I've been catching up with preparing my home for winter this weekend, but I had to make time for blogging, because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• Compare. I am putting this video here because I just can't believe it exists. Arun Maini (who has a great YouTube Channel) compared all the iPhones ever made for quality and features, plus showed and unboxing of each as well...

One of the most shocking parts of this video is the end where he compares the cameras. I maintain that the camera in the new iPhone 11 Pro may be the best camera I've ever owned. No, it can't really compare my Sony DSLR... but, in some ways, it actually eclipses it. First of all, it fits in my pocket and is with me at all times. Second of all, it has capabilities you could only get from a device with a massively powerful computer in it... like Night Mode and the forthcoming Deep Fusion. Aside from all that, it's just capable of taking amazing, amazing photos.

Of course the biggest shock is the benchmark escalation...

I mean... wow. As an aside here, I've owned the following: 2G (The Original), 3G, 4, 5, 6, 7, X, XS, and 11 Pro...

I kept all the boxes (except I can't find the box for 7). I think the only actual phone I kept was the 5 (it's in the shadows up there in the corner) because I loved the look of it so much (the 4 is a close second). I also have a 2G Original around here somewhere. The other phones I donated because the trade-in value is always worth less to me than helping somebody out... or, as of the iPhone X, I returned it to Apple as part of their iPhone Upgrade Program.

   
• Vieux Carré. They are building a Hard Rock Hotel in New Orleans at the Northeastern corner of The French Quarter. I was staying just around the corner from the construction site, and walked by while I was there to check things out. Unfortunately I couldn't see much... and, even more unfortunately, there was a horrific accident which has left two workers dead and one still missing...

As the push to get things done ever cheaper and faster escalates, worker safety seems to be pushed aside. I sincerely hope that's not the case here.

   
• GROUCH. I do not care how many accolades that the Joker movie gets... I have zero interest in seeing it. The "real" Joker was a career criminal who was driven insane when he dropped in a vat of chemicals. The key takeaway being that he was always a criminal. In this new movie, Joker becomes a criminal due to mental illness, and I'm not here for it. The film is a completely unnecessary revision that simply doesn't interest me. Maybe one day when it's free on HBO or whatever, I'll give it a try out of boredom... but I'm not rushing to the theater to see it. Last night on SNL, there was a parody for Oscar the Grouch which brilliantly captures how I view Joker...

Perfect. THIS IS PERFECT!

   
• Three. It came out a short while back that Kevin Smith had finally manages to get Jeff Anderson onboard for Clerks 3. He had written a script ages ago, but Jeff didn't want to do it. Apparently after some discussion, Smith decided to write an all new script inspired by his heart attack that Anderson could get onboard with. Needless to say, I'm ecstatic...

Kevin Smith has made some of the favorite films. He kinda lost me when he took a detour into Cop Out, Red State, Tusk, and Yoga Hosers... but the idea of getting another Jay & Silent Bob movie this month followed by another Clerks? Too good to be true.

   
• Vileness. You will be absolutely amazed what Portuguese street artist, Vile, can do with cans of spray paint...

Check out the story over at My Modern Met for more of his mind-blowing graffiti art.

   
• Apple and TV. I absolutely loathe the way Apple handles the video media they peddle. They charge more money than any other provider to sell you something you are forced to watch with their shitty, shitty apps. AppleTV is a grotesque mockery of interface design that barely works. The iPhone and iPad apps are missing so many critical features (LIKE SORTING YOUR HUNDREDS OF PURCHASES) that they're a heinous burden to use. And now there's the TV app for my Mac that came with their new Catalina MacOS. It is the very definition of crap. I never thought I'd be longing to go back to iTunes, but at least it was functional. The TV app is fucking garbage. They regularly send you to places that have no content... THEN DON'T GIVE YOU A FUCKING "BACK" BUTTON TO GO BACK TO WHERE YOU WERE!

