THIS BLOG AM MOVED!

Check it: http://www.dharbin.com/blog

It's the only part of the "new" site that's working yet, but it's by far the hardest part, so expect a brand new dharbin.com soon, not to mention the debut of my weekly strip, "DHARBIN!" I know, that title is "WILD!"

WANTED :: Wordpress Help.

So I'm redesigning my website, pursuant to relaunching it with a weekly strip (DHARBIN!), archives, portfolio, work-for-hire stuff, etc. All that I can handle--though my web design skills are of the most pedestrian nature possible, my tastes are fortunately exactly as pedestrian.

But what I'd like to do is move this blog onto my site, rather than hosting it externally (for instance, here on Blogger). I was pointed in the direction of Wordpress, and it appears that you can indeed do this thing, but so far I've had to install mySQL on my server, and try and take some blind stabs at creating a blank database which the supposed "famous 5-minute install" will fill up with my blog. Anybody out there have any clue how to do this? I'm pretty much done with all the heavy lifting on the rest of the site, so once I get my blog imported I'll be ready for action. My resources are meager, but I'd be happy to give you something for your trouble, maybe a commissioned drawing, or some pointers on make really good scrambled eggs, or I can just call you up and you can tell me all of your problems for, say, 30 minutes. Your choice. Feel free to e-mail me at dusty[AT]dharbin[DOT]com.

And thanks, my damie.

MORE SKETCHES, STILL FREE :: Encased, However, In Comic Which Costs Money

Oh my lands! It has been a little bit since my last post, but all with good reason, dear friends inside of my computer. I have been very busy doing the following things:

1) Redesigning my website, where I will store a ton of things that you can look at, many of which you can purchase from me. Also other cool stuff. Also:

2) Gearing up to begin producing a weekly strip, to be published on said website (see item #1).

3) Wrestling Wordpress as I try to figure out how to install it right onto my site, so I can host this blog there instead of here. If anyone knows how to do this, I would be greatly in your debt. I feel like I'm close, but their "famous five-minute installation" is kicking my keister. If I were 12 I'm sure I could do it in my sleep. Is this what getting old feels like? I would be happy to draw something or do some other favor in return if anyone can help me.

4) Installing my new (!!!) Intuos 3 6" x 11" Wacom tablet, which I purchased in order to more quickly/intuitively add colors or grey tones to cartoons (see item #2).

5) Continuing to sketch in and ship out copies of good ol' DHARBIN #1 to people. I just now added 8 new sketches to the Flickr set I have devoted to this sort of self-aggrandizement. As opposed to all the other self-aggrandizing sets I have up there. I only am scanning the ones I like okay--if you got one that is crummy, then I do apologize. Occupational hazard.

IN THIS TIME OF TROUBLE :: Please Enjoy An Out-Of-Date Strip.

Ah, early October. The campaign ads were only 1 out of 3 of each commercial; I was one month into a thus-far TERRIBLE 35th year of living; and the Small Press Expo was going on in Bethesda, Maryland. Wall-eyed artisans have labored in the mountains for lo, these 30 days, producing two shockingly mediocre tablets, containing therein a record of the Marylandish goings on.

But I've said too much: if you have already voted, I exhort you to go and view these delightfully inoffensive inscriptions: you deserve it. If you have not voted, or did not vote, your punishment is to send me $8 for a copy of DHARBIN #1 (shipping included). Only in this way can your sins be expiated. If you were planning on voting for the other guy, then not even DHARBIN #1 can help you...

PIPE WRENCH FIGHT.

I came home for lunch and found this hilarious video waiting for me in my little RSS folder. Those guys at the always interesting Drawn.ca blog must be completely broke, because apparently all they do all day is surf the Internet. But witness:



I SRSLY almost choked on my ham sandwich. This might be the funniest thing of this sort since the classic GI Joe PSA remixes.

This is not my usual kind of post (I'm not sure what is), but I'll be moving this whole shebang over to Wordpress pretty soon, all the better to integrate into my own site. So I'm going to fiddle around with some importing for awhile later this week. If anything messes up or looks wacky, just stay tuned and all will be explained.

BEING THERE :: Part Two

BEING THERE
1979, starring Peter Sellers, Shirley MacLaine
directed by Hal Ashby
Buy from Amazon (A short parade will be thrown in my honor).

