Michael Zulli

THIS COULD BE THE LAST TIME...

2011-12-31T15:57:00.002-06:00

Okay, here we go, the obligatory end of year wrap up.

I hate this shit. It honestly seems so arbitrary and ultimately useless.

But my culture sort of demands it.

Lately I've been trying very hard to escape this feeling that the quantum conscience of god, aliens of a far superior race, or just plan entropy has their hands or tentacles or whatever poised on the handle and any moment now we will all begin the counter-clockwise rotation on the great water slide.

If any advanced whatever even cares.

So, with that in mind, and if we make it, here are a few things I look forward to. Of course this is in no particular order.

A: My ship, (or more accurately my dingy.) has come into the harbor but has not docked yet. "Boy" is out and after far to many years I may actually get paid something for the sweat, pain agony and dashed hopes I endured for far, far to long to make it happen. I will need to invest a substantial portion of it in re-outfitting my studio so I can really make things worth,(hopefully.) the effort involved in making them. That includes a whole new book, far, far different but in many ways quite similar to the last one. This time I hope I don't have to stop every week or two to pimp myself on ebay. That would be a true blessing.

B: the release of Caitlin R.Kiernans magnificent "The Drowning Girl: a Memoir." To say I am overjoyed at having however small a part in the promotional aspects of this unholy masterpiece pleases me to no end.

C: the "Panel to Panel" book by my friend John Rovnak, including work by my former New England squad of artists and writers. At least twice a year I get hit with terrible nostalgia for the old granite hills of New England. You must support his efforts. www.paneltopanel.net.

D: the still possible, though as of now somewhat remote showing in one place of the artwork for "Boy" I'd really like that.

E: the total revamping of my web-site. For a long time now it's served me well, but it's time has come and the need for a new face on the web for me is becoming more than a general spruce up, but a necessity.

There, off the top of my head, "things to look forward to. That is if we all don't wink out of existence tomorrow morning.

Late dear ones,

M.Z.

...THICK AS A BRICK.

2011-12-09T15:53:00.002-06:00

   "Really don't mind if you sit this one out.   My words but a whisper -- your deafness a SHOUT. I may make you feel but I can't make you think. Your sperm's in the gutter -- your love's in the sink. So you ride yourselves over the fields and you make all your animal deals and your wise men don't know how it feels to be thick as a brick. And the sand-castle virtues are all swept away in the tidal destruction the moral melee. The elastic retreat rings the close of play as the last wave uncovers the newfangled way. But your new shoes are worn at the heels and your suntan does rapidly peel and your wise men don't know how it feels to be thick as a brick.   And the love that I feel is so far away: I'm a bad dream that I just had today -- and you shake your head and say it's a shame."

Ian Anderson, "thick as a brick."

Yeah, it's a damn shame.

Look forewords to those credit card bills come January. At least the lights and whatnot are pretty, and the change dropped into a

salvation army pot mitigates some guilt. Ah, well, new things, ( "Opium") coming along slowly but well.

Work to live, live to work.

Happy Holidays!

M.Z.

PAGLIACCI, PIERROT, CYRANO.

2011-10-15T16:59:00.002-05:00

Odds and ends time once more my friends.

A: I've got a raging case of strep throat, the kind that's dangerous. To top it off, I'm allergic to many forms of anti biotics which means that besides being sick as a dog, I'm sick as a dog.

B: I have absolutely no idea if "Boy" is in comics shops or not, and how many we sold through diamond. Would somebody write and tell me please. Thanks. I need the income to throw back into the next book, like NOW.

C: The filming for the short film/ book trailer for "The Drowning Girl: a Memoir" is being filmed, acted and photographed as I write. I feel absolutely blessed to have played a part, however small in helping to make something wonderful. I'm totally hooked on Caitlin's writing

and even Karen, who seriously prefers her fiction OLD, is taken by "The Red Tree". That's saying something. If you've never read anything by her, that would be a great place to start.

D: That's it. I'm done. Feeling miserable and just worn out. Nobodies talking and it's driving me around the bend. I thought friends talked to you. At least sometimes.

But what do I know?

Take care oh, my people, whoever you are.

M.Z.

BOYS ON DRUGS AND OTHER FILTHY THINGS.

2011-09-16T13:59:00.002-05:00

Hhmm, bet that got your attention you that notice at all.

A quick word about "Fracture of the Universal Boy".

Imagine a walnut.

you hold it in your hand, and feel the smooth crenelated surface. You

fell it's weight in your hand, notice as it warms, it gives off a subtle nutty fragrance.

You might if so inclined, pop it into your mouth and roll it around a bit. Not very tasty, but

kind of interesting none the less.

But, if you do the work, crack it open you have the meat, the essence of the nut at your disposal.

"Boy", is like that nut. Nothing on the outside is worth anything. If, however you extend a little

effort, what's really going on parts like veils. And believe me there are a lot of them to part.

So.

Here is really why I'm here: today, September sixteenth, two thousand and eleven, at seven fifty seven AM, I officially started "Opium: variations for quill and vapor."

As I write this I have already penciled three pages of the prologue, and will have the rest finished by days end.

I have waited and planned for this day for over six months. Today. Exactly.

I may not, at the moment have a pot to piss in, but I have seldom been happier.

I have this rare and fragile thing, newly born in my hands and as the days go by, I will be there as it gets stronger and stronger until IT tells ME what to do.

So, mark this day well.

I suspect it will take about a year give or take, and I will undoubtedly suffer the torments of the damned from time to time, as well as flights of unbelievable freedom.

At least I hope so.

I will keep you posted, and if the whim takes me, a preview now and again.

M.Z.

TROUT.

2011-09-08T17:13:00.002-05:00

Gods, (whichever you prefer.) what a day.

I spent nearly all day in the studio flopping around like a beached trout gasping for air for an IDEA, and idea. I started two different things only to very, very quickly dispose of them before they caused my eyes to bleed.

But, my dear old muse came back from Ikea with a brand spanking new IDEA.

I gotta hand to the old dear, she occasionally comes up with a whopper.

It seems I am not done with my run on subjects in, and around water. So, for the next week or so I will be sailing the stormy seas on a doomed clipper ship. What fun!

Then, oh yes, and then, I get to start the new book, "Opium: variations for quill and vapor."

Well, at least the prologue. After that, I need to wait a bit for some ship, any ship to come in, hell, even a leaky skiff, so I can purchase the needed paper. Then it's full sail for the next YEAR to get this monster out of my head.

Hey kids! "Graphic Novels" are fun!

What a life.

M.Z.

Done and Dusted.

2011-09-07T16:54:00.002-05:00

Hello fellow travelers.

A brief studio update coming down the tracks.

For the last four or five weeks I've been painting as another person, and artist who died in 1907.

I needed to do two paintings one described in a novel, and another I need to make up in the same style but not described basically at all except in passing as "lost".

Funny thing about pseudonyms, They grow on you. I found myself actually feeling as if someone else was at the wheel, or leaning over my right shoulder from ectoplasmic otherwhere desperately trying to make my hands move differently and occasionally trying to force them to behave contrary

to the way I wanted them to move. A kind of artificial possession.

But, I finished them both this afternoon and so must roll up "Philip" and get back to being me.

Needless to say, it has been one of the more interesting things I have done in years and years.

Tomorrow I go back to the studio room and try and figure out what I need to do, as nothing looms on my creative horizon. I think I'll miss the dead guy. But I really wouldn't want to make a habit out of it.

Just chalk it up as "fun while it lasted".

Hopefully you will begin seeing them in one form or another in the next few months.

I'd like that.

But for now, I have to work my back from the twilight zone.

Thanks for listening.

M.Z.

The Drowning Girl: a Memoir.

2011-09-06T17:28:00.002-05:00

Really just whipped today. So I'll just keep it very, very brief.

There are a few days yet to go on Caitlin R. Kiernan's and kyle Cassidy's kickstarter

Campaign to bring an amazing novel to a whole new level. I really urge you, if you can spare

a few bucks to get on board asap. I've been lucky enough to read it in advance of publishing

and since then, been personally involved with helping where my talents are the most use.

It's been a true pleasure so once again, if you can, get over there and give a little and get a whole lot more back. Okay?

Oh, I'd include a link but frankly I'm just not one of those people who gets how to do that sort of thing on the laptop I have. You'll have no trouble finding it, I am sure.

Carry on brave soldiers.

M.Z.

Dispatches from the front.

2011-09-05T17:57:00.002-05:00

Before I go any further, I would like to sort of apologize for dunning

everybody for commissions. As I learned from my Rep, Ryan this morning

and it's not really news, but things are tough all over. Real tough.

But, as my father taught me, you'll never know unless you ask, right?

So, that's what I mean by, "sort of" apologize. I had to ask. And yeah, things are tough all over.

Consider the subject closed, okay? I get it. Or, don't as the case may be.

It's cool.

Onward. A great day painting. Discovered a problem I will fix tomorrow. That's good.

it's when you don't discover them that it's time to plan a Viking funeral.

Orders are in from comics shops for "Fracture" and I'm basically pleased. We made a good dent in the twenty five hundred books we ordered. So, that's just peachy.

Sorry for the lack luster post today, but art is a kind of lonely business and on a good day things kind of creep along and incremental changes accrue on a surface in front of your eyes until it's time to wipe everything down and call it a day.

Like watching paint dry you know?

Behave,

M.Z.

Really Zed.

2011-09-03T17:36:00.002-05:00

Spent most of the day preparing the paper,( 300 lbs. hot press watercolor paper to be exact.) for painting tomorrow. Tomorrow.

Sometimes I get so damn impatient I could ram nails in my eyes or something. Granted if you are to paint one must ground your surface well, or goodbye painting. Basically I have no problem doing the grunt work when it calls for it, but dead god sometimes I really long for the days when I actually had a well stocked studio. I would just go over to the corner and pick out a fresh new Masonite panel,( I've always preferred panels to canvas.) and get right to it. These days I just have to adapt to current conditions as best I can. But it's just so fucking frustrating sometimes you know?

I could have spent all day actually painting something instead of waiting to paint something.

Oh, I hate it when I whine about these things. Just don't get me started on the conditions of the paint I'm using. Half of it are these ridiculous little bottle of "craft paint" as they are called. They cost $2.50 at the local hardware store. Probably have a half life of a week.

Ah, well, better than nothing I suppose.

Even the paper is cannibalized from a thing I started several months ago and stopped when I realized it was to stupid to go on with.

I should have been a writer. I mean, how much does a few Bic pens and a ream of paper cost?

Reporting from down there in Zedsville, yours truly,

M.Z.

At least it's not still August.

2011-09-01T16:55:00.002-05:00

Just finished for the day. Really really painting again.

Which, is very much not like what I normally do, or at least what you all out there see me doing.

In the business I'm in, there has be very little if any real need to actually paint. Oh, I've used paint on things, but I'm talking about a completely different form of painting. This is more like honest classical work done in the 1880's or "90's. Not much call for that shit these days.

So, aesthetically speaking, no robots, no nudes with guns, or whatever it is I've done before.

I used to paint much like this thirty years ago before I changed my mind and decided comics were the to go.

