for the record....

An old UTI assignment from probably 1991.

Training ended today. Flying back up to Omaha tomorrow. Got started again on InterStellar OverDrive.

Thinking about how my tenth anniversary on the Internet passed yesterday. If I had to redo the late '90s again, I'd waste less time on the 'Web and watching sunsets.

'Cept I don't feel all that guilty about the sunsets.

almost....

Breezed through the big trouble shooting competency today. Tomorrow is the last day of training. Was the highest bidder on a couple of Pinto porthole panels, but didn't crack the reserve. Here's the picture of the Dragonman that I almost posted yesterday.

refried confusion

Did another feeder alignment last night and surpassed the 42000. Breezed through various troubleshooting exercises today. Even found a stash of those old InterStellar OverDrive tiffs that I was looking for. Just had three ashcans from 1995 and 1996 confused.

dreaming of 42000

Passed the feeder competency test last night with a through-put of exactly 42000 pieces per hour on the nose. Also passed the gate and belt change competencies too.

Saw an angular alien eye staring at me in hypogogic sleep. Had a dream that when no mortal was looking, a father skeleton popped out of the ground and grieved at the yet unburied casket of his son. Dreamed that through the careless driving of a friend, that the '58 Chevy pickup that I use to own was totaled.

Scratching my head on how to recreate the 1995 Rip Off Press version of InterStellar OverDrive with the "dumb dinoman". Much of that art was cut up and used in later versions and much of it had the dialog rewritten. Hope to dig up some xeroxes of it.

More teenie girls on YouTube singing an off-color song from Avenue Q.

As if there's any other type of song from Avenue Q.

that cyclops show

I noticed that I could see a lot of water towers from the hotel window. I could watch the sunsets from up here too instead of going outside. But what fun is that?

Since you can't have too much cyclopean goodness, here's an update on the Tube Punk cover. Got the initial coloring done. That inventor was a pain to color because of all the little detail and hatching. Now to start inflicting some modeling on this puppy.

A fond farewell to Bill Gates from Devil Ducky.

And two teenie girls acting like kindergartners, apparently after too much Mountain Dew, from YouTube.

got my eye on you....

Comedy Central has announced that they obtained the rights to make new episodes of Futurama. "Like if I was anymore stuffed with joy, I'd bust!" The new episodes will pop up in the '08 season. I liked that style of humor because I had been doing it myself since 1982. Plus it was treated unfairly by the network, which strikes a resonant chord with me.

Caught the Amazing Stories original version of "Family Dog" on YouTube. Both Brad Bird and Tim Burton had major hands in this. Makes me wonder what went wrong in the transition to a series. This could have been The Simpsons before there even was The Simpsons, but it came out four years late, four million over budget, and quickly flopped. Although, I'm guessing that a big reason is while the characters were a little darker and edgier than The Simpsons, they were also a whole lot less likable.

hello world, again

Finished up my first Flash animation today. It can be seen here. Hope to fix the sync and loop issues soon.

Did a hunky dory job on the feeder alignment last night only to get tripped by a machine that had other problems. Hoping that things go better next time on a different machine.

pasture blaster

It's raining in Norman. I'm still fighting on and off stomach jitters. I have a feeder alignment exam later today. Tomorrow starts the weekend. Hope to wrap up the "Hello World" animation then. It's based on a double exposed 8mm animation that I did 30 years ago that had a cartoon spaceship landing in this little steep terraced pasture behind the house. I also launched model rockets there even though I quit because the area just was too small.

the longest day

The class runs from noon to 9PM, which splits the day up in a way that makes it hard to do anything productive on the side. Had the minor inconvenience of missing the summer solstice sunset.

Here's the third potential back cover.

Thinking about a couple of failed bravura attempts of the '80s, the old Captain Saucer #13 and InterStellar OverDrive #3. Both had a lot of stuff on those pages, but were tripped up and figure rendering and other roughness. ISOD #3 did have an insanely great Industrial Design mash-up groove going though....

countdown to ecstasy....

The first class of DB maintenance starts today and my head and stomach still haven't fully recovered from yesterday's flight. At least they put me in a nice suite.

Here's the second of two potential back covers for Tube Punk. It doesn't fit the feeling as the book as much, but it has some of my best technique. Plus let people figure it out. "It's a V2 at Peendemunde! 'Cept.... Wait! It's got wings and a pilot!"

man, i had a dreadful flight...

Down in Norman, shaking off the air sickness. Was on a small commuter jet hitting big turbulence on the way from Denver to Norman.

Thinking about a potential back cover for Tube Punk. Redrawing and coloring this is one of three ideas.

fluffy bins

I'm in the one day of work before flying down to Norman for DB training.

Here's a picture that I took at Turin yesterday of some grain bins that look like they had been fluffed up like pillows, which is not that normal state for a rigidly geometric product of manufacturing. Probably the result of the Big Wing of '98. Sort of like Dali's watches but in real life.

father's day

Where would we be without the discipline and the gruff affection of dear ol' Dad?

