So... MySpace has been pretty dead.  I decided to start doing "personal" blogs over at Facebook.  The first one is here:

http://www.facebook.com/note.php?created&&suggest¬e_id=130333754554#/note.php?note_id=130333754554&ref=mf

MySpace will be more of my whoring sight for "eef the artist and former rocker."  I will be keeping my Facebook page limited to people I actually know, so if you know me and need to friend me on Facebook, please do.

Ethan

My mom says that she doesn't always read my whole blogs because they are so damn long.  My Dad devours them and constantly badgers me to write them more often.  The two different reactions probably have to do with the fact that I was raised by my Mom and she is a little more used to my hot air, and my Dad wasn't around much and is catching up.  Whatever the case, my Mom's reaction doesn't offend me in the least.  I do, however, think she will probably read this one if not out of sheer narcissism, because it is all about her.

I know I am a day late, but it dawned on me to write a Mother's Day blog, because I think my Mom deserves to have an account of her hard work and exemplary single-momming skills put down in typing to float in cyberspace as a testament to her greatness at least until the Apocalypse.  Because most of us experienced our mom's hard work in real time, day by day all our lives, it is easy to take it for granted.  Like when you are around someone a lot who is losing weight, you don't see the changes as clearly as those who have not seen them for a while.  I want to try to be a son who never forgets what his Mom did to make sure his life didn't suck.

A brief history.  My Mom gave my Dad the boot when I was 8.  It was probably the best thing that ever happened to him.  I have hardly any memories of Dad before the divorce because he wasn't very involved, but after he lost his three kids (my two younger brothers and I), I think he started to wake up a little.  Growing up, my Dad would admit, was never something he embraced.  I think he finally did start to embrace it after my Mom decided she would be better off raising us alone.  If you have read my blogs in the past, you know I love my Dad and he has become a great Father since, so I don't have any negative feelings about what happened back then.  I thank God constantly for what has happened since.

My mom is a bad ass.  I didn't really start to realize it until I grew up and looked at how so many other single mothers handled the overwhelming responsibility heaped on them once they were on their own.  It seemed a lot of my friends single moms would hop from boyfriend to boyfriend as an escape from motherhood.  My Mom didn't do this.  Maybe at first it had to do with her general anger at the male species, but she always had the option to try to seek a new guy.  She just didn't.  I am not saying it is bad for mothers to remarry, but I do think that it is something that must be done with great caution.  I remember renting a room from a single parent who would get into relationships and his kids seemed to become background noise when he would be in that fluttery, giddy stage at the beginning of romance that is supposed to take place before the kids are born.  I think that format makes sense.  I think it is tough on kids to see their parent in the midst of a schoolyard crush, and I imagine it is hard to be very dedicated to parenting when you would rather be picking petals off of flowers in a meadow saying "he loves me, he loves me not."

My Mom worked hard.  I remember her working multiple jobs to support us three kids when my Dad was in a depressed funk, living in his van and not paying child support.  She worked as a secretary.  She went to school.  She worked as a waitress at a bar.  She did a 4am paper route.  I remember when she was working two or three jobs, during the summer when I was 15 and I had my learner's driving permit, I would go on the route with her and drive.  Once she knew I wouldn't crash into anything, she would fall asleep in the back of the car from pure exhaustion while I ran the route, and she would give me a cut of the money.  Looking back on how little she was taking in, I'm amazed she paid me, and I of course was a self-entitled little brat who always thought he deserved more.

While I was in my junior-high years the most important thing to me was wearing cool shoes.  We lived in low income housing, ate from boxes of food provided by churches, and wore a lot of second hand clothes.  I don't resent any of that.  I learned that good stuff doesn't come easy.  My Mom was an individual, she made her way in life and showed me that you just have to do what you have to do with what you have. 

It amazes me how many of my friends have no idea how to cook.  My mom taught us how to cook.  She would make me pick something out of the cook book, she would buy the ingredients and show me the ways, so that on an assigned night I would cook dinner and have it ready when she got home from work.  Stir fry was my specialty.  Noah's was mashed potatoes.  Instant.

I think a lot of kids had to work harder than me growing up, but even more didn't.  My Mom had us mowing the big awkward lawn we had in Lakeside, chopping wood, pulling weeds and all that sort of stuff.  I hated it so much, but looking back I wish she had worked me even harder.  What little work ethic I have now I got from those chores. 

When I was a senior in high school and was working as a dish washer at King's Table, she made me pay rent to live in my room.  I was furious.  I remember telling my friends how evil my mom was for making me pay her rent for living in her house when I didn't even have a choice in the matter.  Graduation came and I had decided to work two jobs and save up money to go to Australia for a summer trip.  My mom came to me and handed me all the rent I had paid that year to go into my trip.  I know she could have used that money, she deserved it and she needed it.  She did it for me though, and to this day it blows my mind.

Though, I think the most valuable thing my Mom did was that she really did always encourage me to just be myself.  A lot of my friend's seemed to feel like their parents didn't encourage that, like they had already decided who their kids would become for them.  My Mom never made me feel like I couldn't do things.  I pursued my cartoon dreams that would give most parents nightmares, but she never told me not to.

I know there is plenty more I could say here.  She taught me to read and to spell.  She taught me math.  She held my hand and helped me draw my first drawings.  She read my silly little stories.  She looked at my drawings.  She cooked tons and tons of meals.  She prayed for me.  She disciplined me.  She took me to church.  The years I lived under her roof I was a brat, but she remained dedicated to raising me and my brothers even though gratitude from us was not common.  I look back on it all and realize that everything she did, she did for her kids.  I know of plenty of single mothers who did not do that.  We live in an age where everyone feels a sense of entitlement rather than a sense of duty.  My Mom embraced her duty, even though at times I think she almost went crazy.

I don't doubt that my Mom probably wishes she could have lived for herself a little more over those 25+ years she was raising boys, but she set an example for us and showed me that living for yourself isn't what life is all about.  Her fate was a tough one and she embraced it.  I think she will always wish that she could have bought us fancier shoes, but I hope she will always know that those things really don't matter, but of the things that do matter she covered them all, took them by the balls and dominated them.  I look at my life right now and try to imagine having to implement the lives of three kids into it and the amount of responsibility is incomprehensible.  I don't know if I could do it.  I will always look at what my Mom did in raising us as one of the most impressive things I will ever have experienced.

This has been a good life so far, and without being too vain, I have to say I really like how I have turned out, and I thank my Mother for the highest percentage of it.  Anytime I recollect being raised by her in my mind I feel very blessed. 

Mom, I love you a lot and I would never trade you for anyone.  If I could go back in time, I wouldn't.  If I had a choice prior to birth, I couldn't have dreamed of whatever ignorant decision I'd make would have robbed me of.  Thanks for hanging in there and being such a powerhouse even though I know you were so worn out everyday I lived under your roof.  Happy Mother's Day.

Ethan

I don't think I am supposed to be shouting this from the roof tops right now, so I am going to make this blog only viewable to friends until the formal announcement is made.  Those of you who follow me on Twitter, or my Chumble Spuzz Myspace page will already have heard the news.

