Ghosts!

I forgot to post these ghosts from Halloween I <3 <3 <3 them okay?
Also it's never too late for Halloween.
It's Halloween forever in my soul.

crush

Crushes are the worst nobody needs them.

I especially do not need to relate to a person like they are the Trader Joe's chocolate I cannot live without (Dark, no not 75% that shit tastes like battery acid, no milk chocolate is anathema). I am fine and well can the democracy of  my mind and body (hahaha democracy ha more like tyranny ruled over by a triumphant bag of goldfish crackers) please decide against this nonsense it is a time and life waster more virulent than television.

Scratches the Cat

More diary comics, this one is about a semi feral cat that would come in the house and hang out. He liked me except for when he didn't.

I have since met a cat (named Pickles) who is desperately affectionate and I vastly prefer Scratches' loving indifference.

Florida

This is a quick comic about my first couple days in Florida which involved:

• sweating
• roaches 
• more sweating
• larger roaches 
• sweat stain possibilities that were hitherto unknown to me
• humidity nausea 
• and sleeping in the back of a car to avoid roaches

Thanks for coming to this meeting

 Hey thanks for coming to this meeting Liz.

Yeah. (shifts hands nervously on the surface of the coffee table)

We just wanted to talk to you about some things that we think you could be doing a little better to help us reach our company goals.

Ok. (Damn it. Not okay. They are saying that you suck because you do suck. Try to listen to them just roll with it)

Right, well, this is really the most important one, we think that you could feign an interest in TV shows.

Okay.

I mean, it is a problem that you've only seen one episode of Game of Thrones and you don't tweet about a single TV show. We have really gone to a lot of effort to make you blend in physically and I think that it's really important that you fit in emotionally as well. Humans would probably die for TV shows and if we could figure out a way to harness that power, I mean, our job here would really be done.

That makes sense, it does. Um is okay for me to like pretend to care or do you want me to try to really care?

See that's part of the problem, asking a question like that seems to indicate that you aren't fully committed to our mission.

No. No, I am certainly committed to our mission, the number of human beings who let subservient animal species defecate on my lawn! No, their race is just so ready to be obliterated. I'm committed. I just want to be convincing and I want to know if it's possible for human beings to not tweet about tv shows because if it is maybe I could be one of those people, and not have to fake it?

It's not possible. Sometimes, what is it? Oh yeah! They say, "fake it till you make it". Can you try that?

Yep.

A letter to Spiders

Please send this message to all of the spiders that you know and I am sure that this problem will be cleared up immediately!  I have added a chart just in case the spiders have some questions.

P.S. Letter also applies to cockroaches. Thanks.



This request is brought to you by teaching a class in an old church's reception hall.

A recipe for personal challenge and critter heebie jeebies:
If you think that you are a strong person who can deal with the challenges of life and maybe pick up heavy things then you will enjoy my favorite recipe for finding out that: 1. you are in fact a coward and  2. you would like other people to smush offending things for you 
Pairs well with a side of bug and arachnid related nightmares.

Ingredients:

1 Large Black Widow
Killed by me without hesitation. Hey, I am a champ! I am up to any challenge.

Jealous

A green or slightly off yellow monster.
I don't know your life but I think I want it for some reason.
The you that I made up is perfect.
I am so jealous of that you.
You are probably nothing like you in real life. You probably do things that you don't want to like  make dentist appointments, eat kale, and floss. You probably read half way through books that you really should have read forever ago and then quit (Cough* Anna Karenina).
Who knows? Maybe you are perfect and your life is a never ending serenade sung by dolphins but I doubt it.

Fave Friday: Weightlifting

Things I am tired of hearing:

I thought that this opinion was a mythical internet beast like a cyber cubaccabra or something.
I thought that this was something that only appeared in comments on you-tube videos, but NO I have personally witnessed people opining silly things about lifting. Let's all get some things straight: 

Here are some reasons you should lift: (Ladies especially!) 

