In the Back

Now that I'm done with my database proposal, it's time to put that project out of my mind, relax with my little blog, and share some cartooning best practices -- I can't stress this enough. Always have a little notebook on hand and capture gestures from the people around you whenever you can. Most of them won't notice, as you'll soon see.

The primary reason for selecting campus classes as opposed to online ones is the presence of real human entities. It's fun to make connections with them and form relationships. They're also fun to draw! Can you ID these unique iSchool friends? Is one of them you? Eventually I'll comment with a list of names, but just play along with this little game I've created and see how many of your colleagues and professors you can identify.

Let the games begin AFTER THE CUT.


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2. Bonus points if you can guess the classes I was in when I sketched these.


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9. This one is pretty easy, even thought I think I drew him "meaner" than he actually is.


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11. This is from last year...I think the fishnets were a creative addition.


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14. Three people to identify here.


15. I don't think the sketch is all that accurate, but the cute shoes are a good clue. Hand and foot studies are very useful.



So what is the point of all this, besides priming me for more "important" projects, like silly comics about the Chinese guys? Do you think draftsmanship will become obsolete as we move toward a paperless, virtual, Twilight-Zone like dystopia? I hope not. I'll post the identities eventually, so please have a shot at guessing them!

Also: Thank you, iSchool for responding to our queries and adding more in-person classes to the system catalog -- er, the course catalog. I'm sure that I and many of my colleagues will be populating those tables with our charming physical presences.

After awhile, dystophile.

Beat It

Hello readers. Thanks for choosing Bibliowhining as your finals week procrastination station!

Thanksgiving weekend has flowed directly, and without mercy, into two weeks worth of final projects, but I've had this little true story incubating since Thanksgiving day.

Last week, while waiting for certain components of my delicious Thanksgiving feast (including a pecan fudge pie from scratch) to do their magic in the oven, I took a walk with my mom in the woods behind my house. Loyal readers of Bibliowhining will recall that I live in the New Jersey Pine Barrens, and my backyard extends into miles and miles of pine forest with deer, herons, snapper turtles, beavers and other wildlife. It's not some park like we have in Syracuse where you look in every direction and still see roads and cars and houses in the distance through the tree branches.

Anyway, in the woods, a bit off the trail, my mom pointed out something she had found earlier: a scattering of about 30 smallish, white birds eggs with brown and black spots all over them. Lying on the ground amongst the pine needles, they were vulnerable yet still intact.

My mom didn't know what kind of eggs they were. Turtle or snake eggs? No, reptile eggs are soft shelled. These eggs were hard shelled; definitely from a bird.



I guessed they were quail eggs based on my experience watching Iron Chef. I've never seen a quail in my woods, quails also presumably don't lay 30 eggs at a time on the ground.



Just what is going on here? The rest of the story, and a little watercolor drawing, can be found after the cut.

Like the silly exploratory kid I am, I picked open one of the cracked eggs, hoping to find the remains of a developing fetus inside that would help me identify the species of bird that mothered this little flock. Instead, I found a smelly surprise: A rotten, hard-boiled egg.

Returning later to sketch the scene, I heard a deer hunter loading his gun. Not wanting to leave this world face down in a pile of rotten quail(?) eggs with a gunshot wound to the back of the head, I left the area after catching some minimal details. I later used these details and notes to do the little painting below. One assumes they're hunting deer, but there's always the chance they're hunting people.

I'm kind of liking watercolor, and wish that my undergraduate art program offered a watercolor course. Looking back, I suppose that curriculum focused more heavily on using art to repeat political statements than on creating art which is beautiful, sensitive, spiritual and soulful (not that my art is as beautiful as I'd like, but the latter are my goals). The lesson learned is to research various undergraduate programs to find the best fit for you, rather than diving in blind based on its high ranking. I could also benefit from a flat brush. Watercolor is so much cleaner than oils, and also non-toxic which is great since watercolor paints taste so delicious!



In summary, the punchline: Somebody had dumped 3 dozen hard-boiled quail eggs in the woods, but gently enough that only a few had cracked. This is the kind of mysterious weirdness one finds in my home town.

(Have You Seen My) Childhood

Seasons Readings from this little future librarian!




Don't worry: Bibliowhining hasn't been eighty-sixed. I've just been busy cooking and dining and sitting around the old homestead checking out some retro photo albums.



