new directions for the blog

so, hath 31 never quite worked itself out. that vacation completely derailed my discipline. but it was a worthwhile experience.. i think that, comparing my work now to my drawings before the project, that just interfacing visually with something every day helped me develop a trained eye, and i advise that as a technique for anyone looking to improve their drawing. it sounds so simple when you spell it out — if you want to draw well, draw. i still try to draw something every day, but it’s always less polished, and less constructed as something for other people to see. one example is a drawing i did recently of a sad-looking, naked man, with a hat shaped like a pyramid on his head, that said “PYRAMID OF PENITENCE.” something i did just for my own amusement. yesterday i drew spider-man to test out some pens. clearly, i support the existence of error-based hats and spider-men.

lately, i’ve been busying myself by watching a lot of movies, and writing micro-reviews on a facebook application called “flixster” which nobody cares about. in fact, i have reviewed every movie that i’ve seen in its entirety since december of 2008. it might be a good idea to post them here. they are generally face-value, highly subjective reviews based on personal enjoyment, not your historical/contextual fancy-pants significance essays. or they may end up finding a home elsewhere. we’ll certainly see soon.

my idea to start a metatextual comic-about-comics is ultimately being aborted for a number of reasons. firstly, the outrageous amount of work that goes into the making of even one single-page comic strip is prohibitive to an ongoing, weekly project. secondly, the specific idea of writing about comics in the comic format was flawed; the aim of being clever and meta was more important to that approach than using the medium well. i don’t think that a conversational, dialogue-driven, talking-head strip is the best way to express critical ideas about external texts. the amount of text that i would need would throw off the balance of text vs image communication necessary to the comics format. thirdly, while this is something i want to do for myself, it’s also tied to an assignment with a fixed deadline, so as much as i’d like to experiment with format and medium, ultimately i have to err on the side of actually getting it done.

what does that mean for you, the reader? maybe some essays to read soon. essays with capital letters. maybe some illustrations (think illumination). maybe some movie reviews to pad this blog with the detritus floating around in my head. opinions are like assholes, ______________.

thanks for maybe caring.