Pages 11 to 15

 

2 Weeks

 In the first 2 weeks of summer, I completed 10 comic book pages and posted 25 videos to YouTube! This feels amazing!

First 10 In The Can

 I have maintained my goal of 5 pages of finished comic art per week. Week 2 and I have 10 pages under my belt. I can't express how good this feels. I'm living my purpose. God is good.

Journal Batch #5

 5-15-24

I see two paths before me. The first is lustful and selfish. Pursue what I want. Be with who I want. This lets the demons in my home and heart. Drama and suffering follow. This happened this morning. My mind went to a dark place of pleasure. Right after, my mind was flooded with an idea for a My Walk issue called Robbing Hell. It was as if Jesus was knocking on my door saying “I’m still here. Don’t deny me”. I felt like the idea was hug to me, but to the Lord it was but a trickle. He’s got much more for me. Which path should I go on? Live in the moment, or create a legacy that touches others with a hope of eternity. 

When I deserve you the least, you give me the most. 

Through this divorce I am taking a hard look at who I was, who I am, and who I want to be.

5-19-24

Maybe post 10 issues on my blog at a time. Rotate so all issues are posted a month. 10 per week. Leave a note: Collect them all!

I found some old notes, so I thought I would type them up real quick. If I am repeating myself here, well, I’d rather say it twice than loose it. 

There is a world of creators out there that will sacrifice everything for their craft… including their families. They will spend every hour drawing and becoming a master of the visual medium. As christian creators, this means we still focus on God, church, work and family first. Then pray hard and work hard! Your art is your sacrifice to God!

5-20-24

Reality check. I have developed a summer schedule to create a comic book habit that I hope carries through to next fall when I start work at the school again (I have summers off! Praise Jesus). If I stay on task, I could possibly finish three issues this summer. When I opened up the “My Walk” folder on my computer, I counted 63 issue ideas for the series. If I run with this and take no breaks what so ever, no illnesses, no tragedies, it will take me over 5 years to complete (really, probably closer to 10 years). So, for my own personal mental health, and to cherry pick only the best ideas, I am going to choose 20 issues to focus on. Here they are:

The Armor of God issues 1-8

The Sinless Seven issue 9

Hymnals & Heroes issue 10 merge with Stove Ash issue 13

Robbing Hell issue 11 merge with To Forgive 36 (5 pages?)

Bootleg issue 12

The Prophet issues 17-19 (merge into 1 issue)

Ruth 21 merge with The Ghost (a Halloween Tale) 23

Swamp Demon 22 merge with Tables 33

Judges 24-26 (merge into 1 issue)

Draw 100 Jesus issue 15

Spilled Ink (3 issues)

5-22-24

God is moving in my life. I have three recent events that took place. Last week I went and spoke to my pastor. I kept any complaining to a minimum and discussed my marriage and now divorce with Zane. It felt so good to open up and release what I had been holding on to. This was my first step towards attending church again. 

The second event was included in this message to my friend and Sunday school teacher Miss Shar: I had a praise this morning in my prayers. Yesterday, at lunch time, as I waited in the hall for the screaming third graders to charge at me... Prepared for my usual "walk!" As they run past me... Little Aspen, walked past, in front of her entire class of rebels and criminals (and I know how hard it is to do the opposite of your friends with all the peerpresure) and boldly stated "we are praying in church for you and Luke to come back". At that moment, I saw Raelene and Ed in her (her parents), I saw you Shar, and I felt God. 

And lastly, I broke down at work yesterday in front of my co-workers. The parenting plan has been hard on me and my son. Paige, who serves food to the grade school kids with me, as I was opening up, looked me in the eyes and said “You are doing a good job”. And she meant it. I say that every day to everyone I pass. I’ve been saying “Good job” since my days in Denver (around 2001). This was the first time someone said it back, and it felt so real, and so good.

Exodus 14:14

5-24-24

Today I am grateful. My hours at work increased, along with my pay. I love my job, home and time with my son. My stack of abstract ideas are becoming solid projects that will turn into finished comic books. I feel God at work, moving through my life. And just as Jesus walked through a town and the broken people felt Him, dropped everything and followed Him, I to want to follow God.

5-25-24

Lord, help me not bend in the wind.

Looking back at 53 years on this planet, I see all the mistakes I’ve made. Demons I let in with words and actions. Right now I am becoming laser focussed. God, Luke and my comic book. My offerings to the Lord. Raise my son to love God. Make art to worship, honor and proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ. I am happy at work for the first time in my life. I am happy at home for the first time in my life. I love my church. I am happy with the direction my art is going in for the first time in my life. THANK YOU LORD! And looking back at my life, this is where I reck everything with my lust and broken relationships. Like my art store… The Lord giveth and taketh away. But not this time! I started down that path recently, but God pulled me back. I guess he’s not done yet. Today I am thankful for what I have and the path I’m on. Lord keep me.