So last Saturday I wrote briefly about the movie Being There. I was so excited about the movie that I stopped about a half-hour into it just to SAVOR what I'd seen. I've been a fan of Peter Sellers since I was a kid, when I thought that the Pink Panther movies must certainly be the pinnacle of comedy in our times. And the adult in me has enjoyed his weird turns in movies like Dr Strangelove, Lolita, and The Mouse That Roared. But neither adult me nor kid me were prepared for how incredibly RIGHT a somewhat older Peter Sellers would be in this movie. In fact, he was so perfect that I'll stop describing how good he was, and fall back on the fact that I stopped watching a movie 30 minutes in out of SHEER DELIGHT.

The basic shape of the movie is that Peter Sellers plays a man named Chance, a gardener for a rich man who has just died. Apparently Chance has never left the house, and while his relationship to the dead man is never explained, I get the feeling that they were related. Chance is apparently mentally handicapped in some way, although not so much like Rudy or Corky or whatever. While childlike, he never seems childish; never petulant, never selfish (except when concerning television). He seems less broken than empty. You slowly get the idea of this emptiness as the story progresses--for instance, when he leaves the house--for the first time in his life--he begins asking black women on the street for meals, thinking of the maid in the rich man's house who fed him each day.

Peter Sellers does a fascinating thing in this movie. I've always thought of him as as an actor in supreme control of his body, able to use it as much as his face and voice to inform a role. Of course he's famous for physical histrionics like those of Inspector Clouseau or Dr Strangelove. But what's so RIVETING about his performance in Being There is that he almost does the opposite--if anything, he's completely empty as Chance the gardener. The first hour or so of the movie is this empty cipher of a man moving through increasingly chaotic and confusing scenery. I was totally captivated just watching him move around, occasionally interacting with people, all of whom were left inevitably befuddled by said interaction. All but Chance the gardener.

There were numerous points in the first half of the movie where I really felt I was watching one of the best movies I'd ever seen. Chief among these was the moment when Chance leaves the house--the inside of which is presumably well-appointed, although most everything is covered in sheets and drapery. But when he leaves the house, we find that the front door opens onto a shabby, trash-strewn neighborhood, as the funkiest version of "Also Spake Zarathustra"--well heckfire, just watch it yourself:



The clip above closes with what to me is the end of the first part of the movie, and around where I turned the TV off last Saturday. Chance, whose every moment not gardening is spent in front of a television, is captivated by a store-window's large television, which is connected to a videocamera.

The problem with this movie (for me) is that this is probably the emotional climax of the entire film, at around the 34 minute mark. Essentially the first half-hour is a very well-made sort of tone poem of a movie, very focused, very good at depicting a man who moves gracefully through a world he does not understand any more than he needs to. Everything is in its place, there is no wasted footage, so wasted words. Best of all, everything is so open-ended--like the performance of Peter Sellers, a cipher--that you can't help but fill it with your own ideas, your own reactions and suspicions. When the rest of the cast enters the movie, after Shirley MacLaine's limo backs into Chance's leg, this openness fades and finally disappears into a more standard (although still well-made and affecting) political metaphor.

It's not that I'm not interested in politics or the man-vs-society or man-vs-government ideas in Being There, it's just that-- hold on, it is that I'm not interested. I certainly have my own political ideas, but they are almost always external, and rarely do they ever have anything to do with art. I like to think that my imagination has both breadth and depth enough that I would eventually arrive at some of these ideas myself, and for me the political milieu of the movie doesn't add a bit to the impact of its ideas.

Again, it's not that it's terrible or anything--I still enjoyed it mostly through the end. But for me the movie was ABOUT Peter Sellers as this empty gardener. It was ABOUT Peter Sellers himself, his performance--he was riveting in the same way that Marlon Brando or Orson Welles could be riveting in even the worst movies. When the movie became about how goofy rich people and politicians are, and/or how even the most powerful of men draw their ideas from the most foolish of places--well, DUH.

I am learning that the best art leaves room for its audience's ideas. Without the room to interact with a piece of art, to puzzle through the layers of artifice and craft that a person has wrapped their idea in--to participate with the art--then it is merely communication. But when you have the room not only to interact with a piece of art, but to do so in many different ways, and over years and years--well, that's the stuff that lasts, I think.

