tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-90760335121549582072024-03-13T16:46:44.590+02:00Asides-Bsidesa blog of comics and music and thoughtsHelmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00584102280299430293noreply@blogger.comBlogger217125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9076033512154958207.post-71178684460470886952015-10-29T03:33:00.000+02:002015-10-29T03:34:21.426+02:00It's Over<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Some years ago I made this comic, ZX, one page at a time, on this blog. A web-comic, as it were. Afterwards, I got it printed in real-life real paper made out of real trees, I got it published, it won an award and I've been told that it had a positive impact on several people. Then I moved on to other endeavours. </div>
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Recently I've decided to upload it in cbr and pdf form for posterity, as its print run has long since ran its course. For good measure, I finished up translating the few pages that were in the book but weren't on this blog, so the whole thing is now in english too. </div>
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<a href="http://www.locustleaves.com/zx_eng.pdf">For the English version PDF, click here.</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.locustleaves.com/zx_eng.cbr">For the English version CBR, here instead.</a><br />
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If instead you're of the Greek persuasion, please don't hesitate to grab the <a href="http://www.locustleaves.com/ZX_150dpi.pdf">PDF</a> or the <a href="http://www.locustleaves.com/ZX_small.cbr">CBR</a>. </div>
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I think this is a more fitting end to this blog than the abrupt fadeaway post below it. If you seek to contact me, I still check blogger periodically, but you'll have better luck hitting me up on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/telemachus.stavropoulos">facebook</a>. <br />
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I'll leave you with a little secret. I'm employed in a different field now and in a different country and I enjoy my life and my work. But I'd still like to make more at least another comic. Don't tell anyone.</div>
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- Helm</div>
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</span></div>Helmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00584102280299430293noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9076033512154958207.post-10470564462030959082012-09-29T12:32:00.000+03:002012-09-29T12:37:57.086+03:00Here's 66 More <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Excuse the Greek, again. If you have a burning desire to know what some of them mean, ask in the comments and I will translate!
Work is hard.
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Helmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00584102280299430293noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9076033512154958207.post-71792338027853653432012-07-16T18:57:00.000+03:002012-07-16T19:00:13.568+03:00Hey, I hope you don't mind if I post thirty comic strips here<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span class="fullpost">
Please excuse lack of translations for these, they're just too many. But if you'd really like to know what some of them are about, leave a comment and I'll transcribe here, at least.
</span></div>Helmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00584102280299430293noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9076033512154958207.post-66625931488811382732012-05-21T13:11:00.000+03:002012-05-21T13:11:24.661+03:00Erenan asks about panels<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: -webkit-auto;">On an e-mail, friend of the blog Erenan inquires:</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: -webkit-auto;">Hello,</span><br />
I am not an artist by any stretch of the imagination, but I am nonetheless interested in learning about comic design. Specifically, I'm curious about how you feel you developed your ability, not so much in terms of the actual artwork, but rather in terms of layout, flow, what should be happening in the story when a page turn happens, how each panel should be framed, how large each panel should be, etc. Was this an academically learned skill or did it develop primarily through raw experience? If the former, then could you possibly recommend some sources to which I could turn for information about this kind of thing? If the latter, then am I out of luck except for the option of hunkering down and actually trying to put together a comic or two?</blockquote>
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Below is my response.<br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: -webkit-auto;">Sadly it *is* mostly experience in developing an inner visual language. There are texts you could read and I do especially suggest "Understanding Comics" and "Making Comics" by Scott McCloud. But in that whole latter book he never once talks about bracketing and what panels mean. At least as far as I remember.</span><br />
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There's a lot of different approaches to what you're asking. I'll outline below some of my basic thoughts on the matter:<br />
<br />
1. 90 degree panels = rational gaze / uneven panels = emotional gaze</div>
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1b. 90 degree cuts = smooth exposition / radical cuts = action!<br />
1c. Super straight panel outlines = super rational / hand-drawn 'shakey' panel outlines = more subjective<br />
<br />
2. Fat panel outline = important or focused / thin panel outline = the reader will read faster through, best as part of a sequence. I made a mistake with ZX by having too fat 'default' panel outlines, mucking up the pace a bit.</div>
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2b. Especially wobbly panel outline = can be an outburst or something else of questionable epistemology / NO panel outline = dream sequence, or limbospace, or a pervading moment in time in an otherwise sequenced event</div>
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3. long panel = takes more time to read, landscape perhaps, setting a scene / thin panel = makes the reader look at both IT and what came before it and what comes after it on the strip with 'one gaze' more. This is a useful tool.</div>
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4. background value to the page (behind the panels) being white = all as normal / background value being black = change of mood, possibly flashback or dream sequence. I play a lot with grains and gradients as emotional information to the reader.</div>
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5. How many panels per page tell the reader if the pace of the comic is to be fast or slow sometimes. Curiously, more panels per page make the pace slower, not faster. Comics are not music. There are two paces, to make it clearer. The inner pace of the story, and the outer, of the person reading the comic. More panels fragment the inner pace more, it's like slow motion. And they also make the reader spend more time on each page. The comic becomes laborious. Interestingly, there isn't a faster panel to make than single-panel-per-page. The act of turning the page excites the reader and makes them complicit. The more you can make them do it, the faster they'll read. But that's also how they sometimes don't pay enough attention or miss details. And you can make the reader pay for that. It's great!<br />
<br />
5b. HOWEVER, if the page is full of panels but they're mostly empty or sparsely drawn, then the reader will pick up their pace, even if the pace of the comic will still be perieced as very slow. This starts to feel like an artsy film with long, laborious shots of walls, an empty street, the sky. Vice versa, single-panel-per-page comics where each panel is super-laboured on the rendering becomes a storybook. Imagine a few Gustave Dore paintings in a row. The reader will read that sequence very slow. But the inner pace could be three seconds. Good for injecting gravity in a sequence. Remember the car crash in ZX.<br />
<br />
6. Furthermore the choices of how a page is constructed are not clearly about only pace. There's also aesthetic considerations of how the page looks 'on the whole', or to say, if you move a few feet away from the screen and look at it from afar, as if it's some sort of cubist painting. The balance of blacks and whites, so on. Some peculiar intuitive rules on construction, somewhat akin to compositional guidelines for painting seem to apply. This means there shouldn't be too many primary focal points on the page and they should be arranged in some harmony. Unless the artist is pushing it on purpose, which I enjoy.</div>
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6b. A different solution to this problem is setting up a utilitarian grid for the page that is always the same. Then the reader will stop looking at the page 'on the whole' and focus just on each panel. This makes the comic more cinematic, for good or worse. Check out Watchmen for very serious grid work, and some cheeky subversion of this rule too (forcing the reader to look at the page on the whole, or hiding meanings if they do at least).</div>
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: -webkit-auto;">There's a million other things, but we should talk with examples. Show me some pages you're interested (from any comic, not just mine) in if you want to discuss how they're constructed. </span><br />
<span class="fullpost">
</span></div>Helmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00584102280299430293noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9076033512154958207.post-16828442294830235142012-05-07T13:40:00.000+03:002012-05-07T13:50:55.645+03:00Recent commentary on my other book<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Found <a href="http://asides-bsides.blogspot.com/b/post-preview?token=HUGaKDcBAAA.coDvjd0yfOHLeWULEQxkUg.QcGRILf5W5xJl1CcUGkG2w&postId=1682844229483023514&type=POST">here</a>.<br />
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<br />
Translated to English for the benefit of international readers:<br />
<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
George said...<br />
<br />
ΟΚ...80% of this album give off the sense that nothing of what we go through each day has any particular meaning to it. I say to you a resounding 'come on!'. 'Nihilism' I think, is the word. You did you provide any solution to your readers... In my opinion if you stood 100% behind what you created, you'd be dead by now (possibly by commiting suicide). What makes you keep on going IN SPITE of the troublesome worries inherent in life, that you neglected to let us know in the 50 pages of your book. (And do not think that the epilogue of the book saves you any face by playing the part of the artist that shows you the TRUTH that you unenlightened beings cannot see. That role in my opinion is the most passive. In any case, what you show in your comics, I see in life as well and I try to combat it. If I didn't do this, I'd die. You just made me feel like shit... where is the good in that in any degree, huh? I mean no offence, I also make comics.</blockquote>
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My answer and resulting dialogue below.<br />
<span class="fullpost">
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I replied...<br />
