It’s the Friday of an odd-numbered week in the Carleton trimester calendar, and you know what that means… another spanking issue of the Carleton Comics Journal! This week’s issue, while shorter than the previous, is no lacking in comic goodness: it features the work of freshman Jon Kittaka, who came out of nowhere and kicked us in the metaphorical testicles with his Hyperman comic, the first five pages of which appear in this issue, to be concluded in two weeks. Also featured is senior Austin Hall, whose comic raises a lot of interesting questions. Example: can you live with your uncertainty? That’s just one of them! I also put two comics in there, in addition to an ad seeking submissions. Next issue will be the last of Fall Term, and we hope to feature every artist who has been published already, in addition to a handful of new ones. But I’ve gone on for too long already. Here’s the cover, followed by links to each page:

• Page 1 (The Contents of This Issue)
• Page 2 (Hyperman #2, p. 1)
• Page 3 (Hyperman #2, p. 2)
  
• Page 4 (Hyperman #2, p. 3)
  
• Page 5 (Hyperman #2, p. 4)
  
• Page 6 (Hyperman #2, p. 5)
  
• Page 7 (Ad for Submissions)
  
• Page 8 (Returning) (rotated for ease of viewing)
  
• Page 9 (The Funky, Sexy Beginnings of “Swingin’” Sid O’Malley)
  
• Page 10 (Without Definite Direction)
  
• The Back Cover

To give you an idea of the scale, and the outrageousness of this cover, here’s a special image:

And, like Patrick says, “See ya in two weeks!”

It’s been a full year since I linked to all the sketches from Lenny Dee’s Fall ‘08 show, Welcome to Lenny Dee Town. Now another fall show has come and gone, leaving in its wake chuckles a-plenty. Thanks to Henry Moskowitz for use of his camera, my brother Jim for filming, and Nathan Riemer for tripod and putting the video on YouTube. Not coincidentally, you can find links to all the sketches on YouTube just below!

1. I’m a Mac
2. Bros (here titled “Don’t Trust a Bro”)
3. Custody
4. Mario & Order
5. Building a Party (currently only sound, no video… hopefully to be remedied soon)
6. Just Dance
7. Morning Television
8. Happy Hour (same problem as “Building a Party”)
9. One and a Half Men
10. Telekinetic and Telepathic Bros (in the program titled “Telekinetic Bros”)
11. Study Break (again no video)
12. Requiem for a Breakfast
13. Heavily

And the program from the show:

Dee-rector’s commentary to come soon!

Following the precedent set by TJ’s Feeding Milk to Chickens, it’s time to commemorate my blog’s one year-iversary (which was actually on October 21st)! This is the (official) 68th post of The Scott Collection, which collects all the previous ones into one extensive directory/list, to make your perusing all that easier. If you see a title/description you like, go ahead and click on it! I certainly won’t hunt you down and stop you. My personal favorites are in bold. Here’s what the first 67 posts have covered:

1. New-ish Blog (10/21/08) – An introduction, and already an apology for not having updated this blog since I got it the previous June. Links to the now mostly-inactive Dreams of People You Will Never Meet, and to TJ’s blog (see above).

2. T-Shirt Design: Lenny Dee Spring ‘08 (10/22/08) – A repeat of a post from The Scott Collection’s predecessor blog (no link included; seek it out yourself… hint: it’s on WordPress). Links to the old Lenny Dee website (worth a laugh), the IMDB page for No Country for Old Men, and a photo from Lenny Dee’s Spring ‘08 softball game.

3. Photo Every Day – In Progress (10/23/08) – Now irrelevant, after a post from this July (read on). Includes a now-broken link, since the update.

4. Foamcore “Cube” (10/24/08) – Some low-quality images of a project from Career Discovery Summer ‘08. A post that I probably worked on that summer, but didn’t get around to until last October. Also poor organization of the images. I got better.

