Just an Illustrator. No biggie.

Since I'm now a grandparent myself (effective 8:39 pm, this past Monday, 10/24), I thought I'd take this opportunity to talk about Luna's great-great-grandmother, Mareli McGee Foley, on this, the occasion of what would have been her 99th birthday:

Meet Mareli...

In the years following Mareli's death, I've begun what I hope will be an enduring habit. Like her, I want to make certain that every year of my life contains at least one new thing, one new experience, one new visit, one new book, one new idea. Every year should have in it something you've never done before. So now, at the end of each calendar year, I put together what I call my Mareli List, and enumerate every new experience --something to distinguish the past 12 months with all my personal Firsts. For example, my Mareli List for 2016 includes: a cross-country train trip to San Francisco, a drink in a bar with my son, becoming a grandfather, trying horchata for the first time, watching Hayao Miyazaki movies, and attending a Star Wars themed wedding.

Happy birthday Mareli! Miss you.

Boston ComicCon ended up being one of my best cons ever. Sold a lot of graphic novels, sold a lot of prints (even sold OUT of my Peggy Carter prints for some inexplicable reason), and picked up some great commissions. Enjoyed some quality visits with two dear friends that I NEVER get to see enough (thank you for putting me up, Barbara B. and Jen!), and meeting a whole bunch of new and amazingly talented colleagues.



Headed down to Va. Beach almost immediately. Long but uneventful drive, but I still somehow managed to injure myself enroute --severe pain developed in my right knee and I'm not exactly mobile. Still can't figure out how this happened, other than being cramped in the same position in a car for 10+ hours after 3 straight days of standing at a table on a concrete floor. Frustrating, although it's been wonderful getting to hang with my son, who I haven't seen since May. He's humoring his aged, crippled father well enough...

Injuries aside, this has still been a great week and I will cherish (almost) every aspect of it for a long time to come.

Posted via m.livejournal.com.

Home from a truly wonderful week in Walt Disney World with newly-graduated eldest, and of course mama_hogswatch. I know it's somehow become trendy (particularly amongst many in the so-called Nerd Culture) to hate on Disney because it's too popular, too mainstream, and/or too ruthless of an organization. In particular, a lot of Marvel and Star Wars fans are quite conflicted as of late, some of them to the point of not yet being fully re-integrated into society, so if there are any of those in your life, please... go easy on 'em. It's been a battlefield of mixed signals.

Me, while I harbor no illusions that Disney is indeed a mightily powerful corporate organization that holds an AWFUL lot of sway over what we as Americans may be exposed to in terms of both entertainment and information, I still love the company. A week in Walt Disney World never fails to rekindle the idea mill, get the creative juices flowing again. Particularly after a couple of days in Epcot --still far and away my favourite of all the Disney parks. I've been a fan of the "humanity can do better" message implicit in the very architecture of the park ever since it opened in the early 80's, and I'm delighted to be able to report that my enthusiasm for its message has not dimmed. Science, necessity, and creativity really do combine into the best possible recipe for achievement --whether that's to engineer a better car or a better method of communicating or a better way to grow crops or a better way to get humans into space. When applied in just the right balance, those three ingredients allow us --if only for a moment-- to see the human species as something that just might be worthwhile after all. To see those results presented against a backdrop that portrays eleven very different countries as essentially the same folks, is my personal cue that it is okay to switch off the cynicism every once in a while and just plain dream.

If nothing else, perhaps it was the ideal setting in which my eldest closes out this first chapter in his life. As for that second chapter, well... that's a plot in which I most emphatically do not get to have a say. But I'm very much looking forward to reading it!

In a graduation ceremony that will, meteorologically speaking, never be forgotten, my eldest sloshed across the stage and picked up a soggy but still valid high school diploma.


'One Life and It’s Up to Us': Lebanon High Graduates Urged on Importance of 'Grit'

The rains held off until we were about two-thirds of the way through the list of names. At that point the heavens opened up and umbrellas were of little to no use. What was there to do at that point, but just laugh and try to make it fun? The grads seemed unfazed --the looks of triumph on their faces pretty much overrode everything else. Was really great having everyone present for this moment, regardless of weather conditions.

Quite a pathway this young man has walked, up to now. On to Phase II, whatever he decides that is.

Also starring the lovely nomoretoast of Fairy House Films, featuring some sound work by my son, and filmed on location at my single favourite place on the entire planet. (Thank you riverspirit54!)

Whilst tending hearth and home with teenage son this weekend, we got it into our heads to do some long-overdue Lego building. We built a collection of shattered castle arches, statues, and falling-down towers overrun with weeds, and scattered a few skulls and abandoned pikes and helmets about the place for effect.

We decided that The Ruins Of Nal Mahar represented a "previously-unseen" chapter in Fellowship of the Ring, site of a long-ago and long-forgotten battle that the Fellowship trudged past not long after setting out from Rivendell. Somewhere at this point in the quest Gandalf acquired the ignius plasma attachment for his staff, which can incinerate a Nazgul's horse at forty paces (hence their somewhat-rushed request for transport upgrades). Boromir brought the already-somber mood even lower when he kept muttering "One does not simply stroll past the Ruins of Nal Mahar" over and over again, like it was some kind of, I don't know, repeated meme or something. Sam ignored a caution from Gimli not to look to his immediate right, which of course he promptly did and instantly vomited at the gruesome sight of a rotting orc skull still in its helmet. Legolas paused to sniff the air suspiciously and concluded that the party was being quietly shadowed at a distance by a giant fish with purple legs, to which Aragorn agreed but his keen Ranger instincts insisted that the fish's legs were in fact purple and white (of course Gollum overheard this and had to struggle mightily to keep from snickering out loud lest he give himself away).

Other than these incidents, there is little to tell: my son and I can only assume that since there was very little character or plot development in this chapter, that Professor Tolkien wisely decided to leave it out of the final draft.

(Yes, I'm trying not to dwell on the reality that my Lego-building days with my son are drawing to a close in the next few months.)

Today noelfigart and I enjoyed a fun (and long overdue) afternoon with svava and kyttle. When the Doctor advised all of humankind to "be magnificent," these two definitely took it to heart. Great visit in spite of truly craptastic weather. Hard to believe my family's been friends with these two eminently awesome people for a full decade now.

And as a bonus: there was sushi.

Based on a hilarious suggestion from kyttle and the amazing svava, I give you: