I’m in a weird position right now. There’s been some family drama going on. I feel like I’m in a sitcom. Week after week the family plods along doing the same ol’ thing.

“Look at Billy, he’s such a troublemaker, but we love him anyway!”

“Oh, isn’t Sally the cutest little button of a girl you ever did see?”

Everything is stable, but stable isn’t exciting and it doesn’t bring in ratings.

So the producers get together in a meeting and discuss what they can do to get more viewers.

“Let’s have the Fonz jump the Shark!”

“Hey, let’s give little Sally Leukemia!”

“Let’s make Billy a drug addict! He was just really good at hiding it from the family till now!”

Now all of a sudden I’m smack dab in the middle of all kinds of drama. People are confused, feelings are hurt, and I don’t really know what to think of it. The funny thing is that when you get a bunch of people together and throw in some conflict, it’s pretty much impossible to view anything objectively.

Everyone has a good reason for what they’re doing. You can’t take what people say at face value. This isn’t necessarily because they’re being purposefully deceitful. It’s because most people don’t understand why they do things. We cannot understand what’s propelling us, so we give ourselves an answer.

I’ve talked to a number of people involved and I can see things from their perspective as it’s been conveyed to me. I feel like there’s so much underneath the surface that I just can’t see and probably shouldn’t see.

All I can do is stick around and lend an ear and perhaps a little bit of guidance. It’s not a large part, but then again when it comes to acting in a sitcom there are no small parts either.

It’s an article about a man who went and lived with the bush people known as the Hadza for two weeks. His portrait of them is of a content and happily ignorant people. They’re unsentimental and don’t get caught up in things like thinking about the future or setting up social hierarchies. Everything is shared between everybody and they have little personal possessions.

In particular this statement got me thinking,

“The Hadza are not big on ritual. There is not much room in their lives, it seems, for mysticism, for spirits, for pondering the unknown. There is no specific belief in an afterlife—every Hadza I spoke with said he had no idea what might happen after he died. There are no Hadza priests or shamans or medicine men. Missionaries have produced few converts.”

Christianity’s main message is salvation. That message fits so well with civilized life. Social interactions are messy. It’s easy to throw life out of balance and get lost inside any number of different excesses. The mechanics of daily modern survival require constantly looking into the future; What’ll happen to me tomorrow, twenty years from now, eighty years from now, after I die?

Jesus works with that system, Jesus is good for that system. What about for people like the Hadza though? Will they be eternally punished for their sins because they don’t care to think of what happens after death? How can a people without possessions benefit from the Sermon on the Mount?

Christianity’s form of salvation is great because it doesn’t work on a tally system of good deeds and bad deeds. It’s more about going in the right direction and having God make up the difference. But it also has issues because of the damnation factor. Damnation puts people into two groups; saints and the hell bound.

The general consensus among Christians is that in order to be saved, one must be in some sort of relationship with Christ and God. But that leads to the problems of people who’ve never heard the gospel or people like the Hadza who can’t understand the importance of the gospel. Are they a special circumstance when it comes to salvation or are they just out of luck?

What inspired you to make Lewis’s Life? Did you always have an idea of what direction you would go or was it more of a learning process in terms of arriving at your current vision?

Honestly, I just wanted a comic to play around with (I made this abundantly clear with my second Lewis). I started Lewis’s Life at the same time as I launched another comic venture, The Voyages of the Hale-Bopp, co-authored by my brother. Hale-Bopp was going to be the huge money-making popular comic (at least that was the plan) and Lewis’s Life I just classified as the “Lame side-project”. Well, it was the lame side-project that won out.

As far as direction, I hadn’t the slightest idea where Lewis would go, usually living “comic-to-comic” and living off the seat of my pants. I think this shows in some of the disjointed story-lines and abrupt changes in focus; I’m still working on looking ahead and getting a vision of Lewis’s Life that extends beyond the next comic.

As great as the comic is, it’s probably not your sole source of income. What do you do for your day job?

I am currently a student studying graphic design, I wait tables in a local restaurant, I work at a library, and I do a few design jobs on the side (trying to develop this).

One of the great things about Lewis’s Life is the art. What’s your artistic background like? What would you say are some of your biggest artistic influences?

