A NEW TESTAMENT

    The curtain rises over the black-and-white no-woman’s-land of 2019. The suspicious susurration of what one can only assume is loose papers can be heard, as well as the jingle-jangling of pencils, pens, and pins on a hat. My name is Bathsheba Eliam, and it is time to explain.

I started writing this blog (more like "clog"), when I was a lanky, janky pre-teenager trying to introduce you all to as many characters as possible. Since then, a few things have happened: I realized that I am not a man, and then that I am a woman. Secondly, I realized that I couldn’t draw anymore, and then that I COULD in fact still draw. One of these journeys I could not be more proud of, and the other is nothing more than a logjam … a clogjam, if you will ...

… so here I am, a bona fide, 23-carat dust collector, surrounded by the other trophies and atrophies of my famously curated room. I spend time in this museum of the furbelows shown below when I need sleep, or in this case, when I need inspiration, the kind that I cannot get from the rest of the Small World that I live in … After All.

Alright, now that I have corralled courage enough to write the important part, here she is: as our heroine Zowene “Zowie” Cowy stares down the serrated edges of her amorphous android enemies, we must choose for her. Who will spontaneously generate at her side? The human(oid) half of the Valiunt Heros, or the madly scientific Milly Brimcogs?! You decide, and I delight!

EPISODE ONE, PART ONE

"Time Goes Hollywood"
(A  STUDY  OF  VALUE)

  

"Twister!"

                                                                                  (AN  EXPLORATION  INTO  TEXTURE)

"Ubermensch"

(AN INTRODUCTION  TO COLOR & TRANSPARENCY )

" 'S is for Silence' "

(A  CONTEMPLATION  ON  LINE  DRAWING)

"He"

(A VENTURE IN PORTRAITURE)

"Time Travel"

                                                                           (A WEEK WITH  INTERIORS AND ELLIPSES)

BARING PRESENTS & PRESENTING BEARS (Feat. An Oldie)

     Sorry I'm late, all. Some pesky leftover 2017 was still gripping my shoe, making me trip on mounting biology homework everytime I made a lunge for my keyboard. Not even the Olympics could wash away the stains. Nasty thing. Anywho, the past is behind us--or at least below the knee--and short story long, Jacob's Characterz! is officially back in full-force! And what better fashion in which to ring in the second-to-last New Year before the new decade than with an update for the triumphant furry capper-offer of my first centennial slate of characters back in '14. Ladies and gents, our friend and colleague, Mister Douglas Farfeather! Smile for the people, Doug. All seven of you.

(Name: Doug. Age: your guess is as good as his. Likes: people, places, things, etc. Dislikes: the dark.)

#280: Manning King, the Thing-Bringer

      'Tis the day after the day after the day after Christmas. More streaks of belly-roll-induced ware trace the crannies of your chimney, and the author myself is left with a truth to carry into the new year. Jolly ol' Santa Clause and six-out-of-seven reindeer are now more believable than my ability to meet a deadline. However, in spite of a buckling fender bender of my scheduling bafoonery and countless reasons for the season hacking my seasonal art slate down a couple thirds, I'm not in the business of surrendering. Thus, before that pesky landlord Father Time tugs the plug on 2017, here commences a proper finale. I present Manning King, the Thing Bringer! Scuffed are the pinheaded heels of the alien insect race the Aruchee, scattering over the static sands of their planet Pragga Prime like hairpins poured down a slope. As spry and old, winged and dune-bound conjoin in packed reverie, the busied bug crowds fling and flitter, joyously hugging their pillars of worship: a pair of chunky rubber soles, and just north, those oh-so-familiar buckles of velcro. For the merry Aruchee have once again united under the kindly eye-in-their-sun-roasted-sky, the doughy deity they call their very own Little St. Nick: Manning King, the Thing-Bringer. Not one living Aruchee can say they witnessed the first visit of the Thing-Bringer--or the last, for that matter-- but whenever he returns, they're never in the mood to care. His lumbering charity has overseen more than a dozen generations of Aruchee, being met with open arms and misty arthropod eyes on their riotous holiday of sacred reunion: Saturday. Squeezing through a pit-black square portal dubbed the "Gateway of Micubbie" in the holy scripture, Manning King has enlightened provinces with Viewmasters and marbles, and fed frail villages with tapioca pudding. Eon after eon, weekend after weekend, the Thing-Bringer never fails to leave a ridged, glossy footprint on the legend of the Aruchee people, one as giant as it is lasting. That is, in between lofty naps and kid-kwon-do classes at the strip mall.

