Do Not Fear The Darkness

I made a book for anyone who's feeling overwhelmed by or afraid of the violence and divisiveness that is (for now) gathering strength and power, anyone despairing at their ability to make change or feel joy, and anyone who wants or tends to run from uncomfortable or uncertain situations. I guess you can call it a self-help zine. I performed it last Saturday at the one year anniversary of  Zine Not Dead.
[See above photo by Mary Beth Higgens. Documentation of this performance will be available soon.]

This book contains writing, drawings, suggestions, and exercises to strengthen your spiritual and emotional fortitude. These are exercises I use frequently, across personal, educational, performative, and ritual practices. They work.

Like many people I know, in particular many artists and creative people I know, my faith in the worth of my efforts, indeed, in the worth of humanity, has at times been deeply shaken, even absent. This is not one of those times. My favorite thing about growing older is lengthening perspective. I have lived long enough to see, over and over, the resolution of pain through process and time. Trauma heals; worth is found; sense of stability grows again - if the issue is addressed. Often, we are more frightened by the fallout from a problem than the problem itself. We must stop, turn, and face this difficult work.

I know that many of the scariest possibilities are imposed from outside and above in the hierarchy of power. I know that those with greater privilege must leverage it as a resource and be the front line of resistance. (If you don't know what I'm talking about, read this, this, and this.) I also know that every single living human being has baggage that hampers their efforts to make positive change.

So often, the smallest insecurities cause the largest efforts to crumble. When it comes to working and organizing together - which is essential to combatting systematic oppression and creating social safety nets - it is imperative that each individual in the collective takes responsibility for their personal well-being and moral growth. Nobody is perfect, but everyone can improve. Working on yourself is not frivolous. It's not lazy, because if you're really working, it's not easy. It is not narcissistic, because it requires humility. Evolution is spurred by diversity: of ideas, experience, and ability. That's why the exercises in this book are flexible and can be practiced by oneself, with a partner, or in a group.

You can read Do Not Fear The Darkness in full online by clicking here, or by paging through like this:


You are also more than welcome to hard copies for yourself (and others!) Click here to download the pdf with instructions for print and assembly. If you run a comic shop, book store, event space or whatever, you have my blessing to distribute Do Not Fear The Darkness to all who pass through. Do not sell this book, it is free.

May the new year illuminate further tools for transformation. Wishing you love and power.

Cat Tongue

This comic is called Cat Tongue, and was just printed in The Lifted Brow, which is a superb "attack journal" from Australia. This is the first comic that I ever drew for performance first, and print second.

Here's how it looks printed in The Lifted Brow. I am so pleased! You should definitely check out this publication and subscribe if you like experimental fiction and pointed commentary.

Hey, look, my name is on the cover!

Cat Tongue is a story that came to me over a long period of time, and one that bundles several passions neatly together: lesbianism, power tools, beastial fantasy, hallucinatory psychedelia, and of course, color separation. It is also a conceptual follow-up to Go Down, the first (Cat Tongue being the second) in a projected trilogy of comics about female sexuality and oral fixation.

I drew Cat Tongue for performance at the last Brain Frame. I performed it last. It was the last Brain Frame performance ever. (I'm performing it again this month, scroll down for info.) Here's the video:



In this performance, there are three rear-projection screens. The two on either side are illuminated by 16mm film loops. The center screen shows a shifting, CMY color-separated animations of the panels advancing. I am using my trusty vocal effect loop pedal, in combination with an audio feed from one of the 16mm projectors, which is broadcasting the sound of sprocket holes running through an optical sound reader. I am manipulating these two audio inputs (vocal and mechanical) to accompany the hallucinatory narrative. In this performance, analog film machinery = wood shop power tools. When my characters lick the saw and drill, I stand and lick the 16mm projectors.

I drew this comic in about four days, which is remarkable considering I had to draw each page four times. I had to draw each page four times because I needed each color layer to stand on its own as a compelling image, and match imperfectly with its corresponding layers, in order for the separation animation to feel organic and complete.