And just try searching for stuff you want to buy. I dare you. I double dare you. I am so fucking embarrassed for Apple that I feel like vomiting. And if Steve Jobs were alive today he'd probably burn the company to the ground. After he strangles all the dumbasses who thought that "butterfly" keyboards in MacBooks was a good idea.

   
• Stellar. Christopher Nolan's Interstellar is a movie that I didn't like at first but, as time went on and I gave it another chance, I came to appreciate it as pretty good sci-fi. The high-concept science behind it is fascinating. Yes, the way that Nolan tried to inject "humanity" into it was a kludge, but it's still an entertaining story. And while I found everything pretty straightforward (despite some glaring plot holes), I found this cool (spoiler-filled) graphic which explains the time shifts in a great way...

Click image to embiggen.

Of course I ended up watching the movie again last night just to follow along. I like it even better the third time through.

   
See you next Sunday, buckaroos.

The penultimate issue of Thrice Fiction Magazine has just been released. You can check it out on our website absolutely FREE! Our next issue... No. 27, coming in December... will be our last.

I'll be talking about all that later though. Right now I want to talk about the current issue, which is pretty darn cool if we do say so ourselves!

The cover image is something I originally created for the story Ode to Oceans in the interior. I really liked the story, and the minute I read about a cat being "a gingery thing" and belonging to the ruler of the universe who lives by the sea I knew exactly what I wanted to do. Take one of my photos of water, flip it so the sea was the sky and the sky was the sea, then have Jenny sitting on the sky as if it were ground. Because the ruler of the universe can do that. Problem was... it didn't end up fitting the story well. So I took the cat out, put the image right-side up, then used that instead. It was better for the story and had really good impact.

But I couldn't let go of the original image. It was just so cool. Cool enough for the cover...

The cat is my sweet Jenny. So that means both my cats have now appeared in the magazine (Jake appeared in Issue No. 22). And here's the image for the story Ode to Oceans by Elena Botts...

That's a real photo I took. I just cut out the middle section which had a shore and some trees... then glued the sky and sea together to create a kind of weird mirror.

   
The next piece I created was for the story Way Cross, Georgia, 1937 by James Lloyd Davis...

The story is one which has an emotional gut-punch and I wanted to have artwork to reflect that. But what I came up with originally didn't work for two reasons...

First of all... I had second thoughts on using a noose. It's a symbol of fear and hate and just seeing it can be hurtful to many people. I justified it because it's reflective of the story, yet I was still uneasy. But the reason I ultimately took the noose out was because it was a spoiler. The story has two distinct parts, and I was very careful to have a page break occur before the first section was over so the second part would be more impactful to the reader. But what good does that do if I give away the second part in the image?

And speaking of the image (a composite of four stock photos run through a paint filter)... the characters in the story are selling fake holy oil. I wanted to make it appear authentically holy by having a golden glow emanate from behind. It sure turned out pretty.

   
The last story I worked on was called Her Climb by George Hook...

The story is the lament of a man pining after a Dutch girl who was climbing ahead of him. But, alas, the Dutch girl ended up with a French boy, and the man was left alone. He envisions the girl and boy from the climb in the room next to his being together (a climb of a different kind), which is even more painful to him.

I knew immediately what I wanted for the image. Since they were in the same building but different rooms, I imagined a hotel. And I imagined a pair of women's climbing boots handing off the door handle like a "Do Not Disturb" sign. My mom had a very nice pair of boots I bought her for our trip to Africa, but I couldn't find them to photograph them. I probably gave them to Goodwill or the Veteran's Exchange. So I ended up having to cut apart a bunch of stock images to create what I wanted... then drew around them with a heavy black outline. The resulting image was then run through a watercolor filter. I did several versions before I found one that would "read" for a small 2-1/4" square image.

   
The final two images I created for the magazine were a flower from the side of my house on the inside-front cover... and a shot of a toy riding horse I photographed in Malaga, Spain...

   
And that was the end of that issue! One more to go...