5. Marcel Dzama (10/26/08) – A profile of artist Marcel Dzama, based on a short research project I did for my Painting and Drawing class. Includes links to a few galleries, and to David Lefkowitz’s website, with whom I worked this summer. This post also ends my consecutive four-day streak. Sticking to a posting schedule, as you may have gleaned, is not my strong suit.

6. Welcome to Lenny Dee Town (10/27/08) – Links to the Lenny Dee’s YouTube channel, and to the individual videos from the Fall ‘08 show. Image of the poster (ironically Photoshopped, I assure you), designed by me and Lisa (the blog of whom has now not been updated for several months). Fun fact: this fall’s Lenny Dee show was last weekend!

7. Inside Lenny Dee Town, Pt. 1 (10/28/08) – Oodles of links and insider goodness. First links to the Lenny Dee blog/website. A map of Lenny Dee Town.

8. Inside Lenny Dee Town, Pt. 2 (11/6/08) – The first full week without a post! A continuation of the previous post, wrapping up the commentary on Welcome to Lenny Dee Town. Our fall show last year (and in most years) was, in my opinion, our strongest. That should get you excited for the upcoming post linking to videos of this fall’s sketches!

9. An American Orgy (11/21/08) – An in-progress preview of my Painting and Drawing class final project. Images here and here.

10. Painting Final Project (11/23/08) – And then I finished it! This was my biggest (physically and creatively) project of last fall. Links to details thereof. The painting in its entirety:

11. Van Dyck Reproduction (11/24/08) – Another project from the Painting and Drawing class. A little anti-climactic. Link to the painting, and to some other works by Van Dyck (link not included since they’re a bit boring).

12. Diary: 1994 (11/26/08) – I found this when I got home for Thanksgiving last fall. It’s the text from a page (the only existing one, in fact) of a diary I tried to keep when I was just under 7 years old. It’s cute, and a little prescient. Excerpt: “i FORGOT TO TELL YOU i’M A REAL ARTiST. i DREW LOTS/OF PiCTURES.”

13. Winter Break Preview (11/28/08) – Written just before I left for my two-week study program in Vienna. One of my many undescriptive travel paragraphs.

14. Arrival in Vienna (12/6/08) – My only post, thus far, written overseas. Includes a few photos from the initial few days in Vienna, and my thoughts on whipped cream in Europe.

15. Vienna: The Sketches (12/17/08) – A gallery of the drawings that I did while in Vienna. Includes sketches of architectural spaces, other students on the trip, and studies from Viennese works of art. To date, my watercolor sketchbook from Vienna is the most complete, coherent one I have, and has a special place on my bookshelf.

16. Vienna: Other Sketches (12/19/08) – I also lent my sketchbook to the other students on the trip a couple of times, to allow them to express themselves creatively. The results were largely ambiguous.

17. Back in Minnesota (1/04/09) – Happy new year! I wrote this shortly after returning to Minnesota from New Zealand, which I unfortunately never got around to writing about. Lisa has some great pictures on her blog, though, which you can find here.

18. Leslie David Baker Sighting (1/8/09) – In O’Hare International Airport, waiting to fly to New Zealand via LAX, I saw Leslie David Baker (who plays Stanley on the American version of The Office) exiting the plane. It was exciting enough to blog about a few weeks later!

19. The Hits of 1996 (1/22/09) – The first three months of this year were a very productive time for me. Trying to stick to a 24-hour-per-week drawing schedule, I made a lot of miscellaneous, uncategorizable work this winter. This is one of those (although I have to admit, they are all great songs).

20. You Know, From The Shawshank Redemption (1/25/09) – And a lot of other movies, too! This drawing was also featured in the second issue of the Carleton Comics Journal.

21. Scott Donaldson(s) (1/28/09) – Another group of line drawings of people’s faces. This post raises some issues about drawing from indirect observation, with the Internet as a dividing medium. With Google Street View, I can make a detailed perspective drawing of a city I’ve never been to. Pretty pretty cool!

22. Little Four Eyes (2/9/09) – An illustration for a banner of a website I did. The site is run by one of the reference librarians at Carleton, and continues to be updated regularly. Includes an initial draft of the banner.

