Money for nothing

There have been wealthy artists who could support their families and living without worries about future income. So it is possible.

To get paid for all your work? That would have been great. Heck, to get paid for half your work, would have been fantastic. But no one is guaranteed a fee when you create something free-lance. You take the risk, if you´re good enough, or lucky enough, you pull it off.

Sometimes I feel that I should have chosen a safer path. Become a librarian or an archeologist, and have free time to just enjoying other peoples art, to go to theatre plays, concerts, cinemas and exhibitions, reading stacks of comics and books, listening to the music of the world.

It would have been a so much easier life, I think.

I have children to take care of. My two boys are nearly grown up, they are so beautiful and alive, dating girls, playing games, eating, having fun, planning their future. My other children, the comics I have made, has gone into books, but don´t seem to sell well. I can blame the financial crisis, the tough competition of other good comics, that Norway is a small country, etc. etc.

Nobody wants to dissect their children. I am kind of blind to their faults, I think ... I just love them.

Animated dogs running

Hi! I have worked all day long trying to expose the secret of animation. I have been through lots of tutorials now and then. I have made a tiny one in photoshop today, that is a start, but I want to do them in flash too! That &%$#" data language is not easy for me, but after two years, I finally begin to understand a fraction. I feel stupid.

Odyssevs, the tricky hero

The tale of Odyssevs is well known. Steven Grant and Scott Bieser have made a new take on the story, wickedly clever done.
"Odyssevs the rebel". We meet our hero after the siege of Troy, swimming in the ocean, quarreling with the sea god Poseidon. The dialogue is brilliant. Odyssevs came alive at once as a stubborn, cynical but attractive man, who won´t adore and worship the Gods. A man with principles.
It certainly helps that the art is very well done. Clear lines, shades of grey, black and white, very easy to read and get caught in the mood of the drama.
I promise you, if you like 300, if you love an intelligent plot, if you have a feeling for history, ... you´ll not be sorry if you look into the Big Head Press´tale about the sly idealist Odyssevs.

Ideas

"If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of everyone, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density at any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property."
- Thomas Jefferson

This was a great read.
I wish people who reads my two books of the Knights of Dor (my second book is released on the market on Monday, the 18.th. May) will feel good and be inspired.
I am sad I can´t just let all folks read The Knights of Dor for free, yet. I have a publisher to take care of, who believes in my stuff and wants to sell it. So let there be time for that first, and release later. In 1900 the duration of utility patents lasted 17 years, then the inventions were free for all ... the Knights of Dor will come sooner, I think!
Long live the ideas of everyone!

Gypsy, a surreal heroine

Gypsy is a web comic running on Girlamatic, and it is free to read. On full screen on Kidjutsu, here:

First impression: professional, playfully drawn. Attractive use of lines, planes and hachure. The puppet troupe introduction worked very well for me. The mood was funny, surreal, silly on the surface. The heroine, Gypsy, is very anti-heroic, and portraits apathy and hopelessness in the complex world today, a world craving for us to participate in a number of ways, school, job, family relationships. When she lies down watching the puppet troupe performing the same show over and over again, it reminds me of watching TV just to escape from boredom and pressure to participate. Her mum looks upon her daughter as a burden, and is trying to get rid of her by leaving her with a doctor, Ziggy.

Gypsy was destined by the gods to be a traveller, but is totally passive. The doctor tries to take her journey with her, but fails.
The puppet troupe are also a symbol of artists and media people, they are rewriting the story in their way, struggling with their equipment, people reacts to them either giving them praise and money, or kicking their behinds.

My last impression: This is a very satirical story, telling something about the world and reality we live in. A quality comic with several layers.


From the cast: Gypsy is the daughter of the CEO and founder of the world's largest entertainment corporation, and the actual creator of the Gypsygirl doll that empire is based on. In the last segment of her 10th Educatorial, her brain filled to capacity causing a waking coma-like state.

Ziggy has finally gotten her private practice off the ground when Mama Rose shows up and leaves Gypsy behind. To make good on her advertised promise for a speedy cure, the good doctor is forced to take Gypsy wherever she needs to go to complete her Post-Educatorial Service.

