The Heat is Stiflin'
What's been up the last month or two
Hey hey! Before we all knew it Summer has arrived! I just noticed I missed a post last month so let’s play catch up (good news, there isn’t much to catch up on).
I guess I’ve been taking an impromptu break on comics since I finished that last story. Well, it’s not a FULL break cuz I still work on pages from time to time, but I haven’t been keeping the pace I had since the last story. I’ve been allowing myself to get distracted with other stuff for the time being. I’ve also been working in my sketchbook, which is a very underrated task. While main projects can saddle you with a Do or Die work energy, sketching in the sketchbook is still just a way to play with stupid, passing ideas. I often forget I can just jot down these fleeting thoughts instead of trying to hold on to them, seeing how they can fit into a bigger project. Not every project has to be huge, and working in the sketchbook is a relief valve to that.
Raspberry Pi Project Complete
These past few months when I’m not sketching or working on comic stuff I’ve been tinkering on the Raspberry Pi, building a nice retro-gaming rig, and it’s finally come to completion.
After more extended research I stumbled onto a file depository that allowed me to install (and correctly run) arcade cabinet machines. It’s been the most difficult part of working with game emulation, but I’ve finally done it. So now that that big piece is in, I’m able to fully customize the GUI (graphical user interface) with custom boot screens, clean colorful menus with full box art on display, and of course background music you hear when scrolling thru the library.
I feel like I’ve completed a project I started in 2017, when I got my first Raspberry Pi computer and began tinkering. One of the cool things is I can backup the entire Micro SD image and clone it, just in case this card conks out or gets lost, I can write a new one and never lose all of this work (or game saves).
And then right as this was happening, my wife was throwing out an old, yet pristine, make-up case. It has movable dividers, and after some shifting…viola! The Game Pi can get packed up with 4 controllers and ALL necessary cables and adapters to hook up to any TV at a moments notice. And four controllers plays nicely with all the Bomberman and arcade hits that are loaded.
And while I was at it, the modded Vita got a 256GB card upgrade and tons more games got added, including a few games I truly want to play on this device, like Child of Light and Hollow Knight. My PS Vita has really come into it’s own now.
Clearly since I’m doing all this I haven’t been working much on comics. But on that note, it’s like I’m finally closing tabs on my long projects list, clearing a teensy bit of clutter in my head and a little in the studio.
New Stickers
Some new stickers came in! I love StickerGuy, they do such amazing, high quality work. These stickers are essentially mini screen prints that you can slap on stuff and they can weather the elements.
Would you agree that technology is getting worse? Maybe not the hardware in an of itself, that part is quite amazing. It’s that everything is built now with planned obsolescence in mind, and the software inundates you with ads, beckoning you to keep scrolling. With all this fancy tech why is our society slowly crumbling?
And then I had this idea of a melty Rick James face and his famous quote about cocaine. Just flip a word into something else as equally detrimental, but on a society-wide scale. This one turned out very sweet, white ink over rainbow foil. Melty Rick James drawn on the iPad in Procreate; vectorized and type layout done in Illustrator.
Look for them in the Store.
New Social Media
I noticed a lot of my artist friends signing up for a new social media platform, one dedicated to showcasing artists’ work and not scraping images to feed an AI. I created one as well, but I haven’t posted anything yet. I hardly post in whatever socials I have now. Years ago I posted regularly, but as Instagram keeps pushing reals and short-form video, the social currency of the internet, Likes, became more and more a diminishing return. It kinda turns you off to posting images like “why bother?” Static images provoked less and less engagement as the algorithm favors videos and more sensational, titillating fare (or whatever you happen to scroll past). Twitter is also a hot mess. I remember I used to love posting on Twitter, even though most of the time I was shouting into the void. I still felt compelled to compose tweets and shoot them out, and sure enough I go back and scroll through old tweets for ideas. Not so much anymore. Ads are around every corner, it just turns me off visually (as opposed to Before Musk, the APIs were open and there were a plethora of Twitter apps, many skirting ads completely). Interestingly enough, I scrolled through my Following list and see that so many of the people I follow are still posting new stuff, tweeting regularly. I don’t know if it’s the algo or what but I don’t see any of those new tweets in my feed.
But I guess people still want some place to post their stuff and their thoughts and comment on each other’s stuff. I understand the frustration of having an account and wondering why nobody sees any of my stuff, or why posts are inadvertently taken down because of perceived breaking of rules and such. We treat these platforms like they’re the town square, forgetting that the town square is a public space and that these platforms are owned by private companies. They don’t care about us and our voices, just our attention spans and how long they can keep us looking at their app. And now even more so what we post so they can train their AI systems. Many platform contenders come along yet fall short (remember Vero social?) or they get scooped up by the big guys. I wish the best for Cara, they seem to care about their “content” makers and have their best interest, and all we really wanna do is see what our friends and fave creators are up to.
Writing
Of course I’m still writing a bunch of stuff in the background; some ongoing comic series’, a few short stories, some fictional children’s tales based on my childhood, and of course files where I collect random thoughts on various subjects. I even have a few pieces I started expecting to post here, mostly about AI and it’s effects in the art world. I would love to write and post more opinions about current trends in technology, but as soon as I get a certain slant going something atrocious happens in the real world to make me reconsider my stance.
Speaking of technology, one of my favorite podcasts, CBC Radio’s Spark, ended this month after running since 2007. It was one of the first podcasts I really dug into when I started listening to podcasts at work during my daily drudgery. Real life stories about technological break-throughs inspired many of my comic stories, and few more that are still in the works. I’m sad to see it go.
That about covers it for this month. It’s a good reminder to myself to kick my butt back into gear. It’s an ongoing process! Thanks for following, and as always there will be more to come.