BATMAN COMIC, OH MY FAN!

It's unfinished, this is just the first and second page. If you understand the connection to batman already, than you are too cool for school! 

Comics for The Very Funny Issue of springplay! 2011

 Download the full issue on www.pinkplaymags.com to see the adjusted version.

Bird Hotel

Fowl Hotel
The Heron Inn was built three hours west from the city that supplied most of its clientele. No feature of the building, or it’s outlying property was especially notable. According to the patrons there, the real draw of the place was only experienced inside its walls. A popular novelty destination, the inn provided its guests with a unique and thorough escape from civilization. Not one staff member had ever been seen there. Quiet hallways and serene garden paths appeared to maintain themselves, free from custodial interference. Apart from visitors, only the founder himself was known to frequent The Heron Inn. Able Heron resided on the ground floor, remaining available on the vicinity to supervise the operation and interface with the customers. Heron’s acquaintances considered him and his enterprise to be a charming mystery. What they did not know was that they were not as well secluded as they were led to believe. In the attic, above all the guests and rooms and pageantry there lived a flock of birds. It was these birds alone that could shed light on the inner workings of the The Heron Inn. 

The flock awoke each night with the setting sun. They had been trained from their natural diurnal habits to fulfill a peculiar task. Attic beams, supporting nests, hovered above a maze of openings in the wooden floor. Anxiously, the birds listened for the lifting of trap doors, one to each. When it came there was a burst of motion as they leapt to the ground. One young bird, called The House Finch, moved forward too suddenly, and nearly tipped herself headlong into the gap. She  righted herself quickly, embarrassed at her clumsiness, and looked more cautiously down.  From the depths of the trap door a rabbit was looking back up. The only more shocking aspect of the scene was the environment below; the suite of a sleeping guest. Just visible to The House Finch was the secondary trap door, slightly to the left of the rabbit, out of which he had recently emerged from the basement. The rabbit darted among the furniture and between the doorways of the suite. He was well trained, and collected used towels and empty soap dishes swiftly. After each trip he scrambled up an artful fireplace mantel and passed the refuse to The House Finch. She then took it and placed it on an adjacent shelf, pausing only for a moment to swivel her red head towards the other birds, and watched as they acted out the same haunting routine. When the rooms had been purged the pattern was reversed. The House Finch picked the necessary items of stock from a box at her side and handed them down for the rabbit to put them in place. All of this was carried out soundlessly until, by morning, The Heron Inn was clean.     

When the animals had retreated back into the secure confines of their attic and basement dormitories, the business day began. Able Heron sat at the reception, waiting for the arrival of celebrated litigator, Ferrer Black. Mr. Black was an important client and Heron wanted to assure his satisfaction from the onset. This was little more than a formality, now, as Mr. Black had been a loyal customer for many years. But, Heron was a man of details and tried to maintain goodwill as well as he achieved it. This was something Mr. Black admired about him, that he could be counted on to follow precise instructions. It was why Mr. Black chose The Heron Inn for this particular retreat. His wife, Avis, needed the solitude and he needed peace of mind. Avis’ nerves had always been frail.  From her youth she had been plagued with an anxiety which she had yet to outgrow. Her college years, when she had first met her husband, had been a brief calm in an otherwise perfect storm. By the time they had reached their fifth year of marriage Avis had succumbed to her afflictions and become prone to reclusiveness. It was a mystery to many why Ferrer, a successful and attractive man, remained so taken with her. Although their marriage endured, it had not done so without its share of difficulties. The latest of which was the unwelcome news of their collective infertility. Avis had always set her heart on having a daughter, and Ferrer himself enjoyed the idea of children. When the doctor had  pronounced them unable to conceive it had been more than a little crushing. Heartbroken, Avis had withdrawn from society entirely, a slave to her frayed nerves. That’s why her husband had brought her here. He hoped the time away from unsolicited human contact would sooth her uneasiness and help her come to terms with the idea.   

