A Fool and his Comic

Ever heard of the comic strip Big Nate? It's written and illustrated by a Portland, Maine native named Lincoln Peirce. According to his Wikipedia page, he's "an American cartoon [sic]." I'd edit the Wiki page to say "cartoonist," but how do I know he's not a cartoon? I've never met the guy. Hell, I wanted to write "[sic]" after his last name, too, but apparently it's actually spelled "Peirce," not "Pierce." All I'm saying is, my Spidey Sense is outta whack on this one.

I don't know how widely Big Nate is syndicated in newspapers but as part of the GoComics stable, I'm guessing it's seen by quite a few people. When I occasionally flip through the criminally misnamed "funny pages," Big Nate is a beacon of mild entertainment, one of a scant few such dim lights in the cold, black, humorless night that is today's newspaper comics section. That is to say, I don't love it, but I'm not physically repulsed by it either. Sometimes I feel something like a smile approaching when I read it.

Not June 19th, though.


Look familiar? It should, assuming you're familiar with one of history's greatest works of literature: Bill Watterson's Calvin and Hobbes. (I understand if you never return after clicking that last link, as a C&H search engine is a transmogrifier that converts spare time into spent time.)


I don't know if the Big Nate strip is a less funny rip-off, a less funny accident, or a less funny homage. But without some clearer nods to its source material (for example, if Peirce's strip had appeared on the anniversary of the C&H strip's original publication date), I'm ruling out homage. It's possible Peirce was channeling Calvin and Hobbes accidentally, not realizing where his oh-so-clever inspiration was coming from, which happens to the best of us (even The Beatles; I'll let my dad elaborate on that one). I hope that's the case.

Either way, this reminded me a lot of my last post about sampling. Sure, everything's stolen, and I bet someone will point out a comedian from the '50s from whom Bill Watterson stole this bit (as a matter of fact, judging by the search engine, Watterson recycled his original strip with slightly enhanced colors four years later...is it stealing if you steal from yourself? As John Fogerty of CCR knows, yes, sometimes; once again, I defer to my dad on this explanation). But it's much less palatable when no personal spin is added, especially when these are two artists using the same exact medium. And it's worse when no explicit credit is given. Cite your sources, Peirce, if that is how your name is really spelled.

Edit, July 3, 2011: Whoops. In the second sentence, I originally called the creator of Big Nate "Leonard Peirce," but his name's actually Lincoln Peirce. I guess the "fool" in the title is me, too! Also, someone has since edited Peirce's Wikipedia page to reflect his job as a cartoonist rather than a cartoon. Looks like I'm making a difference in the world.

The Murky World of Sampling

Even if you're not a fan of rap and hip-hop, you surely know about "sampling," when an artist incorporates pieces of existing music into a new song. I like sampling when it's used to good effect, whether a sample is a fragment tweaked beyond recognition to create new sounds or a huge chunk of intact music with new lyrics added on top.

What I don't like as much about sampling is that it's so expensive to do legally and that it's so often done with little acknowledgment to the original music and, more importantly, the original artist. I think music sampling should be more like the citation of literary works: free, but with strict requirements about giving credit where credit is due.

Artists not backed by the world's top labels can't afford to sample if they want to sell their music. Making sampling free would level the playing field. Then if the original works and artists were cited more clearly and openly, they could greatly benefit from the increased exposure due to these contemporary borrowers. This is a half-cocked theory that I've had for years and in a way musicians are probably already supposed to do the latter part by listing samples in the liner notes. But who has liner notes when listening to internet radio or buying digitally? Anyway, my point is not to expound on the theory at length right this moment.

What I'm leading up to is this: listening to classic funk is always an eye-opening experience. I love it for its own sake, but it's even more fun to stumble across sounds I recognize from the more recent past. Funk is a seemingly limitless source of cool sounds and hip-hop never hesitates to return to that well. As with fashion, everything old becomes new again, sometimes with very little alteration, since younger generations don't remember the contributions of the older.