The other day I received an e-mail out of the blue from my publisher, SLG, saying that my book, Chumble Spuzz, had been nominated for an Eisner award.  For those of you who aren't into comics, the Eisners are the Oscars of comics.  There are other awards in the comic industry, but the Eisners are the most well known.  The awards ceremony is at Comic Con in San Diego.  Here I had begun to think my Chumble Spuzz books were fading into the ether, knowing that book 2 had not even sold 500 copies yet, then this happens.  On top of that, another 5-star review of book 2 came out the same day on IndyComicReview.com

This was very encouraging, to say the least.  My book was nominated for the category of Best Humor Publication.  Last years nominations included the Goon and Perry Bible Fellowship (who won, and deserved it in my opinion).  The other nominations for this year will be announced next week apparently.

Tonight, I went with Doug to a debate between William Lane Craig and Christoper Hitchens on the existence of God.  It was quite an event.  There was around 4,000 people there on Biola campus, as well as thousands more watching from satellite locations around the city and internationally.  We had prime seats, just three rows from the stage.  I didn't find my views altered, but I love these kinds of discussions, and I love seeing that so many people were fascinated enough to attend and watch the debate take place.  Out in day-to-day life, it seems like no one cares if there is a God or not, but I think that people do care.  I think your average person, even the one who acts indifferent about the whole thing, cares.  It's a huge question that is worth asking.  I have never been able to relate to people who roll their eyes when you bring up the topic of God's existence.  I don't think that even they can relate to themselves.

I actually went to the debate more interested to see the atheist, Hitchens, debate than the theist, even though I was rooting for the latter.  I find Christopher Hitchens fascinating because he seems to have a somewhat fresh take on things in that he is unconventional.  He debates Christians on the existence of God, but then he will debate a liberal on the War on Terror, defending it, then he will debate a conservative defending his choice to vote for Obama in the election.  He is not predictable.  I like that.  He was entertaining and charming as he usually is, but as usual, his arguments didn't satisfy me. 

It seems that the general atheist arguments like to pick on the points of a religion that off-hand sound absurd.  He loved prying into the story of Jesus casting demons into pigs.  This was a peripheral issue that had nothing to do with the actual question of if God exists.  It seems to me it would be like if a flat-earther debated a round-earther, and he never addressed the key issue- the earth's roundness, but only brought up the absurd consequences "you really believe that if I started digging a hole, I could end up in China?" or "You really believe that on the bottom of this earth-ball nothing falls off?  And it's full of hot lava?  How does it stay hot??"  Some ideas will be absurd without their foundation.  If we find the earth is round, we have to deal with those facts that would seem absurd otherwise.  If we find there is a God, then we deal with the details of religion.  I find the nit-picky absurdities of religion as hard to swallow as anyone, but it is the foundational things that I have not been able to let go of... namely the questions of the origin of mankind, absolute morality, and the meaning of life.  To me, claiming evolution is the only answer you need is like saying that the only explanation needed for a robot is that nuts, bolts, and metal parts were shaken about and fell together and created a robot, because after gazillions of years of shaking it finally came together.  This idea not only puts all of it's faith (and it would have to be a lot of faith) in chance alone, but it avoids the question... where did the nuts and bolts come from, and where exactly did the robot receive it's personality?  The idea that a Great Mind could have control over nature has never been very baffling to me. I see it every day on a micro level.  I have a mind, and it controls organic materials known as flesh and bone.  This can only be refuted by saying that the mind is an illusion... but if you use your own mind to argue that it is fraudulent, then why should I trust a thing you say?

I had been working on this script about this rock band for months and months.  I finally decided to set it off the to the side.  I was feeling a little defeated.  This award nomination and out of the blue 5-star review gave me a little boost in confidence, so I am picking up a different idea and am going to give it a shot.  Besides that, I have put together some new animated series pitches that I really like.

These last few months living in California have definitely been cool.  I was weary of all the pretentious people I would be faced with down here, and yes, they are here- but I think that the massive falseness of Hollywood has sort of spurred on a more underground movement of very genuine people as well.  A good example is some of the Christians I have met.  Hollywood is very dismissive, mocking and even hostile to Christianity.  This seems to have caused a lot of the genuine Christians I have met down here to be much more aware of their faith then in other places I have been.  I am also finding that screen writers are my homies.  These guys live in story-land, like me.  The silliness that I engaged in mentally all of my life in my imagination was always abnormal where ever I lived.  Down here it is prerequisite.  Lots of people are imaging a lot of things, and they are not ashamed of it.

My brother, Noah, visited me last week.  We hung out at Doug's house after church, and while we were there, we suddenly heard a loud crashing sound, and then one of Doug's daughters screaming.  Doug's wife, Angie went running after the sound, and then suddenly she was screaming a blood-curdling scream.  Noah, who is a Marine, bolted out of his chair and disappeared.  He had never been in this house, and in seconds he had found the room upstairs where Doug's daughter Olivia had tried to turn an open dresser into a ladder, but gravity had it's disagreements.  He had that dresser off of Olivia before I even realized what was going on.  It was the first time had ever seen him "in action."  It was really impressive.  He was ready.  Olivia was taken to the emergency room and luckily she is fine now.  She hurt her foot, but it healed in days.  Luckily, the dresser was stopped by a bed and did not fully land on her.

That's my update for now.  I can now raise one eyebrow and smugly refer to myself as an Eisner-nominated Graphic Novelist.  I need to buy a monocle.

Ethan

Last week I finished drawing a 90 page comic about Jesus Christ coming back to earth to kill Nazis with Ernest Hemingway, and battle Werewolf Hitler to the death.  It was the crudest, darkest, and most "edgy" comic I had ever drawn.  I wrote it with my friend, Eric.

I want to say, now that it is behind me, I regret it.  Its one of those things that was so obviously a stupid and bad idea, I have no idea what I was thinking going into it, but I am going to try to walk myself through my thinking.  Not for the sake of justification, but for the sake of growth, and realizing where I went wrong along the way.

To some people, drawing a comic about Jesus with a machine gun is no more controversial or harmful then drawing a comic about a badger eating a leaf.  I think that may have partially been the attitude I started out with.  I started out with the attitude, "a joke is a joke.  If you can't take a joke, move on."  I guess I adopted the philosophy that humor makes anything OK.

For those of you who are new to me... I'm a Christian.  Surprise!  This is the baggage this comic brings me.  People look at it and see it as the obvious work of an immature atheist kid, trying to piss off all the Christians.  And I did.  I think I did piss off some Christians, but the thing is, I didn't want to.

Stupid, I know.  I mean, yeah, I have never been real concerned about offending people- but those are battles you must pick when making jokes.  If I make a joke about going to hell for smoking a cigar, it is because I have a prepared, passionate defense of that position.  When I made the Jesus comic, I was not prepared to defend it... it was just sloppy joking, and that's it.

The way I see it, it was a back porch laugh session me and Eric had together that should have stayed there.  One of those situation where you are coming up with absurd "what if" scenarios that usually involve lots of blood and poop, and are good fun when it's just two guys on a porch smoking stogies and drinking beers.  But I had bought into the idea that whatever you do in private should also be public, or you are not being genuine.  I reasoned that by being as crass and foul mouthed as I am at my worst moments in private in my public works that I was somehow being a truly genuine person.  I had somehow placed being genuine above being decent.