I'm fucking rusty as hell, but the chops are still there. Oh, and as I remember, when I am finished for the day, I am nerved up to incredible levels and feel like I am missing a vital piece of myself.

Work like this stuff always leaves me somehow essentially drained. Badly. And a bit bitchy.

As soon as I wind down, it'll be fine, but for an hour or two, it's one of those, "don't try and pet the dog sleeping in the corner, he bites."

Okay, to answer a question or two from the last post: you will be able to purchase "Fracture" at any self respecting comic book/ media store late this month, I think. Um, not the store bit, the time bit. Please buy lots. I mean it. Since I finished it in '09, things have been really tight 'round these parts. That's all I have to say about that. I hate to sound like I'm whining. But it's easy to do when you owe half the civilized world a lot of money.

And, lets see, thank you for taking a rose. You know who you are. I like being wrong about shit like that. I have always thought of myself and my personal artistic territory to be that of a true romantic, not the kind that has been cheapened by modern media but very, very old school.

Like the night in Geneva when Shelly and Byron and company scared the crap out of each other and true Gothic literature was born.

THAT kind of romantic.

And while I am at it, The painting(s) and stuff I'm currently involved in with Caitlin and Kyle, I am basically doing for the shear love of art. The "Drowning Girl: a Memoir" is absolutely one of the finest novels I've ever had the pleasure to read. It's goddamn dangerous as hell and simply exquisite. This coming March, buy that bloody book as if hell hound were on your trail.

And the paintings are some, if not the single finest stuff I've ever done. Now, don't quote me, but I believe there are plans for multi-media events in the works for the book launch that considering the talent involved, will blow your heads clean off. I MIGHT even show up. You never know.

Okay, you kids behave, daddy has a headache.

Be back as soon as possible.

M.Z.

ps: where's that damn commission i asked for? seriously. you know you want to, right?

m.z.

Back and very Black.

2011-08-28T17:13:00.002-05:00

It's been a very long time. I suspect most of you don't come here any more.

That's okay, though a bit disappointing but I don't blame you.

I'd split too.

It started with a massive workload and progressed to my computers keyboard

taking a swam dive into nowheresville. I simply couldn't get back online and it took almost two months to find a replacement for the damn thing. It's old and with Mac's old is the cardinal sin.

So.

I'm basically here again for better or worse depending on how friendly you are.

To keep things in perspective just a bit I will run down a few of the things twisted little me has been up to.

it's been a while and I never go back and see what I've previously mentioned so if this gets redundant chalk it up advancing senility.

The gallery show at Nucleus went at least to the fine Eidolon Fine Arts, really well, but to me it still rankles a bit. I sold nothing after fifteen weeks of backbreaking work that I still love a lot.

Basically I felt like an overdressed idiot. I had no idea gallery shows were on the whole, just something to do for the civilians to do after they'd discovered that there was nothing on television. To me, it felt very special so I dressed. Stupid.

As was usual, when I show work comics stuff or otherwise, I give out roses. A memento or just a gesture of appreciation. I couldn't even give them away. It's my opinion now that people are so jaded that a token of thanks is looked at with deep suspicion if it's looked at at all.

Really sad.

Fracture of the Universal Boy is now a real, utterly beautiful book Due out next month sometime. I have no idea if it has any "buzz" or whatever it's called, but after almost two years of screwing around it lives as I intended it to from the first moment I put pen to paper.

On the same note, the second volume in the series of three interlocking ,(though vastly different books.) begins this month and without having to slog commissions on Ebay, it should take far less time than the three years it took to do the first on. You buy my book and I'll give you even better ones. A pact signed in blood sweat and tears my friends.

I just finished an eight page story with Neil due out in November sometime through IDW.

I thinks it's one of the best things I've ever done, so look for it and tell me what you think.

And just lately I have been experimenting with different methods of painting that are really encouraging and have made me happy.

And the kicker is I am working the the fabulous Caitlin R. Kiernan and the astonishing Kyle Cassidy on a multi media gig to embellish Her new Novel, "The Drowning Girl, a memoir."

It is simply one of the top five novels I've read in many many years, and I am deeply honored to be a part, however small in the event. I've been called on to produce some of the best work I've ever had the opportunity to do.

I really urge you to attend any or all events surrounding the books release and BUY THE DAMN BOOK. It's simply not in my vocabulary to describe it. It is so far from the envelope it off the carts. Serious man.

So, besides mentioning that I am up for at least ONE commission, ( as usual please contact Ryan Graff at Eidolon Fine Arts for the commission process.) all I can say is that my head feels like a jar full of bees. So much art, so little time you know?

Can't tell just when I'll be back, but hopefully no to long this time.

Please take care, and be kind to each other. But somebody a rose. Fuck it, it a nice thing to do.

M.Z.

R.I.P.

2011-05-31T11:40:00.002-05:00

My computer.
Pushing up daises.
Kaputski.
Doornail.
Dead as,...

You get it right?

Never buy a used ibook on ebay. At least I won't again.

So, until further notice, to my friends who have my number, or to all of
you nice people out there, my emailing abilities will be sporadic.
Right now I am on the house PC, and it is used mostly by Karen as she Skypes
and Etsy's at odd times and my notebook was supposed to free us both up to do things online
without interfering with the other.

Sorry. When I have the funds to replace my dead, moribund fuck up of a notebook
I'll be back as usual.

Don't shed on the furniture while I'm gone, okay?

M.Z.

THE UGLY TRUTH ABOUT COMMISSIONS

2011-05-22T15:21:00.002-05:00

People have been lately writing me a lot lately and asking for considerably cheaper commissioned work. They invariably comment that they wish they could afford my prices.

The sad fact is that even at a thousand dollars I barely make under half of that. Why?

Well I am "self employed". Freelance.

The average commission takes me two weeks or more give or take. This is seven days a week, Six to ten hours a day. Frankly, I work my balls off. I don't "slog off" anything. I take what I do for me, and for you very, very seriously. I always deliver. Always.

At say five hundred a week out of that comes a lovely thing the government likes to call, "Self employment tax" as well as social security tax, plus state tax. Add that with the cost of the best materials I can afford plus Eidolon's cut and I end up with a whisker over minimum wage.

Viewed this way, a thousand turns into a deal. I need at least one commission a month to make ends meet and then just barely. I am not by any means some prick swimming in filthy loot.

If it wasn't for quarterly royalty payment from past work, I'd be homeless. That's a fact.

The reason I now have top shelf representation is because Eidolon works very, very hard on ensuring my future as a free artist with the ability to grow personally and professionally.

I need somebody watching my back if I am to progress. I owe a lot to Ryan and Eidolon. If not for them, my book "Fracture of the Universal Boy would never have seen the light of day, or if it did, it would have been a pitiful shadow of what you will all be able to purchase come September.

I would dearly love to be able to give you all wonderful images for nothing or next to, that's just honestly who I am. But reality bites and the cost of just being alive can be staggering. Believe me, I have no television, no cell phone, no ipad, no digital camera, no swimming pool, or ATV to go gallivanting about the woodlands. I haven't bought a pair of shoes in two years and I wear basically thrift store finds.

But, that's okay as long as my family is taken care of and there is decent food on the table.

If you want a low, (very low compared to other artists.) priced drawing from me, please come see me at San Diego or someplace like it. Hey, I know I have been less than visible these last few years, but that is changing very rapidly. I love to meet you, all of you people who have supported me over the years, and that being said, is why I will often draw you something at cons or in stores for next to nothing. I truly appreciate it. I need you all very much.

Now, if you want something from me, just goggle EIDOLON FINE ARTS, and write to Ryan and ask....if I can, I will. Okay? Promise.

With much love,

M.Z.

IN MEMORY OF...

2011-05-21T16:13:00.002-05:00

To illustrate the massive disconnect between me and the rest of the comics world, a very intense and personal thing happened this week that just today I learned of.

The passing of Jeffery Catherine Jones.

It was in nineteen eighty,(four?) five I bought three books from, at least to my experience, a new and wonderful thing: the comics shop. Up until that point in time I had no idea something like that existed. It was as if a bomb was detonated in my head. I simply couldn't grasp it. That day I went a little crazy and spent what for my at that time was an enormous amount of money on three book.

The Adventures of Luther Arkwright, and issue of Epic Illustrated, and The Studio.

My world was never the same.

I had to do THAT...what they did. Make beautiful comics and paintings and drawings and anything else that I could manage. From that experience came The Puma Blues.

I think if you are reading this you pretty much know the rest.

It was in the very late nineties that I hit my personal wall and broke into thousands of little bits.

In an effort to work my way back to wholeness, I emailed Jeffery Catherine, basically pleading to help. She did. For a period of about a month I would ask questions about painting and she would write back, sometimes terse, other times with obvious compassion. I valued those emails as a starving man would food. A banquet of new ideas, things undreamed and the possibility that I could indeed be someday even better than I was. I owe a huge debt of thanks to her that I suddenly can never repay, ever. And the thing that really troubles me is I didn't know until today.

How could I not know? Why didn't somebody tell me?

It was through her I had the absolute nerve to write to who is now someone I consider a friend and in an odd, informal way, a kind of offhand mentor, Barry Windsor-Smith.

The more I think the bigger the debt grows.

A sad thing: when I moved out to the Mid West from New England in '03, I had to leave my library behind in what I thought was safe keeping until I was settled. I had an extensive library of Jones's work that I miss terribly some days. You see, moving a house full of stuff is paid for by the pound, and pound for pound books weight a LOT. I only had so much to spend and the books had to stay. I had a lot of books. Well, they disappeared, along with a huge resource of memories and comfort that I cannot replace.

She's dead and there is no replacement. It's rather fitting.

We must go on without a little less light. And damn it to hell, the world is getting pretty dim these days.

I have taken the day off. I should be working. I just keep thinking of that day when I got an answer back.

Fuck.

M.Z.

PLEASE!!!!

2011-05-17T14:22:00.003-05:00

Today both my dogs went into surgery to remove tumors.

The local vet has kindly extended a line of credit because we can't pay for it.

I NEED A COMMISSION. MAYBE TWO. Please consider it. I'll entertain any reasonable request what so ever. Yeah, even fucking Batman. I mean it. I'll temporarily reduce prices also.

Those of you who know me know how dearly I love my girls. Just right to Ryan Graff C/O

Eidolon Fine Arts and ask. It's a piece of cake. Really.

From my heart,

M.Z.

ATTENTION!!!

2011-05-14T16:29:00.002-05:00

I have just put the final post, including the final image of the "Burning Brightly" piece up at the "working" site. It is not overly long, but it does contain a surprise or two. Pop over and check it out.

I would appreciate it and so would the tigers.

Peace,

M.Z.

NATURE OR NURTURE.

2011-05-13T17:08:00.002-05:00

I painted a portrait of my father today. It left me in tears.

My father passed away over a decade ago. We left each other on excellent terms.

Which to be frank, was not always the case. I am deeply thankful, we came to understand each other in the years before he died.

