Letters to Holly

Friday, April 8

Mixed Signals

Turns out Your Sister's ENT appointment was in Asheville, and she discovered this when she arrived at the local office instead. She'll now go to the right office Monday, and I'll keep the sidekick at my office while she get a lookover. She was able, however, to make a school meeting to interview principal candidates.

The county doesn't know what the next school year will look like until the state passes a budget. The town is warning employees that school staffs may be cut, but the local board members are on record as opposing teacher cuts. That's reassuring. The state is also debating a bill that would let homeschoolers and private school students play on public-school teams. Our county already allows this if the students take a certain number of public-school classes, but the new bill, as it stands, would allow them to play if they otherwise never step foot on a public campus. And that's the shit of horses.

If the jersey says "Ox Hoof High," how can someone not attending Ox Hoof High be on the team? How do they represent the school? If one need not attend to play, then I assume I can sign up. No, playing on a team (and ultimately competing for athletic scholarships) is a privilege offered for following that school policies, including attendance and grades. If you reject the school, you also reject its afterschool programs. In for a penny, in for a pound. Otherwise, stay home.

Picture of the Day
This is where I am so far with the museum artwork. It's tight in some places, weak in others. I'd like to have the pencils done by this weekend so I can ink. I 'm still working on polishing the comic and want to take that to the printer by next weekend. That will give them a month to do the job.

I'll bet money that the museum asked for original art donations assuming they'd get whatever was lying around the artists' studios. Maybe a portfolio piece, maybe an elaborate doodle. Now that I know this is an auction, I want to give them art that can bring in the most money. I think some folks will make the mistake of donating material with limited appeal. I mean, I could give them a sketch of eMMA or Focus, but who knows who they are? Why would they spend more than $10 on that?

However, if I use established characters, there's a greater chance the fans of those characters will pay top dollar. Hence, the Avengers. Also, the piece features the four Avengers movie franchises -- Hulk, Thor, Iron Man, and Captain America -- and Hawkeye, who appears in at least one of those films. That could attract even casual collectors of original art or those who want to bank on the success of the two films this year and the Avengers film next year.

So what we have here is a classic Avengers line-up facing the first Avengers foe, Loki, Thor's brother. He's holding a Cosmic Cube, one of Marvel's cosmic-level thingamabobs that make big messes. Marvel loves these things -- the Ultimate Nullifer, the Infinity Gauntlet -- but the cube is the simplest for comic fans to grasp. It's a cube, and it makes wishes real. It's not good for bad guys to have, and Loki is about to bust it out.

Here's the original sketch and the artboard drawing as it was this morning. It still needs the tweaks.



Drawing Hulk doing the Hulk thing is a singular joy.

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