A Hundred Thoughts at Once

Hello friends!

I don't get much of a chance to write blogs as much as I used to. Just have been in heavy production with the new KICKSTARTER FOR STARSLAM BOOK 4 and commissions. Also my PATREON PAGE. Plus day job taking up lots of time. It is necessary though. I've just been busy. Looking forward to a vacation we will be taking to Lake Michigan in September for a couple nights of camping. To get away from it all is very much desired. I'm looking forward to some peace and quiet and nature surrounding me. Just disconnect and get away from it all. That is what I need!

My mind is so busy lately. So much going on. So many things that attempt to bring me down. I got a new sketchbook yesterday and it exploded into some sketches, writings and single panel comics all in one day. I've done this sort of thing since high school. I write poems, do quick sketches, to do lists and other various notes and ideas I hope to one day get to. I think I have about twelve fully loaded sketchbooks full of things. Maybe someday my kids will read them. But I've wrote some DARK shit in those. I hope they don't think I was a massive depressive person all my life! Usually my sketchbooks are for therapy. I get out the crap I am feeling. Seems like something new is always around the corner to come along and try to fuck me up. But that's life, isn't it?

Things are okay. My bills are paid. My Kickstarter is off to a good start. I'm pretty sure things will keep rolling and it will get funded. Its slowly trickling together. I'm damn proud of it. My colorist is working extra hard to get things rolling with me and he's kicking so much ass. I have some friends doing pinups and fan art for the book and beyond. Its incredible to see! I'm truly blessed in these things.

This week, this album turns 25 years old:

This is an album in my top 10 of all time. I got turned onto it by my friend Tim, to whom I am forever grateful for that. It took me a while to fully listen to it beyond a casual listen. I pulled it out while I was in some down times back in 2015. I call it the "soundtrack to my divorce" album. It was my therapy. It helped me fall in love again. I owe a lot to this album. I became a total Jeff Buckley fan, chasing down every live CD/DVD, his demos of his unreleased second album. I have all the Record Store Day releases too. Just a month ago I found the LEGACY edition with the extra disc and DVD full of videos and documentaries. Jeff was that soul of a poet whose life was taken from us way too soon. But man, what an album to leave behind. So fucking great.

Currently also I have been listening to this:

I saw the movie in the theaters a couple weeks ago and I absolutely loved it. My favorite of the year so far. The soundtrack comes complete with radio ramp ups and commercials. You toss it on and its like you are cruising around in 1969. I know people are trying to assign a certain agenda and crap to Tarantino now, but I think the man is just wonderful. He is my favorite modern director out there. I love all of his films. My favorites being Kill Bill and Jackie Brown. Just fucking awesome.

I don't get out to the comic shop much but I am absolutely loving the new YEAR FIVE Star Trek series from IDW. The art and writing on it are top fucking notch. I think I practically own every single STAR TREK comic that is out there. These new ones are greatness. Total wood.

And I am still diving through STAR TREK DISCOVERY, despite my initial reaction to it. I am almost done with the first season. As a show, I like it. As a STAR TREK show, I don't. But I do watch it. I like most of the characters. I just try to not pay attention that it is a Star Trek prequel and just think its an alternate timeline. Much like I think STAR TREK PICARD will be. But hey, at least I am getting new Star Trek. I'll take it.

So many cool things are coming. A BREAKING BAD movie, THE MANDALORIAN, STAR WARS: THE RISE OF SKYWALKER, GHOSTBUSTERS REMASTERED for PS4, LINKS AWAKENING and DRAGON QUEST 11 for Switch... I'm just bursting. Good shit is on the way! I can't wait.

I got big things coming up. I got this current Kickstarter that is running. Then Fantasticon Mt. Pleasant in October. A nice vacation in September and of course HALLOWEEN SEASON all the fall! Greatness just around the corner. For now, I just gotta clean house, keep drawing and enjoy the ride. Keep that depression and the toxic people at bay. I'm doing a good job of it so far. But man sometimes it is so hard.

I'm trying, folks. I really am.

Cheers, T

Cleaning out Closets of the Mind

Hello friends. Its been a few days. Normally I do not take so long to post a blog but I have just stayed busy on things. A bunch on the eternal TO DO list that needed to get done. Plus some OT at the day job. I am burning the candle at all ends (even the middle). I am pretty stressed out but I am handling it.