It has since come to me that there really is a difference between micro and macro conduct.  In the quaint setting of a back porch laugh session with a close friend (as Eric truly is) I would still make any of the jokes you would find in the pages of the Jesus comic.  Likewise, among guy friends, I'll fart my ass off.  But in public I know why I choose not to fart out loud.  It is not because I am attempting to be a fraud, fooling people into thinking I don't fart.  It's a matter of decency, and of context.  Similarly, the jokes shared over cigars with a friend whose boundaries for humor are as easily pushed outward as mine, should be left on that porch to die with the cigar butts and the empty beer cans. 

They should be left there, because when you take that crass, uninhibited part of yourself and wear it on your sleeve, people will see it as the whole of what you are.  They will not see it as your friend sees it, a silly moment, a passing crude joke out of the norm.  They will see it as your very person.  When they think of your name, they will think of that crudeness above all, and they will not only think of it as a synonym for your name, they will see you as an advocate of it.  They will see it not as a joke you once told, but as a position you passionately hold.

And I don't passionately hold any position someone might extract from the Jesus comic.  I don't think that God and Jesus are separate.  I do not think angels are gay, or that God is the floating head of Marlon Brando either.  The thing is, when you are careless with something, you communicate that you do not care about it.  This could not be further from the truth about me... I care deeply for Christianity.

Of course, I am writing this all for me, the guy who had to learn it by drawing 95 pages of it to learn the lesson.  Most of you would have the sense not to do that.  And though you wouldn't do it, I do want to say, without scolding anyone, that I was amazed how few people actually challenged me on it.  I want to thank those who did, without chastising those who didn't.  I can't, I told you not to.  I'm beginning to sound like a woman... "you should have done what I told you not to do!"

With all this said, I do want to say a few other things.  First, I don't think any less of Eric.  This project was Eric's baby.  He asked if I wanted to join him on it.  I was basically in a deal with him where I did work for his company, and as part of that work, I co-write and draw a comic.  This was the idea he was most excited about, and I jumped aboard.  At first, it was fun, but somewhere around page 50 I started asking myself why  had started it.  This is a comic Eric wears proudly, I don't.  It is how we are different.  This difference should have been more closely examined before we teamed up on a comic about Jesus.  The fact is, when I started it, I didn't know where I stood.  In fact, it may have taken making this comic to bring me to a place where I finally began to see the importance of knowing my place, where my passions are, and what I want to communicate to people through my work.

Some of you are probably just confused as to why I would make such a big deal about this... if you are, you probably do not hold the Christian faith in high regard.  I am not here to say you must, but I am saying that I do, and I have not done a very good job of showing it. 

This project brought out a flaw in myself I have known, and ignored, for a long time, and that is my humor and it's boundaries.  I love crude humor, immature joking, pushing those walls... but it is a weakness, and if I did not believe that good truly existed in this world, it would not be an issue.  But, since I do believe good exists in this world, and that we are all accountable to it, it is an issue for me.  I will always think Jesus running up a piss stream and kicking a nazi in the face is hilarious, but I will not devote an entire graphic novel to that one chuckle in the future.

This is not the dawn of a new era in my work that will be nothing but stale puns and bible stories.  I am sure I will tell jokes that offend some people till the day I die. That is not my point.  I have not learned to give up on "edgy" humor, only that I must examine what my intentions are, and what the ramifications might be, once it is printed and sitting in stores. There are a lot of funny things in the Jesus comic, moments I created I am proud of... witty lines, some great art... but in the end I was more ashamed of myself for exerting so much energy on a comic that in the end was not something I would be proud of.  I may have my most controversial work yet to be created, but if I do, it will be on a subject I will defend to my grave, not a willy-nilly mockery of a faith I happen to love.

So, to those of you who read the Jesus comic as atheists or agnostics, thinking I was rooting against the religious, mocking their silly ideas along side you... I was not intending to, but I am afraid I was.  Forgive me for deceiving you.

And to my fellow believers... sorry for being the retarded, obnoxious brother in the family.  Sorry for my pride in and recklessness in my art.  Sorry for alienating you, and trying to make you feel uptight, when I was just being sloppy.

I am not going to disown this book, and I will definitely not be disowning Eric.  We are going to start a new project together that is a little less, shall we say, sacrilegious.  Something we can call our own.  I think we did some great work together on the Jesus comic, and I am looking forward to focusing those strengths onto something I won't be so weary of down the road.

Part of my problem?  These last few years I have really been hiding, trying to avoid truly, honestly saying if I am or am not a Christian.  Well... I am.  Saying that alone puts an enormous amount of responsibility on me to not be a total douche.  That's not a bad thing.  That's pressure we could all use.

Thanks for sticking with me.

Ethan

My little brother Malachai, for a while there, refused to poop in the toilet.  It wasn't that he couldn't figure it out, it was that he simply did not see the point.  He's always been very logical.  He can go through a full page of flash games and figure out how to play every one of them without reading the text in the game.  He has an impressive ability to be rational, and I guess that is why he did not poop in the toilet.  It was simply more logical to remain where he was and poop in his diaper, and let Mom or Dad take care of it as they always had.

I was on one of my visits, and I decided to try my hand at some poop-inspiring propaganda for my little three year old brother.  I drew my first children's book.  I sat there and drew the whole thing in one sitting, then read it to Malachai.  The book was called Malachai and the Poop Monster.  The concept was this:  when a toddler becomes a big boy, he has to start feeding his poop to the Poop Monster, a friendly beast living in the bathroom who thrives on the consumption of human feces.  If the boy chooses not to do this, his poop will sprout leathery wings, horrid orange eyes and barracuda teeth, and terrorize his family, stamping everything in the house with poo smudges.  I even taped eyes onto the actual toilet, so that after the book was read, I could make the toilet talk to him and beg him for some poop.

So I asked my Dad if he could scan the book in for me so I could have my own copy for memory's sake.  After months of attempted scanning, my technologically-impaired Dad mailed me the book.  At first I thought they had finally decided it was too vile a book to keep in their home, but then my Dad told me had just given up on trying to work the scanner.  So I scanned it, and here it is:













The only thing that Malachai learned from this story is that his big brother finds humor in things that are scary.  We had to reassure Malachai that the toilet was not a monster, and that his poop would not turn into little demonic flying bat turds.  In short... he didn't get it.  Go figure.

However, the next time I visited, he had converted to toilet-poopery full time, so somewhere along the way he made the decision to feed the Poop Monster anyway.  My Dad says the book made him being a big boy and pooping in his diaper more of an issue in the home, and he thinks the book, in a more indirect way, helped.  Who knows, he is my Dad and he will probably always try to see the good in what I do, even if it's just plain awful.  That's because he is a good Dad.

Selfishly, this book still makes me laugh, and I know that one day Malachai will look at it and laugh too.  He just hasn't realized how funny a piece of crap with wings is yet.  It's funny.  Of course, he may be traumatized, and will forever live in this fear that toilets are emotional creatures that cry in the night... and one day he just might be pooping, and he'll feel the sudden pinch of a bat wing emerging from his colon... and then, the bite of teeth and a shrieking sound like a hog squeal played backwards.

Maybe there's a reason I don't have kids.

Ethan

I took some more pictures n the hills by my new home.  I was hoping to get a good sunset, but I still like how they turned out.  My camera died when I was taking the pictures from my previous blog, so I didn't get very many.

Well, I am finally going to write my move blog- one month after I actually moved.

