Comics are coming later this week. Rehearsals are getting in the way right now. In the meantime, proof that this election year coverage is run by idiots.
Labels: news
I've been working on some sizable strips here and there, and I'll post a couple of them tomorrow morning for your holiday enjoyment. In the meantime, I recently finished designing a website for Frank and his movie-making. You can check it out at www.FrankMerle.com.
Labels: news, other stuff
I got nothin' for ya. Nada. I had a great birthday on Friday, followed by a non-stop 4-day weekend with my little brother in town, so I got no drawings in the bank and nothin' to post. I might have a strip tomorrow, but I plan to be back in full swing next week. Til then, let's both get outside and enjoy some sunshine!
-c
-c
Labels: news
 Most people I talk to have never heard of this series, and that is unfortunate, because it is awesome. Glenn Close is a manipulative attorney, Ted Danson is a decadent CEO involved in an Enron-like lawsuit, and Rose Byrne is a young lawyer caught in the middle. It's got all the complexity of a great novel and plenty of twists. It's only three discs on DVD, so do yourself a favor and pick them up. And if I've led your astray, you can come on here and yell at me. |
Labels: news
Hexzi Hits The Big Time!
Check it out!
Remember this little booger?
Well, Hexzi is being featured
on the Cute With Chris
website. You can find his page
here!
Frank's shooting another movie at the end of the month and he asked me to design some bottles of alcohol for the shoot. The first was a pomegranate schnapps called Dionysus, the second was a limited run wine. These are the fruits of my labors. Any critical feedback would be welcome.
Labels: friends, news, other stuff
February 20, 2008: "A Presidential Tradition"
(click for archives)
I was listening to the radio the other day, and this guy I heard had some very interesting points. I mean, in the grand scheme of things, how DO we sleep when our earth is turning? And similarly, how DO we sleep while our beds are burning? It's really got me thinking. Then, prophetically, he told me it was time to pay the rent. He was spot on!
Labels: dumbstruck, news
February 18, 2008: "Two Weeks In February"
(click for archives)
Girls Will Be Girls opens tonight folks. Come check it out. And a word of caution: this is NOT an all-ages show. :)
Labels: dumbstruck, news
January 8, 2008: "Blood and Guts"
(click for archives)
Tomorrow is Super Tuesday, when a whole bunch of states vote in their primaries, not just for presidential candidates but for a whole slew of local candidates as well. I hope you plan to vote. Kazu Kibuishi made a great observation about Clinton & Obama's recent speeches (with video links). Hillary seems to me to be a great politician, but Barack seems more like a leader. As for you Republicans out there so eager to elect McCain, did you hear what he did to Romney just before the Florida primary election? He told everyone that Romney was eager for pullout timetable for Iraq like the Democrats are, which was blatantly not true (I read Romney's comments and I agree with them: timetables and milestones contingent upon benchmarks and success are a part of war planning, but they should be a military secret with the Iraqi government). Such underhanded behavior seems a lot like our current president and his "architect," and is that really what we need more of?
Whoever you support, make your voice heard tomorrow!
Labels: acting, dumbstruck, news
December 22, 2007: "Good Old Amtrak"
(click for archives)
This weekend, the Grab Bag site might go wonky cuz my hosting company is changing server configurations. They asked that I not make any changes to site from Jan 19 through the 25th, but I've obviously broken that rule to bring you this week's fine strips! See the things I do for you? In any event, after they change over this weekend, this week's worth of updates might disappear. Fear not, I'll upload them again as soon as I can.
Labels: dumbstruck, friends, news
 Here is a poster for the performance piece I'm currently in at the Musuem of Contemporary Art. (This is an old poster; I couldn't find one for this current performance at the MCA.) The overall concensus is that it's full of powerful theatrical imagery and sound and is a fantastic success. It's completely sold out. I, unfortunately, haven't gotten to see two-thirds of it because I'm backstage, but the parts I have seen are spectacular. As a whole, it lacks structure and I don't understand it. But the individual pieces of it are brilliant. Click on the poster to see photos from a past performance and you'll see what I mean. |
Who Hates Performance Art? I Do!