(Pictured: the Bringer of Things in mythic action, thumping his fascinating foreign wears with kindly tenation across Pragga's humble planes. Bat property of Sammy Swatt's Little League for Big Tots, all rights reserved.)

IT'S THE MOST WONDERFUL TIME OF THE MOST WONDERFUL TIME OF THE YEAR.

     The muffled murmer of a morning alarm lifts you from your slumber. A cream sunbeam peeks through your frosted window and skips down your hallway. Foamy cradles of crisp December snow dapple the antarctic blur beyond your doorstep. *hefty exhale* You live anywhere besides Southern California. However, in spite of the identity and increased nippiness of your neck-of-the-woods, its carotid artery is pumping steady with the zesty cocktail of seasonal merriment, and I'm in no position to interrupt the flow. My envy can wait until May showers. In the meantime, the season of giving with all of its clauses in tow will keep my sun-puckered palms on-task. Without further further ado, the 12 Creations of Christmas, everybody! Despite fate keeping the twelve speediest machinations of my twelvemonth to a less-than-per-day basis, festive superstition won't let me say "no." Fair game, Kringle. I'm a slave to your staccato sleighbells. Now, bluntly scissoring the sheeny ribbon of the 12 Creations in a clean two, straight from the art class I never told you I joined, all the things I never informed you I made. Cheers.

"The Beckoner."

"Posterboy."

"Cindy Sits."

"The Divine Digets."

#279: The Maxxy's® Mannequin Shoplifter Subduing Syndicate

     As should come to no surprise, the North American turkey-human repast for interspecies peace took another grizzly turn this twelvemonth. Maintain your faith. There's always next year. In other tragic tidings, I realize that as the doorsteps of moonlit occidental suburbia were scuffled with zealous trick-or-treaters' wily white Converses on October 31st, the blog was laid embarrassingly bare. However, at the turn of the month, so was my scorched neighborhood slope, so my surroundings weren't exactly in my favor.

(Actor's portrayal. Mind the watermarks.)

      However, as my frenzied fickle pinballing from hotel-to-hotel has ceased and the smoke fumes are almost finished waging war on my nostrils, my ducks are finally in some semblance of a row. So, without further ado, a post one sluggish sooty month in the making: the Maxxy's® Mannequin Shoplifter Subduing Syndicate! Mannequins do not deserve your trust. Those blank faces. Those glossy, gangly extremities. That posh, modernist attire that makes them look like charter school performance artists. My skin crawls at the thought. However, while a phobia of all dapper nightmare models lining aisles across the globe wouldn't get you much besides a two-fer bundle on public panic attacks, at an infamous outlet in the JC-Verse, it could save your life, limb, and everything in-between. Keep your hands to yourselves and selectively on the shelves, because at Maxxy's Retail Surplus Superstore Co. Inc.®, it's you against them. Seriously, we're talking about five-and-dime fascism now, make no mistake. These sleek chain-store Chekists are the uncanny kin of tense anti-shoplifter opprobrium, and are tasked with mincing every five-finger discount down to the proverbial knuckle. You'd be living a kiosk-side facade if you assumed that those stuffy Windsor ties don't become whips, those necklaces nunchakus, and those pocket squares throwing stars on a dime. And don't even get me started on the break rooms. Programmed with a virtual archive of noir interrogation scenes and Chokehold Encyclopedia for the Self-Starter: Volumes 1-6, your typical Maxxy's® Mannequin is a kunoichi in a cardigan--and if one so much as catches you suspiciously crossing their tees, you can bet your britches they'll dot your eyes. No questions asked. No reasons given.

