Sketchbook: Tons o’ stuff

A random assemblage of sketchbook stuff including:

Barry Ween: Judd Winick’s boy genius creation has always been a favorite of mine. I understand the market forces which moved Winick toward writing superhero comics and working in the entertainment industry but geez Judd… MORE BARRY WEEN PLEASE:)

Doonesbury: I’ve been looking at a lot of the older Holt, Rinehart, and Winston collections of Garry Trudeau’s comic strip. Not much can beat Doonesbury in terms of newspaper comic strips during its’ run in the late ’70’s/early ’80’s.

Eggbert the Talking Christmas Egg: The New York Times can explain this oddity of my Hudson Valley childhood quite a bit better than I ever could.

thrift store finds: upstate NY finds

A few weekends ago, my family and I went for a little trip to Western New York. We met up with my parents and sister in the hamlet of Fredonia. I went to college in Fredonia for my undergraduate studies and while I’ve been back visiting the town a few times since then, those visits coincided with either holiday weekends or the summer. This was my first trip back to my college while it was in full swing, and it was a very fun experience.

Ellen and I can’t go ANYWHERE without thrift store shopping and this trip was no different. On our first day in town, we ran across a church rummage sale and of course, I have some finds to share with you. Everything we found, we got for $2 dollars. Not $2 dollars each item… $2 dollars TOTAL. The rummage sale was having one of those “You give us two bucks, we’ll give you a bag and you fill it up.”

Keep in mind as well, MOST of our bag was filled with clothing and other Ellen-centric items. These are just my geeky items.

thrift store finds: rejected finds, y’all!

It’s time for another round of Thrift Store Rejects. These are purchases I made at thrift stores which, for one reason or another, could not be stretched into their own post here. I take two or three of these “lesser” finds and quickly talk about them. Check ’em out behind the cut!

thrift store finds: still a few bugs in the system – a doonesbury book

Today we’re looking at Still a Few Bugs in the System: A Doonesbury Book by G.B. Trudeau, published by Holt, Rhinehart, and Wilson in 1972. Original cover price was $2.95. This is the first in the original series of Doonesbury trade paperbacks; the comic would be collected in smaller books like this until sometime in the late 1980’s when the strip would switch to what was a more traditional format for the time.

odds and ends

Got a cool delivery in the mail yesterday afternoon:

A whole bunch of awesome art supplies for a comic project I’m gearing up for with my current and former students! I wanted to test the pens and markers, so I doodled this:

I don’t normally work with markers and I don’t really planning on doing so again, but I like they way they came out! I’m sure my students’ll dig them.

…………………….

So hey, it’s my birthday today. I’m 31.

If you want to do something nice for my birthday, do what Garry Trudeau says: Kick a couple of bucks my classroom’s way. In fact… this comic book project is less than $300 dollars away from being funded. Don’t forget to use the checkout code “Zonker” and… jeez, I’d only need $150 dollars pledged! I have at least two millionaires who are regular readers, right?

Also, check out this interesting result of the above comic strip.

friday odds and ends

– As of this Wednesday, the ’09/’10 school year is over for me! My school district starts quite a bit earlier than most others. It’s a bummer going back to school at the tail end of August, but it’s nice to be off from work while most other people are still sweating it out in the classroom.

– Various teacherly things I am doing this summer: I’m teaching a week-long prep class for students who want to take (or retake) their Ohio Graduation Tests in both Reading and Writing. I’m doing some work for my school’s flex credit program (more on this in a few weeks). I might be substitute teaching for summer school, although that’s tentative right now. I should also relax a little, I suppose.

– Ellen and I have been burning through the Netflix movies: we watched Sherlock Holmes and Fantastic Mr. Fox this week. I’m a big Holmes fan from when I was a kid, reading the short story collections in study hall. I can see why aspects of this movie pissed off hardcore fans, but I liked a lot of it. I was relieved by the ending, but the relentless build-up for the inevitable sequel kind of bugged me.. Fantastic Mr. Fox was really lovely. I can see why it made squat at the box office, but as a fan of the book, I can say I walked away pretty happy.

– I’ve been on a Saturday Night Live reading kick lately and I’ve finally gotten around to reading Wired: The Short Life & Fast Times of John Belushi by Bob Woodward. I’ve never been a huge fan of Belushi, although he’s undeniably talented as an actor and a comedian. I think one of the reasons I never dug him is that so many guys I know in real life have been unconsciously influenced by Belushi that I feel like I grew up with the actor embedded in some of my friends. Like, people act like Bluto from Animal House who have never even heard of Animal House. That’s not fair to Belushi, I suppose… but of the original Not Ready for Prime Time Players, I’ve always preferred Dan Aykroyd.

The book is lurid and somewhat annoying in the way that Woodward constantly stacks the dramatic deck with anecdotes that foreshadow Belushi’s death. I can see why so many people who knew the actor were angry when this was published.

– Since school’s ended, I’ve also had (to my great surprise) time to play video games! From our local public library, I rented Lego Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues for the Wii. These types of games are about as far as I go into playing video games… the more realistic stuff makes me uptight and nervous. The Lego games are always fun, although I have to admit, playing a standard type video game on the Nintendo Wii is a little annoying.

– I also took out that massive remastered boxed CD set from The Beatles, full of every single one of their albums. I have to say, I’m really enjoying the music, but I’m more enjoying the fact that I didn’t plop down $200 bucks for the set.

– Finally, I had a truly epic haul at the thrift store the other day… tons of vintage Family Circus, Hi & Lois, and a bunch of other collections of comics I had never heard of! Those always make for fun Thrift Store Finds columns. I also found a first edition of the first ever collection of Doonesbury comics! There will be a new Thrift Store Finds up tomorrow and then for (hopefully) the next few weeks. I let those slip a bit, not because they aren’t written… moreso that scanning all the pages for examples is time intensive.