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I did not get into making comics to give you answers about anything. It's self evident that I still exist. In your own comics I urge you to try to give answers to life's questions and see how that reverberates inside you. I do not care much for didacticism. If you approach ZX as a manual on how to live life, it ends up more like a manual to a death, yes. But as I said, I am still here, so that probably was not the intention (of the book). My hypocricy is probably not the only explanation to this.<br />
<br />
In any case, if you felt like shit, that's probably better for me to you not having felt anything after reading. You're still there as well, after all. Aren't you?<br />
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</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="fullpost">George said...</span><br />
<span class="fullpost">Oh yes, I am alive!! But I'd be interested to find out your goals are when you draw your comics. Perhaps for you it is beneficial to get some things off of your chest... but what about us, your readers? I do not think you're asking enough of us. I just have seen a lot of artistic works which people would characterize as dark and pessimistic or even depressing and they still have some light to them that shines through the darkness. Your is just... I mean, it's just the path that leads many to suicide. That is, my comment stands for 80% of it, because there were parts I enjoyed, like the story with the grandfather. In my opinion we live in a world where the difficult task is to find a reason to keep on existing, we need to search for it and we need to fight for it. And that's what I think humanity has reflexively done for all these years. We're a spoiled generation and I think we have taken it for granted that everything's going to be perfect. If my grandmother, who lost her father at age six, her father at age eleven, her three brothers at war, if she let despair take hold of her she would have never married. I would have never been born. Almost twenty people would not exist today, and she would not have experienced a full life herself thereafter. Flora longs for sunlight, not for darkness. It is the darkness that is readily found everywhere, just everywhere. But light is scarce. Perhaps it's just me. Perhaps for other people it would be more beneficial to get slapped around a little bit to wake up from their rosy existence. But 99% of people do not live a rosy existence... and many of them are living in situations which we cannot imagine in our worst nightmares.</span></blockquote>
<span class="fullpost">
<br />
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I understand what you're wondering about. What is the purpose of 'dark' art. The only obligation for art is to provide access. Every comic I've drawn so far has provided access to something, melancholy, small hope, something funny, an alienating moment, something illogical, something beautiful (I hope). These are my noteworthy offerings. I make these comics with a personal stake, it is not an easy process.<br />
<br />
I do not see what is so suicidal about 'Ektos Thematos', I have to say. Initially when I read your comment I thought you were talking about my second and newest album 'ZX'. Perhaps you should avoid that one if 'Ektos Thematos' seemed too heavy for you. Then again, perhaps not.<br />
<br />
What can I say? I enjoy heavy art. I like to be moved, I like the access. It makes me feel alive and hopeful and energetic. I realize that it may not be the same for you, but I do not think you'll die from it.<br />
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I do not like the idea that I'm putting my burdens on my readers. No burden is 'removed' from me. It's still on me. And my readers should claim ownership for their own melancholy. I provide access. If you were so saddened by 'Ektos Thematos' and you do not enjoy melancholy, why didn't you stop reading half-way?<br />
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As to light and flora, I would rather avoid the literary reply. My aim with 'Ektos Thematos' was to provide access to noteworthy emotions. Access doesn't hurt anybody. Nobody killed themselves for reading a poem. They killed themselves for X reason and there was a poem that underlined it, perhaps.<br />
<br />
Where you say that "and many of them are living in situations which we cannot imagine in our worst nightmares." That's not enough. I need access. Make a comic, show me what you found noteworthy, show me my worst nightmares if you can. Take that risk.<br />
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Otherwise 'the suffering of the Other' is an academic point, and an underhanded rhetoric device at that.<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
George said...<br />
Ok.. Sorry for all of this but the invitation of feedback (found in the intro to your book) was just too enticing. A final question, perhaps a bit cliche... which are your biggest influences? I know, probably too numerous to note, but if you could list 5-6 artists or works that moved you, which would they be? They don't have to be comic-related.<br />
P.S.1 The parts about wars and gardening, I realize they sounded somewhat childish and faux-romantic, but I do think they are necessary for most of us and basically everybody uses these concepts whether they aknowledge it or not.<br />
P.S.2 Excuse me but now I have to find a different comic artist to yell at, teehee. It has been interesting.. thank you.</blockquote>
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My influences as a comic artist are expansive. If you're interested, check out Barry W. Smith from the US, Andrea Pazienza from Europe and Yukito Kishiro from Japan. In a more general sense, I have been moved by a great deal of Heavy Metal music like My Dying Bride, Fates Warning or Lordian Guard.<br />
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I appreciate the contact.<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
George said...<br />
Truly, I am sorry to keep this up but now that the Greek neo-nazi party "Golden Dawn" has come out of the electorial process with a 7% of the vote, don't you think it's time to use your artistic capability for a little bit of didacticism (even though I know you abhor it)? It would do a lot of good for us.</blockquote>
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No, I do not desire to teach anyone anything, political or otherwise, through my comics. If you do desire it, I urge you to do it in your own work, George.<br />
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----<br />
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I thought the dialogue was important, in understanding not just "Ektos Thematos" (for anyone else that has had trouble with it, I presume) but also "ZX". Art should be honest, and I do not believe anyone that wants to teach other people ethics, politics or any other 'way to live' is honest. I think the awe towards existence and that one hasn't come to any concrete answers about what life means is a honest thing to convey in art, if it has been felt. It builds a much stronger bridge with other people as a shared experience than any political message to push down their throats. ZX is a dark comic (much darker than "Ektos Thematos" whose darkness had been mitigated by attempts at humour to initially sell the premise to the publisher) and it's a much better comic for it. "Ektos Thematos" is bookended by periods of depression. ZX is a dark story that starts dark and ends less dark, because it is bookended by awe towards the unfathomable illogic in the center of sapience. It is a significant, if not the most significant thing I've wished to express. "Thanatos" is there. "Eros" must follow. I cannot and do not wish to 'teach' that awe (also called 'hope'). I wanted to express it. My life has become much better for expressing it. There is no message, there is only sentiment.<br /></span></div>Helmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00584102280299430293noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9076033512154958207.post-13279119619288881202012-04-06T14:13:00.003+03:002012-04-06T14:25:43.192+03:00ZX wins an award.At this year's Comicdom Con, ZX was nominated for 'Best Fanzine'. You can see a video of the whole ceremony below. I'm the awkward person taking the award at around 8-9 minutes in and saying not very much to the microphone ("thank you very much" for you foreign barbarians). A few more thoughts after the video/jump.<br /><br /><span class="fullpost"><br /><iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/6_pAjIY2y_s" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br />The category was "Best Fanzine". In Greece, the term 'fanzine' is misused. What the term really means is a small (but not necessarily) print run publication, usually periodical (as in, there are more than one issues and they come out incrementally) whose subject is an examination of culture; Say, if I were a big fan of a football club (like AEK, or Olympiacos) and I put out 'Olympiacos Monthly' on a shoestring budget, that could classify as a fan-zine. Usually fanzines are about underground music, though. Most often punk and indie, and that's where we got the term from, as in Greece there is a tradition for the usual xerox'ed anarchopunk fanzine as there is all around the world. <br /><br />Comics were gradually introduced in fanzine pages, and slowly comics-only fanzines started coming out. Again, it is valid to call something a fanzine if it's comics-only, but the comics in it deal with an item of culture. If let's say I were to put out a small run comic full of my own Superman stories, that's indeed a fanzine. <br /><br />But ZX is not a fanzine in this respect. It is a privately funded small print comic book. I am not complaining or anything, in fact I am very grateful for the recognition. Just saying, for the future, the Greek scene should stop calling small press comics fanzines. Many 'proper' comics are small press as well. If the distinction is an economic one, then 'small press' is the proper term. If the distinction is a cultural one (subject matter and point of view related) then though I understand using 'fanzine' for historical reasons, there should be steps taken to use clearer terminology in the future. Self-published is a useful term.<br /><br />There will be other, pertinent news in the next few weeks. This blog might be coming out of its hiatus soon.<br /><br />All the best to you, readers. If there's any of you left.<br /></span>Helmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00584102280299430293noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9076033512154958207.post-82153927020399051482011-11-22T05:02:00.004+02:002011-11-22T05:06:55.749+02:00Helm is -evidently- taking some time off<a href="http://locustleaves.com/2els2hc.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 581px;" src="http://locustleaves.com/2els2hc.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br />Nothing after the jump.<span class="fullpost"><br /><img src="http://i.imgur.com/Huxw1.jpg" /><br />Return here when it's time.<br /></span>Helmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00584102280299430293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9076033512154958207.post-27608440344129349872011-09-03T05:33:00.003+03:002011-09-03T06:11:31.799+03:00Belated mixed bagLife marches on. Here's a selection of recent illustration work, some personal scribbles and a small update of the goings on in Helmland.
