Friday August 26, 2005 -- 1:11 p.m.

I bet you all thought I was dead, didn't you?

Things have been pretty nuts around here. There was the whole disaster with the Catastrophe Shop (ongoing as I type this) which led to a long dark midnight of the soul for me. I was rather aimless and depressed for quite some time, at least in terms of art, comics, school, money, friends, aesthetics, goals, and this web site. I was going through some heavy-duty marination there for a while. Long talks withRudy and my friend Angela K. helped immensely, as did some very sage advice from Stephanie W.

Also my final year of graduate school starts in 3 days so there's that to get ready for, Johnny Ampersand's got a design project he kindly asked for my assistance with, and then Rudy landed an interview for a tenure-tracked assistant professor position at a nearby university library. She has mixed feelings about it because she is more interested in pursuing the public rather than the academic side of librarianship, but nonetheless she is looking forward to the interview and preparing very diligently for it. She is to drive there on Tuesday afternoon and check into her hotel. Then she will be meeting some of the provosts and deans for dinner and an "informal" interview that evening. On the following Wednesday, she will spend all day in interviews with various faculty members, all of which will culminate in her giving a 45 minute presentation complete with PowerPoint slides and citations on the role of the cataloger at the reference desk. The whole thing terrifies me, but she is ice cold about it. I know she's going to do amazingly well, but it sounds quite intimidating to me. I hope there is nothing quite as elaborate when it comes to working adult services or reference in a public library.

I've been working hard on drawing, and the print thing...well, let's just say that the prints aren't quite ready yet. I'm going to change a few things about this here web site tomorrow because I want to try and get a few more people to look at it so I'll be posting some links on various message boards and stuff. Since coming to this web site is, in a lot of ways, like coming to visit me in my "studio" (yes, I know how silly that looks) I am making a few different choices about what I want to show and tightening the focus a little more. You'll see tomorrow. But the deal with the prints is that I want to make a lot of them, I want to be able to sell them, and most importantly I want them to be very very good and very very interesting. Maybe I am being too harsh on myself here, but right now they are not where I want them to be visually although it is a work in progress and I feel pretty close to getting it there. Anyway, wait just a little but longer and you'll see. And if you're one of my good friends you know I'll give you a few to reward your patience.

I've fallen a bit behind in a few things since I've been concentrating so heavily on drawing and playing around with the prints, but I can feel the momentum building again. Plus with the marathon of grad school and so many small press shows coming up in the next 9 months, I will definitely be blasting forward full speed in a day or so, and it will be for the long run. Thanks to all of you for checking in while this site lay dormant for a few days. It will continue to grow and change, starting tomorrow. See, here is a picture of my idiot grin to prove it!



Matt K.

Sunday August 21, 2005 -- 11:04 a.m.

Some quick news. First, I need to make a request for some help from all of you who are reading this. I am trying to track down the following songs, but since buying all of the CDs would be impossible for me now, and downloading them is a dicey proposition, I wanted to ask you first. If you have any of these and can either e-mail an MP3 or actually burn a copy and mail me a CD I would be more than happy to pay you (postage too) or trade something with you, whatever you prefer. Here are the songs I am looking for--

MANITOBA - I've Lived on a Dirt Road My Whole Life (from the album"Up in Flames")
AMON TOBIN - Deo (from the album "Supermodified")
ANIMAL COLLECTIVE - Winter's Love (from the album "Sung Tongs")
SIGUR ROS - Olsen Olsen (from the album "Agaetis Byrjun")
BJORK - Submarine (from the album "Medulla")
JOANNA NEWSOM - Clam, Crab, Cockle, Cowrie (from the album "The Milk-Eyed Mender")
NICK DRAKE - Fruit Tree (from the album "Five Leaves Left")
MR. BUNGLE - Goodbye Sober Day (from the album "California")
SLIGHTLY STOOPID - Everything You Need (from the album "Everything You Need")
OF MONTREAL - Chrissy Kiss the Corpse (from the album "Satanic Panic in the Attic")
THE DISMEMBERMENT PLAN - Close to Me (from the album "Give Me the Cure")
BLONDE REDHEAD - Elephant Woman (from the album "Give Me the Butterfly")
DUST BROTHERS - CommissRudyr Castration (from the "Fight Club" soundtrack)
HELLA - Republic of Rough and Ready (from the album "Hold Your Horse Is")
OM - Kapila's Theme (from the album "Variations on a Theme")
SQUAREPUSHER - Tundra (from the album "Feed Me Weird Things")
801 - Tomorrow Never Knows (from the live album "801")

I deeply appreciate any help you can offer with this, and I'll do my best to make sure you get something cool out of it in return. If you have any of this music that you can share with me, e-mail me here and we'll get it sorted out.

That's about all for now. I have been drawing quite a bit, in between daily living, and issue #4 is coming along pretty well but very slowly. That's kind of the way it always is though. Like I said before, I think I am the slowest artist in the world. My goal is to have the fourth issue of "Spudd 64" and "The Iron Galaxy Primer" one shot completed by the SNAP! show up in Michigan on October 29th. Then I'd like to wrap up the first part of the story in a gargantuan 48 or 52 page "Spudd 64" issue #5 some time over the winter semester break. That will free me up to finish my handmade silkscreened hardcover "Spudd 64" special and the print set "The Battle for Zurn" by S.P.A.C.E. here in Columbus in April of 2006 and hopefully complete "Spudd 64" issue #6 for my very first ever table at MoCCA in June. Wish me luck!

Matt K.

Thursday August 18, 2005 -- 9:40 p.m.

