Dear Mr. Cox,

I am dismayed to read that you have requested the California Supreme Court to issue a Stay on their recent ruling concerning gay marriage, until the November election. Even the California Attorney General, Jerry Brown is against such a measure. 

I am dismayed that you would support a discriminatory law, one that discriminates purely on the basis of gender for a single day longer than the state Supreme Court.  There are many laws that support equal treatment of genders - regardless of sexual orientation - in all kinds of circumstances. Marriage should be no different. Marriage, in the eyes of the law, is a civil contract concerning property, child custody, inheritance and power of attorney.  Preventing one person from marrying another, just because they happen to identify as the same gender, is unconstitutional, just as the California Supreme Court ruled.  Putting the issue off till elections won't change that fact.

Furthermore, even if the majority voted to support banning same-sex marriage, it would STILL be unconstitutional.  The United States constitution was written to "protect the minority from the tyrrany of the majority".  Discrimination based on gender or race was struck down time and again by the Supreme Court, even when it may have - at the time - been supported by voters. Why? Because it was discrimination, and that is unconstitutional.  This is no different.

Please, Mr. Cox, if you will not support the ruling of the California Supreme Court, at least withdraw your request for a Stay and give justice the expediency it deserves. Your fellow Attorney General Jerry Brown knows it's the right thing to do. Why don't you?

 

Sincerely,

Robert Gandy, Alpena

I've posted page #132 to Edo:2k5.  The comic you see on the top of the splash page for my site (http://www.bobcatarts.com) is #128.
Why is that the "Latest"?   Because it's colored, and pretty much as done as I'm making it.  #129, 130, ect. aren't colored yet. I like posting them post-ink, so anyone who likes to can see the story advance. Those inclined to wait for color, keep heart! #129 is well under way.

It takes a long time to color these things, let alone write-and-draw-and-ink.

I don't know how some of my favorite comics like Dominic Deegan, Oracle for Hire (http://www.dominic-deegan.com/) or Questionable Content (http://questionablecontent.net/) do their comics.  Do they write out a script for pages at a time, and then draw-and-ink as they can? Do they just put down the story as they draw it, one page at a time (like I do)?

I sketch out dialogue, one page at a time.  Roughly putting it into panels, sometimes noting which character is saying the lines, and doing rough bubbly figures to help place things.  Once that's finished, I mark a half-inch border on the page in pencil - then pen.  I only use a ruler on the page and panel borders, the rest being freehand. Erase border pencils.

I ink in the dialoge next, sometimes changing a word or two.  If i screw up or change my mind after it's inked, i just make editorial notes to change it in 'Shop later.  Then, erase pencil-text, and it's penciling figures!

The hardest thing, atleast for me, is drawing the people in the comic (which, duh, is what it's all about!).  I haven't had any figure drawing classes, or any formal art training on the subject, so proportion, and especially character consistancy are a big challenge for me.

Once figures are penciled in, maybe with a little background (another mostly 'Shop thing), They're checked for physically-possible posing, costume continuity (did they wear that LAST page? What was I thinking?!) and props in hand.

Yes, it sounds like a theatre production. That's where I tend to think from.

After penciling is done to liking, I throw down inks.  I really like the SAKURA - Pigma Micron series of pens.  They don't bleed, hardly ever smudge (unless it's over a lot of graphite), and come in a really wide variety of widths. 01 and 03 are great for outlines on people and buildings. 005, my favorite, is best for shading.  Most of the shading and details are done in 'Shop, but on occasion I'm drawn to do more complete illustrations, before color. Tight crosshatching is hard to color around, a challenge I haven't overcome yet.

I'm still in a learning process for the comic. Thanks for coming along for the ride.  It's been fun... I hope.

I love Art³.
Actually, i have this thing for superscript in text. Here i am, just a little number.. let's say 2.  Then this little number, only slightly bigger (let's say 3) that crawls up on my shoulder, like a tiny demon and says, "I CUBE THEE!"
So you get 2³ = 8.  8 is HUGE compared to 2.

Don't get me wrong, Math and I have agreed to disagree, and only by court order (or graduation requirement) are we speaking to eachother these days. I just like superscript and exponential powers... *ahem*

ANYWAY...

I've agreed to be hired as the Thunder Bay Theatre's summer Tech Director.  Although i can't get into details, the offer came as a total suprise - one i'm very, very happy to have recieved.
My first day will be the 10th of June, but I'll be around through rehearsals before that.   It's going to be quite the busy production season for me, as i've got lights to design/hang/run for State Fair, a set AND lights to design/build and then ACT in The Curious $avage (holy chrome, i'm ACTING?!), and then sets and lights for Pageant, which i'm going to miss part of because i'll be out of town.