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<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.locustleaves.com/taxi_small.png"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 336px;" src="http://www.locustleaves.com/taxi_small.png" alt="" border="0" /></a>
<br /><i>(as usual, click twice for larger images)</i>
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<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.locustleaves.com/loverdos_small.png"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 318px;" src="http://www.locustleaves.com/loverdos_small.png" alt="" border="0" /></a>
<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.locustleaves.com/uncletom3.png"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 401px; height: 229px;" src="http://www.locustleaves.com/uncletom3.png" alt="" border="0" /></a>
<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.locustleaves.com/xristofias3_small.png"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 566px;" src="http://www.locustleaves.com/xristofias3_small.png" alt="" border="0" /></a>
<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.locustleaves.com/europa2_small.png"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 399px; height: 298px;" src="http://www.locustleaves.com/europa2_small.png" alt="" border="0" /></a>
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<br />I enjoyed some of these more than others, but I'm trying to keep my technique on a certain level regardless of the style of illustration. I'm getting faster, but I also get the feeling I should be going slower... more on this at some further point where my feelings have solidified some.
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<br />Turns out I wasn't done with Scribbler!
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<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.locustleaves.com/Scribbler_27.png"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 288px;" src="http://www.locustleaves.com/Scribbler_27.png" alt="" border="0" /></a>
<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.locustleaves.com/Scribbler_26.png"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 280px;" src="http://www.locustleaves.com/Scribbler_26.png" alt="" border="0" /></a>
<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.locustleaves.com/Scribbler_28.png"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 399px; height: 286px;" src="http://www.locustleaves.com/Scribbler_28.png" alt="" border="0" /></a>
<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.locustleaves.com/Scribbler_29.png"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 271px;" src="http://www.locustleaves.com/Scribbler_29.png" alt="" border="0" /></a>
<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.locustleaves.com/Scribbler_25.png"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 401px; height: 256px;" src="http://www.locustleaves.com/Scribbler_25.png" alt="" border="0" /></a>
<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.locustleaves.com/Scribbler_24.png"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 295px;" src="http://www.locustleaves.com/Scribbler_24.png" alt="" border="0" /></a>
<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.locustleaves.com/Scribbler_23.png"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 402px; height: 265px;" src="http://www.locustleaves.com/Scribbler_23.png" alt="" border="0" /></a>
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<br />Some of these are lonely life-drawing studies, obviously. Others are from dream & imagination, as is more usual to me.
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<br />So I've settled in my new apartment and it's had a profound positive psychological effect on me. My distance from blogging as of late should not be interpreted as indicative of dire goings on, far the opposite, it seems I blog the most (and in the bitterest tone in Poetry of Subculture, I should add) the worse I'm feeling. Ultimately, my release from the blogosphere shall be the tolling of a new bell, yes. This blog is on the ebb because I'm not making a comic right now. The other blog is at high tide because I'm listening to Heavy Metal as much as I ever have, yet the silver key that is missing is entirely outside the artistic realm.
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<br />I've also done a very mediocre cover of Lordian Guard's 'Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God'. If you like this music (as well you should) and wondered how the lead voice is played, or perhaps you are a guitarist with time and ambition, you could do worse than watch this.
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<br />What else... I'm planning a short vacation to a greek island to meet up with friends I've sorely missed for the last couple of years, this is exciting. I won't be off for long, a mere four days, but it'll be revitalizing for sure.
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<br />I've been socializing a lot lately, trying to work myself into some sort of balance. This has been achieved, but I suspect it's a false balance for the weighs are uneven. I am currently single (though looking... in some fashion, I guess) and I've always done well to maintain pride and optimism when single (though my optimism manifests in dire declarations of darkest romance, such is the case with many self-important artists!) the real test is when there's common wellbeing at stake. We shall see. Studious introspection and therapeutic discourse seem to have <i>some</i> effect, at least. Aside from healing, self-awareness and a meta-narrative with explanational power, yes.
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<br />Today has been a very creative day. I shall try to fill the weekend either with breathing, talking faces, or with more artistry, let's not let it go to waste.
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<br />-Helm</span>Helmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00584102280299430293noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9076033512154958207.post-27740546415558488032011-07-08T23:21:00.002+03:002011-07-08T23:28:35.184+03:00Move almost done, also, a few decent illustrations<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://locustleaves.com/iznogoud2_s.png"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 281px;" src="http://locustleaves.com/iznogoud2_s.png" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />Based on <a href="http://locustleaves.com/Iznogoud%28F%29.png">this illustration</a> by Tabary. I never was the biggest fan of Iznogoud but it's one of these cases where after Goscinny stopped on it and Tabary kept going, the comic turned for the better (unlike Lucky Luke and Asterix). The more paranoiac-depressive Iznogoud gets, the best it is.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif<br /><br />More after the jump.<br /><br /><span class="fullpost"><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://locustleaves.com/tsipras_small.png"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 401px; height: 310px;" src="http://locustleaves.com/tsipras_small.png" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />This one's actually one of the few I'm kind of pleased with, on the technical end. Again, it would stand to get another render/detail pass if I wanted it to look more convincing, but for what it is, I'm glad to have developed the skill and speed to do this sort of work.<br /><br />In other news, I bought a bed and a desk and I'm moving out of here and in the new apartment, hopefully until Thursday max. I'm really looking forward to it, as we (roommate and I) have created quite a nice living space there and this is the sort of change that's good for me. I'll post a few pictures after we're done settling in.<br /><br />-Helm</span>Helmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00584102280299430293noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9076033512154958207.post-30293419093240085742011-06-20T11:01:00.004+03:002011-06-20T11:30:57.619+03:00Scribbled ends, more work, thoughts<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.locustleaves.com/reppas.png"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 402px; height: 228px;" src="http://www.locustleaves.com/reppas.png" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.locustleaves.com/mimis_small.png"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 401px; height: 434px;" src="http://www.locustleaves.com/mimis_small.png" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />As usual, click for intended sizes.<br /><span class="fullpost"><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.locustleaves.com/petalotis2_s.png"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 563px;" src="http://www.locustleaves.com/petalotis2_s.png" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />The color work is getting faster and more streamlined. I'm working under very tight deadlines. Eventually I'll become fast enough that I will be able to experiment more with formalist aspects even within those strict timeframes. I am enjoying my work more, at least. Some pieces are more painterly, others are more comic arty in their method, a good balance to keep me interested and the results relatively fresh. Now on to the last (? see below) batch of Scribbles.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.locustleaves.com/Scribbler_21.png"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 395px;" src="http://www.locustleaves.com/Scribbler_21.png" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />Self portrait. This is probably my pick from the lot and my second favorite self-portrait on the whole. There's a slight psychoanalytical comment in this on how I use complexity as obfuscation, and therefore, as a shield. It's a reminder to untangle myself. That such a potent (for me) piece occurred through scribbling means the experiment was generally successful.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.locustleaves.com/Scribbler_20.png"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 401px; height: 272px;" src="http://www.locustleaves.com/Scribbler_20.png" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />This is about details. Where the neck meets the jaw.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.locustleaves.com/Scribbler_22.png"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 399px; height: 239px;" src="http://www.locustleaves.com/Scribbler_22.png" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />This is just cyberpunk faux-machinery stress relief inking. The last one I've made and the one that made me feel as if I'm done with Scribbler for now.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.locustleaves.com/Scribbler_17.png"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 293px;" src="http://www.locustleaves.com/Scribbler_17.png" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />This isn't very good, but included for the soft approach. The program's not too suited for this.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.locustleaves.com/Scribbler_18.png"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 393px;" src="http://www.locustleaves.com/Scribbler_18.png" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />This one was fun to do. It says "Thresholds" at the top. It's a re-imagining of a Heavy Metal album cover by the band Nocturnus, done from memory. I checked later to see how close it was. <a href="http://www.metal-archives.com/images/6/4/6/646.jpg">Not at all</a>. This is also one of the rare pieces that I did where I started from a black base, hence the kind of chalky highlights and so on. Neat.