My artistic background is very limited, as far as “real” art goes (we can get into a discussion about definitions of art at another time). Until very recently I was never much interested in the people who the average Joe would call artists: great painters, sculptors and the like. Comics, however, I have loved as long as I can remember. My Mom and dad always had old Calvin and Hobbes books lying around (still one of the best comics ever produced) and the newspaper comic were the only part of the newspaper I ever read.

Because of my love of comics and relative disinterest in many of the commonly accepted art forms, I grew up drawing everything from my head. Drawing from life was too hard, and not nearly as rewarding to me; I loved spilling my imagination out on paper. As Scott McCloud discusses in his wonderful books on comic art, I was not interested in the beauty of art itself, or even the beauty of life, but the beauty of ideas. This led me to develop the artistic style that I have.

Some of my favorites: (a very eclectic assortment, I’ll admit) Calvin and Hobbes, Krazy Kat (in fact, everything George Herriman ever did), the Far Side, Maus, Peanuts, Mutts, Barney Google, (early) Blondie…and I’m sure there are lots more that I can’t think of right now.

How much time would you say you put into the average comic in terms of writing and getting it on paper?

Hoo, I might embarrass myself with this one. Since I have started producing Lewis’s Life digitally, it has cut down substantially on the amount of time I spend on Lewis (allowing the inclusion of color into my schedule). I “pencil” and “ink” Lewis in Adobe Flash and export it to Photoshop for coloring. This cuts out scanning, erasing, scan correction, and a myriad of other little tasks associated with putting physical art into a digital format. I spend an hour, two hours max per comic (this does not factor in the time I spend staring blankly at the computer screen, vainly trying to come up with an idea).

What other hobbies and interests do you have outside of drawing comics?

Design- I love monkeying around on photoshop/illustrator/flash, illustration, book-reading, hanging out with my wife, strumming on the guitar a little bit, acting, animating, dressing up as a homeless person and roaming around the city (only did that one once), and whatever strikes my fancy. I can be a bit of a jack-of-all-trades, master of none.

Your comic has a strong sense of emotional authenticity. How much of your own feelings and insecurities are a part of the comic? Is it a challenge for you to put those out there into the public?

I don’t think I have the talent to come up with characters that aren’t me in some fashion. I would say that a large majority of the comics are directly or indirectly related to my life; the original concept of the comic, of having the three demons tormenting Lewis, was really just a way to literalize a lot of stuff that happens in my life. Although this idea was not put in place so much to help me deal with that stuff, but more to have an endless supply of material: the most mundane emotional reaction is interesting when turned into Demons, portals and life-threatening situations.

My one worry has always been that I go too far, making the storylines too inherently “me” and un-relatable to an outside audience. This kind of emotional “puking” just isn’t pleasant to read, in my mind: catharses should ultimately be kept to oneself, thank you very much.

Do you have an overarching plan for the story right now?

Well, I’m planning on something overarching for Friday. (*note* this last Friday)

Of all of the adventures Lewis has been on, what’s been your favorite story arch so far?

When I look through Lewis, I see very few actual identifiable ‘arcs’. There are a couple at the beginning, but from then on Lewis almost has the feel (to me) that all of the stories are flowing into one another…I guess my favorite arc is the one I’m working on at the time.

In the past you had story lines that broke the wall between the second and third dimensions, even referencing the cartoonist himself. Will we see more of this in the future or is that something that you’ve moved on from?

I don’t know. I guess if my little guys want to interact with me more, then that’ll be ok with me. It really depends on them: I don’t think they like me very much right now, and I’m sure breaking the third wall can be a harrowing situation.

Will we see the prophet again?

Just when you least expect it. Do you feel the hair on your neck standing up?

Do you have anything else you would like to say?

My words be of little worth, so I leave you with five quotes (cuz I like quotes):

”I love deadlines. I love the whooshing sound they make as they go by.”
—Douglas Adams

“If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, ‘Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.”
—Martin Luther King, Jr.

“A christian… is never surprised when grace, beauty, meaning, order, compassion, truth and love show up in all sorts of unexpected people and places, because it always has been God’s world, it is God’s world, and it always will be God’s world.”
—Rob Bell

“life is hard. It’s harder if you’re stupid.”
—John Wayne

White dress nestled among them,
Hanging by fleshy appendage rather than wire.
Eye grabs eye for short moment,
Red lips purse into an upward corner.
White teeth flash and thick brow raises in response.