When they arrived, the Blacks retired immediately, which freed Heron to retreat to the attic. He tried to attend to his birds and his rabbits as regularly and thoroughly as he did his guests.  As domestic servants they were, after all, the lynch pin of the inns success. It had begun several decades prior, when his idea of an invisible work force had been sparked by a novelty whistle. Some school children had stayed at an earlier incarnation of The Heron Inn for a graduation trip. The practical joker among them had acquired the whistle in question, which shrieked so shrilly that it was inaudible to anyone above twenty. It was a devil of a task to uncover the source of the disquiet, and at first Heron had thought the complaints of all the students to be a conspiracy. In the end it was a distressed canary, which he had kept in the front foyer, that gave away the game. That incident had planted the seed of his idea. When the plan was fully formed, he acquired several of the whistles and used them in the training of his rabbits and birds. The whistles could regulate their daily activities, while leaving the sleeping guests undisturbed, as their ability to perceive such high frequencies had already deteriorated during the aging process. Initially, two problems had presented themselves. By necessity, the inn had to be adult inclusive. This considerably narrowed down the market of perspective guests, but Heron hadn’t found it damning. Occasionally, a sleeping patron was able to hear the alerts in the attic above and was awoken. Fortunately, no-one yet had been able to detect his animal task force, but the concern was ever present. It was usually best to plead ignorance if someone complained about the noise. When he did, most would eventually write it off to an electrical problem or their own imagination and not return. The second problem had been a little more challenging to solve. Heron, himself, was too old to hear the whistles. This, of course, impeded his ability to train with them effectively. Eventually he decided to have small lightbulbs wired to each whistle, which lit up when they sounded. With these he could usually determine if there was a fault with the machines, or a fault with his procedures. Over the course of the inn’s development, Heron had to make many such adjustment. For example, he was at first devoted to hunting down ideal individuals to enter into his service. It was an expensive and time consuming pursuit. After the first few years of success, he grew bold enough to breed them by hand in a sub-basement suite of the Inn. Prior to this breeding program, Heron had been forced to cull aged birds and rabbits in the shed at the far back of the property. Now he could take the best workers and breed them after their retirement. It was not without effort, but was more economical, and the results were usually worth the work.
  Heron climbed the first of the step ladders that led up to the nests. The House Finch looked suspiciously back at him as he surveyed the flock. She had not been sleeping well lately, and he had tried to drug her to it with limited success. She was turning out to be an unruly bird and he had nearly given her over as a lost cause. In a way, he thought she sensed it. Her eyes appeared to narrow when she saw him and she seemed to withhold the unquestioning trust given to him by the others. It was a shame, as he had acquired her at great cost to supplement the breeding lines. He observed The House Finch for another moment, considering. He would grant her a second chance, and, hopefully, she would settle in more. It would be a waste to euthanize such a fine specimen

