THE CRAZY COMIC CON COUNTDOWN IS BACK!!! LOCKED AND LOADED IN 2011!!!

Welcome to June CRAZIES!!!  But more than that, welcome to the CRAZY COMIC CON COUNTDOWN 2022!!!  It's been three VERY long years folks, but we are finally heading back to the greatest show on Earth, and I don't mean Ringling Brothers!  Can't even begin to tell you how much this means to me and so many others to have this show back.  Obviously, there are still obstacles to be found, but the light at the end of the tunnel is getting brighter.  We finally got Comic Con back, and it's gonna be a great time!

'Course, the main show is still over a month away, so to keep our appetites wet, we'll be traveling back to a Comic Con of the past for some fun in the meantime.  The year is set at 2011!  Hold on to your Flaming Hot Cheetos, because the CRAZY COMIC CON COUNTDOWN is a go!  Enjoy...

When it comes to great views, you really can't beat Downtown San Diego.  The buildings aren't too big, the ocean's on the other side and the Gaslamp lights up the night.  This was the first year the long delayed sky bridge finally opened and it has made for some great scenic pics over the years.  This shot was taken on Preview Night and you can visibly see the final touches being put on some of the buildings, including Petco Park.

Gambit always plays with a full deck!

2011 marked the first year of the Petco Park Interactive Zone!  Wasn't quite as big as it is now, but it did feature a few cool freebies.  And a giant inflatable Smurf.  This is your nightmare fuel for the week.

Speaking of inflatables, Jake the Dog came out to play, standing tall over the Cartoon Network booth down in the exhibit hall!  In 2011, Adventure Time was all over the place at SDCC.  For several years even, you couldn't go to ANY con without seeing at least 1,000 Finns walking around! 

In addition giant Smurfs, the Interactive Zone also had mechanical shark riding!  And yes, she got thrown off the shark!

HE HAS THE POWERRRRRRR!!!

2011 also marked the debut of the Nintendo Lounge!  Formerly the Hub Pavilion, the Nintendo Lounge has become a time honored tradition at SDCC, though the last few years they haven't run it quite as well as they used to.  Maybe this year they'll open it back up to its former glory.

The Rocketeer is here!  It's high time this character get the live action treatment again.  Visual Effects have improved substantially since the 1991 original and the market's ripe!  Things might be a bit odd as Disney still owns the film rights despite it being a Dark Horse property, but money has a funny way of making such frivolities go away.

This bus promoted an offsite experience I didn't get to check out unfortunately.  With so much going on at SDCC, it's impossible to do everything there is to do at the con.  As far as the game they were promoting, if New Line and WB are gonna get loose with Tolkien's notes, they should adapt THIS into a movie.  No need for a trilogy.  Just a nice one-off telling a story that is in fact canon about how the Dwarves and Men of the North fought off an army of Easterlings intent on wiping out the few free peoples left in Middle Earth that weren't in the south fighting Mordor.  I think it has potential.

Sorry Cap, but someone needs to pay for the 1990 live action movie!

COBRA!!!  Fun tip for first timers: LOTS of cosplayers gather on the steps behind the Convention Center for photo ops!  Many opportunities there!

Among the last years that Disney sponsored an actual booth at SDCC, they brought the Platy-bus with them!  Hopefully Disney will get over their grudge with SDCC someday and start coming back!

THUNDERCATS, HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

Finally, a MUCH thinner (And younger!) me chilling with Jake the Dog!  I don't post pics of myself often, but when I do, I make sure to ham it up!

And that was Comic Con 2011.  A down year for me, not because of the show, but because of some health issues that were hitting very hard and all at once.  Life can be a real bitch sometimes.  There's just no delicate way to put it.  Still, I saw a lot of cool cosplay that year and also saw the start of several new SDCC traditions that continue to this day!  Sometimes you just gotta find the silver lining when you can.

That's a wrap on Week 1 of the CRAZY COMIC CON COUNTDOWN!!!  We got nine more weeks of this folks, so settle in and get comfortable as more past Comic Con fun is coming seven days from now!  Until then, take care, stay safe and I'll catch y'all later!

SHERE KHAN'S FAIR SHARE!!!

We've come to the end of another May folks.  The last couple Mays, things weren't looking so good.  This year, things are actually looking promising.  There's always room for improvement, but promise is a hell of a lot better than the alternative.  We all want our slice of cake, and it looks like we'll get one this year.  And since it's the last Wednesday of the month, everybody dig in before the big cat changes his mind!  Enjoy...

Shere Khan isn't known for being friendly, hence the reason I'd approach that cake with caution!  Another theme from Animal Alphabets, this took us to Letter S and FINALLY brought an actual animal back into the fold.  It's funny how wary I was about drawing animals when I first started out.  Now, critters are almost exclusively what I'm known for.  In another ten years, I'll probably be the vehicle guy!

