Pen and Ink Illustration "Holiday Crowds"

HEY APATHY! Pen and Ink Drawings of People

Stomping feet dressed in red and black casually filled the downtown core on this fine Boxing Day 2010. The bright sun and absent winds helped to combat the brisk winter temperatures and the city came sort of alive with tones of bargain hunting suburbanites. I am not really a shopper, and tend to avoid crowds unless I’m performing, so I had no reason to partake in the bizarre commercial energies flowing through out the city. However the seasonably beautiful weather compelled me to take a stroll and since I’d no personal involvement, I thought it might be interesting to observe the crowds. It’s a lot less stressful when you aren’t worried about you dream product being out of stock or wondering if you have spent enough money in order to save on the deals.

The majority of the city was as quiet as any cold winter Sunday. Kensington was almost closed and Chinatown was barren. Nevertheless when I got down to the main strip there were people in every direction, even some line-ups in front of stores. The crowds consisted mostly of young people all giggling and struggled with hands full of purchases. There was some family activity but mostly teen shopping. Luckily it was cold enough to slow things compared to years gone by, but nice enough to pack the streets to a comfortable capacity.There was a free and friendly stream of pedestrian traffic. Oddly enough I saw  a great deal of festive red colors popping out from all the drab black and dark browns Toronto is accustomed to. It was a joyful and courteous mob, and I was very pleased to see so many happy humans. The sun in our faces and not in front of computer screens, in fact I don’t even recall seeing any cell phones, the peoples were shopping in groups.

The majority of the city was as quiet as any cold winter Sunday. Kensington was almost closed and Chinatown was barren. Nevertheless when I got down to the main strip there were people in every direction, even some line-ups in front of stores. The crowds consisted mostly of young people all giggling and struggled with hands full of purchases. There was some family activity but mostly teen shopping. Luckily it was cold enough to slow things compared to years gone by, but nice enough to pack the streets to a comfortable capacity.There was a free and friendly stream of pedestrian traffic. Oddly enough I saw a great deal of festive red colors popping out from all the drab black and dark browns Toronto is accustomed to. It was a joyful and courteous mob, and I was very pleased to see so many happy humans. The sun in our faces and not in front of computer screens, in fact I don’t even recall seeing any cell phones, the jolly peoples were shopping in groups.

It made me temporarily hopeful to see such kind human spirits. It’s a shame it is only a euphoric reaction to their gluttonous expenditures and pre-programmed inclinations towards fulfilling manufactured desires through the perpetual purchasing of useless, damaging and utterly ridiculous things. The quick sketch above was inspired by my anthropological wanderings and born out of guilt because I didn’t actually do any real work today. Read the Webcomics!

Metropolis Animation Drawings

ALTERNATIVE COMICS Animations

The City is a giant gear spiraling infinitely around and around. At least that’s how it feels today. I’ve been working on an animation sequence involving the symbolic city of gears. This was probably one of the first uninterrupted studio sessions I’ve had in a while. There always seems to be something else to take care of. I took full advantage of the open schedule and have been producing frames rapidly pace since noon. After this short interlude for eating and typing, I’ll put in a few more hours before calling it quits. If I’m lucky I might get 10 frames done. (That equals less than 1 second of film) Each frame is almost exactly like the previous. The image depicts the metropolis rolling around in a gear like formation. The process involves two basic steps, a brief under drawing and a final rendering. This means that after I drawing the whole thing once, I actually have to go back a re-draw it all again. The short loop is going to take at least 200 frames to complete but I am just stubborn enough to enjoy the doing this kind of work.

In fact I more than enjoy the work and have become a bit obsessive about the films. It takes so long to draw a single idea that the ordeal is simultaneously meditative and exhilarating. The animation itself requires immense attention, single ideas remain prominent (almost static) for extended periods of time, yet I can barely think about anything else. I’ve come to this sort of slowed down thought process based around movements equaling 1/22 of a second while attempting to physically transcribe these movements as quickly as possible. Meanwhile my conscious attention remains focused on the gear, each building and how they are going to move in the next few 1/22ths of a second and where they need to be 2 or 8 seconds from now. Occasionally I flash to future scenes or other stories, though through necessity, I rein in those wandering thoughts and drive them  swiftly back to the gear. Sounds all fragmented and crazy, it feels like that a bit too, however when the damned thing starts breathing… well that’s something I can hardly wait to see.