As I mentioned last week, I used my new Apple Card credit card to buy a print from The Night Sky. You tell them the time, date, location on earth, and they will create a star map for you using the design options you choose.

I picked a nice navy blue color with coordinate lines and constellation lines with a dark blue background. Then I personalized the text in remembrance of my mom from when we were looking at The Milky Way while on safari in Zimbabwe.

I also made the big mistake of getting it framed. But more on that in a minute.

My home has a weird, narrow, angled wall leading to the stairwell. Originally, the handrail wrapped along it, but my mom would consistently fall down the final two stairs because her hand would run out of rail and she wouldn't see them (I nearly fell a couple times myself). I solved this by designing a small shelf so the handrail went all the way down.

For the longest time, I filled the space by putting one of my National Park posters from around the corner there. But I always wanted to find something else so my Park posters would be complete again. I thought the star map print would be perfect...

The print itself is pretty great. I've seen other companies that do this, but the design from The Night Sky was the best I had seen. I wanted navy ink instead of black ink because I through it looks more like the sky I remember...

It's an eerily perfect match...

Using the Star Walk app on my iPhone, I've been able to draw in the horizon and The Milky Way so I can see the area of the sky I was looking at that night...

Pretty cool.

It's printed on acid-free paper with archival inks, has a great design aesthetic, and ships free... so the $60 price tag feels worth it.

The $60 frame that came with it, however? Not so much.

It's not even made of wood and glass... it's some kind of lightweight composite with a thin acrylic sheet. But the worst part? It's garbage. For $60 I'd expect that, AT THE VERY LEAST, would have corners that meet and are filled. But they don't. Even worse? The paint job is utter crap (UPDATE: SEE BELOW)...

They put a Kraft paper on the back, which is nice. There's a sawtooth hanger at the very top and felt feet on the bottom, which is also nice. But the feet aren't thick enough to offset the hanger, so I had to add some silicone bumpers to make the print be truly vertical on the wall...

   
I cannot for the life of me figure out how they justify a $60 price tag for this terrible frame. I wouldn't have paid $20 for this mess. So now, in addition to the $60 I've already paid, I'm going to have to sand it, fill it, then repaint it so it looks half-way decent.

If you're going to buy a print from The Night Sky, I would pass on their frames and go buy a much better one for much less that's on sale at Michaels or something. Or, if you're like me, you could build a similar one for under $10.

If you want a star map print of your very own, The Night Sky is the place!

UPDATE: After reading my review and my experience with their frame, The Night Sky sent me a replacement. So much nicer! The paint isn't peeling off. The corners actually all meet up. I'm still not sure if it's worth $60, but at least now I don't regret having spent $60 on it. If this is what the quality is usually like, and my bad frame was just a fluke, then it could be worth it to you. The paper backing and hanger certainly add value over what you'd get at a craft store.

You may think there's nothing good, just, and true in the world, and you could be right... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• Free 2-Day Shipping with Amazon Prime. We have a white supremacist domestic terrorist problem which reached a crisis point years ago. And if the solution is always going to be to throw thoughts and prayers at it... or blame it on video games... or write it off as mental illness which cannot be solved... it will never, ever go away. And as we approach the age of affordable 3-D printing where space-age polymers will allow people to print assault rifles at home, it's only going to get much, much worse. And that day is coming far faster than anybody seems to recognize. So it's probably past time you ask yourself... do you want to continue to elect political leaders who encourage, escalate, and foster an environment where white nationalism can continue to thrive? Or do you want leaders who will foster a more inclusive society where white nationalism has no place? Because make no mistake, Amazon will be shipping those 3-D printers everywhere... including your state, your neighborhood, and your school district.

   
• And Then...

alexa show me the unnervingly large Venn Diagram of people who hate immigrants but love to take 23andMe tests to find out exactly what type of immigrant their family once was

— Carter-William (@carterwilliam_) July 25, 2018

   
• Walt! "In 1955, Disneyland opened. In early 1956, Sherman W. Carter, Jr. took his family to the park and shot this home movie. The video was just uploaded to YouTube on July 1 by a family friend."

