Come Visit My Etsy Store

My Etsy store, Nenomeister, is now making available a deluge of original Quacky Pig comic strip artwork for sale as well as the first in my new line of Underwater Cats greeting cards, the Lovey Dovey and Quacky Pig coloring books, Signifiers Universe buttons and Underwater Cats original art for sale! More goodies to be added soon. Check it out at: http://Nenomeister.etsy.com

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Diamonds On Credit

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Jim Anthony, Adventurer New Pulp Sneak Preview

A sample illo of the work I'm producing for Airship 27's upcoming new collection of Jim Anthony short stories.

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Hand study for Val Crocodile, Associate Professor of Linguistics

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Underwater Cats Greeting Cards in Your Future

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Sunday Comix Group Scheduled for the Goodale Park Music Series on Sunday, July 29th

Members of the central Ohio-based cartoonists group Sunday Comix will be set up at this Sunday's Goodale Park Music Series. Feel free to talk to the cartoonists (they don't bite) and peruse the lovingly crafted, self-published comic goodies available for purchase.

Ken Eppstein of Nix Comics and other cool local cartoonists like Victor Dandridge, James Moore and more will be set up throughout the day.

In addition to The Signifiers #1 and my Lovey Dovey and Quacky Pig coloring books for sale, my Underwater Cats cards will be making their debut at Goodale Park! So, stop on by.

More info about the event and Sunday Comix: http://sundaycomix.blogspot.com/

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Recommended: the 2nd Edition of "Einstein's Relativity and the Quantum Revolution"

Available on DVD from The Great Courses, Einstein's Relativity and the Quantum Revolution, 2nd Edition is a rewarding lecture series. Professor Richard Wolfson carefully, logically and chronologically explains advances in physics, in layman's terms, from the Greeks all the way to the Higgs Boson. The four-DVD set of 24 half-hour lectures comes with a book that features all the charts and diagrams used in the series.

After watching the series, I have a better grasp of the concepts covered. These include: the nature of eletromagnetic waves, the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics, the general theory of relativity and the nature of spacetime.

Check your library for a copy of this, or order here: http://www.thegreatcourses.com/tgc/courses/course_detail.aspx?cid=153

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A Comic Book Story Collection Recently Read: Art In Time, edited by Dan Nadel

Some of my favorite panels from the book, by Harry Lucey, H.G. Peter and Matt Fox, respectively:

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For Movie Fans: 25 Different Movie Promo Cards, Plus Shatner's World Promo

Only three days left on my eBay auction for 25 different movie promo postcards, free shipping! These postcards are in glossy, new condition and are 6" high by 4" across unless otherwise noted. A few have small sections of theatre info stamped or labeled on the back.

The 25 cards are:
Sweeney Todd
Headhunters
Palindromes (Todd Solondz)
In My Country
Walk On Water
Angela
Love Comes Lately
Laila's Birthday
The Agony and the Ecstacy of Phil Spector
13 Assassins
Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World (Soundtrack promo)
The Illusionist
The World's Fastest Indian
Bloody Sunday
Real Women Have Curves
Notorious C.H.O.
Black Book
Harvard Beats Yale 29-29
My Afternoons With Margueritte
The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye
The Raid: Redemption

These cards are a larger, 7" high by 5" wide size:
Funny Games (American version)
Girl With a Pearl Earring
Goodbye Solo
Maria Full of Grace

Extra included: an 8" high by 4" across glossy discount ticket promo for William Shatner's Shatner's World tour!

http://www.ebay.com/itm/330765546863?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649

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Vinyl_Phonic, My All-New, Music-Centric Twitter Account

Follow Vinyl_Phonic on Twitter for music-obsessed news, comments, discussions and links, including concerts, podcasts, book reviews, record industry history, record shops and many other excursions deep into the heart of music.

Follow Vinyl_Phonic here: https://twitter.com/MNen0

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Like the Last Delicate Touches of the Painter's Brush

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A New Line of Neno Greeting Cards: Underwater Cats!

Introducing the first in a line of greeting cards featuring my Underwater Cats. The debut card, entitled Hi!, features a tentative kitten meeting a tentative lobster, with two naturally curious fish watching. The colorful Underwater Cats logo is discreetly printed on the back of the card.

The Hi! cards are printed on glossy stock, 6" high x 4 1/4" wide (when folded) and are left
blank inside for whatever message you'd like to convey!

