How's Things?

Here's the video of my performance at The Burlington on July 12th. It's longer than the first performance of Go Down. I re-timed the video to give more space to the darkness before each scene (and to myself, to build sounds in that darkness). I knew more clearly what voices to program into the pedal I was using, and I was more confident in my performance. I also enlisted Krystal to help me get my all-white contact lenses in before I went on stage. (I wanted to at Brain Frame, but didn't have time.)

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Ian has completed the blog entry for which I drew this Sliders comic. It's very strange, and features excellent comics from many friends and peers, so I highly recommend it.

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Here are some photos from Brain Trubble, the Brain Frame/Trubble Club/CAKE opening night party I helped organize in June. That's me, Ian, and Jeremy reading some comics - Ian and I did a mime section later in the night, that's why we're in makeup.

I'm talking to the Sackley puppet built by Bernie McGovern and puppeteered by Jeremy.

That's Gabrielle Bell, doing a live portait of an audience member.

The live drawing was a new idea, and went over really well, thanks especially to improvised accompaniment by Alex Inglesian and Stephen Ptacek. This is Mike Taylor illustrating 'face eating is a problem' live. Gillian Fry took all these beautiful photos.

Recent Days (Preview)

Here are a few pages from the comic I'll be reading tomorrow at Brain Frame 7. It's an autobiographical comic about the summer of 2011 called Recent Days. When it's finished, it will be well over 100 pages long. (The longest comic I've made to date is 11 pages.) I'm reading the first half at this Brain Frame, and the second half at Brain Frame 8, in September.

The comic is all drawn in pencil and non of it is planned beforehand. Usually, I methodically organize every little detail of my comics before beginning to draw them; not so in this case. The comic began as an exercise in forcing myself to draw and not worrying about it. It has morphed into a raw, honest, particular style, new to me and well suited to the subject matter. I often find autobiographical comics tiresome and problematic - it's been interesting trying to make one of my own, and one that I like.

There are a lot of real people featured in this narrative, and addressed by their full names. One of the great things about this reading is that most of those people will be present and playing themselves. Here're some photos of Ben Bertin, Gina Wynbrant and I working on a silhouette booth for the performance:

And here's a photograph of the Brain Frame 7 screen printed poster, which I finished last Sunday with help from Andrew Ghrist and susan sarandon:

This Brain Frame, I've upped the ante in more ways than just my reading and the poster. Brain Frame is goin' public! It got listed in The Reader, profiled (and recommended!) on Newcity, and Gapers Block was kind enough to interview me for a writeup as well! Susan sarandon also created this incredible gif:

Other, more personal, internet news include an artist's profile on Make Space and a wonderful, business-man's shout out on BOOOOOOOM! Yeah!

Corpse Pose Tattoo

Tyson asked me to draw a completely relaxed human being. John Herndon (of Tortoise) inked it. I like how now it looks like he's laying in hair grass.

Brain Frame 7

HAS IT REALLY BEEN A WHOLE YEAR? OMG WTF!
 
Edie and I made this poster. It is the most complicated poster I have ever made. It is insane. It will be screen printed on 22' x 30' paper, which is the size at which it was drawn. It will have five colors, and all that goldenseal you see will be actual metallic gold ink. The dragon will be less red and thus the blood spurting from it will stand out more. Edie drew the dragon, the non-flag text, and the pattern on the side panels. I drew the knight, the crag, the woodgrain, the plants, the flag-text, and the background. I spent so long coloring and compositing the various parts. I can't believe this image exists.

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The heady spirit of underground, alternative, and/or experimental comics, shaken and poured over the glistening, ice cold rocks of interpretive presentation and/or performance; you are handed this cocktail in a glass, bubbling to match your own effervescence, as the crowd around you gawks, laughs, sighs, and/or is moved.

FEATURING:
Andy Burkholder
Mairead Case [presenting a collaboration with David Lasky]
Lyra Hill
Ian McDuffie
Nicholas O’Brien
Leslie Weibeler

With obelisk dicks, Magic: The Gathering, harsh noise, Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Berkin, autobiographical self-destruction, celebratory champagne, and live music by Tyson Torstenson.

10pm on Saturday, July 28th, 2012. 1542 N Milwaukee, 2nd floor, $7.

NOTE: Wicker Park Fest is occurring the same weekend. Guests are advised against trying to drive. The festival ends at 10pm, which is when Brain Frame starts.

Sliders: Paradise Lost

Ian McDuffie is a close friend, peer, and artistic associate of mine. He is currently episode-by-episode blogging about all five seasons of Sliders, a late 90's sci fi drama about a rag-tag bunch who can 'slide' through dimensions. Ian is approaching the blog post for an episode that is widely regarded as the worst of all Sliders episodes, and because, according to Ian "enough has been said" on the subject already, he asked a bunch of his friends to watch the episode and draw response comics, instead of following his usual format.

