Sure Shock, Nature Shock

Last Updated on Monday, 17 August 2009 08:16 Written by Scott Wegna Monday, 17 August 2009 07:54

I don’t know where the term brain fry comes from, but this week it is applicable. I may have mentioned it here before, and anyone following me on the Twitters is intimately familiar with my Goss Park experience. Basically, for the first two weeks of summer vacation, and the gap between the end of Girl Scout camp and school starting back up again, The Widget and I live at Goss Park. I guess it’s appropriate that she appeared twice in the recent article about the park’s 50th anniversary. Here she is looking like the fucking Joker on meth-amphetamines. Basically, I’ve been learning something about small town rural life that really sucks. I mean . . .okay a lot of it sucks. But the specific example is this; the kids are too scattered to just kick them out the door in the summer time and hope they come back when the street lights come on.

The fact that we live on Main Street just compounds that problem because there are no kids out playing, and if they were the road at the end of my driveway is the busiest around for miles, all hours of the day. The ridiculous 25mph speed limit only seems to inspire people to do 60mph or more, as if to say “That is retardedly slow, I could ride my bike faster than that, so fuck you VROOOOOOOM”

So any day the Widget is home with me there is a little script we follow. I get up, I make coffee, I turn my computer on, and she appears out of fucking nowhere at my elbow demanding to know what we are going to do that day.

My gut reaction is always the same; to shatter my heavy ceramic mug in her cute little face, get another cup of coffee, and read my fucking emails in peace, thank you very much. But what actually happens is some little kid snuggling and a couple bowls of Cheerios while we discuss our many and exciting options.

“Daddy was hoping to get some work done today. I’ve got a deadline that I need to meet, and I haven’t invoiced Red5 in a while and we’ve got bills due. So I was thinking you could sit in front of the TV like a lump -a very quiet lump that doesn’t do anything stupid like spill cottage cheese or yogurt on the thick living room carpets . . again- while I earn a living and do my part to keep the lights turned on. What do you say?”

Ten minutes later I’ve got a cooler, flip flops, boogie board, beach bag, and my “portable office” tucked under my arm and we’re off. The “portable” bit is something of a joke. It’s the same crap I lug to conventions, plus my giant lap top, which was built for watching movies, not actually moving around. It’s almost as heavy as a desktop machine.

Working at Goss is always. . .interesting. The sounds of children laughing and playing are actually fairly pleasant. Unless you need to concentrate on something. Or focus in any sort of meaningful way, on anything. Then they are just a bunch of chattering monkeys that you’d like to force feed Benedril until they all take a nap.  Running into adults I know is also always sort of a challenge. They ask the innocent question: “Hey Scott, how you doing?” Now, if I’m on my game and not distracted by fantasies of drugging little children I give an appropriate response. But most of the time They are met by a vaguely anti-social grimace which I want to be a smile, and some sort of grunt. I’m trying to say, “Hi Bob, what a great day, huh?” but what is trying to come out is, “I’m not in my nice quiet office with zero distractions getting work done, so I’m pretty fucking pissed off at the world Bob. How are you?” Luckily nothing intelligible comes out.

Just yesterday I was talking to a friend and he says, “I just realized something. You’re not a stay at home dad. You’re a guy who just happens to work out of his house.” Thank you professor. Did you figure that out all by yourself? Where does one study if they wish to earn a PHD in NO SHIT!!!

I mean trust me, if my wife suddenly told me she was giving up her poetry to pursue a career in law, medicine, or managing hedge funds I’d do back-flips of joy. Because then I would be a stay at home dad. And I can’t imagine attending hedge fund conferences could be any more boring that tagging along with her to poetry readings. Right?

Where was I? Oh yeah we were at Goss Park. Now it may be hard to believe, but I LOVE GOSS PARK. The staff is kick-ass, the park is clean, the swimming is great, and it seems like only the parents that I like go there. It’s weird. During the school year there are those parents that I go out of my way to avoid. And none of them go to Goss Park. Its amazing.