I've been a huge Disneyland fan for forever. Seeing it in its earliest, rawest form is mesmerizing.

   
• Superflat! One of my favorite artists, Takashi Murakami, has written an editorial about his influences over at CNN Style. His work has certainly been an influence on me!

It's a really good read, especially if you have any interest in how art gets to be art.

   
• Best Life! Washington State may soon allow non-binary persons to use an "X" on their drivers license if an "M" or "F" isn't how they identify. Of course people are 100% losing their shit over it, which is mind-boggling to me. Why do you care what SOMEBODY ELSE has on their driver's license? How does it affect you AT ALL? Nobody is forcing you to do a damn thing on YOUR license. Which is why this Facebook post encapsulates the issue so well...

Be free indeed.

   
• More Chlorine! No idea how I missed this gem of a story, but it made my day... The Saga of Jerry Falwell Jr.’s Bizarre Relationship With a Miami Beach Pool Boy, Explained. This hypocritical bigot deserves to have people crawling up his ass with a microscope and examining every last detail of his life. Especially if articles like this are the result. After all the pain his words and actions have brought to others, it's about time it's returned in kind.

   
• Club Life! Speaking of hypocritical bigots, this may be my favorite headline of this decade... Mike Pence Fails to Pay $24K Tab at Gay-Owned Club.

   
Looking forward to another week filled with horrors? Me neither. But see you next Sunday.

I've been a massively huge fan of Dale Chihuly's glassworks for many years.

He used to be the subject a PBS specials where he would donate works to people who pledged a certain dollar amount in support of the Seattle station. Of course I was dying to own one of his glass concept paintings or an actual glasswork, but they were way out of my price range as a student in the 80's. Now that his popularity has skyrocketed, those same works are worth thousands... even tens of thousands... of dollars, so now I really can't afford it.

But I have made a point of visiting his many exhibits and installations around the world over the years, including his permanent exhibit at The Seattle Center, Chihuly Garden and Glass.

Today one of my friends from the early blogging days, Copasetic Beth, was in town and so I got to visit again...

Well worth a visit if you're ever in Seattle!

Hey!

Have you heard?

The latest issue of Thrice Fiction has been released! And you can read it online (or download it as a PDF) absolutely FREE! To see a bunch cool stories and terrific art for the bargain price of free-fitty-free, just click here and enjoy!

This issue's cover features our raccoon mascot and was lovingly painted by the ever-talented Kyra Wilson!

As always, I'm going to take a minute to talk about the art that I created for the issue. This may involve spoilers, so it's probably best that you read it before proceeding!

Alright?

Alright!

The first piece I created is for the story Convenience by Gregory Wolos. In the story a couple loses their dog "Bark" and all they have left is his collar. Since this happens almost immediately in the story, I didn't think it would be spoiling anything to use that in the image...

This is a stock photo of a collar that I combined with a stock photo of a name tag (which I had to erase then "engrave" myself) that I then Photoshopped on a formica countertop stock photo so I could add shadows. My goal was to have something look fairly realistic so that it reflected the very real stuff going on in the story.

   
This next piece for the story Last Wednesday by Djanaina Salamon was not something I felt that I should take on myself. It specifically speaks to experiences of a Black woman, and I felt if needed that voice for the accompanying artwork. I tracked down an artist that was a good fit, but it fell through. I tried to get a replacement, but that fell through. And so... the night before we went to press... I pulled out my laptop to paint something myself...