At the time I decided I was going to move to LA, I figured I would have to leave all my beautiful scenery behind.  I come from Oregon, one beautiful state.  Beautiful beaches within walking distance when I lived in Coos Bay, and still, plenty of beauty up in Portland as well.  The vision I had of wherever I would end up in LA tended to look something like something out of Boyz in da Hood.  I figured every time I opened my blinds I would see some poor sap getting stabbed in the face, or a bum being lit on fire by some no good riff-raff.  I also figured that every time I walked outside the air would taste like ass.  I imagined that even if I was in a decent neighborhood, the sky would just be a dense thick layer of smog, so I would have to say goodbye to the sky for now.

The day I finally packed up to leave Oregon City, it was my brother Isaiah's day off.  I rented a U-Haul truck and we loaded it with everything I was getting rid of.  I whittled all my belongings down to enough to fit in my 2-door 1995 Toyota Tercel.  I left some boxes of art at my mom's house in Lakeside, and a few boxes of books with my brother.  The rest we crammed in my little car.  I was amazed at how much we actually fit.  My brother had a real knack for fitting things just right into this solid clump of belongings.  My car was packed to the roof, and my passenger seat was full from the floor, up to just high enough that I could kind of see out the window to the side mirror.

It was a good last day with Isaiah.  We got to be room mates for a few months, and we both enjoyed it a lot.  When we said good bye, there was some emotion there. 

I left that night and stopped outside Salem to see my old friend and ex-roommate, and ex-band manager Patty K.  I met his new girlfriend who looked like a cross between Princess Jasmine and a pop singer.  I mean that in a good way.  After visiting with Patty K, I continued on to Lakeside, and slept at my mom's house.

I stayed in Coos Bay for a few days.  My mom and brother put on a surprise going away party for me at Roger's Zoo.  It made it really convenient, because 95% of the people I wanted to try to see and say goodbye to before I made the big move were at the get together.  We ate Mediterranean pizza, which has an assload of garlic on it, and I farted gleefully all night long.  Best pizza ever. 

After visiting a few more friends, I headed down to Bandon, where AJ, his wife Sara, Nordy, and the Muto family met me to have thai food at my favorite Thai restaurant in Bandon.  After, we shot guns at AJ's house (which is out in the woods), then watched movies.  I slept there, then got up at 7am the next day to take off for my new home.

My GPS estimated 15 hours.  I took 101 most of the way down.  It was a beautiful day.  The coast all the way down was like a post card.  Driving through the red woods was glorious.  Everyone told me not to take 101 down, it's longer.  Well, on such a beautiful day, and considering I didn't get stuck behind any slow pokes the whole way... it was totally worth it.

Before I left, I considered cutting the trip in two, and stopping off somewhere.  But as I went, I got this energy to just drive the whole trip in one sitting, so I did.  I only stopped to grab food I could eat while driving, and get gas.  I made it in 14 and a half hours, arriving at 10:30pm to my new home in Kagel Canyon, California.  If you have never heard of Kagel Canyon, don't worry, no one down here has either.  It's this hidden place in the hills north of Burbank.  And Kagel, is not to be confused with Kegel, which is a vaginal strengthening exercise for pregnant women. 

I found this place on Craigslist.  The people seemed really nice.  Caryn, the woman who placed the ad, talked to me on the phone a few times, and from the moment we talked we seemed to really hit it off.  We kept in touch via e-mail and a some phone conversations in the weeks before I came.  She had said it was sort of "in the country."  I figured that maybe she meant in the country to someone from LA.

It all happened one night, after the guy I was going to room with down here talked to me and said I really should get my own place because he was going to need to live pretty far from Burbank, where I would need to be near.  So I got on craigslist and responded to a few ads.  The next morning, the only one to reply was Caryn.

When I arrived, the house was much bigger than I thought.  It's a tall, three story home.  Amazingly, the top two stories are the master bedroom, with an office loft.  A very pretty home. 



In the picture above, the window to the left of my car is my room.

One of the reasons I picked this place was because it came already furnished with a bed, a desk, some shelves, and it's own bathroom.



When I arrived, Caryn and her husband Lou greeted me, along with Gypsy and Chuck, two very small and very loud dogs.  I was exhausted from the drive.  My bed was all made, there were towels for me to take a shower.  I didn't unpack a thing.  I fell asleep on my new bed.

The next morning was a Sunday, Caryn kindly fed me breakfast.  I hadn't even been here 24 hours and Doug invited me to his church to go to his adult Sunday school class where he was talking about all the big arguments against Christianity.  I went, and after church his family had me over for lunch.  That night, Caryn and Lou took me out for Mexican food.

A couple weeks into living here, I decided I needed to get back to exercising.  When I first got here I had been really swamped with work, but I needed to prioritize and at least star taking walks.  This is when I really discovered my neighborhood.

My street goes up hill, and it gets pretty steep.  People around here have horses and I commonly see rabbits hopping in the bushes, and hawks flying over head.  At the top of our street (a climb which has me gasping for air), I arrive at the beginning of this trail:


There are lots of hoof prints in these trails from people riding horses out here.  The trail continues uphill, from my house it is basically a mile until it levels out for a while.  From there, there is a matrix of trails for miles and miles.  The view is amazing, you can see way off into the distance.  The city to the south, at sun down, is beautiful.  Up north, there is just constant hills as far as you can see.


To get an idea of what it is like up here, it is cool to check it out on Google Earth.  Enter these coordinates on Google Earth:
lat=34.2978664171, lon=-118.370491155

Then, turn on "Terrain" in your layers, so you can see how the land is laid out.  This is where I get to walk and scope out glorious sunsets.




I had gone up today to take these pictures hoping to get a good sunset, but then, before the sunset, my camera stopped working.  I think it finally died.  Luckily I was able to get these pictures off of it.

So I hit it off well with Caryn and Lou.  I have been amazed at how "at home" I feel here.  They are very easy to get along with, and just good people.  Something that was obvious to me the moment I stepped into their home- they don't rent out a room because they need the money, they do it because they love people.  I really, truly have been blessed to have so easily found such a great place to live in LA.  The other part of the house I have been spending much time is the back porch:

And also cool- we have our own lemon tree:


Other cool things since I have been here...

I hung out with Doug, and he introduced me to his friend Michael Beckner, a screenwriter.  His most well known works are the original Sniper movie from the 90's, and Spy Games with Brad Pitt and Robert Redford.  Michael is into pipes, big time.  He buys old pipes and restores them and sells them.  I visited his writing studio and bought one of his Danish hand carved pipes.  It's awesome.  He also cleaned my Savinelli pipe for me.

I have actually been way more social down here than I ever was up in Portland.  I forgot how many people I already know in this area.  I have a handful of friends from Doug's forum who I have already seen a couple times.  I have seemed to keep myself just busy enough, and have had some fun too.

Well, that's good enough for an intro to my new home.  I could say so much more, but I got things to do, and so do you.  All I can say is, this move has been divinely smooth.  If you tend to believe that God shows his will to you by how he opens doors, a position I tend to lean towards, then you might conclude that His hand has been in this move from the beginning.  I will always miss all my good friends and family from Oregon and Washington, but so far I am really happy here.  It has turned out to be so much more enjoyable than I could have imagined.

Oh yeah, and because I know people will be asking- the Cartoon thing is still not moving right now.  I moved here of my own free will, Cartoon Network did not move me here.  It doesn't work like that.  There has been some progress toward getting the pilot into development, but right now things are still at the contracts and paperwork stage, so most of the progress being made is between Cartoon Network and my new agent. 

