NASCAR nuts

drawn at the stable under low light conditions

I enjoy NASCAR. I know, I know, not an intellectual sport and certainly not green. But I like to watch it anyway. One of my favorite sounds is “Drivers, start your engines!” and favorite sights, the flyover. In fact I would like to have a flyover every morning before work and someone to sing the anthem and someone to do the benediction and then “Badger, start your engine!” Yeah, that would be awesome. I wonder if I could get some sponsors for my truck and who would they be? Any takers?

He’s still campaigning

yes he can

um… in case you can’t tell, that’s supposed to be Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi. I lost my good pen, if that’s any excuse.

enough said

Lots in the speech tonight, but this is the line that will sit in my mind:

“We are a nation that has seen promise amid peril and claimed opportunity from ordeal. Now we must be that nation again.”

Obama: I think I finally got it!

Thanks Tom Richmond!

Thanks to these tutorials I think this caricature might be a success. It’s still a work in progress, I struggle with consistency. See below for some of the earlier whacks at it. yikes…

Fat Guy In a Little Coat: We the consumers

it's getting tighter

Our country is like a Fat Guy In A Little Coat. Our economy needed a dash of reality. Without this recession we would have continued to allow banks to run wild. Now the spotlight is on, nice and bright. It’s on us too, our unlovely supersized lifestyles. None of us are guilt free in this. We’ve all got fuckin fat and we’re still trying to squeeze our fat asses into our shrunken economy. The message keeps coming at us, BUY! BUY! BUY! But in reality, what do we really need?

Don’t drop the baby!

still true today

I drew this cartoon for The Fulton Leader 5 years ago at the time of Iraq’s first free election after Saddam. At the time my friend Lex was doing his first tour there and my cousin was getting ready to go on hers. Needless to say I watched the news like a hawk more than I ever had before. I had maps of Iraq above my computer at work and I was continuously sniffing around on the internet news sites  trying to find out what was going on. What I did find was that information was scarce on purpose and that lies were passing for news. I guess that’s when my cartoon transformation began. Before I was just drawing goofy pictures, now I was an angry voice looking for blood.

Central Baptist Demolition

This is what is taking place across from my apartment:

Noisy, very noisy, and dusty

They are demolishing the Central Baptist building to build a bank. Telling, I think. Not that I ever really liked the building, it was square and intimidating.

It’s one virtue and the thing that I suppose I will miss are the arched windows along the side. When the stained glass windows were auctioned off the building took on another dimension as now I could see inside it, the beams in the ceiling and through it, the trees and sky on the other side. And besides all that I like arches, they seemed out of place amongst all the square corners.

These windows no longer exist

The congregation moved to an out of town location along with several congregations moving out of town onto park like settings, it’s the new suburbian push. Sort of like, get out of town while you still can.

The Stimulus: The Magic Penny Bank

You can drag an elephant to water but...

This may not be an accurate representation of how things really are, but hey, it’s a cartoon so some exageration is to be expected. It is the way it seems to me. I wonder how far to the right Obama is expected to bend in order to get even half of what he wants.

Now, about the stimulus, I’m not sure I get it. I mean, just look at it. It makes my brain hurt. With $1T in debt where does one get a loan for $819B?

Spreadsheet illumination: The eyes have it

Any face I draw always starts with the eyes. Two big globes that can be turned into any emotion. Then in comes the nose which denotes gender, nationality or if it’s going to be human at all. The mouth comes next, in this case I wanted big luscious lips to go with the large luminous eyes. Then the structure of the head, attach the ears, sketch in the neck and -walla!-  she’s done. Or is she? During the course of a very busy day I came back to her repeatedly adding the little details. The only thing I’m sorry about is that I drew her on a spreadsheet and it is near impossible to get those lines out of the way. Damn.

Digital Transition: Postponed

I've got those analog blues

I don’t know what exactly we’re going to do with all those rabbit ears and attenaes. I guess they could be recycled or become craft projects. They’ll probably go into the same closet as the VCR and record player right between  the 8-track stereo and your walkman on top of a stack of newspapers and magazines. Sometimes when I think I’ve caught up with technology I find out I’m already obsolete.

Random Acts: The Grocery List

yes, there is a difference between "stick butter" and "bowl butter"

“Bowl Butter” is for toast. “Stick Butter” is for baking because it’s easier to measure, at least that’s what Sweetie told me.  I’m way behind the curve on things like these. At least this list doesn’t contain tampons, kitty litter and toilet paper.

On Google Earth: Antelope in South Dakota

I mean, how cool is that? I haven’t seen an antelope in years! And here I am running past them in the virtual world. Go, check out our beautiful planet.