The Black Squirrels of Washington, D.C.

Well, I’ve been working on this comic for quite a while, but I couldn’t quite finish it before I went up to CCS for my portfolio review, and then I lost a lot of the original steam behind it after I talked about it with Steve Bissette. However, he advised me to finish it for my application, and so I did. I liked the idea of it being the front and back of a single page, but it was clear that it needed a third page. To give it more of the flavor my other comics have (if we’re being generous), I printed it out and drew in the rest to scale and scanned it back in. Like my first two comics, this is all non-fiction reportage. The final product is available here and the comics page as a PDF.

The Cuban Missive Crisis

Here’s a new comic. It’s a little different from some of the other stuff I’ve done: mainly it’s fictional. Click on the picture to see it larger.

I Once Was Blind, But Now I Assisi

For the better parts of yesterday and today, I was in Assisi, a small, beautiful city built into a hill in the Umbrian countryside. Assisi is mainly two things: an extremely quaint city in the countryside, and the home of St. Francis of Assisi, patron saint of animals and founder of the Franciscan order. In both regards the city is interesting and engaging. It is a very old city, and it has retained a medieval quality that makes it an extremely popular tourist destination in the summer. In early February, we weren’t exactly alone, but glad to have the breathing room. Walking back from our dinner, my traveling party stopped and listened in the darkness. Total silence is easy to appreciate, but even easier when you live across from a giant hospital complex in a capital city.

I realize that in the last couple of posts I’ve made reference to legends or myths, but this will not be an exception to that trend. A story often told to strengthen the case for Francis as a friend of animals begins with him walking alone in the forest. The monk approached a flock of birds, and as if they were unlike any other members of his spiritual flock, he preached to them. As the story goes, the birds kept perfectly still, listening intently, until Francis told them they could fly away.

You can find the rest of my pictures from the trip here.

The Cat Sanctuary

So, the tram that we take to get downtown ends at Largo di Torre Argentina. Upon first inspection, there are a bunch of temple ruins down below street level. It’s kind of overgrown, and not really clear what it is, but hey, there are ruins all over Rome right?

Turns out that the site is also a sanctuary for the city’s many homeless cats. This was one of my favorite discoveries today. As it says on a sign: “All the cats are sterilized, vaccinated, tested. They live only on charity.” And it appears to be true. Here someone clearly left some salmon for the cats to enjoy:

One was three legged, and on the website, another has only one eye. These cats are tough, but as far as abandoned and stray cats go, they lead the good life. Apparently Rome has a lot of homeless cats, but don’t most cities? It’s certainly a better alternative to what Beijing is doing.

Flamingo Typeface A Through O

So here’s A-O of my flamingo typeface. I pretty much did nothing today, which was a really nice break. It’s nice to work in my new Moleskine large grid notebook. It doesn’t scan as cleanly so I couldn’t really use these in anything exactly, but it wouldn’t be hard to redraw them. It’s so much easier to plan out and organize the space. I love grids. Below are some flamingo studies I did to figure out how to draw them. You can see the enlargement (double size) I did in the first one. Couldn’t do anything like that without a grid. One thing I learned as a result of this typeface is that flamingos are really weird creatures. More detail on my flickr.

Santa Barbara Zoo

So I just got my photos back from CVS. $20 for two rolls of 400 color film with a CD made of each. I’m taking Graphic Design History right now, as well as photography, and we’ve touched upon the beginning of the technology in the first half of the 19th century. Who would have thought that soaking a piece of metal with certain chemicals would record an image? It’s cool to be in the dark room and actually understanding how the picture comes to be from what you see in the viewfinder to what you hold in your hand. Pretty cool. Here are some pictures of animals at the Santa Barbara zoo. At the bottom is my first print; Jeff eating corn at a BBQ at my house. The quality isn’t great do to my printer’s scanner, but it’s pretty close. All taken with my Dad’s Yashica FX-3. Check out my flickr for larger versions.