All the same, I liked Being There. I think this movie is worth owning, although I wouldn't put it at the top of my list. I've been thinking a lot about buying all the Star Wars movies on DVD lately, if that tells you anything about how much credence to put in my ideas about art.

DHARBIN #1 SKETCHES :: Are Free

Is it shameless self-promotion? Perhaps. Is it an obvious attempt to wrest money from you? Certainly. But regardless of the reason, I thought I'd mention that I've been posting some of the sketches I've been doing in the front of minicomics I've been selling, over on Flickr. My favorite one thus far is that bearded dude up above.

I'm just saying.

To review: you may purchase a copy of the 28-page comic for $5, and I'll ship it to you for an additional $3. Also available is a sweet print and Superior Showcase #3. Follow those linkns to learn more. I'm late for work.

ZINGERS OF LEGEND :: Don Poush Has A Cutting Wit

Don Poush is pretty quick with the zingers. This is one of my favorites, from way back in the day. A little strip in my sketchbook, where it's easier to not worry about how good something looks. More soon!

I would describe it more, but I'm missing Meet The Press, and I'm still bummed that I missed Colin Powell's Barack endorsement last week. Plus it's time for breakfast. Click the image or here to see it bigger over on Flickr.

SWEET MOVIE :: Being There

BEING THERE
1979, starring Peter Sellers, Shirley MacLaine
directed by Hal Ashby
Buy from Amazon (I will receive a small remuneration).

So lately I've been watching more movies, not that it's been all that great. With the exception of "All the President's Men" (which, to its fault, ties up the whole movie with a series of teletype news bits), they've all been pretty much middle of the road, above average at best.

"But Dusty," you'll say, "you don't know the first thing about movies." That's where you're RIGHT! But I still get to have an opinion, and my opinion is that it's way more fun to watch season one of The Wire than any half-dozen of these murky 70's-era movies, with their cloudy endings and their tortured, confused protagonists. Bah!

Oh, but wait... I forgot to update my Netflix queue and "Being There" showed up at my door, which I added months ago in a fit of Peter Sellers enthusiasm. Aw, heckfire, I don't want to spend the weekend watching some downer movie. Oh well, I thought, and popped it in over dinner tonight (Totino's Party Pizza, flavor: Combination). Almost from the very first second this movie was ...

...

Gosh, what's the word? I want to say "riveting," but that's not quite right, although I was definitely riveted right away. There's something ineffably magnetic about watching Peter Sellers do anything, but watching him do nothing was instantly, well, riveting. Seriously. Sellers plays Chance, the ostensible gardener for a man at least wealthy enough to afford two servants, albeit a newly dead man when the movie opens. Chance apparently has the mental faculty of a boy, even if it's a friendly, incredibly polite boy. He seems to focus only on his duties and the profusion of televisions littering his employer/caretaker's home.

Let me pause here to mention that I've only watched the first 35 minutes of the movie. I was enjoying it so much that I stopped the movie so I could think about it. There was so much good stuff going on that I started to feel like I was missing things. I've always been a slow thinker, but I'm a THOROUGH thinker as well. So please don't post anything that will ruin anything for me.

One of the other reasons I stopped was to try and draw a scene--Peter Sellers' face is preposterously hard to draw, especially in this role. And it was while trying to draw him that I realized what was making the movie so fascinating: it was of course Peter Sellers himself. I wonder if ANY other actor could have inhabited and animated this role in the same way. Sellers' face is both immobile and extraordinarily expressive; constantly sad-seeming without ever appearing morose. The movie (at least the first 35 minutes of it) are squarely focused on HIM, the character. The story is sort of flimsy, and seems almost an afterthought to the main idea of GETTING THIS CHARACTER ACROSS.

The scene above, in which "Chance", when confronted with a switchblade, pulls out his remote control and tries to "click" the offender away, perfectly sums up the sort of confusing state he finds himself in, having left the house for the first time in his life. He leaves his tidy garden and collection of televisions behind, stepping out the front door of the house into a rundown, trash-strewn neighborhood. All this to the tune of that INCREDIBLY funky 70's version of "Thus Spake Zarathustra". Moments later, confronted with his first ever threatened violence, he of COURSE goes to switch the channel.