I began by drawing the machines. Because they are an object of fantasy, they needed to have a different feeling, a different line than the organic materials (flesh, clothing, wood). I staged a photo shoot in an actual wood shop with two friends willing to model. (I captured the 16mm film that would loop in my performance during this shoot, as well.) Drawing on these reference photos and some machine manuals I have, I illustrated all the metal with clean lines, rulers, and high contrast shine and shadow. I penciled in the figures around them. Here's what my base layer page looks like:

Next, I drew three complete pages on top of each base layer, illustrating the cyan, magenta, and yellow parts of the scene. I used a brush pen and tracing paper. I drew each color layer without referencing the others, only the base page and pencil sketches.

I developed a schema to organize the colors consistently. For example: the jeans and overalls would only be illustrated on the cyan page. The shirts would only appear in the yellow layer. The white woman's freckles would only appear in magenta; her goggles, cyan. Here's a comparison of the color layers of two panels on page 3:

To complete the image, I scanned and aligned each layer in Photoshop (you can see my little triplet registration marks on the base page above). I added the machine drawings to all three color layers, so that in the fleeting instances that the animation aligned, the machines would become crisp and black while the rest of the image would continue to appear in flux.

Preparing this comic for print was a novel challenge. I ended up manipulating the text much more than I do in the video animation, for legibility. It was a delight to attempt to replicate the feeling of the cat-transformation on the printed page, by exploding the panels and totally destroying the previous implication of gutters (and thus, time).

I'll be performing Cat Tongue for a second time on April 21st at the Gene Siskel Film Center, as part of my Conversations at the Edge show. This show is a big deal: I'll be enacting three different pieces, one of which is a brand new performative-comix-reading, as well as debuting three short videos. You should come. Buy tickets here.

Llama Man Memories

Here's another new comic, about my first performance of Night City at Brain Frame 2, my first time bringing Llama Man to the stage. This page will be published in the Brain Frame Yearbook.

At the Yearbook party last week, I observed how popular it was to page through the print proof. People would grab a copy and sit in the corner for 20 minutes, myriad expressions flickering over their faces. Someone told me "I could read this for days." Another, a close friend and repeat Brain Frame performer, admitted that he hadn't been planning on buying the book. "$25 is a chunk of change," he said, "even for something I knew would be so nice." Extending his hands, he continued, "but then I saw it and you know, I really got that same feeling that I did in high school. This isn't just some thing I've participated in off and on. This is my community. These are my friends. This is the last three years of my life, and it's beautiful, and I realized that I need it, so I just bought one."

In three days, on Monday, July 7th, we need to buy all the books we can to have them ready at the last show. This means that if you want a book, you need to buy it now. I can't afford much overhead for purchasing extras - a shame, since I know seeing the book in person is the most effective advertisement.

This effort is 150% selfless. Each book costs $5 more to make than the price of sale (ever wonder why your high school book cost $60?). I still need to raise $2,223 by Monday. Anything that doesn't come from pre-sales will come out of my pocket. Please, put faith in your future (and your past) and buy a book this weekend.

Click here to pre-order a Brain Frame Yearbook or
Click here to buy an ad in the back of the book or
DONATE to help us make this happen. Thank you!

Recent Days (Closure)

Right out of school, a month before starting Brain Frame, in the cosmic summer of 2011, I began this autobiographic comic called Recent Days. I performed some of it at the first Brain Frame, and some more at the first anniversary (BF7). I got to around seventy pages before abandoning the book. Here, finally, the story finds closure. This 2-page spread will be printed in the Brain Frame Yearbook, released this August at our third anniversary (BF19) and final show.

Please pre-order a Brain Frame Yearbook or
Buy an ad in the back of the book or
DONATE to help us make this happen. We need to raise $7750 by July 1st. Pressure's on and coffers are slim.

The Brain Frame Yearbook

Let me tell you about the Brain Frame Yearbook.

First of all, it's really a yearbook. We've made much ado, rightfully, about the fact that it will be a hardbound, leatherette, foil embossed ledger. There are portraits and autograph pages and photos and superlatives.