There are a few things to update today, but most importantly I would like to wish my wife, partner, and best friend Rudy a very happy anniversary. As of today, we have been married for 4 years (and together for nearly 9). Not a day goes by that I don't wonder how in the world I got lucky enough to spend my life with someone so amazing. It is safe to say that I really wouldn't even be here today without her friendship, support, patience, understanding and love. So Rudy, thank you for letting me hang around with you for so long. I promise the next 60 years will be as incredible as the last 9. And I love you very very much. Yep, here we are...



I know. Enough with my sappy personal life (again), right? Okay then.

Back in late July I ordered Jeff Soto's first book called Potato Stamp Dreams and it arrived a few days ago. First, I need to say that Jeff Soto is just a brilliant artist. You really need to check him out, if you haven't yet. And second, I need to say that the book is really incredible. It's from a small publisher named Murphy Design, the result of a ton of hard work by San Diego based designer Mark Murphy. While you might be thinking that art books from a small publisher could be a little dicey, nothing could be farther from the truth with Murphy Design. Absolutely everything about the book is top notch, from the covers to the binding to the luscious full-color reproductions of Soto's art. I've rarely seen books of this quality, regardless of the publisher. I e-mailed Mark to thank him and let him know what I thought of the book, and he let me know about a sale he's running to try and build support for his publishing and to get the word out about some of the other artists besides Jeff Soto that he's working with. He asked if I could help out by posting this info and I told him I would be glad to, so here's the deal...

The sale is called the "Friends of Friends Underground Book Sale," and if you're reading this then chances are you're my friend so there you go. For a huge discount, Mark is offering Joe Sorren's first collection of paintings In Celebration of Balance and Opposable Thumbs (here are some small images from the book)...









...a very intriguing book called Dialogue: The Art of Conversation which pairs fine art paintings with "found" writings, notes, and poems (another cover here)...



...and finally Heaven and Hell, a hardcover collection of 110 paintings from 58 artists exploring those themes (and here is the last cover)...



...all for $50 plus $10 shipping, or if you look at it another way, 3 fantastic hardcover art books for $60 total. You can learn a lot more about each book at the Murphy Design web site, and you can see more of Joe Sorren's work at his web site here. If you want to score these books, the easiest way is to use PayPal and the e-mail address murphy@murphydesign.com. Or you can call him at 619-743-0405 if you'd rather use a credit card or something else.

I really wouldn't have posted any of that if I didn't truly believe in these artists, the books, and the importance of spreading the word about cool art and how to support it.

That's all for tonight. I've got some more drawing to do. Peace.

Matt K.

Wednesday August 17, 2005 -- 11:34 p.m.

It's been a pretty dreadful few days. Stresses. Disappointments. Setbacks. I won't bore you with the details. However, several good things did happen, such as continuing and very intriguing correspondence from AZStar78, some interesting and exciting news from Murphy Design, the publisher of Jeff Soto's first incredible collection entitled Potato Stamp Dreams (I'll share more about the book and the news tomorrow), Rudy finishing her final research paper and turning it in so now nothing is standing between her and her master's degree which will be awarded this Saturday (congratulations Rudy!), an oh-so welcome invitation to hang out with my good friend Angela K. this Sunday evening, and finally a long-overdue and delightful telephone call with the long lost Cuteslug. All in all, the good has begun to outweigh the bad, and hopefully the tables are turning. But enough about my sappy personal life...

I promised I would share some of the art I have been fortunate enough to receive from friends. This is one of Rudy's many many amazing watercolors, and I believe it is one of her favorites as well. She is really so good at manipulating and controlling the watercolors, yet she lacks the confidence to keep at it. Perhaps this very public display of her art will spur her on to continue creating more. Luckily we have stacks of watercolors from her, so I'll keep posting them until she starts doing new ones. Take a look...



I love that piece.

In other news, I had been feeling rather stymied in my drawings. Nothing was coming together and my frustration was building to almost toxic levels. Instead of burning everything (which I did once long ago) I decided to set some things down and pick something else up. Since it's been a long time since I did any work on my comic "spudd 64," I decided to start in on the script my friend Johnny Ampersand wrote for issue #4, and that seemed to do the trick. I had forgotten how much I missed black and white art, or just letting the pen take the line for a stroll around the page. When I start working on a comic, though, I tend to get terribly focused on the work. It becomes a near obsession. And once I've started a new issue, it's invariably the only thing I work on until it's done and I can lay the pen down. Well, I started "spudd 64" issue #4 for real earlier tonight, so that's probably going to dominate what you see from me artistically for a while. I think it should be interesting though, and I really think I can make this the best issue yet. Plus I am also working on a separate book, something I'm tentatively calling "The Iron Galaxy Primer" which will contain a few previously published strips I did for other anthologies, lots of art and sketches, and a whole bunch of totally new strips and experiments. Sort of like a collage of words and images and stories. I'll be bouncing back and forth between the two projects until I complete them, which I think will happen in mid-October if my planning is accurate.

Anyway, that digression was to let you know that the daily drawings section might slow down a bit, since I am the world's slowest comic artist due to my obsession with detail and my own horror vacui (don't laugh, I think I really have a problem with that). I'll be so focused on the book that pretty much every shred of art I do every day will be on the comic itself, and that starts today. I've updated the daily drawings section with the pieces that were piling up, and the entry for today is the first page of "spudd 64" issue #4, or at least what I've completed so far. I think the pencils are far too light to show up, but you'll see some of what I've got hammered out, and you'll also get to see the book develop day by day and page by page. As always, your comments and critiques are asked for and are very deeply appreciated.