In fact, my hatred of performance art is legendary among my friends. Especially Chris "Hey, I'll get one of my friends to shoot me in the arm and call it art!" Burden. That guy's a flaming idiot. And he pulled that stunt back in the 70s. Nowadays he does visual art that is just as inane and ill-conceived.
But I digress! I don't hate all performance art. I have just found that 90% of performance artists do not adequately communicate their intentions to their audience. And without any prior understanding of what's going on, most performance art is just weird and unintelligable. Can you tell I wrote a research paper on this for grad school?
Anyways, James convinced me to answer an open call for performers for a performance piece at the Museum of Contemporary Art. It's called Hey Girl! and it's staged by an Italian experimental theatre group called Societas Raffaello Sanzio. Judging by the script, it's going to be pretty weird. Will I give it my stamp of approval? Come see me in it this weekend! Go to the MCA website for more info.
In fact, my hatred of performance art is legendary among my friends. Especially Chris "Hey, I'll get one of my friends to shoot me in the arm and call it art!" Burden. That guy's a flaming idiot. And he pulled that stunt back in the 70s. Nowadays he does visual art that is just as inane and ill-conceived.
But I digress! I don't hate all performance art. I have just found that 90% of performance artists do not adequately communicate their intentions to their audience. And without any prior understanding of what's going on, most performance art is just weird and unintelligable. Can you tell I wrote a research paper on this for grad school?
Anyways, James convinced me to answer an open call for performers for a performance piece at the Museum of Contemporary Art. It's called Hey Girl! and it's staged by an Italian experimental theatre group called Societas Raffaello Sanzio. Judging by the script, it's going to be pretty weird. Will I give it my stamp of approval? Come see me in it this weekend! Go to the MCA website for more info.
November 27, 2007: "Kitty vs The Bubbles"
(click for archives)
This should've been posted yesterday, but my server was having issues. Also, the Dumbstruck archive is currently empty because my HTML editor likes to screw things up and save empty files instead of the files I'd been working on. That'll be fixed later today.
Labels: dumbstruck, news
November 23, 2007: "Thanksgiving Exposition"
(click for archives)
I'm actually not very fond of this strip in that I'm not thrilled with the drawing and it's not funny. But it's a necessary set up for future strips, so there you go. I'll have something more amusing tomorrow.
Labels: acting, dumbstruck, friends, news
Back from the Holidays!
Ah, nothing like a two-week vacation to make you feel behind on your work. I've got plenty to keep me busy, and I'll start posting comics again tomorrow. At the moment though, I'm being a revisionist historian on the last two months of strips because I realized that my next strip to be posted takes place on Thanksgiving. Nothin' like being a month and half behind the times, eh? And rather than totally embarrass myself by posting a Thanksgiving strip dated January the following year, I'm squeezing these past few months of strips back into the dates they actually occurred, like sucking that bloated post-holiday gut back into your normal-sized pants. So watch out, folks: there's gonna be some ret-con going on around here!
Ah, nothing like a two-week vacation to make you feel behind on your work. I've got plenty to keep me busy, and I'll start posting comics again tomorrow. At the moment though, I'm being a revisionist historian on the last two months of strips because I realized that my next strip to be posted takes place on Thanksgiving. Nothin' like being a month and half behind the times, eh? And rather than totally embarrass myself by posting a Thanksgiving strip dated January the following year, I'm squeezing these past few months of strips back into the dates they actually occurred, like sucking that bloated post-holiday gut back into your normal-sized pants. So watch out, folks: there's gonna be some ret-con going on around here!
Labels: news
December 4, 2007: "Christmas Wishes"
(click for archives)
So here ya go, folks. I worked late into the night to squeeze these three strips out. I'm still nowhere near caught up, but I'm ok with that. I'm going to go catch a train in about 12 hours and go spend a week at home with my crazy family. Hope you have a Merry Christmas. Talk to you again on the flip side of the holiday!
Labels: dumbstruck, friends, news
And now, a creation of a different kind...
Dessert is really the only meal I do well at cooking, and my apple pie is my pride and joy. I make it entirely from scratch, and this year I successfully attempted a lattice top. Though it may look a little burnt, it's actually pretty perfect. James gives it a thumbs up!