This particular puppet troupe was hired by Mama Rose as part of the Broadway Cure prescribed to the catatonic Gypsy. The group consists of: 2 Producers, 1 Director, 1 Stage Manager, 2 Stagehands, 3 Spear Carriers, 3 Principal Performers, 1 Understudy, 1 Conductor, and 12 Orchestra Members.

Mama Rose parlayed her daughter's one and only creative impulse into a multi-billion dollar corporation. Per tradition, when the last or only child completes the Primary Educatorial, they are sent away from the home with noting more than the clothes on their backs. The Parent[s] may begin their Retirement. Unfortunately for Mama, Gypsy is afflicted with Brain Freeze, effectively blocking the execution of this tradition.

A serious case of Brain Freeze can't keep Gypsy from having a globe-spanning adventure. Updates weekly.

John Peters has been bouncing around the outer rim of the comics industry since 1997 with Forty Winks and other comic projects, including Pretty Female Assassin Pixie [also with Vincent Sneed] and Crazy Asian Girl [with Lonnie Allen]. Gypsy! is his first major solo project. He likes sushi, and has a large collection of tree branches.


Christopher Schultz has written a very good Gypsy! rewiev.

Internet ...

Oh, brave new world!
Internet is the best thing since radio and TV was invented. I love to have access to the world. I sincerely hope the net won´t fall into the hands of people who wants to own it. I would be willing to trade the freedom of the net, for my own copyright, if need be. Not the ownership of my works, but the right to copy my works.

To read all those web comics and stories people lay out, is a great source of pleasure. It is immensely inspiring. It is like the time when music evolved into spirituals, blues, jazz and rock´n roll.

The financial crisis are welcome in a way. Me and mine have a hard time now, mainly because of it, but if this crisis can shift the world´s economies into a healthier state, with a more humanely focus, I am willing to endure it.
When earning money becomes the most important thing in your life, it is wrong, be you rich or poor.
The most satisfying things in life, is, in my opinion: Love. Expression. Experience. Relationships. Knowledge. Laughter, well-being, fun!

Money is just a way to get these things! And you don´t have to roll in dough to have love, or experience, or fun.
Internet gives you many versions of these things that are needed, for free. It is like a vast resource for every one that can read, hear or look! In old days, the rulers would not give liberty to common men to learn to read and write. Why? Because they could begin to think for themselves, to ask questions about the rules! It took a long time before this right to knowledge was granted to men and later women alike.
To go back to the old days before, is unthinkable now. If I lost the net now, for instance, it would almost feel like I´d lost a sense.

The Enemy in the tale

The antagonist, the rival, the enemy. The contrast to the Hero. The person who brings temperature into the story. One of the reasons he exists, is to create unity and friendship, it always helps with a common fiend.
But what fragment of our own psyche is called forth to become the crook in the story on paper? Is it the dark lusts, hidden despair and angry feelings we will not admit that we have? Is that why the antagonist have such power, and, attraction?
If our ego consciousness was the king in our land, the rival would be the forces that would upset this reign. If the reign is good, that would be a bad thing. The known is better than the unknown. Or...?
The thing about power is that he who has it, defines what is right. But truth can maybe be something else, too. And love is certainly the greatest truth there is. But, again, there´s many ways to love one another, ranging from surface lightness to deep obsessions.
Life isn´t static. A hundred years ago, the poets in Norway was like rock-stars. Scandals, drinking, women trouble, adored by the people, and so forth. Theirs was the voice that called for revolution and freedom. All the people listened to them, or the gossip about them.
Today, the poets are nearly invisible in the media news, loved only by the very special interested.
The stage is claimed by others.

The terrorists are the great enemy today, as the communists were before them. But rules and rigidity are a major turn-off when it comes to attraction. People who demand total subjection of thoughts and feelings are just boring.

I like my crooks to be alive, to be interesting. They are symbols of revolution, and herolds of change. They are different ideas and the label: "evil" is there only because thats the way we expect the story to be like. There is, of course, sick crooks too, but they´re mainly pathetic...