That's all for now. I've got to get some sleep since I've got a lot to do tomorrow.

Matt K.

Sunday August 14, 2005 -- 9:47 p.m.

First time online in a couple of days, so apologies to anyone I've got to e-mail. I promise I will spend some time with that on Monday.

Just a few quick things tonight. I'll have four new daily drawings up by tomorrow night. I'm close to finishing another of the 'strange satellites,' but before I put it up on the site I have a question for all of you out there. Should I post each new piece of artwork as I complete it, or should I wait until I have 4 or 5 new pieces done and post more stuff all at once? I can see the positives and negatives of each approach, and I would really appreciate knowing what you think would make this site more interesting.

I met this really cool girl named Nora D. way back when I started grad school in August of 2004. Slowly but surely I've gotten to know her a little bit better, and sadly she will be graduating a semester earlier than me, finishing her degree in December of this year. What is so amazing is that she already has one masters degree and is finishing her second. That kind of academic ambition always blows me away. Anyway, she took the "are you right brained or left brained" questionnaire, and her results indicated that she is 35% left brained, 65% right brained, which makes a kind of sense since she is a poet. For an interpretaion of these results, scroll down to the August 11 update below. Now, take a look at her and decide for yourself if they are accurate...



(Just playing. I just wanted a transparent excuse to post yet another picture of a friend online.)

My friend Johnny Ampersand, who I mentioned in the Friday update, has been taking this decidedly intriguing new direction with his art. He was the person who initially challenged me to make a comic of my own way back in 2001, and he is one of those cartooning fanatics who has been drawing pages and pages and pages of comics since he was literally in elementary school. When I first met him, he had this delightfully breezy, clean, cartoony style that was a sheer delight to look at, but lately he has been experimenting with much more detailed. almost stream-of-consciousness visual improvisations. He was in town visiting about a week ago, and showed me one of his new finished drawings which impressed me so much I asked him if I could scan it and post it here.



He and I are both ardent admirers of Jack Kirby, since his art and comics influenced both of us profoundly when we were young. A few years ago he did this really fabulous drawing of MODOK for me, and since then he has rewarded me with a drawing of Black Bolt and Machine Man. The last 2 were actually birthday gifts, so he and I have slowly developed this Kirby-homage exchange thing, although I have yet to do an exclusively Kirby-inspired piece for him. I'm thinking that will be for Christmas this year. Anyway, I'll be scanning and posting his previous three drawings throughout this week so you can see what they look like and how his art has grown and evolved.

I am very fortunate in that I have many wonderful friends willing to share or trade their art with me, so I will continue to post work from them in the future, including collages by Aaron Fitzwater, the only drawing I have by Angela Kroner, a piece from Fred Draper, art by Tom Williams who will also be adding to the Kirby gallery soon, art from Stephanie Wu, and if she lets me, some ink drawings and watercolors from Rudy who is a far better artist than she will ever let anyone think. It should be fun.

That's all for now. Keep letting me know about your brain tests, tell me what you think about how often I should put my own new art up on this site, and let me know what you think of Leighton's crazy piece.

Matt K.

Friday August 12, 2005 -- 8:26 a.m.

My friend Johnny Ampersand (who incidentally encouraged me so persistently to do my own comic that he is very much responsible for "spudd 64") took the "are you right brained or left brained" questionnaire and his results were 45% left brained, 55% right brained. Or, as he put it, "Pretty much what I expected." I guess I can agree, although Johnny is a ridiculously gifted artist as well, and to prove it I'll be posting a few of the pieces he's given me, as well as one he kept, starting on Sunday.

This brain thing is weird (and yes I know it is far from scientific) because Johnny, my wife Rudy (here is an opportunity for me to post a totally unnecessary picture of her! ha!)...



...and my friend Stephanie are all 45% left brained and 55% right brained. All of them are such fantastic artists that I would have suspected them to be more right-brained than that, especially since my results were so heavily skewed towards the "right-brained" thing and they are all actually much better artists than me. I suppose that's what you get with a pop-science quiz though. Now I need to get Stang to try it, but I'm not sure which side of the brain control hatred, anger, violence, and rage so I couldn't begin to guess his results.

In my endless efforts to share new artists and their work with you, here is yet another amazing find that started with GigPosters in their classified section. Tra Selhtrow, whose name is oddly a backwards misspelling of "worthless art," has done a series of remarkable paintings called the "dumb birds" series, and fortunately for those of us unable to afford the the original pieces, he turned 3 of them (so far) into stunning silkscreen prints that are very reasonably priced. Here is one of them...



That one is entitled "Double-breasted Cormorant." Something about his work calls to mind both Leonard Baskin as well as Ralph Steadman for me, but only in the most peripheral ways since his art is so genuinely original and unique. Oddly enough, he is a graduate of the Columbus College of Art and Design, so there was a time when the two of us shared the same city. He even said that he vaguely remembers my friend Steve Black, who also graduated from CCAD. Tra Selhtrow is now living in Seattle and, wonderfully, painting full-time. Take a look at his site when you get the chance. His paintings and illustrations are remarkable.

And now, since I just can't seem to resist the urge, here are 3 of the newest prints from the "dead empty" series by AZStar78 which he has just posted in his livejournal. I promise I'll stop for a while after this. (He's so damn good though).







From left to right and top to bottom, they are "dead bat," "dead kitty," and "dead spider." Enjoy!