I like to call them the Mom Brigade. These are the hardcore, full-time, professional moms. Not the vapid soccer moms who drop their kids at day care just so they can work out at the gym 4 days a week. No, these ladies are the real deal. They are in the trenches, have mouths like truck drivers, and know more about sports and auto repair than I do.  I don’t have a whole lot in common with any of them, but I really like all of them. On the rare occasions when I leave my little office under the trees to say hello they are always good for a laugh. I especially love them because unlike so many parents today, they are not afraid to call their kids on their bullshit. These mom’s are not afraid to say, “Junior, what you just did was fucking retarded and I’m beginning to wonder if I should sign you up for SPED, now go blah blah blah.”  None of these kids is going to grow up believing in the sick little fantasy that they are special little snowflakes and the world will bend over backwards to accommodate them. And really, that’s a good thing.

So there is a lot to like about Goss Park. The fact that tomorrow is my last day there until next summer is really kind of sad.

I will not miss working at a picnic table (wood planks hurt your bum!) getting sand, sap, sandwich debris, and bird shit (seriously), in my laptop, or having to photoshop the bug guts off my pages before I email them to Brian every night. I was super-psyched this year when they installed WiFi, though just like at home, access to the Internet tends to castrate my productivity. I wish there was a way to only have access to Clevinger’s IM and nothing else.

Tomorrow we’re going to Staten Island to visit Ma Wegs and the rest of the family, catch up with old friends, and schmoos with Ms. Schaefer in the hopes of getting more Marvel work- that fact that she is most awesome will make that a fun time.

For a while now Dorinda and I have been batting around the idea of moving closer to the family, since no one in their right mind is going to relocate up here. So I’ll be looking at the old place with a critical eye this trip. This will also be Emma’s first big trip down there when it’s not snowing. So we’re going to do some touristy stuff with here -Statue of Liberty, Museum of Natural History, Staten Island boardwalks, maybe hit the Library and reenact some Ghostbuster scenes. Who knows.

People who live in NYC never do the touristy bullshit. And for good reason. Year round these things are mobbed with loud, pushy, out of town jackasses with inflated senses of self-entitlement who complain about how rude we all are. I skipped school with I was 14 and did the Statue of Liberty. It took most of my paper route earnings just to pay for the ferry ride and a bagel. The only other tourist experience I’ve ever had in NYC is actually one of my fondest memories. Twice as a kid my grandfather took me to the top of the Empire State Building. This is back before they redid the place and turned it into a $40 a pop mob scene. Its also before they gutted the shabby art deco interior and made it look like a Marriott hotel.

I don’t remember specifics, just little flashes. Riding the subway, eating a hot dog, and the way he would put his big hand on the back of my neck and literally steer me through the crowds of people. Anyway, great memories. Hope the Widget has a similar experience this week.

Oh hey, ATOMIC ROBO!

Somehow I finished that short story I was working on last week. It should go live in a few weeks, once it’s colored and lettered. For now you’ll only be able to see this one on the Internet, but we might toss it in a future TPB. Who knows. As I believe I mentioned before, this was an experiment in drawing Robo in a new way. The short version is that inking takes forever, and it’s brutal on my hands. So I drew the comic as always in non-photo blue and then instead of going over it with ink I used graphite -which is a fancy word for “pencil”.

Ronda and I did that for the Human Torch story I did a few months ago and we really liked it. Hopfully you guys will like Robo done in this style too. Below is a scan of one of the pages. The scans always look awful compared to the actual penciled page. But then Ronda does her thing and it looks ten times better than the original. So don’t judge yet.

I just love this page. I didn’t do anything creative with the “camera”, the layout is dull, and I had to draw the same background four times. But it’s such a perfect metaphor for what Atomic Robo is all about. That, plus I just like the idea of the creature trotting smugly back to it’s lair in the last panel.

This week we’ll be starting work on FCBD 2010 and then rolling right into Vol.4 work in mid-September.

Popularity: 33%