FREE WEEKLY WEBCOMICS



Android Man -Comics Online

HEY APATHY! COMICS ONLINE

This may sound odd to many people, especially to younger audiences, not that I’m old or anything it just happens. Suddenly most of your hair is gone and what is left is grey, you get tired and can’t move so well on rainy days. Without warning all the new music and movies seem stupid but it doesn’t matter because you can’t remember them anyways. You also begin noticing that supernal luster of life and vitality in the skin of the young though you’ve no memory of such a glow in your own youth. But here I go jabbering like the old fool I’d sworn never to be! What I meant to say is most of you might find this strange, being accustomed to such things, but I have finally become an android.




For the better part of my long life I have earned an honest living as landscape painter. As you can imagine most of my time was spent outdoors. I passed hours messing with thick paints on some of the world’s most striking hillsides. Many of these subjects were quite isolated but frequent trips to towns and cities kept me satisfied for both supplies and socialization. One of my favorite excursions was to the artist’s district where I used to have professional slide photography taken while I mingled with the creative denizens of the west side lofts.



After the travel friendly season of sketching and experimentation was completed I’d return to the metropolis to hold up in studio for the winter. In the middle of the city it was easy to get around regardless of weather and the frequent trips about kept me in touch with reality until the bright spring time sun returned. This lifestyle suited me for a long time and the probabilities of anything else seemed nil.



Again, sounds silly doesn’t it? I mean we all know there aren’t any landscapes anymore. Nevertheless after the forests were all gone business actually improved rather drastically. People longed for nature scenes and even though I couldn’t actually visit them anymore, I didn’t really have the time anyways. The paintings sold for what ever I asked and as often as I felt inspired. Soon the business was at such a pace that I started having my supplies and groceries delivered. With seldom a break nearly six months had past and I never set foot outside my building.



After the extended period I completed enough of the work for an exhibition. I got very excited about the event because it meant going down to the old artist district for some slides and a few pints. However when I called in for an appointment I was told the lofts had all closed. My art dealer told me it didn’t matter and sent me a small camera to do the shots myself. He said he’d come around to gather him but on the date he was expected I received a package from him instead. Inside was a computer and instructions on how to email him the photos. So I did and that was that.



Some time passed and I continued working alone and indoors when one day I received a phone call. It was an automated message from my dealer requesting that I mail him a signed copy of certain form I’d find in my email. I then realized that I didn’t have a printer and finally had an excuse to leave the house. I got dressed and strolled down to the nearest internet café. I thought about how this would be a nice part of my routine. I’ll go for a walk and a coffee any time that I need something printed. When I got to the café it was closing, they said business wasn’t any good. The movers handed me a free printer and continued to clean out the shop.



Some more time passed before I received further news from my agent. This time he’d struck a deal to mass produce prints of the art. I was instructed to do away with my painterly materials and given a state of the art drawing tablet in their place. All of the work is now done directly in the machine.



Still business is booming and all I ever have to do is paint. There was a time when this would have been a dream come true but the repetition and isolation is growing wearisome. I thought that maybe I’d go seem a movie or peruse the local book shop. I might entertainment shipped me another device. This time it was a smaller computer designed exclusively for reading books. While I examined the thin and foreign object, he set up a “stream” on my desktop (from his remote location) which endlessly plays movies. Now I never have to go out.



It is absolutely incredible all these machine around my chair. I can access anything I want or need to within a 3 foot squared space. All my business, all my pleasures, all my necessities, available in this tiny room. I know it all seem so normal to most, but to me it has been sudden and strange. One minute I was standing in nature’s open valley and the next in an electronic world. I realize I am now an android; a prisoner … at least the landscape business has never been so damn profitable.

MORE PEN AND INK ILLUSTRATIONS

ALTERNATIVE COMICS Surreal Interiors #3

HEY APATHY! Surreal Comics

A potted tree and the robot gardener.