(That particular kick is dubbed the "Half-Off." Half off of what precisely is case-by-case.)

ONE MAN'S TRASH CAN IS ANOTHER MAN'S TREASURE CAN.

    I need not look inward to know that I'm an upcycled person. A solitary glance at my Goodwill-centric rags or the superannuated vintage impulse buys cluttering my creative lair/itty-bitty-living space would tell you that much. Keeping that in mind, it was only a matter of time until I laid eyes upon a dumpster and thought, "By gum, that rancid rainwater stain belongs in the Louvre." Without further ado, I offer you "Ashbin Abyss." Mediums include photography, and that all-purpose Cretan labyrinth of a graphic toolbox, Adobe Photoshop. Enjoy:

(Alternative titles included "The Mess-opalegic Zone" and "The Sea of Stanquility.")

#278: Saffron Jean: The Santa Bocado Mystic

     What better way to counteract the kicking-off of the 2nd dullest month of the year, next to January, then with a hearty dose of meandering absurdity. For me, that was treating myself to the first half of Yellow Submarine. For you, I give you this post. Ladies, gents, and any other fine folks constituting to "other," may I introduce you to Saffron Jean, the Santa Bocado Mystic! Jean "Saffron Jean" Saffronson lives his life the way most people finish theirs: clammy, incoherent, and hollering into the aether at his late grandmother. So, one could say that he's ahead of the curve. As Santa Bocado Pier's resident beach hobo, medicine man, "astral chiropractor," therapist, self-published author, and trimonthly continental-cod-hut-and-tiki-bar rant poet, the man's done pretty well for himself. With a cushy central set-up sandwiched between the solo keyboardist and the shirtless guy who'll let you insult his chin curtain for $4 (as well as a none-too-shabby write-up in the Bocado Babbler heralding his business as "pleasantly not a front for a cult") Jean's essentially set for life. One has to ponder how an aging 11th-grade dropout who stores salted peanuts in the shell dangling from his neck could've incanted his way to the top. Well, according to his paperback memoir Third Eye on the Lookout, Lady Luck was kind. Whilst purchasing a corn chip portrait of the Dalai Lama at Venice Beach in '67, Jean recollects, he pulled out a half-dollar to pay. Suddenly, the 50 cents slipped from his damp didgets and plummeted to the concrete, landing at a 50 degree angle. And at that very moment, the intricacies of the universe were engraved into his brain. The next five World Series runner-ups and Woodstock headliners flashed before his sunken eyes. And the rest was history. While I myself can't fully endorse the word of a pier-based entrepeneur who lives in a tipi that reeks of incense and fish tacos, I would encourage you to take him at face value. The JC-Verse has seen stranger. Now, before I depart, allow me to offer you some noteworthy quotes from the man himself. I apologize beforehand:

"I live my life in accordance with the three Lennons/Lennins: John, Vlad, and the quaint Michigan township."

"They say the future is a promise. But my therapist Iris says thanks to me, life nowadays is a commitment. Therefore, the future is the present."

"Chakras, you ninny!"

"If salt is the devil's sugar, then call me a sinner, brother, call me a si . . . wha . . . Meemaw! For the love of Gosh, do you mind??!"

And lastly:

"It's the 20th Century, of course I know judo."

(Pictured: the famed and pittied Santa Bocado Mystic hoisting up the tools paramount to his patented "Astral Slingshot" maneuver. Any participants that could vouch for this ritual's legitimacy are nowhere to be found, but according to Jean, that's because "it's so groovy in the Astral Plane that no one would ever want to come back, silly.")