Roger Brand Memorial Article

Remembering Roger Brand

The Comics Journal 

by Kim Deith

October 12, 2011

https://www.tcj.com/a-lousy-week-for-woods-remembering-roger-brand/

Comics Broke You, too, eh?

So, we have a viral protest going on in the social media world. It's hashtag is #comicsbrokeme. 

I'm amazed at how many people have horror stories about Comics, but moreso at how many people revived their love of the media by finding a niche to thrive within. 

Comics is a labor intensive media. It does not matter if it is physical or digital. No amount of automation, machine learning or artifical intelligence gets involved. From developing a theme, plot outline, rough visual design through the finished product requires passion, vision and persistence to produce a work that deals with static images and words to tell a story. 

The quick money mentality of mass media consumption producers who fly along pandering to the latest trend works to break down the production aspects of the media of comics. From the solitary cartoonist doing both the writing and drawing, production houses have broken down comics into a plethora of aspects that include, but are not limited to plotting, writing, editing, illustration layouts, preliminary art, finished art, pencillers, inkers, colorists, lettered, page designers, sound effect design, and packaging design. 

None of these micromanagement generated jobs and commensurate titles have allowed comics to be produced at lightning fast turnaround time to satisfy people seeking to financially profit from a cultural bubble. It is the same production issue that animation has dealt with since the 1960s. The human effort required to produce a "story product" is great enough that it blunts the impact of being able to immediately stuff something in front of you and require you to consume it. 

If comics breaks a person, it simply is a matter of rigid thinking about what the impact of their "story product" should be. It is a gross divergence in the actual reaction not being what they want or need. Comics won't ever fully validate you even though you feel called to pour every morsel of your being into it. Comics can be a beacon to attract people like you to you, it just doesn't come with the guarantee that you feel you need to thrive. 

NFL Predictions 2022 - NFC North

NFL Draft 2022 is over. 

The final Division standings for the NFC North in 2022. 

 

Green Bay Packers (11-6)

Detroit Lions  (10-7)

Chicago Bears  (9-8)

Minnesota Vikings  (7-10))

Points in time

The problem I encounter with recorded events or history is that all I get is a fragment of what happened. I get a point or, if lucky, series of points in time. 

Time will have a distorting effect on those points in time. However it won't fully transform those points in time. They will still be what they are. 

The danger with recorded events is that I overlay my personal experience on them. If I are not aware of my own filters then I  personalize them like they are happening to me right now, at this very instant. I allow myself to lie to me. Trauma magnifies this behavior tens, hundreds or thousands-fold and that is how strong of a trap it is. 

Every person should be aware of their filters, so they can avoid manipulation from outside or within. 

The Return of the Return of the Blog

Is a blog supposed to be a personal journal from a singular perspective or a well researched publication on the internet? 

Why do people take one person's opinion as their own? Why is self-reflection so difficult? 

Does the self, or the ego, have to take the highest position in your life or can you submit to the needs, not merely wants, of others? 

If the purpose of government to settle grievances between two people, or groups of people, shouldn't it be done in the most compassionate and objective way possible? 

These are just some of the questions I have had and pondered without blogging about them. Maybe I should have. Maybe I should have not had fear of manifesting those ideas. Even the awkward, unpopular, previously covered, or retread ideas need to be clarified for some individuals, because they may be encountering them for the first time. 

Just because the majority have an understanding of the why there is no justification to answer the question again with fear and derision. That is how we get conflict and confrontation. That is how we get the push and shove politics of disrespect. 

I don't have any further answers, but maybe posing this idea will help someone else take it further. 

Adventures in Coloring

Doctor Strange by Ben Dunn, colors by Paul Ewert.

Adventures In Coloring

Brother Power the Geek by Chas Truog

Adventures in Coloring

I have been playing with coloring line art that I come find on the Internet and social media. I'm not trying to make money doing, but I get a sense of accomplishment or satisfaction from doing it.

This example is Golden Age Superhero Johnny Quick drawn by Sandy with colors by me.

The point of it all.

I'm tired of being called racist because of my skin color.
I'm tired of being called ignorant because my viewpoint differs from yours.
I'm tired of using labels to justify and vilify.
I'm tired of building walls held together by excuses and fears.
I'm tired of a civilization that needs to lash out to be civil.
Take my hand.
Walk with me.
Talk with me.
Listen to me.
Let me hear you.
Let me work to understand you.
Let go of me so I can share what I learned from you with someone else.

