Sign of the Auk

from the sketchbook...

2011-11-14T10:59:00.000-08:00

Habsburg portraits series.

Happy end of Daylight Savings

2011-11-06T10:42:00.000-08:00

a recent still life I did for Kiara.

Happy Halloween

2011-10-29T07:28:00.000-07:00

Celebrating my favorite holiday, 2 days early, with a new drooring... and a tip of the executioner's hood to James Whale and Fritz Lang, (tried to fit Hammer in there too, but couldn't figure out how... Chris Lee will have to wait til next year I spose.)

Whig and Beast

2011-10-22T08:41:00.000-07:00

The beast is a brontotherium, late Eocene, North America. The Whig is homo sapiens circa 1690, Leipzig.

copyright 2010 Sean C Chiki

Black Light Sir Elton Bear in Orbit

2011-10-17T12:04:00.001-07:00

It was Kiara who said she thought Elton John looked like a teddy bear. From there, the idea of a black light poster seemed only natural. I wish I had this on my wall when I was twelve.

My African Balloon Trip

2011-10-08T10:24:00.000-07:00

created with K. A. Polzin

What kind of bookstore,,,

2011-09-05T18:57:00.000-07:00

continued...

2011-08-22T08:56:00.000-07:00

continued...

Mechanics of Orzone

2011-07-28T12:48:00.000-07:00

continued next week...

Out on a Limb

2011-07-21T09:40:00.001-07:00

continued next week...

Sofi returns from vacation!

2011-07-14T16:28:00.000-07:00

continued next week...

ephemeriscope up

2011-06-09T14:24:00.001-07:00

after a brief hiatus, Sofi will continue the first week of July.

Orzone Center

2011-06-02T17:33:00.001-07:00

continued next week...

Girl Scouts

2011-05-26T06:55:00.001-07:00

Hermetic Tradition

2011-05-19T09:28:00.001-07:00

continued next week...

Dr. Horus

2011-05-12T09:53:00.000-07:00

continued next week...

Julius Evola

2011-05-05T21:15:00.001-07:00

Sofi Fomalhaut meets the Merry Spanker

2011-04-25T09:36:00.001-07:00

Sofia Fomalhaut episode 2

2011-04-19T08:38:00.000-07:00

continued next week...

Sofia Fomalhaut, Bookseller!

2011-04-14T12:39:00.000-07:00

continued next week...

Wunderkammer 4 update

2011-04-04T08:15:00.000-07:00

I'm hard at work on Wunderkammer No. 4, which is looking like it'll be out for the summer.

Original art for my story in the Comic Book Guide to the Mission is on display for the month of April at Mission Comics and Art.

new art show and podcast

2011-03-26T09:59:00.001-07:00

Mission Comics & Art will be showing original artwork from the recently released Comic Book Guide to the Mission (including that by yours truly) through the month of April! Reception is next Saturday, April 2.
And... my comic Wunderkammer was treated to a very nice discussion on The Savage Critics podcast

http://www.savagecritic.com/jeff/wait-what-ep-32-2-it-can-destroy-the-world/

Comic Book Guide to the Mission

2011-02-27T10:15:00.000-08:00

Local independent publisher, Skoda Man Press has released the Comic Book Guide to he Mission, featuring the work of many local cartoonists, including yours truly!

http://www.skodaman.com/

Free love and Scary Stories all the rage on the shores of Lake Geneva!

2010-11-06T10:49:00.001-07:00

Gothic Ladies part 1

2010-10-21T17:39:00.000-07:00

Sleuth creator fooled by Tinkerbell hoaxers

2010-10-15T06:20:00.000-07:00

Wunderkammer No. 3 is now available!

2010-10-11T06:48:00.000-07:00

http://www.etsy.com/listing/58537897/wunderkammer-3

The proof arrives!

2010-10-01T10:51:00.000-07:00

Finally got the proof for Wunderkammer 3. I was beginning to lose hope.

My printing woes.

2010-09-29T13:15:00.000-07:00

Once again, a printer, which I shall refrain from naming, is vexing me.
I sent them the files for Wunderkammer 3 nearly a month ago and I still haven't heard from them. No answer to my follow up inquiry, no invoice for my order. Totally unresponsive. At this rate, it won't get done until November at the earliest.
So... I reformatted the files to another printer's specs and sent it to them. We'll see.

New issue coming soon!

2010-09-09T12:10:00.000-07:00

The Fall 2010 issue of Wunderkammer has just been sent to the printer. Should be ready for October!

Several specimens

2010-08-20T12:34:00.001-07:00

I must be getting old, because music seems to suck now.