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.locustleaves.com/Scribbler_16.png"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 400px;" src="http://www.locustleaves.com/Scribbler_16.png" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />This is Roger Dean-esque stress relief. Enjoyable for me and a continuation from Scribbler_12b.png. Perhaps the ink hatching was a bit too harsh for the intended effect.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.locustleaves.com/Scribbler_15.png"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 402px; height: 273px;" src="http://www.locustleaves.com/Scribbler_15.png" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />This is joyfully (or perhaps, morosely) subtitled "I am on the internet!". This little bird character has this wonderful landscape vantage from his treehouse and yet he browses.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.locustleaves.com/Scribbler_19.png"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 401px; height: 252px;" src="http://www.locustleaves.com/Scribbler_19.png" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />The finality of the above theme. Trapped.<br /><br />Scribbler helped in a very direct way with getting me back into drawing for pleasure. After ZX I've grown accustomed and perhaps dependent on 'perfect inking'. Great DPI, greater zoom strength, curve correction and other such OCD processes that make my inking perhaps a bit sterile. Once I got the critique "Helm, now that you ink digitally your stuff is worse" to which I replied "this is how I always wanted to ink so uh, bad luck for us both I guess". My aspiration for 'perfect lines' will never be satiated. <br /><br />However this is akin to writing a book and never going on page two until the syntax and grammar (not to say the notions and thoughts) are absolutely as perfect as they can be. This is how I made ZX (more or less, nothing perfect there, but surely a struggle towards this direction) and I believe someone can write such a book if it a very important book to write, for their psychological well being.<br /><br />However for faster, simpler, stress-relief work, this obsession with perfection is counter-intuitive. Scribbler helped in that it has no zoom and its mechanic for rendering is just a tad unpredictable. There has been a reconciliation with roughness in ink through it. I wonder if it'll impact my high-purpose work as well. I don't really know if I'm done with Scribbler completely, but I know that I'm done with using it every day for a while, at least. It's been therapeutic, but there's further steps to take now. I'm in the middle of moving out, life is happening!<br /></span>Helmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00584102280299430293noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9076033512154958207.post-27318642039868317852011-05-31T14:31:00.003+03:002011-05-31T14:35:04.393+03:00Scribble me that<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.locustleaves.com/Scribbler_11.png"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 256px;" src="http://www.locustleaves.com/Scribbler_11.png" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.locustleaves.com/Scribbler_13.png"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 255px;" src="http://www.locustleaves.com/Scribbler_13.png" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />The scribbling never ends.<br /><span class="fullpost"><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.locustleaves.com/Scribbler_14d.png"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 374px;" src="http://www.locustleaves.com/Scribbler_14d.png" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.locustleaves.com/Scribbler_12b.png"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 402px; height: 257px;" src="http://www.locustleaves.com/Scribbler_12b.png" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><br /></span>Helmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00584102280299430293noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9076033512154958207.post-89825004847073144132011-05-28T16:17:00.002+03:002011-05-28T16:27:50.694+03:00Scribble me this<a href="http://www.zefrank.com/scribbler/scribblertoo/">This</a> little program is really enjoyable.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://locustleaves.com/Scribbler_1.png"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 402px; height: 400px;" src="http://locustleaves.com/Scribbler_1.png" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />More after the jump<span class="fullpost"><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://locustleaves.com/Scribbler_1b.png"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 374px;" src="http://locustleaves.com/Scribbler_1b.png" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://locustleaves.com/Scribbler_2.png"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 400px;" src="http://locustleaves.com/Scribbler_2.png" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://locustleaves.com/Scribbler_3.png"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 400px;" src="http://locustleaves.com/Scribbler_3.png" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://locustleaves.com/Scribbler_5.png"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 399px; height: 399px;" src="http://locustleaves.com/Scribbler_5.png" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://locustleaves.com/Scribbler_7.png"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 400px;" src="http://locustleaves.com/Scribbler_7.png" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://locustleaves.com/Scribbler_8.png"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 400px;" src="http://locustleaves.com/Scribbler_8.png" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://locustleaves.com/Scribbler_9d.png"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 399px; height: 276px;" src="http://locustleaves.com/Scribbler_9d.png" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://locustleaves.com/Scribbler_10.png"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 276px;" src="http://locustleaves.com/Scribbler_10.png" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br />I like it because it forces me to work directly in ink without much - non messy - method for correction, and of course because of how it behaves where closeby lines are introduced. These are chronological, so you can see how I increasingly tried to get it to behave like a regular inking tool (culminating in the image of the virginal goddess of hunt, Dianna) and how the one I did right after it (person reading book on vacation) I tried to let the capacity of the program dictate the style again. I might do more of these!<br /><br />And if any of you draw anything with it, please show me.</span>Helmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00584102280299430293noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9076033512154958207.post-85378549222715614322011-05-04T02:00:00.007+03:002011-05-04T02:17:52.663+03:00Helm is 27 today.<div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://locustleaves.com/forest.png"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 320px;" src="http://locustleaves.com/forest.png" alt="" border="0" /></a><i>the future upwards expanding</i><br /></div><br /><br />So, another year closer to thirty. Thoughts and resolutions follow.<span class="fullpost"><br /><br />This year was a mixed bag. The resolution was, I believe, to get a job and/or publish the comic (ZX). Both of these goals have been achieved. A hidden internal goal of the last few years was also to achieve some sort of equilibrium between the internal drives and what I require from the people close to me. How to use them but not abuse them and how to be a better friend. It seems much more work has to be done in this front, but before I can tackle that, I need to feel more of an adult. So the next step is to become mobile and self-sustaining. In this vein, I'm planning to move out and get a motorbike license. And possibly find additional work to secure these new movements.<br /><br />My emotional life has been in turmoil in the last 4-5 months, and this is one of the reasons I haven't been posting as much as I had in the past (the other being that I don't have many comics to post at the moment!). Pushing aside the feeling of disappointment and despondency (disaffection, disassociation, dissomething or another) I realize that half of the weight of this result, at least, rests on my shoulders. It is difficult to become a human. And I'll tell you readers why that is:<br /><br />There's things inherent to one's personality they cannot tinker with without upsetting everything else that makes one what they are, good and bad. And there's other aspects of them that are unfavorable and it's moderately possible to amend them, to become a better human. A friend or lover or other such close person has an obligation towards you to make a judgment call on which of the debris of one's personality are which. They may say "this is just Helm being Helm and we shall accept him as he is" and this is healing and good if the aspect of the personality they are accepting is inherent and motivates both good and bad reflexes. That I am a person very prone to (over)analysis and navelgazing is such a characteristic. It cannot be fixed, I don't need anyone to try to fix it for me. <br /><br />But there's also surface aspects of one's personality that, when accepted, tend to fester. That's where you need vigilant friends and close ones to push you along the road to betterment, not people that completely 'accept you as you are'. I'm struggling with some such issues, I am not sure where it'll lead. I wonder why humans feel such tremendous self-doubt, where this comes from and what purpose it serves and I haven't come up with any answers. I need to work a lot, and it seems, sometimes, work a lot alone to get to something concrete on this front. <br /><br />So, along with 'growing up' a bit this year, moving out, being self-sustaining and all that, my parallel goal is the great work of self-understanding and self-acceptance in tandem. Not one without the other. Difficult balance through a misty field. The way is dim but somehow I may yet find it.<br /></span>Helmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00584102280299430293noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9076033512154958207.post-35014660548575061192011-04-28T14:44:00.003+03:002011-04-28T14:54:08.528+03:00ZX in storesIf you'd like to buy ZX from one of these following stores: Solaris, Comicon, Πολιτεία, Πρωτοπορία, Χρηστάκης, Τζεβελέκου you now can. Jemma also, soon.<br /><br />You can order online <a href="http://www.comicworld.gr/index.php?s=products&pid=2323">here</a>.<br /><br /><br />Nothing much after the jump, just contentment.