1.  I am stronger now than I ever was in high school (I played a non-stop parade of sports in high school averaging probably to about two hours of exercise everyday for three years). Even though I'm old and eating a single chocolate chip makes me feel like trash, I've never been this strong.
2. Lifting heavy things feels awesome. Really though. Lift a heavy thing. Pick it up. Put it down. You will now be lifting heavy things forever. Welcome to the society of those who post PRs on Facebook. 

   

   Workouts feel great. Dead but great.

3. Challenge is awesome- was your only achievement this week watching American Ninja Warrior? Do something.

FEARS

Fears:

You will never be anyone. 

You will never be anything. 

You will be who you are right now and never get better.

Someone else has done everything that you were fated for. 

What you were made to do has already been done by Tim. Yesterday. You just missed it sorry.

All the good art that there is to be made has been made and you have not made it. Art will continue, but emptily, like an explanation of a joke

You will be someone you do not like.

You will never have enough.

You will never have health insurance. 

You will have health insurance because you have given up on what you wanted. You will also have dental and a heart full of regrets. You will pour yourself a glass of whiskey in the middle class home you are paying off, it will taste like lost opportunity. 

Other people are better.

Somehow other people will have careers in things. You will not have careers in things. "Career" is a word that will slide off you and onto the ground, it will lie there limpid. 

You are not good at the thing.

You will stop loving people. It is easier not to. 

You will give up.

You will give up and start calling yourself a millennial. Once you do this, you will realize that it is true. That you somehow magically have a degree from a Liberal Arts College (which you do not regret) and your personality is not detail oriented. 

You will not write a book. 

Sketchbooks and You!

Dear people of the universe,

I would like to bring to your attention an arts farts etiquette issue. 

When someone grabs your sketchbook and starts looking through it =  >:( 

Now you know and you have no excuse. 

Why Liz? Why does it bother you when I riffle through your mind on paper as if it was my very own? 

You are probably going to find: 

•  my mind on paper which I would like to keep to myself sometimes ok?
• figure drawings of some nekked people 
• random snippet notes on East of Eden or something that are like: "Timshel is the whole book    anyway. Soulless? non-humanness incarnate, incarnation of evil opposite of incarnation of Christ.  Never ending genesis. Cain and Abel, not Cain and Abel, forever Cain and Abel." Your reaction:????
•  a story I wrote about that one time you did something annoying
• more swears than you thought possible
• a cartoon in which the main character is a beheaded chicken

I'll be right back

My Life be like:

My life be like:

What even are those things on the table? 

"What even are"?

Liz it is impossible for me to conceive of a grammar in which that would be acceptable. 

I DO WHAT I WANT. 

THE BEST OF ALL POSSIBLE WORLDS. 

Why do you think Candide is the funniest thing ever what is your problem.Voltaire was a big ass. 

A FUNNY BIG ASS.
Why are you shouting?

IT'S FUNNY ALSO TOO MUCH COFFEE RUN ON

Hello gentleman and toadstools that compose my readership I am having a day. The sort of day in which one arises and says to themselves, "let's get things done!" then they proceed not to get things done which drives them further and further into a land of panic and maybe also of tears but just maybe we will see. Sorry I have not been posting cartoons recently I have been submitting them various other places and practicing rejection. Character. Hooray.

Tombstone

I've been rethinking my tombstone game lately. Attempting to really capture your life on a piece of stone is a difficulty. Mostly it's factory molded angles cradling heart shaped placards on which your existence is whittled down to a name and dates. 

What happened to complex interlocking poems like in the Spoon River anthology? Now that is a graveyard I could be a part of.

Fave Friday: Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell

I have so many favorite things that I have decided to share them with you on Fridays. (Obligatory: These are a few of my favorite things!)
Have you heard of these things before? Probably. Fine. I'll remind you about some wonderful things then.

Today: Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell

 Quick Fix: 

A fat book about some boss magic. Totally worth reading. 

Reading level: Like Harry Potter with a description of the battle of Waterloo in it.

