Discoveries

 This summer I finalized my divorce with Amber. I went through a lot of hard choices that reshaped not only my life, but the lives of my son, step-daughters and ex-wife. I took this summer off from work. I have never taken time for myself like this, ever. I have begun healing before jumping into the next relationship. I developed an artistic routine. I chilled out, relaxed and had fun (this was very new and strange to me). I spent time with my eight year old son. And through the many lessons, revelations and unraveling myself to see what’s truly broken in me, this is my top three discoveries about my dysfunctions:

1) I had an older neighbor named Sarah. She often threw crazy concepts concerning biblical things at me. After sorting through all of her beliefs, this is what I came to the conclusion with: Sometimes life events and influences shape and develop our understandings of the world and how it works. Through our suffering, this becomes the lens we view the world. I do the same thing. I need to correct my lens through biblical teachings from the actual Bible.

2) My enemies may be close to my friends. Before my divorce, while we were still struggling to make it work, my wife decided she wanted a new porch. We discussed and argued about this. We couldn’t afford it. But she went ahead and hired someone to do the job. In a nutshell, he tore a hole in the side of the house, which, when it rained, caused a waterfall to wipe out my $2000 computer with all of my comic and art projects on it, along with all of my actual art and storyboards for “My Walk”. When I confronted him on the situation (not trying to make him pay for my loss, but just fix the hole in the house), all he could say as he backed away from me with his hands in the air was “It’s always something”. This summer I saw a Facebook post from a friend of mine, hanging out with this same handyman and his kids. At first I got angry. Why would she let her kids hang out with his? Then the Holy Spirit tugged on me, and it hit my hard. The bible talks about loving your neighbor. The bible talks about loving your enemies. We are all connected to each other, one big family. If my friends see something in my enemies that brings joy to everyone, I do not want to be a dark cloud over everything. I would rather shine the light of Jesus.

3) My identity is not in my stuff. I always thought I had this one under control. I value Christ in my life more than any DVD or music or comics. I felt that when the handyman destroyed the comic I was working on, what very little that was left of me in my broken marriage, died. I was gone. Nothing left. I felt the devil snuffed out my dreams of honoring God through the comic series I was working on. But I have come to realize, through prayer, that my identity is not in my stuff. If everything is taken from me, I still have my God! And with all of my loss, I still prosper. 

I remember years ago standing in the shower balling my eyes out praying to God that I forgive my mother-in-law for all the hateful things she did to me. The reason it is so hard to forgive someone, is because to truly forgive them, you have to absorb the cost. This means you are not going to make them pay for it, but you are going to pay for it on some level. Hum, sounds a lot like Jesus to me…

Forgiveness

I was posting a video on social media about my comic book. Three different platforms, and I copied and pasted the wrong paragraph to each description. After discovering this, I beat myself up pretty good. Thoughts of previous mistakes at various jobs went through my head. If this would have been something I was working on for any one of them, I would have gotten in trouble. Why can’t I be good at anything? But everyone messes up. Everyone. Even those bosses from the distant past. We learn, grow and get better. As long as I own my mistakes and work on fixing them, especially with my art and my time, what’s the problem? I am learning to accept and forgive myself.

Christianpunk

I was trying to describe the look and feel of the comic I am working on. I came up with christianpunk. There are genres of cyberpunk and steampunk. So if I'm trying to coin a new term, I thought I would attempt to describe it:

What is christianpunk? 

Jesus (mostly Jesus) with a dash of top hats, beatnik, noir, recognition of the world but not in it, skate boards, motorcycles, bibles, guitars, dirty then washed clean, straight edge, bass guitar, humor, muscle, mistakes cured by salvation, christian grit marinated in Christ, misfits of society, bricks and rain, doughnuts, chocolate milk, brothers and sisters in spirit, not feeding sin but fighting it, Jesus freak, drums, trumpets, black ink, prophesies, prayer warrior and lots of humility.

Christianpunk 

The Darkness

I just had a thought as I skim “The Beautiful Outlaw” by John Eldredge. In the book, he talks about Jesus being behind enemy lines. And He was attacked by man and demon alike. 

I went to church this Sunday. I fought hard to get there. There is always something that comes up and keeps me away from the body of Christ. Not this Sunday! I was determined and stubborn. But after church, lustful temptations and spiritual attacks rained down on me, hard! 

I used to wonder about back in Jesus day when a lot of people were demon possessed. Was this common back then? Is it common now? I don’t recall any other section of the Bible discussing this topic as much as the Gospels. Then it hit me. There were more demonic activity, because the light of good was at its brightest (JESUS!). When I read my Bible, talk to my friends about salvation, go to church, set an example to my son and work on my comic book, I shine a light. A light the demonic wish to snuff out.

Of course there was more demonic activity in the days of Jesus. His light stirred up the darkness!

My Walk trailer...

 

Noah's Ark

 6-29-2024

I just want to inspire believers to be better, and nonbelievers to open their eyes. 

7-6-2024

Noah’s Ark

I bumped into a lady I know at the grocery store. She asked me if I still put bible tabs inside of bibles or if I knew someone in town that did. This irritated me. There is a back story to this. When I owned an art store here in Libby, Montana, people wanted everything from me except what I really did… Sell art supplies and teach classes. The week I was going to close my store forever, a guy came in and told me off for 45 minutes (I timed it). My distributor went out of business and my marriage was on the rocks. I called it quits, and here comes this guy. He schooled and scolded me on the poor selection of paints and canvases on my shelves. I just smiled at him. Everything he voiced about the materials, I already knew. But I could no longer restock my store, the dream was dead. Another lady last week called me telling me she needed me to scan in thousands of family photos and retrieve pictures she had on cds. It would be nice to have it all on dvd, set to music. My ex-wife has painting projects lined up for me. 

And then I started thinking about Noah. I feel like God is calling me to make this comic book. I wonder if when Noah was building the ark, neighbors from near by towns and villages came, seeing his work. And instead of asking why he is building a boat and getting an important message from his answer, they ask if he could build them a bench for their garden. Maybe someone asked for shelves also. Maybe someone else wanted a boat also, but not that big. Noah knows the rain is coming, and everyone needs him to spend time on things that will soon be underwater. 

Wow. I am not comparing the importance of my comic to the ark. And I feel it is important to have patience and give to others. I almost feel like  dark forces are trying to stop me, and the broken world can’t understand what I am doing. And so they want to distract me from my project. A project that is my sacrificial offering to the Lord, and my attempt at the great commission. 

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