I used Adobe Illustrator and the brush pallet to "finger-paint" the image, which I wanted to look a bit raw and abstract... but still capture a sense of beauty. The idea here is that she's burning with righteous fury over the microaggressions and other daily injustices that would probably drive a white person insane if we experienced even a fraction of it. I didn't want the fire to be actual fire... that just reads as "anger" to me. I wanted it to appear "holy," in a sense, so that it could be interpreted as "righteous." So I decided to make it silver. I also decided to make it be more of a "glow" than wild flames, so it didn't seem like the woman was out of control. There had to be an internal strength there. Originally, her hair was much shorter... but then I got the idea to make an afro which was a perfect circle, like a halo around her head. In the end, I'm happy with the illustration... but I still struggle as to whether it was appropriate for a white guy to try and interpret something he will never have to experience. I really wish I could have found an artist better suited. But I was my only option if we wanted to make deadline. Such is the life of an art director.

   
For the story Away, Away by past Thrice Fiction contributor MaryAnne Kolton, I wanted to come up with something which illustrated what I perceived to be the essence of the story. It's the story of a woman thought of as weak and inconsequential by her abusive husband... a "dead fish" as he refers to her... who has to find the strength to do the unthinkable...

MaryAnne was specific as to the firearm used in the story... a Phoenix Arms Semi-Automatic Pistol... and I wanted to be accurate in my illustration. A stock photo of a dead fish was easy to find. But I couldn't find the right pistol at the right angle which could be used. So I called my brother, who works at a gun shop in Montana to see if he could help me out. He didn't have one. But a friend of his happened to walk in that did have one, so I had him prop it up against something of fish-height and send me a photo. I then composited them in Photoshop, painted over everything (being sure that "Phoenix Arms" was visible), adjusted the colors to be almost monotone and bleak, then ran it through some filters until I had what I was looking for.

   
Ali Azar's story A Drifted Sorrowful Soul was dense with imagery I could pull from... but I couldn't get the idea of a young Iranian boy being inundated with images from the television out of my head. At first I was just going to illustrate it like out of a children's book. But I bristled at the idea of taking such a serious subject and reducing it to a kiddie illustration, so I took my drawing and cut out textures as shapes that I could paste over it...

Every piece of the illustration is a texture except the Iranian flag, which is the real deal (but not really, because you can't see the center identifying mark). As you can imagine, this took a long, long time to construct. But the result is what I was looking for so I guess it's worth it. Kinda childlike... but "real" in the sense that the textures are all real.

   
For Paul Beckmans awesome bit of flash, it was critical to not give the ending away, which is what makes it so great. So I grabbed an image from the front-end of the story of a running dog and used that. In order to throw readers off balance and make it so they couldn't possibly guess what the story was about, yet be compelled to read it so they could understand what was going on in the picture, I intentionally drew something goofy and simplistic...

I then added old-fashioned halftone dots to the image to make it look like something out of a comic book. For no other reason than I love the story and the illustration I came up with amuses me, this is my favorite work in this issue.

   
For the cross-spread story of Larry, Said a Voice from Inside by Frank Candeloro, I knew exactly what I wanted to draw. The thing that sets everything in motion... a dying cellphone battery...

To match the previous page, I rendered it in the exact same style. Nothing round. All angles. Despite the simplicity, I love how it turned out.

   
And there you have my artistic contributions to Issue No. 25 of Thrice Fiction Magazine. If you haven't already, please do check it out... it's FREE, after all.

Rejoice and be saved... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts now...

   
• Stuck In Your Head! Oh man, I cannot wait for February 8th!

And... it's stuck in my head! So good!

   
• Judas? Two of my favorite YouTubers are John Crist and Trey Kennedy. Every once in a while they collaborate on a video and the result is darn funny. Like their latest: If Bible Characters Had iPhones...

Here's another one that's entirely too funny...

More, please.

   
• Baroque! There's an artist named Christy Lee Rogers who is creating these stunning underwater photos that look like amazing baroque paintings...

The article over at My Modern Met is a must-see.