Long Winded Description: 

This is like Harry Potter for grown ups.* If you grew up with the Chronicles of Narnia, Lord of the Rings, or harbor a fervent love for Neil Gaiman this is the book you've been waiting for. Read it right now. I only read it very recently but I wish I read it years ago.

I do fall hard for books with a well thought out magical universe and man is this one of them. I really like that it's a "STAY IN THE CIRCLE" kind of magic.

All hail the Raven King. 

Used Envelopes VS Notebooks

DOES ANYONE ELSE HAVE THIS PROBLEM? I have notebooks. I have many notebooks. I have fancy notebooks with the Chi-Rho (XPI) Page from the book of Kells on it. I have cheap composition notebooks with the black and white cow pattern on them. 

But do I use any of them? NOPE. These notebooks are supposed to hold my torrents of ideas in the same spot so that, on the off chance that one of them is actually decent, I can find them again. They should make my ideas accessible so that I don't have them strewn all over the place like Sybil's oak leaves.  

Instead I end up writing all over every envelope that I am sent and subsequently looking through the trash bin over for ideas that I had last Tuesday.

Example: Here we see the wild envelope writing tendency in its natural habitat.

Resulting in this frustrated self-expression:

somewhat unrelated: you wanna see my fave stamps!?

From this ongoing trauma I formed a genius idea:

To be categorized under: Artsy Fartsy Problems

Un-Illuminated Manuscripts II

Yet again:

I discovered "mostly-a-butt man" in the pages of a book chronicling the weird things that cropped up in illuminated manuscripts. I put this drawing in my sketchbook so I would not forget his glorious personage.

The following image is an combination of "mostly-a-butt man"and the "head growing as if it is on a weird vine" phenomenon frequently depicted in illuminated manuscripts. This image is useful for bestowing upon individuals who take up two parking spaces or bite into popsicles whilst I am watching.

That is all.

Garage Sale Win: Sushi Cats

Im just gonna take a moment of your time to brag about my great yard sale find a few weeks ago.

First off, yard sales are like gambling. You drive around, hoping that your Saturday morning will not be wasted. You constantly think to yourself, "Will I find something other than laminated place mats and ugly flower vases? Does everyone still have a VHS copy of Jurassic Park? Will this be worth the fact that I am not drinking coffee at this very moment?" Dear reader some times it is worth it. Sometimes one is lucky.*

*(Sometimes one is not lucky. Also you might be saying, "Liz just put your coffee in a damn reusable coffee mug that you can buy from Starbucks for a mere four thousand dollars." And unto you I say, "The coffee one drinks from a to-go cup tastes like hurry. It is not the same."

Moving on - I have purchased my first work of art. Here it is:

Bicycle Cards

Cards - I dunno I just like them. 

Why is the joker on a bicycle? 

Why is the company called Bicycle? 

I looked on the website but they did not tell me. 

Hard times.

I looked at the spelling of the word "bicycle" for too long. 

Now its meaning is nothing.

That text above looks kind of like a spade and if I was in the mood for some e.e. cummings nonsense I would turn it into one.

Fabulous Newton

Newton. Calculus. Less than any given damn. That's what I have to say.

Also this great picture that I found:

Newton: "Ah yes! All the discoveries I made about what happens to light when it travels through an apple. I'm so proud that my work has been boiled down to this."
Artist somewhere: "You like it? Thanks! I just wanted to make sure that I included your important contribution about apples here in the picture. I don't really know what that triangle thing was before but it seemed unnecessary so I just replaced it with something you're famous for! YAY! (ad infinitum exclamation points)

Jane Eyre

Because who doesn't love some stormy potentially haunted and dark romance? 

Jane in School.

St. John is a lame-o.

Not getting stuff done and the Facebook refresh button

This is the unsung and not epic story of my regular weekends. I should really make one for imgur as well since I spend even more time on that.  

(imgur: noun def. time eating vacuum of a website). Ex: I spent the last forty days and nights on imgur.

