A Sideways Glance

Back in 1996, I was trying to figure out what was wrong with my life. I had been barely employed as a movie extra. I didn't want to go through a temp agency to get a job but I was having a hard time getting work through the newspaper ads.

Of course, I was working on Pipe Dreams. However I took some time off to evaluate what I needed to do with the strip to make it more marketable. I tried to improve on my brushwork. I also felt that I needed to retcon the strip.



















I decided to streamline the strip. I took the character Julian away and would only have the main characters, no incidental characters in this set of Pipe Dreams. One of my rejection letters, again from Jay Kennedy of King Features, said my characters were too de classe (Yeah, I had to look it up) He had stated he had no idea where the characters were from, how they knew each other and what they did for a living. It's true I was deliberately vague about what they did for a living but I thought I was clear how they knew each other.


Side note...

When I worked on my last set of strips I missed out on being one of of the many comic strips that would replace Calvin and Hobbes after its final strip appeared on December 31, 1995. The previous set to that wasn't good so I decided I needed to step up my work on this set of Pipe Dreams.

Anyway, the first thing I had wanted to do was to have all the main characters live in the same house. When I was in SVA, my PIC buddies would often talk about how if one of us were to win the lottery or come into lots of money, that person would buy a large house for all of us to live together. When I lived in Greenwood, I had four roommates sharing a large house. I used that house as a model for this set of Pipe Dreams. It would allow for plausible interactions for twenty somethings that had diverse backgrounds.



















I changed the backgrounds of the characters a little to reintroduce the cast to prospective syndicators.

Gritzko was now a Gulf War veteran (Now known as Gulf War I), in my mind he was older than the rest of the characters, which was a little based on my Seattle friend Dan, who lived in the house in Greenwood.









Dirk and Anais were now brother and sister, but only for this set of strips. I didn't think it was necessary, but I felt that there needed to a background to who owned the house they lived in, and felt there needed to be siblings in the strips and the two of them seemed logical.










Rachel was now named Rebecca. That was because of the success of the show "Friends". I had come up with Pipe Dreams before Friends came on air but felt that if I had a character named Rachel in a comic strip involving twenty somethings living in a big city, it would be considered a ripoff. That also became the reason I put them in a house, instead of apartments.













Buck was introduced to most of the characters as though he were a new character. He had the same characteristics as before.













Skat didn't change much. He did become more of a caricature. He had a standard outfit and was now walking around with a bass guitar as though he was an aspiring musician.









I also clearly indicated that Dirk and Rachel(Rebecca) had a relationship that was now newly over.




























The house I lived in had a car port with a room behind it. No one lived back there but I thought it would be neat to make that a room for one of the Pipe Dreams cast. Ever the cheap slacker, Skat fit the bill.



















One other change I made was that I was going to present the strip to the syndicates in larger format. Before, I presented it on an 8 1/2 by 11 paper four to a page vertically on one side of the paper. The Syndicate requires a package of 30 strips in black and white. I decided with this set of strips I would flip it to a horizontal format, two per page. I did this in a subtle nod to what the format of how the Calvin and Hobbes collection books were presented since 1994. Since I was cheap I put the cartoons on both sides of the paper. I also finally figured out how to do it on the copy machines at Kinkos. This actually got praise from my priviledged friends who got copies of Pipe Dreams.














Anyway, I felt that this set of Pipe Dreams were the best I sent in, very consistent in the artwork and more coherent than previous sets. Some good visual gags were present and Anais was starting to look more sexy.

Roy Scheider

New Jersey born actor Roy Scheider passed away the other day. He is best known for being the police chief in the movie Jaws. He also is noted for his supporting actor Academy Award nomination in the French Connection.

But the movie I want to focus on is the movie 52 Pick-Up. It's a movie that came out after Roy had reached his peak. It's a thriller that features Ann Margret as his wife.









I have never seen the movie.







So, why am I talking about it?

Well, it was playing at the Gramercy movie theater on 23rd street NYC back in 1986. They had a large marquee that would have the movie's title done up in the style of the movie's logo. When the movie played its run, they would dispose of the sign outside the front of the theater.