Night time restlessness increases when a person is away from home, and for Avis, who had never been a sound sleeper, this was doubly true. It was something she had learned to cope with  but, lately, she hadn’t the will left to cope with anything at all. Her waking thoughts were increasingly morose, and occupied with pictures of a grim, baby-less future. There would be no first birthdays, no graduation. No wedding ceremony or grandchildren. When she closed her eyes she could see her aged and decrepit self, abandoned by society to some institution with no kids to care for her and her poor, sweet husband. Understandably, she wanted her nights to remain a reprieve from the torment of her days. But, alas, Ferrer was concerned. Ferrer was always concerned. He thought this desolate inn would renew her vitality but she had no such illusions. The first night they passed at The Heron was agony. Avis dreamed of an eerie wailing that radiated from above the bed. She imagined it to be the cries of her own children, trapped on the other side and never to be born. Despite this unnerving noise she dared not protest their holiday. She knew when she had her husband at his wits end, and if she hadn’t agreed to The Heron it probably would have been the asylum. A respite, he referred to it as. A respite for who, she wondered. Regardless, Avis disliked thinking ill of Ferrer. He didn’t understand the gravity of the situation, of any situation really, and she had long given up trying to explain things to him. Still, she was grateful for his devotion to her and tried to reciprocate by easing his worries as much as she felt she could. It only took until the second night for the well of her tolerance to run dry. Some time in the early morning she rose, maddeningly tired and unable to escape her shrieking dream. She had plugged her ears but was unable to escape the din in her head. The need to flee built up until she sprinted out of their suite and into the hallway. She ran to the very end, down the stairwell, and onto the front lawn. Running filled her with an unfamiliar giddiness and she found herself laughing for the first time in a long time. Avis tried to be quiet but  her laughter drew Heron out of his rooms and onto the property after her.
 She slapped her host repeatedly in her struggle to stop him from gently guiding her inside. He was a nice man, and Avis liked him, which made his presence now all the more irritating and unwanted. Eventually he woke up Ferrer, who managed to coax her to some medication and rest on the sofa in the lobby. She refused to return to the room. What she would do in the morning, she was afraid to think, but now she felt satisfyingly tired and drifted into uneventful sleep.  

After that harrowing evening, Heron was even more relieved than usual to find himself secluded in the attic again. He was never the kind to easily adapt to deviation from his plans, and the night’s fiasco had shaken him perhaps even more than it had shaken Avis. It left a bitter taste in his mouth. The day ahead would be full of trying to assuage the other clients, who had been scared from their beds by the cackling Mrs. Black. It wasn’t a prospect he relished, but still he was determined to handle it professionally. He paced to the lone window to assure himself that Ferrer and his flighty wife were on their merry way. Unfortunately, his angle of vision didn’t allow him to clearly see the activities of the front foyer below. To try to circumvent this he opened the window up. So acclimatized was he to the presence of his birds that he did this feeling himself alone. The birds, and especially The House Finch, were not so unaware of Heron.  By the time he realized his error, The House Finch had made her move, and leapt past the windowsill into the open air. He reached after her, terrified, to no avail. She spread her wings, striving to put as much distance between herself and the cloistered attic of the inn.  Quickly it became apparent that something was array. The straining efforts of The House Finch produced no effect and she plummeted towards the ground.  When she landed it was on the roof of a black Porsche Cayman. The House Finch did not rise from the fall,  her tiny neck had been snapped by the impact and she was dead.
Moments before this, Ferrer had taken his wife's arm gently and led her from The Heron Inn. Though he didn’t speak, Avis imagined that he had silently asked her whether it had been worth it.  She replied to this perceived interrogation in a whisper, “I was afraid, I guess. I was so concentrated on keeping myself together...I didn’t want to disappoint you.” He simply said he understood, and that it was going to be alright. He even helped her into the passenger side of the car before getting in the drivers seat. However, before they could pull away, something slammed hard into the roof,  and jerked the occupants forward. It was so forceful that Ferrer, who had been putting on his glasses, poked himself in the eye with an unfolded support. Avis, uninjured, was the first to get out of the car. Her husband was preoccupied with his watering eye when he heard her scream. To her, the scream seemed an obligatory response to what she saw on top of the porsche. Ferrer quickly cleared his vision and stood to survey the damage. Although he did not join his wife in screaming the horror of the scene was evidenced in his expression and in what he managed to say; “Oh my god. It’s a little girl. It’s a human child.”