<br /><br /><span class="fullpost"><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://locustleaves.com/contentment.png"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 253px;" src="http://locustleaves.com/contentment.png" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /></span>Helmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00584102280299430293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9076033512154958207.post-2131546722503780802011-04-17T12:59:00.004+03:002011-04-17T17:15:24.503+03:00Recent work that I forgot to post<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://locustleaves.com/sarkozi_s.png"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 401px; height: 223px;" src="http://locustleaves.com/sarkozi_s.png" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><center><i>Esteemed mr. Sarkozy and wife take a tour of Libya.<br /></i></center><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://locustleaves.com/apognosh_s.png"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 564px;" src="http://locustleaves.com/apognosh_s.png" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><center><i>Greek business owners in anguish</i></center><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://locustleaves.com/tina_s.png"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 401px; height: 186px;" src="http://locustleaves.com/tina_s.png" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><center><i>Tina mpirmpili, Greek Environmental Minister in contrasting political shades</i></center><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://locustleaves.com/dora_s.png"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 401px; height: 186px;" src="http://locustleaves.com/dora_s.png" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><center>Daughter of politics and elder vampire father despair over recent poll figures. Yet they always survive.</center><br /><span class="fullpost"><br /><br />Of the lot I am partial to the greek businessmen one. For once it printed large and very clear. Also, I utilized my comic art skills more than on the more painterly pieces I've been doing recently. I enjoy utilizing the skills I'm most familiar with, so it's a constant back-and-forth between painterly pieces I'm slowlhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gify getting a handle on and more confident but perhaps styleclashing comic ink & color pieces. I'll follow both muses, split myself in half. From the husk a better man emerges.<br /><br />Also if you're interested in Helmlife, <a href="http://poetry-of-subculture.blogspot.com/2011/04/fifteen-years-of-accumulated-spring.html">there's a post in Poetry of Subculture</a> which has more to do with that than with the Gods of Steel, so go, go!<br /><br />I am listening to King Diamond's "Them". It is very good. What are you enjoying, readers?<br /><br /></span>Helmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00584102280299430293noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9076033512154958207.post-89109481435344073052011-04-12T00:21:00.007+03:002011-04-12T00:38:01.207+03:00Thank you / Ευχαριστώ πολύ<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://asides-bsides.blogspot.com/2011/04/thank-you.html"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 533px;" src="http://locustleaves.com/DSC05154.png" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><br />It is done. It exists and it has been bought by numerous wonderful people. I feel elation not unlike that after having given birth. This is said with the lack of weight characteristic to the gender that will never have that experience and therefore approximates it with artistic endeavours, but even so!<br /><br />Thank you to every single one of you that paid patronage for the book. I sincerely wish you are not burdened by the story and that you find something positive in it, as this is how it is meant. If you'd like to give something further back, you could discuss the book and your impressions in the comments here, or <a href="http://www.locustleaves.com/contact.html">e-mail me in private</a> (if you're the shy type).<br /><br /><br /><br />Below repeats the same message in Greek.<br /><br /><span class="fullpost"><br /><br />Έγινε, υπάρχει και το αγόρασαν πολλοί υπέροχοι άνθρωποι. Νοιώθω ξαλάφρωμα ανάλογο μετά της γέννας. Το λέω αυτό με την ανάλαφρη διάθεση χαρακτηριστική του φύλλου που ποτέ δεν θα την έχει αυτή την εμπειρία και μπορεί μόνο να την προσεγγίσει με δημιουργήματα τέχνης, άλλα έστω!<br /><br />Ευχαριστώ τον κάθε ένα σας που αγόρασε το βιβλίο. Ειλικρινά ελπίζω να μην σας βαραίνει και να βρείτε κάτι θετικό μέσα του, εγώ έτσι το εννόησα. Αν θέλετε να δώσετε κάτι σαν επιπλέον αντίδωρο, μπορείτε να συζητήσετε τις εντυπώσεις σας από το βιβλίο στα σχόλια παρακάτω, ή να μου στείλετε ιδιαίτερος μήνυμα <a href="http://www.locustleaves.com/contact.html">εδώ</a> (εάν ντρέπεστε) .<br /></span>Helmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00584102280299430293noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9076033512154958207.post-55659599658408660162011-04-08T09:51:00.003+03:002011-04-08T09:57:08.400+03:00ZX says: Come to Comicdom<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://asides-bsides.blogspot.com/2011/04/zx-says-come-to-comicdom.html"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 532px;" src="http://www.locustleaves.com/100_1093.JPG" alt="" border="0" /></a><span class="fullpost"><br /><br />That is all.</span>Helmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00584102280299430293noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9076033512154958207.post-13717679013480368032011-03-26T14:56:00.005+02:002011-03-26T15:18:20.857+02:00ZX coming out, finally!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://locustleaves.com/ZXpromo.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 566px;" src="http://locustleaves.com/ZXpromo.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><br />I have maintained radio silence for a while because this was in the works. So, at april 8, I am debuting the Greek-language publication of the all-improved, all-augmented, all morale-debilitating ZX comic on the <a href="http://www.comicdom.gr/about-comicdom-con/">Comicdom Convention</a>. If you'd like to buy it, you could do worse than come over and say hi to me while you're at it.<br /><span class="fullpost"><br /><br />If you're shy and/or hate filthy longhairs, you could pick it up at the usual Athens comics shops, and also for the first time, select bookstores (more info on that after the convention). If you'd like to make a direct order for whatever reason, this can be arranged (click on 'contact).<br /><br />I'm very proud of how things have turned out with this comic on the whole. It's high time I release it to the wild, finally. I plan for there to be an international, English language release eventually. If nothing better comes up, at least as 'print on demand'.<br /><br />I learned Quark Xpress in the span of two days in order to format the book. If you want something killed, you have to slay it yourself. But! In contrast with past self-publishing efforts, this comic is going to be distributed by the lovely folks at <a href="http://www.comicworld.gr/">Comicworld,</a> which will mean you stand more of a chance to actually find it in comics-relevant shops! Baby steps towards relevancy.<br /><br /><br />Excitement.<br /><br />-Helm<br /><br /></span>Helmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00584102280299430293noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9076033512154958207.post-14502614344924977492011-02-24T16:25:00.003+02:002011-02-24T16:55:30.623+02:00More work, ZX update, more 'what I did', et cetera<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.locustleaves.com/invisible_goverment_s.png"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 402px; height: 241px;" src="http://www.locustleaves.com/invisible_goverment_s.png" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.locustleaves.com/tsampa_ellada_s.png"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 403px; height: 241px;" src="http://www.locustleaves.com/tsampa_ellada_s.png" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><i>Click and click again for larger sizes. </i><br /><br />First one is a 'nobody wants to be in charge when they pieces fall' type of thing, the second makes more sense for you foreigner savages if you look at a geographical map of Greece. The person doing the hacking is the esteemed mr. Papakonstantinou, featured once before.<br /><br />As usual, if any of these strike a chord with the reader, feel free to link them around and whatnot. This is the purpose of political commentary.<span class="fullpost"><br /><br />Strangely, streamlining my process (to make increasingly hard deadlines) called for a return to digital inking, and a more watercolor type of soft wash. In any case, I'm getting faster/(better?). I regret how the second image is a photo trace, but deadline ridiculous called for 'anything that works' measures.<br /><br />On other news! I've finally inked half of the missing chapter of ZX. Four out of the eight pages are done right now. The two first are introductory vignettes (seriously ten minutes to draw each), the middle two are heavy duty proper inking proper pages of proper artistry, then there's two sparser Eisner-ian pages that won't take too long to do. And then there's the final page, a comic strip I have in the past been torn on whether to do or not, to give a 'full circle' feel to the comic. I'd say I'm almost halfway with my final obligations towards this comic. Here's a teaser image of one of the more challenging inked pages.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.locustleaves.com/tease.png" /><br /><i>Clicking for bigger sizes will prove fruitless. Buy the comic instead!</i><br /><br />I'm proud of how this one in particular turned out. Hopefully next week, at the most the week after that, I'll be putting my final ink stains on ZX. And not a moment too soon, as we'll be going to the printers right after, and on the 8th of April it'll be for sale at Comicdom con. (I'll be posting more about this as the time approaches).<br /><br />On other other news, one-coining ESP Galuda must have given me extra strength, because this week I managed to defeat an old foe of mine, Dodonpachi. Here's how this old devil plays, to give you an idea.<br /><br /><iframe title="YouTube video player" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/6Dw9Euq9GVA" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="390" width="480"></iframe><br /><br />Actually it wasn't the second wind from finishing Galuda that pushed this one over the edge after years and years of playing. It was Ptoing (fellow shooter aficionado) telling me in conversation that I should switch from the red - laser ship to blue - shot ship, if I want to survive the first loop. So I did, and after a few days of re-training (blue ship is slower and its laser is much, much weaker than I have been used to) I one-coined this one as well! I bombed the hell out of the last boss. Let's just say that if DDP had auto-bomb on bullet proximity, I'd have finished the first loop years ago.<br /><br />This is meaningless to the reader not familiar with the joys and frustrations of really hard video-games (or really hard hobbies in general, I'd expect) but it's a significant event in the lives of those given to such vices. I've been playing DDP off and on for what feels like at least six years, but it could be seven or eight too. To finally achieve some closure on such an endeavor has surprising psychological benefits. I feel like I can beat up a mountain right now. It's no wonder I inked for twelve hours in the span of two days. When I finished ESP Galuda I was somewhat "meh" about it, but here, after I got the Game Over screen there was straight-up primal hollering and sweaty adrenaline airfists and everything. Yes I realize that saying such things to the internet drastically increases my chances of sleeping alone for a long, long time to come, but hey. I'm Helm, I'm (trying to feel) fine with myself, how are you doing?