It's On!

I frequent and occasionally work at a local cafe and roaster, Revolution Coffee Roasters. For enjoyment, I drew a dramatic pen and ink poster featuring a mermaid named "Stormy" holding one of our signature drinks, the Dark and Stormy Cumulus (a kind of cortado).

I don't have a large format scanner, so here are a couple of the best pics. Hope you can stop by the shop and see it in person soon!

Something fun is always brewing at Revolution Coffee... where it's ON!

Stormy (c) 2016 Christina Spallone

Upper Deck Dinosaurs and Life (Or: I am a Dinosaur)

Dearest Blog,

My life, like the weather, is growing colder, and the days shorter. I keep telling myself to draw more comics or write more of anything like I used to, to make the most of my dwindling time on Earth. Years ago, I had friends who begged me for entertainment, some pulpy levity to distract them from high school lectures. Now, phones have taken that place, and I hear little if any demand. I wonder what I might have accomplished had I been born 40 or 50 years ago, had I reached my prime before high-speed Internet. I shudder to think where I'd be if I were born on a later date. Would I have learned to draw, or would my eyes be perpetually glued to some kind of electronic pad, ignorant of the feel of paper in my hands or the heady thrill of creating an artifact?

When I was younger, friendships were incidental, yet intensely intimate. Every day, I marched next door or across the street to play with my closest friends, valued higher than all else merely because of proximity. I became disproportionately familiar with kids whose last names shared the same first letter as mine (or the next one in the alphabet), only because school corralled us into the same homeroom. Spallone and Schneider and Smith and Taylor, all forever linked thanks to coincidence. Sometimes I can't imagine connecting with anyone else on a deeper level than I once did with these friends, but I guess anyone else in the world could have easily impacted my life with equal strength, if only they sat behind, in front of, or to the immediate left or right of me in class.

This trend may have continued deep into adulthood if it weren't for the prevalence of the Internet allowing us to interact with people other than those physically seated next to us. I'm guilty of spending more time on the Web than I should. In theory, access to people with varied interests all over the world should help us find better matches than the accidental sympaticos I spoke of. But in my case, it's not working. It sort of did when people wrote emails and you could get a feel for their personalities, but now communication has to be via Facebook chat (or something similar), where everything runs in a one-inch-wide column. A wall of text longer than ten words long becomes more imposing to the modern reader than the dense Nathanial Hawthorne novel rotting by my bedside on a pile of good intentions, dog-eared on page 10 for all eternity. Plus, it's near impossible to edit anything and you have to go through this whole special procedure if you want to make paragraph breaks. It just doesn't work for me. I also don't like how the Internet removes all semblance of a mystique, with all unfortunate political views and examples of bad taste flying for all to see. I click on my dearest elementary school buddy's profile and see one rant after another about the current hot political topic, and she's on the opposite side of the fence. I see many unfunny memes shared. Who is this terrible person, I wonder. Why can't we just plop down on the couch and eat junk food and watch the Friday night lineup and enjoy each other's humanity? Why does something that's supposed to make things so simple and facilitate connection now do the exact opposite?

The Internet isn't forever. Jump the Shark has jumped the shark, along with most other sites created in a more innocent time, when people published their writings online for fun and passion instead of ad clicks. For the right price, anyone can sell our memories away. I foolishly type this in a blog that Google might zap into etherea any moment, instead of a brick-and-mortar diary that someone might discover and learn from hundreds of years from now. But even blogs have long become quaint, replaced with online photo posting and telegraphic one-liners that no one has the patience to scroll through beyond the last couple of weeks. Who is keeping a record of our time in a way that future generations can appreciate?

How long can I count on the existence of trading card collectors? When I say I create them, few react with any recognition, let alone enthusiasm. They ask, "What's a trading card?" Do kids collect them anymore? I imagine most are waiting for the next video game to come out, or "falling in love" through emojis and shallow text-speak exchanged with catfish in Internet chatrooms. But I'm grateful for the few die-hards out there who support my old-fashioned art style, and these pieces of paper that will last long after this blog dissolves into, at best, a hidden nugget on archive.org.