Witch

The Frog Prince

Once, sometime ago, there was a privileged young girl, who often went out into the forest to play. Her name was Adeline. Despite her many admirable qualities, Adeline was often a victim of her own carelessness. One evening, while playing, she set down her gold ball on the edge of a local well. Not only was this ball actually made of gold, but it had been given to her by her father, who was often absent due to his numerous responsibilities in the adult world. This being said, the ball also held a significant sentimental value and Adeline was loath to part with it. However, she did part with it, as the moment she set it down it fell into the well. Several hours later, upon discovering this blunder, she fell into a fit of hysterical weeping.  Little did Adeline know that recently a frog had taken up residence in that very same well. The frog, disturbed by her excessive crying, arose in the hopes of restoring the peace.  At first she was surprised, and turned away as she was not overly fond of amphibians.  But her father had always encouraged her to be courteous to others regardless of their exterior, so she momentarily ceased crying and turned attention to the frog. The frog, charmed by Adeline’s attentive gaze and surpassing beauty, quickly inquired about the sources of her distress,
“Why are you crying?”

  “Well, you see, I’m afraid I’ve lost my cherished gold ball to the bottom of your well” she sobbed
Retrieving the ball would require no great effort from the frog, as nature had equipped it with an ideal physique for water related activities. But the frog was a shrewd businessman and instead of diving for the ball directly he put forth this bargain:
“I can easily retrieve you’re ball for you, and I won’t ask much in exchange. You may not know this, but the life of a frog is lonely and fraught with the danger of predators and the misfortune of inadequate resources. I see that you are well provided for and so I ask that, in exchange for your ball, you take me in and provide me with necessities and the pleasure of your company.”
Being an adolescent, Adeline rarely gave appropriate consideration to the consequences of her actions. This poor judgment, coupled with the desire to have the ball and her inexperience in the ways of the world, resulted in a quick acceptance of the frogs offer.
Unfortunately, the ball preceded the frog out of the well, giving her enough time to both contemplate the potential reaction of her father, and to snatch the golden ball away before the frog could stop her.
The next day, she was surprised to find the frog knocking at her door. Her father was even more surprised and not altogether pleased by the visit. After hearing his daughter re-account the events of the previous day, he declared;
“I am unhappy with the importance you have placed on the material vs. the importance you have placed on your own safety. However, since the frog appears to be relatively harmless, I encourage you to make good your word and invited it in. That which you have promised, you must preform.” Having been thusly directed, Adeline took the frog into the house. That night it ate off of her plate, slept on her pillow, and flattered her shamelessly. The frog left at dawn but returned by the next evening. This it did for three days and three nights. On the fourth evening, the frog made it’s final request; a kiss.
So overwhelmed was she with sympathy for the frog that she begrudgingly agreed, and placed her mouth against the point of the frogs face.  Instead of falling to the pillow afterwards, the frog transformed.  “I, who was cruelly tricked by wicked forces and transformed into a frog, have been freed. You have broken this evil spell and now I am restored to my original form. I am eternally grateful to you for this service, and want to demonstrate my new-found love by making you my bride-to-be.” The religion of the girls family, which gave them their our solid morals and respect for right and wrong, also encouraged an unreasonable faith in the miraculous. Therefore she accepted this explanation without question.

The Queen of Rats

Ring around the rosie, a pocket full of posies, husha, husha, they all fall down.

A lot of people hold rats responsible for spreading the black plague of the thirteen hundreds, but really it was fleas. The bacteria that caused the plague has mysteriously disappeared so no one can say precisely, but some scientist think it originated in flea stomachs and was spread to whatever they bit. The black plague originated in china, and eventually spread throughout Eurasia, killing one third of the population.  Ill-advised medical practices and a lack of personal hygiene/sanitation did not help, but still, no other event in the history of mankind can lay claim to destruction that extensive. The only thing they really got right was that fire could kind of shield people from the plague. They burned fires on the street corners in the hopes that it would dissipate the 'fog of death' brought down by some astronomical event. The Pope of Avignon (there were two Popes, back in the day) was surrounded by a ring of fire at all times and he got out scott free.  The black plague was also kind of the origin of biological warfare. Invading armies would sometimes catapult infected corpses over the walls of their enemies in order to weaken them. I've never heard of a rat doing anything like that.