<br /><br />My fucking <i>credentials</i>, son<br /><br /><center><img style="width: 400px; height: 531px;" src="http://www.locustleaves.com/victory.png" /></center><br /><br />May the long-beaked stoic one reside in the pantheon forever!<br /><br /><br />Reality check: This is a small victory, as veteran arcade shooter players know. There's of course, a full <i>second loop</i> of Dodonpachi after the first one, which one is granted access too only on specialized conditions (scoring over 50,000,0000 points, only dying once or twice, getting all the hidden score items in at least four stages, that sort of thing). This second loop is somewhat harder than the first and at the end of it you face the true boss of the game, Hibachi.<br /><br /><iframe title="YouTube video player" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/7SsPD2hmAMo" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="390" width="480"></iframe><br /><br />Here's however that I draw a line. I'm not an obsessive achiever, I played DDP for all this time because it's a fun game to me, it seems perfectly balanced at the exact edge where my skill runs out and just before frustration sets in. I probably will still play it on and off, perhaps improve my score a bit here and there, but I'm completely resigned to that defeating the boss above is beyond my projected skill even years down the line. I have better things to do than train DDP every day concentrated for months (or possibly years) to achieve an one-coin two loop clear. So be happy for me for getting halfway there while still retaining some semblance of a social existence.<br /><br />Let's see, what else did I do in the days between this and my last post? Did I post this?<br /><br /><center><img src="http://www.locustleaves.com/quantumbeard_s2.gif" /></center><br />I'm not helping my case with these projects, am I?<br /><br /><br />-Helm</span>Helmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00584102280299430293noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9076033512154958207.post-32640825848942594902011-02-19T18:59:00.005+02:002011-02-19T19:21:05.892+02:00What I did todayThe internet is a strange thing, it leads me from data to data and then the day is suddenly gone. Here's the magical path of today.<br /><br />Early in the morning I <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/02/14/110214fa_fact_wright">read this</a>. It's 26 pages, it took an hour but it was really fascinating if you're interested in the workings of cults and other faith-first based social mechanisms.<br /><br />I found that link in the <a href="http://illogicalcontraption.blogspot.com/2011/02/cientology-space-jazz-sun-ra-this-aint.html">incomparable Illogical Contraption blog</a>, where everything is what it seems, all at once, all the time.<br /><br />Then of course, off of to Wikipedia.<br /><span class="fullpost"><br /><br />There I read the article on L.R.Hubbard again (I have read a biography of his also which I felt was too sensationalized. The slow motion rape was quite interesting, though). There's a link there to Hubbard's connection to black magic. <a href="http://www.lermanet.com/scientology-and-occult/magick.html">This isn't the article, but it's close enough</a>. Couldn't find the real thing. Sometimes tracing the internet back is a dangerous proposition.<br /><br />Somewhere in that article about Hubbard and black magic, there's the connection with Nazi Occultry. This book is namedropped and quoted:<br /><br /></span><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="fullpost"><img src="http://locustleaves.com/kllt.png" /></span><br /></div><span class="fullpost"><br />Which of course I promptly found and read the first fifty pages of, which is frankly, as much as I want to know about Nazi Occult history. But it did fill in some gaps in my understanding of why and how the Nazi regime could hold such sway over the German populous (and no, it doesn't involve any mass castings of spells).<br /><br />In <i>that</i> book, there is a quote of another book, the Black Arts<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://locustleaves.com/books.jpeg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 636px;" src="http://locustleaves.com/books.jpeg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Which I found and read 50 pages of as well. Besides the very Heavy Metal-esque cover, the recounting here is more general and I didn't feel as if I were learning anything new. Somewhere in the middle of all this, I managed to one-coin ESP Galuda. "You managed to what, what?" You might cry. Well, to one-coin something means to play an arcade coin-operated video-game all the way through on one credit. This is a mean feat usually (sometimes not to video game aficionados because some arcade games are generally considered easier than others), especially to the eyes of laymen. I am partial to a type of shooter game called "Bullet Hell". I've been playing DoDonpachi for years and I was at one time close to one-coining the first loop of the game (after which you replay the whole game at an increased difficulty, something I never viewed as an accomplishment for my fragile reflexes). ESP Galuda is a far easier game to DoDonpachi, and after only a few weeks of casual playing, I managed to finish it. My final score was 16 million something something. From such statements you may glean into how little I'm interested in score-based achievement in arcade games. But I finished the damn thing. To give you an impression of what that entails, here, watch this:<br /><br /><iframe title="YouTube video player" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/weNg-Uob6rs" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="390" width="480"></iframe><br /><br />That's the last half-stage and final boss rush.<br /><br /><br />So, eight hours later I am much informed on issues Scientologist, somewhat on Nazi Occultry, barely further on the dark arts at large. I also carved a completely useless notch in my gamer belt and extensively corresponded with a few people on the internet over various common interests. And soon I'm off to watch "Black Swan" in the theater. No work has been achieved, no wisdom gained.<br /><br />My life is half like this, half a mad dash to complete artistic projects at the nick of time. What did you do today?<br /><br />-Helm</span>Helmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00584102280299430293noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9076033512154958207.post-2831999040023662772011-02-13T10:51:00.003+02:002011-02-13T11:06:06.946+02:00More recent work<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://locustleaves.com/troika_food_s.png"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 401px; height: 216px;" src="http://locustleaves.com/troika_food_s.png" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />"Troika rep: Excellent cuisine... you owe me one hundred and eighty euro!"<br /><br />This is topical to a specific situation where representatives of Troika went to have a luxurious dinner in a Greece ravaged by severe economic legislation. But in a way, quite universal as well.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.locustleaves.com/mubarak_s.png"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 401px; height: 240px;" src="http://www.locustleaves.com/mubarak_s.png" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />Ex-president Hosni Mubarak. This is a couple of weeks old, it was drawn while he was still in power. Good riddance.<br /><br />Below the jump, ink and airbrush versions because I like to show steps.<br /><span class="fullpost"><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.locustleaves.com/mubarak_mono_s.png"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 239px;" src="http://www.locustleaves.com/mubarak_mono_s.png" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><br />I quite enjoy airbrush work of this type.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://locustleaves.com/troika_food_mono_s.png"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 294px;" src="http://locustleaves.com/troika_food_mono_s.png" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><br />I generally prefer my black and white linework to the colored versions I do for work, but for this one I tried a few more soft-color techniques that I think worked out pretty well and look quite hand-made, so I guess I'm getting the hang of it.<br /><br /><br /><br />... but all this is just a diversion. What you should be really reading is the post below. What I need to know is about the strength of your love.</span>Helmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00584102280299430293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9076033512154958207.post-86833780908387455922011-02-10T10:14:00.005+02:002011-02-10T11:49:23.992+02:00Of Love and Excrement<div style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://locustleaves.com/muffin.jpeg" /><br /></div><br />I can live with myself insofar that I not only realize I have destructive & insensible tendencies but I embrace them and channel them away from the people around me. Usually they manifest as art or other such narcissistic mirrors, or they just become (the playing of) video-games and wasted time. I sleep relatively alright at night because the moral values I've adopted from peers and family (and which I do not recognize as an ideology or basis of an ideology) dictate that one recalls whom they have hurt before they go to sleep. This is so ingrained in me that I'm actively distraught when I realize I've stood as a detriment to people's feelings and I try to make amends as soon as possible.<br /><br />This is however, a more pleasant way to say I am confrontational and abrupt often in my social communication. I see problem - can we fix problem right now? - problem fixed - let's move on. More life experience, especially in the last couple of years, has shown me that this over-conscious method isn't exactly how people get over past issues. I come from a family of tough cookies who find it difficult to say the words "I'm sorry" at all (and even take pride in this in some warped fashion), so I've used to take inverse pride in at least being able to say these words when I felt I was in the wrong. It's a difficult realization that saying sorry isn't enough some of the time, though. It takes follow-up and careful consideration of distance to make amends. I write these things down so I can remember them.<br /><br /><br />All that said, sometimes seeming like a bad guy is a risk of communication in itself, and I accept this, because I desire things from this world too. Where the other person draws the line in what they're accepting to hear me tell them is something I can't know before I prod the space between us. And although I'm conscious of not appearing like a total jackass, I'm very curious about other people. I think existentially what I wish is to be reminded, often, that I am not the only person in this world (that other people aren't emotional and psycho-intellectual clones of me). We tend to congregate with our similars, so this is easier than it seems to forget.