Purchase ten copies of Hi! packaged with ten envelopes inside a clear, extra-shiny protective storage bag for $10.00, plus $2.00 shipping.

Watch for more Underwater Cats from soon!

Click to order: http://www.nenoworld.com/Greeting_Cards.html

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"Like a Demented Monkey" Promo Video

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Magazines I've Read Recently, July 18, 2012

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RIP Musical Heritage Society

Since the late '70s or thereabouts I've belonged to the Musical Heritage Society, a small, family-run classical music mail order club which specialized in baroque and otherwise often obscure compositions, composers and performers. The Musical Heritage Society also made and sold their own recordings, all in bare bones, but perfectly adequate packaging (see above). Needless to say, I devoured the recordings I purchased from them and many of them (such as Sahan Arzuni performing Khachaturian's Children’s Albums I & II or Robert Tear and Philip Ledger performing Copland's Old American Songs and 12 Poems of Emily Dickinson) I love to this day and always will.

The history of the company seems obscure, but here's what one music fan posted on TapeProject.com:


"MHS was started by an ex-GI. This ex-GI (name unknown to me) was a member of Patton's Third Army. As they rolled across southern Germany, toward their objective (Berlin), there was this soldier who had a passion for classical music and collecting records. Each small town he visited during his tour of duty, when he could he'd try to find a local record shop (if it wasn't bombed out). He'd actually shop, make selections and have the items shipped back to to his home stateside in NJ. When he finally got home his friends would all marvel at his collection and ask if they could get copies. Keeping in touch with the shopkeepers overseas, he collected up orders and sent for more records.

This lead to more and more inquiries and before you can say "Schleiswig-Holstein", MHS was born. Growing into a business, MHS also sold other things along with offering classical music including greeting cards and wrapping paper. One of the greeting card vendors that called on MHS became good friends with the original owner. When the original owner wanted to retire or just get out of the business, he ended up selling MHS to this guy. That person grew the business and eventually passed it on to his sons..."

http://www.tapeproject.com/smf/index.php?topic=2256.0

When I joined the MHS, they were mailing a book/catalog eighteen times a year called the Musical Heritage Review. Not just a catalog of available recordings, each Review contained many articles and background details on specific pieces, essays and a lively letters page.

Over the years, the MHS gradually purged itself of all the things which had made it unique. It stopped recording its own music, instead rereleasing material from other companies. The letters page and articles disappeared from the catalog and it stopped issuing vinyl.

Still, I hung on. Now the final indignity has happened to the group; earlier this year it was sold to an online British company, Passionato. There's now nothing left of what used to be the Musical Heritage Society - not even the name.

Although I still have a few of the original Musical Heritage Reviews, I unfortunately got rid of (i.e. threw away) most of them in an ill-guided paper purge of the mid-'90s. Note to music lovers: when in doubt, don't throw it out!

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Must..Eat...Pizza!

Pencil sketch for the Quacky's Fortune Cookie Messages Micro Comic.

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Take the Ultimate Trip

From Landlark, the Heat-Seeking Dwarf.

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The 1900 Motor Washer

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Comic Book Collection Recently Read: The Superman Chronicles, Vol. 5

Reprinting all of the Superman stories from January through early May, 1941, the Chronicles series is a steal for the $14.99 cover price (which price would barely cover the shipping/insurance costs of ordering a low grade condition copy of the original comics).

Each volume of the Superman Chronicles necessarily retreats from the purity and charm of the original Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster comics. The demand by National for Superman material by 1941 was high and it took many hands to keep the pace. While without the airy simplicity of Shuster's art, cartoonist Jack Burnley's contributions are easy on the eye and Shuster was still contributing some pencils. The stories are fortunately still written by Siegel, so we still get to see the rambunctious, devil-may-care Superman, before he was neutered for many decades by his corporate taskmasters.

Order The Superman Chronicles, Vol. 5 here: http://www.amazon.com/Superman-Chronicles-Vol-Jerry-Siegel/dp/1401218512/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1342283967&sr=1-1&keywords=superman+chronicles+vol+5

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Glen Rock Woolen Company

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American Standard Suits

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My Drawing Board This Morning

Landlark, the Heat-Seeking Dwarf!

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Have Brush, Will Ink

Need cartooning inking done?

Contact me on this blog or at www.NenoWorld.com for project and commission rates!

