Tooned out for a while

12:18pm 07 Apr 2009 12 comments

Hi everyone. As you may have surmised, I've had a bit of a hiatus from blogging recently. What started as a few days off turned into a week, then two weeks, then three and (embarrassingly) a month, as the pics waiting to process mounted up and became increasingly daunting to tackle.

Of course there's more to it than that. Frequent readers will know that I've endured a spectacular upheaval in my personal life, as my seven-year marriage ended just in time for the holidays last year - casting doubt on everything I once believed, cherished, dreamed of and took for granted. The subsequent house shifting, studio relocating and intensive soul-searching followed at blinding speed, and the past four months have passed in a blur of daily deadlines, taking care of children, meeting my minimum social obligations and still trying to maintain some semblance of normalcy amid the chaos. It's been difficult and enlightening in equal measure, but it has also taken its toll.

Like a lot of people who have endured major trauma, I stumbled through the early weeks with an almost giddy persistence and obliviousness to what was happening. Only later did the gravity and full ramifications of the situation sink in, and with it a pleasure-sapping funk that I struggled to shake at times. It's felt as if I've had to retreat into survival mode, abandoning anything that consumed extra time and energy as I focused on my most immediate and important obligations. That isn't to say that Tooned In hasn't been a vital and rewarding part of my life over the past year and a half, but it has become a casualty of my new circumstances and I haven't had the enthusiasm to maintain it as I once did. This is sad and has contributed to my unease, but the prospect of taking a break is a great relief and obviously indicates it is the right thing to do.

I'm going to toon out for a while, to reflect on life for a couple more months and consider where I want to go and what I want to do. The editorial cartoons will keep coming as always. Ironically, the pressure of that daily deadline has been a godsend for me, pulling me out of my solipsism for at least a few hours every day. Cartooning is also one of the things I most love doing, and spending even more time on it excites me as few other things do right now. At some point I'll have more to say about my work, the business, the craft, the issues and the cartooning community, but for now I'm content to step back and not participate in the chatter so much.

In my first post some twenty or so months ago, I wrote about how my return to editorial cartooning was the completion of a circle and the resolution of some longstanding unfinished business. Abandoning Tooned In makes me feel much the same way as I did when I gave up editorial cartooning in my early twenties: necessary, but unsatisfactory. I'm not a quitter, and relinquishing anything before I've realised its full potential is extremely disappointing and unfulfilling, especially with an opportunity such as this blog where I've connected with so many readers and have been able to share my passion for comics and cartooning. Hopefully a little break will allow me to consider how to improve this dialogue, modify the format and broaden the appeal of Tooned In, so that when I return it can become almost exuberantly self-sustaining. That's my hope and my plan anyway.

Loving the craft

03:30pm 27 Feb 2009 5 comments

It's been a long time since my mum bought me a comic book. Years ago, between the age of ten and twelve, I used to be the king of wagging school – or at least the king of trying to. This was back in the days when the first Star Wars had just come out and all I wanted to do was stay home and draw pictures of Luke Skywalker blowing up the death star and Darth Vader stalking rebels across the galaxy (just like my boy Tom now does).

I tried to get out of school any way I could, feigning nausea and headache, licking my palms to make them feel clammy, standing on my head to get a hot flush in my cheeks – you name it, I tried it. Not even the threat of actually taking me to the doctor was enough to make me 'fess up. Of course my mum was pretty smart and knew exactly what was going on, and I still got sent to class most days anyway. But I'm sure she remembered what it was like to be a kid and sometimes she took pity and let me stay home, as long as I kept up the ruse, remained in my room and didn't cause her any problems. On those occasions she'd tuck me into bed, fetch me a big bottle of Sprite (my favourite drink) and return later from the nearby drug store with a stack of comics to while away the afternoon. Green Lantern was my top choice, Spiderman a close second. Thor and the Silver Surfer were also cool, and those goofy Archie and Jughead digests, with their terrible jokes and fifties-style artwork, also entertained me for hours. If you want to know how and when I was first inspired to be a cartoonist, that was it. Those were good days.