A bad pie joke

#sorrynotsorryImalittlebitsorry

Easter Egg Hunts

Pshaw.
Youths these days.
All the Easter egg hunts I have seen recently looked something like this:

The eggs aren't even slightly hidden at all they are just poured out all over the grass like someone hid them by pouring thousands of them into an automatic pitching machine. The kids gather around the field of corn-syrupy dream in hordes and as soon as they start there is an elbows out lord of the flies free for all. What is the world coming to?

If I was hiding the eggs at least some of them would be hard to find, like you know behind something even.

Exhibit A: I would tie an Easter egg to the leg of a menacing looking falcon. Challenges build character.

PS and also: Jelly beans are gross. I know that some of you out there like jelly beans...whatever you're wrong. Of Jelly beans (all gross) the grossest are Brach's.

That's right typewriter not computer, typewriter. Next year introducing: lavender colored bellybutton lint flavored jelly beans! Thanks Brach's!
*someone recently brought a bag of brach's jelly beans to a game night and it was indeed confirmed that "toothpaste" and "all spice" were actually what they tasted like. Someone said, "if you help the mission succeed then you can eat a jelly bean...wait no...if you fail the mission then you have to eat a jelly bean"... the off brand cleaning product taste that every villain deserves.

Waxing Poetical

(poetical is funnier than poetic and you know it)
In Which: I am momentarily inspired to attempt vaguely serious art.
I recently read the Graphic Cannon series (check it out) which contains illustrated excerpts from famous illustrated literary works. As with all interpretations of art, I love some of them and disagree vehemently with others but since it's possibly more fun to dislike something than like it (and certainly more fun to dislike something than feel apathetic about it) big fans of art and literature should totally check these out.
As a result of reading some of these my drawing this week is waxing poetical and I'm afraid you will have to bear with - reading this book in combination with a recent interest Byron (Poetry's James Dean? Calliope's bad boy?) resulted in this overambitious doodle.

Alright so my typography is struggling a bit there and I broke off the lines in the wrong spots because I just cant make the words any smaller with my paint brush- just for you hardcore lyricists I will put the whole thing up:

SHE walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies,
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meets in her aspect and her eyes;
Thus mellow'd to that tender light	5
Which Heaven to gaudy day denies.
One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impair'd the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress
Or softly lightens o'er her face,	10
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.
And on that cheek and o'er that brow
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,	15
But tell of days in goodness spent,—
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent.

The Ides of March

The ides of march hit me particularly hard this year. I am not a fan.

My car got stolen. I got it back and instantly became horrifically ill.

This is the cycle I go through every time I get sick:
1. I think I'm coming down with something
2. I think that I can fend it off with vitamin C, tea, and workouts that I should not be doing.
3. I think I'm dying. I think sadly of all of the nothing that I will never do. I text Meghan to remind her to throw me a wake once I am dead and that under no circumstances should my funeral be open-casket. I regret that I have never done any magic.
4. I think that I will probably never be well again and spend the rest of my life breathing wheezily, wearing an eye patch and being accompanied by a three legged dog. Though I no longer believe that I will die, I am now convinced that I will spend the rest of my life in a slightly ill state.

Doodle Challenge

Doodle with me Challenge: 

Okay so I have tried this before and it was met with tepid success but - draw me a stick figure doodle. (or any doodle really - maybe its a pattern you made as a kid, try it again)

Why Should I do that?

-To reconnect with art: everyone should make things. When we are kids we make things and get lost in the imaginary worlds that we create on paper. As kids grow up they tend to lose this ability to enter an imaginary world through drawing. Doodling can bring it back to you again and it is a cool experience.*

- Feel like a kid again: Are you feeling old and jaded? Do you hate your job? Doodling can make you feel like a kid again. Make a drawing that is a story. Let the story tell itself to you.