Out of Love

When an old woman looks down on her garden, which she has carefully cultivated, she only wants to see the blooming flora. The Gothel Witch was an old woman at her core, which was why she was distraught by trespassing. Her closest neighbour, a young Lord, was not so. When his pregnant wife relished a rapunzel lettuce in the Gothels garden he was caught between two classic fairytale plunders; denying the craving of a pregnant woman, or thieving from a known witch. Perhaps out of foolishness or perhaps out of love he opted for the latter. After three nights of ravishing the garden, the Gothel caught him and prepared to take his life. Perhaps out of cowardice or perhaps out of love he made one final desperate plea; In exchange for the mercy of the witch and his own throat he promised to forfeit his unborn child. Now, the Gothel witch had a deep sense of equivalent exchange and so she paused to consider before extracting her vengeance. The rapunzel in her garden she had nourished like her own child, and so the bargain seemed to be a fair one. “So be it,” she said, and so it was. Nine months after, despite the mothers tear, the Lords first child vanished into the arms of the Gothel witch forever.  It was only many years later that the infant child’s fate could be known for sure. Perhaps out of revenge or perhaps out of love, the witch confined the child to a tower. This particular tower had several unique properties; firstly, it was so well concealed by forest that not even the keenest woodsman ran across it. Secondly, there was no door way to the tower, no stairs, and no entrance to speak of apart from a high window. To circumvent this inconvenience, the Gothel employed her magical prowess. She took the hair of her new daughter, who she named Rapunzel, and grew it to an unprecedented length. Then Rapunzel could lower it from the window an let the witch climb up to her. It was a clever ploy as it enabled the witch to come and go as she pleased, but kept Rapunzel trapped.  After fifteen years the witch grew so confident with her scheme that she sometimes left the tower for long stretches of time. What she had not calculated for was the lost and confused prince that found it. From his makeshift camp in the woods he was enchanted by Rapunzels singing. He whiled away his hours carefully observing the comings and goings of the witch. After a week or so he grew bold. When he was reasonably sure the witch was away for a time he approached the tower and called “Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your long hair.”  Now, Rapunzel was raised in isolation, but still she knew the voice was not that of the witch. Perhaps out of curiosity or perhaps out of love she let down the rope of her hair for the stranger beneath. When the prince reached the top he surveyed the inner workings of the tower and was even more smitten then before. He stayed for the next three nights, and took advantage of all he saw there. When Rapunzel had lowered him down on the final morning, he swore he would return and free her. While she was awaiting him the Gothel witch returned and was suspicious of her daughter.  Because of this, she stayed for many months. She stayed for so long, in fact, that she witnessed her daughters gowns grow tight and her stomach grow round. In a fit of rage she procured Rapunzels confession of her liaison with the intruding prince. The witch then cut the braid from Rapunzels hair and banished her into the forest forever. Perhaps out of shame or perhaps out of love Rapunzel quietly went. The prince soon returned as he had promised, and called up to the tower. The witch herself lowered the remains of her daughters long hair for him. When he had ascended he came face to face with her. Furious as she was at the man who had violated her daughter, she pushed him backwards out of the window and he fell headlong to the ground. To his great fortune the witches own flora, planted at the base of the tower, broke his fall and spared him from death. But the bushels were of roses and their thorns gauged out his eyes. Though he was blinded he stood up. Perhaps out of rage or perhaps out of love he felt at the wall for the still lowered hair. When his hands found it he pulled with his whole strength until it came loose and coiled at his feet. The Gothel Witch shrieked and grasped at air in it’s wake, knowing that she was trapped in the tower forever.  

Calliope and The Ear Coverer

The first part of a larger project I'm working on;

This is what my weekend looks like.

On the right is the Repunzel mosaic I made. My most noteworthy teenage rebellion is that I sometimes steal paint samples from department stores to use in art projects. I guess it doesn't really count as stealing since they actually give them away for free but I always feel a little immoral because I take so many samples and I'm never shopping for paint. 