<br /><br />Other people are fascinating. I remind myself of this by putting them on the spot with difficult questions and earnestly awaiting their answer. This post is about one such question I've put to the test many times and the range of responses I've gotten. <span class="fullpost"><br /><br />When I meet people I often grow impatient with small-talk. More in the past than now, but still. I think this is a common experience to introverts, they feel as if they're being manipulated when they extend the will for honest communication and what they get instead are safe pleasantries and bare-level social stroking. This is because honest communication is hard for introverts. It's the mark of a person without much social skill, it seems, to not pick up on the signals that the other person is just not willing to share any more than that at that moment, and to continue to prod. I have a <i>lot</i> of experience in this.<br /><br />So often I meet people and I venture theoretical discussions to see what the other person can take. If we get to talking about interpersonal relationships, I recount, in even tone and without any telling emotional colorization, this hypothetical of a couple who are very much in love. Their love is perfect, they feel completely content together, their mind doesn't wander to other people's genitalia, they are absolutely content to be together for the rest of their lives. One supports the other in their life endeavors, yet allows space for them to grow individually. They enjoy a fulfilling sexual life, they're intimate on a deep level, they do not misrepresent each other to the outside world, it's all roses. I suggest that the person I am talking with is in such a relationship at the end of the flavour text.<br /><br />I let that scene settle in in the mind of my conversational partner, which is a small cruelty, because it is a beautiful hypothetical and what I do with it later is disconcerting. I allow myself this small cruelty (for many reasons but also) because what I describe above is dangerously close to some Hollywood movie cliche , and although - honestly - I do believe that such couplings can exist in life, it can't be clear from my retelling to this point that this is so, so it sounds like a comfortable but distant fairytale where the other party to this conversation can swim about in for a time and then that's that, thanks, weird longhair I met! No, no. We're not done.<br /><br />Then I introduce the issue: let's say the other party to this relationship approaches you (from third person to second person) reticently and lets you know that although your relationship is so great and so fulfilling... they have a want, a secret desire, a sexual hangup, something that could be considered aberrant behaviour. They've had this desire before they met you and they have it still, it's part of their emotional makeover and it's not going to go away just because your love is strong. This much is clear.<br /><br />They're willing to live without their desire because what they get from the rest of your relationship is that potent. They know a good thing when they see it and they're not stupid enough to risk everything just because of such a small thing, so harshly judged in the eyes of society too. Yet, it is exactly because they feel so at ease with you that they're compelled to tell you what it is, to feel accepted and to fully belong in the relationship. They like to be defecated upon.<br /><br /><br />Now, the implication is clear that although this person will remain in the relationship with you (or so they profess at least) regardless of whether this aberrant desire of them is fulfilled, there is a reason they shared it with you. They word it in such a way that it seems as if the reason is sharing, but anyone with half an heart knows human beings aren't so simple. The first step in accepting oneself is saying the words that describe oneself to the world. There are more steps. Wouldn't you, dear co-conversationalist, who have been so gradually ensnared in this theoretical situation, have to consider their desires in this light? Wouldn't you have to, in your full and blooming love, calculate on whether you will concede to their desire or not?<br /><br />I've gotten a range of responses to this querry from a range of people. To (some?) credit, I've chosen targets at least adeptly enough that outright abandonment of the construct once fecal matter is introduced, is not a common retort, although whether they keep with it because I seem like a person who genuinely wants to know or because they want to 'show me their guts', I do not know. Now, before I present the range of response I've had to this, I urge you, reader and human, to consider where you stand yourself on this. Although the construct might appear cartoony (perhaps) or grotesque (certainly) at first, anyone that has been in a relationship can see the implications of the dysfunction described here. I may not be into coprolagnia, for one, but I am into other things... aren't you?<br /><br />How strong is your love?<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />So you've considered your options (I'd appreciate reading them, by the way. Even if you feel the range I describe below captures your position as well... please don't shy away from putting it in your own words.) and you have internalized the issue. You have a position on this matter, most probably not colored by actual life experience with something as strongly aberrant as fecal play, but instead approximating it via more pleasant & civil vices. Perhaps you've allowed for worse, perhaps you've been horrified with much, much less. However, you have altered yourself to get to this, to an opinion. You are not what you where before this theory was presented to you, out of the blue, in some social function where you met some longhair and his friends who, more used to his bad manners, might look at you as some ancient Greek chorus, waiting your considered reply. Here's what I've got so far:<br /><br />Negative:<br /><br />* Absolutely out of the question. I know what I like and I don't like <i>this</i>. Not only will I not do it, I will break up with that individual, though it's no skin off my back: people are different and they eventually realize. He might find what he needs elsewhere, I certainly will.<br /><br />* Not only will I not do this horrid thing, I never want to see them again. I feel completely betrayed in my love and trust. How long have they wanted this? Do they imagine me in such-- I can't even consider it.<br /><br />* No way. This person is clearly emotionally unstable and I will try to get them into psychotherapy or even more drastic assistance. For them to have these desires something must be very wrong with them and although your relationship is over, my last offer of good will is to help them on the road to recovery.<br /><br />Bargaining:<br /><br />* Can't we meet in the middle somehow? Fake it? Chocolate's close enough, isn't it? I don't hate this person for their kink nor do I think it upsets the basis of our whole relationship, but I can't see myself committing to this completely and utterly. Can't we work through this somehow? Wouldn't they understand if I explained my incapacity to them?<br /><br />* Let's say I do this... what's in it for me? Relationships are a transaction anyway, and this probably comes at a high cost. Does it mean I get to explore real and invented lusts as well.<br /><br />* Well alright, let's say I do this, she'd have to stand still and I'd take a dump on her and not touch any of the shit myself, so everybody's happy.<br /><br />Accepting:<br /><br />* (usually a long pause to think, often after some of the bargaining positions were initially tested and discarded) If I love them so much, I guess I'd try to make them happy in this way as well. I can't make any promises on how it'd impact how I feel for them, though.<br /><br /><br />That's usually the range. Most people aren't ready to adopt one stance seconds after the hypothetical is presented to them. Often they try to work through them to see what reflects most favorably on them, with me being the reflection. I do not offer judgement in return, I just work through the common arguments for/against more stances. Most people who start out in the negative range stay there though. Often people who negotiate end up accepting the situation. Only very rarely have I met people who were accepting relatively early in their consideration of the issue. I do not think it was because I just stumbled on their hidden sexual fantasy at all.<br /><br />Now, most of these positions have merit to them. It's easy to criticize those that are negative with empty claims of intolerance. However, it seems to me all three negative stances have to them a basis in real life experience, not the airs of untested ideology. The first one one is very practical, for example. Instead of trying to fix every problem that may come up in a relationship, it knows when to cut its losses and start searching anew. It doesn't romanticize a relationship as some sort of Godly coupling that happens once in a lifetime and knows that although relationships take hard work to function, there's some things that cannot be fixed with just hard work. It seems to demean the power of 'True Love' but ... some people actively live like this and are happy with their choices, so who am I to say they're going about it wrong.<br /><br />The second negative position seems reflexive and prideful, but then again, love can be said to be as much about the love of love itself than it is about the love of the internal representation of one's partner. It's relatively easy for the feelings between a couple to be damaged once doubts enter the picture. Once the innocence of love is lost, it is difficult to regain. Although the person with the sexual desire might be able to see "the other being covered in excrement" as a profoundly innocent and beautiful mental picture, this is a big chasm to bridge, perhaps too big to try.<br /><br />The third negative stance is super-judgmental and uses pop-psychology in an ugly way: to marginalize the Other and condemn them to a lesser life for their issues, perceived or real. However at its core it has a real insight. A person who has a very strong sexual fetish such as coprolagnia might often be unable to function sexually without it, and to the degree that they've managed so far they've been "faking it", inwardly imagining their fetish even in the course of regular sexuality. How would you feel if you were the subject to the worst thing in the mind of the person you loved and trusted? Not all sexual deviance suggests emotional troubles, but all mental troubles seem to come hand in hand with sexual deviance of some sort. People are trained to keep away from others with mental or psychological issues for a reason. It's a risky life to stand next to such a person, and love might not be enough.<br /><br />From the bargaining positions:<br /><br />The first one seems wishy-washy. Anyone how has a strong imagination as to what true love must be will rebel to such a position. Compromise isn't something that comes to mind when they think of true love, instead they expect everything to click immediately and completely, effectively all the hard work with being with somebody else is nullified. For those people, true love mostly means 'comfortable love'. The person trying to compromise isn't actually taking the most comfortable route in this case because they'd have to meet somewhere in the middle in the end. They'd have to do at least half of something really unpleasant to save their relationship, and the results might not be enough after all. It's a risk and an ongoing burden.