Requires 2D Glasses- Har har that's a good one!

I have a strange fetish for two dimensional pictures that I believe to be the result of artistic childishness; I can't draw convincing three dimensional people or objects, and instead of pushing myself to learn perspective and proportions I have allowed myself to regress back to my two dimensional world in everything I draw.  This failing turned fetish has biased my preferences for any art or design, and I have turned away from the current 3D mania in movies and video games. I want everything on the surface, like old-school Nintendo, and the first person shooters tend to fill me with existential dread. If I was given a choice of virtual reality afterlives, I'd go for the 2D, like an eternal webpage with comics. And I draw pictures like this one, flat with the whole story on the surface. 

One interesting result is that people think I'm drawing abstract art, when I never do. Abstract art is based upon all kinds of beneath the surface meanings, but I never put anything beneath the surface.  Not abstract. No themes or symbolism. For this one I was drawing a port, with two dimensional buildings and little boats in it. The shapes further out are are plants growing on islands. Obviously an art major might be able to sleuth out some subconscious meanings in the picture, but really, it's a port with little ships in an alien, two dimensional world.  

If I suddenly became a famous abstract artist and sold pictures for loads of money, and people asked me what a picture meant, I might not say the same thing. I might say it the first time someone asked me, but if they seemed disappointed or if I felt embarrassed, I might say something like I was "toying with shapes". Then I might read critical reviews referring to "exploration of organic forms" or something very cool like that, and I might prefer to say that instead of "little alien ships". I might start referring to "pieces" instead of "drawings".   

I just realized that there was a Kurt Vonnegut book, "Bluebeard", where the protagonist, an abstract artist, says about the same thing; that he has silly stories in mind when he does his pieces. I'm a little disappointed to be imitating his idea, but I think my backstories for my pictures are more embarrassing.  His were about a deer or something. And I do not claim to do or try to do abstract drawings. I was just saying that I might change my tune if I became rich, which is a completely different theme than Vonnegut was pursuing. 

This picture would be much better in color too. That would be another failing I have; letting ultimate intent skew current method. I drew the picture with the idea at the back of my mind that it would be colored, and so drew a less interesting, un-colored picture instead of an intended black and white celebration of its own monochromatic nature sort of picture, like ansel Adams photos. I also do the opposite; I add colors to a picture, in line with earlier intent, that actually mar the black and white picture, because it didn't need any colors and was drawn to be without colors, by myself, because I forgot about the colors halfway through the picture and drew it to be black and white. The moral of the story is don't add color unless it needs color, but you'll never know if it needs color unless you're a real artist, so the moral of the story is I never know and neither by the laws of probability will you the reader because my mother is not an artist either. 

I may use computer technology to color the picture later, using the magic wand and the button with the sloshing paint bucket, but for some reason, probably age-related, a drawing task that I wouldn't mind spending two hours doing by hand seems almost unbearably difficult if it would take more than five minutes on the computer. 

My Creative Output is an Enigma wrapped in a Mystery Containing an Imaginary Comic Book

I didn't continue the story of Doctor Elephante in the sketchbook. I continued the story in idea mode, meaning in my head, for several days after. And in my head the story got so incredibly good that I could hardly think of anything else. I became completely involved in the story as a viewer, and could hardly wait to see what would happen next. At the same time as a creator I became convinced that I had a monster hit on my hands, a story that could possibly be the best selling comic book of all time, and a hit movie and a tv series and an Oscar winner that might go down in history as comparable to the works of Shakespeare and Michelangelo and Bach as one of the supreme achievements of the human mind. My expectations as a viewer soared into the stratosphere at the same time as the pressure to deliver began to inhibit the playful creativity that I had begun the imaginary story with. It stopped being fun, and turned into a chore. I began to just grind out the illusionary episodes like an indifferent machine, without feeling any connection to the character or the audience which was also an imaginary character. Then finally, as a viewer, I gave one of the installments a negative review.  As a creator my world came crashing down around me, and I resigned from the show (it was no longer a comic book at that point).  Unfortunately the panels and scripts and completed episodes were all in my head, in idea mode, so when I stopped writing and inking and publishing the comic book and adapting and directing and filming and starring in the series about 72 hours after the original doodles, it all sorted of faded away and I have nothing real to show for all that effort but the memories - which are all sort of fading away too.   Anyway, heat death of the universe, water under the bridge. 

Then we went on a road trip to Tucson and I drew a picture of our motel room:

I had some problems with the layout of the room in this picture due to the un-calibrated nature of my representative drawing style, meaning I can't do proportions and don't know how real artists do them. They may use a ruler or something. Also, I tend to adopt a circular scanning technique wherein I draw one side of a doorway and draw along down in a clockwise motion of my field of view, drawing the stuff nearer the doorway, down to my own feet, then moving up along the left side and up to the left  side of the doorway - which, mysteriously - did not now line up with the right, not even close, the left side bottom began at a spot just below the top of the door frame. This left a blank void in the middle of the room, which I filled with a farewell panel from the Doctor Elephante comic.  I then simply completed the left side of the door in space, so to speak, leaving the door and frame seeming to stand about ten feet inside the room, past the entrance area. Looking at the picture now, I am astonished with how natural and realistic and cozy the room looks with this fantastic door standing confidently in the center of it. The phantom doorway lends an easy and delightful flow to the layout to the room that motel designers and architects should pay close attention to, and the yawning chasm of nothingness through which my financially and critically triumphant comic book from an alternate universe makes its enigmatic appearance doesn't seem to mar the aesthetic of the room as severely as I'd originally feared

Diffident Continuation of Previous Story

The story of Doctor Elephante

Continuing the development of the character introduced in the previous doodle:

Revisiting this origin story, I have to confess that it seems to me to display several fundamental weaknesses of myself as a comic book writer. For one thing, who is this person in the first panel? I mean, to start with, what's his name?  Even Stan Lee took some time before the Origin Event of his characters, to show them as normal humans in a normal life. I personally found these introductory sequences almost completely unbearable to wade through, but it doesn't mean they didn't help a little to ground spidey or Mr Fantastic in a kind of boring, this-is-your-goodguy-like-him-and-get-to-the-pow-pow, kind of way. At the bare minimum, a name and occupation, and at least one adjective having somewhat of a relation to personality should preface the explosive origin event. 

So, reviewing this comic, I would say this writer has no patience and is unwilling to put much work into his craft. And does not possess the ability to visually tell a story. The best part of this panel, in my opinion, has got to be my idea for the two ton elephant pants. If I had continued the comic, I would have dedicated it to the development of this idea. How does he make the two ton pants?  How does he walk in them?  What events transpire, in his post-origin-event experience, to set him on the path to conceiving and devising and creating the two ton pants?

But alas, we will never know. These doodles are not blueprints of what will be, but merely shadows of what might have been about to be.  They offer a snapshot of an unproductive mind, in continual ferment, with no progress, no habitable structures. A roiling mob of ideas with no will to organized government or culture