It happened quite out of nowhere, largely due to the fact I had put a toned ground on a piece of work I am doing in between major projects and I didn't want to have to sit around for several hours waiting for it to set enough to continue. I had, several years ago, roughed out, (very rough indeed.) a small-ish canvas planning on doing a portrait of him for myself. As a completely impulse decision I dug around and found it with a couple of orphans in a corner and just started with the limited colors I had laid out for the other thing.

The thing I wonder about most is the fact I barely remember painting it. It just seemed to appear out of thin air. And, it's the man himself without a doubt.

When it was over I was shaking and in tears.

I was so involved in the process I lost myself to the point of nearly negating conscience thought running on almost total instinct. This has happened only a handful of times with fingers left over in the thirty odd years I have been painting. You will never see it, except perhaps after I am myself dead and someone puts out a "life's work" book. That's the way it should be.

I feel blessed.

M.Z.

ps: the final "burning brightly" tiger blog and image will be up sometime tomorrow.

peace,

m.z.

A QUICK NOTE ABOUT SNAKE PITS.

2011-05-08T18:02:00.003-05:00

By and large, the funny book business is full of some pretty nice people.

But like in and "industry", there are some really nasty, rude, self important assholes

out to ruin your day any chance they can get.

The worst of the lot are the so called,"art dealers". That's why, for at least a decade, when I want, or need to offload some original art I have, and will only sell to Scott Eder.

He's fair, intelligent, and while by necessity looks for a deal, plays up front.

Now, if you have ever had a happy experience with anyone else, well my personal opinion

is that you just got lucky.

My dear Karen just got extremely and nastily slammed by a so called "fan site" for doing nothing more than trying to protect my interests. Bless her. I often let to much slip not wanting to make a fuss. It's really nice to have a hundred and eight pound tigress in my corner. Nobody I have ever had a meaningful relationship with has ever been before.

It seems to me,( and I may be wrong, but I don't think so.) that when disputes arise, it really isn't that difficult to, at the least, behave in a civilized fashion.

She simply did not deserve the treatment she got.

Some people are just innately miserable. It truly make me wonder, and most assuredly makes me sad.

Don't waste your time with human Quaaludes.

M.Z.

Oh, Shit.....

2011-05-05T19:18:00.001-05:00

I just posted a new blog in the wrong place. Over at the "working" blog is the post that should be here.

IT ALWAYS STARTS THIS WAY

2011-04-08T17:31:00.002-05:00

When I start a new piece, especially after being "off" for a while

I usually screw up a bit the first time out. Needless to say, I have a lot

of bits off paper and whatnot overflowing the wastebasket.

A blog or so ago I mentioned a special thing I am doing for The Valley

Of The Kings, an animal rescue organization that cares for everything from Tigers to Pigs.

I hope by doing this to raise funds to help in the day to day operation of the place. I will let you know where prints can be found when they become available. Please do your best to support the kind and excellent people who try so hard and care so much.

Okay, This is a kind of notification that there will be shortly and "in progress"

working blog going up shortly detailing the piece I call "Burning Brightly",

along with my personal observations on wildlife art in general.

I promise to do my best to post with as little space between installments as I

am able. There will be three of them largely because three is a nice number

and it covers the beginning middle and end. All very tidy. Unlike my waste basket.

See you there as soon as possible.

M.Z.

ON THIS DAY.

2011-04-01T11:05:00.003-05:00

On this day, in the year two thousand, eleven years ago, my forever beloved Lucy

was born. She passed away on july eighteenth two thousand and one from a tragic accident

that left me crushed for a decade.

I love her still but I have found peace in her passing.

Sleep well dear girl.

M.Z.

ps: i no longer have photos of her in my data base so this was the only photo i could find on line. she was about to win best in her class. one point from her championship. she died less than a week later.

she never would keep her ears up. silly beast.

m.z.

BURNING BRIGHTLY.

2011-03-28T13:51:00.004-05:00

This is a very difficult posting. Not because of any particular weirdness in my life,

or anything going wrong, or the old career zooming sideways. No, nothing like that

at all. It shouldn't be hard to do, just spit it out. But I find it so.

I wish that it wasn't. I truly wish this was an utter joy. But it's not.

I started my life in public with a book called "The Puma Blues". Some of you may remember

those days. It was dubbed, A book about "ecological responsibility" and I suppose in many ways

it was. Few if any of you know that I spent the years previous to "Puma" as a rather commercial wildlife

artist of sorts. Fewer still know that I was raised Roman Catholic, and that my Confirmation name is Francis.

What does that mean? Well, "Francis" is the name of a Catholic saint known for his profound connection to the natural world, the "birds and beasts" if you will.

I took it very seriously then. It was supposed to be. This should be starting to add up.

To tip the scales, If you have been following my bullshit for a few years now, you'd know I was until very recently an owner, shower and friends with big name breeders of very fine Bull terriers. Over the decades I have used my talents for free, quite happily and very seriously to Bull terrier rescue, and canine rescue in general. If there is anything on this earth that makes me almost literally burn, it's animal cruelty.

I loath the people who feel they have divine permission to rape abuse and pillage the natural world.

This post is about that. It's also about the possibility of redemption.

And brothers and sisters, we, each and every one of us, myself included, needs redemption and expiation

of our sins against the natural world.

All of us.

So. Even though at the moment I have little or no food for my own table, even though we are a month or so from foreclosure on our home, even though I can barely afford the basic supplies to work with, I am jumping in again with both feet, into the world of rescue and sanctuary. I need to because my heart will not be still. I want to because I hope to one day be able to look at myself in the mirror and like what I see behind my eyes.

While out in Los Angeles I was hosted by the astonishing Cat Mihos, Neil Gaiman "merch Queen" and left coast assistant. She told me a story, and showed me evidence of a sanctuary on southern Wisconsin for animal that have been the brunt of some our,(human.) most devastating cruelty. The place is called "Valley of the Kings". A not for profit 501(c)3 sanctuary and rescue organization run by Jill and Jim Tomasi, dedicated to providing the lifetime housing and humane rehabilitation of everything from Tigers to Pigs.

You can see for yourself at votk.org. It's utterly and absolutely astonishing what they have done with nothing but massive love and private donations. I have in all my years of rescue, never been more impressed than by the work they do with such love and devotion.

But, and there is always a but, they run by the skin of their teeth. People, I know how that feels. So, to that end I am very shortly going to be doing a massive piece for them to be used strictly for fund raising so that there just might be a bit of breathing room for them now and then. The piece and the best prints possible will be available at Neverwear.com as soon as we can bring them to you. I ask you as fellow humans of good faith and understanding to please, please help support this effort. Not for me, not for Cat, but for the magnificent animals that have suffered so terribly at our hands, if not directly then by tacit disregard.

At least just think about it.

Please.

Dear god, please.

M.Z.

DEAD AIR.

2011-03-27T17:22:00.002-05:00

Right.

There are these times. Times when I have run out of materials, and all to frequent occurrence,

and I have ordered them that I find myself strangely suspended. A day or two is okay, as it simply clears my head, and helps me to otherwise cool down from whatever run of things I have been on. Basically, just a bit of room to breath. If I had a limitless supply of materials, I would probably have to be told to quit by loved ones, a bizarre sort of art intervention.

But, after three or four days, I start to get kind of twitchy. There is this mental itch that I can't reach and it slowly starts to erode my equilibrium in unhappy ways.

I am in the middle of one of those dead air times right now. That's why is post is boring.

I am rested, ready and can't go anywhere.

Fed Ex has me by the balls.

Not pretty.

This is what I am going to be doing in a few more days:

A. A special piece for fund raising. More on that tomorrow. Stay tuned my dear ones, as it is seriously important to me.

B. A portrait of Amanda Palmer. That's going to be a "go deep" kind of thing, and I doubt you'll ever see it, but you might.

C. A portrait of Kyle Cassidy and Trillion Stars. Another exercise in real hard ass seriousness.

D. Three new pieces of personal work I have been longing to do for months and months now.

After all that happens I order paper for the new book. More dead time. And this time I will very likely need it.

Now, go by something from the "Lined in Lead" exhibition from Gallery Nucleus.

I really really need food 'n stuff.

They have payment plans damn it.

M.Z.

WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED.

2011-03-25T13:57:00.002-05:00

Hell if I know.

I mean, really, I have no idea. Which, considering my public declaration as an artist,

having no idea what happened at a showing of my work in public seems utterly pathetic.

Not that it was, pathetic I mean. It was by all accounts a fabulous show. It's just that I didn't have any context with witch to measure it by. An art virgin at my age: shocking!, but true.

This should have happened at least thirty years ago. I mean there were artists,( very good ones indeed.) who showed with me younger than that.

It's as if somebody somewhere at sometime long ago put up a sneaky little road sign saying "career this way" with a big red arrow pointing in exactly the opposite direction.

I'm such a sucker for big red arrows.

So, I fret for a week before hand, pack and repack superbly for any contingency, and when the day came to leave, was blasted and basically abused by the airlines for six hours.Then I was whisked away to sanctuary by the formidable and excellent Cat Mihos to stew in my own rancid juices for a day or two.

Just long enough to give my nerves a really good head of steam.

I shouldn't have wasted my time. And nerves. As far as I can tell, I got there, signed a few prints, people came, milled around for several hours and then left. We all went to dinner appallingly late, (for me anyway.) and then I went to sleep.

I keep asking myself, "what actually happened?" I know there were things going on, I could literally feel them as they did, but I'll be damned if I know what they were.

Perhaps I am looking for something that never really existed in any quantifiable form.

Maybe I am so used to subtext I actually need to invent it when there isn't any?

That would be a kick in the head.

Be that as it may, regardless of what I think happened, it did happen and it was very cool. I got to meet old friends, make new ones and dress spiffy for a change. Not a bad deal really.

I do wish I had sold something that night, even though it has as of today, seventeen days to run. Do me a favor, go to Gallery Nucleus and buy a piece for them by me. It would make me happy.

I could by groceries.

M.Z.

OFF.

2011-03-16T07:42:00.002-05:00

Well children, daddy will be in L.A. for a few days.

If you are in the area or are just barking mad with a heap of disposable income,

Be at Gallery Nucleus this Saturday evening from oh, say six to ten pm.

"Lined in Lead" Graphically Graphite.

Dig.

Soon-ishly,

M.Z.

ps: don't eat mommy.

A SPECIFIC WARNING.

2011-03-13T12:26:00.002-05:00

For those of you who are not reasonably well versed in gnostic ideas or hermetic philosophy in general, or who haven't read their Milton in the context of it's time, please, what follows is only an idea. Nothing more. No hate mail, no pickets, no nasty rumors that I am somehow a closet satanist or what ever.

I am basically talking to myself anyway so fuck it. I'll write what I want. When I want and for whatever reason I want. This is an idea that has been floating half formed in my head since I was basically three quarters finished with "Boy". By writing it out it may help clarify the thing so I can get a better handle on it.

You don't have to read it.

Besides, I am harmless anyway, I draw funny books "n stuff.

THE LITANY OF THE LIGHT BRINGER.

My dear and all wise creator, before you I kneel in all humility

My beloved master and molder, with bowed head and weeping eyes

before your presence I abase myself in love and the pain in which you made me.

I beg of you and plead of you to grant me the continued grace to preform my duties

in all their fullness and hardship.