2010-08-02T10:48:00.000-07:00

Happy Bastille Day

2010-07-14T08:48:00.001-07:00

Tales From the Creepy Bus, Book 12

2010-07-05T15:27:00.001-07:00

Acrimonius Saltpeter had just remarked to his friend, Tode, "bless my soul, but didn't I see you yesterday, waxing your mustaches at Biggums Bandshell?"
"You are most dreadfully mistaken, my fine simple wretch," said Tode, " for both myself and my doppleganger were engaged at the moment you mentioned (did he?) in a game of cock-robin with Doris Supplenty."
"Oh yes, then I completely understand and I pray you forgive me my liberties, old bark."
"Not at all, old toff. Don't even think of mentioning it."
Merrily did they skip and trot along their dusty way and passed, they did, many a paltry sum of brain parts scattered to the whims.

But twenty furlongs to the south and several inches nor'west, with three sheets to the wind and five points aft the port bow, there sat upon his ass, a parson of disreputable girth. He smoked a clay pipe filled with acrid pitch as he beat his ass, the poor animal receiving the relentless blows from his cloth-clad burden with the reverence and sanguinity of a parched lord. Yet did this animal not bear spirit of mind? For within its thoughts there was a resemblance of certain morals and forms and ideals of an elevated nature, there disproving and usurping the parson's system of axioms. All at once, the parson's existence as a rational being was negated and he flashed from existence.
At that very moment, the Spooky Bus belched forth its one occupant...

[exuent S.B. Occupant and ass.]

[Interior. Doris Supplenty's boudoir. Acrimonious Saltpeter and Tode, both reclining in a washbasin of perfumed water.]

AS: The world is full of cabbages, you know. [lifts a morsel of sweetmeats to his lips, partially missing and spilling crumbs down his damp jabot.]

T: So you say. And how came you to this peak of observation?

AS: As always, through steady observation and constancy of reason.

T: An example, pray?

AS: On my way here today, I passed thirty persons, by my count, and not less than four and twenty of them were cabbages.

T: 'Tis remarkable indeed. And do you know, if they're not cabbages, they're radishes.

AS: You are correct sir. I say, is there not any more cake? Pray call that blaggardly fellow of a dogsbody and tell him come here.

[BFOAD is summoned.]

A few literary picks

2010-06-25T10:57:00.000-07:00

Just read The Black Minutes by Martin Solares. Gritty pulp stuff, a good read. The heat and the violence (or the threat of it) seem relentless. Reading it finally made me pick up my advance copy of 2666.
Also, just started Hiding the Elephant. Something about Edwardian showmanship is endlessly appealing to me. Puts me in the mind of some of Steven Millhauser stories.

Wunderkammer now carried by Last Gasp!

2010-03-25T16:59:00.000-07:00

http://www.lastgasp.com/1/11/Auk+Brand+Comics/0/

It's here!

2010-03-17T09:27:00.000-07:00

Wunderkammer Two is now available through my etsy store...
http://www.etsy.com/shop/gurusmasher

For February release...

2010-01-28T14:46:00.001-08:00

Just sent the files to the printer for Wunderkammer Two. It should be ready by the end of february.

I've had to delay the launch of Little Auk Library while I finished up Wunderkammer, but I plan on resuming work on that and hope to have one out by summer. Proposed first offering... This Business of Death... a view of late antiquity through the eyes of the God of Death.

The End is nigh!

2010-01-26T14:47:00.000-08:00

That's right, the second volume of Wunderkammer, tantalizingly titled Wunderkammer Two is very very near completion. How near, you ask? Let me just say this... one more picture. Oooo yeah. Should be back from the printer by the end of February if all goes as it should.

2010-01-14T16:22:00.000-08:00

That's right, m*thaf*ckas!

Post-Saturnalian Reality Check

2009-12-29T13:13:00.000-08:00

Tales From the Creepy Bus

2009-08-29T20:22:00.000-07:00

(a closet drama)
Act 29, Scene 1

The story so far- Our hero, Aristide Simplesby Soot, sits in crapulated discomfort, his wounded digit throbbing, having sustained a papercut while turning the page of his men's adventure paperback, the cover crinkled and creased from having nestled so long in the breast pocket of his J.C.Penney tweed sports coat, the hairs of his nostrils bristling as their fleshy hoods flare, flushed crimson with indignant rage, this unpleasant mood, so far from the harmonious tranquility, which would otherwise enshroud our hero in a warm glow of fuzziness, now further agitated and threatening to overcome what remains of his erstwhile pleasant state, a state constituted by a combination of three things, those things being (1) a supremely comfortable posture of quasi-recline in his wooden saloon chair, (2) a full tumbler of Newcastle nut-brown ale and (3) a highly stimulating read of the genre fiction and mass market paperbook varieties, complete with painted cover illustration featuring both a manly sort of tanned and musculated man and a female counterpart, suitably depicted in a state of semi-undress and obviously swooning from the overpowering, masculating presence of her manly companion. So this is where we find our hero, by all counts not enjoying the pleasure one would naturally expect to reap from such a bounty of exquisite drink, repose and reading material, and furthermore discomforted by the inflamed laceration of his thrust-forth digit. With great frustration, he slaps his erstwhile recreation down upon the ale-slopped surface of the saloon table. There it sits for some moments, the book-cover's buxom protagotrix catching his irritated gaze by the round turn of her muchly bosom. From his breats pocket he draws a cotton handkerchief, embroidered in the corner with his initials and with it damps a profusion of perspiration from his luxuriantly skinned forehead. A conversation under way, between a man whose head is piled high with a hive of dreadlocks and the bartender distracts our attention.