6-1-2024

As I was doing the dishes this morning, I had thoughts about my family in the past. Forgotten generations. Testimonials. So I wanted to take a moment and jot down a few memories and stories. The spark was started at my mom’s house as she reminisced about her mom and grandma. My great grandma that I never knew. But she was a major force in my mom’s life. A strong good hearted christian woman. I thought about my son Luke, and how he never knew my grandma, who was a major force in my life. A strong good hearted christian woman. My mom’s grandma had a house (maybe in Washington?) in her younger years that would frequently have unexpected guests. Her and my mom’s great grandpa would wake up in the morning and find native Americans sleeping on the living room floor.  They were so kind to the indigenous people that they never acted like it was a problem. My grandma would send checks every month to the Oral Roberts ministries. My grandma’s brother Glenn worked in a mine with his brother. In their younger years. I guess they were both lost souls. There was an accident in the mine killing the brother and Glenn was in the hospital. There, he fell in love with his christian nurse, Mildred, and later married her. He then became a preacher. I guess the whole point behind this entry is how even the people from the past that we never knew have a huge impact on this present generation. I have a cousin that constantly starts drama on Facebook. But then he will flip and become a holy roller, preaching on social media. Then back to drama again. I used to hate that about him, feeling like he could push people away from Christ with his inconsistency. Now, I think the seeds from past generations are the parts of my cousin that surfaces and proclaims Christ. Without that family foundation in the church, my cousin may only be drama with no hope at all. 

Journal Batch #4

 4-27-24

Today I prayed to God. I prayed for help with my art projects. I prayed to help me worship and honor Him through my art. I prayed to God that I can complete these projects. I am afraid I am repeating what I have done in the past. I am dreaming about my art. I am writing down notes, and sketching ideas. I am not completing anything. Then a calm came over me. Baby steps. I am doing a little at a time. Over the next few months to a year, I will see results. I just need to keep moving forward. I need to be patient. 

A New Beginning 

4-28-24

I have to be up at 5 a.m. to cover someone at work who is sick. It is now 11:56 p.m. All I can think about as I lay here in bed, eyes wide open, is my comic book. Ideas are flooding into my mind, when I should really be sleeping. So here is what’s in my head: Today I drew up five sheets of character poses (40 poses in all). I will scan those in, mirror or flip the images, creating 80 poses. Then I will print, on Bristol, all 10 sheets for each character. I will pencil in the characters over the poses (roughly 100 pages). Then I will ink all of the pages with a brush. Then scan them all in. This should give me the practice I need to tackle the actual pages of my comics. Next step is to set up all the pages with text then plunk the characters in (in Comic Life this gives me the option to resize and or crop characters) and print. This can go in two different directions. I could leave that as is and draw backgrounds where needed to finish the pages, or I could use the print to trace and ink the whole page together. The first option sounds better.

5-9-24

Prince’s Work Ethic video on YouTube. 6 Lessons on how the be a creative machine. Lesson 1 work fast. Lesson 2 become a finisher. Lesson 3 abandon perfectionism. Lesson 4 make art everyday. Lesson 5 sleep. Lesson 6 develop vault mentality.

Basquiat’s work ethic. 1 Source Material. 2 Steal Like An Artist. 3 Have A Message. 4 Speed. 5 Study, Memorize and Internalize. 

Taylor Swift: Build Your Army, Stand For Something Bigger Than Yourself and Make More Art.

Jack Kerouac’s 30 Rules for Good Writing

1. Scribbled secret notebooks, and wild typewritten pages, for yr own joy
2. Submissive to everything, open, listening
3. Try never get drunk outside yr own house
4. Be in love with yr life
5. Something that you feel will find its own form
6. Be crazy dumbsaint of the mind
7. Blow as deep as you want to blow
8. Write what you want bottomless from bottom of the mind
9. The unspeakable visions of the individual
10. No time for poetry but exactly what is
11. Visionary tics shivering in the chest
12. In tranced fixation dreaming upon object before you
13. Remove literary, grammatical and syntactical inhibition
14. Like Proust be an old teahead of time
15. Telling the true story of the world in interior monolog
16. The jewel center of interest is the eye within the eye
17. Write in recollection and amazement for yourself
18. Work from pithy middle eye out, swimming in language sea
19. Accept loss forever
20. Believe in the holy contour of life
21. Struggle to sketch the flow that already exists intact in mind
22. Don't think of words when you stop but to see picture better
23. Keep track of every day the date emblazoned in yr morning
24. No fear or shame in the dignity of yr experience, language & knowledge
25. Write for the world to read and see yr exact pictures of it
26. Bookmovie is the movie in words, the visual American form
27. In praise of Character in the Bleak inhuman Loneliness
28. Composing wild, undisciplined, pure, coming in from under, crazier the better
29. You're a Genius all the time
30. Writer-Director of Earthly movies Sponsored & Angeled in Heaven

Stop preparing and polishing. Throw me in.

5-13-24

Lord, I would rather kneel before you in shame and beg forgiveness, rather than feel good about myself and walk away from you. Was the thorn in Paul’s flesh (look up verse) lust?