Boy do I need a vacation... or more of these bad boys!

A lot of things have been on my mind. Change of seasons and change is in the air. The wheels are in motion on a few things. I made a decision last week that I think will change a lot of things for me in the artworking department. Something I wont be into until 2018, but the work begins now. I think it is about time I made a decision about it and I am confident I am making the right one. As the great Clive Barker said: YOU HAVE TO TRUST YOUR OWN MADNESS. I will just tickle your ass with that feather for now and leave it best unsaid until it happens. But you will know very soon.

I have a pile of things to do and even more things in my mind I want to take care of. With that on the burner we decided to take apart our tiny apartment this last week. We opened all the (gulp) closets and tossed a bunch of stuff and reorganized things. Our apartment is cleaned out, top to bottom, inside and out. I guess we are anxious to move, which will not happen until post summer 2018, but we cannot wait. The place we are currently in is way too small for us and when the kids or a guest comes to stay over, its even smaller. And speaking about artworking vibes, they are non~existent in this place. I tossed my old L SHAPE DESK in 2015. I miss that fucking desk. But I cannot get another one here. No room! Plus I do not think it could withstand my son Scott~bots weight if he used it to play on as he does. So I will wait until the move to get one. But I have no studio space, per sae. Just a shitty old desk with no room to draw on it. But in the new apartment, I will have plenty of space and room to hang up my toys and trinkets. I cannot wait for that. I am counting down the days.

On the artwork front, I am inking new Starslam 3 pages. I wrote a few additional scenes for the Pleasant Life sequel that I started a couple years ago and will finish by next year. I finished work on the new card set for Topps and mailed them in. I got 5 AP cards coming back, one of which is claimed. When I get them in hand, I will offer them up for sale. The big news is that I am now on another new set which I cannot name yet. Im back on a property that me as a seven year old would be stoked to be on. It was an honor to do before and with the excitement in the air about this thing, its an honor to be back on it. As an adult I am thrilled to be spending a bit more time in a galaxy far, far away.... (spoilers).

As far as new media dissected, I finally finished Preacher season 2. Some hits and definite misses. I like where it is going but so much is changed from what I am familiar with that sometimes the characters in the show, their motivations leave me scratching my head. We will see what happens if it is renewed. I have given up on Star Trek Discovery and will maybe (A BIG MAYBE) catch up with it on the back end sometime. The Orville comes back this week and it excites me more than the new Trek does at this point. Curb Your Enthusiasm season 9 is wonderful so far as well. New music: I got the Mike Portnoy Sons of Apollo album. Its his grand return to progressive metal and it is a warm welcome back! Sounds great, recommend if you like that sort of thing. Im also listening to Tom Petty, Led Zeppelin, Pearl Jam and a round of some Ramones. I even got another goddamn Funko Pop celebrating my love of the Ramones:

Damn you Joe Rogers....

Well folks, I got a pile of things I gotta do. As always, I will report back when I got something new to say. But for now let me just report that Im fine, Im great and yes (as you may have noticed by now) I still need a new MAC keyboard where I can use apostrophes and a few other keys I miss. Let us enter the Halloween days by being safe, party responsibly and party hard. Rock your favorite costume and make shit happen.

I know I will.

~~T

Cobwebs Suck

Hey friends.

Dealing with the roller coaster this past week. Strikes and Gutters. Ups and Downs. Good and bad. Random BS in my head. Stuff I juggle in the day to day. Clearing off the cobwebs and cleaning off old stains of bloody shitty bullshit.

My oldest son Cody is up for a visit this week. Its so trippy to know in 5 months he will be 18 years old. The dude has a full beard and college plans n'shit. His life is in a bit of chaos right now and its good he came out to get away from it all. I hope I am providing him a nice respite from his troubles.

I had my other boys out here this past weekend. Its great when all three of my boys can be together in one place. All three are so different from one another. Its great to see how they all interact.

I had some financial BS go down this past week. Something that will effect me a bit longer than I expected it to. Its all okay, but its just frustrating to me. I'm busy trying to get my life back into some sort of order and to find things still being issues and holding me back just irritates me. Apparently it is always my duty in this life to clean up all messes, even if I didn't create them. If that is my folly in this life, that is fine. It is what it is. But one day I know I will be clear of everything that holds me back and I won't have to worry about this crap anymore. I live for those days. Its some peace I know I will earn.