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Lambsdown Garments

Two season's wear for a garment!

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Transcendental Voyaging

More Landlark, the Heat-Seeking Dwarf pencils!

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The Quacky Pig and Friends Coloring Book

We still have some copies left of the original Quacky Pig and Friends Coloring Book, the homage to Whitman Publishing which introduced Quacky and his friends (and led to last year's spin-off, Lovey Dovey's Puzzle Book Summer Special). Signed upon request!

Check it out: http://www.nenoworld.com/Quacky_Pig_Coloring_Books.html

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You Go, Moon Girl!

Cover art by Sheldon Moldoff.

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The Litholin Goes 'Round Your Neck

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Henry James' "The American"

Recently read: The American, Henry James' 1877 novel of American capitalistic brashness clashing with unyielding Parisian aristocracy.

The novel, James' third (if you count his immature Watch and Ward - he didn't count it) is a transitional novel, more complex and arresting than his previous Roderick Hudson. In The American, James' protagonist is Christopher Newman, a self-made, uncultured American millionaire who travels to Paris to find (i.e. buy, with his freedom and wealth) culture and a wife. He aims for what he perceives as the top: a beautiful widow, Claire de Cintré, of the long-lived and righteously proud Bellegarde family.

Despite a second half which some readers (though not me) find too melodramatic (I thought the novel surprisingly detoured into Dickens-like material), The American is a compelling read to the last ironically sad page. The subtle and often witty verbal sparring is measured and engaging.

James' descriptions, based on his own limited admittance into Parisian high culture, brings the Bellegardes and their hermetic residence to life; I feel as if I've visited there. Certainly souls quite like the Bellegardes must have made an acute impression on James because, with the exception of Claire, they are the most sharply drawn characters in the book.

Truth be told, I found my sympathies  for the characters divided: I could relate to both Newman's and the Bellegarde's uncompromising determinations and positions. James' main intention for the novel was to write about an American wronged by the old aristocracy and ultimately doing the "right thing" in return. This makes for a plot that perhaps sounds more potentially satisfying than the final result.

The novel does suffer somewhat from the sketchiness with which James draws Claire. Little is revealed by her or about her apart from Newman's somewhat superficial observations and interractions, making the love he professes to feel for her less convincing than it might have been, if not almost puzzling. This fault in the novel coincides with Newman's lack of passion and energy in fighting for the hand of Claire when that's what's required for him to meet the goal the novel has established for him. Certainly a man who started with little in life and made an immense fortune manufacturing washtubs wouldn't admit defeat as wimpily as Newman does. It's almost as if James couldn't conceive of, or bring himself to write about, the sort of person who would passionately love and passionately fight for love. James, who never married, frequently disallows his protagonists to marry and the critical reviews of the novel when it was first published are so united in their puzzlement over this aspect of the plot that they almost, understandably and inadvertently, become an indictment against James the person (as opposed to James, the novelist).

The version of The American I read was a Norton Critical Edition, with plentiful footnotes, James' frequently inscrutable forward to the 1907 "New York" edition, excerpts from James' letters at the time of the writing of the novel, reviews written when the novel was first published
and various 20th century reviews. The Norton Edition also contains the "happy ending" version of a play James wrote based on the novel, a cringe-inducing example of an artist throwing what he has to know is slop to a perceived audience of pigs.

In the name of all that's good, if you decide to read the novel, please read the original 1877 version instead of James' 1907 revision. The rewritten version thickly covers the fresh immediacy and clarity of the original text with elaborately needless details and twisting asides which frequently obscure rather than reveal James' original intent.

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Whittemore's Shoe Polishes

From an October, 1911 issue of Argosy.

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Nix Comics Quarterly in Columbus Monthly Best of Issue

C-Bus' own Nix Comics Quarterly won the "Best use of overheard COTA conversations" award for the Adventures of Bus Stop Ned series.



Kudos to Nix publisher and writer Ken Eppstein!

Check out the Columbus Monthly Best of Arts and Entertainment here: http://www.columbusmonthly.com/July-2012/Best-of-Arts-Entertainment/

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Wicked Cool Woodcuts

Check out these great woodcut prints of David Lynch, Brando and Steve Buscemi by Loren Kantor.

Loren has many more cool prints available on the Woodcuttingfool blog: http://woodcuttingfool.blogspot.com/

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