23. Boy With a Toad (2/18/09) – Title references the Iron & Wine song Boy With a Coin (I think). This post tells the story of Bartleby, Lisa’s and my first toad. Includes a watercolor painting from the previous fall, and a photo of Bartleby. As of June, we have another, named Horatio, who’s also special but in a somewhat different way.

24. Jameson vs. Scott: #1 (2/25/09) – The first in a series that has yet to expanded upon. Includes mine and Jameson’s variations on the Hancock movie poster. Someday we’ll Photoshop competitively again. Until then…

25. Mayfair Mall, Wauwatosa, WI (2/28/09) – A watercolor painting/drawing of a tower in the mall complex near my home, and a preview of things to come. I included the work here in Carleton’s Junior Show of last year, and Milwaukee is still very relevant to my current comics work, and Comps.

26. Lenny Dee Goes There (3/2/09) – Links to the winter show. The program from said show. I had gotten a haircut the day before I posted this.

27 and 28. How Lenny Dee Went There, Pt. 1 and Pt. 2 (3/3/09 and 3/6/09) – You know the drill!

29. Summer Break 2009 Preview (3/9/09) – Big news about my summer plans, and getting ready for the end of winter term.

30. Life Drawing: Sketch for Final (3/10/09) – Similar to the “American Orgy” post, this is a preview of my final project for Life Drawing. Interestingly, the preview here really is just a sketch (conceptually), in that it was not used physically in the actual final project.

31. Alone In Canada (3/14/09) – My Life Drawing final project, and the first post for which I advertised via Twitter. These are still some of my favorite works from this calendar year, and almost certainly the three that best showcase my watercolor skills (until, perhaps, the end of this term). The paintings themselves:

32. The Table (3/16/09) – In this post is a collection of photos from the Woodworking class’s end-of-term show tables. A photo of my table, which now resides in the Senior Studio in Boliou, is below:

33. Ben Folds at The Eagles Club (3/21/09) – A review and setlist from a Ben Folds concert I attended in Milwaukee over spring break. Some analysis over the setlist, not all positive. My brother was there too!

34. Airstream Driver (3/25/09) – Another music-related post, this one including a painting I did while bored during spring break. It’s a theoretical single cover for the Gomez song Airstream Driver. Also a picture of a regretful man.

35. Spring Term ‘09 (3/27/09) – Two paragraphs about my intended plan for Spring Term. It became the least regularly updated months for this blog, for several personal reasons. Fortunately, around the beginning of this summer, I got back on track with blogging and with my life.

36. A Drawing: 1 (4/13/09) – The first of a short series.

37. A Drawing: 2 (5/20/09) – The second of a short series.

38. Lenny Dee: You’re Outta Line! (5/22/09) – Links to the videos from Lenny Dee’s spring show (the longest but also most hit-or-miss). Check out the program.

39. Los Politicos (5/30/09) – Tim (of Lenny Dee fame) directed a play entitled Los Politicos. I made the poster for it.

40. The Lens: Senior Portraits (5/31/09) – In the style of “Hits of 1996″ and “Scott Donaldson(s),” I drew portraits for each of the graduating seniors who worked on Carleton’s Politics and Culture magazine, The Lens.

41. Power Outage (6/11/09) – An apology and excuse for not updating more.

42 and 43. Lenny Dee Is Outta Line, Pt. 1 and Pt. 2 (6/18/09 and 6/26/09) – More exciting Dee-rector commentary!

44. Alcott Park (7/5/09) – Reflecting on past summer jobs, and two drawings that I did the summer before entering Carleton at one of the parks I worked in.

45. Best of 2009, Pt. 1 (7/6/09) – I wouldn’t have bolded this, had it not been for the incredible amount of views this post generated for my blog. I rarely review music (see “Ben Folds at The Eagles Club” or “Airstream Driver”), but apparently, discussing new music is one of the most effective things you can do to be popular (thanks, Pitchfork!).

