I haven’t written a post about the stimulusresponse side of life for a little while, and it occurs to me that I’ve been doing a bunch of these All-Caps Comics and might try and say something about them. Also, while I’ve been gathering some more thoughts of Modern Warfare 2, I haven’t jumbled them into any order, so.

So, I’ve been drawing a series of comics called “All Caps Comics”. They came about because one day, while writing my (theoretically) daily poetry, I decided to write it with the caps lock on just for the hell of it. I forget why exactly, but the effect of writing that way was to drain emotion out in a really strange way. Everything became a kind of direct broadcast from my brain, generally without much nuance.

And it’s a voice I liked quite a lot, so I pursued it. And, poetry being poetry and poetry being mysterious, the poems came out as odd conversations between two invisible protagonists. They talked about all kinds of thing, usually ending up in some kind on blunt non sequitur or inappropriate statement.

At the same time, I was getting bored of the things in my special bin (folder on my desktop) of ideas and sketches. Ideas have their time, and then they rot. That’s one of those things on the Cult of Done manifesto which, though I don’t agree with all of it, has some good general points. So anyway, I turned to these all caps poems as a way of generating content for new comics, since I’ve become obsessed with the idea of producing comics (or other things) as often as I find humanly possible. Preferably at least every two days, say.

And hence, the All-Caps Comics I’ve been doing, in which I take one of the poems and then try to make it into a little comic of people talking to each other. It’s been a bit of an adventure and the entire time I’ve been searching for some reasonable style for representing the strange flatness of the poems, while keeping it interesting to look at (as in, for there to be some kind of point in making it a comic at all).

I kind of suspect that these comics too closely refer to my own stupid inner thoughts and impulses, and thus come across as more or less incomprehensible to other. Well, that’s pretty much life. My feeling is basically that if I think too much about what might be rad for other people, I’ll be screwed and not draw anything at all.

Better the devil inside than the devil in the audience.

~~~

Here’s a story:

Up on the twelfth floor:

Assassin at the door
and his expression is dour

The wake-up call woke him early a.m.
and he always worries his gun will jam

at the critical instant.
He’d kill for a coffee.

Maybe he’ll check the cupboards,
after the deed is done.

~~~

That statue’s on a lean.
do you suppose the artist meant it?

Do you suppose the artist leant it that way?
And, if so, what does it mean?

~~~

A pen,
making demands from a reclined position.

Fucking pen,
why don’t you do a goddamn drawing yourself?

What are you,
paraplegic?

So lately I’m working on making some little interactive things as a new kind of angle on making stuff for stimulus response. I had a pretty great experience with it last time, when I made “What Are We Doing With My Life?” but this evening it’s been a little bit shaky, yielding something I’m calling “The Way We Were“.

It’s one of those projects where I eventually say “fuck it, I’ll just put it up and stop thinking about it.” While, at the same time, I quietly berate myself for screwing up an idea that was originally pretty appealing. The general concept was to model a kind of classic platformer, but with the path the player takes already mapped out and unchangeable. Deep! (But, really, just based on one of the tutorials in this book I’m working through.)

Anyway, the idea is good enough, but for some reason the Flash drawing environment was out to get me. I did all kinds of things that went horribly wrong and they slowly sapped my spirit to the point where I gave in and did some slightly crap drawings. Suffice to say that this thing wasn’t meant to look quite like this. Suffice to say I’m happy with the avatar, the grass, and perhaps the little heap of stones at the start.

But that’s life, and it’s more important to make something than to agonize over each possibility. So, I give myself a pass.

As always.