Alternative Comics Surreal Monsters

HEY APATHY! Surreal Comics

Another Amorphous Glob talisman for the 13 stories. I think this one is going to go with the little poem in "The shopping spree nightmare". I have extremely limited knowledge and tools when it comes to web design so quite often the images are not fitting where I'd like them.

Lot's of improvising and compromising but sure enough the site is growing. It's not what I want but I'm learning. Eventually the damn cursed online representation of my life and art will actually look good, one day. Anyways spent most of the hot day scribbling in the park and took a rest from the animation, full force again tomorrow.

Alternative Comics Creature Visions

HEY APATHY! Surreal Comics

ALTERNATIVE COMICS Surreal Skyrise

HEY APATHY! Surreal Comics

Alternative Comics a Surreal Noir

HEY APATHY! Surreal Comics!

Another creepy comics panel from the upcoming web presentation. This noirish wanderer is plagued by horrific visions of a monstrous metropolis engulfing the seedy city he’s  so accustomed to. The whole collection will include a number of one page stories and about three extended adventures. I had no intention of expanding the comics beyond a single page but  funny things keep happening. After I finish the short I start thinking more about the character’s backgrounds and futures and little histories start to evolve. I don’t have time to draw them all so many are forgotten or written poorly as prose . Well one thought led to another and a couple of the strips escaped the single page infecting any where from three up  five others. These extended shorts however, still follow my original literary attempt at single page stories and can be read either compartmentally by page or as a collective vignette.

To sum up what I just wrote, Surreal Comics! is a collection of single page comics in which some of the strips are connected narratives and the entire catalogue reveals yet another story. It as though there were  strips inside of shorts hidden in a graphic novel, kind of surreal. Just wrote that for fun. More ALTERNATIVE COMICS

ALTERNATIVE COMICS Surreal Split

HEY APATHY!  Surreal Comics!

A surreal split instigated by a technological interface splicing communicative devices with organics, genetically separating the various facets of a human mind into individual physical entities. Hey what do expect from a web comic called Surreal! This is another panel from the ongoing collection of weird stories I’m making in between extended sessions at the animation stand. One of the bonuses of making the comics in a sketchpad is that it the book travels easily allowing me to enjoy some of the nice summer weather while remaining productive. The animation, on the other hand has to be produced in the studio and it seems unhealthy to be inside to much when I know that it will eventually be winter again. In the future I am going to schedule the comics in the summer time because I can make them out doors, and save the animating for the long boring indoor season. However this animation is being funded by the Ontario Arts Council and was created in accordance with to their granting schedule. Back to the drawing table… more HEY APATHY! ALTERNATIVE COMICS!

Surreal Alternative Comics

HEY APATHY! Surreal Comics

A Kid and his War Toy. This 8.5 x 11inch sketchbook comic features a little boy with small strange devices attached to his temples powering a giant mechanized war machine complete with multiple fire arms and monstrous tentacle legs. Basically I just felt like a drawing a robot and my mind started sifting through all my childhood toys, and eventually to the more modern ones and those strange Japanese kids shows where the children fight robots like sports. Any ways I  added three more panels and made up a narrative for this image turning the doodle into a comic or something like that. It is an odd artist’s process but interestingly enough, though all my pictures have stories quite often I’d no idea of the narration until the work is all done. more HEY APATHY! Alternative Comics

ALTERNATIVE COMICS Surreal Stories

HEY APATHY! Surreal Comics

Since my primary attention is currently being given to the development of an extensive hand drawn animation (sponsored by the Ontario Council for the Arts) my current artistic practice is rather repetitive and mundane. It takes at least thirty similar drawings to make a character move for a couple of seconds, so you can imagine it can be days of work before the concepts or technique evolve even slightly. However to keep my imagination from slowing to a factory like pace I am producing a number of short comics in my sketch book on the side.

These comics are turning out to be really fun. I have often kept a comic-sketch book as a means of stream of conscious expression. The idea is basically to use up a sketchbook entirely with comics so that the completed book could be presented as a work of art ( wouldn’t that be funny?). I tend to use a single page technique wherein each page is a whole strip or series of funnies. The cheap sketch book works well because it eradicates any intimidation freeing me of all preconceptions of what the drawing should be. I know that these cartoons have to be done quickly and are on low quality paper , therefore I needn’t bother with planning, revisions or technical fidgeting. The work just really let’s me explore my weird brain, letting whatever happens happen and try to figure out what it’s all about later.