Dessert is really the only meal I do well at cooking, and my apple pie is my pride and joy. I make it entirely from scratch, and this year I successfully attempted a lattice top. Though it may look a little burnt, it's actually pretty perfect. James gives it a thumbs up!
October 26, 2007: "Davy Jones, Part 3"
(click for archives)
Happy Thanksgiving, folks! And here's the end of the Davy Jones saga, as well! And one last bit of business that I've been forgetting: you can now check out all the short films that Frank has been making by going to his website (www.FrankMerle.com) and clicking on "Frank Merle films." You'll see some familiar faces, including a film based on my "Homeland Security" strips this summer that he's entered in a contest on YouTube.
Labels: acting, dumbstruck, friends, news
October 24, 2007: "Davy Jones, Part 1"
(click for archives)
And I'm back! That was a full two week vacation there! I wish I could say it was indeed a vacation, but my absence was mainly because of being sick and having to prepare like mad for some major auditions. There are plenty of other things to tell y'all about, but I'll let the comics tell you over the next few weeks. I'm gonna try and get a bunch of 'em done over this holiday weekend and be all caught by the end of the year.
As for this comic here: it's actually three tiers but it's taking me forever to get it done, so I decided to post each tier separately.
Labels: dumbstruck, friends, news
October 17, 2007: "And Justice For All!"
(click for archives)
My apologies to anyone who tried to access the site this weekend. My host was switching servers and my site was down for some time. When it came back up, it was missing all the updates for the past two month. I think I've got everything back up-to-date, but if you find something that doesn't seem right, drop me a line about it.
Also, if anyone in Chicago is looking for some fun Halloween action this week, I highly recommend checking out Scooty and JoJo's The Carpenters' Halloween, which is a musical stage show of John Carpenter's Halloween using the music of The Carpenters. It's brilliant and fun and the drinks are half-price afterwards. It runs this Tuesday and Wednesday nights at Mary's Attic in Andersonville.
Labels: dumbstruck, news, war
October 15, 2007: "Trickle-Down Corruption"
(click for archives)
Apologies to anyone with a Comcast email address. For the past three weeks or so, any emails sent to a GrabBagComics email address from a Comcast email address have been kicked back with a bizarre 550 error message. This is Comcast's fault. They tell me it's a "known issue" with their mail servers and won't give me an ETA on when they'll fix it. They've been rather rude about it, in fact. So if you haven't gotten through, you can still use the form email in the email section. Or you can go yell at Comcast for me.
Labels: dumbstruck, news
October 10, 2007: "Sickness-Go-Round"
(click for archives)
Also, this story highlights why I don't like to fly anymore.
Labels: dumbstruck, friends, news
October 12th blather:
Sorry, but I've been too busy to post strips this week. I have a huge, off-color comic that I'll likely post for you tomorrow, and sometime next week I hope to have finished this behind-the-scenes/tutorial that Hunter wanted me to do, all about how I make the Dumbstruck strips. I'm also hounding Comcast to find out why I'm not receiving emails from Comcast email addresses at my GrabBagComics account. Til then, have a good weekend.
Sorry, but I've been too busy to post strips this week. I have a huge, off-color comic that I'll likely post for you tomorrow, and sometime next week I hope to have finished this behind-the-scenes/tutorial that Hunter wanted me to do, all about how I make the Dumbstruck strips. I'm also hounding Comcast to find out why I'm not receiving emails from Comcast email addresses at my GrabBagComics account. Til then, have a good weekend.
Labels: news
July 31, 2007: "Making The World Safer"
(click for archives)
The show I'm doing currently, Waiting For Lefty, is from 1935 and is about a bunch of cabbies in New York deciding to go on strike. It was crazy popular when it was first performed, back between the Great Depression and World War II. Well today, Chicago's cabbies are striking in an effort to get higher wages from the city. Coincidence?
Labels: dumbstruck, news, war
July 27, 2007: "The Reappearing of Carrie"
(click for archives)
I've got a lot of really old strips to try and get posted here in the next few weeks. I've been lazy with the comics this summer, and then I came down with an acute case of the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows this week, which decimated all remaining creative momentum. But we'll see what I can do with next week...