Another reason to stop watching for awhile: I found myself focusing A LOT on how much of the movie I thought wouldn't work if someone else did it. I can see someone like Jim Carrey doing this sort of thing now, but hamming it all up Truman Show -style. What makes Sellers' performance so beautiful is precisely how understated it is. Instead of adding mannerisms, behavioral tics, or idiosyncrasies, he REMOVES them. Instead of trying to explain everything going on his character's mind, he explains nothing. The result is hard to explain--in retrospect it occurs to me that by making his character as blank as possible, he allows space for the audience to inhabit that character. To not only witness his confusion at the strangeness of the world, but to FEEL it. When he is captivated by his own image on a storefront television, captured by a videocamera in plain view, you instantly feel his amazement, to suddenly be ON television. Of course he has no conception of the camera--it may have never occurred to him that someone makes all the television he has watched all of his life.

Man, I'm rambling on. But this movie is a good, maybe a great movie. Peter Sellers is incredible. Also, Peter Sellers is impossible to draw--you just can't catch that blank, empty, but somehow lively look in his eyes. Go on, try! I dare you! I'll watch some more tomorrow and let you know what I think. I know you can't wait!

OH THE THINGS WE'LL BUY TOGETHER! :: Dharbin #1 Now For Sale!

Many have wondered how if it would ever be possible, but at last I have figured out how to use the "Internet" to sell things. I call it "d-commerce", after of course myself. To the victor go the spoils, after all.

You may expect an exhaustive account of how I was able to plumb the binary depths of the Information Superhighway later, but for now let's concentrate on this new, exciting invention: I suggest you immediately test it out by buying things from me.

But what to buy? Allow me to make three suggestions:

1) DHARBIN #1
My first ever minicomic, done in a terrible rush before SPX 2008. I have reprinted this badboy with some spiffy cardstock covers and a slightly altered design (not to mention altered price. Each one comes with an original sketch on the first page, an example of which you can see above. Not all sketches will be satisfactory, but some will be exemplary. Five bucks apiece, plus another THREE if you need it mailed to you. There is a greater chance of exemplary sketches for mailed copies, as I feel terrible about this higher price. But not that terrible.

2) SUPERIOR SHOWCASE #3
Good ole Chris Pitzer published me for the first time ever in his esteemed anthology. Fortunately this issue also includes Jim Rugg, Brian Maruca, Laura Park, and a cover by Roger Langridge, so even if you tear my 12-page story out and line your parakeet cage with it, you'll still be getting an excellent value at just $3. I encourage you to buy this with DHARBIN #1, giving you more for your $3 shipping charge.

3) 26 CARTOONISTS I HAVE RECENTLY MET AND LIKED PRINT
This will look excellent on your wall, trust me. It's a signed and numbered edition of 100, 11" x 14" print of a surprisingly popular thing I drew a few months ago. I've put it on fancy-dan paper to make it seem even more important. Best of all, it's only $5, which is a steal; especially compared with the high price of my mini. I'll ship it to you for another $3, rolled up in a little tube.

If you would like any or all of these things, drop me an e-mail at dusty{at}dharbin{dot}com, and we'll work it out. I ship the books in expensive bubble-wrap envelopes that I bought for just this purpose. If you live around Charlotte somewhere, let's do "the deal" in person, and save me that time and you that money.

3:10 TO YUMA :: Better, Worse Than Expected

Buy from Amazon (I will receive a small consideration).

Okay, so some mysterious stomach agitation has kept me out of work today, and likely tomorrow as well. The less said the better, BUT I've spent most of the day on the couch, and just finished watching 3:10 To Yuma courtesy of my good friends over at Netflix.

I'm not particularly good at or interested in writing reviews, so I'll skip all that, except to say that I liked it, and it is EXACTLY as good as a movie needs to be in order to rent it. Like most westerns, it was probably better on the big screen, but the big screen is mondo pricey.

Two things were interesting about this movie, besides the regular stuff (story, acting, etc.):

1) Like most MODERN westerns, everything was a little too clean, too shiny. Apparently tough guys in the Old West kept their beards trimmed
very neatly, pretty much everybody wore bowler hats, and everyone has teeth like a dental model's. I still think that the real reason Deadwood was such a big hit was that the Old West in Deadwood was beyond nasty; it was filthy. Disgusting, really.

