Fun_OneMillionDollars

Sometimes you just have to walk right into the mouth of it all.

This is the first piece I've done that's made me happy in a long, long, long time.

I've been pretty depressed lately. For a while, actually, but after finishing this piece, I just felt such a relief. Quieted everything, all the worry and doubt, if only for a day or so.

She's just heading into this cave (actually a dinosaur mouth, probably lightly inspired by Ixalan's dino theme). Just bring it on, let's go.

I was really pumped to try this new coloring technique: just a soft brush for two tone layers, then I colored those locked layers, and applied various gradients and adjustments above them.

This piece came together pretty quickly too, not enough time to start second-guessing myself and hating everything. Happy this one worked out. Minimal, but with plenty of punch.

I kept listening to Michael Jackson by Das Racist to get the attitude right, but it kinda started as a flash of an idea about negative space in this quick sketch. I also wanted to practice drawing an Asian character for an upcoming piece. The Ellegarden connection is probably because I was also listening to their adventurous The End of the World, which made me think of dinosaur worlds like Ixalan.

Not normal,

Reuxben

nts_obeseanorexics

note to self #131: boxcar
That hideous scar on the comics landscape, jack kelly, is back with more note to self in a bundle entitled "obese anorexics." Did you have a good Comic-Con, jack kelly? A-bup-bup! Not another word, my good man, rest assured--I don't care! Also, stop criticizing boxing and NASCAR fans. Their interests are just as valuable to the American fabric as any other. I mean without boxing or NASCAR, how would brain-dead yokels entertain themselves? No, no, besides Family Guy. Exactly--it's like enjoying a Seth MacFarlane show, except with the fringe benefit that inevitably the beer-chugging constituents will soon enough come to fisticuffs and enable some voluntary herd-thinning in the invariably ensuing brawl. It's Darwinism at its Ed-Hardy-bedazzled finest, jack kelly.

note to self #132: rap must end
jack kelly, I don't know where you get off making a slight against rap. It's a perfectly valid and valuable art form. That's right, ART form. If it weren't for rap, how would I ever be able to publicly and rhythmically voice my utter contempt and sub-human estimation of women? That's right. Rap music. Thank you, Kool Herc!

note to self #133: trigonometry
Oh, jack kelly, you miserable wretch, you're just jealous that a 12 year old can find the surface area of a rhombus and you can't. Loser. Also, what's a rhombus? That's a thing, right?

note to self #134: diversity
What a heartwarming message, jack kelly: verily, all shapes and sizes can be punched in the neck by testosterone-addled jocks. Also, I don't know how, but I'm pretty sure that was a racist joke, jack kelly, and that's something I cannot stand for. If I do, the Mexicans will steal my chair.

note to self #135: logos
You're one to talk, jack kelly. You're too stupid to draw good. Or something. Cow fart.

Reuxben

nts_fecality

 

note to self #33: cat fat
Slight change of scheduling--Zero Like Me will be posted on Wednesday, so today is note to self, by that walking turd bomb jack kelly, starting with a comic that's jack kelly's attempt at being sensitive.

 

note to self #34: cake
I can tell that jack kelly is going the distance. Yeah, jack kelly, that was sarcasm, you post-it-noting idiot.

 

note to self #35: instruments
Congratulations, jack kelly, you just achieved a brand new level of ignorance. Have you never heard of these guys? Have you never heard this? Ugh. Why do I even try to get through to you?

 

note to self #36: fecal temporality
Words escape me, jack kelly. Words escape me. They escape me in a luscious flow of chunky browns and reds.

Reuxben

YDN_sls.ModernMinstrels

 

Head over to Compton wearing nothing but a Confederate flag and a smile, it's Sick Little Suicide #18, "Modern Minstrels," in which I talk about old new news.

It's like a dream come true for Yalies who hate blacks, women, and black women--we finally get to cut loose and chant along to art, right in the face of female and/or black members of the Yale student body! Sweet!

Easter Eggs: The Herald, Volume, and Scene, the bastions of hipsterdom at Yale...also "yuck" in the paper and "Rifle" on the other paper...just for kicks. Hipster overload!

Fun Facts: I heard my first white guy N-bomb a black guy this year. It was actually kinda intense. Apparently the black guy's cool with it--it's like his nickname or something.

Baa: I saw a play last month called "Race" for Culture Draw where a white guy dropped N-bombs in front of his black college friend and he was cool with it, but then decades later the black friend volunteers all this dooming evidence on his old friend when the white guy is on trial for outrage against a black woman. Zing!

Also, why on Earth are these idiots relevant, in demand, and contracted? I hate you hipsters. I also hate the YCC. That is all.

Reuxben

YDN_zlm.WiiruSmissu

If you see Will Smith around, please do thank him.

Zero Like Me #85:
Wiiru Smissu
<- Previous Comic...Next Comic->
-First Comic-
Easter Eggs: "Yale" and dice silhouette in panel 1.

Fun Facts: Will Smith is pretty cool for reasons I hope you will be able to see soon enough!! I started then shelved this comic a while ago but thought it was relevant to run today because first: I'm absolutely exhausted this week after running the Master's Tea goings-on, so it was helpful to work on a comic that I'd already started drawing. But it was also pretty relevant because of how Will Smith has intervened into recent events! Take notes, Yale Herald: There do exist helpful, monied people.

Baa: I am really having difficulty with the Herald right now; it's becoming an environment I am ideologically opposed to, you know? After a lifetime of never having real financial security, I really can't stand when people trivialize money. I feel like the Herald is playing games with money, large sums of money, and I find this absolutely detestable.