46. Some Dudes (7/8/09) – An odd gem of a drawing/painting from earlier this summer. My style of portrait drawing with a watercolor twist.

47. Sunflower Smoking Cigarette (7/10/09) – Another odd and/or end that’s now the background of my Twitter page. This kicks off the start of a bunch of digitally-based work.

48. Transitioning (7/14/09) – An introduction to www.scottdonaldson.net (still under construction guys, be patient). I was, and remain, excited about having my own website.

49. “Vectour” Contoured Portraits (7/15/09) – I’m not sure if these works can actually be classified as vector art, which is why I included quotation marks in the title. In any case, it’s digital portraits of myself and Lisa.

50. CarToonJ (7/24/09) – TJ gets the Photoshop treatment!

51. Sketchbook Bonanza! (7/27/09) For a few days, I walked around Northfield and did a lot of line drawings. They are collected in this post.

52. Photo Every Day – 1 Year In (7/29/09) – Link to a video of myself aging at the speed of ten days per second. Despite growing skepticism, I’m still taking these pictures, even as of today.

53. Saw vs. Se7en (8/3/09) – My first, and thus far, only movie review. I noticed the similarities between two films made almost a decade apart.

54. A Dog, A Monarch Butterfly, Metaphor (8/5/09) – This post is important to me because of the new directions it took this blog, and my work in. Cataloguing little events from my life became a way to force myself to draw comics, and the more I did it (even in half-hour or hour works like the first two here), the easier and more natural it became to write stories and draw pictures. These are still some of the favorite comics I’ve done, and I’d like to revisit the first two to refine the art more someday.

55. Turtle Stadium (8/7/09) – A fun random drawing I did one afternoon in Goodbye Blue Monday, Northfield’s premiere coffee house and place to be seen around town.

56. Protagonist: Fish (8/22/09) – Drawn and posted after my August travel to Toronto, New York, and Cape Cod. School was fast approaching, and rather than working on my Comps, I drew this comic, complete with tongue-in-cheek references to my actual Comps in the post.

57. Funky, Sexy Jazzmen (8/24/09) – These three drawings have a somewhat-developed backstory that I want to flesh out more fully over Winter Break. I am working on a one-page origin story for “Swingin’” Sid O’Malley that I hope to put in this week’s issue of the Carleton Comics Journal.

58. Crossing the Border (8/27/09) – Two drawings from my August vacation, the former of which later appeared in the second issue of the CCJ.

59. The Meaning of Numbers (8/31/09) – A two-page True Story, the first that wasn’t about a specific event in my life. My girlfriend finds my drawing of my childhood self adorable. I think it looks a little like Joe Dobrow, a guy I worked with at Hogan Brothers’ this summer. These pages also appeared in the first issue of the CCJ.

60. DoPYWNM… It’s Back! (9/8/09) – In which I claim that Dreams of People You Will Never Meet is back, and will be updated regularly, complete with illustrations. Yeah… my bad.

61. Other Positioning Systems (9/9/09) – An advertisement for David Lefkowitz’s exhibition at the Rochester Art Center. It’s still on display! Get yourself there sometime before January 10!

62. First Day of School! (9/15/09) – I realized not long after this post that it wasn’t fair to myself or to you, my readers, to update thrice weekly if it meant posts like this.

63. Pronunciation Guide (9/22/09) – This one’s funny, and is worth linking to again. Just don’t get my name wrong.

64. Carleton Comics Journal: Premiere Issue (9/30/09) – If you’ve actually read up to this point, you’ve probably checked out the premiere issue already. Am I right? If not, click on that link.

65. Hugo and Grandmama (10/1/09) – A bizarre gem of a comic. Appeared in the second issue of the CCJ.

66. T-Shirt Design: Lenny Dee Fall ‘09 (10/7/09) – A new Lenny Dee T-shirt! Fun fact: I still have to get over to the printers’ to order these. Oops.