Second of all, it's way, way more than a yearbook. The portrait pages include everyone who's ever performed at, accompanied, documented, and staffed Brain Frame - just shy of 200 individuals. They're all self-portraits, ranging from actual repurposed yearbook photos to photoshopped snapshots to drawn images.

The bulk of the book revisits every Brain Frame event from the past three years (29 in all) chronologically. Every pre-show promo blurb I wrote for Facebook; every detailed performance summary for Tumblr (each one a single sentence, a secret challenge to myself instituted around the time of BF3); every poster lies in these pages. Also photographs, captioned of course, as well as personal content from a vast and varied cross section of Brain Frame community members.

Some people have remembered Brain Frame in original comics. Some have written essays, poems, or "letters to the editor." All of these writings include illustration by yet another set of generous, talented, diverse artists.

Nate Beaty's comic about Brain Frame 3

There's more. A few humorous 'op-ed' pieces (also illustrated); a three part special feature on poster process (A Toast To Posters: with your host, the Poster Ghost); a spread of my costumes (not my idea); the winners of the Brain Frame Superlatives illustrated by Kevin Budnik; a Brain Frame Phrenology page by Jamie Davida Lee; a maze; some quizzes; "Oofo Fakts" scattered throughout; and lots and lots of little drawings in the margins.

Clay Hickson's illustration for Brain Frame 12

Let's pause for a minute. Can you believe it? We started collecting material for this book a month ago. I insist you recognize the unwavering and exhaustive support of my intern Lillie West. She is martyring herself in an email prison for the cause.

Lillie and I and the rest of the Yearbook Club: Ben Bertin, Gillian Fry, Christine Lai, Carter Lodwick, Emma Rand, Brad Rohloff, and Nicki Yowell, have been meeting 2-5 times every week to get this done, and slaving away in between. We have to finish by the first of July - this weekend I'm not going to sleep. None of us are making money. We're all buying our own books.

In order to print to our standards, each 160-page, half color, half B&W book will cost $25.93 to make. We're selling them for $25. Pre-sales are live now, and essential to our success. CLICK HERE to reserve your yearbook.

Why? Because it's worth it. Because the whole point is celebrating and embracing the community that has flourished around Brain Frame, and I recognize that this community is not made up of wealthy people. We're hoping to make up the costs through DONATIONS (please donate if you can please please) and ad sales. You can buy an ad NOW for your business, or to commemorate the accomplishments of your loved ones (or enemies). We need ad copy by July 1st! CLICK HERE to buy an ad.

Why else? Because let's face it, Brain Frame is important. Over the past three years, I've changed a lot. The show has changed more, and the comics scene - the very definition of comics - with it. This has been an unprecedented outpouring of multidisciplinary experimentation and engagement with the sequential medium, rooted in communal respect and ecstatic ritual. People are moved. I can say this now - I could never say this before - because it has been told to me, over and over, in the artwork that makes up this as-yet-hypothetical Yearbook. Help me. Solidify this. Partake.

One of many Yearbook Drawing Parties

Opining

Updates on art projects have been slim here, I know. In lieu of process posts, here's an aggregate of interviews in my life of late.

The alt-weekly newspaper that I read every week talked back to me! Peter Margasak interviewed me last fall for the Chicago Reader's People Issue. I look forward to this issue every year. It was an honor and delight to be interviewed by Peter, that magnificent critic, and to be photographed and videotaped by such talented fellows. You can see the full, fancy web-spread here.

I especially enjoy these videos, wherein I describe my collaboration for Brain Frame 13, and show off the Llama Man costume. Apparently the video editor, after working on these clips into the wee hours, suffered a rash of nightmares. Success!





This defacement by Kevin Budnik also delights. Thanks Kevin!

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Around the same time, I sat down with Sara Drake for a comic-style interview for contemporary art criticism hub Bad At Sports. We sat in my house for a long time, eating bagels and drinking tea, passing our drawings back and forth. You can see the full interview here.

