Olliver Week

OLLIE ollie OLLIVER!

Look at that little baby face!

It's Olliver week here at the shop!



My 6-month old godson (who will someday grow into his giant paws) is staying with me while his mom is in St. Louis for work. Bailey would not use the words "thrilled" or "excited" to describe his feelings about this new visit.



"Annoyed," "Irritated," and "Morose" might make it on the list though.

Why do you DO this to me mom?

I am currently immersed in two very awesome projects that are taking up all of my art time. One is the Boston Marathon comic I've mentioned a bit already. I am planning on debuting that at this year's APE con in San Fran. See you guys out there on October 1st & 2nd.

The second is a super secret very awesome project that I don't want to say too much about right now. I will say it's rad, it's looking pretty awesome and it's really fun to work on.

Here are some super secret pages!

Now, to add to the endless supply of videos-starring-pets on the internets (that rhymes!), here is Ollie snoring!

If only Blogger had "Smellivison" capabilities you could get the whole Olliver smells like a trash truck and sounds like one too experience.

(Sigh) If only...




Happy Tuesday, y'all.

********

(I am expanding this post to include some shots from Saturday when Megs and I took Ollivander for a walk around the Jamaica pond.)


First we met up with some enormous dogs.

Really, it was just the one.

JP being dog friendly provides a little dog dish by the water fountain. Good lookin' out JP!



Then we got harassed by the ducks who swam way too close to the sadly non-buoyant Olliver who decided his best approach to dealing with smarmy ducks was to pout.

Who can resist?!

And last night with Johnny's help I took the babies and the doggies to the beach.

Bailey happily ignored Olliver's every attempt to hang out and play and instead barked madly for the yellow tennis ball to be thrown into the ocean over and over again.



I am happy to report that although Olliver can in no way swim he also did not drown.

I'd call that a win.

Back to inking!
~Ciao

Pride 2011

Pride 2011

We are doing art.

Boston Marathon Comic

Yes, we are doing art.

Boston Marathon Comic

And being June, my favorite of the summer months beacuse it is the BEGINNING of the summer season (and beginnings are my fave) the days are slipping by fast. I am up to my elbows in pages from the Boston Marathon Comic (some poorly pixelated phone pics of some of them here).

And I have another (Very AWESOME! Rather Secret!) book that I am working on currently. The good news is that I WILL be at this year's APE (October 1-2nd) in San Francisco! They opened up more tables and GOT IN> That's GREAT news! I hope to debut the Boston Marathon Comic and some other stuff there as well.

Boston Marathon Comic

In other non-art news I marched in this year's Boston Gay PRIDE Parade with a bunch of buddies of mine. We have a friend who works for UPS and they had a Flaming Gay Truck in the rainy day parade. Two years in a row we've been drizzled on. That's a bummer.

But everything else was awesome!

Why am I in a half-squat? Who knows!

We all met up ahead of time at the Parade staging area. the parade was set to kick off at 12:01pm but we didn't get going until 12:30 or so. I think they were waiting on the rain to let up. (Who knows?)

First we changed into our UPS shirts in the back of the Truck. It was nice to have some shelter from all the wet.


Beth spiked my coffee with a nip of Blackberry Bourbon which made it the best coffee on the planet. Someone had brought bead necklaces and I wound up with two that complimented my outfit nicely.

And we marched!


The route is 2 miles long but it goes by fast. too fast. Even though we were strutting the whole time. Alecia (single for all you ladies out there!) worked the crowd like a champ. We kept shouting all manner of profanity. "We always come on time!" and "What CAN'T Brown do for you?" and "Would you like this package delivered in the rear?" And a thousand other silly things.


The rain was never terrible. Last year it was a monsoon and we were SOAKED. This year everyone was just a bit damp, mostly. With frizzy hair.

Love the gay umbrellas

I had so much damn fun that afternoon.
GO GAYS!



Now, back to work.

Rukus Pictures!

Killin' It!

Not much of an update today but I do have some pictures from the Rukus race.

I made my hair all messy pre-race beacuse I knew it was going to get effed up and I didn't want to lose any bandanas or headbands I might have worn.

Ready, Set, GO!

Come to think of it, a headband might've been clutch.

Anyway, bask in the glory of my action photos!


And here are photo montages of my brothers.

Patrick:

and Johnny:


I am still knee-deep in comics pages but I am jamming on them so hard I dont want to come up for air and scan them and post them (boring!) and slow down my highly productive stride. so, for art you will just have to wait, my pretties.

also, this weekend is BOSTON PRIDE! and this year I am marching in the parade! (How RAD is that?!)

You remember my friend who had the flash-mob dance party? Well, she has organized a march behind her all-gayed-up UPS truck. Look for me there.

Yes, I will be delivering my big gay packages all day long, baby.

What can Brown do for you?

Flash Mob & The Rukus

Man! It has been as silent as the grave around this here blog lately hasn't it?

But you know what that means: I've been off doing stuff!

First thing was taking a week long Gay-cation to the Cape.

I'm in the blue tank in the way back row!

Me and a handful of my closest friends made our way to Provincetown for some good old fashioned dancing and drinking and devilry!

While in PTown we prepared a FLASH MOB(!) dance party to celebrate a friend's birthday and she was so surprised it was amazing.

Dancing was, of course, involved.

I can now check "Having Been in a Flash Mob" off the ole Bucket List.

Here's the video evidence.

(A lady keeps getting in the way but look past her and way at the back where you will see me, in the blue tank and sunglasses missing my mark at every turn. SUCH FUN!)




After Ptown was the Rukus Race!

A 4.5 mile obstacle course with mud pits and water pools and monkey bars and crawl nets and cargo nets and 10 foot walls we had to climb over and it was exhausting and so much fun!



My brothers and I all did the race. We had different start times, and Pat finished the fastest but we all had fun. I have the biggest blackest bruise on my thigh behind my knee where I flung my leg up (ungracefully) on the last 10 foot wall.

That's where I think it happened anyway.

Who can tell after so much bumping and scraping.

Action Jackson!

The twins did their own little mini Rukus race, mud and all. They had a blast. Overall it was quite the family affair.


Sekiah fell right FLOP! into the mud at the end and I couldn't have been more proud. My girl isn't afraid to get her hands dirty, literally!



We'll be back again next year fo' sho'.


And although there is a metric TON of artwork I could be posting I just got back from my vacation and you know how hectic life gets once you return. Give me a few days to get my feet -my bruised feet- back under me.

xTana the-flash-mobber.