What I did over my summer vacation.

“What I did over my summer vacation.” A theme by James E. Lyle

Rather than to again excuse my long absence from this blog, I thought that I’d do well to just ignore that and write this entry as an omnibus of my summer’s activities. This won’t be easy, a lot has gone on. What with many projects to illustrate, family matters to attend to, and touring with Gypsy Bandwagon--things got busy.

Let me just whiffle over to get my datebook, which I’ll use as reference, and be back in a minute.

The summer began, innocuously enough, with me raking rocks out of my front yard. Last winter, my brother did a lot of work in both my front and back yards to get his new warehouse constructed. I won’t go into details on that, but let’s just say that there are a lot of rocks churned up around here when you drive heavy equipment through a yard. Since said rocks can and will wreck a lawn mower, I felt obliged (after first wrecking my lawnmower) to get a cultivating rake and move the rocks out of the way.

This worked great, and I was getting a lot of exercise every morning until I over-raked and got a huge blister, without being aware, then bursting that same blister and bleeding all of the rake. Not fun. So my raking tapered off somewhat after that. I did manage to get my front lawn into some semblance of shape, and can effectively mow it without any more damage to the lawn mower. That was the point, and so I’m not worried about that anymore.

Gypsy Bandwagon played at Black Mountain, the first Saturday in June. That was fun. I played with a stripped down drum set up: just a djembe and a snare. When it was all done Lance said he missed my tambourine most, and so I made a note to bring the tambo along on all future gigs.

I did a lot of posing for the new comic book I’ve been working on. The book is called “Adam Among the Gods”, and I’m still inking on it now. The process I call “posing” is rather simple in a way. There’s a program for the computer called Poser (I’m using version 4) that I use instead of hiring models to get figures in the right positions. Poser has several advantages over using models: 1) I don’t have to pay models, 2)I don’t have to deal with all the headaches of having models around (not slamming models per se, I’m just commenting on interpersonal relationships in general), 3) If I don’t like the angle of a particular shot I can move the camera around…even days later, 4) I can actually build models to my own specifications! This came in real handy with the main character who is very different from the standard human archetype. But I monkeyed with the “normal” characters as well. You’ll see it when it’s done.

There was a podcast that mentioned me during the first couple of weeks of June. I got mentioned in the Collected Comics Library podcast on T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents. In fact I got mentioned a couple of times. Comes from being pals with the guy who does the show.

Gypsy Bandwagon played the second weekend of June as well. This time with the full set up at Furman University. No, we didn’t get the main stage. We were playing under a tent in the “children’s area” of the Greater Greenville (S.C.) Highlands Games. That went pretty well, except for the fact that it was 90 degrees, plus. We also had to park way out and have our equipment driven in on a golf cart. But everyone was very nice, and even the organizers of the event were swell to us, letting us take part in the catered lunch that they were having (even though they didn’t have to).

I did a number of commissions early in the summer. I got to draw the women of the Fantastic Four, a “fake” Avengers cover for the Heroes Convention auction, and another “fake” cover for LIFE magazine featuring both Silk Spectres from Watchmen! So I had fun.

I also began drawing a lot of stuff for my buddy, Joel. I’ve been doing designs with him for years, but this summer it really took off. I did designs for Caribbean Soul, Tommy Bahama, and Margaritaville! Those are still in the works, but the best part was that Joel actually came up to the mountains with his family, and the two of us worked in the studio together for the first time in years. It had been too long.

Karin and I did get out a few times. We went to Lake Lure and spent the day there. Floated around in the water all afternoon, and then took the boat ride out on the lake proper. Nice day alone with my sweetie.

Gypsy Bandwagon played the third Saturday of June at Rhone Mountain’s Rhododendron Festival. That was fun too. We followed a brass band that had about 30 members, and were followed by a hillbilly band who were a hoot.

At that time of the summer it looked like I was going to be drawing CD cover for a heavy metal band out of NYC. But the deal fell through. Too bad. I was looking forward to doing the project.

Then my Mom went in the hospital. She hadn’t been feeling great (and still isn’t well), but apparently one of the prescriptions she’s been on caused her potassium levels to drop off to a dangerously low level. She was bleeding internally, and ended up in ICU. We were all very scared. But it turned out all right. She spent only a day in ICU, was moved to the regular unit the next day and sent home the third. But a scary moment or two there.