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My friends Grant Reynolds and Clayton Shaul recently co-conceived the Twin Freaks podcast. Each episode offers a hearty dose of affable banter regarding a horror film director or subgenre.

In January, Clayton and Grant invited me as a special guest to talk about possession cinema, spurred by my projects Possession Scenes and Uzi's Party. We covered five films in an epic two part episode (sorry).

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On the horizon: I'm organizing five Brain Frame-related events in the next two months, one of which is out of town. I'm participating in the second season of Believed Behavior, a comics-subscription online and print experiment. I'm preparing a new comic and a huge show for the last Brain Frame, our third anniversary in August. And, I just started working as the new co-Lead Artist of the Teen Creative Agency at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago.

Most pertinent to the subject of this post is the upcoming show BRAIN FRAME: EXPLAINED, a part of the Chicago Zine Fest's Exhibition Day. BF:E will include a 'humorous lecture about the origins and evolution of the show,' delivered by myself; three performances; and an open Q&A which may be led, in part, by my new super-teenager wards at the MCA. Details:

Saturday, March 15th. 3:30-5:00pm in the Auditorium at Columbia College's Conway Center, 1104 S Wabash. FREE and ALL AGES.

There are so many different things I could talk about in this 'humorous lecture.' If you have thoughts as to what you would want to hear, please share them in the comments!

Strained Piss

This two-part drawing is called Strained Piss and I made it for issue 5 of Corpus Corpus, Paul Nudd's periodic collaborative gross-out zine publication. This issue of Corpus Corpus will be released at the opening of Little Man Pee Pool Party: The Whiz Paddler's Lament, a gallery show curated by Nudd featuring statues from a variety of Chicago artists, all fully functioning fountains inspired by Brussels' Manneken Pis landmark artwork.

The opening is on Friday, the 11th, 6-10pm, at Antena gallery in Pilsen, 1765 S Laflin St. Here's a Facebook event page. You should come, it's a sight.

Here are the original drawn pages for Strained Piss. I'm unsatisfied with the second page. I wish I had eased, lengthened and softened the shape of the implied bowl with thinner piss streams and more outlying splashes. I like my first page, and I bet the compiled book will be a real delight.

Possession Scenes Issues 1&2

Say hello to the first two issues of Possession Scenes, my new series of mini-comics drawn from films and television programs featuring the titular subject. Each issue is folded from a single page, and contains an informative title plate [issue #, source, year, director, cinematographer, actor possessed] followed by seven pencil renderings of sequential stills from the scene.

I chose to start with The Exorcist, because duh. Issue #2 covers the moment in Twin Peaks when Laura Palmer's murderer is revealed - during a subsequent killing.

Issue #3, in the works, features "the abortion scene" from Andrzej Zulawski's 1981 film Possession. I was tempted to make Possession the subject of Issue #1, but that would be too confusing.

The impetus for Possession Scenes was part desire to have something new for CAKE, part research for an upcoming film project involving possession (more details soon), and mostly curiosity about the visual strategies, trends and variations employed to show a character losing themselves to something supernatural. Possession is something in which I am personally and spiritually interested. Scenes of possession always ride the line between silly and frightening, whether fictional or actual.

Last night I watched The Mask, in preparation for Issue #4, and while I had to skip past much of the film to avoid the insufferable, hideous antics of Jim Carrey's creation, observing the cheesy CGI of the initial transformation and the way the mask glimmers and hypnotizes Stanley Ipkiss was a delight.

One of the most interesting challenges in this project is translating a scene into seven silent stills. That's not a lot to work with. The pacing is delicate: three pairs of images, then one final punch. I need to make the action and intention of the scene clear without using any text.

You can pick up issues #1 and #2 from me this weekend at CAKE. I'll be at table 6 with Lale Westvind, a few paces through the entryway, to your right.

Here's a nice article in Chicago Magazine about emergine cartoonists, featuring yours truly ("who is, by many counts, a major player in her scene's revitalization") written by Jason Foumberg.

Remember how I starred in a movie? It premiers next month on Saturday, July 13th at the Gene Siskel Film Center, with two more shows later in the week.