So there you have it.  I live in California!

Ethan

The World Newspaper, the main local paper in Coos County, from whence I hail, wrote a story about my "success."  How did this happen?  Small town.  My mom used to work at the paper, she ran into an old friend that still works there.  She told her how awesome her son is and that he got a TV show deal at Cartoon Network, and her friend decided to do a story on me.

Now, before I say any more, I do what to say that this lady was very sweet and that she meant well and, though the article is very misleading in my eyes, it works for what it is trying to do.  She had a predisposition that I just hit the big time, I've shot down to my new condo in the big city with my fat wad of cash and am now living a life of fame and fortune. As she interviewed me over the phone, she relentlessly hounded me to tell her how much money I would get for this and I told her I did not know.  I did say I would get a chunk of money for the rights, then if the show goes to series (which is far from guaranteed, especially at this early stage) I would make a good amount of money per episode after that. 

So, here is the article, with my commentary added:

____________________________________________________________

Comic success

By Janet Fitzgerald, Correspondent

Saturday, February 07, 2009
North Bend grad gets TV pilot deal

______________________________________________________________
This, I really did say.  I love my hometown and I believe it, and especially the people in it, made me the guy I am. 

The photo they took is not online.  If you live in Coos Bay and happen to have it, if you wouldn't mind scanning it in and sending me a copy I'd like to add it to this blog.  [note:  got the photo, thanks to Rob Collier]

I was at Doug's house when my mom called and told me about this.  I was down in his basement studio drawing on his Cintiq while he was in at his art table drawing his new book.  I looked it up online.  That part about the "meth-laden streets of Coos Bay" had the two of us rolling. 

Now, I know what some of you are thinking.  Great Ethan, thanks for that update, but why the hell haven't you written a blog about your new place and everything that's happened since you moved?  I get daily messages from different people trickling in asking me the same few questions.  The truth is I have been really swamped with work since I got here- not the Cartoon Network work, but my other work, the grunt work I do to pay the bills.  Also, I want to do a picture blog, and I haven't had the opportunity to go out and take pictures between being busy, sick for the last week, and now rainy weather.  I want to show off the area I have moved to, it is actually really pretty.  Not what I expected when moving to LA.  I will do a "move" blog soon, I promise.  This one I had to do today.

My sleep patterns have been scarier then Harvey Keitel's genitalia, and I know exactly what I'm talking about because I just watched the Piano, and I did that because I couldn't sleep.

I assume my inability to sleep has something to do with my life right now.  There is a lot to think about.  A lot of changes are happening, namely, I am preparing to move away.

After I got out of bed this morning, after not sleeping at all (maybe it was Harvey's junk that kept me awake, who knows?), I decided to start tossing things in my room into garbage bags.  I haven't had a chance to get any boxes because I have been snowed in since Sunday.  But, considering that I will be throwing out 75% of my stuff, I figure I could start putting the small stuff in garbage bags, and put the other stuff in a corner marked "garbage."

Just as I started throwing random things into the bag, I decided I should capture this room on video before it's gone.  A little reminder of what I left behind.  So here it is...
Leaving my Attic Dwelling


I have secured a room for rent down in Kagel Canyon, which is by Sylmar in California.  It's close enough to Burbank, where Cartoon Network is located, but the cool thing is that it's out of the way, up in the hills a bit.  There is actually a creek and trees, and some peace.  Maybe less chance of seeing someone get stabbed if I look out my window during my morning cup of coffee (at 5:00pm).  It's already furnished, so I won't need to strap my extremely slept-in mattress to the top of my car and drive it down.  The people who own the house are an older couple who seem to be very nice people.  The lady I have emailed and spoken with on the phone is a total sweetheart.  My plan is to move the first week of January.

Besides the move, I have had plenty of other things going through my head.  The TV show that, hopefully, I will be eventually working when I get down to Burbank.  I was contacted by a guy from Electronic Arts, and another guy from Universal Studios this week.  I have lunch set up with the Universal guy when I get down there... and that's just because of Chumble Spuzz.  They haven't even seen what I have been working on now.

My new project is what started out as the Lunaractive "Code of the Juggernaut" comic book.  It is now a whole new story with fictional characters in a fictional band.  The exciting part is that Anthony from Lunaractive has jumped aboard the writing process with me, so we're hashing the whole thing out together.  The other cool part is that we are recording the fictional band's demo CD, hoping it can be a part of the comic.  It will be a graphic novel with a soundtrack.  If you missed Lunar music, well, there will be a slice of  Lunar in this recording for sure.  Working with Anthony on this stuff has been a lot of fun.

On top of that, me and Eric Peterson talked tonight about a new project that I think is going to be really good.  Something that is more of our own thing and not so spoofy. 

Christmas is on it's way and the roads are paved with ice.  I eagerly want to go see my family in Moses Lake, so hopefully it's drivable.

Well.  I'll enjoy the holiday, then it's onto the next chapter I guess...

Ethan

I'm cheesy.  I'm sappy.  I love Christmas. 

So, I recorded a Christmas song, and started a MySpace music profile.  Anthony hooked me up with some recording stuff, so I wanted to do a song to learn how to use it.  I chose O Come All Ye Faithful, which is one of my favorite carols.  It was my number one favorite when I was a little kid.  My parents got me this little book of Christmas songs, and it had a little toy keyboard inside which numbered keys.  You could follow the numbers in the book and play the melody.  O Come All Ye Faithful and Jolly Old St. Nicholas were my favorites.

In fact, I am pretty sure it was this song that made me fall in love with a strong melody line.  I remember I just loved it.  I love a melody that sticks with you, and moves you. 

So here it is...

www.myspace.com/eefrocks

Also, if you want to download it, you get it here (beware of MySpace getting in the way though):  http://www.ethannicolle.com/O_Come_All_Ye_Faithful.mp3

Now that I have these cool toys in my room I'll hopefully be making more music.  It's pretty distracting, and I have hardly touched a guitar since Lunar broke up.  It felt really good to make a song.  It always it a great feeling.  I hope you guys like it.

Ethan

Today I returned home after going to a funeral for Peter Kirk, and sat on my back porch, tried to smoke my pipe, and read a book.  I couldn't concentrate on the text however, even though it was G.K. Chesterton (Kirk approved reading).  I couldn't get the day out of my head.  I turned on some Pavarotti.  Anytime we would talk music, Peter would tell me to listen to Pavarotti.  He would say that all that rock music I played and listened to is just "Shock and awe.  You should change your band's name to 'Shock and Awe.'"  I listened to Pavarotti, and I reflected, and I had another good cry.

As I walked into that funeral I saw a number of familiar faces, and plenty of unfamiliar faces.  People whose lives ol' Pete Kirk had touched in so many ways.  There, in front, covered in the American flag was his coffin.  Pete was in the army, and he was getting a traditional veteran's burial.

It didn't take long for my tear ducts to get out of line.  We sang hymns.  Pete taught me to appreciate the hymns.  I remember when I used to lead music at Hauser Church, I'd throw in a hymn here and there for Pete, because he would constantly ask me to.  Soon, I was trying to do all hymns, because I found them to be so much more enjoyable than the Shout to the Lord contemporary praise songs we would always sing.  To this day I love sitting back and singing Be Thou My Vision, It Is Well With My Soul, Holy Holy Holy, or Great Is Thy Faithfulness.