Anyway, how about a pop culture-ish rant. This:

New Trek coming out and already they are trying to sell the sexuality of it. We got the ass, tits and face shot going here. I know, Seven of Nine and Tpol were the same thing... but still. I don't know. This cover rubs me the wrong way.

Anyway, I'm letting life return to normal. While still cleaning up the messes around me: 

S-ok. I got it.

Anyway, I hope everyone reading this has a great week. I will attempt to do so as well. Its all we can do. 

--T

Random Chunks of Life Experiences

Hey friends,

Last night's blog about Caleb gave me a huge spike in reads. Mostly due to reposts and revisits. I got some wonderful messages about it. I really appreciate it. Here in the blog I try to be entertaining, informative and write from a place of honesty about how I feel about this thing called life. People seem to be entertained by it because the numbers have stayed with me over the 14 years I've done this blog here at Idiothead.com - Same thing with my Morning Show Podcast (Available on Itunes for FREE). I appreciate the continued love and support.

Today's blog is a list of randomness that is on my mind and is going on currently. Enjoy:

1. Speaking on my previous blog about TOYS: My girlfriend sent me this. I thought it fit the concept in my head and thus justifies my feelings on the subject. Let's hear it from the man himself:

2. Remember my old cat Jake? He and Milo were my favorite cats. Milo I lost in 2009. Jake passed away in 2014. I miss them both greatly: 

We used to poke fun at Jake about how big of a cat he was and how much he loved to eat. I saw this painting this week and it reminded me of him. Gave me a chuckle. 

3. The boys came over fora  double sleep over last weekend and I snapped this pic when they were sleeping. I thought it was cute. 

They were laying together. So cute!!

4. My oldest son Cody is coming for a week long visit this coming weekend. Its a crazy time in his life and mine right now but we're gonna make the juggle and make it work. I'm looking forward to seeing him again. Hopefully he will let me snap a few pics this time. In six short months he will turn 18 years old. So trippy to think that!!

5. There's a lot going on in STAR TREK world lately. What with the new show "Discovery" and now reportedly a Khan mini-series. To be honest, neither has me excited. Discovery was promised to be set 10 years before the events of Kirk/Spock prime (not JJ Abrams-verse) and yet the costumes, designs, etc look like JJ Abrams-verse. Plus there's Harry Mudd, being played by a 50 year old Rain Wilson, when in according to the timeline, Mudd would be in his 20s. Also meeting species before the Kirk timeline, like Tribbles... It just sounds like they are taking Trek-isms and throwing them together for a mish-mash of Trekking, with modern storytelling tropes of explosions and crew members hating each other. I'm not excited for it. And now the Khan series: It might be cool, but it has already been covered in a great book series and comic series. If you can improve on that, I don't know. But most importantly: WHY? Sometimes you don't need to see every nook and cranny of a universe. The story in your head can be just as great, if not better. Sometimes when we are shown in a cannon form how something unfolded, we get disappointed. I so wish they would just make a post-TNG/VOY/DS9 show and move forward that way. This isn't grandpa complaining... this is just story writing preference 101 talking. It would be as if I were to make a TV show based on football of the past, give them new, modern uniforms and robotic balls n'shit, and said it takes place before the first superbowl. Some football fans would be like, "wait a minute!!" Just saying. And yes, I'll give it a few episodes of a try. But I'm not excited about it.

5.5 But what I am excited about is Seth McFarlane's THE ORVILLE. Looks like a Galaxy Quest TV show and I'm sure will be a post-post-modern deconstructionist view on sci-fi TV show-isms. We'll see if it has legs to last that long with that, but so far what I see... I'm excited for that rather than Trek. So that says something.

6. I know you are probably curious as to how my comics are coming along. I'm busy assembling the Erotic Zone GN and that will go up on Kickstarter hopefully in August. I'm finishing it up now. Bare with me. I just had to juggle a weird schedule for a while and it took me a long time to catch up with sleep and life around it. But my training is done and I've tapped into the overtime hours. I even had to give up my Saturday off this week for some OT. That's okay. Its all for a greater good. But life priorities must come first before play. Bare with me.

