Geek Speaking of Cowboy Science

Geek Speak: Cowboy and Hipster

To be honest, I know next to nothing about Taylor Swift except she's tall, Kanye West was once rude and extremely condescending to her, and she tends to write songs about break ups. I only became aware of the song this strip is referencing through the excellent cover done by Postmodern Jukebox.  

I don't remember what the inspiration was for cowboy and hipster. It may be that I just started drawing Cowboy boasting that you can't take the country out of the cowboy, and I wanted a character who was as much the opposite of a cowboy as possible to take some of the wind out of his sails. Now that it's done I may have to explore this dynamic in some different settings. They might be be an especially good vehicle for exploring political humor. Cowboy's conservative politics and earnestness would clash nicely with Hipster's progressive world view and sarcasm. 

It'll probably be the subject of a future Geek Speak, but I really dislike these goofy, fancy, "old-fashioned" mustaches that have spread through hipster culture like a virulent scourge of mustache wax. I tolerate them on a very few people, and only because those very people wear the mustache really well, it fits their personality, and they're not doing it to make a fucking statement. On everyone else it just looks smug and pretentious. Unless you happen to be a turn of the century bartender or...I don't know...Jack Lemmon in The Great Race, then do us all a favor and, with apologies to Taylor Swift, shave it off, SHAVE IT OFF!

I hate panel three. It looks like someone found a nozzle on Cowboy and used it to inflate him. Even though Hipster still looks pretty good, the line between his jacket and pants is off from the other two panels. I guess this means I have some work to do in locking down the style for these two characters.

Next time: more semi-autobiographical content, because I'm interesting, dammit!

As a side note, it was relatively easy to find a well written article making the case that the GOP is the party of "stupid" (an assertion I don't hold wholeheartedly, but works for the sake of hyperbole) that is supported with examples and facts, but really difficult to do it the other way around. In fact one of the search terms I  tried, "liberal fruitcake" came back with results including facebook pages and a white supremacist website! yikes. Ultimately I settled on an extremely boring rant about the stupidity of liberals that spends the first several, meandering paragraphs in defense of calling liberals "stupid." Again, it works for hyperbole.

Tales from the Dad Zone

Over the weekend of January 31st many of the museums in Los Angeles opened their doors for the public to come and enjoy their exhibits and displays for free. We don't get out into the city much, and this was too good an opportunity to pass up, so we jumped at the chance to give our children some exposure to what the museum community in Los Angeles has to offer. After looking at the list of museums that were opening their doors we decided to go to the California Science Center. It had the double benefit of being somewhere we hadn't been before, and being much more family friendly than, say, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). We were not at all disappointed.

Among the best methods to incite frenzied outings among Los Angeles parents is for someplace like a museum or a zoo to announce they are offering free admission "for a limited time only." Knowing this, we planned to arrive as early as possible. Los Angeles is famous for its terrible traffic, and it doesn't take long after arriving here to realize this is not hyperbole. The highways are packed, and about every third car is being driven by some deluded maniac who believes beyond the shadow of a doubt that he (or she) is going to beat the traffic, goddammit. That's not such absolute truth that it might have been brought down from the top of a mountain on a stone tablet, but it applies often enough to be considered a guiding principle. We've lived here long enough that we avoid the highways where it's reasonable to do so, specifically because of this guiding principle. On this day we did not, however, have a choice, so I steeled myself for what was sure to be a terrifying experience playing "dodge the deluded maniac who thinks his Mercedes (BMW/Maserati/Lexus) makes him invincible." Imagine my surprise when we did not have to. The drive there was uneventful, even (dare I say it) pleasant. 

We arrived at the Science Center, paid for parking (which was, sadly, not included in the "it's totally
free today, come check us out" deal), and made our way to the main building. Before we could get there we were greeted by an A-12 Blackbird on display outside the Science Center. My reaction was the composed, mature sort of thing you would expect from an adult nearing his forties..."OMG A BLACKBIRD! TAKE MY PICTURE WITH IT!" My dad was an aviation enthusiast, and he passed some of that appreciation along to me, enough that I've always had a fascination for planes. In the world of military aircraft the Blackbird fleets are the next best thing to legendary. Eventually my family was able to peel me away from the majesty of that beautiful, beautiful aircraft, and we made our way to the Science Center itself.

Once inside we made our way to the second level and from there to one of the kids' "Discovery Zones" the museum has set up. Then Mildly Sensational and I relaxed while the offspring lost their little minds because of all the SCIENCE! The first stop was an exploration of different animals, and the displays had a number of different snakes, including a gorgeous five-foot-long boa constrictor (I don't think I've ever mentioned this, but I like snakes, I think they're neat). 