A Pandora station I've been listening to lately, which jumps around from classic funk to disco to modern techno, has recently played three songs I recognized as being sampled in famous hip-hop songs. One of them came up while I wrote this post, in fact: The Isley Brothers' "Between the Sheets," which I already knew was the "inspiration" for Notorious B.I.G.'s "Big Poppa." This is somewhat obvious because the sample is a largely intact piece of music from a very famous band.

But the other two sampled songs were never big hits, or at least not lasting hits, they seem to have avoided any resurgence in popularity despite their inclusion in two massive modern hits (is 1997 still considered modern? The movie franchise is technically still alive, so let's just call it modern). Below I've listed two more sets of youtube video links. The first link of each set is the original song, the second is the modern one that sampled from it. If you're under 30, you probably won't need the second links to guess the modern songs, but you've probably never heard of the originals either:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2XhhuM9GZo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7CePeRW6eM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ol0ZyaGG5H4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UjsXo9l6I8

Seriously, Jay-Z's "Empire Falls" is New York's anthem, and I hadn't even realized the most famous hook from it is taken note-for-note from a song called "Love on a Two Way Street." I love what Jay-Z and crew did with one epic piece of music from an otherwise boring song, but don't obscure the source. And "Forget Me Nots"...well, you have to give Will Smith credit for turning that into a catchy pop smash by changing the lyrics and adding a standard drum beat. But he should have given Patrice Rushen credit for providing the foundation for his music. Then we could have decided to ignore her on our own terms, rather than on his.

Birthday Cards

I had a good birthday. I got some solid gifts.

I got a chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting from Two Fat Cats Bakery. My dad noted admiringly, "It tastes like a giant Funny Bone." True. A giant, delicious, handmade Funny Bone. I didn't put it in the fridge like last time, either.

I had some delicious, low-carbonation craft beers with friends at Gritty's. I hate carbonation.

I avoided all the storms while biking.

And best of all, I got some awesome handmade cards. Here's the card my sister made me (don't forget to click images to embiggen them and read the fine print):
My mom made me Ninja Turtles cakes when I was young, but I never got a "totally rad birthday 'za." Probably for the best.

My sister said she deliberately hid the hands and feet here since those are the features that give her the most trouble. I pointed out that that's true of professional comics artists, as well. Either way, she did a nice, subtle job of hiding the deformed extremities. I rate this card Totally Tubular, dude.

For purposes of comparison, here's a card I made for Stasia's birthday last year:

Sorry if that made you spill your coffee or gave you nightmares. Hopefully it's large enough that you can read the text, since that's much better than the image. I like the card in general, but I don't know what I was thinking when I drew that crazy-eyed close-up. I'll have to redo it with my improved mspainting skills, so as not to pervert the minds of innocents.

And here's a simply incredible card Stasia drew by hand and held up to her webcam so I could see it:

Whale done. (If you don't get that joke, try saying it the way Stasia would now: with a British accent. {And if you don't like that joke, kiss my blowhole.})

Birthday Raptor

Is it wrong to make yourself a birthday card? It doesn't say my name on it, so it could technically be for anyone. Anyone delicious...

New business idea: Raptor Cakes. Cakes made by, for, and of raptors.

Roses and Birthdays

I'm still alive. Here's a post to prove it. Could I have done this from beyoooond the graaaave?

I mspainted this card for my grandmother last week. I printed the rose on one side of a piece of card stock paper, flipped the paper over, printed the text on the other side, then folded the paper so it looked like a real card, since it was being sent in the real mail. And that was on my third try. This real world stuff is terribly complicated.

Don't forget to click it to enlarge it. When you do, you'll notice a distinct lack of snark. This is because my grandmother appreciates sincere, aka sappy, emotion. When I sass her, she appreciates that, too, but often I have to explain my sass before she fully appreciates it, and that's hard to do in a greeting card. Oh, also, her birthday's not about me, it's about her, or something. (If she's reading this she might be disappointed in me until I explain the tongue-in-cheekness of that joke. Then she's going to be mad at me for implying she doesn't get my jokes. Good thing she mostly avoids the computer. No one print this out for her, she already got her card and pretended she loved it. Let's not mess with a good thing.)