And that's a wrap for May 2022!  The art is going on hiatus again but for good reason!  Starting next week, the CRAZY COMIC CON COUNTDOWN returns!  It's been three long years, but the time is right to get the ball rolling again!  Ten weeks straight of past COMIC CON fun is coming our way in seven days, so brace yourself for an epic return!  Until then, take care, stay safe and I'll catch y'all later!

RAPUNZEL REGRET!!!

Welcome back CRAZIES!!!  Ever closer we inch towards June and summer!  Already I'm having visions of corndogs, fireworks and cosplay dancing in my head!  But THAT will have to wait for another day, albeit a day that's not too far off.  For now, we're talking art, though things are starting to get a bit hairy around here!  Don't believe me?  Scroll down and see for yourself!  Enjoy...

Talk about a hairy situation?  They're gonna need one of those giant combs that the Spaceballs were using to comb the desert just to get him out of that mess!  I guess it's a good thing Rapunzel doesn't have any cats.  The hairballs would be catastrophic!  If she ever does get down, she oughta look up Cousin Itt.  They'd make a cute couple!  Today's art again comes to us from Animal Alphabets, which chose Rapunzel for Letter R.  I kinda cheated on this one a bit making her really small, but let's face it, her hair's always been the selling point of the story!

That's all for today, but be sure to come back next week as we finish off the very merry month of May in regal fashion!  Until then, take care, stay safe and I'll catch y'all later!

THE QUEEN OF FARTS SUPPLIES AND NEVER DENIES!!!

Welcome back!  Things are really starting to heat up here at the CRAZYVERSE not only because summer's approaching, but because the subjects of today's art just won't stop cutting loose!  Or is it cheese they are cutting?  You'll just have to scroll down and judge for yourself!  Enjoy... 

It can't be easy being the Queen of Hearts.  Between having a palace guarded by incompetent mutant playing cards and random little girls constantly wandering in and disturbing the peace, there is LOTS of stress involved!  And having these two bumbling bozos as sisters can't possibly make things any easier!  On the plus side, these two would fit in at any of the fraternities at Wonderland Tech!  Today's art is another Animal Alphabets entry from several years ago.  Not surprisingly, it was pretty popular.  You just can't underestimate the appeal of lowbrow humor.  Not sure what that says about society as a whole, but it's kept me with a steady readership, so I can't complain!

And that's all for this week as we hit the midway point of May!  It's been a lot of fun posting art again on the blog and I think you'll really get tangled up in next week's piece, so be sure to come back and see!  Until then, take care, stay safe and I'll catch y'all later!

LAMPWICK'S LOUSY LEADERSHIP!!!

Welcome to May CRAZIES!!!  We are deep into spring here and the signs of summer are all over the place: Weather's warming up, baseball's in full gear and Yacht Rock is slowly taking over the radio again! Yup, I'm just some sunscreen and a deep fried Twinkie away from being in full party time mode!  But enough about that, it's time for some art!  Been a good long while since I last posted any cartoon art on the ol' blog, but there's no better time than now, so let's launch on in!  Enjoy...

Poor Pinocchio.  The Blue Fairy gifted him life but absolutely ZERO common sense!  Is it any wonder he fell in with such a bad crowd so quick?  'Course, we all know that Lampwick winds up getting the worst of it, but still, the Blue Fairy deserves at least some of the blame here.  Seriously, she expected Pinocchio to learn manners from a friggin cricket of all things!  Maybe she thought Jiminy would teach the lad the finer points of keeping people awake at night?  Today's art comes from the Animal Alphabets art collective over on Twitter, with this particular round covering fairy tale creatures.  I was a bit on the fence about this one as most of the creatures in question were actually human, but rules are rules and here we are.  This one was a lot of fun to come up with.  I always try to think The Far Side when I'm drawing single panel comics.  Not always easy to tell an entire story in one frame, but I think I'm getting better at it.

That's all for this first week of May, but fear not!  Next week's post is gonna be a gas, guaranteed!  Until then, take care, stay safe and I'll catch y'all later!

ACRYLIC POURING: THE FINER SIDE OF CRAZY!!!

Greetings my CRAZIES!!!  It's the last post of April and a couple days past my birthday!  Getting older is always bittersweet, but lately, it's been inspiring me to try new things: New foods, new books, new clothes and, more importantly, new art forms!  Last Christmas, I tried my hand at acrylic paint pouring while making Christmas ornaments for my nephews and nieces.  It was a lot of fun and created some very striking marbling patterns.

As cool as the ornaments turned out, there was one downer: LOTS of paint got wasted!  It's a fairly inexpensive technique to try, but it does add up after awhile, especially considering how many ornaments I made!  When I recently tried paint pouring on some masks for potential sale, I placed them on top of some canvases, thus creating TWO works of art, with vary minimal paint waisted!  These are the final results of the canvases.  I'll share the masks at a later date.  Enjoy...