Every time I would dry my cheeks, something else would trigger another downpour.  I was embarrassed.  Not to be crying at a funeral, but to be crying that much. 

As people stood up to share how Peter had effected their lives, everyone in that sanctuary painted each other a more complete picture of just how selfless Peter Kirk really was.  As pastor Mike talked about Peter's willingness to pick up homeless people, and help out fellow humans who were down and out, I thought of my Dad.  After my parents divorced, my Dad went through a deep depression phase.  He lived in his van and went fishing all the time.  The Kirks took him in.  That was how I first met Peter Kirk.

Testimony after testimony of people who had not just known Pete, or been his friend, but who he had mentored, met with, prayed with, and served, shared testimony after testimony about his impact on their life.  This was not just a nice guy, this was a selfless man with a servant's heart.

After the ceremony and burial, I sat with his son, Paul, who shared with me and our friend Chad his Dad's last days.  As he lay in his hospital bed coming in and out of consciousness, they could hear him praying aloud for his brothers, his neighbors, and his family.  His last words to his wife Carol were a list of people to remember to pray for.  Pray for those people who just moved in down the street.  Don't forget to pray for the poor family we met at church.  He spent his last breaths begging for the lives of others.

Paul shared these words with us, and you could just see a son in total awe of his Father.  He talked about his Dad in real life.  How he would treat a homeless man and the president the same way, because all he saw was souls.  He saw the best in everyone, no matter how low or high they were on the social ladder.

Peter loved to garden.  He used to take me back into his garden and give me what he called the "grand tour."  He would give me clippings of plants that I had no idea what to do with, but I could see just by taking them I was sharing in the joy he took in that backyard project of his.  He'd have Pavarotti playing in the house, a speaker pressed up against the window screen so the vibrato bellowed out over us, comforting the tomato plants and giving the flowers something to sway to.

As I sat in that crowd of people who had been so invested in by the man lying peacefully in his new casket, it was almost as if he was saying his last words to me.  Peter Kirk, more than anyone I knew, believed in God's timing.  If it was his time to go, then it was also my time to grow.  I could hear Peter saying to me from inside that shiny wooden chest...

"It's time to grow up, Ethan.  Time to be a man."

In this world there are teachers and students.  A good teacher teaches himself out of a job.  The student becomes the teacher.  If this was God's timing, then it was time for me to step up and, rather than sitting and letting Pete be the good man while I goofed around in life, I was being thrown out into the world without that option anymore.  Time to grow.

He was saying it not just to me, but so many people in that room.  His sons, his daughters, and the pews full of people who he lead down a path, and now was saying "this the end of my walk, now you keep going."  Or, to put it another way, he was Pavarotti, and we were Pete's garden.

You never realize what you have till you've lost it.  And even though I had Peter Kirk listed as one of my heroes long before he passed on, I mean it in a way today I couldn't have yesterday.  What a legacy he left... people who were better because of him.  Who were inspired to grow up, to pray, and to serve others as he has.  He was my hero for what he did in my life, now he's my hero for what he did in so many lives, never ceasing to the last conscious moment he lived.

It's a sentiment as old as any fairy tale Disney film moral-of-the-story, but to see it in the flesh, before your own two eyes, lived out till the last breath, is truly something to behold. 

I walked up to Pete's casket and got my last look at him.  He looked as peaceful as ever, and I was a blubbering little baby.  We went to the graveyard and the old army vets shot their guns in the air, and the CD player they brought along played taps, about 1/3rd of the way through, then skipped, then came back in on the last couple notes.

Later that night, after Brandon, his mother, Noah, and I returned to Brandon's family's house, Brandon got out his trumpet and we stood on their back deck, high up, overlooking the marshes in Eastside.  He played taps the real way, no skips this time.  I could see Pete's glowing smile, he was always so impressed with Brandon's musical talent.

I realized today that, not only was Peter Kirk a major blessing to my life as a friend and mentor, but that by allowing him to have that place in my life, I was taking on the responsibility to not just go on living as if I had never met the guy.  He put in his part of the deal, and now it's my turn to pay up.  The very thought frightens me, because my faith is so weak.  But today I walked away with a much more lucid view of a life summed up to equal something greater than yourself.  One man.  One amazing life.

He should change his name to Shock and Awe.

Ethan



note:  the picture above is an old photo I took at Mingus Park during a hail storm.

If you've read my blog for very long, there's no doubt you have heard me mention Peter Kirk before.  In fact, in my last blog I mentioned the idea of changing the definition of a cow... that came from what I would call a "Kirkism."

"What is, is."  Pete said to me one morning in his aged tone, still with a tiny hint of Brooklyn in his voice, after living in New York many years ago.  He was talking about people trying to change the meaning of marriage.  Peter Kirk was unabashedly conservative.  So fundamentalist, his words could send a know-it-all college hippie into cardiac arrest.  He didn't even seem to know that some of the things he would say were so counter to the cultural swamp in which I was a tadpole, and was just growing my legs, that I would often cringe a bit and look around the diner, hoping no anti-Bush global warming alarmist was choking on their french toast.  When I visited with Pete, it was kind of like entering a different world.  A world of order, of rules, of expectations and high standards.  A world where the Bible was not a religion, but the truth.  Where morality was not relative, but absolute.

We used to meet every Saturday for breakfast at TJ Shaw's down on Broadway in Coos Bay.  There, over pancakes and sausage, Peter would engage me with a pious, personal glow.  He'd expound from the Bible, and even in times when I wasn't sure if I, myself, believed the words of the bible, he made them come alive, and he applied them to this world in a way that only a man of that kind of commitment to a holy life could.  He had the ability to give me some of his faith when I was running low on my own.

Peter would jokingly give me penance when I would do something he didn't approve of.  It was his little way of mocking Catholicism, which he abandoned to embrace protestantism when he was a young adult.  Penance was an action to make up for sins, given to you by your priest.  Usually it could be saying the Hail Mary prayer numerous times, though in history sometimes penance meant walking on your knees around the church until they were pouring blood.  I would put too much syrup on my pancakes... "for your penance, you will say the Lord's Prayer 30 times, and give yourself 12 lashings."  He may have been a strict fundamentalist, but that never stopped him from having a sense of humor.

At times the meetings were more intermittent, then, when I moved, they were very rare, but when we met it was always something I knew that I would one day look back on and dearly miss.  I knew it was coming because Pete had been fighting Leukemia for many years, in fact, he had lived years beyond the expiration date stamped on him by his doctors.  I remember asking my good friend and old Young Life leader, Todd Tardie, when he was expected to go.  Todd said he was years past due.  That was about 4 or 5 years ago that he told me that.

Peter was one of those Christians who made faith both frightening and beautiful.  Beautiful because he lived it, and shared it, and made the world better for it.  Frightening, because you got the idea that Pete could pray for anything and God would have his back on it.  He was almost like Gandolf.  Tall, wise, and full of mystical power.  His faith was so real that it made you become skeptical of rationality.  Pete's prayers weren't anecdotes or formalities, they were real conversations with God.  They did stuff, and he knew it.

As I woke up today, again not making it to church because I stayed up too late on Saturday, I went to check my phone messages.  My friend Karla had left me a message.  She knew I might have known Pete.  She was calling to let me know he died this weekend.