Anyway, all I'm saying is Hallmark ain't so great. Takin' back the greeting card industry.

Birthday Girl

She's long since asleep and onto her second day of 23rdhood, but here it's technically still her birthday, and here, the US, is where she was born, so happy birthday again, Stasia. Naturally she's already seen these, since they were made for her, but for posterity and all that, a couple small tokens of my affection. Any images I post can be clicked to enlarge them -- I keep having to remind my mom of that, so maybe others don't know it, either.



You didn't think she was getting through a birthday without a Muppet picture, did you? Yes, I looked at reference photos for this. A girl's birthday was at stake!

The Count is sometimes pink and sometimes purple. Check google images if you don't believe me. That's why I hedged my bets and colored him pink and wrote in purple. Also, did you know he had a beard? I'm not sure I ever knew that. It blends in with his suit. And it's impossible to make Oscar the Grouch look angry without drawing eyes -- without them, his naturally angry uni-brow becomes an Asian happiness emoticon (^^). I was trying to make him happy, not ecstatic. Impossible. (Please prove me wrong if you can.)

Scho-Ka-Kola

I don't eat (use? chew? what's the proper verb here?) mints much these days, but a couple months ago I stumbled across a list that almost made me reconsider. (No, it wasn't a list of ways my breath could be improved. I use the internet so I don't have to have good breath. Or leave my parents' basement. Okay, this joke is too real to be funny anymore. Abort. Abort!)

Here's the list that made me want to pick up a bad mint habit: 22 Manly Ways to Reuse an Altoids Tin. If you can browse that list and not have a Dwight Schrute Pavlovian response, you, sir or madam, mystify me. But really, I didn't even want the mints; just the packaging. I admired the ingenuity and frugality on display and buying a tin of mints solely for one of these projects would have been counter-intuitive. Thankfully, pretty much any little tin will do for most of these, so I didn't have to buy a tin of Altoids and enjoy their curiously strong minty freshness; henceforth, Altoids will be stricken from the record.

I wished to assert my own manliness through the art of mint-tin re-purposing. Naturally, I alighted on the least manly way to reuse a tin, aka the least labor-intensive and most manageable way for ME to reuse a tin. I gave the finished product to Stasia as a gift, however, in an attempt to put the "man" back in "manageable."

Anyway, I already spilled the beans last time so you know roughly where this is going: I re-purposed a tin as a pocket watercolor kit. I didn't re-purpose just any tin, though:


My parents bought this extra-caffeinated chocolate in Germany as a souvenir last time they were over there. The name Scho-Ka-Kola is a mix of the words "Schokolade" (chocolate) and "Kola" (cola, i.e. any Coke or Pepsi-style soda) and plays on "Coca-Cola." My parents love both chocolate and Coke, but they don't drink coffee or drive 18-wheelers through the night, so despite "The Energy Chocolate's" claims that it "creates power" and "makes you alert," the tin remained firmly sealed through its "best before" date of March 4, 2011. She chucked the chocolate but thankfully my mom held onto the beautifully bizarre tin long enough for me to spot and claim it. Now it's filled with better things:

It turns out real watercolors are expensive and the kinds of people who need a pocket kit of them probably already have the materials required for miniaturizing them as suggested in the instructions, including crafting separate paint enclosures out of brass strips or clay. In my case, as I also mentioned last time, my mom finally helped me find a cheap ($2) solution at Michael's. The paints are already in their own containers, I just pulled the plastic connectors apart. Then I sawed (well, scissored) a brush in half and included the non-bristled end as a stirrer. The lid doubles as a mixing surface. Technically, you could even use one of the tin halves as a water cup.

And the best part? With this fashionable little kit, Stasia actually paints pretty pictures - Sam Eagle and a gnarled tree, to date.

How cool is that?

realpainting: Sam Eagle

Two posts ago I promised that "next time" you'd see Stasia's second contribution to the world of Muppet fan art, then I made myself a liar by posting my own drawing which I had given my mom for Mother's Day. So really, in so many ways, my mother made me a liar. It's good to get that off my chest.

