"Time Goes Hollywood"
(A  STUDY  OF  VALUE)

  

"Twister!"

                                                                                  (AN  EXPLORATION  INTO  TEXTURE)

"Ubermensch"

(AN INTRODUCTION  TO COLOR & TRANSPARENCY )

" 'S is for Silence' "

(A  CONTEMPLATION  ON  LINE  DRAWING)

"He"

(A VENTURE IN PORTRAITURE)

"Time Travel"

                                                                           (A WEEK WITH  INTERIORS AND ELLIPSES)

BARING PRESENTS & PRESENTING BEARS (Feat. An Oldie)

     Sorry I'm late, all. Some pesky leftover 2017 was still gripping my shoe, making me trip on mounting biology homework everytime I made a lunge for my keyboard. Not even the Olympics could wash away the stains. Nasty thing. Anywho, the past is behind us--or at least below the knee--and short story long, Jacob's Characterz! is officially back in full-force! And what better fashion in which to ring in the second-to-last New Year before the new decade than with an update for the triumphant furry capper-offer of my first centennial slate of characters back in '14. Ladies and gents, our friend and colleague, Mister Douglas Farfeather! Smile for the people, Doug. All seven of you.

(Name: Doug. Age: your guess is as good as his. Likes: people, places, things, etc. Dislikes: the dark.)

#280: Manning King, the Thing-Bringer

      'Tis the day after the day after the day after Christmas. More streaks of belly-roll-induced ware trace the crannies of your chimney, and the author myself is left with a truth to carry into the new year. Jolly ol' Santa Clause and six-out-of-seven reindeer are now more believable than my ability to meet a deadline. However, in spite of a buckling fender bender of my scheduling bafoonery and countless reasons for the season hacking my seasonal art slate down a couple thirds, I'm not in the business of surrendering. Thus, before that pesky landlord Father Time tugs the plug on 2017, here commences a proper finale. I present Manning King, the Thing Bringer! Scuffed are the pinheaded heels of the alien insect race the Aruchee, scattering over the static sands of their planet Pragga Prime like hairpins poured down a slope. As spry and old, winged and dune-bound conjoin in packed reverie, the busied bug crowds fling and flitter, joyously hugging their pillars of worship: a pair of chunky rubber soles, and just north, those oh-so-familiar buckles of velcro. For the merry Aruchee have once again united under the kindly eye-in-their-sun-roasted-sky, the doughy deity they call their very own Little St. Nick: Manning King, the Thing-Bringer. Not one living Aruchee can say they witnessed the first visit of the Thing-Bringer--or the last, for that matter-- but whenever he returns, they're never in the mood to care. His lumbering charity has overseen more than a dozen generations of Aruchee, being met with open arms and misty arthropod eyes on their riotous holiday of sacred reunion: Saturday. Squeezing through a pit-black square portal dubbed the "Gateway of Micubbie" in the holy scripture, Manning King has enlightened provinces with Viewmasters and marbles, and fed frail villages with tapioca pudding. Eon after eon, weekend after weekend, the Thing-Bringer never fails to leave a ridged, glossy footprint on the legend of the Aruchee people, one as giant as it is lasting. That is, in between lofty naps and kid-kwon-do classes at the strip mall.

(Pictured: the Bringer of Things in mythic action, thumping his fascinating foreign wears with kindly tenation across Pragga's humble planes. Bat property of Sammy Swatt's Little League for Big Tots, all rights reserved.)

IT'S THE MOST WONDERFUL TIME OF THE MOST WONDERFUL TIME OF THE YEAR.

     The muffled murmer of a morning alarm lifts you from your slumber. A cream sunbeam peeks through your frosted window and skips down your hallway. Foamy cradles of crisp December snow dapple the antarctic blur beyond your doorstep. *hefty exhale* You live anywhere besides Southern California. However, in spite of the identity and increased nippiness of your neck-of-the-woods, its carotid artery is pumping steady with the zesty cocktail of seasonal merriment, and I'm in no position to interrupt the flow. My envy can wait until May showers. In the meantime, the season of giving with all of its clauses in tow will keep my sun-puckered palms on-task. Without further further ado, the 12 Creations of Christmas, everybody! Despite fate keeping the twelve speediest machinations of my twelvemonth to a less-than-per-day basis, festive superstition won't let me say "no." Fair game, Kringle. I'm a slave to your staccato sleighbells. Now, bluntly scissoring the sheeny ribbon of the 12 Creations in a clean two, straight from the art class I never told you I joined, all the things I never informed you I made. Cheers.

