2023 – Once More Into the Fray…

I have not been a big fan of the 2020’s on a global and historical level. It’s been a bit of a scary shitshow of a decade so far. On a personal level however, it’s been an invigorating period. In 2023 I managed to get closer to the kind of creative life that I prefer to live, but was elusive to me for some years. There had been flashes of projects here and there through the years; the random art exhibition or acting gig, but I was too occupied with the “rat race” to be fully engaged in my creative life until now. Settling into a new life in Riga, Latvia, I have found the time and space I need to circle back around to unfinished creative pursuits. Maybe this is just a bit of a middle-life crisis playing out to re-embrace the comix, movies and art I was obsessed with as a teenager or maybe it’s a proper second (third?, fourth?) chance to once more live that creative life I had in my twenties, whatever it is I am grateful for the opportunity.

So the year that was 2023 and what did I accomplish? First big achievement was designing a new Weaverwerx logo and website, something that had been on my mind for an embarrassingly long time. I have more plans for the logo; animation, stickers, and more. To go with this new virtual space, I also secured a dedicated physical office/studio, something I haven’t had (outside of regular jobs) in a very long time. The coffee shop or kitchen table was no longer cutting it for a workspace. I need to spread my stuff out. It’s working for me.

COMIX
I finally got back into making comix again after a thirteen year absence. I wrote and drew three new comix stories; “Burls & Gnarls”, “THAT HAT” and “RESPECTO!” and submitted them to various publishers. A British annual anthology called “UGLY MUG” included “RESPECTO!” in their seventh issue, which has also been reviewed and mentioned in a variety of podcasts and blogs. The other stories will be part of the next issue of my own zine “RELUCTANT SADIST”, which was last published in 1989 (no, really), so look for that soon!

ACTING

I registered with a few of the local casting agencies and picked up my first three paid European acting gigs this year including my first bit of ADR work on the feature film “Limonov: The Ballad of Eddie” and a great role as an 18th century professor for an upcoming episode of the German TV show “Terra X” about Laura Bassi, the the first woman to have a doctorate in science. I also had the lead role in a student film called “The Road” that I have yet to see.

ART

My artistic output last year was focused on drawing, lots of drawing, more than I’ve done in years. I also was hired to paint two murals. The first one was at an annual international art exhibition in Riga called "SurvivalKit" and the second was at the National Library of Latvia (Latvijas Nacionālā bibliotēka), both for the Latvian alternative comics publisher kuš! komikss.

FILM

I completed one music video project called “Space and Darkness” in collaboration with my friend Neil Bruce (Light B4 Sound). We have another project in the works, so stay tuned.

One final note, this post’s title is a quote from the film “The Grey” and was written by the director Joe Carnahan. Here’s the full quote that the protagonist played by Liam Neeson uses a mantra to keep going despite a bleak future, “Once more into the fray, into the last good fight I’ll ever know. Live and die on this day, live and die on this day”. That is on the wall next to my desk and will be my mantra for 2024. Never stop fighting for your creative soul.

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Image for December 3, 2011 - How These Things Get Done...

I have mentioned on here from time-to-time about a project I am working on to collect my old underground comic from the late 1980s called "Reluctant Sadist". Considering the glacial pace that I have been moving on this project, I should just call it "RELUCTANT" and turn it into a performance art piece. I was going great guns gathering materials and scanning all the art work and contacting folks from the past securing permissions to use their words and images and then I came to the hard part of the project; ACTUALLY WRITING THE DAMN THING. Through the years, I have grown lazy in my creative work habits and throw on top of that distractions like the internets and the sad result is not much to show. Part of my problem too is I haven't been able sustain the effort. Sure, I have been able to achieve little victories here and there, but then I'll have a gap of months with no work and I lose the flavor of the thing. Today, I decided to commit to half an hour a day to the project, even if it's just research or reading, I need to keep my ass in the chair with the materials in front of me for that thirty minutes. Now, that doesn't sound like a lot of time, but you'd be surprised at how much can be accomplished in those thirty minutes. I also find that I often work well beyond that period, as I did today, because the hardest part for me is often just getting started. Here's my work table, I need to spread out. I also have three different notebooks open for other notes because I usually get ideas for other projects; short movies, comix stories, this year's Xmas card, etc; and I make sure to capture them all.  I also took this photo to document how I work, as I enjoy seeing other people's work and studio spaces. What's your workspace look like?

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Image for 2/17/11 - Reluctant Sadist book project

Today, another panel pulled from my old comic "Reluctant Sadist". I am making some solid progress on my book project to collect all that old stuff. Here's a little taste from issue five.

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Image for 2-13-2011 - Progress

I got a fair chunk of writing done yesterday (I know, I'm a day late) on my "Reluctant Sadist" book project. Worked on Chapter eleven that collects underground comix art I did for other publications. I was surprised at how much I did and I wonder if I had stayed with it, where I might be today. I suffer from the jack-of-all-trades curse. I can do a lot of things moderately well; well enough that I could make a mark in any one area. But, as it has gone, I've dabbled. I did devote myself to sculpture for a number of years, but even then I explored different styles and subjects. In the past twenty five years I have gone from comic book style drawing and monster make-up work to sculpture and writing (poetry, non-fiction articles and a feature film screenplay) to painting and acting. I love it all. So, here I am back 'round the horn and writing about the old comix work. Will it lead to my return to that world? Stay tuned to find out...