It is you and you alone to whom I bow my head

It is you and you alone my pride is made whole

It is you and you alone to whom I pray.

I ask you from my heart that burns with duty and horror

that I may be given the grace to be set free and at at long last

Bring to your errant creatures the lash formed of my hate.

That they to whom you bid me bring light be torn asunder by it.

May they wail rivers of tears into boiling empty oceans

May the burning fill the heavens with ashes and the sun turn red.

May they run naked and blistered, into the darkness to find my mercy.

May they twist their children into monsters that devour them.

May the beasts of the forest and fields walk upright and scream murder.

May they be abandoned and and scatter the world like burning leaves.

May your silence deafen them and their mouths be filled with stones.

My dearest beloved creator I beg of you the strength to scar the soul of creation.

In your name I ask this.

By your will I serve.

With your hand I ravage.

If it so please you,

My only master, let me lose.

Amen.

Don't worry.

I am only thinking out loud, so to speak.

Art does not apologize. And I won't either.

Besides, how much worse can it get. "Saw 6"?

M.Z.

Oh, why bother.

2011-03-12T15:41:00.001-06:00

I just broke my own rule: never look at my blog stats.

Perhaps I should just stop this nonsense and go home.

I am basically talking to myself.

Whoopie shit.

IN THE BEGINNING.

2011-03-12T15:05:00.002-06:00

I've got plans you see. Thinking ahead.

In essence, looking forward and backwards at the same time.

And, it always starts this way: me scribbling, staring out the window, walking around like the living dear, bumping into things and lost in some sort of fog.

The beginning of a new book.

From the start, I had plans to make three of them, as somehow,( and I wish someone could explain this.) trilogies just seem to work for me. I more often than not will draw,paint, whatever, several times in variations of a theme until I am either satisfied that the idea has been fully covered or I simply run out of steam.

The thing in mind was something I call "The Dream Suite". A kind of vaguely interlocking series of books that complement each other while remaining self contained.

I am as I write this as a kind of public service announcement, getting down to the nuts and bolts of just what it is I want from myself this time. I've been playing with it for months and months right now. I may have stated before,( I really don't go back over what I have done here.)

That I planned to begin this book last september, and though events conspired against me as far as that was concerned, The basic template has been running around my head since late '09.

It's about damn time I got to it.

I put an enormous amount of energy thought into what and how I want to do with the basic idea and tend to malinger over the slightest details until am satisfied that everything is just so before I begin. Then of course it veers off into uncharted territories almost instantly. But I have a sort of over-mind control of the book so that I can pull back from dead ends and other little side trips when it goes to far off track. I like to be surprised as much as you do, but I have a responsibility to maintain control of the material so something like what I wanted to begin with comes out the other end of the pipe line.

So, here goes "OPIUM: variations for quill and vapor."

See you all on the other side of sanity.

M.Z.

WHISPER.

2011-03-11T12:24:00.002-06:00

I rather like the idea of passing through life as gently as possible, leaving

as little trace behind me as I can. In the past, my book has been billed as a "symbolist

manifesto", which was only a phrase I dropped in casual conversation, never meant as

anything serious. If you know me you would know that the last thing I would ever want is for someone to either follow me or think that I have in any shape or form the answer to anything.

I just do what I do, nothing more.

Yes, sometimes my work can be confrontational, but I try very hard to make absolutely sure it is necessary and has a reasoned excuse to back it up, even if not instantly obvious. I loath being instantly obvious. This goes back to my wishing to move silently through life, doing as little damage to the world as possible. NO, I am not talking about recycling cans and newspapers. I AM talking about a state of being.

Positioning oneself metaphorically in the half light, neither darkness or light but the nexus between when all is possible and nothing is obvious. If that constitutes a "manifesto", I suppose that's mine.

Hush.

I used to work years ago, in a largely limited pallet, of say four or five colors. I believe though I don't care for labels,( at all.) it was and is called "tonalism." Whatever. One reason for this was the influence of a very old and dear friend and my discovery at an impressionable age of J.A.M. Whistler.

Since my work in comics began, it seemed almost natural to up the wattage and I found myself slowly using more and more color until things I was doing became saturated with it. I found it a valuable learning curve to be sure, but at heart, and I mean deep down, I love the less is more aesthetic. These days I find myself looking with fresh eyes upon my youthful artistic urges with far more sympathetic eyes than has been true over the last fifteen years or so.

The saying goes "and unexamined life is not worth living." I think this very, very true.

Even if it hurts, and it very often does.

Burnt Umber.

Isn't that a lovely couple of words? Think about it and visualize it in your minds eye.

Burnt Umber

Paynes Grey

Yellow Ocher

Venetian Red

Titanium White.

That's it. All that is truly necessary to express almost anything. Lovely in it's simplicity and graceful by definition. This cycles back to a previous post about the slow evolution of subject matter and my dawning need to express myself along fresh lines, while not rejecting the past but building upon it carefully.

Because of the attention of Eidolon Fine Arts and the wonderful outpouring of support by people that are total strangers at Kickstarter, ( how utterly amazing!) there is lately a longstanding psychic knot in my mind that is slowly but surely coming undone that I am extremely grateful for.

For the first time in a very long time I feel free. That is the greatest gift anyone can give to another. I will not waste it. Ever. For any reason.

Hush.

M.Z.

ps: hello barbara. hello world. smile.

m.z.

WHAT"S ALL THE FUSS ABOUT?

2011-03-09T06:52:00.003-06:00

It has taken me roughly fifty years to discover this.

I was born with the ability to slip into a hypnagogic state seemingly without effort even while fully awake. Where did the last hour go? What was that I just saw? Oh, shit, I did it again.

I used to think I just wasn't quite real in the sense that other people mean it.

It worried me a lot back when I was a kid.

Now I see it as a tool for what I truly seem to have been born to do. It's a bit like being an ocean current that dips and ascends from warm to cold water the end result being a change in emotional weather. Usually I spend at least an hour after awakening with one foot in two different worlds. A fair amount of creative energy seems to be manifesting itself at times like these. I don't have classic insomnia, but rather a strange urge to experience this state of mental freedom, that has become as I grow older a sort of addiction. Right now, as I write having been awake for well over two hours I am still imagining absolutely unrelated sensations and scenarios that have nothing what so ever to do with what I am actually doing.

I should have put quotation marks around the word: actually. Truth be told I wonder if I am actually doing anything.

Lately I have spent a number of mornings castigating myself about the utterly odd and un-Michael things that seem to be manifesting themselves in this state. Believe me when I say it gets a tad unnerving to almost actually see and experience things that are fabulously alien to the things one normally imagines. I am beginning to believe that this is signaling a very profound change in my creativity. Just what and why has yet to make itself known but I find myself growing increasingly impatient for it to do so.

My long standing obsessions seem to to giving way to new and unexpected things as yet hazy and veiled. I can only hope this signals an advance in perception that will usher in a new and more interesting set of paradigms. I have been in my "comfort zone" as an artist for to long and very much look forward to any new surprises my inner currents may bring.

I have to wonder if in the process of making "Boy", I've simply outgrown the Michael I once was, and for the last year and a half since I finished it, I have been treading water.

No wonder I have been edgy and basically unsatisfied with my work of late. Of course I can't imagine that I will simply toss what I know in the waste basket, but rather it will mutate in a direction that is as yet unknown to me. What A fabulous idea! For a very long time since starting out in the business of doing comics and peripheral subject matter I have been,( the the necessities of the market place and the culture that surrounds it.) to hoe a furrow in the ground marked, "Zulli". That is almost gone now. Re-invention on a scale that used to scare the shit out of me to be frank. I find I like the idea of no boundaries or restrictions.

The only rules of art are technical and once mastered can be bent and sculpted into any form.

What strange and wonderful fun, if I really have the nerve to go there. I suspect there will be tears, soul searching and a lot of shit thrown away in disgust, but emerging from a cocoon is always a struggle. What a life.

M.Z.

Slouching towards Jerusalem.

2011-03-08T11:07:00.002-06:00

I'm done with art.

Just kidding. I am done with the drawie stuff for a while.

It struck me this morning,( one of those three am my head won't stop mornings.)

that i have been extremely remiss in writing down a veritable avalanche of ideas,

notions, concepts and my usual tonal abstract word play that many of my otherwise

three dimensional artwork springs from.

The problem that's more than likely holding all this shit from finding it's way out of

my head is the fact that I have a very old power book with emotional issues. It's just damn

difficult to actually write anything down and properly save it for later, and I really hate writing longhand. Blame that if you will on my catholic school upbringing. After I got away from the gentle ministrations of Sister Mary De Sade I promised myself to promptly forget the rules and regulations of perfect fifties and sixties longhand. The result being my hand writing looks remarkably similar to a spider on speed. Hence: I hate it. Hoisted on my own petard. Yea. That's me all right.

Anyway, my tortured childhood aside, I may in the next week or so post a lot of indecipherable bullshit here. Basically just doing things I have a need to remember in some kind of retrievable form. Please, no hate mail, or bomb threats. I have a propensity for thinking very odd and somewhat arabesque thoughts, which to someone on the outside would find either nearly blasphemous or possibly ridiculous. But it means something to me. I honestly don't mean to upset or outrage anyone. Comment if you like though there is no guarantee that I will post them. For all I know my inner nonsense might be quite mundane to any one else. But, I never let that stop me before, so why start worrying about it at this late date?

I suppose this just my way of posting a public service announcement. Fair warning?

Whatever. Okay?

I might be back later. Just don't mind me. I'm harmless. Really.

Later,

M.Z.

PLEASE LISTEN...

2011-03-02T06:40:00.002-06:00

This is the deal. Things have changed, and to my way of thinking, much for the better.

I am now represented by Eidolon Fine Arts, run by the wonderful and talented Ryan Graff.

In other words I have somebody at my back, somebody that I can both trust to have my best interests at heart and more importantly, act on them.

I simply could not be happier.

But, and listen closely, this is a big "but". Anyone who wants anything from me in the way of artwork, MUST go through Ryan first. Thats the way it works. Please do not write me for commissions. When I announce that I have time for a few, you should write Ryan at Eidolon and he will pass it on to me. If I accept he will handle the whole thing. If on the other hand you just want to talk a bit or say something to me please don't hesitate to write through the website.

It may take time for me to get back to you but I WILL try to. I find myself very, very busy these days making art, which I gather you and I both want me to do. So everybody wins.

And please my friends, don't break Ryan, he's a really nice man and works very hard on my behalf. I'd hate have to look for another twenty years to find another one.

Peace and much love to you all...off to the mythical garrett.

M.Z.

ps: we have anew business model in place beginning over at kickstarter, we have something like eighteen days to go, please consider helping us bring the work directly to you. i am intensely gratified and very pleased by the response so far: your help will enable us to get more, and most importantly, finer quality work to you for months and months to come with your assistance.

thanks,

m.z.

OH,OKAY, IF YOU INSIST...

2011-02-23T14:18:00.002-06:00

I don't want to do this. I don't know why.

If I look at it closely, it probably,(but I can't be sure.) has to do with two things: the fact that at my core, I am an intensely private person, ill suited for public ramblings, and my need for total honesty in my dealings with the world.