Anyway, after my recent separation I moved out of my old house and back in with my parents. That's so typical isn't it? Even Rodney Hide did the same thing last year. But don't get the wrong idea, I'm not regressing completely into a teenager (though you might disagree at the end of this post, more in a minute). My parents are in Kuwait for a few years so I have the run of the place, and we'll only actually live together over the holidays when they briefly return. It's a great setup and I'm extremely fortunate and grateful they're sharing their home with me while I get back on my feet.

Anyway, we were all together over Christmas and it was nice to catch up a bit with my mum. She's an artist as well, and a very interesting person with, shall we say, somewhat eclectic tastes. She likes to read, and she reads everything, and sometimes we talk about what book she's studying or what author has caught her attention. Often we appreciate the same things, and one night I was surprised to hear her ask me about H.P. Lovecraft.

I probably haven't mentioned this, but once upon a time I also wanted to write horror novels. That was not long after my obsession with Green Lantern ended and my introduction to Stephen King began. I think it's almost de rigueur for teens to go through this morbid phase, though I was determined to pursue my new career no matter what and wrote stacks and stacks of terrible stories as I emulated my fiction heroes. King was the best as far as I was concerned, followed by Peter Straub, Ramsey Campbell, Clive Barker, Edgar Allen Poe, Algernon Blackwood, Alfred Hitchcock, Harlan Ellison and ... H.P. Lovecraft.

Smile and wave

10:37am 17 Feb 2009 3 comments

When the tsunami struck southeast Asia at the end of 2005, I remember reading about why it had been so lethal. Aside from the sheer force of the water which devastated so many villages, another phenomenon apparently contributed to the death toll. When the sea dramatically retreated in the moments before it returned, many people who had never witnessed such an occurrence scrambled down to the waterfront and started gathering fish that had been left stranded in the mud. For a few brief minutes they thought they had won the jackpot, until suddenly the tide turned and returned with remorseless violence, wiping them all out. It was an image that stayed in my mind, and it seemed like a good metaphor for what's happening with our economy.

I had been thinking about this subject for a while and musing about all the positive aspects of the impending recession and the economic catastrophe we're all told is coming. Interest rates are down, money is relatively easy to obtain, petrol is cheaper and inflation has ground to a standstill as the markets contract. Our tax cuts will kick in soon, the housing market has cooled and for now at least, if you can keep your job, things are a lot better than they were a year ago. Of course keeping our jobs will be a big if, but the silver lining remains and the pervasive national mood is that of the calm before the storm. Or in this case, enjoying the largess of the ocean's withdrawal before we're swamped by its rapidly advancing waves.

Housing NZ says it doesn't always know if its tenants are gang members, so it can't stop them from applying for state houses. But it apparently knows enough of its families have gang affiliations to segregate them according to their alliances. This has led to some areas becoming criminal ghettos and virtual "no go" zones for the police. Unacceptable. Gangs must be brought to heel and eradicated from these neighbourhoods so that their drug culture does not flourish. If it means evicting everyone with connections, then so be it. Housing NZ needs to grow a spine and, with the police, deal with this problem soon.

Crystal unclear

01:56pm 06 Feb 2009 7 comments

You're going to think I'm losing my mind. I'm wondering about that myself, because now I'm not only finding strange things on footpaths, but also in my clothes as well.

Yesterday was a pretty normal day as far as my new routine goes. My second youngest son, Sam, spent the night with me on Wednesday so we could have some one on one time together. We drove to town early on Thursday morning, I dropped him off at his mum's, then I parked my car in a nearby carpark and went for a long run in the wooded hills behind Nelson. I returned after an hour and a half, showered and dressed, then ran a bunch of errands before I went to my studio and got to work. No big deal; a great start to the morning.

But while I was running errands, and in fact throughout the day, I carried my cellphone in my right jeans pocket and constantly took it out to answer calls, respond to texts, check my emails, etc. I always keep the phone in my right pocket and I'm very particular about putting nothing else in that pocket, like keys or coins, when I do (it's a white 3G iPhone and there's no way in hell I'm going to let it get scuffed or scratched). The point I'm getting at is that there was nothing else in my jeans pocket. There couldn't have been because I didn't put anything there, and I've also probably washed that particular pair of jeans a million times in the last couple of months and nothing has ever fallen out into the washer.