Anyway, I'll be comicsing at Calhoun tonight throughout the dinner shift, and I'll be at Silliman Saturday. So...yeah.

And huge thanks (and congratulations!) to Kazu Kibuishi for flying out from California for the Tea. In four years of Master's Teas, this was the greatest I've ever experienced, no contest. And the Yale Bookstore just got in its shipment of Amulet 1, and there are still a few 2's left, so you'll want to pick those up so you can feel snooty and elitist when the movie comes out!

Reuxben

YDN_zlm.YouGotMe

It's like de ja vu all over again.

Zero Like Me #40: You Got Me (Best Friends)
<- Previous...Next->
-First-
Easter Eggs:"Yale" in panel 1, throwback to ZLM number one.

Fun Facts: ZLM first saw print 365 days ago! So in honor of the occasion, we're set back at JE, but rather than contemplating jumping, Z is now concerned, somewhat, about someone other than himself.

Baa: Birthday Blah details are here. But in reflecting on the year, as much as I hate giving names (skip this mushy part), I have to thank Ruth for encouraging me to go for YDN comics, Charles for actually getting me going (with SLS), Bonner and Kirk for making me feel like less of a loser, and last but never least, Reed for being an excellent editor slash human being--I threw a small party in my head the two times he admitted he actually liked at least two of them!

ZLM has been increasingly consuming my life, but I hope to continue playing Pagliacci for anyone who would give me the chance. You know that you got me.

Reuxben

Herald_zlm.HowGarryGotOver

Kids these days with their hippity hop and their mind games.

Zero Like Me #36
Zero Romance #4:
Bulldog Tales Pt.3 - How Garry Got Over
<- Previous...Next->
-First-
Easter Eggs: Romance 4 in notebook. Garry's wardrobe inspired by Black Thought, Z's by Buster Keaton. New Haven's own Fair Haven Elementary as Winsor McCay Magnet Academy. The Legendary Roots Crew in panel 3.

Fun Facts: This week's comics have been inspired by the Trudeau's Bull Tales, where first "Megaphone" Mark Slackmeyer gets all 60s-Yale and revolts against Yale President King, and also by when Mike "The Man" Doonesbury tutors a local New Haven kid. My kid is named in honor of the Trudeau and the McGruder.

Baa: I have passed the point of denial--I have a cold (I hope it's just a cold)...

Also: I'm mildly amused, actually, by how quite poorly my last suicide went over. I usually think something is wrong with the reader if they don't get one of my comics (the post-Lighter Light ones), but in this case I know it isn't just me: people really misread it. So that's too bad for them. I'll update that post with responses, because some stuff is just ridiculously off.

I'm more interested at how gung-ho anti-censorship Yale and the Why Dee Enn are re: the Mohammad comics people coming to town, the very week the OCD's been getting on me about my material. I feel like I'm out of my mind: is it not crystal clear to anyone but me that only stuff like our guests' material even merits discussing censorship? My stuff is nowhere near that level of pernicious, which makes it even more evident that the restrictions I'm facing on such trivial material as our football team and the race of one of my characters is way overkill. I'm not even making any charges about race. If anything, I'm simply saying that race exists. Really. That's it.

Reuxben

YDN_zlm.GitDough

Originally printed in Yale Summer Session's newsletter, Hot Blue, June 29, 2009.

Because minstrelsy is cool, y'nawmean?

Zero Like Me #22: Git Dough
<- Previous Comic...Next Comic ->
-First Comic-
Easter Eggs: "Yale" in panel 2, RADWIMPS logo in panel 3, Busta Rhymes and T-Pain's duds.

Fun Facts: Set at the Saybrook Common Room. Rappers love to "git," count, and hustle money.

Baa: Busta Rhymes is one of the very few rappers I enjoy!

I've always wanted to test out tones for print, and today we're about to find out what happens...

Anyway this comi makes Busta Rhymes and T-Pain the latest rappers to inspire a comic. Isn't that special?

Received an interesting email yesterday...not really what I thought would happen. Also had to give up on Japanese, unfortunately; that dream died, but how much of it was due to the unusual volume of shopping I've been doing? Maybe with my seminar-heavy schedule, I would be able to handle Japanese no problem, but I found it a bit too cumbersome to deal with daily on top of everything else, but again, how much of that was due to shopping period? Cutting that unicorn of a class from my list was tough, and I regret it. As a consolation prize, I remember a guy sitting next to me on day two was wearing my shirt!

Keep hustlin',

Reuxben

Fun_zlm.GitDough

Because minstrelsy is cool, y'nawmean?

Zero Like Me #22: Git Dough
<- Previous Comic...Next Comic ->
-First Comic-
Easter Eggs: "Yale" in panel 2, RADWIMPS logo in panel 3, Busta Rhymes and T-Pain's duds.

Fun Facts: Printed in Hot Blue. Set at SY CR. Rappers love to "git," count, and hustle money.

Baa: Busta Rhymes is one of the very few rappers I enjoy!

I've always wanted to test out tones for print, and thanks to YSS' Hot Blue, I can try something risky like these halftones, without having to experiment in front of all of Yale via the YDN or Herald.

So this makes Busta Rhymes the second rapper to inspire a comic.

Ok, that's it for ZLM for the summer. I've got some projects lined up though, so I believe I myself will indeed be gittin' money soon. The other day I even took a psych study that involved drawing! Shoulda seen the look on the lady's face when I busted out teh mad drawin' skillaz.

Also, this is post 300.

Keep hustlin',

Reuxben