Only one post later than planned, here's Stasia's rendition of Sam Eagle, sketched with pencil, outlined in marker, and then painted with actual paint and actual paintbrushes on actual paper. Who even has the time these days?


See, Big Bird's cool and all, but S. Eagle is one ice cold bird. He will PECK you, man. This wasn't done from memory, but it was done awesomely. Check out the shading on his face! That was done with $1 "watercolor" paints and $1 paintbrushes I picked up from Michael's Stores. And Stasia rocked 'em.

Next time I'll show you some behind-the-scenes pictures of the artist herself at work on this meisterwerk, including her secret weapon: the portable watercolor kit I put together for her, full of $1 paints and $1 paintbrushes. Don't you wish I were your sugar daddy?

Happy Muppet's Mother's Day

Sorry, Cookie Monster ate your rose.

mspainting: Bat Bird

"Bat" in the title refers both to "batting one's eyelashes" and to "Batman." It seems clever to me, and even if you don't agree, you'll at least see what I mean.

I pestered my sister into drawing me a picture. While she was mspainting (which is a legitimate term now that I've coined it) she remarked, "jeebus it's pretty horrifying already." That's what we like to hear!

Full disclosure: Alena admits she cheated and used a photo reference. I've already said that doesn't bother me. If anything, it makes resulting flaws much more entertaining. Plus, if you're reading my blog, you've got so much Big Bird on the brain that you'll never forget what he looks like again.

Anyway, while drawing anything strictly from memory is an added level of difficulty, the biggest challenge here has to be drawing anything with MS Paint. Using a mouse is great for so many things. Drawing is not one of those things. Hell, even using a touchscreen I struggle to draw basic shapes on the computer.

So with all that in mind, let's see the masterpiece:


Wow, after having expectations set at an all-time low with "horrifying," this is brilliant. Here's the description that accompanied the email: "So I tried to give Big Bird his eyelashes, and ended up making him look like a chick (rimshot). Bonus Snufflepagus!"

Bonus Snuffleupagus indeed.

First of all, well done. Second of most, Big Bird always looks like a chick, with or without the pun intended. Third of some, Big Bird does not actually have eyelashes.

See? If she'd have stuck to drawing from memory, Alena would have had a better excuse for drawing eyelashes, as Stasia did. Also, apparently we would have gotten the super-villain interpretation, as Alena explained, "i originally had big bird with purple and green legs until i looked at the pic. very jokerish." Now you get the hilarious wordplay in the title. What you don't get, sadly, is to see the Joker version. I was disappointed too. Somebody get on that.

(In the meantime, here's a Muppet Wiki [yes, that exists] article about Batman's connection to Sesame Street along with video of one of Batman's amazing animated appearances on the show, doing absolutely nothing to stop the Joker from being run over by a car. Key line: "Holy manhole!" Not in public, Robin. Not in front of the children.)

Oh, and if bonus Snuffleupagus weren't enough, Alena went on to mspaint me something else, which she described as, "My current obsession. Drawn completely from memory (which explains the crappy logo)."

While it sounds revolting, it looks amazing. All of you, get on a caffeine high and mspaint me some more stuff. And next time: Stasia mspaints a muppet without the MS Paint. What's that called again?...Oh yeah, painting!

Ostrich Bird

When I was 14 I wanted nothing more than to own every version of every Beastie Boys album. I had just discovered some international versions in Germany and collected what I could. I sorta trailed off there, though, when I felt I'd gotten most of the stuff worth getting and when other music caught my attention. The Anthology was an excellent cross-section anyway.

Amazingly, 11 years later, the B. Boys are still putting out new stuff, and while I wasn't very impressed with their 2004 effort, To The 5 Boroughs, the newest release, Hot Sauce Committee Part Two, is a remarkable return to form. You can stream it for free here (via Soundcloud) and you can stream or download a sweet megamix of the Beastie Boys through the ages by DJ Z-Trip here, which I'm jammin' to while typing this very post. Point being, if the Beasties can keep kickin' it after all these years, the least I can do is keep kickin' it after all these weeks, "it" in my case being Big Bird posts.