No body is making me, no arm twisting involved, but I hesitate.

Forgive my waffling, and shuffling feet. I'll get there.

I have not been here in a very long while. I am sorry. Honestly.

Here's the thing: I have a lot of apologies to make. There are several very nice people who have commissioned work long done and just sitting here. The reason is that the last six months or so have been some of the hardest, most trying times of my life. Personally, not professionally. It has been so terrible I had plans a while back to top myself. I figured rightly or wrongly that I would be worth more to the people I loved dead rather than alive. I am not in the least being cute here. That is the absolute truth.

I am talking food shelf poor. Not even change to buy a damn soda. Foreclosure poor.

Okay? Enough?

The failure of my book to be real, the way I had planned it left me so depressed I simply couldn't work for over a month. It might have been longer, I tend to think it was. I wasn't really paying much attention. The color simply faded into twilight grey and the joy of simple work drained away I thought forever. I felt an isolation from the world so deep so acute that I was living in the vacuum of my head to the point it was an effort to talk. It also left me totally broke. I was counting on it being out there, for sale.

I feel ashamed of myself for getting that deep in. But it happened so slowly that I didn't notice until I was there.

But that changed. Very, very fast and I was completely unprepared for the acceleration.

As ever, work, ( I know that "work" is not the best word for what I do, but "career" is to mundane and "calling" to esoteric, so "work" it is.) pulled me through. I got a chance to showcase my work in a fine arts setting for the first time in my life. A non-comics personal kind of thing that shocked me out of me depression so fast and hard to tell the truth I am still A bit woozy from it. For nearly,(by one day.) fifteen weeks I worked seven days a week straight. Non stop art. I have done some of the best work of my life to be seen by the public this march nineteenth at Gallery Nucleus. I am still so desperately broke I may not even have a chance to be there on one the most important days of my life and it's really twisting my head around.

But then Ryan Graff of Eidolon Fine Arts, Came up with the idea to KickStarter my book Fracture of the Universal Boy a few days a go, and as I type it's already met it's goal and is showing very little sign of slowing down. I can release my book, to be debuted in San Diego this year, exactly the way I always meant for it to be seen. Frankly I was scared shitless.

Another massive failure would have done me in. But it seems very much to my disbelief that I am far more kindly regarded than I thought was possible. I am still trying very very hard to process this.

Without Eidolon behind me I was close to removing myself from life.

But I didn't and I won't, and I have a new book all ready to begin it's journey into life, knowing that I can now, for the first time in my life work without fear. This is huge.

And I owe it to Ryan, my dear Karen and to you all.

Now, back a bit to those poor folks with commissions sitting here. I promise that as soon as I don't have to choose between heat, or lights or food and shipping, they will be out to you as fast as I can get them to you. I have NEVER EVER not delivered on a commission in my life. This has been a point of personal shame for me that I can not emphasise enough.

I am truly sorry. I just had to do what I had to. My family comes first. Always.

I hope you can understand. That is all I can ask.

But the future is looking up. I have been freed from boundaries and I will not look back.

Thank you all from the bottom of my heart.

M.Z.

QUARTERING NEIL, A BOY, GRAPHITE.

2010-11-24T14:56:00.002-06:00

Okay.

Once again I find myself apologising for my prolonged absence.

Whatareyagonna do? Shit happens, and to me, seemingly with some frequency.

I live with it.

So, before all the stuff I was going to say, I think I'll just hit the studio news.

All current commissions complete. Give the boy a hand.

I have two portraits,(in a manner of speaking.) to do. I am REALLY

looking forward to them, as both are super people and extremely interesting.

Also, I am in the middle of doing at least four, perhaps five new pieces for a show

based around GRAPHITE curated by the amazing Ryan Graff of Eidolon Fine Arts

for this coming March. I'm in pig heaven.

In fact, if all goes well, in the next week or so I just may open up the shop for a commission or two. We'll see.

Now, the news.

The Fracture of the Universal Boy is due out, finally, in January. Place your orders NOW!! And buy one for a friend. Who Knows, I may actually see a few bucks from the damn thing. It would be nice considering the book has been through hell, (come to think of it, so have I.) being born.

And finally I just want to say, that being in New Orleans for Neil's birthday was just the thing to spark enough good attitude for several average birthdays. I was born in Louisiana

and have not been back since I was a very small child,( I have very vivid memories of that time.) and my return was both in a way apocryphal and eye opening. I just loved it there.

The french Quarter is one of the most unique and interesting places in the world and if fate lets you go there for a time, I guarantee that you will take a piece of it back with you.

Thank you Neil, many many more equally as fabulous. If that's possible.

So all in all, things are most definitely well oiled and running as smoothly as I ever wished things to. It's almost spooky.

Oh, and there may be some extremely weird news back here next month. Wait and see.

I almost wish I could say for certain, but I tend to not whistle past graveyards. Things crossed and salt over shoulders.

Before I sign out, my very best to Olga, Kyle, Annie, and Holly. If I forgot you here, sorry, it was the red beans and rice.

Love to you all,

M.Z.

TO PETER MURPHY POSTSCRIPT.

2010-11-01T14:32:00.003-05:00

In hindsight, after re-reading the "OPEN LETTER", it seems to me to be a mistake. There is just not enough subtext that occurred due to a sensation of treading to fine a line between absolute honesty and my inherent sense of personal privacy. In fact, if I were Peter I'd have been totally put off by it in general.

I am not confessional by nature, and I can never seem to fine the proper line and tend to err on the side of caution. Perhaps things like this, speaking only for myself, should be left on the cutting room floor.

It essentially lacked good manners.

My apologies to Peter.

Look for another post in the "Pearls" series shortly. I can always count on metaphor.

Blessings of Peace,

M.Z.

AN OPEN LETTER TO PETER MURPHY.

2010-10-28T13:34:00.003-05:00

Peter,

Before I begin I would like to make it clear that I am not sure what this is all about.

The more time passes and the more I am absolutely sure I know X, Y, or Z,

the more convinced I have no idea what or why I do things. These things come

from a deeper place than I can often quantify.

I am doing this for a multitude of reason not the least is an almost overwhelming sense

of frustration. As an artist of many years in discipline you are one of the people I have

had an intense and unremitting need to communicate with on some level. In point of fact,

I have tried several times to reach you through various people we both know, at least tangentially,

to no avail. The photo I am posting I submit in evidence.

As someone who identifies as Sufi, for better or worse,( I believe I am something of a Qaalander, or it is the closest equivalent. the "line between the devils teeth"?) I have found your journey so personal I simply cannot ignore it. Your work cuts deep. It rings true.

I often think you write from the third person to enable you to look inside with a kind

of universal/personal double meaning. Your work has driven me to objectify a word, a

phrase in my own work. If you look, for better or worse, you will find ideas of yours

re-made and re-worked in any number of my own pieces. Is this a lack in me, or the true nature of art? Art has this ability to cross over disciplines and become something else while staying true to itself. Is this what is going on? Sufism is not an answer but a process.

One is one or not...though various Murshids have different opinions about this. Master? No master? Does it ultimately matter?

Four years ago I undertook the task of creating a vast piece of work that I dearly wanted

to quote a line from a song of yours, one that cut to the core of my artistic experience.

" The power of poetry lies in it's ability to defy logic, defy logic often."

I was A: worried I simply didn't have the available capital to pay you for the use, or B: that I simply could not find you out there in the world. Believe me, it is not easy to "go it alone" with no support of any kind. I had cut the corporate umbilicus several years previously and

simply sat down to create something of real worth. I think I did. But I still regret not

being able to quote you. I suppose in the long run, a minor disappointment, but it rankles to this day, on the eve of publication.

One lives with regrets as one does with ones years.

Why should your path, so different from mine seem so deeply familiar? Every time I listen the same question hits me with terrible certainty.

There is this shape in the darkness just beyond my lantern light that haunts me.

Either I am absolutely mad, ( a good possibility.) or there is really something there I need to understand.

I wonder.

Peace,

Michael Zulli.

iridescent idiot.

PEARLS. ONE OF THREE.

2010-10-26T13:58:00.003-05:00

A series of three posts that have nothing to do with much of anything.

They are simply random thoughts and impressions that I want to write down

and say things in a manner that makes me happy. Read into them what you will.

I am simply being myself.

M.Z.

...................................................................................

Opium.

arrangement for quill and vapor #1.

Summer withers and autumn arrives silently at first,

with flocks of field dusty little black birds on telephone wires.

There is a kind of unspoken urgency just beneath the feathers

cradling whispered longing for companionship,that takes flight

in waves turning them into shadow fish howling into ocean waves

of air.

Green becomes ocher in formless steps and vague sleepy lurches.

Smell the earth under the feet, ripe and smokey, it sings of days fading

old women at the graveside of a dead mother.

The sky is ripped open to reveal the bones of flying smoke, tattered,

racing into polar revelry.

Fallow fields spent and exhausted kneeling to the axe of the harvest.

This is my time.

My apocalypse, my dream time my epiphany.

Ideas bubble up from the soil and rock split by the staff of some

demented forgotten prophet.

I live for these days.

I crave them like drugs.

Autumn my high season of soul whispering spirit freedom.

No one takes this time from me on pain of excommunication and exile.

No on will be holding my heart from the shadow fish sky's.

How dare you try.

Never.

REMEMBERING THE BLUES

2010-10-18T14:39:00.004-05:00

It's best right now to bear in mind I am not in the best of moods at the moment.

That being said, I am essentially writing about something that has been on my mind since San Diego. Well, off and on. I just happen to kind of stuck on it today. Obviously due to the excess run off of my recent run in with to much politics, to soon. A kind of psychic belly ache.

In effect, I am purging after a binge of non caloric, low bulk useless mental intake.

Feel free to hose off anytime.

It's those old Puma Blues memories again baby.

It came as a very real and welcome surprise at San Diego how many people came up to me expressing their really heartfelt and profound reverence for the book. It really affected a number of people. I had no idea. At the time and I can't and wouldn't speak for Stephen even if I could, but there was a very real sense of both endless possibility and solidarity that very quickly turned on a dime and ended up as us against them bunker mentality. Couple that with the fact that we were definitely on the earn as you learn plan, and largely being ignored except when we served as punching bags for bigger guys with major beefs to work out, the least I can say was, that it was a real ride. One of those "hang on and hope you don't fall off, and remember to lean into the turns " kind of rides.

I look back now and am ruefully amused at the effort. Gavia's father left him VHS tapes. the "high tech" computer screen he watched them on was nothing more than a big television set. No digital flat panel thing on the wall. A huge satellite disc sat on the roof of the cabin he lived in. State of the art for better or worse my friend. A kind of nascent cyber punk ethos by way of Iggy Pop and William S. Burroughs. All anxiety and conspiracy theory's, that almost spiraled into a kind of mental illness, twentieth century homeland security soul tumor.

I was absolutely committed. Or I should have been.

Funny thing, since then what we tried to do and say is now almost common place subject matter for all kinds of comics.

Please bear in mind I had utterly no idea what I was doing, I just did it.