Heroes Convention came as usual. I always say that that show is like Christmas for me. I mean that it has the sort of excitement that Christmas had for me when I was a kid. You never know what will happen exactly, and I always have fun. My “agent”, Aaron Bushy came up from Auburn with his wife, and some friends, and we were all supposed to go out to dinner at Steak’n’Shake on Saturday. Unfortunately the auction went really long on Saturday night, and we had to leave before it was over. Karin and I went to Steak’n’Shake anyway, but it was around 10pm when we got there! Yikes!

The WNC group of the Southeast Chapter of the National Cartoonist Society met in July at James Cassara’s house. We had a potluck dinner and looked at James’ extensive collection of comic artwork.

I got to submit some ideas for a future T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents series that’s in the works. I’m probably not a liberty to talk about it much, but since there’s constantly someone working on a new TA project I’m probably safe to mention that I’m still in there swinging with ideas.

Mid-July I got a call from Weekly Reader. They wanted me to do a cover and a two page spread for their second grade magazine, “Edition2”. So what could I say? Yes!!

Went to the movies two nights in a row in July. Once to see “Superman Returns”. The next night, my oldest brother and his family came up from Florida, and my nephew wanted us to see “Pirates of the Caribbean 2”. So we went out again. Had fun at both movies, but wasn’t blown away by either.

Gypsy Bandwagon played the second Saturday of July downtown Asheville, NC. The event was the 2nd Annual Wings ‘n’ Strings Festival. We got to play to a pretty big crowd, were on the main stage. And I left my gig bag with my sticks, tambo, some costume, and all my notes somewhere downtown.

I didn’t discover it was missing until the middle of the next week. But there was another problem to deal with by then, we had no water.

This began a couple of weeks of dealing with our water problems. We were expecting Karin’s brother and his family to visit us in August, and between all the jobs I was working on and the gigs with GB there didn’t seem too much time to be dealing with plumbing. But my Dad, my nephew John, and I managed to fix the water…at least temporarily. It still needs a more permanent solution, but it’s worked since late July.

Gypsy Bandwagon played in Augusta, Georgia on the third Saturday of July. I’d had to replace nearly all of my small instruments and equipment the previous week. Karin and I had been to Augusta only once before, for the 2004 Southeast Chapter meeting of the National Cartoonist Society. As it turns out, the Stillwater Taproom, where Gypsy Bandwagon was playing this night was next door to Nacho Mamas, the very place we’d had lunch during the SECNCS meeting two years earlier.

We played until 1:30 am Sunday, and then found out we had a flat tire. We tried to repair the tire using a can of “run flat”, but that only worked partially. We limped down the street to a BP that was open all night, and managed to put on the spare by 3am. We drove back home on the “donut”. Slept all day Sunday.

Karin’s brother, Per, was having car problems too. We expected them on the 24th, but they were stuck in Shelbyville (say it like Grandpa Simpson, “Shelbyville?”) Indiana with car problems. That’s okay, Dad, John and I were still working on the water. The 25th we were still working on the water, and Per, Donna, Christin, Cassandra, and Alex were stuck in Sevierville, TN with more car problems. On the 26th we had the water running, just in time as the Guldbeck clan managed to make it to our house that evening.

Karin took her family out for fun the next day, while I worked on the art for Weekly Reader, and my scanner began to act up. Friday found me desperately trying to fix the scanner problem, finally realizing that I needed to reinstall my copy of Photoshop and the scanner software. I managed to avoid pulling out all my hair in the process.

While Per and Donna went for a little alone time in Florida, we watched the twins and Alex. We took them out on the Blue Ridge Parkway on Saturday and Sunday, and then to Biltmore House on Tuesday (followed by a meeting of the WNC group).

How I managed to juggle work, the kids, and all the various repair jobs that needed doing, I have no idea. The car went back in the garage again during all of this. By Friday I had completed the job for Weekly Reader, uploaded it and still managed to spend some time with the family.

Karin’s brother and sister-in-law came back up to NC on Saturday, we took them to Church on Sunday, and then went to practice with Lance and Carissa for Gypsy Bandwagon. The kids watched Napoleon Dynamite in the living room while GB played an audience of two. Frankly, I think it was one of our best performances yet. I used only the djembe, but still managed to do a good job. Lance played several of the pieces on his new 12 string Rikenbacker, and that sounded cool. So I hope we’ll be doing more along those lines in the future.