67. Carleton Comics Journal: Issue the Second (10/16/09) – And so we arrive at the most recent post, which by this point has established itself as a sophomore effort in an ongoing series that will hopefully number fifteen throughout the course of this school year. If all goes according to schedule, a third, possibly Halloween-related issue should be released this Friday. Expect a follow-up post soon thereafter!

If you’ve actually read this far, I owe you a lot of thanks, and probably an apology or two for some of the posts. But I hope I keep you stimulated, and that you enjoy my work. The next year will be even more productive and fulfilling than the last. Thank you again.

This issue is even bigger than the last! It features not only Jacob, Kailyn, and I, but also Andreas Stoehr and Narula Bilik. Cover (designed by Jacob) below, followed by links to the pages.

• Page 1 (Itemized List of Contents):
• Page 2 (Morgan Freeman / Crossing the Border) (see here and here)
• Page 3 (6 AM [Excerpt], Pt. 1)
• Page 4 (6 AM [Excerpt], Pt. 2)
• Page 5 (Poison People [Excerpt], Pt. 1)
• Page 6 (Poison People [Excerpt], Pt. 2)
• Page 7 (Poison People [Excerpt], Pt. 3)
• Page 8 (Tale of Beasts)
• Page 9 (Life’s Rich Parade)
  
• Page 10 (Hugo and Grandmama) (see here)
• Page 11 (Mecha-Monkey: A Love Story, Pt. 1)
  
• Page 12 (Mecha-Monkey: A Love Story, Pt. 2)
  
• Page 13 (Mecha-Monkey: A Love Story, Pt. 3)
  
• Page 14 (Mecha-Monkey: A Love Story, Pt. 4)
• The Back Cover

300 issues for this printing. It’s Family Weekend at Carleton, and we’re going to make sure everyone’s uncle and grandmama hears about CCJ. If you’re interested in a hard copy, email me to make arrangements. And, in the interest of tradition, here’s me with an issue at 1:45 AM, Friday, October 16th:

Expect issue 3 to arrive the day before Halloween. Will it be spooky? It just might be.

It’s about time for a new Lenny Dee-shirt! You can find the old, inferior one here. The new, improved one is below:

Here’s the front:

Aaaand the back (an inspirational quote):

New shirts are always exciting! Sorry for the late post but not the exclamation points! Catch you next week!

It’s a little silly, and a little dark. I’m not sure where this one came from. But you might just see Hugo and Grandmama again someday…

This summer, I realized that although several campus publications feature comics as diversions, there’s nothing produced specifically to showcase comics. This is where I come in. Jacob Canfield, a sophomore, and I got together in the early days of this school year to discuss the possibility of such a thing. With limited resources, time, and energy, we put out a twelve-page premiere issue. Also featured are students Kailyn Kent and Jia-Li Tan. You might remember some of my work from a previous post, but rest assured that I have some material in this issue that has not previously been blogged about. Here is the cover, followed by links to each of the pages:

• Page 1 (The Editors:)
• Page 2 (Bill Jenkins, The Truth)
• Pages 3 and 4 (The Meaning of Numbers) (see above)
• Page 5 (The Fall of the Truth / One Wish)
• Page 6 (The Adventures of a Boy Who Is Easily Pleased)
• Page 7 (Poison People [Excerpt], Pt. 1)
• Page 8 (Poison People [Excerpt], Pt. 2)
• Page 9 (The Wound-Up Bird Chronicles)
• Page 10 (Gerald Winkler, Pt. 1) (the novelization of this)
• The Back Cover

Well, it’s getting pretty late, cats and kittens. Jacob and I (and Nathan and Kailyn, thank you very much) just spent the better part of two hours printing and folding an astounding 100 copies of this issue. Not bad for a first run? I hope so. They hit the mean streets of Carleton tomorrow, and time will only tell what the reviews are like. We hope to put out an issue every two weeks, so expect big things… from the Carleton Comics Journal.

And, as proof that this is “for real”:

In 9 months, I will be a graduate of Carleton College. But before that, I have to graduate. And I’ll be damned if they don’t pronounce my full name correctly at graduation. The college agrees, and so they sent out a sheet to all the graduating students that included a pronunciation guide. Here, for Carleton’s and your reference, is that guide (as always, click for larger):

That was yesterday, actually. I titled this as a True Story, but I won’t archive it as such. It’s just not juicy enough!