This leads me to the inevitable thought for better or worse, of just what Puma would be if by some nearly insane confluence of events Stephen and I could do it all over again today with what we know now.

A kind of, I can tell you that it would be really scary good. Utterly beyond "out there".

A series of perhaps three original G.N.'s, that would give time and room to play in detail beyond the hurry up and do it good and right fucking now thing a monthly comic must by definition agree to. Start right back at the beginning and overhaul the whole thing on the bare bones of the original. The thought makes me squirm in my chair.

I almost want to.

There is not a chance in hell this will ever happen, but, it's worth the cloud fancy tall tale spinning I tend to do now and again....well, to be honest, I do that shit all the time. That's just me.

In the long run, I suppose I should just say thank you to Stephen and the friends and supporters of Puma for the oh so very kind remembrances and just get on with things.

So, my friends, that's just what I'll do.

Thank you all for remembering us.

M.Z.

Sorry About That

2010-10-18T12:18:00.004-05:00

Ok, the last post was an aberration, mostly.

I was raised a basically a political creature at my fathers knee. He was a news watcher, paper reading staunch Democrat of the old school. I suppose these days he would be labeled a flaming liberal nut job by the far right center corporate news machine in this country.

My last post as mysterious as it may have been, was simple me on to much politics.

I made the mistake of reading to much at once and the fall out was inevitable.

Rage morphing into despair into rage back into a kind of almost cosmic and surreal fugue state of swirling shadows and screaming faces.

I was simple venting my utter disgust and soul deep sadness at the world we've made as a whole.

I should have kept it to myself. It served no real purpose.

My apologies.

M.Z.

PATTERN RECOGNITION

2010-10-16T16:30:00.002-05:00

" They nailed Jesus to the cross,

Put a hole in JFK, put Hitler in the drivers seat,

And looked the other way."

tonio-k. "life in the food chain."

Yup, it's that old soft shoe,

the small print,

three card monti,

the old shell game,

bait and switch,

it's, "hey, twenty bucks to run this bag across the street",

"hey man, this is the good stuff",

buy now, pay later,

you would if you love me,

checks in the mail,

mr. carpet bagger,

just sign here, and here, and here,

Words to the wise.

M.Z.

SCRAPING LIFE OFF MY SHOE.

2010-09-28T04:07:00.002-05:00

It's a set-up, a dirty trick, some one's idea of a joke. Right?

I just wrote an agent friend of mine and removed myself from
a show at Gallery Nucleus this fall, themed around H.P. Lovecraft.
The time I was down from the arm injury is strangely enough, the
exact amount of time I would have needed to complete the two things
I was planning to send.
I am shattered. I feel like a rank amateur, green, fresh from the farm.
This sort of thing reaches down into my guts and twists and pulls.
I am taking the day off to examine the whole mess and try to
figure out how and why this happened, then promise myself that it
will NOT happen again.
I suppose that is what an adult would do.
Forgive the whiff of the mercenary, but good lord we could have
used the income also.

Part of the blunt truth is that I broke my own rules on some level.
I didn't follow my first, correct instinct and instead lapsed back into
the "old Michael" way of doing things without even noticing.
Survival mode of the commercial comics artist. Fast and good by friday.
I hate the fuckers. Utterly and absolutely loath the system that makes
people like me into galley slaves dependent on a voucher and a slap
on the back, like a good boy.
They seduce you into believing and then take your beliefs away.
And I have nobody but myself to blame.

"the public gets what the public wants", and I get to spend the rest of my life
trying to tear the roots of disease from my soul.

M.Z.

BORN TO BOOGIE.

2010-09-27T05:02:00.002-05:00

PAINTING AGAIN Y'ALL.
HIGH AS IT GETS WITHOUT ANY'A THAT SHIT.
YOU CAN'T LOOSE WITH THE STUFF I USE, MAN.

ok, so it's probably the fumes but i'm allowed my illusions
for a few days. lord knows i've earned a few.

peace 'n things,

M,Z,

MEm OOOORRIEEEES!

2010-09-12T14:06:00.002-05:00

Memories are slippery things. Now you see 'em now you don't. Or, if you're lucky

they just seem to twist just ever so slightly into a shape that is unexpected and you can't quite

understand how they got that way. If you've ever been in long term therapy, one gets hit in the psyche pretty early on by this fact: your memories are not what you thought they were.

But, they are yours after all. So, what do you do with them? You can't ignore them as they are a vital part of who and what you are. You also can't quite trust them either. The essential fact is, memories are not in reality, subjective. Which is a real hard ass brain drain believe me.

I've had a bit of time (again, dammit.) on my hands recently and one of the things that's come up both with my doctor, and with a few strangers and newly minted friends, is "has this ,(meaning my drawing arm.) ever happened before. I had to stop and think.

The only answer I could give was a yes and a no.

Back when I was doing the drawing for The Wake, After about three weeks, (this seems to be a recurring time frame with me.) I began to suffer really terribly cramps in both my hand from the death grip I had on my pencil, and the joint in my left shoulder. I'd start the days work basically fine, and within say, two hours or so, this stabbing burning pain would creep up my arm and settle into my shoulder joint that I can only describe as if some malevolent entity had slowly and with exquisite care shoved a red hot piece of iron rebar into my shoulder.

I would literally be in tears after three or four hours, but I would just keep going until I simply couldn't take any more, then break and put ice on it for a few minutes then repeat the whole thing over again until days end.

Remember I was working for a company that wanted work that was both excellent and fast. I still suffer from deadline-itis, the condition where one sits down to work and is overcome with the sensation that you are not working fast enough. Shit. Hate it. The bastards.

pychcomitrist,(sp?) would probably explode if I handed it to them to read.

I remember telling Neil about three quarters of the way through the story arch that I was actually useing a pencil with such a small point for the whole thing. Needless to say even he never understood this salient fact and was rightfuly shocked. he felt really terrible about all the night scenes he's written. Believe me, It took HOURS to get a page that black with a .05m pencil point. Was I nuts? Yeah, probably after a fashion. But the final image meant that much to me that I was willing to put myself through such agony to get it right. With me, it's all the way or nothing.

This much I remember about those days working on the Wake. I also remember the fact I took a pay cut for drawing the thing. Since I wasn't actually inking and since I wasn't actually penciling, the powers that be raised my penciling rate and cut my inking rate so that I got a bit more for the job and less than I would have if it was in finished ink. Fair? How would I know. I just did the job man.

Now I finally get to say something I've always wanted to say about The Wake: NO I do not usually pencil like I did The Wake. Ever. In fact most inkers hate me. I pencil like a painter.

Loose and open for improvisation. It makes them nervous as hell. They also have to work a fuck of a lot harder. Me, well I think I'm doing them a favor by leaving them room to express themselves. Generally the wrong thing to do in comics as self expression is really not high up on the list as far as monthly books are concerned. Just fast and good. Get your check and pretend your an artist.

Ah, memories. You know, I don't really remember what year this took place in? Sometime in the mid to late nineties I think. Do you find that odd? Well you know, as much as I think it was a nice gig, (minus the pain bit.) as much as I'm eternally grateful to Neil for the opportunity, when you work main stream, in the final analysis it is just a job. And then my friend you're off to another on, because there are bills to pay. Sad but true. And don't forget I lost the Eisener Award to another artist that year. Same as it ever was my lovelies.

Like I said, memories. Sometimes they are just what they are for better or worse. True? False? Only I can say for sure and then again...maybe not. But I know one thing, they are mine.

All mine.

Oh, I forgot to tell you: there was a Whole Lot Of Shit going on behind the scenes that are not shareable to anyone outside of my inner circle. This made the whole thing one hell of a lot more difficult to draw than just the constant pain.

Yep, memories. Love 'em or hate 'em it's what we have.

Love to you all.

M.Z.

THE DOPE... IN OTHER WORDS, ME.

2010-09-09T10:23:00.002-05:00

Right then, here's the deal.

I have, as my doctor described, a massive case of "tennis elbow".

What!? I've never played tennis in my life, and if I had I seriously doubt I would admit it in public.

Basically it comes down to a very serious repetitive motion injury. In other words, inking like tomorrow the word was going to end and I was the only person who could save us all by my magic art powers. Well, kiss your ass goodbye.

If I don't keep it essentially immobile and NOT work, in a week or so I should be clear to resume

my work at a sane level. So, if you are someone with an outstanding commission, or the owner of a gallery, and if you are reading this you know who you are, PLEASE, PLEASE be patient.

I'm really sorry, but I don't want to play super hero and end up with my left arm in a sling for a month. I doubt I could take the pain anyway. Nobody is more chagrined than I am. Nobody takes this as personally as I do. I have to trade a week of enforced work stoppage over a month of emotionally chewing my face off because my arm is useless.

Beside it hurts like hell. And I am so extremely left handed that right now even typing this right handed is freaking me the fuck out.

Please understand. I am losing face by the second.

Right then, in more ways than one,

Much love to you all,

M.Z.

F&*!@% H&@!!!

2010-09-05T16:19:00.002-05:00

...I screwed up my left arm yesterday and I can barely use it.

Up against the wall with deadlines and work and I can not draw.

Oh, on top of it all I think I have a nice flu coming on.

Life is grand, oh yes indeed my lovelies.

From the front,

M.Z.

WARIOR HEART....KIND OF.

2010-08-26T16:31:00.003-05:00

A word of advice: don't have hero's. Have people places things you admire. Idolize no one, they will eventually let you down. Realize the difference between what a person does and the person.

very rarely are they the same.

About a month out from a new "working" blog. I hope it is as special as I want it to be, warts and all.

And dear ones, there will be warts. Special warts.

I've come to the conclusion that if I work in three hour shifts and take an hour off in between, I can work a good long day. Odd, at least for me, but it seems to be doing the job and the job is getting done.

Which, is a really good thing.

I have two major commissions and two gallery pieces to do in just over a month. Might even come close.

It all depends on if the world stays off my back long enough. Frankly if I had been one of the band members on board the Titanic, I'd have been looking for a life boat baby. No way this boy could play the clarinet while the damn boat sank. See, they will always let you down.

Always.

Oh, and many of you know, because I have mentioned this before, but I have a very hard time with pen and ink. Well, not so much the pen, just the ink part. I've never considered myself a half way competent ink man. I can fake it pretty well, but not for long and close up. I just keep slogging away at it until the whole damn thing is covered in the stuff. I figure that way, any one looking will be half blind with noodling and not look to close. But recently,(like two days ago.) that if I switched to brown ink, I felt a whole lot more comfortable. It's not ink that's the culprit, rather BLACK ink that screws with my perceptions.

You all probably don't give much of a shit in the long run, but for me, it was huge.

Anything that ups my comfort level while working means a lot more good work in the end.

Hero's. They are to busy, to otherwise engaged, to elevated, to up there, to really pay attention. They will wait until you reach them before acknowledging your presence. I know, that's why I try my best to do this and avoid telling you or trying to remind myself of how "special" I am. Because I am not.

I'd like to think I have a warriors heart, but the truth is most of the time I am either in another world or scared to death of this one.

Sad, innit.

Love to you all.

M.Z.

DISPATCHES FROM THE FRONT.

2010-08-22T12:24:00.003-05:00

Shit. What am I doing here?