Monday Per, Donna and Alex left for Sevierville, TN in the rental car they’d had to resort to. Karin and I were going to visit her Dad in Glen Ellyn, IL anyway, so we volunteered to take the twins with us and drop them off “on the way” in Fort Wayne, IN. We left Tuesday at 7:30 am, and actually caught up with their folks in Kentucky. We had lunch together at, you guessed it, Steak’n’Shake. We dropped the girls with their older sister, Amanda (who didn’t get to come to NC because she was working) and took off for Chicagoland. We made Glen Ellyn by 11:15 cst. A pretty good time, I think.

Next day Karin sprained her ankle while working in the garden. She had gone to Glen Ellyn with the intention of helping out her Step-Mom, and now she was laid up with a bad limp. We visited the doctor the next day and he told her to stay off it for two weeks…the length of our stay.

In spite of this we managed to make the “Masters of American Comics” show at the Milwaukee Art Museum. The idea with the show (which, I believe, is still touring) was to select 15 of the most influential Comics Artists in America during the 20th Century and put originals on display. While I agreed with most of the choices, I felt that a couple were unwarranted, and there were two glaring omissions; Alex Raymond and Hal Foster. How these two got left out is beyond me. Perhaps the organizers felt that it would have made that period of creators too heavy. But, I’m sorry, how many comics creators have I heard say, “that guy was the reason I got into comics in the first place”, when speaking of Raymond or Foster? In spite of any inherent flaws, I’m glad that we went to see the show. Milwaukee has a fantastic art museum, absolutely beautiful.

I got to cart Karin around all day in a wheelchair her Dad loaned us. People were most sympathetic, you could see it in their eyes. Karin felt pretty sheepish, knowing it was only a sprained ankle.

Our eighteenth anniversary was the next week. After much searching I had found nothing. I face this problem almost every year, and it leads to much anxiety. So on Saturday I took Karin shopping with me. Finally, after visiting much of suburban Illinois, I got the right idea and went searching for a Hello Kitty guitar.

We’d seen the Hello Kitty electric guitar earlier this year, but had no money to buy it. Turns out that it’s a hard find. Even the Guitar Center chain had only one in stock, and that was in Tennessee! We went back to Karin’s folk’s house a bit dejected, but I did manage to get online and buy one from Musician’s Friend later that evening. It arrived here in NC by the time we got home from our trip.

We didn’t actually go out on our anniversary. We stayed with Karin’s folks and her Aunt and Uncle and had a nice cake that my mother-in-law made. But the next night (Monday) we went out to The Italian Village, that famous Chicago landmark, and had a nice dinner then did a little sight seeing.

The next day we went out to IKEA. I love IKEA. It’s so weird and somehow still hip. I’ve been wanting a Stolmen system for my office for some time now, and that’s what Karin got for me as an anniversary gift. Cool, huh?

We came home the day after that…a long drive and we sort of missed having the kids with us. Karin had a rough trip home, she wasn’t feeling well. It might have been something she ate, but it wasn’t Steak’n’Shake that did it. I was fine!

When we got home we hit the ground running. The next day I was mailing off pages from “Adam among the Gods” to my publisher-editor-webmaster, Gary. I began setting up my Stolmen system, and Karin was messing with her new guitar.
I spent a lot of time in the attic over the next few days. The Stolmen system has poles that have to be attached to the ceiling and floor, since my ceiling is acoustical tile, it took a little doing to make the poles stable without destroying the tiles. I did manage, but it was very hot here in August.

We played a benefit for two men with terminal illnesses on Saturday after returning home, and then the next Monday we headed off to Augusta, Georgia to help with the Southeast Chapter of the National Cartoonist Society’s visit to the VA hospital there. It was a 4 hour drive, and we sort of missed the orientation period, but caught up with our chapter President and V.P. after lunch. It was fun. I ended up doing around 20 charicatures of patients, nurses, and others.

Since then I’ve been working on all the various art projects that have built up over the summer. I’ve been inking on “Adam”, doing more designs for t-shirts, doing illustrations of historical and contemporary figures for a school date book, working on pitches for Thunder Agents, etc. All the things that make my world go around.

I’ve also been rearranging my office space. Which is beginning to look pretty good. Since my old instructor from community college wants to bring his latest art class over to see me sometime soon, it would be nice if I can get it in order. He always tells me not to fix it up, but this time I’m trying to beat him to the punch. Maybe it will be neat for once. It’s not that important, but it would be nice.

And that’s what I’ve been doing all summer.

Oh yeah, and Gypsy Bandwagon played for Cornerstone Fellowship Church’s annual fish-fry on September 10th.