Museum guards.

These posts are appearing later and later in the day, aren't they? This morning we had a mad race down to San Diego in an attempt to rent a condo. We almost made it in time, but were stymied by iPhone/Google directions that expected us to have access rights to a gated private road. We did put in an application, though (we're second on the list).

You can't get around the fact that Rodin could really stack that clay. Claudel gets a lot of credit for pieces from this period (rightly so, I guess, though I'm no Rodin historian), but there's something both torque'ed and peaceful about this piece. The hips and belly relationship to the legs is totally strange and something you'd only get if you were forcing the model into the most unnatural of poses. But that's how he physically represents the twisted nature of her soul (this helmet maker's beautiful wife).

DO you know the story of the helmet maker's beautiful wife? It would be very at home in any of the old blues numbers complaining about a no account wife runnin' 'round with every man in town....

Done in brush pen--one good, and one worn-out to dry-brushiness for the tonal stuff.

You can even caricature old art. From a trip to LACMA yesterday.

Water polo teen chicks waiting for their Starbucks brew.

Back to basics.

Dude was riding an ape-hanger'ed hog--with the chrome Reich-style helmet!!

For the benefit of the reading public, and my friends from the 'Con (greetings Bernadette and Gretchen), I present the complete "Rock N' Roll Lifestyle" strip.

The 'Con was good, tho' I'm impossibly weak-willed when faced with earnest young artists hawking their earnest comics and related paraphenalia. I kept myself to a budget and still over-spent. But the stuff on view was good, often very good. And I got to flip through one Steve Canyon panel and two Terry and the Pirates! (Caniff, 'natch) Always impressive to see the physical work. Special mention to Jordan Crane, who every year brings silk-screened posters of the greatest quality, and at the most reasonable of prices. I will post his website--trust me, you'll want to buy some. Also had his comic, "Uptight" which I bought. Picked up "Superspy" by Matt Kindt and "That Salty Air" by Tim Sievert over at TopShelf. Thought I'd be able to return today, but it hasn't worked out that way.





note: My thanks (and apologies) to those who've patiently followed the development of this strip as I've parceled it out, one panel at a time (and on multiple websites!). Another "Rock N' Roll Lifestyle" is coming soon...ish.
p.s. dangit, I still haven't fixed the misspelling of "whither."

In honor of the ComicCon, which starts today.

Yeah, I look disgruntled. I asked for a BatMAN doll for my birthday. The store was all out, and my Grandmother grabbed the BatGIRL doll and said, "Oh, what difference does it make?"

My brother (whose birth occurred exactly one year minus seven days after mine, hence our double bday party) looks quite smug with his Evel Knievel.

I've still got issues.

p.s. Rick, I hope you and the Family Schmitz are San Diego bound by the time this is posted.

Just back from Medford, Oregon, where thrives a culture of coffee kiosks. Here's the brand many in my family prefer, "THE HUMAN BEAN." The kindly barista Darcie assured me that they are springing up throughout the nation.

And dang, I drew it so quick I didn't include a nice string of mountains behind--y'know, to ground the image. This is too floaty. My landscape skills are meager.

Darcie, here you go. You can click on the image, save out the large version, and print it out on nice paper and everyone will think you have a Marty Davis original. Real originals are highly sought after and are rarely seen outside the climate-controlled confines of our high desert storage vault. But thank you for the kind words.

Ta-dah!

Preceding panels are at the Notorious T.A.G. Blog. If you think of this strip as covering two-and-a-half pages in a comic book, I'd like to make the last panel HUGE--like 2/3rds of that last page. But for posting purposes, here it is.

I hope everyone is very offended.

Regardless, I love you all.

From the recent archives (I'm out of state and without a scanner--but I am sitting at a SBUX right now, and the free online access is working!).

This is the one I was trying to post yesterday. Sheesh.

I know. You're dying to see the end of the first "Rock N' Roll Lifestyle" strip. It's coming (problems with the captions).

But in the meantime, here's this!
(Dang, I've spent almost an hour trying to get this to upload...I'll try again in a bit.)

(OK, I gave up trying to upload my good image. Here's a cast-off, three hours later.)

We interrupt our presentation of "Rock N' Roll Lifestyle" to bring you your daily drawing. From San Diego!

My, do those southern Southern Californians know how to live....

Something a little different today (oops, looks like I'm a little late posting).

It's a new short comic strip I'm calling "Rock N' Roll Lifestyle." You can see the first page (of 2.33) on the World Famous TuesdayArtGroup (or TAG) Blog.

Check it out!
(Now this post has GOT to bring a Mike D. comment...Mike? You out there?)

Watch for this woman in the upcoming one-off comic strip, "Rock N' Roll Lifestyle."



YOU ARE GOING TO LOVE IT.

He is just hanging out...

...at the Douglas St. SBUX.

(It must be said that, despite a heavier customer flow in the AM and an older, more claustrophobia-inducing store, the Douglas St. crew are among the most personable and efficient in my now vast experience of the SBUX chain.)

You remember their manager, don't you?

Karen Tumulty again (remember my very first post??), but this time on crack, and with runaway mascara.

The word "mascara" means "mask" in Italian or Latin, I think.

Clearly she is running from her own pain.

p.s. NOT a dig at the real Karen Tumulty (who I love and who has a great last name and who we enjoyed watching just last night on Washington Week with Gwen Ifill)--no, this was a brassy and blowzy look-alike bellying up to the Starbuck's bar for her morning coffee.

This one I really like. The drama of ordering your drink and waiting for your drink, and the unsympathetic stares that may greet you.

Did I post this one before? It had fallen thru the cracks in my file structure, and then I saw this same girl yesterday for the first time in months (she works at the Douglas St. SBUX)(I thought she'd quit). This was drawn after a very very early morning encounter where she was extremely upbeat.

I've gone backwards in the blog to see some of the older images, and yesterday Blogger wasn't loading them. That's the kind of service you can expect...for free.

I checked again last night and the images had come back. Phew. This is all for posterity, you know.

Y'know, the dang thang about it is I've got lots of drawings from the last couple of weeks, but I haven't posted them.

These fellas were all genuinely spotted this AM at the notorious 'Gundo SBUX.

Not Erik Therwanger.

No, not even close.

She didn't really look this friendly.

That's an un-ironic statement.

Just when I reach the age where a sense of self-irony could really help me...

...I find I have none.



Might it be her problem, too?