Please stand by

Frimmin' on the jim jam …

Feeling discombobulated this week, like a patient etherized on a table.

Hey, not unlike this broken keg and the deluded home brewer endeavoring to resurrect it, for a story in Brew Your Own Magazine!

(I loved doing this job. Loved it! Have I mentioned how much I loved it? Well, I did. Love it, I mean.)

When all the king's horses put me back together again, I'll post more Brew Your Own stuff, and explain.

You deserve a break today. ™®©.

Hasta la vista, Arnold … please?

I'm rarely above a pun, good or otherwise …

With the post of this illustration for Brew Your Own Magazine (about home brewing dark beers), I declare a moratorium on Arnold Schwarzenegger, because I'm done paying attention to him. I urge the world to follow my lead.

Also, I'm flat out of Schwarzenegger illustrations. God says, "You're welcome."

Arnold did exactly as I predicted, only moreso. He leveraged his pathetic turn as governor into a chance to make even more money, and remake his reputation (which wasn't sullied much to begin with because we weren't minding him very closely) as a shining example of governorship of the Great State of California. Except with an underground lair and bubblegum that changes your facial features; more on that in a bit.

Instead of yanking him back to Sacramento in shackles to help fix California, which broke under the weight of his Superego, we're letting him unleash a "multi-platform" (as the industry calls it) media juggernaut called  "The Governator."

Schwarzenegger announced this cartoon/comic book/3-D movie/video game/diamond-encrusted cufflink project last week while he was in Cannes to earn France's highest honor for arts and letters. Seriously, has France seen his movies?

"The Governator" is the nickname Schwarzenegger was given — with equal scoops scorn and adulation — while governor. Clever guy, Schwarzenegger trademarked the name (you can't use it, no matter how much you might want), and roped Stan Lee of Marvel Comics (who I now realize is in it only for the money) and some other media moguls into helping develop this juggernaut.

Sez Stan Lee: "There are many politicians that could lend themselves to a cartoon, but as far as being a superhero — lucky there’s only one Arnold Schwarzenegger and I got him!" This, according to themarysue.com

Schwarzenegger plays himself in "The Governator," having left the governor's office to return to Brentwood and life as a private citizen. Except he's restless and wants to fight crime, so he builds a secret lair and assembles a team of teenage geniuses (huh?) including a computer whiz named Zeke Muckerberg (yeah, I know).

The team makes gadgets for "The Governator," such as bubble gum that changes facial features once popped on his face, and a throat spray that enables him to speak multiple languages. "The Governator" has a fleet of Hummer-ish vehicles, a Tron-like motorcycle, and armored suits that let him fly. Just like in real life.  The bad guys united under a laborious name whose acronym is G.I.R.L.I.E Men. (Yeah, I know.)

Here's the trailer, if you dare. Even the loose network of facts bears heavy marks of revisionist history, including Larry King as a reporter at Arnold's parting news conference. Naturally, "The Governator" is a big hit already, and major European media markets have already snatched it up for the 2012 season.

Here's how Schwarzenegger described his motivation for putting us through all this alleged entertainment (be careful around the twisting verb tenses):

I was looking for, when I am finished with politics, to come up again with something that will be a big surprise. And so I think this project has been a big surprise. Everyone was kind of like, 'Wow, I didn’t expect that at all. I expected you to go and jump in and do another action movie or something like that, but not to come up with a TV series that is so multifaceted and multimedia and worldwide,' and so on.

Yeah, big surprise. Now we can resume our lives.

Schwarzenegger said it was important that Africa benefit from this new media sensation, for some reason. That oughta end hunger and debilitate all the genocidal dictators there.

"It will not be a violent show," he assured, "but there will be a tremendous amount of  action and comedy."

Have you ever noticed how much Schwarzenegger mentions comedy and the movies in which he was trying to be funny on purpose? It's almost as if he is afraid movie goers won't notice.

At one point in the news conference, Schwarzenegger said he would have loved all "The Governator's" gadgetry while he was governor, as if a governor fights cyborg bad guys for a living. The only foes Schwarzenegger would have been battling were his own Hubris and Arrogance.

It's schlock cartooning, just like so much of what kids watch during afternoon TV. But Schwarzenegger will rake it in, because we can't help ourselves but watch this guy and forgive.

Michael Schneider of TV Guide had the best last word in the whole affair (quoted in themarysue.com):  "I hope 'The Governator' is an April Fools joke because, seriously, what kind of superhero leaves things even worse off than he found it?"

Getting to the roots

This cover that I got to do for an album by The Slackers reminded of the quadruple-whammy of events that threw me headlong into a life of drawing:

1. Dinosaurs roamed the earth! Brian LaMay and I always argued at first grade recess over who would be Tyrannosaurus Rex and Brontosaurus (neither of us wanted to be the plant eater, and it turns out now it didn't even exist, so why should we have bothered?) Ironically, I hardly ever drew dinosaurs, but the artwork in my books fascinated me nightly. Way back then, illustrators were the only ones who could make these beasts come alive. So what if the artists drew them chest deep in swamps or with their tails dragging, which scientists now say didn't happen.

2. Crayola. I can't find it now, but Crayola once ran a TV commercial in which illustrators (their disembodied hands, anyway) made realistic tigers and zebras and fish with the same crayons that mocked me from their green and yellow box. I was spellbound.

3. Emile Duronslet Jr., a teenager who lived in my neighborhood and drew magically. Until I met him, I didn't realize that humans made the pictures in all those books I loved. Even as a kid he was passionate about drawing and teaching others. He would tell stories about his goggle-eyed Martians, complete with Martian dialogue, as he populated notebook paper with them. I think he became an animator in the gaming industry.

4. Ed "Big Daddy" Roth and/or Stanley "Mouse" Miller (you pick who came first or takes credit), purveyor of hot rod monster art. I still love their oversized demons — bulbous eyes, fencerows of crooked teeth, slobber roping out of their giant leering smiles — jammed into impossibly souped-up hot rods. One gigantic monster arm was almost always raised high above a gigantic gear shifter, the bony hair-flecked fingers ready to put the monster car in motion. Making Revell models of hot rods frustrated me, and my mom had sufficiently freaked me out about paving my own ruin if I whiffed so much as a molecule of model glue, but I dearly loved the artwork.

So when the art director for The Slackers' project told me the cover would have to feature a slot machine — a one-armed bandit! — I wasted no time in talking the art director into letting me rip off (I mean, pay homage to) "Big Daddy" and "Mouse."

I thought I'd lost that chance for good. Years before, drawing for Brew Your Own Magazine, I did key art for a story about how home brewers can use their senses to avoid mistakes in their ale batches. Perfect for bulging eyes, a big nose and a slurping, snaky tongue. Along with a half-dozen sketch ideas, I included this one and really pushed it:

The note below the sketch wasn't enough, though. I had to call and make my plea. No luck.

"Yeah," said the art director.
"None of us knows who this 'Big Daddy' guy is."

Kids today.