"The Beckoner."

"Posterboy."

"Cindy Sits."

"The Divine Digets."

#279: The Maxxy's® Mannequin Shoplifter Subduing Syndicate

     As should come to no surprise, the North American turkey-human repast for interspecies peace took another grizzly turn this twelvemonth. Maintain your faith. There's always next year. In other tragic tidings, I realize that as the doorsteps of moonlit occidental suburbia were scuffled with zealous trick-or-treaters' wily white Converses on October 31st, the blog was laid embarrassingly bare. However, at the turn of the month, so was my scorched neighborhood slope, so my surroundings weren't exactly in my favor.

(Actor's portrayal. Mind the watermarks.)

      However, as my frenzied fickle pinballing from hotel-to-hotel has ceased and the smoke fumes are almost finished waging war on my nostrils, my ducks are finally in some semblance of a row. So, without further ado, a post one sluggish sooty month in the making: the Maxxy's® Mannequin Shoplifter Subduing Syndicate! Mannequins do not deserve your trust. Those blank faces. Those glossy, gangly extremities. That posh, modernist attire that makes them look like charter school performance artists. My skin crawls at the thought. However, while a phobia of all dapper nightmare models lining aisles across the globe wouldn't get you much besides a two-fer bundle on public panic attacks, at an infamous outlet in the JC-Verse, it could save your life, limb, and everything in-between. Keep your hands to yourselves and selectively on the shelves, because at Maxxy's Retail Surplus Superstore Co. Inc.®, it's you against them. Seriously, we're talking about five-and-dime fascism now, make no mistake. These sleek chain-store Chekists are the uncanny kin of tense anti-shoplifter opprobrium, and are tasked with mincing every five-finger discount down to the proverbial knuckle. You'd be living a kiosk-side facade if you assumed that those stuffy Windsor ties don't become whips, those necklaces nunchakus, and those pocket squares throwing stars on a dime. And don't even get me started on the break rooms. Programmed with a virtual archive of noir interrogation scenes and Chokehold Encyclopedia for the Self-Starter: Volumes 1-6, your typical Maxxy's® Mannequin is a kunoichi in a cardigan--and if one so much as catches you suspiciously crossing their tees, you can bet your britches they'll dot your eyes. No questions asked. No reasons given.

(That particular kick is dubbed the "Half-Off." Half off of what precisely is case-by-case.)

ONE MAN'S TRASH CAN IS ANOTHER MAN'S TREASURE CAN.

    I need not look inward to know that I'm an upcycled person. A solitary glance at my Goodwill-centric rags or the superannuated vintage impulse buys cluttering my creative lair/itty-bitty-living space would tell you that much. Keeping that in mind, it was only a matter of time until I laid eyes upon a dumpster and thought, "By gum, that rancid rainwater stain belongs in the Louvre." Without further ado, I offer you "Ashbin Abyss." Mediums include photography, and that all-purpose Cretan labyrinth of a graphic toolbox, Adobe Photoshop. Enjoy:

(Alternative titles included "The Mess-opalegic Zone" and "The Sea of Stanquility.")