   
• NEWS! Conservatives are outraged a gay couple is on the cover of ‘Parents’ magazine
“Mothers and fathers are seeing more and more similar examples of children being indoctrinated to perceive same-sex couples as normal, especially in the media,” an unsigned blog post on One Million Moms’s website says. — Oh dear. My eyes just rolled to the back of my head and are stuck there. I am typing this while blind, so please excuse any spelling mistakes.

If a same-sex couple is what you have for parents... and they love you, care for you, provide for you, and foster your growth into adulthood... THEN YOUR PARENTS ARE FUCKING NORMAL! Likewise, if you have only one parent (for whatever reason) and they are doing their best to provide the same? THAT'S A FUCKING NORMAL FAMILY TOO!

“It could be displayed in waiting rooms of dentist and doctor offices, where children could easily be subjected to the glorification of same-sex parents,” the blog post says. — YES, GOD FORBID YOUR CHILDREN SEE A PHOTO OF A HAPPY FAMILY. THEY MIGHT THINK IT'S OKAY TO NOT BULLY THE KID WHO HAS TWO DADS!

   
• Dads! AND, YES, IT DOES OCCUR IN NATURE. IT IS ACCORDING TO GOD'S PLAN. AND ALL YOUR ENERGY HATING PEOPLE WOULD BE BETTER SPENT NOT BEING ASSHOLES. WHY NOT TRY BEING ACTUAL CHRISTIANS FOR ONCE?

Penguins are the best!

   
• Jesus Christ. When you lie, like, ALL THE TIME... it gets hard to keep your lies straight...

I mean, holy shit...

You know it's fucking bad when the Saturday Night Live parodies aren't as funny as our actual government...

This is just exhausting. I am physically and mentally checked out.

   
And... I'm done. DONE!

You're in for a culture treat... because a Very Special All Caravaggio Edition of Bullet Sunday starts now...

   
• Caravaggio! As any long-time reader already knows, I am a massively huge fan of art. All kinds of art. I can be at my happiest when getting lost in a good art museum. Or even a bad art museum. And when I first started studying art, I quickly became a fan of Caravaggio. His stunning use of deep shadow and mastery of composition is the beginning of Baroque art, which was revolutionary at the time. On top of all that, he's a fascinating historical figure whose violence came to a head when he killed a guy in Rome and had to flee to Naples. I highly recommend taking a look at his profile on Wikipedia...

Chalk portrait of Caravaggio by Ottavio Leoni, circa 1621

When I began traveling in Europe, I made it my mission to see as many publicly-displayed Caravaggio works as I could. This has brought me many adventures over the years... and resulted in me visiting some amazing museums. For this (and the pleasure of viewing his work, of course) I owe a huge debt to this fascinating artist.

   
• Alive! The inspiration for this post came about when I saw "Caravaggio living paintings by Ludovica Rambelli Theater". They selected some paintings and attempted to recreate them like so...

Now that's cool. So cool that I'm running through the paintings depicted...

   
• Judith Beheading Holofernes.

✔ National Gallery of Ancient Art -Palazzo Barberini, Rome, Italy. Odds are I would have eventually visited the museum at Palazzo Barberini just because it housed so many incredible works of art. But when I finally visited there, it was specifically to see one of the most shocking Caravaggio works in existence, Judith Beheading Holofernes. Like most of his works, this is a big painting... nearly 6-1/2 feet wide... and its impact on you is immediate when you enter the room.

   
• The Flagellation of Christ.

✘ Museo di Capodimonte, Naples, Italy. When I visited Naples, it was a cruise ship stop and I had very little time. My choice was to charter a limo and see the Amalfi Coast (somewhere I was dying to see) or take a taxi to The Capodimonte. Ultimately I picked Amalfi and don't regret it (amazing, amazing sights), but a part of me really wishes I would have seen The Flagellation of Christ, which is a powerful work.

   
• The Martyrdom of Saint Matthew.

✔ San Luigi dei Francesi, Rome, Italy. The ceiling of this church is so magnificent that I almost forgot why I had walked here! This is a massive work... 11 feet tall(!).