2) Unlike most modern westerns, and especially curious in spite of #1 above, is the fact that the movie did an incredible job of creating a sense of menace to the main character and his family. While he (Christian Bale) never comes across as anything other than capable, you also never lose the feeling that he and his family are in DANGER. When violence breaks out there's actually a feeling of drama--you're actually concerned not only that something will happen to Christian Bale, but concerned over the fact that freaking guns are going off everywhere and it's totally screwed up. Imagine if someone--anyone--started shooting outside of your window right now; you'd be telling the story for the rest of your life. Violence is awful and changes people's lives, and movies which trade in violence often forget how dramatic it can be.

THIS was the real saving grace of this movie. It's easy to forget that real drama is the backbone of storytelling: the build and release of tension is the ebb and flow that creates a feeling of reality in a story. Just as your life moves and shifts from point to point, often without reason or explanation--mirroring this sloppy reality is key to great storytelling.

Good movie though. Christian Bale: surprisingly good. Russell Crowe? Who keeps hiring this guy?

AUFAUXBIOGRAPHY :: New Entries, Self-Smooching, More

Slowly I am running out of things to say about SPX, which was a full week ago now, but which is still very much on my mind. Partly because I'm working on a little strip featuring some of the highlights of the weekend, so obviously that is keeping it fresh.

But before I ask you to look at MY pictorial recollections, I invite you to whet your whistles with some people who actually know what the heck they're doing. While at SPX I only got four new entries for my themed sketchbook, which is ridiculous considering the wealth of great cartoonists that were in the room. However, they were four really good entries. I'd tell you more about them, but WORDS FAIL ME: why not see for yourself instead via the glory of my Flickr site. If this is the first time you've heard of this themed sketchbook, then you should just start at the beginning and read the whole thing.

CARTOON :: Death of the Monolith

First of all, a disclaimer (my mom has recently started reading this blog and I think it has upset her): the comic I just posted on my Flickr site is a little racy, depicting as it does an act of congress between an extinct creature and a mountain. There are also some related racy metaphors, although you'll have to think a little harder to get those. Mom, don't read it.

Okay! Everyone else, please enjoy this comic adaptation of a poem I wrote years ago back when I thought it was cool to write poetry. Haw! What could be less cool? Of course comics are much cooler, as everyone knows. Clever self-flagellation aside, I like this comic and I think you might, too.

SPX 2008 | Photo Report!

You can skip all this yada-yada below if you like and skip right to the photos on my Flickr site (along with all the yada-yada anyway).

Me and J. Chris Campbell of Wide Awake Press drove up to Richmond, where we stayed with our very hospitalitatious chum Rob Ullman for the night. Then the three of us drove up to the wild metropolis of Bethesda, Maryland!

I had with me my first minicomic (DHARBIN #1) and a print of the much-viewd (thank you!) "26 Cartoonists" strip I did a few months ago.

Lessons I learned:

1) Don't make a minicomic with a giant oval on the front which you MUST draw on for each copy. This slowed me down like crazy, as I had to stop and sketch on every single one. Not to mention that, sans sketch, it's a pretty dull cover, which means that people aren't really likely to pick the book up and discover the more interesting interior. Plus if you sell some to a store, you have to draw on ALL of them, which is also hard.

2) Price everything higher, so that you can wholesale it to dealers and still make a profit. I priced my mini at $2.25, forgetting (despite long experience as a retailer) the wholesale market. Future iterations will be an even $5.

3) Prepare better, as in making signs, being ready for stuff, pre-sketching on stuff, having little things to sell cheap for impulse buys.

4) Thank Chris Pitzer more profusely for being such an excellent host, tablemate, and not the least, publisher. You can thank him in my stead by going to the AdHouse Books site and buying SKYSCRAPERS OF THE MIDWEST before the first print sells out. I finished it last week, and it was AWESOME.

All in all it was a great show, and I'm excited about all the on-the-job training i got as a young cartoonist. I will be beginning tomorrow on new stuff for DHARBIN #2!

But don't forget to view all those photos, yo!

GRAHAM ANNABLE :: We Sing The Forest Electric

I'll be posting a bunch of photos tomorrow from my trip to SPX, but while you wait for must SURELY will be a pulse-pounding tale of near collisions and mob-style karaoke, please enjoy this excellent video I just watched on the excellent DRAWN blog, posted by the excellent John Martz, who I coincidentally met at SPX. Short report: it was excellent.