Project365, #69: Free Comic Book Day

How quickly the year has passed. Here we are again with another Free Comic Book Day. This year it consisted of a brief stop by Oxford Comics to say hello to Domo and Irene and then on to Criminal Records to see Hunter, Remington, and Cara. If you are not familiar with these artists, do yourself a favor, click their names, and "ooh" and "ahhh" at their work.

After everyone closed up shop, it was time from some nerdcore, silver age hip hop, courtesy of Adam WarRock and Tribe One. Is you like hip hop and you know what the Infinity Gauntlet is, you'll dig these guys. They've got songs about "girl comics," a great one about Dr. Who, and a fantastic track all about Chris Schweizer's Crogan Series.

Free comics, talented, cool folk, and nerd rap. Good times.

Project365, #62: Sheep. Head. Tacos.

Today my friend Jorge introduced me to sheep's head tacos. Allow me to take you on a journey:

Upon arrival to their house, I was immediately ushered to the oven by the young, electric Boots, where I was introduced to my meal. He tried to hide in his ramshackle house of tortillas:

After a few minutes of judging an impromptu gymnastics exhibition I was told it was time to eat. Inside I came, LITERALLY, face to face with it:

Jorge began carving, a difficult task.

First to come out was the eye. I was assured this was the tastiest part. I admit I was skeptical at first, but let me tell, no joke, one of the tastiest things I've ever had:

Further dismantling (read tearing the bottom jaw off) revealed more to eat. You'd be amazed how much meat you can get off of this thing.

Next up: brain meat. After many frustrating attempts to scratch the meat out a less grace method was used: a hammer.

In short, looks gross, taste delicious. Now to cross-breed a spider and a sheep so I can eat all the more eyes.

R.I.P. you delicious bastard

Project365, #34: Zoo Day Deux

I crashed the SCAD SEQA Creature Design class trip to Zoo Atlanta. Another day at the zoo, a little more familiar with my camera, and, as always, any excuse to hang out with my friends. It was fun, of course. A new exhibit, Complex Carnivores, opened today. Nothing really knew in it: another viewing window of the Sumatran Tiger and the adorable Bush Dogs.

We didn't stay as long as we usually would have. First warm day in a week AND the first weekend of public school Spring Break crowded it a little too quickly. So we left for tacos at Hankook Taqueria followed by Sublime Doughnuts. Drool.

Rest of the night went as Blokus, being taught Settlers of Catan, a round of Munchkin, and then Tangled. At some point between Munchkin and Tangled I started to feel weird. An hour or so later I was exhausted and went home. A good pukin' in my driveway later, the allergies may have won the battle, but they did not win the war. Friend-day Saturdays are the best.

Zoo pictures! (FIVE more after the jump):

African Elephant

Goats

Bush Dog

Naked Mole Rat

Falynn, Erin, and Jackie

Orangutan fight over swing

Project365, #28: HITLER PUNCH!

Once again, a fucking amazing weekend. So good it deserved that F-bomb. Nearly two months ago I purchased two pairs of tickets to the Zap! Pow! Bam! Exhibit at the William Breman Jewish History Center downtown. I have always been fascinated by the Golden Age of comics. Stylistic perhaps it no longer has a wide appeal (though it does for me), but the one thing everyone should latch on to is its historic relevance. In the late 30s to the 50s, comics were dominated by Jewish writers and artists. The fact they were Jewish would be irrelevant if not for some important events that occurred during most of that time. These artists were urging the government, by swaying popular opinion with comics book, to intervene in what would be World War II. It may seem simple, but it is true. Below are works from greats like Jerry Robinson, Mort Meskin (a personal favorite), and the legendary team to Joe Simon and Jack Kirby. And consider yourself lucky that they have an area to draw, because you will get to see some sketches from two dear friends and incredibly talented up-and-comers, Jackie Lewis and Erin Gladstone.