First two efforts used a mix of canary yellow, emerald green and imperial violet.  There are a million tutorials on how to do acrylic pouring (With Mixed Media Girl on YouTube being VERY highly recommended), but the Cliff Notes version is layer different colored paints in a cup and slowly pour on a blank canvas or object.

More of my mix of canary yellow, emerald green and imperial violet.  Although I liked how these came out, they just weren't very striking visually.

For this piece, I switched out canary yellow with gold and was VERY happy with the results!  You may have noticed I was on a bit of a Mardi Gras kick when I was making these!

This piece was largely inspired by the color scheme of Mike from Mike & Mindy, though I didn't get color of his shorts in.  Still, it does have an awesome ocean vibe to it.  Almost looks like a wave crashing!

Lastly, we do a Mike piece without a piece inspired by Mindy's color scheme as well!  This one I wasn't too thrilled with as the Lavender color overwhelmed everything.  I guess one thing I learned during these attempts is that you wanna be sparing with the darker colors, though I can see the flip side of things too.  Just remember while trying ANY art form really: It's all trial and error until you find your flow!

And that's a wrap on the month of April!  It's been a long hiatus, but the blog art returns next week, so be sure to come back and see what I've cleaned up for proper viewing!  Until next time, take care, stay safe and I'll catch y'all later!

SEED STARTING... CRAZY STYLE!!!

Welcome back CRAZIES!!!  Yeah, WonderCon's over and done with and while it his sad, that just means even more cool stuff is on the way and back to full strength no less!  But before we can do any of that, we gotta take care of some stuff at home, like our gardens!  What's that?  You have trouble getting seeds sprouted?  Well kind reader you just happen to be in luck, for I know a good method of starting seeds, especially in climates and seasons when it would be more difficult to do so?  Wanna learn how?  Scroll down and see!  Enjoy...

STEP 1: Get a CLEAR plastic, lidded cup.  As you can see, this particular cup came from McDonalds and yes, it had a Shamrock Shake in it.  What can I say?  They're freakin' delicious!  It's important that the cup be clear because it helps create the greenhouse affect that keeps the soil moist.  Any fast food joint that sells milkshakes will likely have clear cups though Taco Bell uses them too.  What makes the cups at McDonalds and Jack In The Box Particularly appealing is that they are domed and already have a large hole in the top which, once again, helps create the greenhouse affect.  It's also helpful for any watering that might need to happen, so if the lid doesn't have a hole in it, cut one in about the size of a quarter.

STEP 2: Drill about 4-5 holes in the bottom of the cup.  Some folks drill holes in the sides too, which is perfectly fine, but keep in mind these are fast food cups and thus don't have much flex to them.  It also goes without saying that Steps 1 & 2 should be done WITH parental supervision if the youngsters are the ones giving this a try.

STEP 3: Take some potting soil or seed starter and wet it to the point where it's moist, but NOT soaked.  It should be formable in the hand, like clay but still crumbly.  This is kind of a winging deal, but any left over soil can simply be dried out and used for other plants.

STEP 4: Place soil in the cup and gently compact it.  You'll want between 2in-3in.

STEP 5: Next, place the seed in!  For this particular cup, I'm sprouting a pumpkin!  Be sure to cover the seed with soil/seed starter and lightly compact.  You don't need a lot on top, maybe about 1/4in of soil tops.

STEP 6: Lightly water the seed and lid the cup!  As you can see, the inside is already fogging up as the water evaporates, and these pics were taken in the evening time, so this method works quick!

STEP 7: Lastly, place the cup in a sunny spot and wait for nature to take its course!  As you can see, the sun ups the evaporation, which causes more condensation, keeping the soil moist and thus helping the seeds sprout!  You shouldn't need to water much, but the top of the soil can dry out, so lightly water as needed.  The above pic has the seeds of watermelons, cantaloupes, zucchini and two different types of pumpkins sprouting!

In a few days, sometimes just over a week, you should see some results!  Once they outgrow the cup, plant in the ground or a larger container!

Results will obviously vary, but I've had a lot of success getting seeds sprouted using these mini greenhouses!  And best of all, this method not only helps plants, but it also finds new uses for old plastic cups, thus keeping them out of landfills!  We are all about conservation here at the CRAZYVERSE!  I hope this tutorial has been helpful and that y'all will feel inspired to give a mini greenhouse a try!  Good luck and share any results you might have with me on Twitter at my handle @JonsCrazyTweets!

And that's all for this week, but never fear!  I promise we'll end April on a very colorful note!  So be sure to come back and see what I'll be pouring out!  Until then, take care, stay safe and I'll catch y'all later!