Doodles & Fog

Years back on my old job, when I'd get a couple minutes, I'd doodle things on Post-It notes for the amusement of my coworkers. One thing I did regularly was have General George Custer "reimagined" as a kind of pulp/serial hero in various ridiculous situations.

Just some quick drawings, again originally on those little yellow note pads:

These pics were taken on 2/4/08 -- quite a foggy day!

Here, around 9pm in the "T" shaped alley on my block. I'm sure Lon Chaney Jr. must be lurking about somewhere...

Earlier in the day, downtown
8:15 pm, according to the clock on the BOT

Strange Limbo

Once more, I have dug into my bag of Post-It note sized doodles to find something of interest (well, to me!). This I believe was my idea of cartoon duo who had hoped to become so omnipresent as to eventually evolve into a cultural cliche. But unfortunately for them they never got that first big break, and are forced to exist in a strange limbo* of "never was" characters

*hmmm -- strange limbo:

sounds like something you might find Fatty Arbuckle doing.

I was downtown early for a lunch, so took the opportunity to wander around for a few hours and take a bunch of pics. Here are a few:

This last one is from the evening Metra ride home.

Also while downtown, was at the Union Station food court, and was going to avail myself of the washroom; well there was a sign blocking the entrance that stated that it was being serviced, and to use the washroom at the lower level in the station. I went to the lower level, and found a sign there that said that the washroom was being serviced, and to use the one in the food court. It seemed so perfectly bureaucratic...

Bubbles & Worms

Walking down Adams this evening, passed the W Hotel. Out front, they had a bubble machine going for some reason. I imagined what it must have been like for some poor soul absent-mindedly schleping his way to the train after a rough day to suddenly find himself in the middle of a bubble fest.

More scenes from outside the commuter train window

Finally, if a PC can have "bugs", shouldn't a Macintosh have worms?

Bang On, Monkey Clawed Harp!

We'll start out today with something I called WAY TOO SERIOUS. Of my comic feature ideas, this has been one of my favorites; with this format, I felt (or feel) pretty free to do whatever was in my head (well, at least free to try and pull off what was in my head). The cartoons in this series usually had A LOT of text (someone once said to me about one of these: "You know Rob, most novels only have 300 pages...").

As with most of my other feature ideas, I only made about two dozen samples. These I'd send out to newspaper syndicate editors for more of my prized rejection slips.

This particular entry was inspired by the mulitude of friends I have who prefer vinyl records to digital media. One should be able to click on the image and get a larger (and therefore readable) version up on screen:

Here are some more pics taken from the moving Union Pacific North Metra train. Does to be one of my favorite activities of late.

This is from the parking lot of my building at about 9:00 pm Monday night -- still a bit of sunlight could be seen...

Doodle rung hippie

Sometimes I just doodle a picture and think "there's a story or joke in there somewhere..."
Some more pics from around my neighborhood:

Old school buildings have always reminded me of "scary" castles from horror movies. Of course, now that I think about it, Castle Dracula probably would have been preferable to some of the schools I've attended.

Anyway, this is Field school in Rogers Park. One thing that really catches my eye is the tall chimney; it's got ladder rungs running all the way to the top. Jeepers, I sure wouldn't want to climb up that!

Moving on...

Hey, In the job market? How about a little Real-World advice from a guy wearing a tie & glasses?

Shoe trees on Watermelon Street

Just a quick posting today; a busy day is ending -- It's late ... or really, really early (I can hear the birds chirping outside).

Out on Lincoln Avenue in Ravenswood. What does it say about the survival instincts of modern man when the first thought in my head was not "Why, that still looks edible!!", but "EWWW, that's GROSS-- I better take some pictures!"

On Ashland, south of Irving Park -- A shoe tree...

I promised someone I'd post this particular entry from my Disturbing Clown Of the Day series (well, actually, wasn't really daily; years ago at a place I worked , occasionally I could take a few moments to quickly draw a "disturbing clown" for the amusement of my coworkers):

Goon Candy

OK, starting out the second week here (and a Saturday yet!) with some pics, a cartoon and a reminiscence.