Thanks for keeping it old-school. After a while, dystophile.

Commissions Available!

Hi trading card fans!

I have some blank artist's proofs/returns/sketch cards or whatever you want to call them. Please contact me through email or send a message to the Bibliowhining Facebook page to make a request!

Here's what I have available:

Monsterwax

Spook Show (3)
Legendary Lovecraft (1)

Viceroy

Insectae (2)
The Deep (2)

Upper Deck

Marvel 3D (5)
Avengers: Age of Ultron (7)
Ant-Man (2)
Dinosaurs (12)

Thanks for your support!

The Collingswood Bikeshare

Hola amigos. It's been a long time since I've rapped at you, but I've gone semi-pro, so I've been drawing/painting trading cards and working on the occasional illustration project with the time I used to spend drawing comics for free with little feedback. I do plan to finish my "Where's the Beat" comic and submit it to literary journals in hopes of getting more eyes, but publishing my progress on this blog would disqualify me from submitting elsewhere in many cases, so we'll have to wait a bit.

Long-time readers know that this blog started out as an attempt to share my combined interests in library studies and art, then it drifted more into a regular comics blog, and now I pop in once in a while to share updates on whatever projects I'm currently working on. Well, I never abandoned my library training, and now I work as a cataloger, circulation clerk and restoration specialist at one of the best special libraries in the world, the Collingswood Bikeshare.

Not the usual bike sharing program that rents out fancy-schmancy identical bikes with GPS and stuff by the hour, ours refurbishes donated adult bikes of many shapes, sizes and vintage and leases them like library books for $25/year.

With another female, I'm currently building a bike from an old road bike frame of dubious origin (though stickers indicate it was originally acquired from a Western Toy Store):

 Here I am scraping off the original layers of paint with a scraper. Later I'd switch to Zip Strip. This bike had a storied life including possible theft, judging by the paint layers -- red, original dark Bikeshare green, black spraypaing and lighter, modern Bikeshare green. This time it will be cream and blue.

Here are some before pictures:

Bikeshare brand builds often have BMX handlebars, and this model was no exception:

With new wheels and a cool found saddle, grips and other odds and ends, we have a nice new Bikeshare brand coaster bike!

 I named it Rover, after my cat (it's also the name of that bubble thing in The Prisoner, which fits our classic TV show bike naming scheme).

We still have a week or so of halfway decent riding weather left (it's November 6th as I'm writing this). Stop by sometime!

And be on the lookout for my art at Espressit Coffee Shop all November long.

Flame Broiled: Diary of a Burger Flipper Issue #2 is here!

I've put off making comics long enough, and once again used Mini-Comics Day as an excuse to break from paying work and just have fun drawing as I did in the days before adulthood.

Flame Broiled: Diary of a Burger Flipper Issued #2 is finally here! Contact me to order your $2.00 copy today (free shipping).

In this episode, New Girl graduates from toasting buns to making cheeseburgers and hamburgers! But is she up for the job? Plus, someone orders a four-piece chicken strips meal, but there's only an eight piece left! How will New Girl get out of that one?

Like Issue #1 (the most popular comic I've ever done), this episode recounts based-on-true tales of working in the fast food industry. Not an undercover, Nickel And Dimed type expose on the working poor, this is more like a casual diary sharing humor and humiliation from a time when no other job prospects were available. Many will relate to these silly fast food dramas, so just enjoy the read!

Email me to order your copy today! Issue #1 is still available, too. Get the full set -- a bargain at $2 each -- that's half the price of a measly gluten-free cupcake, but it lasts twice as long!

(Now I realize that I left one of the originals on the copy machine, and oh how smart I feel. Hopefully it's still around, not on its way to being a sheet of recycled paper. I remember the last time this happened...)

Monsterwax "Legendary Lovecraft" Sketch Card Checklist

Just in time for Hallowe'en, Monsterwax is opening up orders for their "Legendary Lovecraft" trading card set, a cool project I'm proud to be a part of. Ricardo Garijo, Jr., carrying his late father's torch, brushed out a batch of beautifully rendered cards for the base set, capturing the spooky mood and otherworldly colors described in Lovecraft's tales. Though I'm typically not a fan of computer generated artwork, Garijo, Jr.'s is tasteful, painterly and organic. My foil inserts, in contrast, were tortuously scratched out with micron pens in a style emulating that of Virgil Finlay or Basil Wolverton. So you see the set offers something for everyone.