I’ve done this experiment at least four times in which I produced two volumes of STUPID COMICS, a tastelessly twisted homage to Crumb and the underground comics movement of the sixties, three issues of DOWN, a surreal creature feature about men as monsters as well as machines, and a large graphic novel entitled THIS DOESN’T MAKE ANY SENSE. For the most part these books are compiled of single panel or page cartoons involving specific thematic and technical explorations using an unplanned free form approach. One of the most interesting aspects of each of these projects is how that despite being entirely unscripted and often plotted as individual parables, the books always end up stringing together chronologically to reveal a hidden narrative. I say hidden because one, the larger story-arcs are not always easily apparent and two, because I didn’t even realize I was writing them at the time.

The panels I’ve posted today are about the Mad Scientist and his two strange Assistants. The Mad Scientist started about a few weeks ago in a single page strip wherein he experiments on himself. It was just supposed to be a silly short comic but oddly enough the character has perpetually resurfaced. The Mad Doctor, now with two unidentifiable medical assistants, seems to be meddling in the affairs of some of the other characters. I don’t really know why yet or what the purpose of these re-occurring characters, but I’ll admit Im kind of interested in the outcome my self. Can’t wait to get back to the drawing board tomorrow so I can find out what happens next...

more at http://www.heyapathy-comics-art.com/

ALTERNATIVE COMICS Mad Science

HEY APATHY! Alternative Comics

Another panel from the surreal comics slowly manifesting itself within the pages of my apparently innocent sketchbook. This one's about a twisted doctor, his two assistants and some terribly mutated experiments.

ALTERNATIVE COMICS

HEY APATHY! ALTERNATIVE COMICS

Surreal Comics from the city of gears! A subliminal addiction leads to a horrific simplification as a young denizen turns technologically sentient whilst texting a friend. The victim’s eyes and mouth are transformed into computer screens completing the electric assimilation. This is a panel from a short entitled “ Eyes turned Square” based on the old warning that our mother’s would give when we watched too much T.V. . The comic is part of a collection of stream of conscious stories I’m gathering inside my 8.5 x 11 inch sketchbook. As I am currently in the middle of a large animation project, funded by the Ontario Council for the Arts, I have little time for drawing comics but am happy with some of the shorts have turned out. I’ll publish them all in the fall when I have more time to do the lettering and scans.

ALTERNATIVE COMICS Surreal Stories

HEY APATHY! Surreal Comics

Another page from the HEY APATHY! Surreal Comics Sketchbook. I’m building up a good archive of weird comics in between my work on the animation. Here’s another preview, I’ll be adding the text and posting the strips in the fall. This ones entitled “the incredibly shrinking office lady“ or something like that.

ALTERNATIVE COMICS G20 Residuals

HEY APATHY! Alterantive Comics

G20 Residuals … So the so called riot has ended, the idiots in masks have vanished ( actually they are sitting peacefully in the parks bragging garbed in normal hippie street wear) and a lot of peaceful protestors have gathered to complain about their wrongful imprisonment over the weekend. As a result of the G20 exodus the police presence has finally subsided right? WRONG they are still here!!! I have seen almost as many cops, though mostly in squad cars, scavenging the city all freaking day. In fact there are currently 15 cruiser’s parked outside of my studio guarding a pub celebrating the world cup. This particular bar has been partying for weeks with good fun dancing, music, beer, plastic trumpets and flags but not once prior to the G20 protest did any officer take notice. Today they are walled in by our boys in black. I admit the cops look foolish, some of them were even in mild celebration over the football game, but they are looking for trouble an in excess of the norm. To me this is actually scarier than the entirety of last week because it would appear that Toronto has just slipped itself unnoticed a step further towards a real police state. I was just profiled again because my clothes are all black even though the summit is over and the intensity of the protests have all but entirely passed.

ALTERNATIVE COMICS Metropolitan Castles

HEY APATHY! ALTERNATIVE COMICS!

