Monday, May 30, 2011

L.A.S.E.R.Catz_Aliens

I don't know if these are available yet, but what the heck. Here are some more character designs I did for L.A.S.E.R. Catz, the 99¢ iPhone app game that's sweeping the nation.

Fun facts: I was terrified of aliens when I was little AND I STILL AM.

Wish I could try out the game, but alas, I don't have anything i except for Tunes. Which is kinda brutal whenever I see people visiting this site with iPhones and iPads...

Reuxben

Friday, May 27, 2011

Fun_MtGG_Preview

 
The competition is intensity! Scholar budoka Garry McGruder, use green mana the unconventional method! Garry!! You'll be mighty than all of them!!! Your chance to shine!

Best qualities in material and gear is the hope! Maybe!!

Garry McGruder will fight or run, but we can still cheer--be sturdy and be study!

Only
Removal.

Reuxben

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

nts_falloutatthedisco

 
note to self #86: tragedy + time

So we have a little problem this week: jack kelly has released more idiotic note to self cartoons, this time under the banner of "fall out! at the disco," whatever that means. This first comic is about something truly sad and depressing: my giving jack kelly space on my artsite. Honestly, I don't know why I let such a worthless contributor post here. jack kelly, the last time I saw such a useless tool, I was looking at a mirror.

 
note to self #87: superman is older than fdr's presidency

While the pope and Benito Mussolini were having a chat, Superman was being created. While Babe Ruth was tipping his bat to the stands, Superman was being created. While they were opening Radio City Music Hall for the first time, Superman was being created. While Yale was thinking about starting up a newfangled "Residential College" system, Superman was being created. While Hitler was gaining German citizenship, Superman was being created. While Disney was debuting technicolor animated shorts, Superman was being created. While Jack Benny was getting his first gig on the radio, Superman was being created. OBVIOUSLY Superman and his superhero ilk are medium-defining. No, jack kelly, you ignorant, idiotic piece of illiteracy, Superhero isn't a genre of comics, it's the medium of comics itself. As any intelligible comics professional will tell you, if you aren't superhero, get the $%#^ out of the comics industry! Your originality and insistence on not continually re-dressing up a nigh-century-long horse-deathbeating is NOT acceptable. Now if we can just get all films to be noir, all songs to be country, and all clothes to be goth and then CRUSH all attempts to deviate from those genres, we can get those mediums in line with superheros and celebrate the one or two non-noir movies that manage to catch on in the US, meanwhile disregarding all the leaps and bounds other countries make by treating genres as genres and mediums as mediums. Stop being such a close-minded fool, jack kelly.

 
note to self #88: honest pee is the best policy

I assure you, jack kelly, as long as there is breath in your lungs and blood in your veins, there is probably also feces in your lungs and feces in your veins. Get over yourself. And then flush it.

 
note to self #89: flash gordon

Oh, jack kelly, the last time anyone ever wanted to be anywhere near you was when you were born--and that was only because the doctor needed (and wanted) to slap you. You are so unwanted, your umbilical chord unattached itself. You don't take dumps, dumps take jack kellys. The best thing about you is that people can at least pretend for as long as you leave the room, that perhaps you never actually occupied our space physically, mentally, or temporally. Arnold Schwarzenegger's marriage looks at you like you're a sham. I graduated from Yale 365 days ago and have nothing to show for it but a cat-pee stained diploma and an inferiority complex and I pity you.

 
note to self #90: yeah baby

You sad, strange little turd, jack kelly. Perhaps the saddest part is that the only person who could ever love you would have to subsequently register with the government and introduce herself to her neighbors...it was actually a "her," right?

Reuxben

Monday, May 23, 2011

Com_Wish

I did a sketch to help promote fellow Ivy League Creative Dawn Metcalf's upcoming YA prose novel, LUMINOUS, featuring Wish, one of many insanely creative character designs that feel just as uniquely innovative as the best shonen characters out there. Trust me, read the clips.

Anyway, to get some more Wish in your life, be sure to check out Dawn Metcalf's phenomenally original tome coming out from Dutton Books on June 30, 2011. And get this, you can even pre-order right now by utilizing the "click" function of most computers on the link located here). WHAT?! Yes.

For even more Wish, check out an earlier draft to the right (can you spot all the references? I can't!).

And to get EVEN MORE Wish, rock out to this or that.