If Lovecraftian tales intrigue you but seemed too dense upon first attempted readings, the artwork and summaries on these cards will gently draw you in to the Mythos. Lovecraft's writing -- particularly the Cthulhu character and The Necronomicon -- has influenced heavy metal bands and cult classics like The Evil Dead, but it's no less highbrow than Poe's (in my grumbling opinion). One thing that impresses me most about his stories (though it made them pretty tricky to condense into card-sized snippets) is the intricacy of them --  every little detail means something. So when you're writing story summaries, don't leave out that seemingly throwaway bit about the rock the narrator kicks out of the way on a forest path, nor the direction in which the path is going or the direction in which he kicks the rock, or the material the rock is made from and the number of facets it has, because all of it will be INTEGRAL to the story's denouement every time. I wonder if he drew maps or created model cities to ensure the perfect continuity of his universe.

In addition to the six printed insert cards I did for the set, I'm creating some of the original art sketch cards, one of which is included in each box. Other top sketch card artists are working on the set, too, so there's no guarantee you'll get one of mine, but I thought collectors would appreciate a checklist of my "Legendary Lovecraft" sketches. I'll be adding to this list as I create more, so it's not complete yet:

LOVECRAFT PORTRAIT SKETCH CARDS

IN GRAPHITE
1. Young Lovecraft with glasses and pink background
2. Lovecraft with tentacle shadows and blue background
3. Lovecraft and Yithians with grey background

4. Smirking Lovecraft with carved monoliths and yellowish background
5. Serious Lovecraft holding black cat with pink background
6. 3/4 view of serious Lovecraft with glasses, bowtie and faint blue background
7. Lovecraft w/rats on his shoulders and red-orange tint
8. Lovecraft 3/4 view with cream/grey background
9. Sketchy Lovecraft with orange/grey background
10. Lovecraft with tentacle heart "frame" and yellow/grey background

 

  

IN PEN AND INK 

1. Lovecraft and fanged, winged ex-wife with pink background

2. Pensive-looking Lovecraft

3. Lovecraft reading Necronomicon

"AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS" SKETCHES

IN MARKER

1. Elder "fossil" discovered in cave
2. Men running from shoggoth
3. Penguins running from shoggoth



IN GRAPHITE

1. Elder monster close-up with yellow background

"THE CALL OF CTHULHU" SKETCHES

IN GRAPHITE

1. Cthulhu bas-relief (gray-green background)
2. Cthulhu and a couple tiny sailors

IN PEN AND INK

1. Cthulhu in the sea with wings spread

"THE CATS OF ULTHAR" SKETCHES

IN MARKER

1. Three feisty-looking cats

"THE COLOUR OUT OF SPACE" SKETCHES

IN MARKER

 1. Colour rising from well with trees in background and pig corpse

 "THE DREAM-QUEST OF UNKNOWN KADATH" SKETCHES

 IN GRAPHITE

1. Moon beasts (pink background)

IN MARKER
1. Shantak bird
2. Night gaunts

"THE DREAMS IN THE WITCH HOUSE" SKETCHES

IN GRAPHITE

1. Brown Jenkins with classic yellow background

IN PEN AND INK

1. Witch with strangling hands

"THE DUNWICH HORROR" SKETCHES

IN GRAPHITE

1.  Henry Armitage's wife w/blue background
2. The "Horror"

IN MARKER

1. Pregnant Lavinia Whateley

2. Whippoorwills singing  
3. Wilbur shooting dog (Mars Attacks! homage) 
4. Wilbur holding Necronomicon

"THE FESTIVAL" SKETCHES

IN MARKER

1. Wax mask falling off to reveal what should have been a face

"HALLOWE'EN IN A SUBURB" SKETCHES

IN GRAPHITE

1. Lemurs

IN MARKER

1. Flying vampires

 "HERBERT WEST: REANIMATOR" SKETCHES

IN MARKER 

1. Herbert West injecting a rabbit/monkey creation

 "THE HORROR AT RED HOOK" SKETCHES

 IN MARKER

1. Mrs. Sudyam sacrificed ("Lilith" written in background)

"THE LURKING FEAR" SKETCHES

IN GRAPHITE

1. Martenses rising from the hills (red background)

 

