Steranko Effect

I've not been adding content to my blog at all, this has to be obvious. I've spent the week angry, like maybe kits a brain tumor angry. In no real order, I've had a dark squiggly cloud over my head because of these things. Carrie "Shut the Fuck Up Already" Prejean's book, $27.95 at just under 200 pages. And my agent thinks a memoir about myself won't sell. Maybe I need boob implants and start making solo sex tapes, the latter being no problem whatsoever. And don't get me started on Sarah "I'm the Anti-Christ" Palin. Yes, I'm still on my list. Cell phones. Who the Geronimo H. Baldheaded Christmas is everybody talking to, any why? Black helicopters, again going by after dark so I can't take their photos, the bastards. My weight hitting 170, that's right, I weigh 170 pounds, for the first time in my life. My cousin in Kentucky dying today, her son keeping her at home brain-dead for 27 days even though she had a DNR. Her organs are wasted now, no one can get them. One more blind guy who stays blind. These fucking "Obama-phone" emails I keep getting, a program first passed by Jeb "My Brother Is a Fucktard" Bush, and the person who started the email cannot even spell Google correctly. Yow, I've had a lot boiling in my head, huh? Can't help that FoxNews is on pretty much 24/7 in my house and I've come to realize how many closet racists I know. So on to fun stuff.

Jim Steranko and Jack Kirby were insane with their artistic output. Steranko was the first artist to just go balls out nuts with angles and crazy, beatnik-hippie designs. I recall one story title spelled out in the receding waves on a beach. Neal Adams did homage in a Deadman comic, if you look close at the purple wisps it read "Hey, A Steranko Effect." Good on ya, Neal. And the thing most people remember about Kirby, if you take a random poll, is the way the characters leap off the page, squarish hands and fingers grabbing out. And so when I was screwing around with the FX on my webcam, I decided to give myself Kirby Fingers. Ah, the anger recedes as I talk of artists of olden times. I'll be fine until I hit the streets tomorrow and almost get rundown by some asshole in a Suburban talking on their cell about tonight's episode of DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES.

Night of the Four Sticks

I think we all know what the Four Sticks Curse is by now...I just want to get it over with.

Await Further Instructions

The first illustration came up during conversation at Clarke's. The rest fell into place. The Polish boob exam was sent to me by Turek up in Anchorage. This is how we blow our money on stamps.

Sledgehammers and Ice Picks

This is how I remember the night the Berlin Wall was torn down, twenty years back. Times past. Most of you know about the car that hit me in March of 89, and the night of the Wall coming down had me again at Holy Cross Hospital. Sometime in October, the plates holding together what was left of the bones in my left forearm broke in half, and after a few days, well, the second photo tells you what my arm looked like. I, of course, took the photo of my arm because everyone else was creeped out. (Nothing new there, even now.)

So there I was, my left arm feeling like it was submerged in molten goo. The television was on, I was doped up on Demerol every two hours and Tylenol#3 every hour, and so I had to be told--and I am not making this up--that I was watching Tom Brokaw reporting and NOT Arnie Becker on L.A. LAW. I do not remember the wall being torn down, nor do I remember Noriega and the invasion of Panama deal. I was glad when 1989 was over, and I'm glad that that wall stayed down.

Creeple People Like You & Me

I know my content has been low, nothing weird going on in my life, just coasting along away from the keyboard. Here's one of the posts I had saved up for before Hallowe'en. And somehow I had thought that Vac-U-Form was another version of the Creeple People, but they are two different brands. Just like Mercurochrome (however its spelled), I can still smell that melting plastic in the various molds. My older cousin had one of these things back when I lived on Crystal Street. And I never once burned myself. Or tried to eat a fake tongue (I'd have been five at the time.) Things just aren't the same anymore. Over the summer, one of my nieces gave me a dinosaur foot that she grew in a cup of water. I'll admit, it looked cool for about a day. Then it started shrinking and hardening. It fell behind my bookshelf and likely looks like a molecule from the H1N1 virus by now. Can't make the cool things like Creeple People anymore. No better cheap thrill than putting an eyeball in an Easy-Bake oven.

The Best Kept Secret In Chicago

My 700th post, for those keeping track. You all everybody know I love me my postcards. There's a place I buy them at, but its, well, a porn shop. A huge, giant, ridiculously big porn shop. But in the front they sell VHS tapes, newspapers, and postcards at 5 for a buck. The heading here is from the side of the building, right there at 77th & Cicero, a square brown box between an Arby's and the Saratoga Motel. Well, I bought 50 postcards, holy crap, right? But I still had to stand in line behind those renting or buying videos and those buying, well, gifts of some sort. I was able to get multiple cards of those shown and many others, but there was only one of the creepy dolls at the bottom. So I'm keeping that one for myself.

Found this great painting by the Hildebrandt Brothers over the weekend. Can't really add to it, they've done great work for decades now, and I know several artists, particularly Greg Horn, who cite them as inspiration. The best thing an artist or writer can hear, that they've passed something on to the next generation...