On Friday, I came across this old time taxi sitting on a trailer. I assume it will appear in Public Enemies, the Johnny Depp flick being filmed here (They'd already blocked off part of LaSalle for filming there Friday evening). This was parked on Monroe, just west of Wells.

A couple of shots from the Rogers Park Metra station around 3pm Friday. Nice angry looking sky, but I didn't get rained on.

Here's something from way back when chocolate bars cost 55 cents (The "good old days"? - I think not!). I call this one GOON CANDY

Thursday's encounter with the marsupial reminded me of an odd incident from about 13 years ago. It was perhaps two in the morning (back when I had regular working hours, and actually slept at night), and I was awakened by what sounded like a kind of "metalic" buzzing coming from outside (it was summer, so my window was open). I got out of bed to peek out the window, and in the moonlight I could see the tree in the next yard. The weird sounds were coming from about eight or nine creatures hanging from branches in the tree. Some of the critters were dropping down from the branches too. I wasn't wearing my glasses, and through the tree's leaves I couldn't really make out much detail, but I figure these creatures were opossums, apparently hanging from their prehensile tails. I got the impression the sounds they were making were sounds of fear. It was really kind of creepy! I went back to bed, and when I woke up in the morning and the sun was shining, I kind of wondered if the whole thing even happened.

Finally, here's a shot near sundown looking west from the Madison bridge

Delightfully hideous

I was walking on Glenwood by the Morse Red Line station when I snapped these:

Decrepitude, Decay, Dilapidation; It's like candy for the camera lens. Sweet...festering... candy...


Sepia Tone can ad a note of delightful hideousness to any picture, but in this case, the greenish color of the slime gives the suggestion of a diseased atmosphere; this taps into a wonderfully primordial sense of disgust.

Saw some Barbwire too!

I did have a little encounter with the primordial when I arrived home form work Thursday night. An opossum was shuffling about just outside my front door. When the creature noticed me, he shambled off down the gangway, but when I just stood there, he slowly came back, at which point he posed for this portrait :

Dug into my "Post-It" note doodles for this

Since I started this on Saturday, This post makes a week's worth so far. Not sure if I'm going to always put up something on weekends, but we'll see.

Heavy Mental

Had some particular cartoons I was going to post today -- But, unfortunately, a while ago I decided I was going to get "organized" and put all my old cartoons in a place I can easily find them. So of course, I can't find them (they are here somewhere!). I did find some Post-It note doodles, though. Here are a couple that caught my eye:

This one I know was inspired by actual trips in downtown elevators. I'd noticed that people would press the "1" (lobby) button when they walked in the elevator, even though it was already lit up. I guess it's just some reflex. I thought: "What if there just happens to be a rather unbalanced individual in the elevator when someone does this?"

Now we have this little pencil drawing, which even has a some dialog. I don't know if it was supposed to be part of a bigger cartoon or what. But I like the way it looks.

How about some photos? Sure -- here are some pics I took on 7/7/07 mostly around Edgewater, and then up at Loyola University:

OK, and finally, we have a little bit of "humor" that may not be for the easily grossed-out.

On Wednesday, I'd emailed out an article about a fellow who had a nail in his brain. A fine young lady friend of mine suggested that Nail In The Brain would be a good name for a heavy-metal rock band. I resoponded with "So would Hammer Snot" (a name I'd used on a fake album cover cartoon some years back). She confirmed my conjecture. I thought I'd email the original cartoon to her, but alas, it's one that is in the "somewhere" limbo; so I decided to just draw a new one (in pencil), which I think is quite a bit better than the old one:

I've even come up with some pretentious album tracks:

Side A

1. The Dawn: Symphony of Battle

2. Vomit Fist

3. Carpet of Wolves, Sky of Knives

4. Taste of Triumph

Side B

1. Opus: Ballad of a Godling

In keeping with the nasal nature of the project, I thought maybe a track called Sneeze The Day would be nice, but that would be just plain silly!

Hey -- second day in a row I've got something related to noses -- maybe I've got a weird fixation or something.