I stopped by the cemetery. I feel a little cheated that we didn't have a few more years and summers together.

Up at the farm for one whole day. Changed oil and fixed two dents and the windshield wiper. Changed a fuel filter and connected a loose smog fitting and the fuel starvation problem seemed to clear up so far. Scored a set of old turbine mags for $20. Now to score some Type F tranny fluid and a rear knuckle.

Finished painting my Peterbilt office chair. Next time the thing gets assembled.

Sir Paul turns 64 today. Don't know if that's ironic or the opposite....

sad macs and fanboys

My Dual G5 quit burning DVDs for no apparent reason. It keeps giving me a 0x80020022 error. So far I've rebuilt permissions; run Disk Utility, Mac Janitor, and Disk Warrior; zapped the PRAM; and deleted the user library cache, but still nothing works. Going to try a different brand of DVD±R next.

Grrrr! Isn't the reason for having a Mac is not to have these stupid mystery problems?

Burnt off some frustration by piecing together a recreation of the old United Fanzine Organization version of Fanboy; The Comic Book That Comes Double Bagged. I used the originals when possible and used the reproduction from the book to fill in the gaps. The camera readies are long gone. It's interesting how removing the UFO items and adding four new pages changed the nature of the book from the UFO and the Direct Market versions.

strike out

One of the signs of being a geek or nerd is "stupid sports" ruining your fun. Well, the College World Series blew into town and interferred with me getting a King Kong gyros before work. Tons of people everywhere. Side streets blocked off and traffic snarling. King Kong had its lot full of merchants with tents. The place was way too busy to get a gyros and to get to work on time. I was told to move my vehicle but couldn't because I was blocked in by a car stereo vendor's monster truck. I finally got out and had a couple of hot dogs from a vending machine at work. Will stay north of I-80 until this thing is over.

Got to work and the water was out for a the first few hours because a major water main was broken near by.

Trying to figure out why my Dual G5 errors out while trying to burn DVD-Rs. Disk Utility, MacJanitor, and Disk Warrior have done nothing to fix it.

The Tube Punk cover in progress.

it's a rainy day sunshine girl

Returned the car dolly this morning and did the grocery run during on and off rain. Now getting ready to get back into the working week.

Got a two and a half hour late start on towing the old Pinto home. The Farmer's Cadillac ran like a champ on the way down and back. Toted the car home from Pacific to Kansas City while traveling in the mid 60s. Was cruising in the low '70s on the way from KC on up. I actually think the thing towed better at the higher speed. Maybe getting into the meaty part of the torque curve of the beefy V8. Thought about the C.W. McCall lyric of "Have a thousand cubes and they're running cool." Stayed over at Midway Motel in Columbia on Tuesdays night, on the return trip. Is it just me or does everyplace in the world else have rockier soil than Iowa, judging from the road-banks? Tried the WiFi at a rest-stop and got a server error. Spent about $50 more on the trip than I did on the car.

Got the car home at 2:00 PM Wednesday. Crashed until about 3:30 when I started to work on the car. I'm glad that I didn't do anything impulsive like take that bus down to drive the car home. The battery apparently a bad cell and won't charge. Swiped the one out of the Champion. The car had mirror electrical issues with the parking lights staying on and being controlled by the instrument dimmer because junior ran a mystery wire to the fuse panel. Got to find out where the other end of that wire goes to someday. The the car running about 5:15. Got a nice little sense of achievement from banging the wrenches and getting it to run. The engine ran fine for a trip to Soldier and back and then came down with fuel starvation issues every few minutes. Maybe filling it up with gasohol knocked some crud loose. So far removed a kludged in fuel filler down by the pump. Will replace the regular filter next. Seems to run with the gas cap off, but I'm not sure if that isn't a red herring. May also have to check out the strainer sock in the tank or the fuel pump if this continues.

It would be interesting to paint the Pinto to match the pickup.

back safely

Got the Pinto up to the farm at about 2:00 PM today. Got it running at about five. Going to take a shower and crash. Pictures and more details tomorrow.

dumpster diving dreams

Finally got caught up on correcting the backlog of Tube Punk scannings. The problem was that a lot of the early stuff was pretty cringe inducing to me. OTOH, it also reminded me a lot of Family Guy because the style was crude and ugly, it was short on narrative, what narrative that was there wasn't especially linear or arcing and many existing to hang broad or pop culture jokes on. Even the furry monster from the old Warner Brothers cartoons pops up for three pages and then the joke gets embellished as it being a gene-spliced Wookie and Tribble hybrid. At least that beats Peter G. dropping a pop culture reference sans set-up, delivery, or punch line and the Fox viewers just laughing themselves silly anyway.

I'm a little excited and apprehensive about my car toting trip down to Missouri and back tomorrow. Have an old chum who should be riding with me. There will probably be no update of this blog tomorrow due to the long length of this trip.

Had a dream a couple of nights ago that I was buying back some obscure and forgotten late '80s art of mine from this comic book dealer/scalper. Seems like it was rescued from the IWCC dorm dumpster back in its day. He was explaining that I did have some fans in the Omaha area back then, just none of them came forward to tell me.

more for you from nineteen-hundred and eighty-two....