And if you want EVEN MORE Wish, well, I just can't help you. I tried. You saw me. Why are you looking at me like that? Hey, c'mon, don't be like that. Fine then! Be that way! See if I care. Why don't you just go off and--Wait! I didn't mean that! Come back! Dude!!

Sigh.

Reuxben

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

nts_disney'stylerperry

note to self #81: inferiority

To my personal lament, jack kelly, author of note to self, releases this latest alleged attempt at humor in a bundle entitled "disney's tyler perry." Up first is a comic that only draws further attention to the fact that regardless of how much we may hate Harvard, our hatred of Harvard will never eclipse our hatred of ourselves for our inability to get into Harvard. On the bright side, nothing prepares you for a lifelong love of failure and compliance like failing to get into Harvard and complying on settling for Yale, the beacon of second-place finishers and world-class would-be's. While the non-Ivy-educated masses may ooh and awe at our Yale diplomas, we Yalies are forever cursed with the knowledge that any knowledge we have is only slightly as good as the knowledge we could have attained at Harvard had we actually gotten into Harvard. As Yale University President Richard "Not as Rich as Harvard's President" Levin despondently bellowed to us on graduation day, to reluctantly ford us out into the world, "Yes, we're Yale, but also, we're not Harvard." Indeed, I've never forgotten those sage words, and I chant them daily as I contemplate how much life has trailed off into despair and frustrated futility since the (admittedly limited) auspiciousness of Freshman Year at Yale gave way to increasingly diminutive promise of a successful, happy post-college life.

Speaking of which, please give me a job because I'm smarter than you.*

*Unless you went to Harvard, in which case, I beg you please forgive my impudence.

note to self #82: superhero shonen

If this comic proves anything, it's that there are only two types of comics in the US: "anime" comics and superhero comics, or as I like to call the latter: "ugly" comics. Is it wrong to insist that comics extend beyond the kiddie sandbox of two (or three if you want to be generous) prototypical characters that were designed closer than ever to a century ago for the children and the illiterates of that time? Reject these stale archetypes, America. Embrace the characters designed for the Japanese children of only a couple decades ago! Only then will you understand what the medium of comics is truly capable of, rather than wasting your life away embracing the regurgitation of the regurgitation of regurgitated ideas. So grab your ragtag group of five or so friends (making sure to include at least one girl) and your favorite cockfighting creatures (including the especially cute yellow one that you arbitrarily treat more favorably than all the others), and go on an adventure into the untamed wilds of the infinite possibilities presented in shonen manga while you strive to become the greatest comics connoisseur in the world! And don't forget to hit up the hot springs. Every series has to include a hot springs episode. Hot springs are to manga what false deaths are to Marvel.

note to self #83: latinerds

Oh, jack kelly, you sly little racist, you. Did you really think I wouldn't catch that slight against my people? How dare you insist that me and my fellow mud-hued cockroaches can't be taught by anything but the streets, homes? Okay, fine, the streets and Edward James Olmos' fingers. Now if we can please hurry it up with your stupid comics, I have several episodes of George Lopez's hilarious late night talkshow on my DVR that I need to watch and loaves of Bimbo bread that I need to eat while I listen to blond, blue-eyed women scream at each other nonsensically in Spanish on any given Telemundo show as Don Fransisco's chin lard jiggles along.

note to self #84: family matters

So now you're into audio-literary voyeurism, are you, jack kelly? How about you stick to your own bee's wax and not listen in on people while they destroy their lives and their hitherto lifelong relationships with their incessantly idiotic interactions that defy the limits of illogicality with each additional syllable they exchange? If you don't have the guts to step in and advocate for a quick and obvious resolution to their pitiful squabbling, why don't you just keep your mouth and ears shut, and most importantly, how about you not write about their over-dramatized trivial problems in your stupid little cartoons for people to likewise anonymously leer over? There's something called tact, jack kelly, give it a try. See also: sterilization.

note to self #85: dog problems

Oh, jack kelly, I bet you think you're just terrifically insightful, right? Well I can see right through that poorly drawn yellow head of yours. And for the last time, you're not impressing anyone with your knowledge of advanced psychological terminology like "butt-clenchingly evil." I took Intro Psych, too, ya know. And if anyone's butt-clenching around here, it's you, you butt-clenched butt clencher. Now go clench your butt out of my face.