"For missing church this morning, your penance is 1,000 Hail Mary's and you shall fast for 30 days and 30 nights."

I expected tears.  That's what you're supposed to do when such a great man passes away.  But there was just a stillness.  I sat there, regretting not meeting with him more, not taking the chance when I was last in Coos Bay to reach him and try to have one last breakfast, one last exegetical pancake session... one more rapid fire Oswald Chambers study.

When we went to TJ Shaws, we would be there for hours.  It was Pete's pulpit, and I was his congregation.  Sometimes one of his sons, or a friend would be there too.  He had, I think, seven kids.  "We used to live in a little two bedroom house with seven kids, and we were happy as a clam!" he would always say, dismissing the excuses of people who would say that they needed to have a lot of money and a nice house before they had a child.  "Happy is a man who keeps a full quiver."  Another Kirkism, and it was from Psalms 127:5.  A full quiver, I learned, meant a buttload of kids.  Peter practiced what he preached.

The most memorable, and often repeated Kirkism was "do the next thing."  Peter, whether on purpose, or in his old age, would commonly retell a breakfast sermon.  He repeated this one a lot.  He usually started his teaching after we received our food and said our prayer.  A few bites into his dry pieces of toast, usually with a bit of food hanging off the corner of his lip, he would break the silent gnashing of teeth with his day's thesis.

"Do the next thing."

At that point the piece of toast on his lip might shoot into my coffee.  From there he would go to a life story.  A story about his wife, Carol,  who got very ill, and all of her work at home got backed up.  Everything put out of order.  When she was finally recovered, she was overwhelmed by all the work.  She had to simply do one thing at a time.  Do the first thing, then do the next thing.  Start back in that corner.  Take out that trash.  Clean some dishes.  Do the next thing.

Many Kirkisms came from Peter's experiences with his own old spiritual sensei, Mother Holman.  It never failed, somewhere between the eggs and bacon Pete would say "Mother Holman used to say...".  He would talk about how she followed a "word from the Lord" across the country, and would end up at some huge gathering speaking to thousands of people, even though nobody knew who she was.  He loved to tell the story where she claimed God offered her a brand new sports car, and she turned it down because she knew she didn't need it.  He would talk about how she drew him and his wife carol together in their youth, and told Peter that the Lord had set them up.  Mother Holman lived a fascinating and prayerful life.  Mr. Kirk would never forget her, because I am sure that in the years that followed her passing on, her wisdom only grew stronger and more real as Peter grew up and lived out those things day to day. 

Peter is my Mother Holman.  When I think of wisdom, I think of Pete.  Sure, we didn't always agree.  But he had a presence, a humility, and an authority about him that I couldn't resist.  He could simultaneously make me feel like much was expected of me... but also that no matter who I was, he loved me dearly, and I never felt looked down upon.  Even in times where my faith has been weak, Pete's infectious faith and life-example made it impossible for me to ever fully deny my religion.  I could deny a million things in life and make excuses for them apart from a plan from Heaven, but Peter Kirk always tripped me up.

Since moving to Portland I have hoped to find a new Pete Kirk.  Someone old and wise who wouldn't mind having breakfast, giving me some penance for buying chicken friend steak, and flipping open Proverbs.  "Faithful are the wounds of a friend" he might say.  Peter Kirk always taught me not to fear harsh words from those whom I know love me.  He taught me to cherish the rebuke of people who would do it not to hurt me, but to help me.  He taught me the value of being a student in life, to be a "criticismophile" in some ways.  The search for a new Pete has come up empty though, and as I have looked I have come to realize how unique my times with him were.  I miss them already.

I can't imagine Pete died with any less than a smile on his face and a confident peace in his heart.  Heck, probably even some jubilation.  The man did not fear death, and no matter what truly happens after this life, he entered into the gates of heaven.  I can only attempt to imagine that glorious homecoming celebration, and the pride God must take in such a graduation ceremony for a man who truly got his degree in life. 

I'm sure when I'm in my 70's I'll constantly refer back to the Kirkisms that have stuck with me over the years.  "Peter Kirk used to say work is good for the soul."  My kids, if my fertility ever might be put to the test, will probably roll their eyes.  They've heard it 100 times before.

I thank God for Peter Kirk.  I'm sad to see him go, but only for selfish reasons.  I can't call his death a tragedy, because his life was so well lived, his death so postponed, and his return home so beautiful that all I can muster up is gratitude.  I don't think everyone gets a Peter Kirk in their life.  Some may, but take it for granted.  I know that I'm just one tiny particle of the organism of effected souls who Pete touched in life, and who's souls he may have, in one way or another, saved.

Ethan

It's Veteran's Day.  For like 10 more minutes anyway.  But due to my nocturnal nature, it's still Veteran's Day for me until I go to sleep at 6am.  And while it is still Veteran's Day in my world, I want to write a "thanks to the Veterans" blog.

I was at a bar one night with some friends, and one of my old high school friends was working at this bar.  For the sake of anonymity we'll call the bar "Bill's Skank-ass Dirt Hole."  Somewhere along the lines the conversation got to the military, and the girl working at the bar said something to the effect of "yeah the military is just full of a bunch of idiots who couldn't get a real career after high school."  I looked at her, as one eyebrow raised slowly, and said "you mean, as opposed to working at Bill's Skank-Ass Dirt Hole?"

I hear this all the time.  I tend to hang out with the art crowd and, God love 'em, I don't know what it is, but they remain as bitter as they ever were in high school towards those guys we like to refer to as the jocks and the rednecks.  I remember when my previous messiah Kurt Cobain taught me through his scriptures (actually the biography by Michael Azerrad) that the jock, the prep, and the red neck are not to be trusted- they are the infidel.  They are to be hated, mocked, and rebuked in all that they do.  Thus saith the world's biggest crybaby rock star.

I remember getting picked on by those guys.  I remember a guy named Josh who literally looked as close to an orangutan as a human can look without actually being an orangutan.  I remember him following me through an empty hallway, literally from one side of the school to the other, just to find the right moment to elbow me in the ribs and bring me to my knees.

I recall gym class being one of the worst experiences of my life.  And I also remember feeling so out of place among these other forms of human being who saw gym class as the best part of school.  People who actually liked running.  Guys who enjoyed being tackled and put through pain.  I later came to realize that, other than not having a vagina, I was a girl in gym class.  I preferred to do push ups with my knees down.  I liked wall ball rather than foot ball.  In dodge ball I would try to get hit first so I could go sit down.  I ran out crying when we played Russian slap tag.  I did not see how getting mauled by a gaggle of insane guys in helmets for a ball was worth it.  I hated gym class.

The contempt between the self-expression art fairy crowd and the git-er-done fist full o' pubes crowd seems to carry itself into adulthood.  I know it's a pretty broad generalization... but it does seem that you get people that lean one way or the other.  You get the more feminized guys like me who like to express my "inner self", and then you get the guys like Roddy Piper who just like to get in street fights and battle aliens.

Somewhere along the line I think that I took a second look back at my more manly counterparts, and somewhere I started to appreciate them.  If I could be so simplistic as to divide people into these two broad groups, we may be at odds with each other, but we really do provide one another with a high quality of life.  Bone Head McStrangler fights terrorists in Fallujah, he protects Barney O'Gayguy who storyboards adult swim cartoons in Burbank.  Bone Head loves that cartoon.  Barney loves not being hung by terrorists.