Scanned in the First Series Captain Saucer #5, filling in the last whole issue gap in Tube Punk. Plus I'm scanning in a few more odds and ends. Will have a revised wish list tomorrow.

Did an errand run to Wal-Mart and Home Depot to get a 2" trailer ball and a Crescent wrench for my big trip. Even got contact info from the seller, so I don't have to fret about that. A high school buddy has a parts Pinto that he'll sell to me for for scrap price.

space girl blues

Oops! Another day that I almost forgot to update this.

Scanned in and corrected Lumpy the Amazon. My, she was a sociopathic character! So bad that it's funny.... Recreated the Milkmaids of Mars from three and a half different scanned sources. The original art was lost in the mail nearly 20 years ago. Now there's a comic and a fetish that I wouldn't flog in public all that much these days.

'80s heavy metal

Scanned in the Nelson A. Jessip script and better "xerox ready" masters of the second series Captain Saucer #1. Teetering on whether or not to include Nelson in Tube Punk. Reserved a car dolly from U-Haul. Had some token APPS training last night. Did a rough sketch of a side business mascot for a coworker. He might show me how to make injection molds on a CNC machine. Had I dream last night that I was checking out the bodywork on that Pinto wagon. Here's a photo of a twin turbo Deutz V8 diesel in an Allis Chalmers Gleener combine, that I swiped to use as a back cover of an apazine back in the Big '80s.

hangin' around

Found Father's Mustache #2 and Nelson A. Jessip and the Studebakers of the Gods. Got Nelson scanned in. Will go down to U-Haul and ask about renting a dolly to tow that Pinto home. A Captain Saucer from 1987.

cat's meow

Did a parts run. Put the radio back in the Silver Hawk. Put the trainer connector wiring in the Farmer's Cadillac. Found some more old art to scan. Did other odd tasks. The RC club moved their flying night to Friday. This is a mixed curse because at least it opens up Wednesday late afternoons and daylight saving evenings to work on other projects.

Early sketch of Pretty Princess Purri and the Neko Meanis....

the new adventures of god

Found these character sketches while doing some mop-up scanning for Tube Punk. These were for a commissioned strip for an underground rag. The guy wanted a half black God, a black Saint Peter, and a redneck Devil. Kurt Wilcken noticed. "He's really into subtlety, isn't he?" I bounced the idea of a more professorially Devil off of him, but the final ended up with the redneck Devil. I was paid but I don't know if the thing ever was printed.

Filling in the gaps by correcting the first series Captain Saucer #1 and just finished scanning in the first series Captain Saucer #2 from 1982. Some cringe inducing "belated juvenilia" there.

Here's an updated wish list for missing Tube Punk items:

Wish List:

Published:

1983 Leonine Calendar: November page

Captain Saucer #7, magazine sized version, pages 4 and 5

Captain Saucer #9, Brad Foster's Flexia pin-up

"Elephant Boy" strip that was filler in one of the Matt Feazell/Not Available mini-comics.

JJ’s Platters ads

Two-tone “Cover Large Economy Size” from Diddley Squat #5

Pert and the Hermanettes from Father’s Mustache #2


Unpublished:

Photo of Dipple Hall “Nukleia and Aliens” mural at the IWCC Dorms

Greg Hyland InterStellar OverDrive try-out art


Maybe Published:

"Bucolic Revelations"

Please send 300dpi scans. Thanks!

oops!

Almost forgot to post today! Here's a circa 1990 sketch of Spacegoat, which was inspired by a typo.

the devil is in the scannings

Finished scannning that stash, save for a second combing for anything that I missed. Here's a thumbnail of the Devil from around 1990. Bought a '79 Pinto wagon on whim on eBay. It's in Pacific, Missouri and I'm trying to figure out how to get the wee beastie home.

too good

Got the vibrator in the Stude radio and it's humming right along/ Also "sings, talks and plays guitar...." Still scanning and correcting that big stash of mop-up items. Had the 6400XL wig-out twice on a colored stock Rip Off Press promotional flyer, and had to redo it on the "good scanner", the ol' HP 4C with 3C feeder. Maybe it was too good because it picked up a lot of detail of folds, wrinkles, dirt. noise, and shadows.

ballpoint thumbnail

Replaced the last capacitor in the Studebaker radio and got the vibrator epoxied back together. Got everything that would go through the document feeder scanned and am now working through hand-feeding a pile of stuff through the A3 scanner. The building super painted my front door this morning. Through shear dumb luck, I found the missing button for the stereo in the Farmer's Cadillac.

scannathon

Starting to scan in that stash starting with the few dozen that will go through the document feeder. Up to 66 and counting. This stash includes a few items on the wish list. Did a grocery run and also stopped at Radio Shack to pick up that last capacitor, from their increasingly spotty parts collection, needed to button up that Studebaker radio. Art from a circa '91 issue of Timber Ridge Magazine.