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This is a little round-up post of things on my mind. Above is a sketch of Mike Mignola's Hellboy, one of my favorite comics of all time. I draw Hellboy all the time but this is the first drawing I've done that I like, probably because I did it in my own style rather than copying Mignola.

First, I wanted to share this BBC article with you. It's a Front Row radio episode about comic books and posits that we are now living in a golden age of comic books. Whatever you think it's a great article. The bit about comics starts about 13:13 into the show.

On my iPod is a new playlist called Chamber Pop. I'm obsessed with all these little musical subgenres that Wikipedia has articled to an almost academic point. Chamber Pop began in the 1960's as Baroque Pop with the release of the seminal pop album Pet Sounds by The Beach Boys which was a major showcase for the genius of Brian Wilson. The idea is a type of pop music that introduces atypical instruments ans arrangements more associated to classical music. This music has continued and found a renaissance in the 1990's with music from Neutral Milk Hotel, Apples In Stereo and now The Decemberists, although now it's referred to as Chamber Pop. If you like rich, layered pop this might be for you.

Something else worth mentioning is my new addiction to audiobooks. It appeals to both my love of multitasking and my boundless laziness. What really love about them, other then being able to "read" while drawing, is that I can finally read all those classics I've just never gotten around to like the Crying of Lot 49 by Pynchon and Joyce's Ulysses. Lazy, lazy, lazy.

My "cover" of the classic Mike Mignola cover to the 1985 comic book Rocket Raccoon was accepted to Robert Goodin's amazing blog Covered. The top is the finished ink, gouache and photoshop piece and the bottom is just my inks.This comic had a huge impact on me as a kid. After years of reading what I would later learn were just Jack Kirby knock offs when I read this I thought"this is how they should make comics!"