I recently provided the theoretical cover imagery to “Island of Misfit Grooves,” an album of electronic music. Theoretical, I say, because it is downloaded music which therefore does not require any sort of physical appearance. Nonetheless I constructed one!

All sales proceeds are to be donated to the A Well Fed World charity. Buy this and help somebody else get a sandwich! Or you could just donate directly if you would rather not inadvertently offer approval to such troublesome imps as I have depicted.

In fact I have not heard the album! I was given a complimentary download code but my internet is so crummy that the job has never finished. True enough I can listen to the tracks for free by streaming them off the website I linked to, but I cannot obsessive compulsively hoard streamed data! Where is the negative self-enabling in that?

And despite appearances, with the previous “art” focused updates, it would be disingenuous to say I am too busy to write “entertaining” things for here. In fact I am as busy as always, but I am not making writing frivolity a priority at the moment. My illustrated frivolity seems to get better results. Although this drawing actually took about two months. But I can post this in a whole bunch of places and print it out and hypothetically divide the amount of time spent without apparent result to receive a diminished waste total. I tend to presume nobody outside of this little space, possibly within it, could possibly comprehend what I think is so funny about “We’re an American Band.” Or necessarily that is a good mark of character on anybody who does.

I have not much to say about this. And I do not wish for this to say much to me!

The drawing was an attempt at understanding how mask layers work in artwork computer programs. I gave up partway through and flattened the whole thing to one layer like I generally do, but I may try it again, provided this weirdo gets away from me. I cannot handle this sort of fiend judging me.

page 11 of part 3 of the bimshwellian comicoid one of these panels is going to give somebody terrible dreams. That one, perhaps?

I tried a different technique to get the page done faster. As usual, it did not work, but life is all about messing up things in different ways! in fact i tried it years ago and it didn’t work then, either and I gave up after three pages, but I thought I might be better at it now. I am, but it still doesn’t work!

Generally, I draw each full page on two sheets of 11×17 inch bristol paper, paper that is really too nice for what I am doing with it, especially now that I am not using fancy ink pens. I decided to turn one sheet sideways and just draw the full page on one. Which sort of worked, although I was not able to scale down my thoughts, which means I drew at nearly the same size as when I had twice as much space, and suddenly nobody has feet. I also decided to try and work with my pencil drawing directly instead of completely drawing over it in solid digital colors, which did not work.

preserving pencil shading does not work unless the page proportions and layout are exact or very close to the finished, and you are sure enough of it that you do not need to add many things in layer. And then you need to draw confidently and consistently With the amount of digital alteration and clarification that comes standard for you, this way is never going to work.

Also, one sideways bristol sheet, at 11×17 inches, is not proportional to two non-sideways bristol sheets. At 17×22, they scale to 8.5×11, the size I print it, which is so convenient a coincidence as to likely be intentional. 11×17, however scales to 7.1×11. So even if I had everything right, there would still be space on the sides. With all that said you must be thinking I am out of my mind to have thought this would work. And yet THAT is the part that ALMOST worked. Pencil without ink, however, is a proven method, plenty of artists do it, and the well-known Disney company animated numerous feature films like that before two dimensional media was outlawed. I am just not good at doing things that work!

Why are my comic posts always so pessimistic? This is my favorite thing to post! I can’t believe they would do this to me! I hate these posts!

Another loser on the internet fancies itself a great musician? It would be me! Except this isn’t new, I was just totally terrified and un-encouraged for years, certain of humiliation if my compositions were ever heard, even though mopey low effort “chiptunes” have been getting great traction for years. Yes, imagine me overthinking something! And then trashing the effort of somebody else who didn’t!

You might be aware that I attached this drawing to a previous, completely unrelated website post, potentially because I just told you.

I reused it here because the composition relies heavily on what I call midi stairs. This seems to me like a lazy technique and proof of my amateurish music skills and I am self-conscious about it, even though I made that part in 2005 and still think it sounds good. Visually, the stairs are incomplete, uneven, and rather unsafe-looking; the sort good for falling down. Apart from that, I had not uploaded the drawing to any website other than this one, so it would look like I drew it just to attach to the music. Right, the website I put the most effort into, I give the least consideration to. We hurt the ones we love because they are dumb enough to forgive us.

I have so far received four comments on this composition, and all four referred to the creature having fallen down the stairs. When I linked to it on twitor, the drawing was not visible, and there was no verbal acknowledgment, which likely indicates the visual component is crucial, if not the only component people are aware of. Twitter of course is the best place for complex, implication-free typed discourse, and it didn’t just introduce a facebook-like automatic obscure-person-marginalizer a few weeks ago.