Man forms in favored suit.
Newly created mind floats through possibilities;

Skin brushes against skin,
Soft word spoken into flattered ear,
Trip taken on road without destination,
Arm embraces waist beneath starry sky.

Foot steps forward confidently then hesitates.
Coy smile disappears inside disappointed frown.
Metal screeches against metal with high pitched squeal.
Dress floats out open door into bright sunlight.
Brief dream bubbles dissipate in the air.

Empty suits on a train.

It’s so hard to separate your quick snap judgments of people from reality. So many times I’m interacting with a caricature and not the real person. It makes things easier when you do that, because you don’t have to invest the mental energy to truly evaluate them and try to see them realistically.

This last weekend I kind of experienced a reevaluation of a person. He had a reputation as being someone of loose morals who wasn’t afraid to take advantage of people. But I got to sit down with him and got my eyes opened a little bit. Certainly he has his fair share of worldly vices, but at the same time he has principles that he sticks to; specifically loyalty and integrity. I came away from that weekend with a completely different outlook on him. I still feel a little wary around him, since I’m just a distrustful person, but I definitely have more respect and a greater understanding of him.

I’ve met other people who I thought were kind and compassionate, which they were, but they were also frightened and self-interested. People are paradoxes. We don’t fit into neat little boxes. We don’t even understand ourselves. We tell ourselves we do something for one reason, when really we do it for a completely different reason. I think that’s why self-reflection is such a hard process. It’s like looking into a set of parallel mirrors, there’s just an infinite amount depth. You can get lost pretty easily.

I guess you just have to keep looking, until you start to really understand.

First of all, the art can be pretty delightful. It reminds me of my days in middle school where spirals were primarily doodling devices and secondarily note containers. I’ve found myself doodling more in class since I started reading the comic. Plus, the art still has complexity and good style. You can tell the artist puts a lot of effort and love into his work.

The rules of the comic’s universe are constantly changing and being turned upside down. Portals, spirits, and multiple dimensions are all common elements of the comic. In addition to this, the creator is always throwing in plot twists and cliffhangers. You can  never really know what to expect.

At its heart, this comic is about the inner self. It’s about fear, triumph, love, and hate. Basically, it’s a comic about life. There were many times when I would stop and say to myself, “I can relate to this. This comic describes me.” The beauty is that this isn’t an overt thing either. It’s almost like the creator took a faucet, shoved it into my head and tapped into my subconscious. Sometimes things will make absolutely no sense, but you’ll connect with it anyway.

It didn’t provide laughs and giggles like Penny Arcade or XKCD, but it definitely kept me interested and made me think. Go check it out and be sure to start from the beginning.

http://www.lewiscomic.com/

]]> http://landanland.com/lewiss-life/feed/ 2 http://landanland.com/in-the-head/ http://landanland.com/in-the-head/#comments Sat, 16 Jan 2010 10:55:40 +0000 Landan http://landanland.com/?p=351 So much of what I feel has no basis in the real world. It’s all in my head. Rarely are the things I fear real. Oftentimes the things I should fear, I am completely unaware of. Simple things like how much sleep I’ve gotten will shadow my perception of how other people feel. If I’m feeling chipper, then I feel like other people want to be around me. If I’m feeling like crap, I feel like people don’t really want anything to do with me.

I live in my head too much.

Over the break I was at a friend’s apartment. I had an ok time, but at one point in the evening I realized that I really didn’t enjoy being with those people. We weren’t interested in the same things in life. They had different priorities and being around them just left me feeling empty.

It’s much the same feeling I get when I waste an afternoon surfing the internet or watching television. Time is precious, so why would I waste it doing something ethereal and pointless. I have all these things that I would like to do but I don’t because I find it easier to sit my butt on a couch and not do anything at all. How much would I get accomplished if I cut those things out of my life?

There’s a movement of living called minimalism. In this movement people attempt to cut down to the important things in life. This is different from asceticism in that it doesn’t require descending into poverty. Rather it focuses on utility and quality. A person living a minimalistic lifestyle will not purchase a bunch of different objects or tools that can do the same job. Rather they choose one tool that can be used to do a job effectively. There’s little room for nostalgia or hoarding things. If it doesn’t serve a purpose right now, whether practically or easthetically, then it goes out the door. Additionally they will cut out activities and pursuits that are not of prime importance to them.