When 52 Pick-Up ended its run its sign was outside in separate pieces. The 52 was in one piece and the PICK-UP sign was split in two. The PIC was one piece and the K-UP was the other. The typical college thing to do was to gather found items and put it in your room, I thought having a Movie marquee sign in my dorm room would be kinda neat. The problem was that I was on my way to class and I couldn't carry the whole sign to class. So I tried to figure out which part would be the best one. I felt the 52 was too dull and didn't like the font. K-Up was too vague, so I picked up the PIC and was on my way.






I took it back to my dorms, hung it up and was trying my best to come up with the appropriately witty words to fill out the acronym of PIC.

To this day I haven't done so.

I'm open to suggestions.

Tuesday Is My Favorite Day of The Week?

I currently have no days off from work these days. My schedule is weird. I work Monday through Friday at UPS in the evenings from 5ish to 10ish. I then work at TSA Thursday through Monday form 5AM 'til noon or one depending on my mood.

This leaves me with Saturday and Sunday afternoons to enjoy football, food and family. Still I have a hard time getting to bed early to get enough sleep.

This leaves me Tuesdays and Wednesdays as having the most free time. For some reason, I don't go out on Monday nights after work. I guess I'm too tired from one of the three days a week I work both jobs.

So that leaves Tuesday. I get to sleep in, which is a luxury these days. I allow myself to wake up really late. I relax by listening to the Stephanie Miller Show on I-tunes internet radio, cuz daytime TV is insanity except for the movies on TCM. I recommend the show for people who are left wing but have a sense of humor. She's great.

I then, take long walks around the Atlantic Highlands which reminds me of the Queen Anne area of Seattle but with the New Jersey creepiness that seems to permeate almost every town on the coast. There's a good mixture of housing types from old style mansions to decent looking ranches and Sears houses. Yeah, that sounds dull but I like architecture and this town has a variety of styles and various renovation ideas throughout.

Anyway, I work on my blog drinking my coffee before I head to work.

Work sucks but it has been keeping me in shape and what little money I make goes into my savings account. Like I said, some financial setbacks is keeping me from moving ahead in my life while I convince myself I wasn't a total idiot for moving back to Jersey.

Anyhow, after work, if it's early enough I go to Windmill at Long Branch and have a double burger that is very tasty. the weather has been nice, so the atmosphere is nostalgic. I then go to Jack's to do my karaoke. I have been doing well in singing, recently and doing well by other means, wink wink. And the beer is good.

The best part of Tuesday nights is I don't have to worry about where I spend the night. I don't have to get up a 3:30 to go to work. Now I have to find a place near me that does Karaoke on Mondays....

Wow.... who'd thunk...

The Giants win the Super Bowl and I look at the sky and sure enough, the pigs are flying high tonight. I went to visit my friend Lucifer in Hell. Man was it cold!

Whoever predicted this after week two of the season needed to be sent into an insane insylum.


Well, folks

Release that man!!!


And a giant Fuck You to Tiki Barber

Videos in tribute to Rudy

I'm Winning?

I dunno, I'm in the mood to listen to Santana, How 'bout you?




Some more Santana? Why not?



Can't get enough? Okay, here you go




Too much? How about a low tech graphic interpretation of JOHAN Sebastian Bach's most famous composition.





So why am I in the mood for JOHAN Sebastian Bach and Carlos SANTANA?











Because the Mets somehow pulled the trigger and got premiere pitcher Johan Santana from the Twins. I thought for sure that he was going to be a Yankee. The Yankees had better prospects and offered one of the best but the Twins wanted more, the Mets didn't have as much and seemed like they were never going to be a player.

The Twins coveted one player, Jose Reyes. That was not going to happen. The Mets would not be foolish enough to give up Reyes or David Wright anytime in the next decade. They are the Mets version of Derek Jeter and Bernie Williams.

So, when the trade talks with the Yankees produced nothing, Omar Minaya stepped in offered some good, but not great prospects for Santana and now, barring any bizarre obstacles, Santana will be a Met next year and once again the Mets will be the team to beat in the National League and the bitterness of 2007's collapse will begin to fade away.

Ahhh, that's tasty!

MicroBrew of The Week

I like trying new kinds of beer in the microbrew catagory.

Today I tried a new brand called

Cricket Hill East Coast Lager

It's a smooth smoky brew from a Fairfield New Jersey brewery.