The magnificent metropolis has developed to an unmatched pinnacle boasting towering castles and systems of mass production. The denizens are influenced by controlled basic necessities and through the use of magically flickering and utterly unobtainable fantasies. By means of their servitude progress and wealth are in abundance and the prosperous city is ever growing sprouting concrete extremities out in every direction and across many distance lands. Functioning as an enormously intricate vascular structure the road ways provide the city with all the necessary provisions. To and from an apparently endless source trucks travel with the resources empowering the metropolis’ hunger and strength.

 

Though psychologically detached from world of rock and soil the castle rely heavily upon the earth to survive. Asides from the oxygen and water given freely the planet also harbours multiple secrets which are not as easily sought. In fact the skyscrapers, the servants and the vehicle are all dependent on the earth’s blood as the primary fuel source permitting the endless consumption but mother nature protects her life force with deadly defence. The blood although quit useful when handled properly is seething with toxins best left beneath the ground. However in all our ingenuity man has managed to extract the fluids sacredly horded under ground. But as with all things human error is destined to occur as one of the large blood tubes has recently failed.

 

Exploded in retaliation the pipes has burst forth seeping an environmentally fatal curse upon sea and land. The black liquid gold is quickly turned the colour of death as a seemingly unstoppable plague devours entire gulfs. Many animals and ecosystems not mention financial sectors have been crippled or extinguished by the devastating ooze. Fear not young metropolitans for the castles will still stand and likely feel little of the terror resultant of the catastrophe. And besides it is known that this disaster can be easily remedied since those responsible determine the most appropriate means to profit from the supposedly insignificant horror.

more at http://www.heyapathy-comics-art.com/

ALTERNATIVE COMICS Street Art Chronology Stories from 2005 part 1

HEY APATHY! Alternative Comics

Here's some more accounts of my experiences as a street artist, the last few days I wrote about 2004 so here my initial recollections from the second season which took place in Toronto through out 2005.

My second season working as a street artist proved unbelievably progressive as my artistic vision, technical skills and public performances were developing at a rapid pace. Although the drawings began in a similarly monstrous fashion as those from 04, by the end of the 2005 summer I had intuitively and entirely reinvented “HEY APATHY!” as a result of the public processes. I started making quick live performance artworks and engaging the audience in more and more parabolic conversations. The weather was perfect, the city was busy and working the streets became a full time gig. The reactions were easily tenfold those of my previous venture and soon thereafter many other artists started to join my crusade. As a result of the booming business and incomparable inspiration the size of my display, the intricacies of the illustrations and my ability to interact with viewers all drastically evolved.

The winter of 2004- 05 was probably one of the worst times of my meagre existence. I had rented a 5 x 8 foot room in the basement of a boarding house for something like $150 a month. I remember breaking the ceiling lamp with the top of my head on several occasions simply by standing upright in the mornings. I had managed to pre-sell a large body of ink drawings and was basically living off a small allowance divined out by the patron on a bi-weekly basis. This business arrangement kept me productive though I can no longer stand the sight of canned chilly or instant rice. Needless to say that as the spring of 2005 sprung I was anxious and excited to return to the streets. I wished desperately to reinitiate my experiment where I could stretch, breath, and create freely while generating a more steady income.

As enthusiastic as I’d been I could never have imagined the results my second season would unfold. Instantaneously I discovered success both in productivity and reaction as I started working on larger scale ink drawings sprawled out on the street. I remember those first days absolutely unlike any others as the sidewalk was crowded from the curb to the stores. The sun was blaring a peculiarly beautiful yellow as I weighted down some poster sized papers with bricks from the street. Before I even really knew what was happening I had incited a crowd and was talking about and selling drawings. I made more in sales on the first weekend of 2005 than I the whole season of 2004 and more importantly I had initiated a dialogue with the city. Monsters, Robots, and Exploding buildings were flying hot of the concrete at about $40 a piece. Of coarse even such small successes always come with a price as the sidewalks were soon cramped by other artists and the city by-law enforcers took notice… continued tomorrow

            see more of the 2005 drawings www.heyapathy-comics-art.com/street-art-comics-2005.html

Alternative Comics Surreal Street Art Stories 2004 part 3

HEY APATHY Alternative Comics

 