Everything was fine two hours ago. Really.

Then I had the strangest sensation, not unlike ice-out on a river in March. A creaking groaning sound followed by a percussive popping sound.

Relax it is only a bit of poetic licence, I am entitled to that much in my own home. Last time I looked anyway.

The central question I am asking myself is where in hell did my endurance go? Two lousy hours and I feel utterly whipped. I mean, I could go for hours and hours without stopping even a year ago. Old fucking age?

You have to be kidding me.

I was honestly in the "zone" as the kids say, (oops, yup, old age-ism...Gah!) with the tool of my choice, just tearing up the joint. I mean I have four pieces to finish within the next month.. not likely but close enough for government work. As of yesterday, it looked petty good. One piece will have to be a bit smaller than I'd like, but that's alright if it's really good. It will be. No doubt, just a bit smaller than I would like.

Anyone familiar with my work knows that I put a lot of myself into it, and so it tends to take a bit of time.

That's ok with me and is for the most part, ok with other people.

Am I just expecting to much form myself to soon? Is there an underlying problem physically I am unaware of....some sort of immune failure Shit?

You know, if you ask any real artist they will tell you about that "place", that strange wonderful feeling of bi-location, a kind of being on automatic and looking over your own shoulder in a kind of blank wonder.

Love it. Live for it, almost NEED it, like a drug.

I simply felt it fade away like melting ice.

I have a weird job. Maybe I should give myself a bit more time to get back into the whole thing. You know, be NICE to myself. Or, perhaps I should lock and load and get up there and kick artistic ass.

Something like that.

M.Z.

ONE MORE DAY IN NEVERLAND.

2010-08-21T15:35:00.002-05:00

Well.

Here we are once again.

Simple. Sort of.

We've been dodging bullets like crazy around here and basically, we did it with only very minor flesh wounds. So, all is basically well. Enough said about that. North American twenty first century blues, man.

Today was my first day honestly spent in the studio in many months. Yeah, thee was a few moments of doubt, which under the circumstances I think rightly justified and totally normal. If fact, if I hadn't been just a touch nervous it would have been a bad sign indeed. Overblown self confidence is to my mind an indication of instability. One should have a realistic assessment of ones abilities and strive to transcend them. That is part of the process of working. If you truly believe that you've got it knocked, give up, you're dead.

Right now I have the sensation of wok gone well, and this rather unfamiliar feeling of not quite being in my body as accustomed. I let muscle memory take over and let the planning I have done for weeks now guide my mind. After awhile I settled down into the old knowledge and grabbed the thermals and set a course to my self that felt very good indeed.

But Lord, am I exhausted. I essentially started two new pieces for gallery shows this fall and corrected the mistakes in two pieces I had previously begun weeks ago but found myself bogged down in. An old lesson learned over again,...NEVER work when your guts say, NO. It's the fastest way to find yourself stranded

in the dark without a light.

Ok, now a little something for the future: I will be posting another "in progress" in a few weeks on the "Working" blog. How I love to dance on a knifes edge. Sink or swim, we will travel together to the end of the road. I hope it will be a very special piece for me, as I have been obsessing over it for weeks now... since just after San Diego.

And, yes I have purchased a run down old Victorian house for literally next to nothing to be the new home of Bent Nail Studio,...Casa Bel Canto. Now all that's left to do in a years worth of up dating and renovation that will either result in a fabulous abode of Art or a massive money pit that will drain me dry and leave me a broken man. Stay tuned. Probably both.

Looking forward to the future,

peace to you all,

M.Z.

HUSH.

2010-08-16T14:39:00.004-05:00

Two quick things, quite diverse in nature.

1. I am happy to say there will be a very good chance in the fairly near future that

the folio I named "Bel Canto" back at the turn of the century, may well be finally be published.

Check for news either here or at Eidolon Fine Arts. I am, and will remain terribly proud of it's

Aesthetic resonance.

2. As of this Friday, barring a miracle, this blog will be shut down until further notice. I will not be able to reach either friends, family of business associates. The return will be as sudden as the disappearance.

Stay tuned.

Until then my friends, be kind.

All is silence.

M.Z.

IDEAS ON IDEAS.

2010-08-15T03:59:00.006-05:00

In many respects, writing about ideas is a complete waste of time. I mean, why? Isn't this an idea as I write it?
Word. By. Word.
How did I do that? Well, by wanting to. That's the first, most vital thing, the desire to do. Now, sometimes, and with some people the doing part seems a likely thing at the time, then the usual distractions set in and before you know it, *poof* no more idea.
This all seems perfectly obvious.....except it's not. the difference between having an idea and transforming it into something that other people can utilize is the fact that where some people have on and do what it takes to make it "real" and those who instead let it slip away is the fact that to one person, this idea became to important to lose.
I tend to think that we are drowning in a sea of ever changing, always moving ideas. We are simply put, soaking in them. On the surface of things we live in a rather straight forward three dimensional world. That's what we are taught, that's what science tells us and out 'five" senses conspire to reinforce in us.
It's all a lie. The strange and terrible part about this is that it is so damned easy to believe. It even gets to me know and then, certainly more when I was younger, and doubly strange far far less when I was a child.
In many respects, I have been un-doing my training as a person for a very long time now. Don't get me wrong, I was one of those children who never quite swallowed the whole thing. I was a troublesome kid from birth.
I wanted to know, WHY.
Still do.
Not just why the sky was "blue" but what was the essential skyness in the sky. Not that it was water vapor refracting a certain wavelength of light but rather what kind of idea put a sky there at all. Was the sky I saw the same as yours? I looked very hard an saw something else. I still look very hard indeed. I am never satisfied with what I can see, as the more I look the more I see. If the more I see means that there is more to see, where does it stop? Does it stop?
And if I remember seeing the sky clearly as a child, and I am apparently not a child, what then?
I must be both right now. Well, that fucks up linear time. So, the sky and the child and the sky and the man are all right now. Right now.
How's that for an idea? There is no time.
Try drawing that.
Consciousness is everything. Everything is conscious. Even ideas. I am an idea.

That's what my life's work means...to open windows, to punch holes in reality as we know it and free whoever takes a chance can find something more according to each and every ones capacity. Even me. Every thing I make changes me and my reality while I make it. After I am finished it's your turn, I am already off into another reality, one I changed for myself as I did things. So, in a very real sense an idea changes everything.
Divine madness.
Oh, dear, you will have to excuse me, Rossetti just came downstairs and would like a cuppa.
Good as an exit line as I ever had.

Love to you all.
M.Z.

ps: hmmm....what about those bad ideas? oh, well, another time perhaps.

m.z.

pps: half an hour later. this the sort of shit i think about when I have a bout of insomnia. bugger.

IF I HAD A FAMILY CREST.

2010-08-13T13:30:00.004-05:00

...I would have to say it would involve a daft horse and poppies, and a quill.

I should just just make one up, it happens all the time, people just register them and that's that.

I think it might be fun.

Ah well. On to more or less serious things I suppose.

I am thinking of issuing the Bel Canto drawings as a folio, in very limited quantities and beautifully

designed, ( as if I could let anything out of Bent Nail Studio that wasn't. Oh by the way I am also thinking for a kind of "fine arts" division called "Morphine Rose.") and of the finest quality at a reasonable price. I had always intended to do this when I sat down to do the series yeas ago. I am also changing my official signature again, this time for the far foreseeable future. I'll post it soon. This came about during San Diego, when I noticed that the current one didn't seem to look quite right to my eye. Since one can not hear my work except in the mind, the appearance is vital.

Oh yeah, just for grins.... out where I am, one can but old homes, (old, leaky, drafty, hard to heat homes.) for what would be a song in a more urban area. I have done just that...well the papers are being drawn up anyway. This will of course be an on going restoration project but it will also house a full scale studio, much needed after the truncated version I have had to use for several yeas now. I am picking it up for an unmentionable sum, as the wonderful old man who lived there also died there and was partially umm, well, got at by his cats. I do this on friday the thirteenth no less. Tres me, no? I shall honor his memory by making beautiful things for years to come. Also, the grand, run down old place will NOT be land filled and forgotten.

One other thing before I go... A tip of the oh so stylish Zedlian beret to Madam for the kind words.

Invisible bridges exist unseen and vital between the arts, and as She so bravely states in these cynical times, travel out of our minds and into our hearts. After all, that's all I have ever said, only without a voice, just the silent scratch of a pen, and less well.

Peace to you all.

M.Z.

GOING DEAF FO A LIVING...postscript.

2010-08-10T18:46:00.000-05:00

....Just so you don't think I am a miserable git and actually like stewing in my own juices, or at least a one trick pony,

Bill Nelson, "Contemplation 1986", You Tube. The other side of the coin...you know there is always another side.

Peace.

M.Z.

GOING DEAf FOR A LIVING ...THE LAST BIT.

2010-08-10T16:56:00.000-05:00

*Sigh*

Both heartfelt and from the depths.

I suppose in the classic sense, ( you know, the true romantics, Byron Shelly, etc.) of the first and openly declared Romantics, I should instead be railing at fate and the hostile universe from some mountain top under a thunderous sky streaked with lightning, but instead I sit here, almost numb with stifled passion and dreams gone dim of art not made, ideas left to whimper in the dust under the cruel table, bare of feasts and past music by players departed.

Ah, so baroque and poetic, so self referential and reeking of self pity, eh? But, who ever said poetic turn of phrases were not true? Certainly not me. I AM convoluted and romantic by nature.

Have any of you ever listened to Bill Nelson's "The October Man"? Look it up, it's undoubtedly on you tube somewhere.

It's as true a musical portrait as one can find, so much so I feel stupid even mentioning it...like being caught with my knickers down in public. That sort of thing can't exist in this chrome and electron, instantaneous

gratification age.

But it's me....a walking shambling thing from some place unknown to quantum physics.

I have a terrible confession to make. AH HA!...don't you love it you Ophrah-esqe kids? At last the wizard comes out from behind his curtain! Well, sorry kids, in fact behind the curtain IS a wizard, what steps out

is, or was one, he's just been in a sense, bound and gagged.

You see dear reader, I can't draw. I can't paint, I can't do anything, and haven't for months and months now.

Art needs to be free, free to go where it will and do what it needs to do. Anything else is just product. Like a hamburger, or a slice of pizza.

Here's why. Listen closely children.

I am going to assume that by your being here that you know what it is I have done and what I am known for. Fair enough? Right then.

"Fracture of the Universal Boy" is simply put, more ME than anything you have ever seen before. It is in all truth ME without boundaries and without censorship of any kind. It is the last twenty years of me in the comics business. A summation, a kind of grand finale, and a farewell to the past...I had hoped ahead lay and open road to progress and new ideas, still "me" but me moving ahead with what I do, the next level of artistic evaluation.

I can't back up. That gate is closed to me. And, until the book is free, I can not go forward.

Oh, I am sure there are those of you right now just shaking your heads in disgust at this wimpy display of self pity. Only it's NOT.

I am what I do. Are you? Really? Ask any real artist, and they will tell you that this kind of "block" or fear is deadly to the mind, heart and soul and causes very real deep suffering.