Another recruit from Easter, Stasia's aunt Meg requested to draw Big Bird on paper. Unorthodox, I know, but I allowed it: I don't say no to drawings in any format. Etch a sketch of Big Bird on an Etch-A-Sketch and mail me that if you really want. Just because I can't do it doesn't mean you shouldn't.

So here's our first colored-pencil-and-paper submission:


Magnificent. In case you can't read the inscription, the message reads, "This is what Big Bird really looks like." Can't argue with that.

Uhhhhhnless you've actually seen Big Bird. Then you've probably got a solid argument formulated.

The scan quality isn't perfect; some of the vibrancy of the colors were lost in scanslation. But this interpretation of Big Bird, with his gaudy head feathers and flamboyant neon orange- and pink-striped legs and neck, looks like an Ostrich of Paradise. This must be the mutilated extreme of the fabulous Big Bird envisioned by Stasia: Big Bird after years of wearing African neck rings to stretch out his neck in the vain pursuit of an ideal of beauty. (Or tourist dollars.)

Hollywood does terrible things to bird-people.

In Meg's defense, Big Bird wasn't of her childhood, nor did her kids watch much Sesame Street, so taking those things into consideration, this is a fantastic effort. Big Bird is also on the advanced side of Sesame Street characters you could draw from memory. Cookie Monster, my favorite, is probably beginner, since he's mostly just a blue blob with googly eyes and a gaping, cookie-devouring, black-hole of a maw. Snuffleupagus would be be intermediate to draw and advanced to spell (yeah, Google Suggest corrected it for me -- and that's Mr. Snuffleupagus to you).

So go ahead and try your hand at a drawing or painting or whatever, whether you're looking at it currently or you've only heard of it in passing and never actually seen one in real life. Hey, maybe you can find a field of blooming dandelions and strategically kick some of the yellow heads off to carve out a Big Bird shape. Now that's a picture I want to see (or a field I want to stumble upon while hiking). To inspire you, here's a poem I wrote in creative writing class in high school, after doing some tongues-on research by licking the head of a dandelion:

Dandelions
Ain't so dandy;
They don't taste at
All like candy.

I Dreamed I Was Eating a Giant Marshmallow...

...and when I woke up, I made Stasia this helpful guide, Dream Symbols 4 Dummies (Part 1):


I assume she cited me properly when she referenced my guide in her grad school essay. With my someday-complete 7-volume work by your side (7 is a powerful number because it ate 9 in this dream I had), you, too, will be destined for greatness as a drama- and/or movement-therapist with an emphasis on dream deliciousness. Also, you will no longer find yourself devouring inedible objects in non-dream world, or "the real world" (as some call it, though is something really real if it's inedible? Yes - check out volume 3 for the exciting proof!). This will greatly ease your stomach pains and subsequently your nightmares. Order now!

Go ahead and draw me your own dream symbol interpretations if you've got those kinds of things. Oh, and I'll definitely post a new Big Bird picture soon, promise. But send me more drawings, even in dream world if you'd like. Also by real world email, just in case. I tend to eat things in dream world.

My Lost Examiner Article

As a follow-up to yesterday's rant about examiner.com, here's the infamous (in my own mind), never-posted second piece I wrote for the site. Was it unpublishable? You be the judge. Or the jury. Maybe I should call in some surprise witnesses to influence your decision, each more surprising than the last. Bring 'em in, boys!

Chocolate ice cream, peanut butter, and bourbon: a novel milkshake

In London, there's a chain of American-style diners called, appropriately, The Diner. The food is decent when you've got a craving for fare like hamburgers and mac and cheese or even a bottle of Sam Adams Boston Lager. Most importantly, though, The Diner serves "hard shakes," or alcoholic milkshakes, a market woefully untapped in America.