Of course I am way over simplifying things... but what I am saying is that if this entire country was full of only me and people like my group of friends in high school... we would be fucked.  Sorry for dropping that f-bomb Dad but it just worked right there.  If one day the US military turned into a ton of me-clones, I think even my Dad would drop an f-bomb. 

Of course if the whole country was just knuckle-dragging, gym class, Beefy McHugePecs there would probably be a lot more rape and beer pong.

I am of course leaving out the preps and nerds, but I think that to certain, very broad degrees you can put everybody into two groups in varying shades.  In the end you have a spectrum, which is how I like it.

I know that not everyone in the military is a super jock or cousin marrying hill billy, just like not all artsy types are gerbil sodomizing art-house wine tasting granola chompers.  But the generalization can still be made.  I guess I consider myself a middle man in some ways because while I was raised by an ex-hippie mom and Dad wasn't around much to teach me how to punch a bear in the face, I am a tender, sensitive and marshmallowy fellow who cries when he watches animated films like "Surf's Up" (saw it last night, it was really good, reminded me of Sause.  That's not why I cried though).  But I have an admiration for the guys who picked on me in high school.  And most of them that I know now aren't so bitter.  They really are good guys, they just function differently than I have ever known how.  All I do know is that I am happy to share the planet, and the country, and when possible, a beer with folks from the "other side."

It's as if, as kids, they had to quench their neanderthal thirst for poundings on squishy little butterballs like me, and once they grew up, they found more deserving targets.

So I guess this is my apology on behalf of whiny, cry-baby pissy-pants artists to the men and women of the armed forces.  I know that I can't really speak on behalf of artists, I feel pretty lonely among both groups to be honest... but I just want to say that I feel a deep sense of appreciation for those people who have the balls to defend the US, and freedom around the world.  I love this country, and what I really love is that I am on the verge of a career based on drawing a samurai monkey and a pug with a mullet.  Why can I do that?  Because we are so damn free, and so damn prosperous, that we can afford to spend our money on such things.  All those art films, and comics, and animated features, and rock concerts... all the luxuries my finger painting pot smoker colleagues enjoy and saturate themselves in are a product of freedom bought with blood.  The less free your society is, the more your own future is determined for you, either by your parents, your religion, or your government.  So I invite my friends, including the girl serving ball sweat beer at Bill's Skank-ass Dirt Hole, to bring their nose back down from out of the air for a second and thank our veterans.  You bunch of pussies! 

I think that a person who serves in the military is serving an infinitely greater cause than one who pours beer at a seedy bar at 2am.  But I know that the reason the soldier fights for the country is because he would rather that person at that bar have that job as an option, and he would like to be able to go to that bar on his leave and be able to buy a beer from that person.  Likewise... I consider my "calling" as a cartoonist a much lower calling than a soldier's calling.  But I know many soldiers who love my work, and I know that they fight because they love a country where such trivial things can prosper.

So, again, I just want to thank the Veterans I know... my brother Noah, my old friend Rob, my room mate Randall... and anyone else reading, thanks for what you've chosen.  You have major balls.  Don't listen to the girl at Bill's Skank-ass Dirt Hole.  You can see she's just bitter because her degree in multicultural feminist eco-healing psychology through interpretive dance and vagina basket weaving hasn't gotten her much.  But it's the soldiers who gave her the freedom to pursue multicultural feminist eco-healing psychology through interpretive dance and vagina basket weaving, and be a whiny beyotch at Bill's Skank-ass Dirt Hole.  High five veterans.  High five.

Seriously, high five the screen.

Ethan

What you are about to read is one of the highest compliments I have ever been paid, and convenietnly it is typed up and posted in a blog, so I don't have to try to recollect it for you from a brief meeting at a comic convention.  Johnen Vasquez, creator of some of my favorite works, includng Squee and Invader Zim, finished reading both Chumble Spuzz books, and wrote this long review, which not only had me blushing, but laughing out loud. 


The review.

Thanks, Johnen, for this.  You made my day.  Or week.  Maybe even month.

Ethan

Life has been pretty interesting.  As a pessimist it is my duty to never get overzealous or presumptuous about things I have no control over.  Lately it seems like, despite all that, the goals I had sought out since childhood... to have my own cartoon show and be a comic book artist are in the process of actually happening.

The other day I got an email from Jhonen V., who I mentioned I sat next to at comic con.  Without being too gushy about it, it was like a Christmas present.  Meeting the guy at comic con, sitting next to him and selling books in one thing, cool in it's own way.  Having him write a personal email, after he read my book, to let me know he thinks my stuff is some of the best stuff on SLG, is even cooler in it's own way.  It's the difference between getting to meet someone you looked up to as an aspiring artist, and them actually accepting you as a colleague.  I wouldn't require it for my own self esteem as an artist, but it's a nice perk and confidence booster.

And I do have to say, when I got on SLG I kept hearing all these rumors that Jhonen was a jerk or a snob from random people.  In my experience that is totally untrue.  He's a very nice guy, and I'm not just saying that in the afterglow of his accolades.

To make matters not worse, a couple of weeks ago, I got emailed by the secretary of one of the head execs at Cartoon Network.  Now, I'm already working on a TV show idea with a different guy- the guy I met with at Comic Con.  So I didn't know what this was about.  This secretary scheduled a conference call two weeks out.  Today was the day of the call.  The guy basically wanted to tell me he loved my book, and that he wants me to come up with something similar, but for a younger audience.  We talked for a while, and it seems like what he wants is right up my alley- just wacky, illogical craziness, with a thread of offbeat logic that carries the story.

After the phone call, I headed down to the Singer Hill coffee shop, where I have been going to sketch lately, and I started brainstorming and sketching.  Even though I had been looking forward to this call with a good helping of curiosity and excitement, I slept like a baby the night before, and the prospect of coming up with a brand new idea for an entire TV show is a task I have been up to for years.  I'm not in the least bit nervous, I feel this is something I can do, and have been waiting to reach the point where it could happen.

There is a balance of confidence and a sense of surreality as this all comes together.  I think that for people who worship this kind of thing too much they may never experience it.  I have been confident since childhood that I could make cartoons.  I have looked up to and admired the artists who inspired me, but never worshiped them.  I never thought they had any different kind of blood in their veins then I.  But even so, the chances that I would make it this far have always been a crap shoot, and even when I would tell people it was my goal, I would say it with a tinge of embarrassment, because everyone knows the unlikeliness of it all. So while I am confident I can do it, I am humbled by the circumstances and the opportunity before me.

But even with all that said... nothing has been signed, nothing is official.  But here I am working on two ideas of my own that will be seriously considered by multiple big-decision makers at one of the biggest networks in the world.  Not that either is guaranteed, but it's getting closer every day.    I can't deny that it hasn't just been a combination of hard work, but also luck, and the blessings of the people who have been placed in my life at the right time, with the right advice, that made this all possible.

Before I start thanking the academy I better calm down and hit the sketch book.  Every sketch before these ones were warm ups for the big game.  I'm ready to compete. 

All you guys that read my blog and support me, you're awesome.  Thanks for your comments and encouragement.  With all my bitching and moaning, I have to admit I have a pretty cool life.

Ethan

PS:  Cool interview below...