Speaking of, I've updated my calendar to show production schedules AND class times come fall. You'll be able to track just how nuts i'm going in pretty colors.  It's linked off my BIO page, if you haven't found it yet.

If you don't care to find it, that's ok too.

Slacker.

In the world of non-stage-art to be posted: I've got an oil painting of the Lafarge cement plant that's waiting to dry and get photo'd (or maybe scanned and pieced together, i dunno), as well as a sketch of the State Theatre and Alpena Trophy & Embroidery shop i did whilst lunching at the Cabin Creek Coffee House.

Go there, ask the lovely young lady behind the counter for the butternut squash soup in a bread bowl, and a large spiced chai with whipped cream.  Tip generously, it's worth it. *yumm*

I couldn't get another R in there, and i felt it needed one.

My time in Alpena has been spent mostly in the garden. In an almost monastic labour, i've been doing day after day of quiet landscaping.  Our backyard now has a 240 sq ft veggie patch - or atleas it will be once the veggies (hopefully) grow. Alternating between creation and destruction, I have been cutting down and hacking up the ancient looking juniper tree (and the mystery tree that grew within it), as well as a chinese box elder that is now a stump topped with a bird feeder.  Somewhere around that flurry of activity, a near-endless supply of thorny twigs showed up claiming to be hedge roses, as well as some slightly larger thorny twigs claiming to be rose bushes.

What the difference between them is has been lost on me. 

Numbering around 30, the thorny-twig-things have all made me bleed.  Dutifully, I dug holes in the sandy/rocky ground, flooded them with water, half-filled with peatmoss and potting soil, gingerly stuck the twigs in root-side-down (only differentiated by the lack of thorns), added more soil and watered.  Assuming they grow, we'll have a fortress of flowers to rival the Queen of Hearts.

I returned to the Thunder Bay Theatre at noon today to audition for The Curious $avage, for no particular part.  If i get cast, it'll be my first acting gig. I've been in countless productions, but never in a costume that wasn't all black, and my lines have never been more than 'stand by' or 'go'.  What made the auditions so amusing, was that i read the part of Jeff, and my mother (whom was also auditioning) read the part of Jeff's mother. It didn't occur to me to actually tell the director that we were related untill on the way home.  I'm so used to being introduced as somebody's son, and not just as my own person, that i assumed it had already happened.   I'm sure the director will figure it out when he sees we live at the same house.

Or not, and he'll read it here first.  Hi Mark. :}

After the audition was more thorny-twig-planting, with a short drive to Northern Lights Arena to see a rodeo.  I'm fascinated by people that voluntarily strap themselves to multi-thousand-pound animals that clearly have no problem launching them off their backs, and doing it on purpose.  The crowd was standing-room-only, and according to the MC, broke attendance records by alteast 200 people.  I would guestimate that maybe 2500 people attended.  Bucking broncos and rampaging bulls with horns twisted in all directions knocked happless chaps in their chaps and each round lasted less than 10 seconds.  Sometimes much less.   My favorite rodeo event, (aside from bikini racing, which was not featured tonight) is "Mutton Busting".   I'm a fan of encouraging children to make fools of themselves in safe, supportive environs. Having kids climb on the back of sheep and bust out of the same gate the cowboys do for a few seconds of adorable terror is my idea of a good time. The kids get prizes, parents are proud, and it signals intermission.

After a larnjager (dried venison sausage) and beer at home, i had a long talk with a family member that is going through some shit.  My heart goes out to them, and it hurts knowing they're tearing themselves apart inside and i can't be there with them.  Especially when it's family.

Alpena, Michigan - although in many ways very far away from what i know to be familiar - is where i need to be for the moment.  I hope i can make the best of it, and use the lessons learned here for a greater good later on. 

The interview at the Thunder Bay Theater company didn't go  well.  I didn't get a job there.
From what I was made to believe, there wasn't money in the budget to hire me, assuming I was qualified for the job, whatever that might be.  I am qualified for anything they could want me to do there, but that's not the point. In the most economically depressed section of the most economically depressed state in the Union, theatre isn't the booming industry it might be elsewhere.  A theatre prof once told me that "the Arts are a barometer of the social health of a city," and i've found that quite true here.  Audience numbers are down, budgets are down, and i'm reduced to auditioning to perform, even for the singing parts.

So back to 1² (square 1, if you didn't get it).

Mom is finishing her finals, and when the quilt room is cleaned, i'm going to help her set up a website - much like this - which will showcase her talent, and allow her to directly sell the many beautiful pieces of quilt work she produces as well as any jewelry, dreamcatchers or pipes that she makes (or we cooperatively make, since pipes are my thing).