I mark surfaces.

5-14-24

True religion confronts earth with heaven and brings eternity to bear upon time. The message of Christ, though he speaks from God, must also, as the Quakers used to say, “speak to the condition” of his healers; otherwise he will speak a language known only to himself. His message must be not only timeless but timely. He must speak to his own generation.

-A.W. Tozer

This quote needs to be applied to my comic book. This is deep.

Soundtrack

 4-26-24

As I was working on my autobiography, Spilled Ink, I was inspired by the movie High Fidelity and the writings of Jack Kerouac. The premise of the movie was the main character Rob Gordon (played by John Cusack) going through his top five breakups of all time. As he describe each girl and the situation from his past, the present played out in-between each story. I like the top five idea. For me, music has been a driving force in my life. If you play that one song, memories are unlocked. The past plays out in my mind. Smells, feelings, people and places become crystal clear. So, if I’m writing my memoirs, I thought I would start with a list of songs to use as reference points.

Libby Music

Iron Maiden- Wasted Years

Metallica- Battery

Prince- Let’s Go Crazy

Anne Murray- Danny’s Song

Billy Joel- The Stranger 

Denver Music

4 Non Blonds- What’s Up?

Tori Amos- Silent All These Years

Smashing Pumpkins- Disarm

Sarah McLachlan- Fear

Barenaked Ladies- One Week

Libby 2 Music

Sawyer Brown- The Walk

3 Doors Down- Kryptonite

The Cars- Moving In Stereo

Tim McGraw- Tiny Dancer

Pearl Jam- Release

Minneapolis Music

The White Stripes- Dead Leaves And The Dirty Ground

Blaze- Soundtrack Of My Life

Red Hot Chili Peppers- By The Way

Snow Patrol- Signal Fire

Edward Sharp and the Magnetic Zeros- 40 Day Dream

On The Road Music

Gordon Lightfoot- If You Could Read My Mind

U2- Beautiful Day

Libby 3 Music

Crowder- Golgotha Hill (King of Love)

The Beatles- Paperback Writer

Skrillex- Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites

Disturbed- Sound of Silence

Rich Mullins- Awesome God

Journal Batch #3

 4-3-24 Tempted

As I am going through my divorce, loneliness has crept in. I know this is just a part of the process, and part of being an artist. But then a long time friend has shown interest in me. I feel so torn. Worried about hurting my ex by seeing someone new, concerned that I will repeat past mistakes with a new person and afraid I am not putting God first (followed by my son and my art). What am I doing? Am I ready to jump into the next relationship? Do I need space to heal? Do I need to be selfish and just do my art? 

My mind starts to reason with the ideas of a new lady in my life. I feel God tugging on me to stay single. But Samson ran around with a lot of women. But Samson got tricked and blinded. King David had many wives and even killed his friend for one of them. The Bible is full of these examples. But these are lessons and warnings, not excuses to follow the same path. It’s about the beauty of women. Even in Genesis, Angels took women as wives. And from that Giants were born. Where am I going with this? To have the slightest chance of a happy relationship, you need to follow God’s ways that are detailed in the Bible. But even if one person in the relationship is emotionally and spiritually healthy and putting God first, the other could fall short causing a relationship train wreck. So many things to worry about. But we are told to give our worries to God. Lord, why did you make woman so beautiful? It tortures my soul.

4-12-24

When you went to the cross Lord, you were in constant communication with the Father. When I went through my divorce, I don’t think I was that diligent.

4-21-24

Creative people, stop putting your identity in the things others create. Do your art and identify with that! I have a God to worship, a son to raise and art to create.

4-23-24

I am flooded with emotions this morning. I prayed and cried in the shower. Through my journey of the past two days, my morning prayer brought up many issues within myself. Reflection. In a nut shell, I discovered through my conversation with God that I have spent my whole life up until now living for others and trying to please everyone except God, and myself. And I noticed all of this by watching my eight year old son doing the same thing… living for others. Now I know what my mission is for this coming summer; to teach Luke how to speak his truth and put God first.

You Just Made The List!

This is a compilation of my favorite comic book creators. Some of the following work I really enjoyed before becoming a christian. So I cannot completely recommend the content in the stories of everyone on my list, but I still love studying the art they created. Enjoy! (Note: I do not own any of the copyrights to the images on this post)

James O’Barr- The Crow

Frank Miller- Sin City

Brian Michael Bendis- Jinx

Al Nickerson- The Sword of Eden

Terry Moore- Strangers In Paradise

Jae Lee- Hell Shock

Mike Mignola- Hell Boy

Charles Schulz- Peanuts

Bill Watterson- Calvin and Hobbes

 

Jamie Hewlett- Tank Girl

Humberto Ramos- Out There

Kevin Eastman- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Jack Kirby- Moon Boy and Devil Dinosaur

Jhonen Vasquez- Johnny The Homicidal Maniac

Jaime Hernandez- Love and Rockets

Jack T Chick- Chick Tracts

Boris Vallejo

Frank Frazetta