Aside from some rough beginnings, this first season as an unofficial street artist proved very productive and educational. Though propelled to the experiment by a combination of strange influences, experiences and ideas evolved gradually over a four years period, the miniature revolt was entirely circumstantial. Had I not happened upon certain people simultaneous with a particular financial destitution I likely would never have taken my interview to the streets. The summer of 2004 exposed me to many incredible secrets as I studied the politics of street life while scribbling away. Among the many unspoken rules I paid close attention to vendor etiquette and seniority as well a the city’ official rules. I encountered the dreaded by-law officer on many occasion’s and learnt quickly learned how to slip through the cracks. I deliberated on pedestrian patterns, the cause and effects of the weather as well as the strange logistics of working outdoors. And most important of all I started talking to real people. I exchanged in conversations with various absolute strangers in an entirely unique forum free from the preconceptions and pretensions of the art festival or gallery. Over the following winter I began co-relating all this data and excitedly planned to resume my new means of expression as soon as the cold weather gave way to a new spring. 

tomorrow Street Art Chronology 2005 the second season...

The logistics of street art Julii saves the day!

visit http://www.heyapathy-comics-art.com/

ALTERNATIVE COMICS Technological Talisman

HEY APATHY! Surreal Alternative Comics

Yet another unusually hot spring day in the city of Gears. The thick air and burning sun pumped us up around 30 degrees Celsius as the sluggish denizens filled the early morning streets. At first the metropolis was energized in every sense as people flaunted and strut in their scantily summer fashions fully ready to make use of the fine weather. However as the sun continued it's climb and the heat crept steadily upward, the excitement became filtered and numbed by the inevitable  stroke and dehydration. The parks filled with bitterness and irritation from any who tried to move.

By noon the temperature had risen and though I did not check it, that heat was more than abnormal and relentlessly rising. I heard bickering from the benches and witness no less than three fights as my neck started reddening forcing me into the shade. It was at about three in the afternoon that I found my self seeking shelter under a large tree from the sweltering rays. The heat kept on creeping and I found that I could barely replenish my perspiration by downing several litres of water.

At four o'clock the concrete stared to melt peeling back layers and revealing strange thoughts. The air started to waver as though it was water and those who were left standing were in the utmost of rage. Car horns could be heard , along with much yelling , from all perceptive directions of the urban landscape. Still getting hotter at five in the late afternoon, I found my self caught in a daze completely incapacitated while stuck to the tree. It was here in the mucky humid waving heat of the city that I nearly passed out, but it was not from the heat but from something I saw.

From across the blazing park a figure stood alone and idol, easily noticeable as the only person unaffected by the heat. As the blurry grudged air slowly subsided the being appear ever slightly more clear. At first the only peculiarity seemed to be the tall strides, as absolutely every one else was incapacitated by the humidity. Then I noticed the beings head like a bull only with four horns and three faces or possibly four. The movements of the creature became smoothly surreal as it moved closer and closer until I was most certain it's legs were in fact constructed mechanics resembling tentacles and tendrils intertwined yet mobile.

I squinted to view this atrocious absurdity and though it appeared to take no notice, it continually approached. Now the faces were moving and intermingled forming and reforming before my very eyes. Amazing the effects of a hot humid vision, an hallucination for sure brought about by the sun. The creature got closer and I could see that it's hips were made up from small screens projecting strange expressions and I almost laughed as I was compelled to smell my water for a spike.

At last the monster arrived only inches before me when under all the animalistic mechanizations I saw some thing more terrible. It was a man in a lab coat and large rubber gloves wearing the cape and cowl of a hero with his arm spread wide apart. His teeth were gritted and hissing and I could hear the sound of machinery from under his breath. His torso was opened with intestines of computers and the bull's heads seemed to be one with his own. The strange scientist reached forward with one of his gloved hands and made a gesture as though he was turning a switch. "That's a wrap" were the words muttered out from the machine noises and all at once the heat and desolate weather system seemed to recoil.

The vision, the scientist, the sounds and the humidity all vanished at once. The temperature did not drop instead immediately corrected and the dehydrated irritations of the city had ceased. Who knows maybe I just fell asleep in the sun but that certainly doesn't explain how I finished the drawing posted above this weird account of today's heat wave gone wrong. Any ways I got back to my studio, ate some food and worked on the O.A.C. animation trying to forget that we are quite very possibly all rats in a lab....

