Comic-Con Sketchbook Project (pt. 2 of 2)
Tuesday, July 31st, 2007
And here is the rest of the stuff from my sketch book.
Again I have hidden away the majority of this post beneath this Read More link.
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Archive for July, 2007
Comic-Con Sketchbook Project (pt. 1 of 2)
Monday, July 30th, 2007
Comic-Con was interesting. I decided to try to get a sketch pertaining to a particular subject, “Grass,” from various people at the convention. It was sort of inspired by the fact that I’ve been working on a story by the same name for the past four years or so. I took an empty sketch book in order to remind me to pick up drawings. When the convention finally hit I started visiting different booths and asking if I could possibly to get a quick sketch in my theme book.
This will be a very tall post, so you’ll have to click below to see the whole thing. Also, it was getting to be a bit too long, so I’ve split the artists in half. Here is the first half, and I’ll post the second half tomorrow.
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Entry #5: Santos is watching
Friday, July 27th, 2007
[by Helen]
Santos had a different name when I first met him, and I called him by this name in my head until about a year later, when we began conversing for real and he informed me that his name was currently Santos. I met him at freshman orientation in June 2000, and we shared a few honors-type courses before we actually spoke. Santos claims that I was his crazy stalker in the meantime, as I had discovered his then-new website (his satirical anti-drug project inspired my first e-mail to him), but to this day, I still maintain that it was “stalking in a friendly way.†I even kept a webpage of funny things he said for future laughing purposes, and because I knew we would be good friends after he referred to ice cream as “that icy nectar of cows.â€
Santos refuses to let me forget the time I prodded him in the back with a ballpoint pen, even though I’ve bribed him with many Cheez-Its, cherry Pop-Tarts, and homemade snickerdoodles over the years. Our interactions are characterized by him smothering his amusement at something I’ve done, I think, though the time we had a nighttime picnic near the art building and the time I helped him re-attach his rearview mirror to his windshield, it was really too dark to see his expression. I fear now that he may have been scowling at me the entire time.
One of the most noteworthy things about Santos is the way he asks extremely original, thought-provoking questions, based on his keen observations and creative ponderings from his daily life. On more than one occasion, he has caused me to respond, “Hm, I don’t know! I never thought about that,†and left me with a number of unanswerable puzzles to mull over. Santos has given me neat things he created, such as a Cheez-It Valentine written with his best crayons, a deathly skeleton bopping along in pink roller skates, and a wheelchair-bound T-Rex enjoying a swirly lollipop. That makes me think he’s pretty okay. That, and he would often smell his hands and report to me their current odor.
I don’t talk to or see Santos as much as I would like these days because of some dumb thing called “grad school†that seems to consume most of my time. I still think of him quite often and hope that he is getting on all right despite the troubles that have come his way.
Category: People I Know
Entry #4: Santos likes muffins
Thursday, July 26th, 2007
[by Percy]
I met Santos what seems like a very long time ago to me now, during my first semester at UH. I can’t remember exactly when I met him, but my first memory was of him assuming that he could look at a sketchbook I brought to class even though I didn’t know him. Presumptuous from the start.
Santos is a quirky guy like that. He doesn’t follow society’s standards, and I believe that he secretly finds joy in that fact. Among his quirks he doesn’t watch television, makes a point to walk and speak as quietly as possible, and has given up all foods that contain sugar and MSG (last I checked.) There’s a famous incident that I remind him of frequently back before we were as close as we are now, and when he used to eat sugar. I had just baked a large batch of muffins and said to Santos “Help yourself!” Santos ate nearly ALL of the muffins. And there were like, two dozen of them. I no longer offer food to him with such open prerequisites.
Besides being presumptuous and a glutton, Santos has for a long while been the only art friend that I have. Being able to look at someone else’s sketchbooks full of drawings brings me a lot of joy, and he’s really good at what he does. His little books are like treasures and looking inside of them is like you’ve discovered something secret and precious. I hope that he will someday make those creative endeavors known to the rest of the world, in some way.
Category: People I Know
Entry #3: Santos is a Coyote
Wednesday, July 25th, 2007
[by Clint]
I say “Santos is a coyote”, but that isn’t quite true. The truth is, Santos’ totem animal is a coyote. He and his totem animal are always going on spiritual journeys together. They used to do it all the time when we lived together. When I came home, I would always smile, wave and say “Hey Santos! How’s it going?”. Sometimes he would ignore me completely, and other times he would just stare at me, or rather, past me…through me. At the time, I thought it was rude, but in retrospect, I realize that it’s just a part of his Native American Heritage.
Another part of his Native American Heritage that can be bothersome sometimes is his lack of a sense of ownership. For example, one time I bought a bunch of cookies and said he could have as many as he liked. He didn’t respond (probably on a spiritual journey again), ate most of the cookies, and never said “thank you”. Again, I thought it was rude at the time, but now I understand that he didn’t think they were “my cookies” or “his cookies”, but that they “belonged to the land”.
Actually, now that I think about it, maybe “the land” is the culprit here. It may be that he’s rude to me because the white man (me) took his land away. I guess a few cookies is a fair price to pay for all of America.
Like most Native Americans, Santos is very wise. He has a lot of “creative ideas”. One of my favorite “creative ideas” of his, is the idea that aliens are trying to transmit thoughtwaves into his head. He would protect himself from this by putting foil on his windows and hiding in a corner in the dark.
The truth is, I really like Santos a lot. I like him so much I made a video game about him. Incidentally, he never went through it, but that’s probably for the best, because in the ending, I tear him in half.
Category: People I Know