Today's insight

Sometimes doing good is as simple as letting evil people fail.

What is the arrangement?

If a writer is an arranger of words, then is an editor a re-arranger of words?

Poem

I have a little secret,
I would like to share it with you.
I hate humanity,
with good reason, too.
You see we hurt each other,
no matter what we do.

We presume to know
that what is good for ourselves
is what's best for the rest.
So we seek out assurance
by setting up test after test.
To weed out the infidels
and calm our fears.

If I didn't do this,
What else could I do?
Let you see behind the curtain,
To know that I am hurt, too?

Tyranny

"Not individuals but institutions are the enemies, and they most afflict the disciples who the most generously serve them. They insinuate their tyranny under a hundred guises and pompous names, such as Polite Society, the Family, the Church, Sound Business, the Party, the Country, the Superior White Race; and the only defense against them, Carol beheld, is unembittered laughter."

- Sinclair Lewis (February 7, 1885 - January 10, 1951), American author and playwight, Main Street.

An Election Year Poem

A Poem, March 26, 2016

Sauerkraut colostomy
feasting on sunshine.
Cuddle up against
your teddy bear of fear.
Lock yourself in
the closet of ignorance.
Bind your mind with
the chains of intolerance.

Stand the words of
your prophet on their head.
Justify your antithetical behavior
with the sayings of religion.
Find the hate in words of love
to save a few dollars at the store.
Megalomaniacs are eating politicians
as a symbol of freedom.

The walls are Tumbling up,
the gates are closing in
celebration of openness.
The Man riding a burrow
carries a briefcase and
Does a statistical analysis
to measure the belief of the faithful.

The poor are atmosphere.
The disenfranchised are collateral damage.
In the Marketing War for your soul.
The draft board infiltrates your screens.
Your deployment orders are songs in the air.

You can turn in product points
for a free fear blanket.
Don't share it with anyone
that is not one of us.
They can get their own
if they just sell their soul for product points.

Why are you sitting there naked
with that ridiculous smile?
Have you not been listening
to a word that I have said?
Wait until we start funding
the regulators again.
They’ll want you as one
of their first cases
unless you do as I say.

The best non-fiction graphic novel of 2015

Darryl Cunningham has provided a solid primer for 2016 politics in his graphic novel The Age of Selfishness: Ayn Rand, Morality and the Financial Crisis.

Here is a review by Paul: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1546293062

Best Quote

“There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."

[Kung Fu Monkey -- Ephemera, blog post, March 19, 2009]”

― John Rogers

A Question About Humanity

Why is it that humanity seems to be a struggle between those who want to find evil in good people and those who want to find good in evil people?

Dude, Buzzkiller

I don't want to bum you out, but humanity really sucks. We get all angry and take it out on people we claim to love for feeling good or buckets of bucks.

Our words never match our actions.
We do the wrong thing thinking
that it is the right thing. Violence is used as compassion. Degradation is called empowerment

We intervene handing out charity
while thinking we are creating
self-sufficient individuals. Selfishness is rewarded as beneficial to the community. Greed is called economic benevolence. Social offense is considered a virtue.  Personal morality must be made manifest in congregations and communities to dispel personal doubts, fears and worries.

The food from the tree of knowledge and wisdom has made humanity ignorant brutes. These ignorant brutes look at themselves when they are told that they are made in God's images and tremble in fear. Their ignorance makes them see God as the worst of themselves: venal, judgemental, detached, conditional, vain, greedy and painful.

The simplest counterpoint to all this is unseen, intangible, immeasurable and independent. It is faith, the unseen, intangible, viscous belief that events, intentions, feelings that are not dependent on you can actually be helpful to you. It doesn't make sense. It has no logic. It has no rationale. This means it has no impact on nor value to me.

I hope you get what I am saying.

The Sculptor

Here is a review by Paul: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1269008384

The Demolition of Silence

Some days I want
to break down and cry.
Destroying the silence
that I feel in and around me.
My sobs, like wrecking balls
Smashing large holes,
My wails cutting through
the silent supports.
My moans detonating in
the silent foundation.
My expectation of connecting
to another person
as the structure of silence
crumbles around me.
The demolition of silence falling,
while its’ dust rises
in the rays of the sun.
Who's there?
Who heard me?
Was it you?