This is off by default, at least on accounts that predate its implementation, but isn’t it fun to have this whole new category of anxiety to contend with on a website where I am already afraid to talk?

And obviously it is a very SCRAPPY drawing. Perhaps I would do better to attach less scrappy drawings. But I do not have time to draw non-scrappy things that are only going to be seen compressed into blurry video boxes. I may have to take the risk that not everybody in the world has seen and remembers every old drawing I have ever made, in such a way that to see the drawing again would be offensive and grounds for retaliatory perma-shunning.

I did have one previous recent visible music upload, but one of the [totally inconsequential, late-added] audio samples sounded really bad, and I have corrected and wish to re-upload it. But I don’t want to reupload it because my you-tube “subscribers” will get notices. And I am sure they will disapprove because I had 16 before the first upload and 15 afterward. I know this music is better because the number stayed the same! (although the twitter number went down but I just saw that NOW after I checked my own link so I am not getting into it)

But that is a video site anyhow! I could just upload the music here! Or anywhere! But for that music, I actually drew the picture specifically FOR it and feel that it must be seen. And so I must find an opportunity to reupload it so that nobody will see it, so that I can finally show it to them.

We’re an American Band is such a stupid song. You don’t have to listen to it, I will sum it up by quoting it:
“we’ll come into your town, we’ll help ya party down, we’re an american band!”
I do NOT require assistance partying, in ANY direction. As band, your foremost duty is to perform music. Partying is the rightful responsibility of others.

I am supposed to take from this song: We’ll do whatever we want! you can’t tell us what to do we’re an american band!
Like it is supposed to be some kind of protest against bands from other countries. “SLOVENIAN bands will not subsidize your parties! US, on the other hand…”

it just keeps reminding me of American Made, Hulk Hogan’s old WCW theme music, the one that’s designed to sound like his older WWF music but be distinct enough to not infringe copyright. It’s the Mad TV sound-alike version of Real American. He’s American Made in America He’s american-merican, merican! He’s american banned in slovenia he’s american banned!

Whenever I hear American band I have to sing alternate lyrics to it. Apparently this has gone on for quite some time because this list is longer than the number of chorus iterations within the song, and it is MOSTLY chorus iterations.

we’ll come into your town, we’ll knock your birdbaths down, we’re an american band
we’ll come into your shop, we’ll make you party UP we’re an american band
we’ll break into your flat, and not feed your kitty cat we’re an american band
we’ll come into your place, we’ll rub some corn on your face we’re an american band
now it’s getting weird
we’ll steal your piano replace it with jay leno we’re an american band

(I wrote this when Jay Leno was still on television and presumed employed for life so it was at that time more of an accomplishment to pull him away from his regular duties)

we’ll come into your city and we’ll bring along smitty

what even happened to Marvin “Smitty” Smith, anyhow? HE was IN an american band. this goes to show you what you can get yourself into by associating with the wrong crowd.
(I wrote this when jay leno was still on television but Kevin Eubanks and Smitty were no longer in the Tonight Show Band)

In fact I did not go to this specifically because I could not get a guarantee that Kevin was bringing along Smitty. If only the appropriate alternate lyrics had been applied to “American Band” sooner!

we’ll come into your home, we’ll prank call paul prudhome
who does this band even think it is? they don’t have the power to do that.

we’ll modify your suit, we’ll add a wrestling boot, we are the beach patrol

this song can’t help reminding me of hulk hogan’s album; another song on that album is about the “wrestling boot traveling band” and yet one another includes
the phrase “we are the beach patrol, we wanna party, party, party.”
You do not, and in fact I do not want you to listen to either of those, just to be AWARE that
they named the band after a BOOT that goes around to different places. It should be noted that “american band” and “wrestling boot traveling band,” the song, both use the phrase “with the boys in the band,” and I have done so.

we’ll come into your factory, talk trash about Tony Slattery

I would like to point to the date at which I wrote this as being responsible for all the dated references but that was 2010

we’ll come into your daventry, astound you with our gallantry, we’re an american graham

we’ll come into your dump, make you play Rallo Gump, we’re an american trashbag

we’ll come into your towns, get mad at jews and browns, we’re an american klan

I can’t believe it took me five years to post this. Maybe I thought that by now people would have forgotten how trendy it was to trash Hulk Hogan’s album five years before I wrote it. This article, I mean, not Hulk Hogan’s album. I wrote that ten years before then. Thankfully its message is timeless. The article, I mean. The message from Hulk Hogan’s album is set to expire at midnight on March 4, 201… great goopity I think I’d better post this tonight.

we’ll come into your Hyundai, make you occupy a wildlife refuge with Ammon Bundy

ah I just don’t have the gift anymore!