Random Calculations

(Click on the above image to view it in all its exquisite detail.)

I've always been an habitual doodler. I enjoy the mild form of psychic automatism it allows one to access in the course of everyday life. One doodles without thinking, planning or intending anything. You set your pen to wandering and see what emerges. It's a useful palliative to dull meetings, long waits on phone-ladders, and other obligatory forms of potential boredom.

Most of my doodles end up being faces, figures, vaguely biomorphic shapes, or queer blob-like architectural constructs. Sometimes they resemble elaborate ornamentation--William Morris on acid--expressed in lines of sloppy chicken-scratch. When note-taking, my bullet points nearly always have hairy, tentacular extrusions radiating from them. I have no idea why this should be.

There's probably some psychological insight to be gleaned from the study of such unintentional artworks, but I don't know what that might be. In my own case, I don't think I want to know.

From the TSI Vaults: The Haberdasher's Glug

Above is the cover of my 1988 lo-fi release, The Haberdasher's Glug!, a musical comedy. It features that Halloween party favorite, "Bloody Pumpkins", along with a host of more obscure and irritating tracks, all sort of spliced together in a frenzy of ping-pong recording sessions, abetted by an ambient tunnel of tape hiss. The highlights, as far as I can remember are "Al Corpuscle/Only Kind of Water", "Weight Farm", "Medical Crime" and the instrumental "Catfish".

Below is the complete track listing, credits, etc.:

From the TSI Vaults: A Bell for Wild Birds

Above is the cover for the 1994 Les Amis D'Irving album A Bell for Wild Birds (Une Cloche pour L'Oiseaux Sauvage). I don't think this can be the final version of the cover, as it omits song credits ("I Wanna Be Like You" was written by Robert & Richard Sherman, "1970" was written by the Stooges, and "Jean Genie" was written by David Bowie) and other indicia.

This is actually the second version of the cover; the first, featuring a drawing of a of rabid, saucer-eyed, bat-like creature, remains somewhere at large in the vastness of the TSI/Powerpop Comics library.

Rip Van Winkle

Sweet Potato Brownie Recipe

This recipe appeared in the Summer, 2008 issue of American Vegan (all rights reserved, I'm sure--I hope they don't mind me posting it here; it's an excellent recipe, and should entice anyone to subscribe to their fine periodical or perhaps even join their excellent organization). 

Double Chocolate Brownies

Makes one 9x13" pan of brownies

1 large sweet potato

(1 cup water to cook sweet potato, not to go in brownies)

1 cup soy milk

1/4 cup oil

1 1/2 cups brown sugar

1 1/2 cups cocoa powder

2/3 cup whole wheat pastry flour

1/4 tsp. baking soda

3/4 cup chocolate chips

Sweet potato should be cooked with water in a pan on the stove until tender. Allow to cool

Meanwhile, mix soy milk with oil.

Mix Dry ingredients (except chips) in a separate bowl, then combine the two mixes.

Skin and mash sweet potato, and mix it in. Add chocolate chips last, and mix.

Lightly oil one 9 x 13" casserole pan, and spread evenly. Bake at 350 degrees F for 35 minutes or until done. A toothpick pocked one inch from the edge should come out clean. 

Allow brownies to cool before serving. Especially good served with vanilla soy ice cream, and berries. 

******

Enjoy!

--Hobby

Here are some pages I created for an early prototype for Weird Thrills #1. This was during a phase when I was between artists and seriously contemplated doing the art for the book myself. It's in a style that I suppose might be best described as "inked fumetti". That is, I took photos of myself in various poses, printed them out, inked them, scanned them, then imported them into a Quark Xpress document and--voila! Instant comics!

I realize this is cheating a bit (but just a little bit, and I did employ the time-honored craft of hand-inking every image), but I kind of like the results, and may consider doing a future project using this technique.

Anyway, I thought these might be of interest to anyone who's curious about the arcana of my production methods.

Young Goodman Brown Page 10

Here and below is a four-page sequence from my adaptation of Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Young Goodman Brown." The art is by Khanh Ong. 

Click on the images to enlarge.