The best of the bunch is one made with vanilla ice cream, peanut butter, and Four Roses bourbon and called "The Colonel Parker," named after Elvis Presley's manager. (Was the Colonel fond of Four Roses? Was this a signature drink of his? I don't quite understand the reference, so please, enlighten me if possible.) Here’s a chocolaty homage to The Diner’s delightful drink, which should easily serve two.
Ingredients:

1-3 cups of chocolate ice cream
½-1 cup of peanut butter
¼-½ cup of milk
3-6 ounces (or 2-4 shot glasses) of bourbon
Optional: hot fudge (homemade or store-bought)

This is a simple and decadent treat to blend up at home. Combine the ingredients in any order in the blender (the superb Euro-Pro Ninja Master was used here) and pulse in 5 second intervals until there are no lumps. The amounts listed are a very rough guideline, so sample the shake as you’re making it and adjust proportions based on desired strength. For example, if you taste your shake and find the peanut butter is being drowned out, simply add another spoonful of peanut butter and blend again.

For this recipe I grabbed what was in the kitchen, but substitutions are easy and encouraged. I used a mix of the local Smiling Hill Farm’s Dark Chocolate ice cream, acquired at the ever-enticing Rosemont Munjoy Hill in Portland, and Stone Ridge Creamery’s Chocolate Fudge ice cream. The peanut butter was standard Jif. Organic might work, though the consistency and taste are different enough that there's no guarantee.

The hot fudge was homemade but any, or none, will do. The milk was fat free, but a drink like this practically begs for a higher fat content. As for choosing a bourbon, don't worry about getting fancy here. Unless you refuse to touch cheap bourbon, use something low-end for this recipe and save your top shelf liquor for a glass with a couple of ice cubes.

This is an excellent dessert with two caveats. First, the consistency was a little thin even with all the peanut butter, so suggestions for thickening homemade milk shakes without sacrificing flavor are very welcome. Second, generally speaking chocolate is superior to vanilla. In this case, however, an exception could certainly be made. Vanilla ice cream is milder, allowing the other ingredients in this shake to really shine, while chocolate was nearly overpowering. If, unlike me, you have vanilla ice cream, try the recipe with that (leave out the hot fudge if you do, naturally). Bottoms up!

My Brief Stint as an Examiner

For those of you who show up expecting a Big Bird fix, I apologize for the interruption, but this isn't strictly a Big Bird blog (yet), so settle down. When I get another picture in my email or when I figure out how my parents' scanner works so I can scan the latest (hand-drawn) picture, regular muppet service will resume. In the meantime, either read this regrettably long, semi-serious rant or get to work drawing me pictures. Can you do any less?

Begin rant.

Recently I started writing for examiner.com, an employer that is constantly bombarding job sites like monster.com. They're always looking for both national and local writers covering topics as broad as "Young Adult Pop Culture" and as specific as "The Beatles" -- though my dad might argue that "The Beatles" is just as broad a topic, so let's say there are topics as specific as..."Handbags." (Seriously. Who are these people?)

I didn't know if I was enough of an expert in any subject to qualify, but I finally bit when I saw a call for a local "Food and Drink" examiner. I figured, Hey, I eat food and drink drinks. I also figured, Hey, I'm already cooking and blogging about cooking pretty regularly. I went on to figure, Hey, the Portland area's not a bad one for covering local food and drink. Finally, I figured, Hey, if I could continue doing what I was doing but get some slight professional cred along with some slight monetary compensation, so much the better.

I'm good with figures.

I was kind of excited, and for my first official article I fleshed out my application's sample piece about LeRoux Kitchen's Baker's Thursday event. I saved it for the editorial team to review it, which is allegedly what they do with each article before it goes live. My article passed muster, it went live, and I was officially a published Examiner. I posted a link to my piece on LeRoux's Facebook page so they could see the positive review. Slight professional cred attained! Cool.

Examiner.com wants you to write at least two or three pieces a week, so a few days later I put together a little recipe for a Chocolate Peanut Butter Bourbon Milkshake. Stasia and I had recently made it, it was good and simple, and I even had a couple pictures I could run with the article. I saved it for the editorial team to review it. I waited.

And I never heard back.