Anyhow, in a word: awe. All by hand, changing the world and creating icons that we take for granted. Damn I love comics. (for many more see my Flickr)

Captain America #1 cover by Simon/Kirby

Detective Comics #69 by Jerry Robinson

Green Lanten #1

Propaganda poster by Mort Meskin

Erin Gladstone's perfect capture of our reaction to seeing the exhibit

Jackie Lewis's amazing take on The Joker

Project365, #20: Museum Delay, Blokus Fail, Food Win

There has a been a winning streak of amazing Saturdays for a few months. The plan this Saturday started with a trip to the William Breman Jewish History Museum's exhibit on Golden Age comics. Fortunately, perhaps, about an hour before we had planned to be there, it dawned on us that: 1) Saturday is the sabbath for followers of Judaism and 2) this was a JEWISH history museum. It was indeed closed. However, our improvisation was solid. Again I went yarn-shopping and such, but it certainly paid off. Aside from the lovely weather and lovelier company, we found ourself in downtown Decatur, each with a bowl of joy from The Yogurt Tap.

The remainder of the day was open, as the "knitting party" was not for hours. And thus back at some of the friend's apartment I was introduced to Blokus, an exercise in visual-spatial planning on par with Tetris, but with the added benefit of being an asshole to your friends. The main reason I enjoy board games to be honest.

Blokus, Uno, and an epic game of short Nerf darts at everyone. At this point, we all have headaches induced by an abundance of laughter.

Onward to "knitting circle" at a circle member's boyfriend's house. The grand surprise there fit perfect with the theme establish by the past Saturday of Win: foooooooooooood. Grilled oyster, burger, and chicken with curry dipping sauce. Oh yes, and a giant ass cast iron skillet cookie. I must have done something to please Hestia, the Greek goddess of cooking.

I can hardly wait for the next weekend of food, Binge Saturday if you will. Hope it becomes a regular thing.

Project365, #6: Birthday Rango Munchkin

So today was my birthday. Big whoop. I rarely do anything special because, well, it is not special to me. However, I felt the need to parlay the day of birth into a chance to hang out with friends.

First stop, Hankook Taquiera for some wonderful Korean tacos: (DISCLAIMER: Lazy 365 pictures today because fuck you it is my birthday)

So good. I am a sucker for a fried Calamari taco. Also had their Tong Dak taco, which is essential chicken fingers with a chipotle mayo sauce. The new choice for tonight was their Bulgogi taco. I've had almost ten different items now and not a one has been less than amazing.


Anyhow, I was stressed over my birthday because, in general, I'm pretty easy to please. If I had my choice, outings with friends would consist of dinner followed by a movie or game night at someone's place. Therefore I had little else planned. I suggest seeing the movie Rango partly out of a mild interest but also because I had the feeling my friends, all artists themselves, would be interested. Three decided not to go and I absolutely understood. Movies, despite my obsession with them, are, especially in the theater, a poor excuse for a social event. Anyhow, Rango. I am going to post a brief review later, but it was amazing. Truly. Made all the better by the fact that I was with amazing people, some I have know for nearly a decade, a couple I am starting to feel very close with, and another who I can see becoming a buddy.

Since I unfortunately do not have a place of my own and live far from my friends, I kind of imposed myself on a few of them, volunteering their apartment for cake and fun after the movie.Despite their insistence that it was all welcome, I still feel a little jerky. Either way, it was a blast. We played Star Munchkin, the in-space version of the silliest and nerdiest card game ever made:

In the end, it was everything I could have hoped for. Good food, lots of laughs, and beautiful people that make every day worth celebrating.

Project365, #5:KRAKEN MARTINI!

Ever Friday night at Fernbank's Natural History Museum, that have a martini and IMAX event. Might as well be called "Get Drunk with Dinosaurs." There special exhibit at the moment was Mythical Creatures. I had hoped that it would be manufactured unicorn skeletons or something as interesting, but no. It was a 12-year old girls dream transposed into ceramic and placed in a dark exhibition hall. In short, finding interesting subjects for photos was difficult. Admittedly, there are some grand ones of us being idiots, but, well, I decided to accept the challenge instead. Here is what I came up with:

Project365, #1: My trip to the zoo!

This Saturday is my birthday and my wonderful family worked together to get me a tremendous camera, the Nikon D80. My brother works for Nikon, so in a way it was his hand-me-down, but he sent it from Toyko and my parents bought me the lens. With perfect timing it arrived the day before a trip to Zoo Atlanta with some friends. After taking 700 pictures, I posted about 120 on Facebook. Here are some of my favorites to start my Project365.