Books are now available for order directly from my publisher's online store. And as a special courtesy, they're even in English this time.

Club-shaped pins are new on the menu too, in case you're ever in the neighborhood and care to slip into a certain St. Louis speakeasy to enjoy some of Captain Kehoe's fabulous Mississippi embalming fluid hooch.
They're approximately the exact size of the image shown here:

You heard me. I said approximately exactly.



Lately, I've amassed a small collection of notes and emails requesting advice or "tips" about how to be an artist, how to be a professional artist, or about arting in general. I apologize for not responding to all of these messages. I really don't know how, to be perfectly frank. Answering more specific questions is much easier. When it comes to the broader scope, not only do I feel unqualified to offer counsel, but vague questions yield vague answers, and those scarcely seem useful. Anything I try to write in response reads like pablum fit for haiku.

bleed on blank canvas
fever dreams, shabby wages
an artist is you

Sensing that I'm being unintentionally rude by dodging the questions, though, I've scrounged around the general-knowledge center of my brain for something worthwhile to say. So, here are a few scraps for the Gallery of Oblique Advice for Artists:

Do art. Do it all the time. If you need someone to tell you that - if you're not already spending almost every free waking hour drawing, painting, 3D modeling, or whatever your vice - you probably ought not consider it as a future career.

Develop a raging inferiority complex. It'll keep you working hard, because you'll never fall victim to believing you're good enough.

Accept honest feedback. Actively seek it out, in fact. If you're switching on the 'discourage criticism' option on your deviations and you wish to be something more than a hobbyist, you're doing it wrong.

Learn to accept said feedback with some measure of grace. That's often difficult, I know, but as a professional, few people will empathize with how personally you take your art. You will be very exposed to criticism, and it will not behoove you to react like a hypersensitive ninny.

Learn the fundamentals - light and shadow, color theory, composition, construction method drawing, figure drawing, perspective drawing - either in school or of your own accord. It'll apply to just about anything you do with art. Even if you're a Dadaist, you have to learn it so that you can properly ridicule it.

Don't attend a technical school to learn art. That sounds like a no-brainer, but these types of schools are plastering ads all over television, professing to make students ready for game industry positions. Lies!

Try not to apply for a job with a portfolio full of nothing but fan art, for chrissake.

Don't forget to work on your artist image. You could always start by wearing vintage clothing and drinking absinthe made by obscure independent brewers. And remember, "I'm an artist" is a legitimate response to all sorts of questions about your inappropriate social behavior and terrible fashion sense.

Quest for a deeper meaning to imbue in your art. Take up your artists' tools; embark on your spiritual journey of self-discovery; try not to get shivved by a hobo on the way.

Well, there you have it, artlings. Now, before you know it, you'll be rolling in filthy lucre!*
(* Lucre not actually available. But feel free to have a roll in the filth anyway, since you're an artist and you can get away with that sort of behavior. Just as long as you enjoy yourself.)



...And what a crap sandwich it's been so far. It seems like everyone I know has been sent reeling by some undeserved catastrophe or another, economy related and otherwise. The worst of it is that there are lamps still eerily lit and a sense of loss filling the spaces where people used to be. Breathing the air in this climate threatens to fill the lungs with a sort of lugubrious depression syrup. Hmm. Whoops. That sounds inadvertently tasty. It's not, though; it just suffocates and slows the vital humors.
But perhaps spring will come bearing ease and sunshine. Maybe this is just the dark trial before the minor apotheosis of our contained little hero's journeys. I'm cynical, though, honestly. The pattern is seldom so neat and literary. Life is sillier than that...
...which is why I'm holding out hope that Obama and Spiderman will save us.


Referenced some css code from 's lovely layouts in trying to piece this new journal look together, and so credit is due.