Labels: dumbstruck, friends, news
July 4, 2007: "Wrigley Field Trip"
(click for archives)
What's more patriotic on this Independence Day than baseball? How 'bout a comic about baseball? I've been listening to the Cubs game today against the Washington Nationals while putting this strip together, and of course the Cubs are bungling idiots. They gave up a grand slam midway through, and they'll likely lose with no runs on the board. Idiots...
On a side note anyone who's been using my email form to contact me, there's a reason you haven't heard back from me: it's been broken for a while. But I finally got around to fixing the email form this week, so go ahead and give it a try now- this time it'll actually get to me. And HAPPY 4TH of JULY!!
Labels: dumbstruck, friends, news
Yesterday, I forgot to tell you my favorite joke I heard while in Arkansas:
Q: What do a tornado and an Arkansas divorce have in common?
A: Somebody's losin' a trailer!
HA!
Q: What do a tornado and an Arkansas divorce have in common?
A: Somebody's losin' a trailer!
HA!
Labels: news
May 23, 2007: "Homeland Sting, Part 3"
(click for archives)
Hey folks. It's my birthday today. ABC is giving me an awesome two-hour episode of Lost tonight. What are you giving me?
Labels: dumbstruck, homeland security, news
The comics have been on hold because of other projects, specifically a movie I'm working on. I'm in it and I spent all last week doing the storyboards for it. (I'll post those up here someday.) In the meantime, here are two logos I designed for use in the film. Serious props go out to Mandy for helping me with the super-stylizing of the Cheating one.
I'll have more comics for you next week, once the filming is done.
I'll have more comics for you next week, once the filming is done.
April 11, 2007: "The Runaround"
(click for archives)
The Dumbstruck archive page is broken. I'll be rewriting it from scratch this afternoon.
Labels: dumbstruck, news
Strip # 175 (April 13, 2007)
(click to go to the site)
I'm not completely happy with this strip, but here it is. The mouse on my new computer is not as responsive as my old mouse, but since my old mouse won't hook up to my new computer, I have to deal with it. I'm also still trying to get all my old programs working again. I'm not fond of a lot of the newer programs I'm finding online, so I want to go back to using my old ones. Geez, I'm sound old. "Back in my days, things were better. I don't cotton to all this new-fangled gunk!"
Labels: news, wrestling theatre
April 11, 2007: "From The Depths"
First off: thanks to each and every person who has sent me a much-needed cash donation. I truly truly appreciate it. Also, many apologies to everyone who has emailed or called me and gotten no response: I've been working quite a bit recently, as well as getting a new phone and new computer. You will hear from me soon.
And now, the good news: I have a new computer and I'm working to set it up now. The first hurdle has been Windows Vista. It's a pretty OS, but it doesn't like printers or scanners. Apparently a lot of printer & scanner companies haven't bothered to make updated drivers, so getting the hardware to work requires some massaging. The second hurdle is that technology has marched on without me. I intended to just pop my secondary hard drive into my new computer and have all my data right there. Well that didn't work. Turns out that there's a new data cable in town called SATA. And all my old drives are IDE. So I had to order an adaptor to get the two versions to talk to each other. Not just an adaptor, but a little motherboard plug-in do-dad. So I won't have anything off my old hard drive until this weekend.
With luck I'll have a Wrestling Theatre strip for you tomorrow and lots of Dumbstrucks for you next weekend. Thank you again for your patience and your donations.
First off: thanks to each and every person who has sent me a much-needed cash donation. I truly truly appreciate it. Also, many apologies to everyone who has emailed or called me and gotten no response: I've been working quite a bit recently, as well as getting a new phone and new computer. You will hear from me soon.
And now, the good news: I have a new computer and I'm working to set it up now. The first hurdle has been Windows Vista. It's a pretty OS, but it doesn't like printers or scanners. Apparently a lot of printer & scanner companies haven't bothered to make updated drivers, so getting the hardware to work requires some massaging. The second hurdle is that technology has marched on without me. I intended to just pop my secondary hard drive into my new computer and have all my data right there. Well that didn't work. Turns out that there's a new data cable in town called SATA. And all my old drives are IDE. So I had to order an adaptor to get the two versions to talk to each other. Not just an adaptor, but a little motherboard plug-in do-dad. So I won't have anything off my old hard drive until this weekend.