Reuxben

Monday, May 16, 2011

L.A.S.E.R.Catz_Tapedecks

Some more character designs I did for L.A.S.E.R. Catz, the new 99¢ iPhone app game, which has recently been updated. More barrels of monkey-fun after the jump, man.

Friday, May 13, 2011

ZLM_SuspendTwo

So grounded, so high.

Zero Like Me #165:
Suspend Two

000

Easter Eggs: "Yale" in panel 1. FB01 and 30E. Badsport backpack, Batman shoutout. Today's setting is still Bradley Airport, but not for long...

Fun Facts: Suspend is a mechanic in Magic that makes spells take longer to resolve, but at alternative (usually reduced) prices to play them, and that's kind of the metaphor for modern life, isn't it? Anyway, in the spirit of "suspend," I'll be suspending this comic strip while I prepare for Comic-Con 2011. I also need money, so I have to dedicate more time to some big commission work that just came in, as well as work on some non-comics art that I'm excited about. But, and perhaps most exciting, as a part of my SDCC prep, I've also got to get cracking on some sequentials! It's been a while since I did pages, though...hope I still remember how to get down.

Baa: Money is more about immediacy than anything else: if you can afford to pay for it, things can happen more precisely as you wish than otherwise (in terms of execution or expediency or whatever your particular criteria are) but if you can't afford it, then things take more circuitous routes to happen, if they ever do happen at all. And if they do happen, then perhaps not to your ideal specifications. Time bequeaths you the presently inaccessible facility to quell wants, a facility which is usually quantified in terms of dollars either directly (cash) or indirectly (influence).

So without money, you wait and hope everything shakes out, meanwhile you strive to make such out-shaking so. But if you do have money, you basically get what you want, how you want. Which is why I hope to be rich some day: to help other people to do good, especially artists and educators. There's nothing worse than rich money-hoarders (ever see Chinatown?). Assuming you could even justify buying one in the first place, how big does your yacht really have to be anyway?

But then again, maybe wealth is where it's at.

Reuxben

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

nts_dollarmenuballer

note to self #76: saduation

A bit of bad news: jack kelly, creator of note to self, is still fully in use of his digits, so his comics yet continue in this collection called "dollar menu baller," kicking off with a comic that has no relevance to anything at all because being a Yale graduate in fact rocks. Everybody everywhere is falling over themselves not only just to hire you, but to give you RIDICULOUS sums of money for important, world-changing work. And people don't just want you on their team, they want you LEADING their team (to victory, glory, and the acquisition of casual Fridays). I mean, you went to frickin' Yale, man! Yale! That's almost as good as Harvard. And besides, the Harvard guy they tried to hire passed on the job, anyway. But whatever, look, even though graduation may seem like a looming death specter (particularly since you literally will die after you graduate, as is the alarmingly common fate of every single Yale graduate since 1702) rest assured, life only gets better after you graduate. Trust me.

note to self #77: hairstyle

Oh, jack kelly, what are you trying to tell us? Either sign up for the al-Qaeda or sign up for the parade. Either way, just stay outta the deep south. Or the Republicans' eye sights and cross-hairs.

note to self #78: choose your own mehdventure

So the truth comes out, jack kelly--you're adopted and are therefore a second class family member in your father's eye, regardless of what your mother tells you. Not that I or anyone with a brain cares, but how did you find out you were adopted? Was it as dramatic and heartfelt as they make it on TV? Or did they wait till you were old enough to watch The Lion King on VHS? And then when you saw a sobbing Simba sidle up to a freshly corpsed Mufasa, did your dad turn to you you and say, "See that, adopted son? That's the kind of love I'll never have for you."? And then did he give you the back of his hand as he demanded you make him another sandwich, after which he mooshed it on your head and laughed in sync with the cackling hyenas on screen? And then to make it up to you did he then show you two tickets to The Lion King on Broadway and then say, "Sorry, adopted son, I was just joking around. But look what I got! Two tickets for us to go see The Lion King on Broadway! And by 'us' I mean 'me and my real son!' " at which point his biological son steps out smirking from behind the couch, and they leave you alone in the cold, empty living room as the tv screen flickers dead? And through the window did you spy your dad triumphantly carrying his proud and true son out to the fancy car you're not allowed in? Then did they speed off into the night while giving you a synchronized dual middle finger through the rearview mirror? And then did you find a small wad of cash on the counter with a note from your dad that says, "This money is for pizza, adopted son. It is a bunch of two dollar bills because you are like a bunch of two dollar bills: queer."? Was that how it happened? WHY ARE YOU CRYING, jack kelly? It's just a question! Geez!