From there we moved on to an exploration of transportation and what makes machines go. That exhibit includes an interactive display for what gives wings the lift that lets planes fly, and a working model of a V8 engine (apparently provided by Lexus, maker of fine cars for deluded maniacs on highways all over the world). 

After that was a brief exploration of their air and space exhibits that included a Gemini space capsule. Mildly Sensational wanted to see those exhibits more than anything, but about that time both kids were getting to where they were all "science-d out." Girlchild was melting down, and boychild was trying to go to sleep in his stroller, a fact that earned us an odd mix of looks. They ranged from awww how sweet to, "OMG I would so never let MY kids act like THAT." I know for a fact that only people without kids indulge in the latter. We decided it was time to go home, but not before a stop in the gift store where we bought girlchild a weird toy ball that looks like a balloon sprouted tentacles, and I picked up a package of freeze dried "ice cream." I'd never had it before. It was like an extra-thick cookies-and-cream flavored cracker. 

I took several things away from that morning adventure to the museum. The two big things are;

1.) The menu in the museum cafe is surprisingly good, even though the lines were too long for us to actually try anything, and, perhaps more importantly,
2.) It was amazing to see my daughter getting excited about science.

There is a big push in education reform to produce more scientists, engineers, mathematicians, and the big thinkers for what everyone believes will be the in-demand jobs of the future (I have a different opinion about this, but I'll save that for a different post). While I am staunch and vocal supporter of arts education, I can see the value in encouraging kids to be excited by science, but that has to be tempered with something equally important. It's not enough to make sure kids are getting the best education in science and math possible. They have to be taught that it can be fun! They should learn there is joy in discovery! Without that, without the passion to propel them to careers in these fields, what will we really produce but a generation of well educated, maybe even skilled, but ultimately uninspired science and technology laborers?

Doodling the Looking Glass of Date Night

Work-a-Doodle: The Looking Glass Edition

 

Every so often I'll get an idea stuck in my head and the only way to get it unstuck is to get it out in the open is to write something or draw it. That was the case with Alice of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland after an episode of Warehouse 13 (seriously, watch this show, it's great) where that character played heavily in the events. There's also a trend toward depicting these staple fantasy characters in as sexualized a manner as possible. Zenescope comics is hugely guilty of this. That said I enjoyed doodling a kind of naughty take on Alice, and I had a lot of fun drawing the Hatter. 

This page of doodles was, understandably, tucked under my keyboard at work for a while. 

It's also a good example of why I will never, ever hand-letter Geek Speak. 

Night of Dates: The Date of Nights

There are many, many good things about being a parent. When you make the choice to be responsible for the rearing of a new human being, there are many rewarding things about the process. Other people you know who have kids of their on will tip you off to a few of them, but most will be a surprise. It's kind of like the world's longest special edition DVD with limitless Easter eggs. Yes, even longer than Lord of the Rings.

As rewarding as being a parent can be there are some down sides. One of the biggest of which is you and your partner will suddenly find it very difficult to spend quality, offspring-free time together. Part of it is just the demands of raising a kid, part of it is that you don't want to leave your precious little ones with a stranger because something could happen. Used here stranger has a somewhat looser definition. It could mean a baby sitter referred to you by a friend who has a degree in early child development psychology, a list of references as long as Uma Thurman's legs, and has so many connections in the intelligence community she could make a phone call and have anyone who looked at your child the wrong way found, bagged, and shipped to a hole in the ground somewhere in Cuba.

Stranger could also mean someone you've know for almost twenty years and his wife.

Which brings us to the Saturday before Father's day. Mildly Sensational and I have had some...trouble...getting out to spend time with each other. Put another way, we haven't had a date night since our anniversary last year, which puts it at about eleven months. We're not shut-ins, we do get out, but when we do, it's with our daughter in tow. Our friends love our daughter, and we love seeing her interact with them and how that changes as she gets older. Even so, we occasionally find ourselves longing for the opportunity to sit down to a meal without a two year old going all Helen Keller up in our business.

The day before Father's Day I worked with our good friends (and guest stars in this blog) Tea Leaf and Celluloid Girl and arranged for them to watch Veronica while Mildly Sensational and I did something exciting and adventurous! We went to dinner and a movie!

Before leaving we armed Tea and Celluloid with Disney movies, snacks, her favorite toys and walked them through her routine. Then we walked out the door. We hadn't made it ten steps before Little Wonder (Normal Guy and Mildly Sensational made a Little Wonder, get it?...never mind) started banging on the screen door, crying, and yelling, "MOMMY! DADDY! MOMMY!" We paused for a moment. Then we walked faster. I may never get skid marks off the garage floor where the tires squealed as I peeled out. Seriously it was heart-wrenching, but we trusted our friends to be able to handle the situation. Even if her distress turned out to be more than they could handle on their own, we knew Marlin and Dory from Little Nemo were standing by to make the assist.

