My dad’s been sending me boxes and envelopes of old stuff lately.  I think he’s getting ready to die or something. Anyway, in the mix of old journals, photos, and letters I found this 9th grade progress report he had hung on to.

I’m here to report to you that in the last 18 years not a whole lot has changed.  I still have good work habits in art, and I’m still failing at math.  (Thanks for handling the finances Honey.)

Also noteworthy is that around the time my parents got this in the mail I was busy building a world around this.

I had a strange dream. And I know some people would rather have their teeth drilled than sit through someone explaining a dream they had, so if that’s you, I understand if you move on. Please excuse me for this indulgence.  I promise this is the last dream I’ll share on this blog.

Ok, this might make more sense for you guys from the UK. I was driving around with Theo Pathitis and James Cann from Dragon’s Den (a British reality TV show about entrepreneurs).  Theo was showing off his new Mercedes. I was in the front, and James was in the back seat. Good times.  Then James pulls out an FIM-92 Stinger shoulder mounted missile launcher, and says, “Nice car Theo, but can it out run this?!” He then jumps from the car and fires the missile at us.  Theo deftly maneuvers and muscles for rank, the missile inching closer to us. He swerves just before impact but the missile glides by and slams into a dumpster. We spin around and pick James up and go to this nice restaurant and watch football.

By now I’m sure my wife is wondering were I am, so I ask if someone has a phone I could borrow.  My buddy Todd shows up and hands me his brand new iPhone. He tells me that Apple is trying to really simplify things with this model:

I try to enter in my phone number, and I can’t because the buttons are so small.  I repeat this over and over for a good 95% of the night until I finally enter the number correctly and make the call. Then the dream ends.

This is Typical of most of my dreams.  I find myself in fantastic situations, but most of the time is spent trying to get from one point to another, or trying to do  simple stuff that just can’t get done somehow…like dialing a cellphone.

Ok, that’s all.

Also, my friend Lizette has just started a blog.  Stop on by and check it out: Lizette Sketch. I’ve worked with Lizette for the past 4 years on Horton, Ice Age 3, and Rio.  We were also in Out of Picture together and she did a sweet Totoro drawing for the Totoro Forest Project.  I’ve been begging, demanding, and asking nicely that she start a blog and she finally did! Expect more good things from her in the future.

I have a journal that I’ve been keeping since January in 2001 that has been indispensable to my creative endeavors.  I call it my idea book.  Below, I’ve posted a video of the first idea book I’ve filled. Right now I’m halfway through my second.  They are nothing more than a collection of random thoughts and half baked ideas I have for comics, movies, video games, and inventions, with an occasional weird dream thrown in for good measure.  These ideas would come to me in the shower, while driving, or those last moments before falling asleep.  And for a while there I just tried to file them away in my head.  The problem is my brain doesn’t hang on to things very well, (as my wife would attest) and I kept forgetting these brilliant (sarcasm) ideas I kept coming up with.  So I was inspired by a friend of mine to begin writing these things down in a journal.  That way I didn’t have to waste precious brain power remembering a cool Missile Mouse idea and could instead focus on the next big idea.  So far it’s worked out great.  Pretty much every comic story idea I’ve had began as a little seed in this book.  And the best part is, if I’m ever strapped for a cool idea I can dig back into this book and find an idea from when I was feeling a little more creative, then spin it with the knowledge I have now. So if you don’t already have on of these, I highly recommend you start an idea book.  You’d be surprised at how much creativity you brain can unload once it’s given an empty bucket to fill.

And speaking of journal writing, I’ve always kept a personal journal of some kind since about junior high, but my entries were few and far between. I got a lot better after high school, though there would still be years where I’d only have half a dozen entries. However, last year I decided to take it seriously and I resolved to keep a daily journal. It was the first new years resolution I actually completed. For the entire year of 2008 I have an entry for each day. It was tough at first. There are a few entries written on tired nights that are nothing more than me going through the motions of journal writing. But now I can’t finish a day without jotting down an experience that happened to me that day, or my thoughts on matters that have garnered my attention lately. What’s also nice about keeping a journal is it’s helpful yo go back and read where I’ve been and compare to where I projected I’d be now. I can see where my priorities have changed, and also see if I’m living up to aspirations and expectations I had for myself in years past. I’d recommend trying this out along with keeping an idea book. You become better at writing, and it forces you to make some priority decisions. In my case I had to drop certain nonessential things out of my evenings, like TV. Now at the end of 2008, instead of a healthy log of hours committed to TV with nothing to show for it, I have a tangible book I can hold in my hand documenting my life that year. Not a bad trade if you ask me.

I grew up on a healthy diet of LEGO. I loved Space the most, though Castle was pretty cool too. I would spend hours making my own creations; space ships, houses, helicopters, hovercars, and more. I remember designing my own batman figures with little bat symbols cut out of paper and taped to my minifig’s chest. Now days Lego has licensed various properties from Starwars to SpongeBob. While I think this is great, and I love most of the starwars stuff, kids don’t have to exert the creative energy to design things (like their own Batman figure) anymore. But there is a flourishing community out there of MOC (My Own Creation) builders who are bringing creative ideas and solutions to their creations. One blog I follow that chronicles these creations is Brothers Brick. It was there that I saw this amazing MOC:

The Inquisitor

It was created by a fine MOC builder that goes by legohaulic. In his description of the piece he said he heavily based the design of the mech on this image:

I was a surprised to see my drawing being the inspiration of a Lego creation. Then realized that was probably the reason I had such an affinity to legohaulic’s MOC. Anyway, thought I’d share. If you want to see a ton more of cool Lego creations check out the lego links on my delicious page.

Some good ones:

legoloverman
WWI “Sandpiper” Recon Walker
Adrian Florea 1
cbolego
Armageddon
Alien Chestburster
Fleet Carrier Endurance
Lakah

I’m not big into tattoos. Never had one and don’t plan on getting one. But if you’re going to get a tattoo, you can’t go wrong with the Robot and the Sparrow. The image is from the last page of my story in Flight 2.  My contribution to that book is a tale about an unlikely friendship between a robot and sparrow, and how friendship can close even the largest gaps. Melissa sent this photo of her latest ink to me. I’m honored you’d want the Robot and the Sparrow with you as a constant companion for the rest of your life.