Auctioneer

I learned something new. I learned how to run an auction. I watched how-to auctioneer videos, I watched Herzog's documentary on auctioneering, I practiced tongue-twisters and counting rhythms, and then, with the help of the CAKE crew and my glorious intern Emma Rand, I raised over $2,500 for the 2013 Chicago Alternative Comics Expo.

The occasion was CAKE FRAME, a comics reading/comics drawing/comics art auction/Brain Frame Special Event organized by myself and Max Morris, CAKE fundraising master. The show was really, really great. I was nervous about auctioneering right up until I started. Then it felt awesome. Musical accompaniment from Alex Inglizian and Stephen Ptacek helped a lot. It also helped to be raising money for my friends. Sometimes after a regular Brain Frame I get lost in spirals of self-doubt related to self-promotion and the fear of self-aggrandizement, but doing all of this for CAKE neutralized those pesky emotions. Need more fun proof? Here's some documentation of the live-drawing portion of the evening, featuring Jeremy Pettis and the Mega Clit:



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What other fulfilling pursuits have I recently co-created with talented friends? Funny you should ask! The sophisticated and thoughtful duo Bonnie & Maude, AKA Kseniya Yarosh and Eleanor Kagan, were kind enough to invite me onto their femme-centric film podcast while I was visiting Brooklyn last month. We spent about an hour talking about the 1972 Bob Fosse film Cabaret. Cabaret is my favorite movie. If you want to hear me nerd out haaaard on this dark, queer musical, check out the episode. Lots of spoilers; but if you haven't seen it, maybe you should listen anyway so you can forget what you anticipate the film to be based on the fact that it's a musical (you're wrong).

Look, I even kind of had the hair. 'Hilarious' photo courtesy of my freshman year at SAIC and the 2006 Chicago Jazz Fest. There is wine in those cups that I bought for my friends with my fake ID! Good old Lyra, always collaborating with talented friends.

Brain Frame 12

Announcing Brain Frame 12!

An extraordinary feat of engineering. A plane. A bridge. A tower. A tightrope; its walker. A survey; its proctor. A suture; your doctor. An event: the twelfth in a series of performative comix readings.

Join us in another new location (Bridgeport) for the next session of BRAIN FRAME, the show that proves over and over that you can not anticipate how some comic books might be interpreted. Extraordinary engineering feats this episode include: shadow puppets, sanitary napkin disposal bags, a breakdance crew,an eating disorder, some drums and possibly bass. With:

Nate Beaty
Thorne Brandt
Kevin Budnik
Eamon Espey and Lisa Krause
Meghan Lamb
Anne Elizabeth Moore

As well as live synthscapes by Tyson Torsentenson.
Refreshments will be available including gf/vegan goods from local bakery D’ology.

Saturday, May 18th, doors at 8pm, $7

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I designed this poster with Clay Hickson and printed it with Andrew Ghrist. Clay and I (who grew up in the same small town in northern California but didn't meet until both moving to Chicago for the same school, pretty neat huh) sat down and sketched the body of the plane together, then I inked it and drew the people, then Clay drew the squiggles and did all the airbrushing, then I finished the text. Clay has a ton of really beautiful airbrush and wiggle work over at his website, you should really check it out.

The simplicity of this poster was a big relief after the insanity of the last one. Printing was a bit tricky, mostly mixing the colors, but they came out well.

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I've been putting out the Brain Frame newsletter for five months, now, and they're getting pretty fancy. This latest effort even matches the poster colors to the email borders, check it out.

The Infinite Corpse

These are my first panels for the Infinite Corpse. I was assigned to follow Art Spiegelman. I colored it with watercolor pencils. Here's what our panels look like in combination, on the website:

After my submission, you can follow the story either with a strip by John Porcellino or a strip by August Lipp. In the future, there may be more options. That's because the Infinite Corpse is just that - infinite.