Sit tight! I'm taking a little break, but I'll whip up more underground comics and other art and/or library related writeups sometime after the first major snowfall...or before!

Thanks for reading, and have a wonderful holiday!

I Just Can't Stop Loving You

For a relatively unknown stretch of woodlands, my home, the New Jersey Pine Barrens, has a decent share of folklore. Most famous is the Jersey Devil, a.k.a. any one of the mutated animals that the nearby Fort Dix army base releases into the woods after military biological warfare experimentation. There's also the legend of Ong's Hat, which is not only the name of a diner that employed me as a dishwasher/busgirl/waitress one summer, but is also the location of a fabled portal to another dimension. Wikipedia is there for you if you wish to explore these so-called myths further, but in this blog entry, I will perpetuate an urban legend far more chilling in its subject matter -- it's about those insane Pine Barrens girls, of which I am one. You've heard the expression, "You're out of your tree," as a metaphor for craziness. But the thing that makes us crazy comes out of the trees. Read on!

"Tales from the Stix" by Chrissy Spallone

Does this cartoon look even a little bit cleaner and more slick than my usual fare? Perhaps that's due to my purchase of these neat, convenient, India-ink filled pens I purchased at Syracuse's Art Store (located on the corner of Crouse and Erie Blvd.). In the past, I always used "loose" Higgins India ink and Hunts nib pens. For the lettering, I couldn't write steadily enough with these tools, so I used regular black felt-tip pens filled with some non-India ink, which isn't as dark, and also fades in bright light and doesn't write over China White (a superior Wite-Out like substance).

I still use the quills and some watercolor brushes with the Higgins ink, but it's nice to have these pens to use as an option for areas where I want more control and fine detail -- for example, it's nice to be able to draw people's faces in a less gruesome way. Gruesome is good sometimes, but not all the time.

The cashier at the Art Store asked me if I found everything I needed, and when I said "Yes," she replied, "Good deal!" What a pleasant lady.

After awhile, bibliophile.

Big Boy

Christmas is just around the corner, and yet, amidst the hustle and bustle of the holiday season, I've found the time to conceptualize and pen a brand new comic (available under the cut) starring one of my classic muses. We'll call him Charles Blarney. Don't let all the text and background story chase you away -- If the comic is all you want, by all means click on that link, scroll down, and it will be there for you!

In my senior year of high school, I was voted "Shyest", for purposes of a senior superlative yearbook photo shoot. Were I not quite so shy, I might have also won the titles of "Most Artistic" and/or "Funniest," having received a decent chunk of votes in both categories. But the blonde young Philadelphian who won "Funniest Male" was -- aside from our varying degrees of sociability -- the male version of myself, "Charles". He and I were so much alike, it's like I could read his mind. We both liked orange juice with pulp, cheese-less burgers, memorizing secret scripts ahead of time for use in (thanks to us) surreal classroom discussions, poking fun at our schoolmates through creative writing, not making eye contact...the similarities were uncanny.

"Charles" and I became good friends in the 8th grade -- before becoming his friend, I earned his positive attention when I started featuring him and his pals Aigy and Mat in a short-lived underground comic series: "The Devil's Triangle". He and his friends used to make fun of me in class, and I sort of returned the favor by bashing them in cartoon form. Mat and "Charles" thought these comics were hilarious -- "Charles" enjoyed them so much that he stole the first issue and held it ransom until I created more. To this day, he owns the full set of original "Devil's Triangle" comics, as well as the concurrent, more superhero-based sister series, "Satan's trio".

Actually, issue #2 of "The Devil's Triangle" is missing, since Aigy ripped it up.

Well, "Charles" and I are in two different places now, but we didn't grow apart, really... in fact, he still feels close enough to me to reveal plenty about his personal life -- enough for me to realize that he's a grown-up now, and, like most young men, engages in the popular mating ritual known as picking up chicks at the bar -- and I don't mean religious tracts!

Being the hopeless romantic in the parade of weirdos who comprise my closest friends, I've never hooked up with someone I just met at a bar, an apple orchard, church, the library, or anywhere else. Not even through a sheet of saran wrap. But I'm glad "Charles" is there for me to live vicariously through -- he's as fascinating now as he was at age 13. And it's been quite a while since I've featured him in his own comic story, so let's see what he's up to now, shall we?






That charming story is, in typical "Devil's Triangle" fashion, true yet exaggerated.