 

 

 

"THE OUTSIDER" SKETCHES

 IN MARKER
1. Outsider looking in mirror

IN GRAPHITE

1. Outsider looking in mirror

"PICKMAN'S MODEL" SKETCHES

IN MARKER
1. Pickman's model gnawing on unfortunate human

"THE PICTURE IN THE HOUSE" SKETCHES 

IN MARKER
1. Butcher shop illustration

"THE RATS IN THE WALLS" SKETCHES 

IN MARKER
1. Black cat scratching at pillar, aerial view

2. Swarming rats
3. Black cat scratching at pillar, side view

"SHADOW OUT OF TIME" SKETCHES"

IN GRAPHITE
1. Yithians holding books with blue background

IN PEN AND INK
1. Lone Yithian reading book with neon yellow background

"SHADOW OVER INNSMOUTH" SKETCHES 

IN GRAPHITE
1. Bus driver Joe Sargent

2. Innsmouth creatures in lake

IN MARKER
1. Innsmouth creatures rising from lake
2. Lone fisherman with stormy sky

"THE TEMPLE" SKETCHES

IN MARKER

1. Old-timey scuba diver

"THE THING ON THE DOORSTEP" SKETCHES

IN MARKER

1. Asenath Waite

IN GRAPHITE
1. Shub Niggurath with pink background

"THE WHISPERER IN DARKNESS" SKETCHES

IN MARKER

1.Old Akeley sitting in balloon chair

IN PEN AND INK 
1. Dog with tentacle in mouth
2. Dogs barking

IN GRAPHITE
1. Tsathoggua with orange background

Viceroy Insectae and The Deep Trading Card Sets

Hi gang,

I just finished making sketch cards for Viceroy Trading Cards' new "Insectae" and "The Deep" sets. I've always enjoyed drawing insects, and it was fun researching and completing these nature sketches. For "The Deep," I limited myself to true deep sea creatures only. There are some weird ones, many of them bio-luminescent and translucent. Many subsist on hydrogen sulfide expelled from hydrothermal vents. Sounds like a great life, huh?

Here are some of my favorites from "Insectae":

flat bark beetle, death watch beetle, Jerusalem cricket, Mormon cricket, eyed click beetle, hickory horned devil

And here are some favorites from "The Deep":

tadpole snailfish, Dumbo octopus, vent clams, blind lobster, frilled shark, firefly squid

The above is just a small sampling. I did 40 cards for each set, and I still have proof cards to make. If you're interested in an original art card, contact me and we'll talk. I also put sketch cards up on eBay from time to time.

Secret Project Unveiled!

Monsterwax unveiled the project on which I've been working, and many salivate as they await our LEGENDARY LOVECRAFT trading card set, planned for release this fall. To promote the set, company president and writer Kurt Kuersteiner and I handed out promos and displayed my original art at the latest Philly Non-Sports Card Show. The set will feature all your favorite monsters, including Cthulhu, the Great Race, and Nyarlathotep, and summaries of the best stories to elevate it all beyond mere eye candy while introducing new fans to H.P. Lovecraft's elegant body of work. I created six inserts for the set, but Ricardo Garijo, Jr. did the lion's share of the artwork.

Monsterwax at the Philly Non-Sports Card Show, Spring 2013

I wrote summaries for many of Lovecraft's stories, and it wasn't easy! Every little detail means something -- I would gloss over the number of dots on a seemingly random rock, for example, only to discover that "insignificant" detail was the key to the story's denouement. Discerning, scientifically-minded intellectuals would be remiss to pass on Lovecraft, as would the heavy metal and Evil Dead crowd (and all who fall into the middle of the Venn Diagram).