This is a project that Trubble Club (mostly Aaron Renier and Nate Beaty) have been working on for a full year. It's a chain comic that never ends, branches off in innumerable dimensions, and currently features the work of over 200 artists, growing daily. Anyone can contribute their follow-up to a random three-panel segment. Submissions are reviewed by a panel of Trubble Club members, but most of them get in, so go ahead! In the beginning, when Aaron was gathering the original strips that make up the framework of the Infinite Corpse, it was in true exquisite corpse fashion. I wasn't able to see any panels except the ones I was following. Now, with the catacombs online, artists will be able to build longer story arcs and reference other parts of the narrative (if they want).

I am flabbergasted by the seamless genius of the Infinite Corpse. I can hardly believe I have such innovative and talented friends. Please, spread the word and contribute.

Recent Days (Urgent Care)

In between two jobs, running Brain Frame, a few commissions, attending all the coolest Chicago events, making 'boner' puns, and occasionally relaxing, I've been working hard on my autobiographic book Recent Days. It's been in the works for two years. I'm on a tear, now. Here's an amusing update.

Brain Frame 11

ANNOUNCING BRAIN FRAME 11

You awake one morning from uneasy dreams to find yourself transformed in your bed into a giant insect. What has happened to me? you think. That evening, the hive mind calls you to a new location. Six of your brethren take the stage to enact their own creative transformations. One artist reads from a giant pad of paper, ripping each page as the story unfolds. Another draws a love interest with a skin disease, his artistry projected on a screen above him. A woman wears a coat; a man wears a thong; a trumpeter blares staccato notes in an unknown key. BRAIN FRAME, you hear yourself intone. Expanded comics. Expanded minds.

Featuring:
Bill Cleveland
Krystal DiFronzo
Ian Endsley
Marieke McClendon
Otto Splotch
Jim Trainor

As well as live synth soundscapes by Tyson Torstenson.

IMPORTANT: Brain Frame has moved to a new location! This show will be at Heavy Gel, a new artists studio and resource center. Located on Lake Street around the corner from Western, it's a short walk from the Damen or California Green Line stops, or the Western or Damen bus lines. Street parking abounds.

Local bakery D-ology will be selling vegan, gluten-free, and non-considerate cookies, and BF alumni susan sarandon will be selling Brain Frame's first t-shirts. View the design here.

SATURDAY, MARCH 23RD, 8PM
2335 W LAKE ST, $7

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Aaron Renier and I designed this poster. You can view a larger version here. It's a hospital noir murder mystery. It begins in the upper left, where the 'Sapphic Slasher' breaks free, killing all her doctors. We can tell from the television in the nurse's lounge on the upper right that she was scheduled to receive a lobotomy. She ties up a nurse, stripping her and taking her clothes, then wanders into the cafeteria where she wreaks havoc, weilding a ketchup bottle like a prosthetic phallus, squirting ketchup all over the tables and floor. After that, she walks past the vending machine into her room, applies lipstick, then finds the Top Doc and, with a little wine and persuasion, leaves the woman naked and sated, smoking a cigarette on her desk. Next, she walks out into the lounge, scrawls names all over the window, and exits the building, escaping in Top Doc's red car.

All of this information and more is visible through careful inspection of this perspective-defying, bird's eye blueprint, Family Circus footstep method, insane print. Aaron and I developed the story and layout together, then he drew all the people and stuff, then I drew all the blood and shadows, composited and colored this poster. Then, last night, Andrew Ghrist and I printed it. If you come to the show, you can buy a copy for the one-time-only price of ten dollars.

For Purchase

I've opened an online shop. You can check it out here. Currently, merchandise includes heavy hitters like Compiled and Dock Ellis, and then a lot of posters including Go Down, Mr. Square, and Motion Sickness prints. More to come soon, including beautiful Risograph prints of Banana Glove Game.

But wait! There's more! All of the Brain Frame screen prints are ON SALE until this Saturday! Half-size posters are $15, full size $20, and the newest print, seen above, is only $10. This is not a joke. These are totally insane, totally limited edition, totally high quality prints that should be sold for at least $65 if there were any standards at all where art meets commerce. But hey, I'm broke too. Get them while the getting's good.