Forgot to remind you all yesterday that I did update the daily drawings section with the pieces that had been piling up. These daily drawings tend to be rather small, but it has been a great way to work out ideas or visuals that I want to incorporate into larger pieces or things that have just been marinating in my skull.

No update tomorrow as I will be working at the comic book store all day. And now I'm off to spend the rest of today drawing so that I can start putting some of my own new art back on this site. See you Sunday.

Matt K.

Thursday August 11, 2005 -- 11:32 a.m.

I have a lot to share today, so this will be a pretty big update but it will be full of a lot of really interesting stuff.

First, I think you should really check out this incredible artist currently operating out of New York City named AZStar78. I was poking around on GigPosters and looking through their classifieds for art prints, since I like to pick up cool art whenever I have the available funds. Out of the blue I see these two amazing prints that look like nothing I've ever seen before. I wrote down the artist's name, searched online, and found his website here. I sent him an e-mail letting him know how much I really dug his stuff and that I would be interested in picking up a couple of his prints, the "dead cougar" and the "2 dead dogs" from his ongoing print series called "dead empty." Here is a little preview of the "dead cougar" print...



What is even cooler is that he actually e-mailed me back and shared some stuff about how he works, what's been driving his artwork, where he's going with it, and a little bit about his history. I am so used to just getting the "Thanks for being interested in my art, I'll mail your package tomorrow" e-mail (not that I am complaining, I know these artists are generally super busy) that I was just stunned. We've exchanged a few e-mails back and forth, and he is just an incredible guy. He's really busting his ass putting together all kinds of art, drawings, sketchbooks, small press books, monoprints, collages, and even some pretty cool digital art as well as trying to get his name out there, score some gallery shows, and sell stuff. I know some may find the "dead empty" series a bit gruesome but there is something about his art that really takes me back to when I was young and the world had something new and cool to show me every day. I really can't describe it, but his stuff just really affects me pretty deeply. Honestly, I haven't been this excited about an artist in a long long time, and I am ALWAYS excited about art. Anyway, I encourage all of you to check him out when you have some time online, and if you are interested in his work then by all means send him some cash and pick some up. Again, his home site is here and his livejournal is here. His livejournal is especially astounding because he updates it daily with drawings, sketches, and other projects he is working on and there are pages and pages of amazing images to stare at. He is working on art for a show at the Orchard Street Gallery in New York (sorry, I couldn't find a web site or URL but if anyone else can, please let me know so I can update this) as well as another in Philly. When I get the information I'll post it here so if you're anywhere nearby you can check his work out and meet AZStar78 in person. And then, of course, e-mail me and let me how it was.

To be honest, yesterday brought sort of an embarrassment of riches. It was just one of those kinds of days where I felt almost guilty at how fortunate I am. First there were the e-mails from AZStar78, and then a pretty amazing day for sequential art. As I already mentioned, Spiral Bound finally dropped, which was cool enough. But finally, after what seemed like a wait of months and months, MOME, the new anthology from Fantagraphics is out.



Apparently it is intended to be a quarterly anthology since this one is labeled as the "Summer 2005" issue, and I've seen solicits for the next one. The anthology is full color, two color, and black and white and has new work from Andrice Arp, Gabrielle Bell, Jonathan Bennett, Jeffrey Brown (of "Big Head" fame!), Martin Cendreda (pinoy!), Sophie Crumb, David Heatley, Tim Hensley, Paul Hornschemeier, Anders Nilsen, John Pham, and Kurt Wolfgang. Finally, the book is designed by none other than Jordan Crane himself. (Many apologies to anyone whose web site or home page I might have missed...it was definitely not intentional). I've only read a few of the pieces so far, but it's always great to find another indie anthology that looks like it might have some legs. And you get an awful lot of great work for only $14.95.

Lastly I was finally able to snag my long-delayed and long-awaited copy of Walt and Skeezix published by Drawn & Quarterly and it is beautiful.



This publication collects all of the daily "Gasoline Alley" strips by Frank King from 1921 and 1922. "Gasoline Alley" is very unique in that it is one of the only comic strips where the characters actually age in real time. Additionally, the art is absolutely beautiful and the characters are portrayed with a rare level of sensitivity and humanity, elevating "Gasoline Alley" well above the typical "gag-a-day" daily comic strip.

In even more great news, yesterday my 'zines from Nieves Books in Switzerland arrived. International shipping always seems to take soooo long, but these were well worth it. I don't really have much of a scoop on Nieves other than they publish lots of really odd little 'zines and books. I was able to snag a copy of "Lispering" by Josh Petherick, "New Releases" by Dylan Martorell, "La Mort C'est Pop" by Bastien Aubry, and something untitled by Hendrik Hegray. They are really incredible little books, much more an artpiece than a typical 'zine. Dylan Martorell's and Josh Petherick's are my favorites, but they are all really intriguing. Sadly I believe that the 'zines by Martorell, Aubry, and Hegray are sold out (thanks to Stephanie for that tip) but you might have some luck finding them by contacting the artists directly through their own sites. And even more importantly, if you really like what you see on Nieves Books but are a little frustrated because you can't get copies, then by all means make your own 'zines. It is easier than you might think, and so infinitely rewarding. And I would be thrilled to put links and info on my site about your work.

Remember how I was talking about "Gaylord Phoenix" and was bummed out that I couldn't find copies of any other issues? Well surprisingly Edie Fake, the creator, e-mailed me on Tuesday and let me know she would be reprinting issue #1 and issue #3 and was working on finishing issue #4 soon, as well as a new work called "Foie Gras." She's sending me issue #3 as we speak, and is going to hook me up with the other issues when she is done. I'll make sure I share more of it with you when it arrives, and thank you very much Edie!