Anyway, I read my papers, sketched out my cartoon, picked up my son Tom from school, finished the cartoon, then retrieved Sam and Alex before we all headed home later in the afternoon. When we arrived, I stepped out of the car to unlock the gate at my parent's house, and suddenly felt a sharp pain in my thigh. Reaching into my pocket, I discoverd a large and very pointy crystal jabbing me in the leg. See the pic above.

This is weird. I think the crystal is from my old house and once hung beside a sliding door where it could catch the morning light and splash miniature rainbows around the room. But I'm absolutely sure I didn't take it with me when I moved out in late December, and if I did and then forgot, I certainly would've had my memory jogged by its sharp glass edges numerous times in the past few weeks. So how did it get there? And how on earth did I not notice it sooner in such an obvious place? I wondered if maybe it was a scrying glass, gifted along with the worry dolls (see last post) by my guardian angels. But its powers seem limited to cheerful rainbows, and maybe that's enough anyway. Aren't rainbows supposed to signify that things will get better after floods and cataclysms and such? That's a comfort too.

What, me worry?

02:41pm 04 Feb 2009 8 comments

Confession: I've always been a bit of a womble. As long as I can remember I've been a finder – one of those people who looks down and sees money lying in the street, bits of jewellery on the footpath, or whatever odds and ends fall out of people's pockets. Over the years I've extended this to fossicking wherever I go, and I've amassed a pretty good collection of indian arrowheads and pottery, American civil war bullets, and all sorts of curious objects which occupy several dusty boxes in the back of my closet. I don't attribute this to any special talent except that I'm observant and expect to find unusual things, whereas most people don't. And perhaps that's a good metaphor for life, if you believe like I do that our consciousness helps shape our reality, you'll find what you expect wherever you go, so always try to expect the best.

Anyway, I was out with some friends last night and we were walking home from a bar downtown when I noticed a small woven bag lying on the footpath. I immediately thought it looked like some sort of shaman's kit, the type containing bits of feathers and crystals that medicine men might wear around their necks during rituals and such. Curiosity outweighed the fear of attracting bad juju or a stray curse so I picked it up. I joked with my friend Matt, saying that it probably had voodoo dolls in it, and was surprised when I opened it to find that it did! Except that they weren't voodoo dolls, but were Guatemalan worry dolls instead. Matt recognised them as such and told me that you're supposed to sleep with them under your pillow, and they'll help ease your troubled soul. A little piece of paper inside confirmed what he said. As regular readers of this blog will know, I've had a few things to worry about recently; although I mostly handle it well, I'd be a liar if I said I didn't sometimes stress about things. With that in mind, and with nothing to lose, I decided to give the dolls a try. Every little bit helps, right?

I'm happy to report that I had a great night's sleep and felt a lot better this morning, though I'm unsure whether that was because of the worry dolls or the soporific effects of a few beers. Whatever, I'm growing attached to the little guys and enjoy imagining how they were created in a country that was once the seat of the Mayan empire, then travelled to New Zealand (probably through a Fair Trade shop), and somehow ended up under my pillow via someone else's pockets and a brief interlude on the footpath. I don't know how you tell when they're filled up with worries and you need to replace them, or if the bad energy is discharged somewhere and they can be reused. Maybe a more enlightened reader can provide some information. Until then, I'll rest a bit more easily knowing someone else can help shoulder my emotional burdens. It's a hell of a lot cheaper than therapy!

Sorry, that doesn't have a lot to do with cartooning, does it?

Here's today's toon on the mixed emotion surrounding the end of summer holidays. All over New Zealand you can hear exhausted mums and dads rejoicing as their children return to school and give them a little break. I know I for one have a new appreciation for teachers and what they must endure. For many kids it's the end of freedom and a return to boring routines, though. I always felt like that, especially when I would've rather been exploring the fields and forests, looking for treasure and building forts. Ah, those endless summer days, when I was more like a mayfly than a boy and a month or two was literally a lifetime.