<br /><br />The second seems crass and inhuman, but I think what's mostly crass about it is that some people would admit to feeling this way (though as I say they are usually circumspect about how they phrase this). In reality, most people consider the pros and cons of a relationship in such a fashion, at least at some point. So this person has this and that annoying trait, but they do that and this for me, so I'll stick around. Although we do not like to subject our romantic notions of true love to such measuring, the person who expresses this position is more likely to achieve a fair transaction with the other person. However transactions, as fair as they may be, are no longer innocent, and this will come to the forefront as a much bigger problem than any pile of poop could ever be, eventually.<br /><br />The third bargaining position to me seems the most misogynistic (because it was a man, and a very beautiful man at that who expressed it) and inhuman of them all really. They say they're willing to treat their true love as a toilet, as long as they don't get any shit on them. It is implicit in the original scenario that whomever is willing to entertain the notion of remaining in this relationship would have to not only talk the talk but dance the dance. Only the most dim of hearts would consider such a solution, I think. From the whole range of responses I've gotten to this question, this is the only one I cannot find any merit in.<br /><br />As to the accepting position. It is beautiful, is it not? I am glad such people exist, as I'm sure you are also. However... it should be telling that the people who have replied so were either young or of little life experience in matters sexual. The imagination of the aberrant act itself comes easier to those that have perhaps strayed closer to some variants than none of them, and the imagination is a powerful thing. As they imagine strongly the beauty of what True Love could be and say 'I'd do anything for it', others imagine strongly the stench of excrement and know what they would do to avoid it.<br /><br /><br />As to my own position, I fluctuate between a negative position, a bargaining position, and sometimes the accepting position. Whenever in my mind through over-thinking I have pacified this example, I try to switch it around. What if a person wanted to molest children along with me? What if the other person was very into getting cut with knives during sex? What if the other person wanted to be beat up? The examples are rotated to regain distance: the issue is the cost of intimacy and one's preconceptions about how similar other people are to themselves. We are a solipsist species, the result of sentience is undoubtedly profound loneliness. We seek the intimacy of our mother and father when we were infants, we seek to return to genesis, to a time before self-knowing. We might have to crawl through glass and excrement to get there.<br /><br /></span>Helmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00584102280299430293noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9076033512154958207.post-14527576148855073482011-01-28T00:48:00.008+02:002011-01-28T01:36:40.962+02:00If this world is a hallucination, Facebook's like that trip within a trip<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.locustleaves.com/simitis_s.png"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 401px; height: 236px;" src="http://www.locustleaves.com/simitis_s.png" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Speaking of tripping, esteemed ex-prime minister Mr. Simitis in unpleasant shades of puke. <a href="http://laoutaris.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/simitis.jpg">Reference</a>. I tried a gradient map this time (these last few ones are drawn in grayscale first) instead of multiply & overlay layer, it has this particular clean 'graphic design' look to it. Then I did the sweaty highlights on top, it's a simpler piece but I rather like the end result.<br /><br /><span class="fullpost"><br /><br /><br />So I joined Necronomicon-Facebook and connected (and re-connected in a few cases) with friends and acquaintances from the past. It's a weird thing, to see the faces of people you haven't seen in ages, see them all grown-up and yet still have an internal representation of them as kids. Unsettling, really. I walked around in a haze of "what year is it?" all day yesterday.<br /><br />Anyway, the predominant comment I got from disparate sources was something along the lines of "you're the last person I ever expected to join Facebook". Well apparently I <i>am</i> the last person to have joined Facebook because they locked registration right after me, so that's a redundant comment on the factual level <span style="font-size:78%;">(this is a lie)</span>. Secondarily though, as to the spirit of the comment, it's really fascinating to me the sort of guilt those statements have behind them. Do you guys not want to be on Facebook? I don't like the dark corporate forces behind the service either and I don't intend to make it my new god, but I don't think that's what the comment is about. I think these people feel guilty for wasting too much time on Facebook and they're distraught to see yet another victim fall in the hole.<br /><br />I'm very aware of what I am going to use Facebook for and for how much. I'm not going to play farmville compulsively or stalk highschool almost-girlfriends. Is the supposed indignation over a perceived shift in my ideology that allows for this new Facebook Helm? I'm afraid I might have come off as like a hardline vegan or whatever when it comes to some communicational platforms I've decided not to use in the past, like cellphones or facebook. I use others (I am on an irc channel constantly, for example and have been for almost ten years now, I employ three e-mail adresses and their respective instant messenger services). <i>I help run two widely-used forums</i>. I know how to use these things. First time I talked with a stranger on the internet, it was in ICQ - do you remember that can't-take-it-back-now chat client in it where it showed the other person as you typed each individual letter, as opposed to the whole string when you pressed return? You couldn't edit your words, you had to think on your feet. <i>That</i> was cybercore, not this Facebook devil.<br /><br />Okay, so, it'd be a lie to say that there's no ideology in my not having been on Facebook for this long. I think it's more a case of doing first, rationalizing why I did it second, mostly. I simply thought I didn't need it to be a good friend and keep in touch. I had telephone numbers and msn addresses, right?<br /><br />Well, wrong. I've come to slowly realize that a lot of people I would like to communicate with have migrated fully to that service and have trouble keeping in touch otherwise. It really seems just picking up the phone and cold-calling someone you want to talk to is becoming more and more difficult. Instant messengers still get a lot of use but try keeping your contracts in order when you've got a hundred business connections there along with friends and people who just added you and perhaps said one thing to you, ever. So instead of hermiting down and getting off of the internet (my usual fantasy), I've made yet another account for yet another internet thing. Am I glad that a scary corporation will keep my corpse alive on Facebook even long after I've been on this world? Not really, though it's a perhaps morbidly fascinating idea on some level. Am I worried about my privacy? Not that narcissistic, really - I don't think anyone will care about me being in this picture or that besides the people that I wanted to look at those pictures anyway. I'll nevertheless be careful with what's I put on there just because that early-internet-adopter paranoia is hard to shake off. I generate my ten-digit passwords randomly with assorted utilities for Christ's sake. I've almost read half of the car-crash that is Snow Crash, I've pondered on the digitization of the soul, I'm not afraid of fucking <i>Facebook</i>.<br /><br />(Though I am. I am really scared of how it shows me how faulty my memory for faces and names is.)<br /><br />The lesson I need to learn is I suppose, to not frame my utilitarian choices in an ideological facade (wait, mixed metaphor) -- I'm actually not sure if it's wholly my fault or that people prefer to interpret me in that way, but it's something to keep in mind. And I <i>am</i> looking forward to when the internet migrates to some new variation of Facebook that isn't owned by some evil corporation - and then five years after the rest of the world, when Greece will also adopt it. That'll be nice. Until then, my name's in the dead book.</span>Helmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00584102280299430293noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9076033512154958207.post-58669182779969231962011-01-23T11:01:00.003+02:002011-01-23T11:06:47.052+02:00Playing with History<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.locustleaves.com/anna_s.png"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 235px;" src="http://www.locustleaves.com/anna_s.png" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Greek minister of Education makes history an opt-in course in the last two years of highschool. Drama ensues. Small moves lead to bigger repercussions. <span class="fullpost"><br /><br />I wish I had a few more hours to render the <a href="http://users.sch.gr/ipap/Ellinikos%20Politismos/naoi/Erechtheio/im.ere/erechteio-Karyatides8.jpg">kariatides</a> statues, but all in all I'm please with the piece. I appreciate the cruel slapstic of capturing this exact moment in the picture, before the <i>real</i> mess. The "oh nooooo!" factor.<br /><br />On other news, today was a difficult day but tomorrow will be better, and the next day after that, hopefully. Sense of balance will be restored, I'll have to keep working on it. Sorry for being cryptic, more of a personal reminder when I read back on my posts a few years from now, perhaps.<br /><br />-Helm</span>Helmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00584102280299430293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9076033512154958207.post-32290704860203499522011-01-15T11:20:00.003+02:002011-01-15T11:23:52.746+02:00Kinda interesting from a technical standpoint<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.locustleaves.com/spiliotopoulos_s.png"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 401px; height: 234px;" src="http://www.locustleaves.com/spiliotopoulos_s.png" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><span class="fullpost"><br /><br />All photoshop. Not even any Manga Studio sharp-brush stuff this time around. Abandoning my pencil work base was a good piece of advice, at least until I learn to color properly. The background thing was a last minute inspiration, I kinda like it more than the figure itself now, heh.<br /><br />It's difficult to let survive any 'artistric' quality to the brush strokes after blending. Experienced color-work artists have an amazing knack for this, I hope to develop something half-way passable in this respect.<br /><br />I need to make time to draw the last ZX chapter too. Busy busy busy.<br /><br />But reasonably content!<br /></span>Helmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00584102280299430293noreply@blogger.com3