My Latest Period of Hermitry is over. Stay Tooned.

Egad. My High School 30-yr reunion should be coming up this year, and I don't have a single thing to show for my life.

I finally relented and joined facebook so that I could get back in touch with the world, and find out how much longer I have to finish my Graphic Novel before the reunion, if there is one.

I really should get back to drawing the thing. I've only been writing it and re-writing it for over 23 years now. Of course, I didn't know it would be a graphic novel until about twelve years ago.
It started out as just a break-up letter, based on a dream I had after the last night I saw my college Girlfriend. As I look back on our two-year relationship, we never really got out of the friends phase, so it probably came as a surprise to her that we broke up. It seems silly to me that over the years those unrequited urges became this drawn-out revenge fantasy, then morphed into a mini-novella, and now exist as a multi-layered comic psychodrama about an Artist's quest to achieve closure with any woman who had ever been important to him.

And being as the story still isn't finished, it may take on a completely different tone until it actually leaves my drawing table.

That is, if I can dedicate the time and focus to actually working on the book. I don't want to be the guy who always regrets that unfinished novel. I wish I had somebody to kick my ass and make me keep working on it. But anybody who's been privy to the main thread of the tale, either thru conversation or seeing it in any of its prior forms, can easily guess why there's nobody around to kick my ass like that. Somewhere along the line I became the guy who is a fringe member of many different social groups, but never feels a bona fide member of any single group. I became the guy who can be alone in a crowd, and quite possibly prefers it that way.
The loner. It can be nice when you don't really NEED a phone. But it sucks when that phone only rings with telemarketer calls.

I think I should try my hand at stand-up comedy. I really think I have a knack for cheering people up.

stay tooned.

a Fat-Joke is just a Fart-Joke without the R

next is the work-friendly punchline...

if you'd like to see the "dirty" version of the punchline to this strip,

click here

Matronize Me!

I'm seeking a volunteer to be a Matron of The Arts. It's like being a Patron, but you go beyond mere promotion and support.

A Matron of the arts will coddle me and smother me, and stifle me when I want to listen to my naughtier muses. And bake me cookies, do my laundry, clean my room and put my albums away where I can't find them.

And, when I eventually turn this concept into a new comic, you, as my Matron, will put it up on the refrigerator.

any volunteers?

I have to Vote, AND get a filling drilled on Tuesday. I don't know which will be more painful...

Even if it's just a municipal election year for you (like it is here; City Council, Treasurer, some Judges, and County Comissioners) get out and vote! (Unless you're going to vote against the candidates I like. Then, please, stay home and read your comics.)

Can You spot the Al Jaffee influence?

Limited Edition BenT Gocco Print Number 1!

Here's a little (about 4 by 5 ins.) 3-color print I made (only 40 copies in existence) before I packed away the Gocco when I finished the covers to Halloween Stinks!

If you visit my store you can purchase one for yourself while supplies last, and catch up on all my recent mini-comics, too. I accept payments via PayPal.

Guess who took some life-drawing classes?

...and now I am the zen-master of drawing nekkid peoples.



I decided to break out my sketchbook from last year, and share some.


you youngsters, cover your eyes, and you folks reading at work better cover your screens, too
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this is Katherine, who posed for us at the Missoula Art Museum one cold evening last November. this one is the tamer of the two I've selected of her, just incase everybody hadn't covered their eyes yet.


At this museum, they start with a series of short poses (5 or 10 minutes) for the first hour, then after a break, they do an hour of longer poses (15 mins or more). I like those better, because I had time to go over my pencils in ink before the model reset.
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Here's Katherine again. sorry, I realized that I was running out of page before I could fit her right foot in. I hope I haven't permanently lost the right-foot-fetishist audience.

This one was from the first session I attended in Missoula, we had a male model that night. I noticed that the other folks around me were a bit shy about drawing his "equipment", and for whatever reason, they were leaving that area of their pads blank.

I figured, what the hell?

The next pose, he positioned himself so that he was practically spread-eagled facing me in the circle. I decided to force the perspective.

I call it "Thinking with my Little Head"

another quick gag one-sheeter