If that were the only problem, I would have made an effort. It would probably be simple enough to contact someone at examiner.com, figure out what went wrong, sort it out, maybe alter or scrap the article if for some reason it didn't follow their rules or they didn't like it. But I had already been feeling uneasy about examiner.com. Here are the other major problems I have with that make me prefer to let the matter drop rather than pursue a working relationship with the site:

Examiner.com purports to pay based on factors such as page views, session length, and so on. That's not uncommon these days; in fact, it's very similar to Google Adsense's model, as far as I know. Here's the rub: nowhere will they tell you the formula for payment. Not even when you're "hired" and get your whole introductory spiel, which is mostly a few editorial rules and tips on how to navigate the site. So I'm just supposed to trust that I'll get my fair share of whatever advertising dollars they collect?

The only concrete figure given is $50: the amount of money you'll receive for each additional person you refer to examiner.com who gets accepted as a writer for the site. I know there are employers, such as summer camps, that thrive on word of mouth. But this feels less like a summer camp and more like a pyramid scheme. Keep drawing writers to the site, pound the Search Engine Optimization pavement, keep hitting the top of search engine lists, fill the site with obtrusive and aggravating advertising, toss a few cents around here and there, and profit at others' expense (okay, profit has to come at others' expense, but usually "others" are the consumers, not the workers).

These are the glaring issues, and there seems to be a lot more seething just beneath the surface, enough that my gut tells me to get out sooner rather than later. Google "examiner.com scam?" for yourself if you'd really like to know more, including the frighteningly conservative politics of the billionaire owner of Examiner.com, Philip Anschutz. When I didn't hear anything about my second article, it was the final push needed to convince me to sever my ties to examiner.com and stick to personal blogging for now. (Technically I didn't "sever" ties yet, so this is kind of like when I hated my coaches in college and "quit" track by never showing up again my senior year, or when I hated the Pope and "quit" the Catholic Church by never showing up again after being confirmed, Christmas mass notwithstanding. Actually quitting is harder than it sounds.)

My sister's working on her homepage and very generously offered me a sub-site, so maybe I'll take her up on that. I might not know her secret formula for paying me either, but I prefer her frighteningly liberal politics any day.

Battle Bird

Happy belated Easter. I spent mine with Stasia and lots of her mom's side of the family in NYC. In addition to involving delicious food and good company, it was a productive trip: I recruited at least one Big Bird artist, and perhaps more still to come.

Stasia's cousin Rachel Denny, awesome person and artist du jour, has this to say about her effort, which was done on her iPad: "I just spent about a half an hour trying to draw big bird. It looks like an oversized chick drawn by a first grader...." As mentioned recently, this is as good a season as any for chicks, so check it out:


That rocks.

Rachel sent this follow-up comment: "Looking at it again I realize that I only gave cookie monster one eye... strange...." Except it's not strange once you realize the 'roid rage driving this scene. How else do you explain Big Bird's high-pitched voice, compulsive work-outs, and sudden bulk?

Here's how it went down: Cookie Monster spilled one too many crumbs on Big Bird's well-preened coat and got his eye pecked out. Elmo tried to intervene, which led Big Bird to punch a hole directly through his fuzzy red stomach. Now that tickles.

Is this really Easter-appropriate? Big Bird's legs are practically melting with anger. I suppose if he loses an eye for an eye, Old Testament God will be satisfied.

And if I get more drawings, I'll be satisfied. At least temporarily.

Bulk Bird

Kyle Doran's twin, Brian Doran, feeling both the ancient spirit of sibling rivalry and the hereditary fondness for the spray paint feature overtaking him, emailed me a drawing from Japan yesterday, truly making my day:

Working both Big Bird and Cookie Monster into the image was pure class. Brian included a description which deserves to be seen as much as his drawing, which is why I'm posting it verbatim:

Alright, I'll bite. No way I'm going to be shown up by my brother.

This little ditty attempts to answer the age-old question of 'why did Cookie Monster' cross the road. It also features a rarely seen profile view of Cookie Monster, showing off his enviable cookie belly. While Cookie Monster does his thing, Big Bird is all business. Gotta bulk up for the show and make up for his high pitch voice.