I'd never watched Sliders before, and it sounded like a fun project, so Tyson and I sat down and watched Paradise Lost, the infamous lemon. It was really, really terrible. I took lots of notes and ended up with the above page. The first two panels are drawings of my favorite shot from the episode, where the camera zooms in on the wise, handicapped old woman's face as she repeats "The cove, the cove" and then cross-dissolves awkwardly to a shot of the cove. Never drawn a cross-dissolve before! It's hard! The third panel is in there because it was a ridiculous moment. I opted out of showing the more sensationalist plot lines (a giant cave/cove-dwelling glow worm who emits green goo which the town of centenarians eat to appear young forever, at the cost of sacrificing transients). Some of the other comics will probably tackle these subjects, so be sure to check them out when Ian posts them.

Handbill

Paul Durica founded Pocket Guide To Hell, a series of tours, talks, and reenactments centering around key moments in Chicago history, in 2008. This month, they're organizing the largest reenactment to date. On Sunday, July 15th, three different moments when humankind meddled with the Chicago waterways will be re-lived in downtown Chicago.

I really love the Pocket Guide's events, so when Paul asked me to make the handbill for Like a Secondhand Sea, I was psyched. The name of the event was taken from Nelson Algren's book Chicago: City on the Make, published 1951, and quoted in pieces by man walking through the wind in the above graphic. I make handbills now!

Crystal Concert

Hey, listen. I'm going to be reading Go Down again, at the Burlington, on the 12th of July (a Thursday). The show starts at 9:00pm sharp, and there's a suggested donation of $7. It's gonna be real good and if you're in Chicago you should go. Seriously, this is a great line up. It's a new environment for me; aside from the CAKE benefit at Mortville, I've never been the one performance artist in an otherwise musical revue. Hopefully people will dig it. I think they will.

Xina Xurner make "noise diva drag dance-anthems that ooze sex, death, and decay," Night Terror makes delicious, creepy electronic dance-prog that you can't dance to because it's melting your bones and in a really upsetting time signature, and Gel Set makes "dark electro-pop" with a seductive voice and a morbid sense of humor. Sign up on Facebook here.

I challenged myself to design this poster in under an hour, and succeeded. The actual Photoshopping and printing took several hours more, but on the whole, this flier was a remarkably simple effort for an impressive payoff. Each color is a different color separation layer. In the original file, they all line up perfectly. I wanted them to misregister, however, for perhaps obvious reasons: the computer text at the bottom fragments, and the overlapping facets combine to form really nice new tones.

Dork Photobooth

Drunk art: I say, "Hey, let's go in the photo booth!" and then I say, "we have to plan it first" because I like making everything difficult for everyone. This is a page of my sketchbook with the organizational sketch and the resultant composition; I'm in the middle, with Melissa on the left and AJ on the right. We got everything right except for Melissa forgetting to take off her sunglasses in the last frame. Yes, this post is worthy of my blog; it's my blog and I say so.

Ladydrawers

I recently finished a collaborative comic with Anne Elizabeth Moore for her Ladydrawers series on Truthout. You can go read the full comic, as well as the reactionary comments, here.

Ladydrawers is a series of strips, each drawn by a different female artist, about female artists in the comics industry. Anne Moore and her team collect statistics from a variety of women and transpeople in the biz. My comic focuses on gender and sexuality-based harassment, and features personal stories collected by the ladydrawers and Janelle Asselin.

I drew this strip while I was vacationing with Tyson in Utah. The comic has nothing to do with Utah. I made a cake in Utah and we ate it all weekend, and went on some hikes and to a drive-in movie.

WHAT ELSE?

CAKE was the best goddamned comics convention I've ever attended in my whole fuckerfucking life. I met so many amazing people and had endless exciting conversations. If you saw/talked to/yelled at/listened to me during CAKE, thank you for existing. CAKE, thank you for existing. I'm verklemmt.

Brain Trubble

This upcoming weekend, the 16th and 17th of June, is the first annual Chicago Alternative Comics Expo (CAKE). I'll be tabling with Lale Westvind, Ian McDuffie, and Ben Bertin, right next to the Trubble Club table... wait, did I just mention Trubble Club?! It just so happens that Brain Frame and Trubble Club are joining forces to hold the opening night party for CAKE, a special edition Brain Frame featuring all Trubble Club comics, all Trubble Club members, all the time! How serendipitous! You'd think that we're all friends who live in the same city or something, and respect each others' considerable and multi-varied talents. Or something.

I'm the official host of this event, along with Sackley, the lovable dog with unfortunate testes, appearing in puppet form with great effort from Bernie MacGovern and Jeremy Tinder (it takes two men to drag that sack). Gabrielle Bell, Leslie Stein, and Mike Taylor will also be coming on stage to do live drawings during the event. Jeremy Tinder, Aaron Renier, and Grant Reynolds drew the poster. Attend: Friday, June 15th, 9:00pm, at 1542 N Milwaukee, 2nd floor. Free, donations suggested.

OTHER NEWS:

1) Brain Frame got reviewed on Make Space! Thanks Kelly Parsell!

2) I have a small gallery wall goin' on at the Gene Siskel Film Center, in association with the Chicago Underground Film Festival (CUFF). My CUFF poster and the original drawings are on display, as well as some other family-friendly screen prints and the front and back cover of Compiled. The Film Center is open starting at 2pm on weekends, and 5pm on weekdays. I look pretty happy, right?