It took us only about twenty minutes to get to the Glendale Galleria where we walked under a big sign that said Pacific Cinema 18 or something similar. I promptly went to the ticket counter positioned under a sign proclaiming show times for all the movies currently playing at the Pacific Cinema 18 to get our movie tickets. I smiled and exchanged pleasantries with the girl behind the counter who was wearing a shirt that said Pacific Cinema. Then I reached into my wallet pulled out my AMC gift card and handed it to her. Then stood a little perplexed when she said she couldn't use it. Then felt phenomenally fucking stupid when someone probably half my age had to explain the card was for AMC and, being Pacific Cinema, the couldn't accept it.

As it turns out they do accept money and we were able to get our tickets without further incident.

The movie we were seeing was Star Trek: Into Darkness. It was incredible. It borrowed heavily from some
moments in the original series, and especially from one of the original movie adaptations, but it put enough of a fresh spin on the characters and the story points to make it feel completely original. The movie has been reviewed to death so I'm not going to beat that particular expired equine, but I am going to write another post later about Star Trek in general. It will make you cry. I promise.

After the movie we went to the Granville Cafe in Glendale. It's an easy walk from the movie theater, and the incredible. The crowds at the mall were nuts. Not the worst I've seen, but a seriously claustrophobic person might still have dived into the fountain at the center of the green to get away from the crushing throngs. Everywhere within the Galleria you could think to eat was packed to capacity and people were waiting around outside, eyeing the young, elderly, and infirm with open hunger.

Just around the corner from that was a Granville Cafe shaped oasis of sanity.

We were seated almost right away on entering and ordered our drinks and an appetizer. An appetizer wouldn't be necessary, ordinarily, but Mildly Sensational is working on Little Wonder Mark II. The calorie demands of pregnancy are unreal, so after sitting through an entire movie she was starting to get a bit of a predatory look. Fortunately it was nothing sweet potato fries couldn't fix. Dinner took a while to get to us, so the restaurant offered to comp either dessert, or the appetizer; a crazy generous gesture that was unnecessary as we had been enjoying the first real opportunity to talk that we'd had in a year.

The food was terrific. My steak was perfect, and their wasabi mashed potatoes are one of life's true pleasures. We did get dessert this time, and I enjoyed the hell out of a slice of lemon drop cheesecake and bruleed lemon slices (which I could eat like potato chips, seriously, give me a bag of them already).

All too soon it was time to head back. Much to our delight when we returned home our friends still had their sanity and hadn't put on diapers of their own in an act of "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em." They reported nothing out of the ordinary and left while our daughter watched some Disney cartoons they'd found on Netflix.

As a parent you forget all too soon the simple joy of being with someone. I'm glad we had the opportunity for a reminder of the things that make us work so well.

There's no getting Away from Blue

Blues Clues: No Escape
My wife and I now have a two year old in the house, which is both fun and challenging. The big reason this age is referred to as the "terrible twos" comes from the child's tendency to test you...on everything. Here are some phrases you'll hear in the house throughout the day:
"Don't draw on the walls."
"I mean it don't draw on the walls."
"Do you want a time out?"
"No! I said no!"
"Don't play in the blinds."
"Don't balance vases on your head."
"The kitchen torch is not for little girls!"

One of the challenges of having a toddler in the house is keeping her engaged in something. We try not to be the parents who sit our kid down in front of the TV and let her zone out to inane programming full of garish colors and grating music, but every now and then you find yourself dangling from the fraying edges of the end of your rope and there's nothing to do but switch the idiot box over to something she wants to watch.

It is due mainly to that last part that Mildly Sensational and I have watched a lot of Blue's Clues. When I say a lot I mean that if someone mentions the show I immediately get the title song stuck in my head and it plays on an endless loop.

After watching so much of the show it occurred to me that you really should feel sorry for the main character, Steve (seriously, the first actor to star in the show's name was Steve). He appears to be trapped in a house that is seriously haunted, and the restless spirits have taken in on themselves to torment him by taking the forms of cartoon animals and household objects and force him to sing and play children's games.

I wondered what it would look like if Steve ever tried to reach out to the world for help. That led me to doing a rare full-color cartoon that turns some of the most beloved characters in the history of children's programming into evil, sadistic beings bent on tormenting an innocent captive. I can be a bad, bad man.

As grating as it can be after the hundredth time you've had to endure it, the show is very well done. It also seems to be good for our daughter, or so I tell myself to salve my conscience when I occasionally do break down and let her zone out in front of the azure puppy and the man in the verdant shirt.