Yeah, basically I have too much time at work. As a bonus, you can look closely and see when someone was walking behind me, as I tried to alt-tab while leaving the paint can in the same place.

There you have it: no additional commentary needed.

Additional drawings needed.

Tiny Bird

And now, a Big Bird selection from the inimitable Cyber Twan Dambrie with the following disclaimer: "I know it's terrible....but in my defense, I did it on my phone. Enjoy!"


Stasia exclaimed, "It doesn't really look like Big Bird, but it looks like a chick for Easter!" Anthony had no need to be modest: this is adorable and timely, what with Easter Sunday coming up. This creature belongs in a microwave next to an Easter Peep. We'll call this Big Bird's baby picture. At least it's not embarrassing. He could have been splashing around naked in the birdbath.

That's an impressive drawing for the iPhone. Simple and stylish. I'm not sure what app he used. On my iPod Touch I have the app Brushes, which I bought ages ago thinking it'd be sweet to draw on the go. But I hated trying to use such a small screen, scroll around, zoom in and out constantly, etc, so I almost never use it. I can't control the scale of my drawings, so I need a lot of space in case things sprawl wildly.

Also, on my original Big Bird post Stasia had commented about the accuracy of my drawing's "'guitar holding' pose" based on this diagram:


The link she posted to the diagram didn't work, so I wanted to make sure you all saw it. Stasia clarified, "That's not to say that the second arm never moves, but it requires a second puppeteer." Either way, go me. Please note: the Big Bird operator appears to be wearing solid 6 inch platform shoes. Maybe they should just hire a tall guy instead. Hint hint. Although I don't think I could pull off the high-pitched Big Bird voice, which would mean everyone's nightmare: more wrong sounding muppets. Can you imagine how frightened children would be if my voice came out of Big Bird?

I hope I get more Big Bird pictures. Even though Cookie Monster is my favorite. Feel free to draw him, too, if you're looking to truly make my day.

Little Bird

All the way from Armenia, a little birdie flew into my inbox a few days ago:

Kyle Doran, currently spreading peace in the European east and tipping the balance of this feature in favor of guys named Kyle, explains his drawing: "I took your challenge because I felt like the spray paint feature hadn't been featured enough, especially for someone with Big Bird's texture. Not sure why he looks ornery, but enjoy!"

And enjoy I do. This looks like a baby owl dressed up as Big Bird for Halloween. He's just now realizing how awful the paint fumes are, not to mention how long it will take to wash the yellow out of his feathers. (Plus his mom probably warned him of these downsides and he ignored her.) That would explain the orneriness. That and the coal-black eyes pecked out of Frosty the Snowman's melted-puddle corpse at the beginning of spring. Circle of life!

More Big Birds, I say.

Huge Bird

Yesterday, there was Big Bird. Today, there are Big Birds.

Since I sent out a challenge to Facebook daring all comers to try drawing Big Bird in MS Paint, a couple of brave souls have taken up their digital drawing tools and shown me what B.B. looks like in their heads.

Kyle Courcy, who does a comic called Cereal With a Fork for Boston's Weekly Dig and blogs over at this other place, showed me his "oddly morose" version, explaining his technique thusly: "Basically I drew a body around a yellow drumstick."

I don't think there's anything odd about his moroseness. This is the "before" picture: Bird before he stopped caring about the haters, threw on a pair of pink legwarmers and a splash of blue and pink mascara, and truly embraced his fabulous side.

Now here's another "after" image in the style of mine. Stasia took the touchscreen for a test run, insisting she could draw Big Bird from memory. Turns out she was more than half right, but being more talented than I am wasn't quite enough to fill in every blank. Her version is certainly fabulous, so see if you can spot her mistakes:

Anyone else care to contribute? Go ahead and look at pictures while you draw, I don't mind.

Large Bird

My parents have a touchscreen computer. No one uses the touchscreen but me, for when I occasionally draw these pictures. WORTH THE COST (that said, I don't know the cost).