Earth Day

“Don’t just sit there- save the Earth” –Zen  I read that in the back of Z.I.N. #4. The issue had come out in 1990, twenty years after the original Earth Day. The last two pages where an environmental forum and a green pledge. It resonated with me very hard. Of course by the time I got my copy it was already 2010, but it felt new to me. Perhaps because twenty years had past since then. I made a personal pledge right there on the spot to never let an Earth Day pass that I didn’t do something to make the occasion special to me.  If anything to remind my self of the relation that I personally have with the world at large. As a chronic pedestrian I’ve never forgotten about her, I think picking up litter is how I became a mixed media artist. In fact I think spending time out an about the way I do has kept my soul alive through the blackest nights, and kept me cool in the brightest days. Here are some ways I would like to celebrate Earth Day today: Increase in the surface charge of my red blood cells by walking bare foot, Earthing changes the electrical activity of your brain. I’m going to go look for crystals nearby. In fact the Evergreen Nature Preserve is a fantastic place to find spoil banks from local mining. I may even dig up some red clay to play with.

PATTERN

What does Shiva, Cern and Excalibur have in common?

Last weekend I picked up a copy of Excalibur #66 (93) for fifty cent’s at a local coffee/used books store. I sat in the backyard this morning to read it. It’s a triply time-travel yarn, Kitty Pride is in it. Four pages into the store I recognized a pattern. The circles, the female figure behind it, time-line manipulation. An image I had seen earlier in the week came to mind. There is a statue of Shiva outside of Cern, someone was cleaver enough to put an image of the statue and the huge collider inside the building together in a really evocative way.  Take the subjects associated to all of these items collaged together and see where you might fit into all of this.

( *Read Was Superman a Spy?)

New Comix!

KnightHarsher #10 and the Annual @ Common Market.

S.P.A.C.E.

Last weekend I had lunch with some small press guys, Tom and Blake.  Tom hosts a cartoonist club and Blake publishes a very cool contributor-based zine called CopyThis!. I met Tom last summer and have gone to every club meeting I could since. The homework assignments and group exercises remind me of design classes I took in college without the weight of tuition and grades. Tom clued me into the CopyThis! Community a few months ago and eventually Blake and I realized we had some things in common. Tom had some mini’s to hand over to Blake around the same time Blake discovered my Capricoins*, so they thought they would invite me to lunch.  I’m so glad they did.

I think I love these guys. For an hour or so I was in heaven, passing rare mini-comics over tacos and discovering how intricately woven the small press world really is. My scalp tingled for hours. Sometime between comparing trading cards and talking about Mary Fleener’s cubismo style Blake suggested that we all drive up to Columbus, Ohio together and attend S.P.A.C.E. I’m sure we would have hammered out the details eventually but I had to cut lunch short. The tingling in my scalp hadn’t faded; a few hours and emails later Tom and I agreed to split a table.

*Capricoins: self constructed milk cap-like divination disks featured in the YouthPool:QC public access special and Vlog. You can check them out for yourself @ 11:25 minutes.