Note in the above picture that my hair hangs in separated tendrils -- kind of reminds you of Cthulhu, huh?

The following weekend, I presented all my Lovecraft drawings -- plus some older published work and a few recent nature sketches -- at the Grooveground coffee shop in Collingswood, NJ. All of it is for sale, so definitely take a peek if you live in South Jersey or Philadelphia. My art will be on display for the entire month of May through the first week of June. I sold a few copies of "Mediocre Narcotica's Greatest Hits: Vol. 1" and "Flame Broiled: Diary of a Burger Flipper" at my art opening, so be sure to search for these titles on eBay or my Etsy store to secure your copy while you still can!

Yours truly at my recent art show

I'm going to do things a little differently this time and REFRAIN from posting all my artwork for free on this blog, but here's a little taste of what's to come in the Monsterwax Legendary Lovecraft set:

Lovecraft's Great Race (c) 2013 Chrissy Spallone

Thanks for reading as always!

Contact Info. Updated

Hi Gang,

I just updated my contact info. and added new information about items for sale. Take a peek if you ever want to write me a letter or order any of my art/comics.

I'm still working on the project I've been alluding to. All will be revealed in due time, but these husky dogs will make an appearance:

I have several completed drawings done for this already, but I can't give away the whole game plan just yet!

Hopefully everyone had a fine St. Patty's day. I made Irish potato candies (the kind with real potato and no coconut or cream cheese; I have no idea how that wildness got started) and cabbage, which I keep forgetting is delicious and very cheap. I went vegan for Lent again, so I seasoned it (the cabbage, not the candy) with olive oil and salt and ground mustard seed. Very simple and yummy, if you like bitter and slightly medicinal foods.

Here's the elusive "real potato" Irish potato recipe, lest it get lost to the ages forever. Boil and mash up peeled potatoes (don't add milk or salt or anything). Then add confectioner's sugar until the mixture is thick enough to roll into balls. You'll need a lot of confectioner's sugar, like a pound of it for each potato. Make little potato shaped balls (or, more accurately, ellipsoids) and roll them in cinnamon for yummy flavor and to give the appearance of real little potatoes! Real yummy stuff, man.

Thanks for reading! 

Chrissy

I Just Deleted a Bunch of My Facebook Fans

I just deleted a few hundred fans from my Bibliowhining Facebook page, assuming they had no actual interest in my art or writing.

Over a year ago, I put up a targeted Facebook ad for $2/day in hopes of attracting fans who would go on to buy some art or brighten my days with encouraging likes and comments. After a couple weeks, I attained hundreds of fans, but only one or two interacted with my page or site at all, and then only minimally. I canceled the unhelpful ad.

Soon I noticed ads for pages like "Justin Bieber" and "Taco Bell" that said, for example, "366 of your fans also like Justin Bieber." It was then I realized that most of my new fans were impressionable teenagers who would click indiscriminately on anything presented to them. I wasn't crazy about having so many such fans, but I didn't see any harm in it. I may have been wrong...

I don't know if Facebook changed its algorithm or what, but I recently noticed a decrease in the people who see my posts. Looking up the problem on the Internet, I discovered that negative feedback ("fans" hiding a post or reporting it as spam) can penalize your page so that Facebook doesn't display its posts to others. I exported my data and saw that several people were giving negative feedback whenever I posted anything, especially one of the "creepy" drawings that make up about half of this site's content.

Of course, I couldn't see who was giving the negative feedback, so to be safe I just deleted a bunch of bikini babes, trendy teens and anyone else who looked like they were "liking" my site for reasons other than interest in my comics, artwork and writing. I apologize if, in my trigger-happiness, I accidentally deleted you. Nothing personal, and I hope you'll come back! This is the last time I'm going to delete fans like that; I only did it to get rid of the fake fans attained through the useless Facebook ad. Nothing to complicate your life like Facebook, huh?

We're on TWITTER, too.

As always, thanks for reading! Stay tuned for news and scans from my next big project.

Happy Saint Valentine's Day from Bibliowhining!