 
 

more drawings at http://www.heyapathy-comics-art.com/

ALTERNATIVE COMICS The IMPRISONMENT

HEY APATHY Alternative Comics

Well the last to days were nothing short of terrifyingly weird as a minor slip of the tongue ( or rather keyboard) cost me a brief incarceration and subsequent unimaginable torture. Fortunately my good friend Blackbeard got me out on a technicality and my imprisonment ended much quicker than it felt. On the advice of my rescuer and mystical attorney, I dare not go into details regarding who or why I was held captive for it was the simple act of identifying those responsible which first put me in peril. On the other hand I see no problem in my sharing the actual experience.

As I just mentioned I wrote about a certain something which is most forbidden to speak of, a heavily guarded and policed topic of concern. Before I'd completed discussing the story I blacked out and awoke in a tiny little cell. The room was fully furnished and carpeted comfortably but the unfamiliar surroundings left me in an unusual loss of control. I was dressed in a white shirt and a pair of Khakis and my hair had grown back full on, possibly plugs. My finger nails were manicured and my teeth had been cleaned yet without any recollection the improvements succeeded only in inspiring fear.

In the room I had a television which turned on in the morning with numerous smiling faces citing happy weathers and local news. When the program ended the prison door opened and a sharp piercing noise forced me to exit the room. There were no guards that I could see but my motions were predetermined as I felt forced into a reasonably luxurious car which drove itself to the work camp. Upon arriving at the labour site, an infinitely storied complex I was ejected politely from the vehicle with a shock. There was a steam of other prisoners all decorated similarly, shuffling their way past the lobby into tiny compartment. Many formalities such a hellos and small liquid refreshments were also subliminally inflicted upon us. After drinking the liquid I felt a narcotic sensation and was compelled to make strange phone calls and upload large files. Before I knew it. yet simultaneous with my exhaustion a bell rang and the building flooded out to the lots.

Bumper to bumper the cars all slowly moved along a barren stretch of concrete I hypothesized to be a great conveyor belt. My car dropped me back to the door of my cell only this time there were two baby's and a housewife and maid. As I walked through the door, which shut right behind me, the maid disappeared and the wife brought a drink. I sat down on the couch and noticed the room had gotten bigger, but despite the enlargement there was still no way out. The television news began reporting new stories, mostly about whether, charities, and the occasional foreign disturbance. There was a surreal conditioning to the air all around me and I began to get unexpectedly comfortable as I sank in the chair.

It was as the sun set that I lifted the bottle set out by my housewife and I nearly consumed it when I scratchy but familiar voice broke through the relaxing dream. "Don't even think about it" It was Blackbeard. He took the drink from my hands and poured peculiarly around the floor. The weird patterns that formulated from the spillage were bizarre beyond description. They were not geometric nor hieroglyphic, nor did they resemble any symbol or even stain. Blackbeard pushed me up from the chesterfield with on hand on each shoulder and leaned forward grunting the following instructions. " You've got to walk along those marks I made and focus quite deeply on everything that really matters and all of your hopes, goals, and dreams. Those marks I made are specifically different and no one routine or idea can retrace those steps. You're only way out of here is to break the routine and your only hope of doing that now is to walk a new pattern."

I remembered the comics and the aliens and unknown , so nodding to Blackbeard I jumped to the floor. The tracks were nearly impossible to navigate as no man, monster or ballerina could truly move their legs according to the steps. Forcefully turning my knees inside out and walking on parts of my feet I had never been aware of I found a way to move through the extravagant chaos. I must have broken two toes and severely strained my shoulder as the bruising has yet to even minutely subside. Nevertheless, all contorted and determination I made it and once the dance was completed I found myself home.

I am now back in my studio, totally bald and dressed in black, and a little bit stronger and wiser than before the insidious incident. But that is just how things tend to evolve whenever Blackbeard's involved. A horrible situation equals sincere revelation over and over as life rolls on. Thanks for saving my a-- again Blackbeard I'll find that book you're looking for first thing tomorrow.

http://www.heyapathy_comics-art.com/