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Image for Feb. 7, 2010 - Art from the archive

Another piece of art from the mighty Weaverwerx archive, that I recently scanned for my "Reluctant Sadist" book project. This was a cover I did for the long gone and long missed local magazine "Catharsis". Ah, those were the days.

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Image for February 2, 2011

This is a self-portrait sketch I did back in the mid-nineteen eighties. I dug it out while working on a book project to collect together all the artwork from my time doing underground comix. Progress has been slow lately, but I hope to get back on track and finish the dang book.

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The hard part begins...

I have been tracking down folks and publications whom either contributed to my old comix "Reluctant Sadist" (remember the book project I'm working on) or reviewed it to get permission to reprint their work. It's been a fun and enlightening bit of detective work. Everyone has been very supportive and cooperative so far and that has been encouraging me to get more done. My biggest enemy right now is negative inertia. It's too easy to let the job, socializing and household duties eat up all of my time (not to mention the TV and the intertubes). Getting all the material cleared is a huge step. Now the hard bit begins. I have to actually start writing something. To jump start that creaky chunk of grey matter, I have dug out the old journals from that time period and have been reading through them trying to get back to that time and place. Sifting through the petty gripes and endless blathering to find a live wire that reconnect me to the heat. Help me understand why I was doing what I was doing and why I stopped. Examining each issue again is setting off smoke bombs and bottle rockets, flashes of memory and insight and I know once I get the hand moving the words will lay down.

I added a link on the sidebar to the right to Brad Foster's web site Jabberwocky Graphix. Brad contributed a cool one page piece to the fifth issue of RS and has agreed to let me reprint in the book. Thank you Brad.

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Progress...

I have actually been moving in what could be mistaken for a forward direction on my "Reluctant Sadist" book project. "Reluctant Sadist" was an underground, self-published comic that I did back in the late 1980s'. I printed seven issues before I got distracted by sculpting, but that's a story that'll be saved for the book. All the artwork has been scanned, plus loads of stuff that I did for other comix and even a nice chunk of scribbles and sketches. It's been a lot of fun to dig back through the piles and look at all that old stuff. I've finally made my pack-rat tendencies pay-off, as I have plenty of material for the book, including old reviews from "Factsheet Five" and "Small Press Comics Explosion". Next up will be getting folks who contributed to my old comic to sign release forms, so I can use their stuff. Then the hard part, I have to start writing.

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Night Vision

"Night Vision" was my second student film made as a final project for Film Making 102 at TCC Virginia Beach. This time we had to edit and have sound. This was back in the late 1980s, so editing meant physically cutting the film and using either tape or cement splices to join the new pieces. If you made a mistake, you were screwed, especially if you were working on your only copy of the film as all the students doing this project were. There was no "undo", no easy to make digital back-up. You rolled the film back and forth in the moviola and thought very carefully about the artistic choice you were about to make because there might not be any going back. Of course it was easier to think back then because there wasn't the consistent interruptions of Facebook or e-mail or cell phones, etc. The sound was accomplished by laying down all the music and dialogue to cassette tape and playing it back while projecting the film. It was closer to performance art, then cinema.

The original story of "Night Vision" was taken from an underground comic book that I published for awhile called "Reluctant Sadist". I had a ready made story already storyboarded so that gave me a big head start for this project. I also had an advantage in my then room friend and long time friend Colin Martin as he was (still is) a gifted musician and willing to take a run at acting, so I also had a star and music composer in house. Colin played "Sam" the nightmare-suffering lead and I took on the role of "Speed", his less-than-helpful, hyperactive roommate donning the hair farm. We shot all the interiors in our apartment with the black & and white dream sequences shot in and around the abandoned waterfront warehouses (long since torn down for luxury condominiums) in downtown Norfolk, Virginia. I couldn't afford the time or money for black white film, so I hit upon the idea of shooting the dream sequences on video, then filming them off the TV screen. This also allowed me to play with the brightness and contrast to give the footage a more dream-like quality. The final touch was looping the dialogue and Colin's fantastic music. As I recall, the student audience responded very well and the teacher was thrilled. Ah, glory days....

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I was a Reluctant Sadist

Way back in the 20th Century, in the eighth decade, I used to publish an underground comic called "Reluctant Sadist". It ran from 1986-1989 and was "digest-size" which is a regular piece of paper folded in half, so you get four pages per sheet. I did everything, write it, draw it, occasionally invited other artist to contribute. I had a blast. Recently, an old friend from that scene, Ralk Schulze of Aardvark Farms, hipped me to a "social network" devoted to the underground/self-publishing/micro-comix realm called The Poopsheet Foundation. I was amazed to see so many artists from back in the day, still doing their thing. I had recently begun to scan all he original artwork from RS, to be used for a future, to-be-disclosed-at-a-later-date project, so have been tripping down memory lane and enjoying seeing my old art. Poopsheet is the perfect venue to share that stuff, so I uploaded the covers of the first five issues. Check it out:

Here's the link to the gallery. Find more photos like this on Poopsheet

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