I added a few new links to the links page, most of which are music or sound related. le ciel est bleu is especially cool and soothing. Thanks to Juliet and Aaron for the link.

Thanks are also in order for my wonderful friend Angela and her husband Jay for treating me to the most delicious ice cream in the universe on a hot August night, and for continually supplying me with raw materials for art and collages. One of these days when I am rich and powerful I will reward you both handsomely!

And last, I followed this link from my friend Stephanie's livejournal to learn more about my swelling itching brain. It's a questionnaire designed to determine to what degree you are right-brained or left-brained. Since I already knew a little bit about what each side of the brain was supposed to influence, I was concerned that the questions might seem transparent to me, so I made sure I thought each one through very carefully and answered very honestly. And here are the results for Matt Kish...

Wednesday August 10, 2005 -- 3:56 p.m.

Just a short update today. My parents-in-law are coming into town from Florida tomorrow, so I've spent most of the day mowing and weeding and doing some cleaning and tidying. Plus I still have to replace my dreadfully decayed windshield wiper blades (rain's a-comin') and get to work by 5 p.m. Tomorrow I will have a much longer update including the arrival of 'zines from Switzerland, prints from Tra Selhtrow, an update on my brain, a wonderful and surprising e-mail from Edie Fake who is the creator of "Gaylord Phoenix" (see the update from Monday August 8th, down below a bit), more info about this incredible artist from New York City that I just started corresponding a bit with named AZStar78 and whose art you should really be taking a look at (although I'll help you out with that tomorrow!), and finally many many more daily drawings.

Most importantly, though, I wanted to make sure I got this posted ASAP. Aaron Renier's graphic novel Spiral Bound hits the shelves today! You can pick it up at any good comic book store, and hopefully a few bookstores as well. I raved about in the update for Monday, August 3 (down below a bit, again) and I could do it all over again here, but I will restrain myself. Seriously, though, pick the book up if you see it somewhere. It is inexpensive at $14.95 and almost 180 pages of pure fun.

Off to the auto parts store. See ya tomorrow!

Matt K.

Tuesday August 9, 2005 -- 7:48 a.m.

First, I fixed the spelling errors and grammar mistakes from yesterday. Hey, I was in a hurry to finish the update before work!

THE NEW YORK TRIP-DAY 4: Mostly we just drove home, so there's not a whole lot interesting to tell. We ate breakfast at this amazing diner in the Elmsford/White Plains area called the Eldorado. There was so much chrome and so many mirrors inside it felt like we were eating on the set of the "Logan's Run" movie, but the food was pretty incredible. For a price slightly lower than what we would have paid at a Bob Evans or TeeJay's here in Columbus we got about twice the food and it was much better and more delicious. No four inch twigs of dried and shriveled bacon, runny eggs, or lame blueberry pancakes at the Eldorado. I haven't wanted to eat breakfast anywhere else since, so I've just been weeping into my bowl of Cookie Crisp every morning.

And then we finally made it home, and the trip was over. We can't wait to go back already!

Here are a few more things from our journey. First up is the new CD (it's only about 37 minutes, so it's more like a really long EP or a really short CD) from Doseone, big man from the Anticon label and one third of cLOUDDEAD, oddly entitled "Ha."



Doseone definitely has a rather unique vocal style, so his rhymes are an acquired taste. He mines beats and sounds in a way I have never heard before, crafting these deep and lush soundscapes out of everything from found sounds, ambient noise, and incredibly obscuresamples from a very different kind of vinyl than your typical crate-digger unearths. Instead of old funk, jazz, or even prog rock there is a melange of children's rhymes and what might best be described as department store easy listening. Odd but so rewarding. The Anticon label rarely disappoints, and Doseone has proven (to me at least, since this is my first experience with him solo) that he is more than capable without the involvement of Odd Nosdam and Why?, his cLOUDDEAD partners. I don't imagine that you would have too much trouble tracking this CD down, but if you can't find it and would like a taste, let me know.

More from Stephanie! I swear she has shared so much with me it's astounding. I don't know how I ever got so lucky, but I'm certainly thankful. First is the one and only "Retard Riot" #11, a little zine I have heard so much about that it's become kind of legendary to me so actually holding one in my hands was a bit like finally touching the Holy Grail. And tiny as it is, it did not disappoint in the least. Here it is, in all it's miniscule glory...



Yes, folks, one single sheet of paper xeroxed with head-detonating art, folded into quarters and slapped into your hands for who knows what price. This one piece of paper made me happier than just about anything in the world other than Rudy, and I wept for joy when it dawned on me that the demise of Fort Thunder has not slowed or stopped the inexorable deathmarch of the "Retard Riot." Honestly, I think I could rave about this one sheet of paper for pages and pages and probably risk angering some of you, so I will simply share a few URLs, thank Stephanie again, promise her our firstborn non-allergenic bird, and move on. To learn more about the awesome "Retard Riot" zine, click here, and to learn more Noah Lyon, the sick genius behind much of it, click here, and then thank both Stephanie and the day you were born for this.

Another slab of wonder from Stephanie is this little donut gem I have been meaning to track down for some time, but I knew I would probably have to order it from Alvin at Buenaventura Press. I kept putting it off until I had enough cash to pick up a few other things as well, which was pushing it farther back and farther back and soon it almost disappeared. Stephanie to the rescue (again)!