   
• The Annunciation.

✘ Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nancy, Nancy, France. Never been to Nancy. Would very much like to visit, not just for The Annunciation.

   
• Rest on the Flight into Egypt.

✔ Doria Pamphilj Gallery, Rome, Italy. I finally made it to The Doria after putting off for my first three trips to Rome. The painting is nice, but the museum is exceptional.

   
• The Entombment of Christ.

✔ Pinacoteca Vaticana, Vatican City, Italy. I believe that The Entombment of Christ was the first Caravaggio I ever visited, and seeing it in it's 10-foot-tall glory was quite a bit different than seeing it in a book. Which just made me want to see more of his works.

   
• The Raising of Lazarus.

✘ Museo Regionale, Messina, Sicily, Italy. I've wanted to visit Sicily like... forever, and being able to see The Raising of Lazarus in person is as good an excuse as any.

   
• Saint Francis of Assisi in Ecstasy.

✘ Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, Connecticut, USA. Never been to Hartford. Never had a desire to visit Hartford. No idea how Saint Francis of Assisi in Ecstasy ended up in Hartford. Except... this painting is absolutely beautiful and I would love to see it.

   
• Bacchus.

✘ The Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy. When it comes to my favorite Carvaggio paintings, Bacchus is not really on the list, but I was already at The Uffizi to see his The Head of Medusa (and Michelangelo's David, of course).

   
Four out of nine visited. Not bad! And then...

   
• The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist. Of all the Carvaggio masterpieces I've seen, my favorite is this one...

St. John's Co-Cathedral, Valletta, Malta. Probably one of the most interesting compositions in art history, The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist is a stunning work that is widely considered to be Carvaggio's crowning achievement. And it's huge. 16-1/2 feet across.

   
• John the Baptist. Of all the Caravaggio paintings I've not yet seen, the one I most want to see is Saint Francis of Assisi in Ecstasy, which is relatively easy to get to in Connecticut. The second painting I most want to see is John the Baptist...

Museo Tesoro Catedralicio, Toledo, Spain. Not that I really need an excuse to visit Spain... I absolutely love the country and would very much like to go back again... but this Carvaggio is an amazing work that I hope to see before I die.

   
And that's enough art for the day.

OR IS IT?!? Probably not.

Oh look! The new issue of Thrice Fiction is out!

With everything that had been going on in my life these past months, I admit that it was tougher than usual to get things to come together. Many thanks to the artists who stepped up and helped me out, even when they had a shorter deadline than usual to work with...

If you want to check it out, the online editions are FREE! Click here to get a copy!

The reason I enjoy working on the magazine so much is that I can use whatever style or technique I want. And I can experiment with new stuff. Thanks to goofing around for ThriceFiction, I have transitioned to creating art 98% digitally (I still do scratchboard & ink by hand). Some of the very first 100% digital art I created was for Thrice Fiction No. 1, and with our latest issue I was able to revisit a piece I made for a story by longtime blogging friend Marty Mankins (of Banal Leakage fame) seven years ago. I grabbed the original drawing, swapped out the background with a radiator, changed Aquaman trunks for Speedos, added some chest hair, and BAM! New story art! Just for fun I decided to honor the original art by adding a faux color-separation overlay like you'd find in an Aquaman comic book...

Fun stuff.

And now we start work all over again for December's issue.

Oh look! The latest issue of Thrice Fiction magazine is out!

And you can read it online or grab a copy in PDF or eBook format absolutely FREE by visiting our website at ThriceFiction.com.

As always, it's got a great slate of writers and artists...

Including art by yours truly. And guess who is making his Thrice Fiction debut in our latest issue? IT'S JAKE! No... he didn't write a story... but I did use him in the artwork I created for a story by Meg Tuite!

Alas, all efforts in getting him to hold a Rolodex met in failure, so there's some Photoshop involved... but he's just as adorable as ever!

So what are you waiting for? Go check it out!