As hinted at yesterday, today’s post is a genuine advertisement for artist David Lefkowitz’s solo show, Other Positioning Systems. The show will open at the Rochester Art Center on Friday, September 11. This summer I’ve been helping David prepare for the show, and from a first-hand, totally non-biased (not true) stance, I can tell you that it’s going to be an incredible show (true). Feel free to peruse the RAC’s page for the show, or find more details at the event’s Facebook page. While the opening is from 5:30 to 8:30 PM on Friday, the exhibit will remain up at the RAC until January 10, so there is ample time for you to get down to Rochester to view David’s art. Here’s a preview of what you may find:

And I leave you with an excerpt, no, an imperative from the Rochester Art Center’s description of the show: “Put away your GPS and let yourself get lost in a mazelike smorgasbord of visual and spatial curiosities.”

Hope to see you there!

It’s been quite some time since I last illustrated for Dreams of People You Will Never Meet, my friend TJ’s “other” blog (his first being Feeding Milk to Chickens, a meditation on music and life). As the site is nearing its one-year anniversary, we’re reviving it in the hopes of creating the Interweb’s premiere anonymous public dream archive (illustrated by the dude whose blog you are currently reading). While the latest dream won’t be posted until tomorrow, I offer you here and now a sneak preview of its illustration:

So yeah. Chew on that! And I’ll get back to updating regularly soon enough. It’s been a busy week, getting ready for David’s show… more on that tomorrow! And head on over to Dreams of People You Will Never Meet!

I spent most of today on this one. It’s a double True Story, since I didn’t update last Friday. It asks the big questions, and I’ll let it speak for itself from here on in:

Two weeks ago today, I took the train from Toronto to New York City. We waited for quite a while at the border crossing (near Niagara Falls), where US Customs Agents boarded the train to check the customs declarations and whatnot of all the passengers. My agent, Subrayn (name changed to protect the innocent) spent about 30 seconds on me, a US citizen, but considerably longer on the guy sitting in front of me. He (the passenger) seemed a little unclear on how long he was staying in the US, and what he would be doing for said amount of time.

God bless America!

And here’s another drawing I did on my trip. Although I drew this on the flight from Minneapolis to Charlotte (en route to Toronto), it was inspired by a man I saw in New Zealand (either at Christchurch or Auckland’s airport), whom I dubbed an “artificially wide man.” I believe you’ll see why.

Until next time, kids and (anthropomorphic, computer-using) kittens!

Oh boy. That’s right, these suave, urbane musicians are all single, will make you tingle, and of course they’re ready to mingle. They’re the Funky, Sexy Jazzmen, the sole (or perhaps, soul) survivors of a dying way of life: the jazz (click each image for a larger, jazzier version).

The three featured here are but a small portion of the underground collective known as the Funky, Sexy Jazzmen. Rumors of their musical and sexual prowess have spread from Portland to Pittsburgh, and then right on to the other Portland.

Why, you might even have an FSJ in your very own neighborhood, under your nose! By day, they pose as ordinary men: dog catchers, small appliance repairmen, high school custodians, but by night, they transform before your very eyes into Funky, Sexy Jazzmen.

I’ve managed to capture the likenesses of just three FSJ’s here, but there could be countless others out there in the world… going about their daily lives with an untold, secretive secret: that they are the Funky, Sexy Jazzmen, bound by their honor to uphold a dying way of life. The Jazz.

Also, check out the slightly updated, slightly less pixelated, slightly bluer version of Protagonist: Fish!