My resume will be flung far and wide here, as will a schedule for craft-makings.  I don't have much money to put at it, but if i can get a few bones for a few bones from the local taxedermist, I can make a couple pipes, and bits of jewelry to sell on the craft circut.  Who knows, maybe i'll even join my mom in quilting. 

That's right, haters, i cook, clean AND sew. You WISH you were this talented.

The giant juniper may meet it's final day tomorrow, when (with help) i'll lop off the tops of the final trunks near power and phone lines, and then be able to cut down and cut up the rest on my own. It was actually 5 juniper trees grown together in one big woody clusterfuck.

Stump-removal itself will be a masterpiece in chopping and digging, and i'm not above using low-grade explosives.  I think my folks are, but i'll certainly make the suggestion.

I can't wait till class starts in August, and I can hopefully part-time with the college and work study, and be too busy to worry about anything else.  I'm going to offer tutoring services in art and editing papers for some bread and see what i can do...
*sigh*
who am i kidding, anyway?

Feel free to call this number from the Fox News website to read this letter to them.
I will, starting tomorrow:
1-888-369-4762

The link to the Rawstory article, with embedded video below. This video is direct evidence of the crime comitted:
http://rawstory.com/rawreplay/?p=960

I sent this email to yourcomments@foxnews.com , the only contact/feedback email address I could find on the website.

Feel free to send this letter to them as well.

To Whom it May Concern:

Your station and network committed a crime on May 2, 2008.  You advocated torture, or at the very least demonstrated gross and criminal negligence and need to be held accountable.

Your "Former CIA Operative Wayne Simmons" said that "water boarding is not torture", when responding to questions by the two "Fox and Friends" hosts on the efficacy of torture.

Water boarding has been considered torture by the United Nations since the war crimes trials of WWII.  If a soldier or citizen of the United States of America was captured over seas in sovereign territory and subjected to interrogation using those exact methods, the people doing so would be declared criminals for having tortured that person. If they were water boarded during interrogation, they were tortured. It's that simple.

Your hosts failed to point out that the United Nations has declared water boarding torture, and therefor a criminal act. Your hosts failed to point out that after WWII, Japanese soldiers were put on trial, found guilty and sentenced for water boarding allied troops. They demonstrated gross negligence in not calling water boarding what it is: torture, and therefore a criminal act.  By bringing on Wayne Simmons, who very clearly stated that water boarding is not torture - and must therefore not be criminal - as well as deferring to his statements on it's efficacy, they were implicitly advocating it. Your hosts, therefore implicitly advocated for the use of torture, and are criminally responsible. They are responsible for any personal or physical damages resulting from the use of torture from the time of the broadcast - May 2, 2008 - onward.

Being criminals and having witnessed this crime, I am therefore placing the two hosts as well as Wayne Simmons under citizen's arrest.  They should contact a lawyer, or if they do not have one, a court-appointed one will be provided for them - as is their right.  They are to turn themselves in to the nearest police station immediately.  Please contact me when they do, so that I may provide a witness statement.

Sincerely,

Robert Gandy

 

 

Thanks to the help of a generous patroness, I have a newly-installed...uh.. what are you?

::grabs box::

Echo Star ES-480-24
20+4+4 480watt power supply.  My compy is up and running with TWO cooling fans on the supply, and it's humming along contentedly. I might even put the case back on, since it no longer needs to be naked to keep cool.

The old power supply dissected;  the cooling fan never had a chance. It's bearings burned out atleast 2 years before the transformer did. Beneith the tranny, the breadboard was original beige on the outside, and Kentucky Fried Chicken brown at the core. Some of the solder connections look like they had even remelted several times, which was probably the final nail.

So long brave little transformer. You will be missed.

...

And replaced by one with 2 cooling fans and twice the wattage. :}

It's finally happened:

The long ailing power supply on the desktop machine that processes ALL the art you see on this website - from scanned paintings and photographs to EDO:2k5 comics to the editorial cartoons for the [SPLC] - has finally died.  Assuming the motherboard survived (i hope i hope i hope), I should just need to replace the supply and be on my merry way.

That being said, I simply cannot afford a new one.   Yes, i know it's only $28.99 with shipping from newegg.com, but when the money isn't there, what can i do?

Pass the hat.

If you're out there and you like what I do (because if you don't, clearly you wouldn't want to help), and want to see me doing more of it - then please click the Donation button and send a little spare change my way.

I'm working on some thank-you art for those that are kind enough to donate - without your support, I can't - literally - keep the lights on.

You don't want me to cry, do you?
Nobody wants a sad monkey.

:(