Heresy's Hisses, 2013 Christina Spallone

Happy Valentine's from all of us at Bibliowhining! Thanks as always for your readership, and be sure to check our Facebook page for the juicy little bits of news we don't always post on here. It's time consuming to cross post the same news in multiple locations, and Facebook is the big kahuna of the bunch. I'll continue to post most of my comics here, but you won't miss a thing if you join us on the ol' fb.

What's This Effect Called?

There's a "floating" effect that occurs when one solid block of color is drawn inside another block of solid color that clashes with it in a certain way. One famous example of this is this album cover for the punk band The Adolescents:

 Another example is the album cover for The Waitresses "Bruiseology":

The '80s offered a lot of this sort of thing, but let's not leave it in the past. It's a legitimate art effect that I enjoy and would like to experiment with. BUT WHAT IS IT CALLED? My love of classic punk and new wave brought me to the above examples by chance. When I actually try to describe and search for the effect, to find photo references, all sorts of other things pop up --"3D color effects" brings up anaglyphs and Disney Pixar type renderings, while "clashing colors" displays tints that look garish together without any special floating properties...

If there's another term for it, let me know, but I'm coining the term HOVERGLYPHS to name images that exemplify this property. There's a neat obscure font called "Hoverglyphs," too, but that's such a narrow use for the term and I can't come up with anything better, so hopefully we can share.

Here's my attempts at hoverglyph effects in some Spook Show cards.:

 

Have you seen any hoverglyphs lately? What colors can YOU think of that go together to produce hoverglyphs?

Hoverglyphs.

The New iPhone is Here!

New technologies are a common theme here at Bibliowhining. I'm not anti-technology, but I like to question things. For example, why does my tape Walkman from the early 90s still function while these new phones and MP3 players and such break after fewer than five years? Why are so many people okay with that, rewarding shoddy craftsmanship with repeat purchases from the same company? And why is manufacturing and throwing away plastic products year after year considered more "green" than a book or record album that you'd keep forever, sell or give away to a friend? Why do we buy things we don't need with money we don't have to impress people we don't like? Anyway, here's a quick comic about the new iPhones.

Where's The Beat? Part 3

Here's Part 3 of the Mediocre Narcotica origin story "Where's the Beat?" If you just tuned in, be sure to catch up with 

PART ONE

and

PART TWO.

Thanks for tuning in to Bibliowhining! In the next and final installment, Mediocre Narcotica will fast forward 30 years to 2012, where they will witness some of their aging punk heroes on stage. Will it be disillusioning or as inspirational as it was in the 80s? Join us next time to find out.

What Chrissy is Doing

I've been writing for some other sites, so if you like my style you may enjoy checking them out.

Here's my profile page for Stereo Subversion, a music review site. I recently had my first album review published there (Lightning Love's Blonde Album) and will be writing more for them in the future.

I wrote a few satire articles for Campus Basement (nee 'Cuse My Campus) in graduate school, but some current events lend themselves well to satire. Here's an article I wrote about the NYC soda ban, and here's my profile page with links to all the articles I wrote for the site.

I've been making sketch cards for Monsterwax, a neat trading card company that makes non-sports card sets, usually with a horror theme.

A free original art card comes in each box of Spook Show cards, and I also sell some of the originals. Contact me if you'd like to buy one. Here are some of the cards I've done so far:

There are more cards on my Monsterwax artist page. I'll be promoting the cards at the upcoming Philly Non-Sports-Card Show in Allentown (not Philly) on October 20-21. That's all for now, friends! Thanks for reading Bibliowhining. And don't forget, you can follow us on Twitter and Facebook for the latest updates!

Courage for Halloween

Halloween postcards are now available for $2/each or $16 for a set of 10. Shipping is free, and all are 4x6 with blank backs. Contact me or simply send payment via Paypal with a note describing what you want to buy (my Paypal email address is the same as my contact email). 

 

Get all the same style or mix and match. There's the vintage-inspired "Hope your Halloween goes swimmingly," the goth-type tonal drawings and the ever-popular lowbrow evil cat blowing up those two unfortunate monsters that someone told me look like some monsters in a Radiohead video or something even though I didn't plan it that way.

Send one to your sweetheart this Halloween!