DREADLOCKS: I've heard of Fanny Durpin! Of course I have. Do you take me for a dolt?

BARTENDER: Not in the least, my fine simple fellow. Perhaps you'd like another drink to lengthen the intensity of your belligerence?

DL: By all means! I always say, it's better to butter your roll than to boil the cabbage.

BT: In fact, I've been meaning to ask you not to say that anymore, as it distresses the clientele.

Bartender and dreadlocks engage in Sumatran wrestling with daggers.
Exit Aristide Simplesbly Soot.

FANNY DURPIN: And so, with ne'er a look askance, nor a shake of the ankle sidelongs, our hero A.S.Soot finds his way among the heathenish rabble of Haight Street on a Saturday afternoon. No matter where he directs his eyebubs, there are sights to confound even the most sensible pretzels of his heart. For where a man walks, so does the dog leave its droppings. Anon. Ibid.

An apology

2009-08-22T16:52:00.001-07:00

I apologize for the last post.

Tales From the Creepy Bus

2009-08-21T19:47:00.000-07:00

(a closet drama)
Act 47, Scene I

1314, East Liverpool, Ohio
The story so far- Juan de Mole, last Grand Master of the crusading order, The Knights of St. Steve, the Refrigerator Repairman, has suffered many years of agonizing imprisonment after the dissolution of his order by the King of Steubenville, Phillip the One Leg Slightly Longer Than the Other. He has been subjected to the most debasing tortures, such as having testicle clamps erroneously attached to his earlobes, earning him the sobriquet amongst his compatriots, 'Earballs'. He is now hauled before the Holy Inquisition to hear one last time whether he will confess to the list of heinous charges against him, among them, cavorting with known badgers and crossing the street on three legs.

Junior Lord High Inquisitor: (approaching, most vexed with a bulbous vessel) Juan de Mole, we would fain spare thy life, but our decrees have the viscosity of lemon sherbet. My patience wears thin, de Mole, and you will find its end most tiresome. So for the last time, will you not confess to the list of charges against you?

Juan de Mole: Before I answer, Junior Lord High Inquisitor, I will pass water in your vessel. (passes water)

JLHI: (with mounting fury) De Mole, your arrogance stirs regions of my groin that have hitherto remained blissfully undisturbed! There is no help for one so impertinent! One so foul of sense! So unbeleaguered by notions of the hammered dulcimer.

JdM (with a calm nonchalance reminiscent of a young Clark Gable) My regard for your opinions, sir, has the weight of a bulimic gnat and with a third as much consequence.

JLHI: (face turning red, steam emerging from ears. sound cue: steam whistle) Why you villain... you moldy-brained troglodyte... you mandolin player... you pinch-eared dog... sock-avoiding know-nothing... misguided pollster... you hollyhock... you side of charred bark... how dare you?

JdM: (with the demur je ne sais quoi of a Lana Turner, age 40) Why really, I've never heard such things. I'm quite scandalized.

JLHI: (metamorphosing into an enraged orangutan, mandibular canines bared. sound cue: whistle from a standard class 9F steam locomotive) Impudent wretch! Toy with my feelings will you? Well, I'll show you, my fine fellow, oh yes I will! Now then... (removes mask to reveal face of California Governor Ronald Reagan, age 56. sound cue: chirp of a spot-winged tit)

JdM: What ho then! (reaches into secret breast pocket, pulls out gun with grappling iron, fires gun, escapes through roof with pyrotechnics)

(exeunt Junior Lord High Inquisitor, Very High Sergeant With Twenty Arms, various Stewards and Flight Attendants and 45 Degrees Almonating Preceptor. sound cue: Hail Britannia in full chorus.)

Joy Williams is nuts.

2009-08-21T08:52:00.000-07:00

I'm now halfway through State of Grace, which I'm reading on the suggestion of Miss Brinkman, and I have to say, this is one of the more disturbing books I've read lately.
Working on a series called Gothic Ladies, and trying to cull material for contemporary writers working in or around the genre. If you haven't checked her out yet, do so for an unsettling spin.

Yes...

2009-08-20T17:05:00.000-07:00

A new blog to celebrate the inauguration of Auk Brand Comics and a quiet retirement of the former, the now sadly defunct Screaming Apple of Discord.

Down to Isotope today to see if they'd take Wunderkammer.
Man in purple suit: Too busy today, come back tomorrow or Tuesday.
Then on to Pearl Art to buy frames for the show next Friday.
It's been quite some time since I've walked down Market Street. A funny thing I noticed... the walk signals make a noise like the sound of a machine gun.

Work is coming along slowly on the next issue of Wunderkammer... partly due to other, more pressing concerns, such as my wedding in October.