A minimalist would not try to own all at once an expensive home theater system, apartment, sports car, motorcycle, lake house, personal garden, and every gaming system known to man. It would be far too much to enjoy. Rather the minimalist will pick those things that are most important. If the man is not interested in maintaining a yard or spending a lot of time inside, he won’t buy a large house. It’d be a waste of time. It’d be more practical to rent out an apartment in the city or purchase a condo. The minimalist owns his things, his things do not own him. I think that is something worthwhile to pursue.

So far I’ve cut out a lot of my video game playing and television/movie watching. I haven’t bought a game or a movie in a while. I enjoy films, but I don’t ever feel like watching a film more than a few times anymore (with a few specific exceptions). Now I focus on doing more activities that I find much more rewarding, like writing or spending time with special people. Over the past year or so I’ve slowly been heading my life towards this lifestyle without actively seeking it. Now I’m being a little more proactive, but still have a ways to go.

Here are some examples of minimalistic design in a house.

She was outside with him.

The sky was beautiful. It was the type of sky that only comes around every once in a while. When I think of it, I imagine a splash of purples and oranges. The clouds would be illuminated in such a way that the shadows would fully define their fluffy, irregular shape.

She saw that the sky was beautiful and wanted to keep it, put it in her pocket.

She exclaimed, “The Sky is so beautiful! Take a picture of it!”

He looked at her quizzically. “Whatever for?”

“So you can keep it and look at it later.”

He shook his head, “No, I’m going to enjoy it right now. Taking a picture would only ruin it. When it’s gone, it’s gone.”

She gave him a weird look, not understanding what he meant. He said a lot of strange things that she didn’t understand.

Only later when he’d left, would she understand.

Citizen Kane is supposedly the greatest film ever made. More people are probably aware of this fact than have actually sat down to watch it. My dad is one of those people who likes to watch a good movie. Mention No Country for Old Men or The Straight Story and he’ll start chatting excitedly about why he loves those films. He decided to sit down and watch Citizen Kane and it didn’t really do anything for him. Some might say that my father is too dense and unsophisticated to appreciate Orson Welles’ masterpiece. Although there could be some truth to that, since there is a certain scientific approach to cinematography, editing, and acting that tend to make a good film, I don’t think that’s necessarily the case.

I think that the real reason my father couldn’t get into the whole experience has to do with the elusiveness of the things that emotionally move us as individuals. Films tell their stories viscerally. The camera allows us to see and hear what the characters see and hear. Good books can accomplish this as well, but the nature of a movie lends it a greater amount of momentum to the whole experience. You can put a book down, it’s harder to stop a movie because you get so caught up in the whole experience.

I believe that the films a person loves says more about who they are than what kind of taste in art they have. It allows us to relive the familiar in a slightly unfamiliar setting. It’s a way of saying I’m not alone in feeling the way I feel. That’s why we keep watching the same stories over and over again in slightly different packaging. When I sit down and watch a film, I usually come away from it discovering something about myself. A good film forces you to examine yourself and your perceptions of the world around you. We love movies that we see ourselves in. Popular films that stand the test of time are that way because they reveal basic common truths about all men. It’s a Wonderful Life has stood the test of time precisely for that reason. I absolutely adore that film and it’s not because it’s a case of cinematic genius. The film is flawed in many ways, but our family continues to watch it over and over again because we can all relate to it.

This isn’t always the case though. My mom recently had our whole family watch the movie Henry Poole is Here. She cannot stop raving about that movie. She loves that movie. I didn’t particularly find it as powerful an experience as she did. In fact I’d personally say that it strayed way too far in the corny zone for my tastes. However, I can understand why my mother loves the movie when I look at things she’s gone through in the past and how they relate to the movie. This means that the film provides a much more powerful experience for her than me and that’s OK.

Film criticism has gotten to the point where everything is being rated, as if there’s some way of scientifically determining if a film is good or not. This is a ludicrous idea. I don’t understand why everyone feels the need to have public opinion monopolized to a single general consensus when it comes to art and entertainment. Everyone liked the Dark Knight but you. So what? Film can be a living breathing thing when you allow it to. And when you do, it can be quite a rewarding experience.