- Because I want you to

- everyone can draw stick figures you have no excuse

Because due dates help people get stuff done you have two weeks until March 21 to send me doodles.
Where to send it: to my twitter account @liz_rosema
I will post them. Send me doodles from your kids, send me doodles from your aunt Marge, send me doodles from homeless Bob. Share it - ask your friends.

* If you are an artist, or a human being, or a faerie princess you should read What It Is by Lynda Barry. It is a book that asks questions about the images that we create - where they are from, why we make them and why we stop making them. I think it is a sort of graphic novel version of Aristotle's Poetics. 

Grain of Salt: be ready for something different. Like reading Faulkner, begin by absorbing, if you flail around trying to understand you may drown.

A Doodle:

About this doodle:
Yes that cactus is a periscope.
It is red vs. green. duh.
Hot air balloons are of course a useful military vehicle. A squadron of them is not at all a bad plan. (I just wanted to draw some okay?)

When I was a kid I was forever drawing intricate stick figure battles during the long southern baptist sermons of my youth (these sermons outlined the importance of various and sundry golden objects placed in the tabernacle in the book of Deuteronomy - which was already tedious and a sermon about these objects increased the tediousness five, nay! tenfold).

To relive the joys of drawing of my youth I choose to doodle a battle for my (and hopefully for your) enjoyment. It was way fun.

 Detour 
A "Kids these days" rant: brought to you by the letter "c" for complaining
because my job is to teach stuff to kids I am relatively familiar with fads in toys.
One of them is: doodle books. They are pages with drawings that are somewhat started, and they say "finish the castle" or "draw a battle". I see how they are kind of fun but also partially I inclined to say, "Really? you can't think of anything to doodle by yourself? You need help doodling? Alas! Alack! The fall of the imagination!"
rant over.

Un-illuminated Manuscripts

Introducing:

I have always liked illuminated manuscripts because medieval artists appeared to aim for putting the weirdest things possible in the margins of the books they were copying. Mice waging battles and plants that grow human heads were popular marginal decorations.
Witness these margin drawings for yourself:
Colossal: The World's Oldest Doodles
Weird Stuff in Illuminated Manuscripts

Behold! The mysterious bird hat person:

No really though.
You look at and are like:
Oh it's a bird. 
No it has a human head in the middle.
It's wearing a bird head hat.

and my sketch of it:

Is this bird bodied person wearing the head of a bird headed person? Perhaps.
 Who can know?
 Is it a bird bodied person desperately wishing to be a bird bodied and bird headed person and therefore it dons a most peculiar hat in order to avoid being ostracized by the general bird population? 

All I know is that hats of this magnificence should surely abound.

I demand more of them.

HATS

Thusly, I was inspired to draw a meeting of the huge-bird-head-hats society I think it is quite stunning. I would join immediately if I possessed the financial resources and required neck strength to purchase and wear such a glorious hat.

Bonus drawing:

Lion legged lizard person.

 

More Valentines

Some more valentines:

I'll write a valentine to a place if I want.

I'm Making Valentines

It's February, the most annoyingly spelled month of the year, and to celebrate that I'm gonna send Valentines to people and things that I love.
I plan to make a bunch more Valentines - not all of them will be references to pop songs I swear. I'll post them here and on twitter.

From: Liz
To: Maggie McCann
This is a line from Boom Clap by Charlie XCX
every time I hear it I laugh - so now it's a Valentine

switching the words makes quite a difference....hangnails you cuss

I was too lazy to post yesterday's so here it is now-

From: Liz
To: Lego
Including: Unikitty

Not the Brightest Crayons

We'll get two boxes for Timmy. He wants to be an accountant someday.

Not Acting Your Age

Sketch book thoughts - I am 25 but also not very 25ish. How old am I anyway?

my fave part of this is that old guy saying "youths!"

I'm too technologically inept to be twenty-five, too old to actually be five, and too young to be seventy.

In other news some kids asked me how old I was the other day and I said "one hundred and eight" without missing a beat, one of them was like, "Yeah probably...that sounds right" - so I might be getting older.