note to self #79: prejudice

Oh, jack jelly, how can anyone graduate from Yale and become a washed-up has-been in every aspect of his character, be it intellectual, artistic, or otherwise? That's simply absurd! I personally know drugged-up Yalies who are stoned out of their minds most of the day and they're still holding down successfully. I get that you want to fight stereotypes, and perhaps your boldness should be commended, but I would never commend you for anything short of shooting a terrorist leader in the eye. Did you shoot a terrorist leader in the eye? No. So stop looking to me for approval. And get yourself some self-respect. And a job.

note to self #80: theory

Enough jack kelly, stop trying to impress me with your mindless namedropping. I mean, who does that?! Look, yes, it's widely documented how the young Mr. Spielberg cracked the spine off my copy of Lynda Barry, after I kindly offered yet again to share my book with him during our graphic novels seminar. Goodness knows the poor guy was on crippling financial aid, and thus probably couldn't afford the books himself! Regardless, even though the cover subsequently and permanently popped off the binding, and just because the kid made no reference at all to the decapitation he executed right in front of me and everyone else in the seminar while he busily pontificated on whatever he was busy pontificating on--none of that gives you the right to harbor a deep-seated, one-sided bloodfeud, least of all because he, like so many of your classmates in that graphic novels seminar, didn't actually care about comics as a medium, so much as a fun and easy A. So carry on your soul-debilitating grudge if you wish, jack kelly, but I will play no part in it! Yes, it would be a fraction of a twitch of a blink of his eye to acknowledge his crime, let alone replace the book, but that's not the point. The point is that after reading his scathing Spring Fling review in The Yale Herald, you're just bitter and angry that he of all people holds anti-JEW beliefs. And that he got a namedrop in a RADWIMPS song. Ok, I'll admit that last one stings a little.

Reuxben

Monday, May 9, 2011

Friday, May 6, 2011

ZLM_Removal

I Obama your Jace. Scoop?

Zero Like Me #164:
Removal

000

L.A.S.E.R.Catz_Elementalists


Yo dawgz, my iPhone game, L.A.S.E.R. Catz, just launched in the iTunes store thingy!

App store > Games > Alarmed Publishing > L.A.S.E.R. Catz.

Ok, it's not mine, but I did do villain character design (see the above Elementalists). I don't have iStuff so I don't know how it turned out, but I saw early gameplay footage a while ago and it looked face-punchingly cool.

WARNING! Rated ages 9+ for "Infrequent/Mild Cartoon or Fantasy Violence!"

Get some (for 99¢)!

Reuxben

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

nts_oliviamunnisthejoke

note to self #71: physical

Unfortunately, jack kelly, of note to self, has not been shot in the eye, so his comics return for yet another go, starting with an absolutely disgusting peek into the private life of the life of privates. For the record, I've long held that jack kelly is like so much malignant matter, in that he needs to be sliced off of this website. However, I cannot afford health insurance, so that operation is still many payments away. Someday...

note to self #72: skype

And once again jack kelly strives to make wretched a perfectly wonderful service. Don't worry jack kelly, nobody's lining up for instant access to talk to you, least of all clients--and let's not even get into what kind of clients we're talking about here. Now go googlewhack your Wii because that tamagotchi hotmail won't won't let you digg his motherboard's xbox till it tweets. No, jack kelly, not even I know what I'm talking about anymore. But the important thing is that you do, so I think less of you as a result. Freaking creep.

note to self #73: abstinence

Oh, jack kelly, I am positive you would cry yourself to sleep regardless of your personal circumstances. You're only using the fact that you are a cold, lonely soul as a cover, I'm sure, but let's be honest, you have the warmth of an Otter Pop and just as much nutritional value. You will die alone, save for the coat of urine that will seep into the earth above your grave, the supply of which I will personally assure.

note to self #74: cookie jar

So the truth comes out, jack kelly, you are an anti-social toad because even from a young age you avoided all sorts of interpersonal connection, under the veiled guise of so-called satire and comedy. I don't know what's worse: that your plan resulted in you being so socially inept you literally talk to yourself for Dr. Phil-caliber remedial psychological comfort, or that you were just as unfunny in kindergarten as you are now. Either way, please see my commentary from note to self #73 regarding how you will die alone in a blanket of my urine. Idiot.