Tom Gauld, a cartoonist who I believe is British or resides in the United Kingdom somewhere, has put together this tiny but delightful package of 3 minicomics in a perfect little envelope, all of which is wrapped up and entitled "3 Very Small Comics, Volume II." Here are images of the envelope and the three comics themselves...









In order, the images are the envelope that the comics come in, the comic "Invasion" which is the most straightforward being a folded and stapled 16 page booklet with a lovely 2 color cover, the comic "Our Hero Battles Twenty-Six Alphabeticised Terrors" which is actually a fold-out comic that turns into a mini-poster, and last "The Robots Broke Out..." which is a seven panel accordion comic that almost appears to be silkscreened onto nice cardstock. What is so wonderful about these is that Mr. Gauld is truly pushing minicomics farther than the typical folded and xeroxed booklet (although there is certainly nothing wrong with that at all) and utilizing the overall design and production to create something that is more of an object than a comic. You can see the attention he lavishes on the whole project, from the choice of beautiful textured paper to the different colored inks to the care put into the folding and packing. Everything about this tiny little envelope is a delight for the senses, and Gauld's art is definitely very worthy of it all. You can pick these up from Buenaventura Press in their book shop and you can learn more about Tom Gauld and his partner Simone Lia at their web site Cabanon Press.

Now I must have that lousy bowl of Cookie Crisp and prepare for the day. I promise I will scan and post the giant stack of new daily drawings in a day or so, and I am close to finishing a new 'strange satellite' although last night brought a bit of a disaster artwise that I am still recovering from. See you soon.

Matt K.

Monday August 8, 2005 -- 3:13 p.m.

Today is the eighth day of the eighth month. It is a heavy day. A day of great import. The castle is moving. Happy birthday yet again, Titus.

Rudy finished a portion of her final project a bit early, so we have been spending a great deal of the last few days together, which is the reason that there have been no updates. The work week begins again, though, and she has one more sprint to complete to earn her masters degree, so things should be getting back to normal in the world of "Spudd 64."

THE NEW YORK TRIP-DAY 3: A few selected highlights from our second and final day in the city. While wandering, Rudy and I stumbled across the CFM Gallery. Rudy muttered something about how familiar it seemed to her, so we went inside. This is the gallery that represents Anne Bachelier and Leonor Fini, among others. Modern surrealism with a heavy slant towards the fantastic, but nonetheless some remarkable stuff. Rudy had found out about Anne Bachelier online which is why the gallery name seemed so familiar. Inside the gallery, the paintings looked even more amazing on the wall than they ever can on a silly computer screen or even in the pages of a book. We spent quite a bit of time wandering around, and the gallery staff were remarkably patient and kind to us. Finally, since neither of us could afford the $20,000 price tag of some of the more incredible pieces, we stepped back out.

We ate lunch at a regular haunt of ours (regular in the sense that we eat there every time we visit New York) called Elvie's Turo Turo. They don't have a web site of their own, but you can learn a little more about them here. Elvie's is a Filipino cafe and serves what is best described as home-cooked food. "Turo turo" means "point point" in Tagalog, so for those non-Tagalog speakers, you can still sample the delicious food by simply pointing at what you want. The food, as always, is delicious, abundant, and very inexpensive. Later on, we saw a slightly fancier Filipino restaurant called Cendrillon. We looked at the menu and the prices and Rudy burst out laughing. I asked her why, and she said that the food was all so expensive and, to her at least, did not appear to be nearly as good as the home-cooked fare at Elvie's. She then came to the conclusion that Cendrillon was where all the non-Filipinos ate, while the real Filipinos and their friends would doubtlessly eat at Elvie's. Lovely Rudy, always the populist!

We also checked out Other Music, the greatest music store in the entire universe. Stephanie and Kevin (from the day before) hipped us to it and they weren't kidding when they said it was a great place to find music. Thank goodness we visited near the end of our trip or I could have spent hundreds of dollars there and browsed all day. We will definitely be headed back.

The late Saturday night train ride from Grand Central Station back to White Plains proved to be immensely entertaining as well. At the first or second stop, the train came to a rest and didn't start up again for a long time. No one really noticed at first, but after about 10 minutes the people started getting restless. Eventually we saw some police (real police, not transit police) enter our car and speak to a very large, very heavyset man in a business suit way ahead of us. The conversation got heated, and it became clear that for some reason the conductors wanted him off the train. Eventually he left voluntarily with the police, but it was all so strange because he appeared for all the world like a stockbroker coming back from a late day in the city, so who knows what he was doing and why it required the police to sort out.

The hilarity and strangeness of the situation was heightened by these three teenagers sitting next to us who were on their way to an after-hours party in Bronxville. It would take far too long to recount, but their conversations were the funniest thing Rudy and I had ever heard. Two of them were 18 and one was under 18, yet they had an enormous bottle of cheap vodka and were planning on renting a car (at that time of night) to drive to some party and cheat on their girlfriends. It all may sound obnoxious, and I suppose that their behavior is pretty reprehensible, but sitting next to them and listening to them argue, laugh, and plan was just too funny.

Like I said, there is a lot more that we did and saw but I don't want this to be an endless blog so I will just promise to tell you more about our trip if you ask me in person. We had a great time, and it was one of our best vacations ever, especially thanks to meeting Stephanie and Kevin and getting some tips on places to check out from real New Yorkers.

Now a few more things I brought back for you all to check out. First up is Drawing From Life: The Journal as Art, again from the St. Mark's Bookstore. Here's the cover...



Looking inside someone else's journal or sketchbook is always an intriguing exercise, but that is never possible with strangers and sometimes not even with friends, but this book presents a look at the personal pages of several notable creative individuals. Here are a few peeks...





