - Peter Foster ... he was a cartoonist, he was particularly into Will Eisner ... a man who's work Peter must have come across in travels rather than finding in a casual bookshop in Australia in the 80's, not sure about that one, must ask Pete one day. Pete was a humble and happy kind of bloke, also conducted the local church choir which both my parents were in. He drew a an adventure comic strip series (which was all the rage in Australia for a few decades). The main thing that he did and was most proud of was doing a black and white adaptation of "for the term of his natural life" which is an Australian classic story about a gent from England who gets accused of the wrong thing and sent to the penal settlement of Port Arthur in Tasmania and winds up miserable and dead and whatnot.

He was very kind to me and let me see all of his set-up when I was a kid. He had this desk that leaned up so that you could draw on it properly and stuff ... I got one of those recently ... so much better for your neck. And he lent me comics that he thought I might be interested in. Some old-style Batman's ... he gave me a couple of Martian Manhunter comics ... which looking back, I'm surprised that he gave them to me since they were a) rare ... and b) highly risque for a child under 10 years ... but no complaints ... it was interesting stuff. He also had a contract to work with a series of kids "readers" called Eureka. These were the readers that my primary school down the road got so I used to read Pete's comics at school and then walk past his home-studio and stick my head in to see if he was busy.

Anyways - I found out that Peter ... at almost 80 years old ... is trying to get his adaptation of "for the term of his natural life" out in colour ... go Pete!! See the article here.

I have to say though ... I pulled out my old copy that he gave our family in 1993 and had a gander ... his arduous cross-hatching has gone with the digital colouring ... and it's a touch sad because it looks beyortifulll!! But, if it gets out to more folks due to the colours then it'll be a good thing.

(because of course the world is split into things that are good and things that are bad ... yes - it's that simple!!)