I also sometimes cut things out of my mothers National Geographic magazines. In the issue I was reading yesterday some farmers were protesting the government that had stopped them from murdering wolves. The sign the little mummy is holding up is cut from one of the protestors, who was wearing a leather jacket. I laughed when I saw that. I hope the contradiction is obvious. Anyways, the slogan of their lobby group is 'Smoke a Pack a Day,' which I think is very sad. 

Mermaid

Recent Projects

I bought a new sketch book, and so I was fooling around with text and ball point pen on the first page. This is the fish that resulted. 

My farewell piece to being the LocalBiz Durham Teen columnist. I'm heading out of teen-dom so I'm passing the torch along. This is my first experiment with comics so if you read it don't judge me too harshly. 

My Brother

http://www.youtube.com/user/SeriousPeopleStudios?feature=chclk#p/u/5/nMVYZn_mc84

This is a comedy video my younger brother made. Its really vulgar and a lot of it isn't funny at all, but I think he has a lot of potential as a writer.

Oh Photoshop, How You Evade Me.

Lord, I need to improve on this medium. 

Experiments With Watercolour

Oh, Death

My father took me to the beach one day, to do a photoshoot. I always think of these trees as the skeletons of weird animals, and the little red plants as an army of tiny soldiers. Or perhaps the grave markers of tiny soldiers. That would make an interesting story, I think. I will try to write it and put it with the pictures.

Was it a rat I saw?

I feel bad just putting all my old stuff on this blog, but I feel like I need to get it out of the way. Anyways here is a landscape painting I did last year, the one on the top is complete, the next is the reference photo, and the bottom right is a work in progress pic.

Madadams Amazing Mobile Zoo

The Ocelot

The Narwhal 

The Alligator 

The Stork

All the wire animals my dear friend and I made for a mobile featuring endangered species. It's ironic this I did that project with her, because sometimes I think our friendship is threatened with extinction. This is the project that really got me started in sculpture and especially wire sculpture so i'll always be fond of it. It brings back good memories. 

Kaila is a Rose

How to make a paper rose:
1. Acquire some newspaper, or else print out suitable lines of text. Two or three sheets should suffice.
2. Die that paper with tea
3. Acquire a wire coat hanger, cut a long piece of wire with pliers
4. Cut out petals from the paper
5. Moisten paper with tea in order to shape it, and tape the individual petals, in layers, to the wire stem.
6. Add the petals of dried flowers, if you have any.

Antoine Elhashem

The boss-man and editor supreme of The Pink Pages magazine and Pinkplay mags. I did this as a christmas gift for him, a tribute to my greatest benefactor. 

If you love gay tings' check out the magazines or the online versions:

http://thepinkpagesdirectory.com/

http://www.pinkplaymags.com/

They also have a new app for the pink pages listings, and a lot of other crazy new shenanigans for the upcoming year. 

I will try and edit this later with a less-aweful picture, but who knows. 

The Meanest Walrus

I am, unfortunately, a really ambitious student. This year I decided it would be an A+ idea to take a second year university statistic course. I really had no reason to believe that this would be within my ability to achieve. In fact, I've always been especially terrible at math. The above drawing is an example of the good use I put my stats class time to. Needless to say, I dropped out of the course before midterm. 

PROJECT ELEMENT

Rhythm is a concept that I sometimes struggle with. Take it as you will.  These were done 100 years ago, I don't know why I still feel the need to show them off. I need to make some new art, I think. I got the inspiration for this when I had one of my rare temper tantrums. I  decided the most intelligent way to vent my frustrations would be to demolish my copy of 'The Time Traveler.' Anyways, afterwards I had nothing to do with the wreckage so I incorporated it into my art stuff. I still have a few shreds of it left in the cupboard. 

King Louie, And Other Things for Melanie

I am the king of the swingers, ohhh~
The jungle VIP,
I've reached the top, and had to stop and that's whats been bothering me.