There is quite a bit of interesting text accompanying the images as well. Well worth a look.

Also from the St. Mark's Bookstore is this odd little comic that I was only able to find issue #2 of. It is called "Gaylord Phoenix" by someone named "Edie Fake."



Here are two interior pages...



The book has a deliriously visionary quality. I'm not sure how I can convey that. It is like a vaguely queer surreal fantasy quest. I really can't be any clearer, and I dislike offering my 'opinion' or 'review' of something when I know that the work can speak for itself so much more clearly and strongly. Sadly, "Edie Fake" has no web site and although I have e-mailed to inquire about tracking down issue #1 and any later issues, I have not yet gotten a response. I will keep my fingers crossed.

I will keep posting stuff (loads more cool stuff from Stephanie, including "Retard Riot" and "Three Very Small Comics, Volume II" from Tom Gauld) but time is short so I must wrap this all up. I've made a few changes to the site. I took down the digital photos section since, after talking over dinner with Stephanie, my original convictions were strengthened. I really believe art, and photography, should physically exist. It should be on paper, or canvas, fabric...not a collection of bytes and data. I'll still post digital pics from time to time, but I'll do it here in the news section. I also put up the prints section although the actual prints won't be up for a week or two yet. I think I am finally ready to give it a try, so let me know what you think of my efforts. Finally, since a few people had asked, I recreated the links section and expanded it, so hopefully all of you can use this as a resource to finding other artists and cartoonists online.

Gotta go to work now. More tomorrow.

Matt K.

Thursday August 4, 2005 -- 10:26 p.m.

Today I got to spend almost the whole entire day with Rudy, so of course I wasn't going to waste any of that precious time on the computer!



I'll be back tomorrow with more about New York, plus some other stuff. See ya for now!

Matt K.

Wednesday August 3, 2005 -- 9:45 p.m.

THE NEW YORK TRIP-DAY 2: There is just way too much to do in New York City, so here are a few interesting things from our first day--

Rudy is always super-paranoid about the rain. I guess she's so sweet that she might melt if she got caught in a downpour, so I understand why. Anyway, she kind of obsesses over the forecast, and she was adamant that we bring an umbrella since Sam Champion's vague forecast called for a possibility of rain. We took the train from White Plains to Grand Central Station and went right to the New York Public Library since we are both geeky librarians (or in my case, librarian-to-be). We poked around inside, checked out all the huge hallways and statues and rooms and stacks that we could...and promptly left the umbrella behind when we walked out. We had no idea where we left it since the building is so labyrinthine, plus it was from Structure (blech...sorry Les Wexner) AND it was an umbrella that Jennifer had given me so there were sort of bad vibes on it. In the end, losing it in New York proved to be a good thing since it now gets to travel and find a brand new home in an amazing city.

Lo and behold, Turntable Lab actually has a storefront in the East Village. It was really heavy on the DJ equipment (which I guess I should have expected) and packed with so much incredible vinyl it made my brain sizzle. I picked up a slew of CDs that I had been lusting after, and I'll drib them all out day by day starting with these two...



On your right (that is the right, since I messed up the scan) is "Favela Strikes Back," a sequel of sorts to Diplo's "Favela on Blast." Diplo went down to Brazil and came back with lots of Brazilian hip hop, Baile funk, and other dirty crunchy sounds and mixed the whole thing into this ear-thrilling masterpiece of summer joy. There is no track list, just one hour and three minutes of sound your soul will never let you forget. The folks at Turntable Lab put it best when they wrote "if you like music that’s best listened to drunk and sweating or shit that’s gonna make your roommate say 'what the fuck is that,' you’re on the money with this purchase." Nice!

On your left (yep, the left...messed up scan and tiredness) is something in a similar vein, "I Love Baile Funk," another Baile mix by New York's own DJ Kienyo who also goes by the moniker DJ Sujinho. This one does have a track list but I'm not gonna list it here because I think you should head over to Turntable Lab and pick them both up yourself.

Later that day, Rudy and I went to check out New York's brand new Giant Robot store. There's a whole bunch of them on the west coast just packed with cool art books, comics, zines, and Ugly Dolls, but this is the first one anywhere near our time zone. Inside we saw all these books we've only ever been able to see (and buy) online...heavenly. I was thrilled to see this...



Aaron Renier's "Spiral Bound : Top Secret Summer!" I had been waiting and waiting for this ever since I saw a mention of it on Top Shelf's web site, so seeing it in the store was a wonderful surprise. You can learn more about the book here and it is sooo good. It was everything I had hoped it would be, and the only disappointment I had was finishing it and realizing it was over. Anyway, something even more amazing happened. As Rudy and I were standing in line to pay, I felt this polite little tap on my elbow. I turned around and this very sweet guy was standing behind me asking me if I was going to buy "Spiral Bound." I said yes, and he told me it was his book. I couldn't believe it! Totally unexpectedly, in the middle of New York City, there was Aaron Renier! He asked if he could draw something for me on the title page, and I'm so glad he did because I was completely starstruck and bashful and would have been utterly unable to ask him to do it myself even though I wanted to very badly. The poor guy was suffering from a summer cold and sniffled all the way through the drawing and the zillion questions I peppered him with, and when he was done he had given me this wonderful sketch on the very first page of my book...



And here is a picture I asked Rudy to take of him and me in the Giant Robot store. He was such a good sport about all my silly adulation...



