It was a long but fun day. It started with visiting a few comic book stores and thrift shop I’d never been to before and bringing home a few sweet books. Later, I went to Meeting of the Minds to paint. I got paired up with my buddy, Henry. We made graffiti-like 3,W, E or M, depending on how you look at it.

I’ve always sucked at drawing characters the Marvel way. I still do! It took me over two hours just to get this far and it’s not even close to being inked. Excelsior!

I was up past sunrise making buttons from a couple of old comic books. They came out looking really good!

I spent more time today going through my old comic books and trying to decide which ones to keep. (It won’t be any of the books pictured below) It’ll be some cool first issue covers like Venom: Lethal Protector, Generation X and X-Men Alpha & Omega. I was a sucker for the foil covers and those have some great art on them. Unfortunately I didn’t take any pictures of them tonight.

Today I went through my collection of trading cards & comic books that I’d been saving since the early to mid 90s. Most of the trading cards are shit so I’ll be getting rid of them. I’ll probably keep some of the comics and reread them. I’m gonna take the rest of my 25+ year old collection to the flea market as part of this recent purge and hopefully others will find joy in them and bring them home.

Shit, I got nothing interesting to report on today. I went on Costco & Target run ad bought a few things. Washed the dishes that have been piling up all weekend. Did my laundry and put away all the clothes, including the clean clothes that have been sitting in the basket all week. I also watched the 1996, made-for-tv movie, "Generation X," which is based on a comic book I used to love as a young teen. It was dogshit.

I saw my doctor today for a checkup and to go over my lab results. (that bruise on my arm in the picture below is where they drew blood a couple days ago) Aside from being overweight and slightly high blood pressure my doctor said my test results look really good. Better numbers than most people coming back for doctor visits after the covid shutdown. I was pleasantly surprised. I thought they were going to be bad, especially since I'm currently about 10 lbs over what I usually weigh this time of year. There's still plenty work I need to do health wise but I left my doctor's office feeling good. I wanted to treat myself so I visited my local comic shop, Legends, inside Eastridge Mall, and picked up a bunch of $1 comics. All of them are new but they're reprints of old books. After returning home I got ready and went on a hike at Alum Rock Park. I did all of the Penitencia Creek Trail, almost 6 miles, then came home and did some more work on my taxes. I have this weekend to finish as tax day is this coming Monday.

We watched the WandaVision series finale tonight. What did you guys think? It’s been Frankfurter all along!

I did this just for fun. When I was a kid I loved Ninja Turtles so much I remember drawing them over & over till they looked sorta like they did in the 80s-90s cartoon.

I drew myself as Bruce Banner transforming into the Hulk from the cover of his first comic book. I sketched it out a few times before laying down the final lines and inking. I included a sketched a did a couple weeks ago when I was considering doing "Jacktober" which is a variant of Inktober that pays tribute to comic book artist Jack Kirby. If I had more time I probably would have drawn Betty & General Ross equivalents down in the right corner to fill out the space.

Last night I found out that HBO was streaming the Watchmen series for free this weekend and I binged thru all 9 hour-long episodes today. From what I understand, HBO is doing this for Juneteenth to highlight "Black experiences, voices and storytellers." The show is sort-of a sequel to the 80s comic book, not the 2009 movie. This series deals with racism and has superheroes and police wearing masks to hide their identities. The series opens with the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre which was a real event that I never knew about until this tv series premiered.

Today I finished reading the book Erotic Comics. I've had it for almost 12 years and it took a pandemic for me to finally read it. I also did my stretches & warmed up at home to go running at Lake Cunningham Park again. It was a great workout, and as an added bonus, the entrance I came in from was locked when I was done so I ended up walking to the next exit and I got some extra steps in. I did some more pencil work on my Eyes & Mouths drawing. Just a few more things I gotta do before inking. Despite all the shit going on, today was pretty damn productive.

I had few beers watching the 49ers beat the Packers in the Championship game, ate dinner, laid down to read some Preacher comics and passed out. Now I’m awake in the middle of the night. Maybe I should drink more beer, eat more food and read more comics to fall asleep again.

Today I ate breakfast. Animated the arms on my little robot guy. Cooked my "household-famous" lentils, but was light on the lentils. Ate the lentils plus more food with the family. Watched the new Rick & Morty episodes. Read a couple comics and ate more food. The only thing left to do is post this blog entry and sleep off this food.