Oh hey guys. Remember how I was going to Toronto, and New York, and other places also kind of? That happened. I’ll be back in Northfield this evening, and will tell you things about my trip eventually, but today I drew a little something something that is an indicator of great things to come. Unless you’re David Lefkowitz, my girlfriend Lisa, or one of a few other privileged souls, chances are you don’t know much about my novelle graphique (comix book). Well, forget everything you (don’t even) know! Forget coming-of-age stories set in Milwaukee in the early 2000’s, and forget a convoluted 10-chapter structure in which each chapter focuses on a specific relationship in the narrator’s life, with each relationship paralleling another in unique ways*. Just forget it!

This fall, my NEW and IMPROVED graphic novel will be about a bunch of wacky denizens of a mini-golf course: the pond fish!!! Don’t believe me? JUST CHECK IT OUT:

The overall story will focus on how a bunch of these fish fight back against the unruly teenagers who threaten their very existence in the mini-golf pool/pond/whatever. It is basically Finding Nemo but way, way, way better. I’m thinking Eddie Murphy for the voice of “Fish” (in the inevitable film realization of this masterpiece). So yeah! Fish all the way.

*And now you actually have an idea of what my graphic novel will be about.

Sorry, this isn’t a new true story (though I’ve got a few ideas in the works). Rather, this is just another random drawing I did the other day.

Anyway, it’s a turtle with a baseball stadium on its back. Sharpie again (“Ultra-Fine” and “Fine”) this time around. Not sure where the idea came from, or just where in the hell this turtle thinks he’s going.

In other news, I’ll be flying to Toronto on Sunday for two weeks of Canadian and East Coast (New York, Cape Cod) vacationing. I’ll try to keep updating. Expect a couple of true stories out of this trip!

I’m working on a new series. A comic series, kind of. When something interesting happens to me lately, I’ll draw a few pictures and write a few words about it. They are all true stories. So I call this series A True Story About. The title of each individual work (see this post’s title) is the subject that immediately follows the “About.” Go ahead, click each image for a larger version.

Still don’t know what happened to that dog.

This one also has an animal in the title, so I decided to change things up a little for the third.

I think it’s a coincidence that these stories all involve animals, but I can’t be too sure yet. All of them are done in “Ultra-Fine” Sharpie (as elaborated here, my new medium of choice) in my sketchbooks. I did the first two in about a half hour each, but spent a little more time on the visual style of the third, which I’m going to try to focus on in the future. I hope to draw many more true stories in the coming weeks.

Last weekend, Lisa and I rented the 2004 thriller/gore movie Saw, the first in a seemingly never-ending series of similar films, each subsequent one progressing more toward the “gore” end of the spectrum. The group of films, with an upcoming video game and amusement park ride, shows no visible signs of an end to the narrative, something that I think is crucial to any successful work (see Lost during season 3, when it was announced that the show would end after six seasons). In fact, Saw VII was just announced for release, presumably around Halloween 2010, which is a nice segue to the movie we rented last night, 1995’s Seven (also marketed as “Se7en,” and will be referred to as such here). It stars two dudes you’ve probably heard of, namely Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman. As it turns out, Saw is based on is Se7en, only made nine years later and dumbed down greatly, though not beyond recognition.

Se7en is also the name of a South Korean pop singer.

So what does Se7en have going for it that Saw lacks? I’m glad I asked.

Both films have a serial killer antagonist who murders people in order to teach them/society a lesson about humanity (or lack thereof!). Both killers are semi-creepy, bald, white dudes. Se7en’s “Jigsaw Killer” (a.k.a. John Kramer) doesn’t have an end game for his killing, though, leaving the door open for torture and mutilation in dozens of victims, and allowing it to be carried on by his apprentices in sequels. The killer in Se7en (a literal John Doe) has a more concise vision: kill one person for each of the seven deadly sins, as an example to society.

• The winner here is Se7en, although it has a slight advantage in that John Doe has a fair bit of screen time and dialogue with the two detectives on his trail, whereas the Jigsaw Killer’s identity is only revealed at the end of Saw, in a pretty cool twist (and if you’re into sequels, the Saw series is full of twists).

Both films depict unnamed cities, full of heartless criminals at its worst and hopeless, jaded citizens at its best. The killers hold a grudge against these cities and the people in them, taking out the proverbial trash in order to make them better places. The Jigsaw Killer makes this clear to his victims in films shortly before their deaths, while John Doe reveals his motives to the detectives after being captured.