With luck I'll have a Wrestling Theatre strip for you tomorrow and lots of Dumbstrucks for you next weekend. Thank you again for your patience and your donations.
Labels: news
April 3, 2007: April Fool on me!
So I tried switching from Norton Internet Security to the McAfee Internet Security supplied for free by Comcast on Sunday, April 1st. It didn't work so well. It did something that seems to have permanently destroyed my computer's ability to receive and transmit information with the internet. The Comcast help people spent long hours with me on the phone and have decided that something is seriously wrong in Windows and Microsoft needs to be the one to help me. However, since my computer is 7 years old and is still running Win98, I am dead to Microsoft Support. My computer can still do anything else, just not access the internet, which makes it almost useless to me.
So rather than spend time and effort trying to fix the problem, I've thrown away lots of money that I don't have (the bank is nice enough to lend me some of theirs, with strings attached) to get a new computer. I should have it in a week. Til then, updates may or may not happen, depending on when I can bring stuff to my work to upload.
For those of you jonsing for your comics, you can alway donate money to the "Help Chuck Afford His New Computer" Fund. It will speed along the return of comics. Really and truly!
So I tried switching from Norton Internet Security to the McAfee Internet Security supplied for free by Comcast on Sunday, April 1st. It didn't work so well. It did something that seems to have permanently destroyed my computer's ability to receive and transmit information with the internet. The Comcast help people spent long hours with me on the phone and have decided that something is seriously wrong in Windows and Microsoft needs to be the one to help me. However, since my computer is 7 years old and is still running Win98, I am dead to Microsoft Support. My computer can still do anything else, just not access the internet, which makes it almost useless to me.
So rather than spend time and effort trying to fix the problem, I've thrown away lots of money that I don't have (the bank is nice enough to lend me some of theirs, with strings attached) to get a new computer. I should have it in a week. Til then, updates may or may not happen, depending on when I can bring stuff to my work to upload.
For those of you jonsing for your comics, you can alway donate money to the "Help Chuck Afford His New Computer" Fund. It will speed along the return of comics. Really and truly!
Labels: news
March 30, 2007: "A Public Life"
(click for archives)
Many people have asked how my audition went. It went well. It was for an Equity company (Equity is the stage actors' union). Everyone there was very warm and friendly and were very responsive to my performance. I won't know if I'm cast in anything unless/until they call me up. So I'll just keep auditioning at other places until then...
Labels: dumbstruck, friends, news
March 19, 2007
So here it is: a bit of a new site design, powered by Blogger. This means that, instead of having to check that musty old "Recent Updates" column in order to hunt down past updates, now the last seven updates will all be here on the main page. You can also use the "Comments" option to post comments about the strips and not just the news I post.
Also, I've rearranged the Guest Strips section of the Online Comics section to better showcase all the Wrestling Theatre strips I've done. AND I gave some much needed attention to the Links section (when was the last time I did anything with that? Like three eyars ago?)
So there it is! I hope you like this next evolution. As always, let me know if you find snafus of any kind. (I'm having all kinds of problems with my comcast email, so if you've tried to email me recently, I may not have received it. I'm working on it though)
So here it is: a bit of a new site design, powered by Blogger. This means that, instead of having to check that musty old "Recent Updates" column in order to hunt down past updates, now the last seven updates will all be here on the main page. You can also use the "Comments" option to post comments about the strips and not just the news I post.
Also, I've rearranged the Guest Strips section of the Online Comics section to better showcase all the Wrestling Theatre strips I've done. AND I gave some much needed attention to the Links section (when was the last time I did anything with that? Like three eyars ago?)
So there it is! I hope you like this next evolution. As always, let me know if you find snafus of any kind. (I'm having all kinds of problems with my comcast email, so if you've tried to email me recently, I may not have received it. I'm working on it though)
Labels: news
