All the President's Spin

With the political "silly season" cranking up I figured this next Babeltoon was most apropos. Although drawn a few years back, nothing much has changed. I always thought that "a pox on both your houses" political humor was just too easy. However, as someone who has for decades now observed political activity with the same ghoulish delight that some people have watching Faces of Death videos, I just couldn't resist. You have to appreciate the absurdity of the system that we allow to run the world.

TwoDee Players-Science Fiction Tale

A few years back I drew several stories starring a cast of animal characters. I used them like a theatrical troupe playing different characters in different genre tales. This was "our" homage to Star Trek, and was a lot of fun to do. The music on here is a cheesy version of the theme to Blade Runner by Vangelis, taken off of an el-cheapo Laserlight Sci-Fi theme collection.

The Horror...

A small tribute to the Monster Madness that permeated the kid culture of my youth, dedicated to two Horror Fathers who were instrumental in it's intensity, William M. Gaines of EC Comics, and Forrest J. Ackerman of Famous Monsters of Filmland. I have long admired the accompanying music, "Reel Ten", taken from the Repo Man soundtrack.

born, never asked...

Mithrandir

An homage to my favorite Tolkien character. Thanks to all of the artists whose visions of Gandalf were used for this piece, Leonard Rosenman for the music, and Professor Tolkien for cooking up the whole wonderful mythos that has enlightened our lives...

Do You Remember "Do You Remember These?"

I am in an odd position of having nostalgia for nostalgia. When I was a kid a huge wave of 50's nostalgia swept the country, most memorably via American Graffiti and Happy Days. But anyone watching TV at that time was inundated with countless K-Tel 50's record compilations- ("Remember those Saturday nights you wished would never end?") 50's style music on commercials, Sha Na Na, etc, etc. I always got a kick out of the Statler Brothers and their 50s nostalgia song came early in the wave, so I never held it against 'em. This is one of their fun songs that we listened to a fair amount from the old parental collection. This video was a homemade production off of Youtube that I thought did a great job of illustrating the song, and actually cleared up a couple of things I always wondered about in the references. I am sure some enterprising child of the 60s or 70s could make a killer version of this tuned to that time, er that is, if an enterprising person could be found among us!

Food For Thought

"My friend Alan Watts in a lecture once proposed...'The truth of the matter is that you didn't come into this world at all. You came out of it, in the same way that a leaf comes out of a tree or a baby from a womb...Just as Jesus said that one doesn't gather figs from thistles or grapes from thorns, so also you don't gather people from a world that isn't peopling. Our world is peopling, just as the apple tree apples, just as the vine grapes.' We are a product of this earth, that is to say; and, as Dr. Watts observed in that same talk, if we are intelligent beings, it must be that we are the fruits of an intelligent earth, symptomatic of an intelligent system; for 'one doesn't gather grapes from thorns.'

"We may think of ourselves, then, as the functioning ears and eyes and mind of this earth, exactly as our own ears and eyes and mind are of our bodies. Our bodies are one with this earth, this wonderful 'oasis in the desert of infinite space'; and the mathematics of that infinite space, which are the same as of Newton's mind-our mind, the earth's mind, the mind of the universe-come to flower and fruit in this beautiful oasis through ourselves."

-Joseph Campbell, Myths To Live By