Definitely a huge high point of the trip for me. Finding a book I had been waiting and waiting for, meeting the super cool artist and creator of the book, and best of all, finding out he is incredibly nice and down to earth and genuine and sweet. You can learn more about Aaron here and here and you can either buy his book directly from Top Shelf or from a good comics store or bookstore near you when it gets a wide release this August. And Aaron R., I will send you a very full email of everything I thought of your wonderful book tomorrow.

While we were resting our legs somewhere near SoHo, we saw this truly hilarious pick-up attempt. Traffic was choking the streets, and this Asian UPS driver actually stopped his van in the street, leaned halfway out his door, and started hollering at this lovely young Asian lady walking down the street, saying something like "I get off around 7:30. Want me to deliver that for you?" and so on. She was on a cell phone and ignored every word he said. All in all, it was kind of funny since it was so brazen and thankfully he did not resort to any obscenities, although we did feel awfully sorry for the poor woman getting harangued in the street like that.

Finally, it was off to a late evening dinner at a Tibetan restaurant called Tsampa. You can check out the Citysearch link here. Rudy and I were finally going to have a chance to meet my new friend Stephanie W. and her fiance Kevin. We were both a bit nervous...well, actually I was VERY nervous...since we weren't sure what to expect and there is always this worry that being from the Midwest there is no way you could possibly be interesting to someone lucky enough to live in New York City. And you know what? All that worry was for nothing. Stephanie and Kevin turned out to be two of the coolest people we have ever met, hands down. It is so disappointing that they live so far away and that we will only get to see them every now and then. They were like everything that is good and cool about New York...smart, intriguing, funny, challenging, creative, friendly but not sappy or disingenuous, fun to be with...I could go on and on. Kevin was very sleepy from a brutal commute but made quite a valiant effort and hung out with us for what seemed like far longer than his tired body would have allowed. They gave us all sorts of info on the best music stores to check out, and after dinner they let us stick with them a bit longer to check out the St. Mark's Bookstore which Rudy and I had passed but never walked into. And oh my, what a great store. Stephanie hipped us to this book Chuck Dugan is AWOL by Eric Chase Anderson, the brother of director Wes Anderson and the artist behind all the great pictures on Wes Anderson's DVD releases. (Also, notice that the link to the book was NOT Amazon.com. See, it really CAN be done). Then they said goodbye and flew back to their nest for the night, but we will hopefully see the both of them again at next year's MOCCA. Here is a picture of us in Tsampa...



See, Kevin is getting a little sleepy there.

There is so much more that I missed or just don't have the space for, but it was an awesome first day and we are sooo glad we met Stephanie and Kevin to end it.

More tomorrow. See ya for now!

Matt K.

Tuesday August 2, 2005 -- 8.12 a.m.

The New York trip was absolutely fantastic and Rudy and I had a blast. We got to hang out with Stephanie W. and her fiance Kevin, and they are two of the most amazingly excellent people we have ever met. I guess since this is kind of a 'news' section and a 'blog' section, I'll write a bit about the whole New York experience, but in order to make these entries readable and manageable, I'll take it a day at a time. So more on Stephanie and Kevin tomorrow. For now...

THE NEW YORK TRIP-DAY 1: The Long Drive from Ohio

It takes about 9 or 10 hours to get to New York from Columbus. It could have seemed like a long job, but Rudy and I always have a good time together and we talked or listened to music or sang the whole way, although we also each took a short nap. Here we are setting out, looking kind of dorky...



Somewhere in Pennsylvania, near the New Jersey border and the Stroudsburg area, we came across what Rudy and I started calling the "zone of destruction." There must have been an enormous storm there recently, and for miles and miles all the trees along the highway were bent or snapped to the left. At first it was just kind of odd, but after seeing so much it all became a little eerie. It looked like some giant hand had just swept across the ground scattering everything in its path.

Other than that, and stopping for gas in a town with the rather hilarious name Mahwah, not too much happened on the first day of the trip. Tomorrow will be a bit more interesting.

Now, I came across so much cool stuff in New York, and was then given even MORE by the ever-astounding Stephanie, that I will be sharing ALL of it here. Hopefully with some of the small press stuff and the music, you will be sufficiently intrigued to check out the links and support the creators yourself. With the books you can make your own decision. I'm not supporting greedy corporate monsters like Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

I'm not going to do this in any particular order, but I wanted to start by sharing this because Stephanie gave it to me when we met and it was a wonderful surprise since I had picked up a few prints from this artist a couple of years ago, and I had sort of forgotten about him (although I still love those prints). From Brad Simon, otherwise known as Shroomboy, comes this slab of "Dirt"...



"Dirt, Volume 2" has a silkscreened color cover (why do I always love that so damn much?) wrapped around 16 black and white and full color pages of recent sketches and art by Shroomboy. And it is sooo good. And what is even greater is that he includes a print of his with every single issue. Seriously! Here, take a look...



See? On the left is one of the color pages of the book, and on the right is the print. Brad's art is so lovably hideous that you really must take a look for yourself. His site is at www.shroomboy.com and there is lots to look at and buy. The prints I picked up from him before aren't even there anymore, so I imagine he goes through his stuff pretty fast. Even "Dirt, Volume 1" is no longer available, so send the guy some cash and get some art.

Okay, off to do some running around, but I want to make sure that I put in here that Kyle Wallace sent me a mix CD (looking forward to the 'Iron and Wine' tune, Kyle) which I posted in the music section. Also I updated the daily drawing section with all the little doodles that have been piling up. You will see some rough sketches of upcoming satellites, one of which I will begin this evening. Alright!

Matt K.