7. On my MORNING SHOW PODCAST I started a new segment called "Does it hold up," where I revist old favorite movies I haven't seen in decades and ask essential questions wondering if the movie holds up or not. Also we are fast approaching episode 500 of the podcast. The contest now for the show is: EMAIL ME a question (or several) that I can read and answer on the air and you get entered into a drawing to win three hand drawn art pages from my comics! Contest ends just before I record episode 500, which is coming very soon! I think I got like 14 left to go. And those come quick! Act now and win stuff!!

I guess that is all that is on my mind currently. Have a great week my friends. Go do great things for yourself and others. Make it happen!

--T

PROGRESS!!!! (And comments on current events)

Hey friends!

After my last blog post I am happy to say that I actually took a day (my one day off that I mostly used to regulate my sleep) and did some work on the new book. I did a shit load of word balloons and colored three pinups. I got a massive chunk of it done and I am sharing some pics of progress below. SAFE FOR WORK and spoiler free of course. But enjoy the newest thing to come (very soon)!!!

Before we get to that, some comments on recent events:

---San Diego Comic Con brings a lot of cool news and things. Here is a list of things I got comments on:

1-JUSTICE LEAGUE TRAILER: Looks fine but sometimes modern movies just feel too flashy for me and might give me an epileptic seizure! The movie in my head will always be Chris Reeve, Michael Keaton, John W. Shipp and Lynda Carter playing those roles... But I'll never get that. I've always leaned toward DC titles more than Marvel, so lets see what happens. Likely I will be seeing that quickly unless reviews are abysmal.

2-STAR TREK DISCOVERY TRAILER: (Sigh) It is what it is and I will give the series a chance. Again, my TREK will always be everything from 1966-2002. Minus Voyager and Enterprise. So this is all we got. Whatever. Its... yeah, whatever. At least some of the gadget designs are inspired of TOS era stuff. That is something I guess. But so far I've seen nothing that makes me excited to see it. On the other hand...

3-THE ORVILLE: Now THIS is more like it! I'm super excited to see this show.

4-TREK TOYS: McFarlane does a run of TOS toys. Cool. (sigh) I'll need to get a second job soon.

5-DC VERTIGO: Good new art and the tease date of 080818 has me curious. More SANDMAN? Maybe something else? Cannot be more PREACHER without Steve Dillon. We'll see.

6-PREACHER (Rest of season 2 trailer): The HERR STARR stuff is awesome! I'm excited about it, of course. Season 2 has been waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyy better than the first one.

7-BLADE RUNNER 2049: I'm not the most massive BLADE RUNNER fan, but the trailer looks like fun. Maybe I will revisit the flick. Somehow the first movie missed my radar as a kid.

8-STRANGER THINGS 2: Yes!

---LINKIN PARK singer suicide thoughts: I wasn't a fan of the band and I had the anger on because they "replaced" Scott Weiland in STP with this dude. Not his fault, but still. Anyway, apparently he and Chris Cornell were close. Some weird shit is going down. But if it truly isn't some weird conspiracy and is a suicide as it appears to be.... I will get in trouble for my stance on this, but it seems like there is this weird movement of "accepting" suicide when it happens. Look, your life is your life and yeah, I understand pain and its your right to check out if you want. But it really devastates those around you, whether you think it wont or not... it does. Both of these dudes leave behind a family and kids that will have to grow up with that shit. As a father myself, it pisses me off. Forget about the fans and all that... what about their kids? To me, its a selfish act. Not a cowardly act, but just extremely selfish. I gotta think that somehow substances might influence or alter brain chemistry to allow such a thing to stay in the mind. I've been to the point of thinking in that ballpark of suicidal thoughts many times in my life. But I will never do it because it will hurt those I care about. So I suck whatever it is I am feeling up and ride the wave. Things get better. Things will change if you want them to. I understand circumstances like disease and other stuff. I respect people's wishes. But man, I could never do something like that to those I care about. I don't get it. If you are feeling these thoughts, please reach out. Call someone or one of the anonymous phone help lines. Life is a gift and its always better above ground. I mean, we got burritos up here. And Lord of the Rings. And good STAR WARS and STAR TREK flicks. And THE BEATLES' music!!!! C'mon now. We live in a great time. Sure there are assholes and shit to slug through, but man we got some good shit going on too if you look around. Reach out and it will reach back. I promise. Life is for the living.

Okay, here are the pics I promised. Enjoy! (Its all coming soon!)

---T