REALLY SORRY.

Right.

For some unknown reason, even to me, it seems I've received a lot of letters in the last few weeks and months. I just realized they're there. Lurking in my mail folder. LURKING! I am simply at a loss to tell you why I have not looked to check my mail. No excuses, no reasons....zip.

I'm sorry.

I'll try in the next few days to answer them all. Or, at least really give it a good try.

Please bear with me. I don't why you would, but I mean well.

Gad! Where IS my mind?

Salaam, and peace to you all.

M.Z.

THE REAL PUMA BLUES.

As things stand, I've been thinking more and more about the "way things are" and the place of the kind of work I want to do has, as opposed to the new found thrill ride comics these days seem to be having.

It's a joke.

This turning of an infant medium of artistic expression, just getting it's legs under it, is, still at it's core controled by facile, semi-conscience people who don't dare look under the bed for fear their gut anxiety will be true: it's just a gutter medium, disposable and when it's been sucked dry like Madison avenue did with the peace movement back in the sixties. I mean clean cut all American youth on a mountain side telling the world peace and harmony was nothing more than sharing a coke....so by all means, buy one, *snicker*. I cringe and back away from "weekend hippies" and "what kind of man reads playboy", and now, mass market cool, ipods and cell phones and on and on. Oh, yeah.....and comics.

Iswear, I can almost smell the money from here. But, you can be sure that the people who make comics for a living are so thrilled sunglasses and smelling salts are todays fashion exessory. Unless you look under the bed. Brrrrrr*

Somebody else is really in the drivers seat. Somebody else has the really BIG checkbook . You sign that paper to get paid, and you never, never had a hand in it BY LAW. But that's ok because here comes respect at last.

That a quarter will get you a phone call.

Check this out......Gil Scott Heron......from 1981.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Watch this then get back to me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80JoQY3Oelk

Granted, I'm or was, part of the same game........But I really tried to do my best with what I had to work with. Alas, the depth of expression and control ( it's all about control.)I need as an artist and now writer of comics and stories is now my sole reason for doing what I do. I'm a hopeless optimist. I honestly still believe work that can change lives and hearts can be made. Not work for hire or the various disguises it comes under these days, like "creator owned" or something similar.

You can bet your last voucher they are always going to make more off of you than you make off of them. Period.

A five hundred dollar an hour "escort" as opposed to a thirty dollar suck and fuck in an alley.

You still gotta wipe off and pay the pimp.

"Wait", I hear you say...."didn't you say a post or so ago that you were doing a big Sandman piece for a gallery show?"

Yeah, you did. And I am. Why? Because once, Neil, and I with Todd and Danny made something beautiful, and I believe, lasting, regardless. Because Neil is my friend.....I don't mean, "Friend" as in "Friendly". I have lots of those......I'm talking about the kind you can count on one hand and still have fingers left over. I owe him. Happily so. And because, at the end of the day, The piece I make for this show will be mine. All of it. If I sell it, or if I don't is my decision.

Same with Puma.....Stephen and I own it. All of it. Somebody wants it, they pay, a lot, forever.

That'll be the day.

I love you all.

Salaam and wishes of peace.

M.Z.

MEANWHILE.......

"Only when we see ourselves in our true human context, as members of a race which is intended to be one organism and "one body," will we begin to understand the positive importance not only of the successes but of the failures and accidents in our lives. My successes are not my own. The way to them was prepared by others. The fruit of my labors is not my own: for I am preparing the way for the achievements of another. Nor are my failures my own. They may spring from the failure of another, but they are also compensated for by another's achievement. Therefore the meaning of my life is not to be looked for merely in the sum total of my achievements. It is seen only in the complete integration of my achievements and failures with the achievements and failures of my own generation, and society, and time.-

Thomas Merton. No Man Is An Island (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1955)

Currently working on a gallery piece of Morheus for later this year. It's huge. It's in pencil.

It will destroy you.

details to follow.

Back to the book soon. Then, the final push.

Hoorah!

Blessings of peace to you all.

SILENCE

I have nothing to say right now.

I'll return to work tomorrow to tackle several commisions.

But, today, I'll be silent.

This is for those of you who need to stop for a moment.

Listen carefully for the sound of wings.

Peace to you all.

M.Z.

http://in.truveo.com/Rumi-Sufi-Poem/id/2956751130

Rain.

Something nice.

For Irving. I fine man, writer and friend.

Peace to you all.

MZ.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3mc8m_vBQg&NR=1

BLANK.

"If the mystic succeeds he has everything he needs - even if he should become an outcast of society. In case he fails he fails entirely, totally and miserably. Nothing to hold on to: no funds tucked away, no lobby, no social network to fall back on, no craft or science in which he can be called an expert. Only the soul - ah, but the soul went out of fashion sometime in the late 2oth century..."
(From "Letter to an American friend" , Summer 2000)

"The creative is that which comes from within and addresses "within"

Al Gromer Khan.

I'll be back as soon as possible.

Peace to all.

M.Z.

SLEEPING WITHOUT DREAMING

I've run out of ideas.

I've run out of paper.

I don't have the time to get involved in real painting, the kind one does with oils, canvas, easels, rags and the usual things.

I'd like to you know. But that's for after the "book" is finished. I might even do my altarpiece regardless of a church to put it in.

Not now though.

I have to wait a bit to gather funds to buy a nice quart of ink, the proper paper, and a few odds and ends that go with the whole lot.

So, I wait.

Sometimes that's all you can do. The other afternoon while in conversation with Steve Bissette I told him of this strange symptom I've had of late. When one is in process of making art, ideas just seem to come from other directions unrelated to the work at hand. Usually, these are stored for further reference when needed. As I've been working pretty much non-stop for the last two and a half years I'm finding the Wells running dry.

I'm just out of ideas. I'm running short on dreams that provoke art. It's so .....odd.

After this book is finished, I'm taking off for a bit and recharging. I really, really need it.

Today, and most likely for the foreseeable future, I'll be checking lots of books out of the library and keeping to myself.

It's to expensive to go for long drives. It's not gardening season here yet, so, I sleep. Read. Sleep some more.

When I've got the free money, the book gets finished and then a blank period and I start again.

Seems fair.

Be peacfull. Read something nice. Go for a walk. Listen to the birds.

They'll tell you stories if you listen.

I'm serious.

M.Z.