note to self #75: please fire olivia munn

Oh, jack kelly, if this isn't the post-it note calling the coward yellow! Why are you picking on Olivia Munn, and why are you tossing in Dat Phan, almost as an afterthought? Obviously Dat Phan is only ever an afterthought, but still, it's the principle of the matter. As for Olivia Munn, how dare you insinuate she is less humorous and has less personality than a comically-mistranslated fortune cookie? She's up there in one of the US's leading comedy venues, seen around the world, and is thus literally the face of Asian comedy for many people. That stature's gotta count for something, I mean, she wouldn't be up there in such a prominent perch if she wasn't talented, just ask Jimmy Fallon. Sure it's a lot of pressure up there, and yes, her other show fared just as predictably horrifically as Osama bin Laden in a staring contest with a bullet, and yes, she was just as devoid of personality and humor on the previous show she sputtered on for years with no signs of improvement--a triple-digit cable show that could actually get away with the only means of endearing Olivia Munn to its (admittedly simple and niche) audience, which is to say, putting her in lewd situations. But come on, if those two shows prove anything, it's that even if Olivia Munn is a mediocre actor, she's an even worse comedic actor who will strive till her dying breath not to improve--that's dedication.

Yes, there are incredibly talented Asian, female, and Asian-female actors out there who would kill for the opportunity Olivia Munn is presently taking a steaming turd on, and yes, Olivia Munn is not only reinforcing stereotypes about women being unfunny, but at least I forgot where I was going with this. Oh, right--Olivia Munn is painfully unfunny and is not only depriving more qualified individuals of mainstream opportunity, true, but she's also denying the audience of a good show, and she is single-handedly making The Daily Show, by now a full-blown comedic institution, worse off for suffering her presence. But The Daily Show, as a prestigious mainstream venue, owes it to its audience and--quite frankly to the world at large--to feature a great variety of performers and talents, so they should be commended for their commitment to diversity in hiring a token unfunny person.

If one thing is clear, it's that Olivia Munn's working on The Daily Show will surely inspire legions of young, female Asian girls to aspire to be as monotone and cringe-inducingly awful as her for years to come, be they clad in plunging necklines and gobbling hot dogs while men hoot and holler, or be they wearing pantsuits and butchering lines while men wonder how she got on The Daily Show after being known solely for being clad in plunging necklines and gobbling hot dogs.

In any case, jack kelly, I will say this: if I wanted to see a humorless minority attempt to mask a void of personality with poor attempts at comedy, I'd stare at me all day.

Reuxben

Monday, May 2, 2011

SLS_BiggerAndBlacker

Make futile efforts to hide out for about ten years, it's Sick Little Suicide #23, "Bigger and Blacker," in which I am feeling an odd mix of happiness and guilt for feeling so happy about a death.

It's like watching an excellent comedian absolutely kill it.

Easter Eggs: Incredible source photos here and here.

Fun Facts: Having just destroyed that idiot Donald Trump the day prior (with great help from Seth Meyers), I felt that by the end of his Osama-killing announcement, Mr. Obama was primed for the ultimate in oratory finale: a Chris Rock mic-drop.

Sadly, he didn't do it.

But I can always imagine.

Thus, art.

Baa: I was in 8th grade on 9/11, I had never left California before and had no relations to the east coast to speak of. I had no concept of New York as anything more than an abstract picture on TV, and although I recognized that morning as something utterly unbelievable, it only ever existed to me in intangible, even foreign, terms.

Maybe my four years on the east coast at Yale and my school trips to New York were key influences that made this past weekend's news so much more real to me now. I even felt tears of joy and incredulity gathering in my eyes as the President spoke!

I really didn't think we'd ever know Osama's fate, I thought he would steal away a quiet, peaceful death. Yet we now get to experience a rare sense of closure at least as far as he is concerned.

But oddly enough, even as the jubilation frothed forth, I couldn't help noticing how strange it is to rejoice at news of a death. But in any case, justice is among the most beautiful things in the world, and I am swelling with pride for my President, our military, and our country.

Speaking of pride, in the YDN's coverage of Yale's reaction, I noticed my T-Shirt design was front and center! What are the odds! Wish I could reprint that shirt, especially since I can use digital methods now...

That traditional work still looks so avoidably janky.

Reuxben