#278: Saffron Jean: The Santa Bocado Mystic

     What better way to counteract the kicking-off of the 2nd dullest month of the year, next to January, then with a hearty dose of meandering absurdity. For me, that was treating myself to the first half of Yellow Submarine. For you, I give you this post. Ladies, gents, and any other fine folks constituting to "other," may I introduce you to Saffron Jean, the Santa Bocado Mystic! Jean "Saffron Jean" Saffronson lives his life the way most people finish theirs: clammy, incoherent, and hollering into the aether at his late grandmother. So, one could say that he's ahead of the curve. As Santa Bocado Pier's resident beach hobo, medicine man, "astral chiropractor," therapist, self-published author, and trimonthly continental-cod-hut-and-tiki-bar rant poet, the man's done pretty well for himself. With a cushy central set-up sandwiched between the solo keyboardist and the shirtless guy who'll let you insult his chin curtain for $4 (as well as a none-too-shabby write-up in the Bocado Babbler heralding his business as "pleasantly not a front for a cult") Jean's essentially set for life. One has to ponder how an aging 11th-grade dropout who stores salted peanuts in the shell dangling from his neck could've incanted his way to the top. Well, according to his paperback memoir Third Eye on the Lookout, Lady Luck was kind. Whilst purchasing a corn chip portrait of the Dalai Lama at Venice Beach in '67, Jean recollects, he pulled out a half-dollar to pay. Suddenly, the 50 cents slipped from his damp didgets and plummeted to the concrete, landing at a 50 degree angle. And at that very moment, the intricacies of the universe were engraved into his brain. The next five World Series runner-ups and Woodstock headliners flashed before his sunken eyes. And the rest was history. While I myself can't fully endorse the word of a pier-based entrepeneur who lives in a tipi that reeks of incense and fish tacos, I would encourage you to take him at face value. The JC-Verse has seen stranger. Now, before I depart, allow me to offer you some noteworthy quotes from the man himself. I apologize beforehand:

"I live my life in accordance with the three Lennons/Lennins: John, Vlad, and the quaint Michigan township."

"They say the future is a promise. But my therapist Iris says thanks to me, life nowadays is a commitment. Therefore, the future is the present."

"Chakras, you ninny!"

"If salt is the devil's sugar, then call me a sinner, brother, call me a si . . . wha . . . Meemaw! For the love of Gosh, do you mind??!"

And lastly:

"It's the 20th Century, of course I know judo."

(Pictured: the famed and pittied Santa Bocado Mystic hoisting up the tools paramount to his patented "Astral Slingshot" maneuver. Any participants that could vouch for this ritual's legitimacy are nowhere to be found, but according to Jean, that's because "it's so groovy in the Astral Plane that no one would ever want to come back, silly.")

#277: Planet Terry

    What starts with an S and is currently on the verge of imbibing my life whole in one gargantuan gulp? While sleep deprivation, Simpsons seasons 1-8, and sprees of voracious video-essay consumption are all viable answers, I was fishing for . . . school. Gosh, pardon my French. Indeed today is my technical first day of sophomore year, but considering how things are kind of on cruise control until my teacher figures out the lesson plan, I'll be using this school week as a sort of 5-day farewell to summertime here on the blog. Sort of like a browser-based purgatory to offer you and yours truly some closure before I'm tossed into the harsh underworld of schol. Schoo. You know what, my fingers refuse to type it again, let's move along. Time for my latest character: Planet Terry! The charmed life of a planet is really something to envy. Those celestial sons-o'-guns have every last light-second of their leisurely existence planned out for them from the get-go, complete with 24-eon rotisserie sunbathing and a scenic circular route around the cosmos. Getting ripped from this Life of Riley and made into some super-sized behemoth's forearm, however, puts a bit of a damper on that. And while that may not be a concern in our astronomical neck of the woods^{[citation needed]}, for the planets of the JC-Verse, that fear is ever-present--all thanks to the final frontier's biggest, brashest and most bumbling bully. After a torturous teresecond of idley roaming amongst the stars without a physical form, the astral entity that would become Planet Terry grew sick of his isolated lot in life. Boredom turned to rage, rage turned to a century or two of astronomical temper tantrums, and then a lightbulb. He could construct himself the physical vessel of his fantasies, and the tools with which to do so were right under his spectral schnoz--taunting him on fixed axes. Tactlessly tearing planets from their orbits and leaving suns bare for parsecs in every direction, Terry built himself a celestial body out of celestial bodies, and proceeded to make the whole universe his playground. With moons for peepers and dwarf planets for palms, the makeshift mammoth is still thunderously thrashing through space to this day. For the poor unsuspecting planetoids of the JC-Verse, let's pray he doesn't accidently trip over a supernova any time soon and need a new knee. Say it with me, amen.