• In Se7en’s city, it’s always raining. The sky isn’t even shown onscreen until the detectives take John Doe out into the desert, where his final victims (Envy, Wrath) are revealed. Other than Pitt and Freeman, law enforcement officials are unscrupulous and easily bribed. The streets are full of trash. All in all, it’s not a nice place to be. Meanwhile, the city in Saw lacks any real character. A somewhat cliché parking garage scene makes for a nice mise-en-scène, but is too isolated. The industrial bathroom in which the film’s “protagonists” are chained is filthy and falling apart, but also set apart from the actual city. Here Se7en wins again.

Finally, both films feature an older, more experienced but also jaded African-American detective mentoring a fresh face, ready to fight crime. Both black detectives express discomfort with the city and society, similar to the killers’ but with (obviously) different ways of dealing with it. The winner?

• Morgan Freeman vs. Danny Glover? You knew the answer before the question was even posed. Se7en wins again.

There are other aspects to these films that I haven’t covered, but in the interest of concision and due to the fact that the newer of these films is already five years old, I’m cutting this comparison off here. Feel free to post your own thoughts below, in the comments section. I’ll leave you with the parting words in Se7en: “Ernest Hemingway once wrote, ‘The world is a fine place and worth fighting for.’ I agree with the second part.”

Now imagine those words spoken with Morgan Freeman’s soothing, satisfying voice.

Last October, I wrote about an ongoing project (directly stolen from inspired by things like this and this) wherein I took a photo of myself every day and made a video of the stills. Easy, yeah? It should be. In practice, it’s full of starts and stops and extended periods where I’m not around my laptop (my camera). For instance, I was hiking in New Zealand for two weeks, in the (mostly) technology-free wilderness last December.

I even started this same project (without much success) in October 2006, the year the videos above became über-popular. Here’s the very first image from that (featured prominently in my earlier post):

That’s actually what I looked like freshman year of college! Unbelievable. Anyway, last July I started the project again, with somewhat more success, and kept a pretty good rate of 90% going for a while (that is, I took a photo of myself 9 out of every 10 days). As of July 28, however, it’s decreased to about 65%. Still over half, right? So yesterday was my one-year anniversary for taking pictures of myself. Here’s what I looked like then (yesterday):

Man, am I into myself. But I’m probably boring you. If you want to look at me some more, you can watch the titular video here. The first few seconds are a little messed up quality-wise, and there’s no music. I recommend opening an awesome song in another tab and listening to that while you watch the video. Also, maybe I didn’t link to that video enough. Here it is again.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZ53lcCZJrY

Honestly, I’m having trouble justifying why I do this. Leave me a comment regarding that. Thanks.

To make up for last week, today’s post will be a very special one: a whopping 5 pages of double spreads from the sketchbook I bought a few days ago. I’ve been filling it up at a pretty quick pace, working exclusively with freehand line drawings done in “Ultra-Fine” point black Sharpie (I put that in quotes because really it’s closer to a 0.8, maybe even 1.0 mm diameter point… hardly “ultra-fine” by Micron standards, but I’m reveling in it nonetheless). The sketches are all from Northfield, mostly outdoor urban scenes:

These first two were drawn on Saturday in Bridge Square in downtown Northfield.

This is the only indoor sketch so far, from Lisa’s apartment yesterday while we were watching 10 Things I Hate About You on TV. That’s Heath Ledger chatting it up with Julia Stiles on the screen.

I drew this earlier this morning from inside Goodbye Blue Monday Coffee House in Northfield. It’s a view of the building and trees across the street, and also a car.

I drew this just earlier this afternoon, in Bridge Square again. There’s a popcorn wagon that’s open often but not always. But it’s always a special treat when it’s open. I got a root beer from the stand once I had finished this drawing and talked with the woman on the left and man in the wagon (in the sketch, I mean) about Northfield and art.