I was given a package by Madam Auf Der Maur at Sdcc, that contained the video of "Out Of Our Minds"

It was one of the the single most disturbing, beautiful and fierce artistic statements I have seen in years.

I still can't quite digest it's implications. THAT"S art my friends. That is just what art does. I have dreams of what I am capable of, and the single fact that I sit here impotent and dreaming still while every day the world turns and these things remain locked up inside slowly but surely eats bits of my soul away, hurts beyond words.

The book must come out, and I must eventually be free to once again explore new vistas.

Thank you Barron, thank you Madam.....I need you in this world. It gives me hope.

Peace to all,

M.Z.

GOING DEAF FOR A LIVING..part2

2010-08-05T12:50:00.000-05:00

So, here I am. Sitting in a frustrated and anxious puddle of me. I have no reason why at least non that I can relay with any sincerity. Physically, I have mostly recovered from the con ordeal. I don't mean that in any sort of negative way, it's just that after not really being "public" for so many years it was a bit difficult being "on" my game for such along stretch without pause that it internally wore holes in my body and soul.

I am one to take solace from the sky and rain and the fur of my dogs, from smelling the air at dawn and listening to inner silences for secrets. I love the whisper of my pencil over paper, the subtle silvery black line and it's possibilities that open secret windows of the soul. All artsy fartsy I know but don't slog it off as the meanderings of a hopeless romantic, I assure you it's all very practical and quite real. Art is not not made without passion, however quiet and strangely atavistic.

I suppose it is nothing more than a case of post con letdown. I desperately want to connect with the wonderful minds of the people i met there to bolster my seemingly wounded interior. Barron Story I met for the first time and found a far more kindred soul that I expected and I rejoiced in the meeting as it gave me strength continue when I was at low ebb. Meeting Melissa Auf Der Maur for a few precious minutes was like meeting a friend, old and dear from another life. I can't being to tell you the shock I felt in meeting someone I felt I had almost an intuitive knowledge of. I strangely miss them both.

Today, as I inhabit my so called "real" world, I am a shaman to whom the spirit world has been closed and the souls of beasts no longer speak to.

My dear Karen is away today, involved with other deeds and necessities. I miss her mightily. I never feel really comfortable without her nearby.

Melissa, Barron, I miss your company and sparks. I seem to have miss placed mine.

Good afternoon all......

M.Z.

GOING DEAF FOR A LIVING

2010-08-03T05:22:00.000-05:00

I should preface this before I really dig in just to be sure i am being very clear: any perceived cynicism or over the top irony should be taken with a massive grain of salt, as indeed any or all of my writings here need to be.

It is nothing more or less than a self applied bandage over a freely bleeding heart. Art cannot be made without deep feeling, and much of what passes as the real thing these days is no more than a Hollywood zombie film, all fake blood and clever illusions. By contrast, my work is a snuff film. I'm dieing right on the page/canvas/ paper.

Ok?

Right then, San Diego. Dear God, while I was away, somebody feed the fucker a shitload of vitamins By the last day I had my doubts if I was going to get out alive. There must have been twenty people there I hadn't seen in years that I simply couldn't get to. If any of you are reading this you understand, I hope.

frankly I worked my ass off. Seriously off. I was very, very deeply touched by the shear number of people who took the time to find me and say hello, get something signed or just to shake my hand. As a "Special Guest", (whatever that means, I had no special, different or otherwise out of the ordinary treatment i could discern) off course one is obliged to host a panel, though, thinking to myself, what in gods name would any comics fan or art aficionado want to see me for? I mean, I hadn't even made a public appearance in seven years, and none in San Diego for over a decade. Granted I do have a new book out this November, (fingers crossed.) so one gathers that a convention of San Diego's shear apocalyptic magnitude would need more half assed panels than not.

I was wrong. I was loved, and appreciated, in equal measure to the love and respect I try most heartily to give each and every person that has ever put down their hard earned money to feed me, ok mostly mega corporations of which I would get a table scrap or two. But still, you know, it felt wonderful. While i was there I certainly didn't come home having inked a huge deal, or with pockets full of cash , oh no, far from it.

I am however most grateful for the response to the book and hopefully it will translate into respectable numbers bearing in mind that it is coming out through the smallest of small publishers. Canny business man that I am, I am very good at shooting myself in the foot. I suppose I would rather be appreciated than rich.

Believe me, a huge influx of cash would be more than welcome right now. If I had not bashed out the requisite convention sketches and the amazing Ryan Graff of Eidolon Fine Arts had not hand bound four extremely beautiful copies of "Boy" to sell I would not have either eaten or made it home. ( A hundred and fifty dollars for five days of airport parking and another sixty for gas to get two hundred plus miles home...at the ungodly hour of two thirty am.)

And speaking very briefly of Eidolon Fine Arts, It is distinctly possible that I may be signing with them if and when the bugs can be worked out. More on that in a future posting.

So, to sum it all up as the day begins and the sun rises as ever, San Diego has become a monstrous, cynical venue of mass exploitation and naked ego, where every one and absolutely everything has been marketed down to the lowest common denominator, it is also,if you look one of the most amazing destinations for serious and astute popular art lovers the world has ever seen. Just pack a lunch and tranks.

So , my hello's: Dave and Claire, Jim and Bebe, Shelly Bond, XmadmX, Barron Story, Jason Shawn Alexander, Shelly Wan, John Watkiss, in abstention, Lee Moyer, Sioux and the GG's, Stephen Murphy, I felt your ghost hovering, and last but not least, Death...she was a total sweetheart. And it goes without saying but I will, I simply couldn't have done it without my dear Karen. Thanks for the ideas babe.

Peace,

M.Z.

ps: photo, the lovely Gail Potoki and me own Karen, aka Fhionn.

m.z.

RESTING, 1, 2, 3.

2010-07-30T16:11:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the delay. I'm just totally knackered. The transition from pop mania Apocalypse to the average household catch-up from a weeks absence is both startling and unnerving.

I have not done anything like this in many many years and frankly, I am utterly whipped.

I write this in a hurry just to quell any anxiety and to let you know that I WILL be back shortly with a posting of more substance and insight into just what it was from my perspective, good and not so good.

Until then please understand I simply need a bit more time to rest, digest, and organize the thoughts about the wonder and horror of San Diego.

Peace,

M.Z.

GOD, THE DEVIL, AND THE KNIGHT

2010-07-14T13:41:00.000-05:00

Here comes the night.

What do I mean by that?In a minute.

I am fully aware that I have not been here for quite some time. At one point I was of the opinion that the more I was here, at least on some level, the better it was for both you gentle reader, and for me to explain the ins and outs of my creative life. Please bear in mind that I've never been one to spill my guts in a sort of electronic frenzy that seems so common these days. So, for the large part, I've refrained from what I see as a kind of orgy of self flagellation. But, trust me it hasn't been a bowl of cherries. Several months ago I came very, very close to being hospitalized for a bad reaction to anti biotics,[runs in the family.] and a newly developed ulcer. This was just literally the day before I was scheduled to appear at C2E2 in Chicago. It's taken months of rest and medication to get back some semblance of myself. Needless to say I haven't been exactly Mr. fireball in the studio.

OH, then there is "Fracture of the Universal Boy" to contend with. From my perspective, the damn thing has eaten me alive for years now. That's no exaggeration. I'm not indulging in artistic bullshit here, I meant every word I just wrote. I've barely been able to draw since I finished it.

If and until it is actually published I simply won't be the same. I can't move on and I absolutely can not go back. And thee is one thing that will utterly kill an artists work than not going forward. Believe me when I say, I am really ready to move on and explore new ideas, concepts and ways of making art. This brings me to the edge of San Diego. I WILL BE THERE. "Boy" will be for sale in November. PERIOD. Please come see me, Attend the panel where I plan to remove the "ME" on stage and "YOU" down there where I deliver witty bon mots from my ivory tower.

Frankly I don't have one. Never liked the idea. I'm just a working guy that sees the world a little differently than you. That's my job, and mostly I've been petty lucky in that I get paid to do it. Not great pay by any means but usually enough to get by. Ok, some I made the decision to not be a wage slave to a essentially mindless system that takes more than they give and makes you believe it's good for you. My cross to bear ok? I knew how hard it would be, and how risky it was, but to my mind it was a better choice than being used like an Kleenex and disposed of by the small, nasty gods of pop culture. Right here I want to publicly thank Mr. Ryan Graff and Mr. Thomas Negovan for the work, the belief and the patience to help me shepard this book home. They both are rare and wonderful men.

I ask you, now, right now, I must now actually plead with you to put your hard earned money down and buy my book. For me, it's a matter of life and death. I am not exaggerating at all. It is all that stands between me, my home and ruin. Come see me in San Diego, get something signed, buy art, talk to me about whatever is on your mind, I will listen. It is my firm, unbending belief that art is at it's best when there is Independence and integrity behind it. Not what's "hot" not what's being sold to you, but something free and possibly dangerous. It's what changes lives, minds and hearts. It has mine.

I will more than likely not be back here until it's all over, but I promise I will be back with a real rundown of the whole deal with evidence and crime scene photo's to back me up. Until that time, two things: wish me luck, as I firmly believe in the power of good will and please understand that however anonymous you feel you are, I value you and truly appreciate your support.

Peace,

M.Z.

ps: yeah, i never did explain what i meant by that opening line, or, maybe i did, eh?

m.z.

THE DEAL

2010-03-13T06:29:00.000-06:00

I'm writing this as a sort of public service announcement and frankly to keep from writing twelve individual letters that would only say basically the same thing.

As many of you seem to know already, I will be making my first public appearance in seven years at the big Chicago convention next month. I will be hosted by the Century Guild and I'm there to promote my new release that no doubt you all are heartily sick of hearing about.

I simply want to state on the record that I will not be there to sketch and I will not be selling drawings to order. I will not be accepting commissions for head sketches or anything else.

On the other hand, I will be more than happy to sign anything of mine you care to have signed.

I simply want to meet you all and talk about the new book. There will be an exclusive sneak peek sort of book there for sale and there will be stand alone artwork for sale. All of which are non comics related, so if you are looking for a page from "The wake'...well, those pages were all sold many years ago. I personally have almost no old comics pages at all in my possession, and what I do have is not for sale...I am not sitting on a vast hoard of old Sandman pages. I have none at all, having sold them all nearly a decade ago. I hope this is not coming across as harsh, I'm not trying to be intentionally hardass about this...I just don't do Con's anymore to sell sketches, in fact i sincerely doubt I will ever be found with a drawing book in my hand at a convention or book signing again. I've been there and done that to death years ago. I honestly care about all of you out there, but the times change and I've changed with them. I simply want to relax and meet you all, and of course sign things that are either current or part of my past. Do you understand?

I hope so.

peace,

M.Z.

NEW STUFF.

2010-02-27T07:27:00.000-06:00

I've gone and sold out my friends.

A case in point: at the Olympian publishing website you can, for a limited time purchase for your very own selves, a Fracture of the Universal Boy tee shirt. The print run on them was very low and You can, for a reasonable fee wear the very same tee shirt that two un- named British people are wearing right this minute. And we all know how fashionable British people are.

And in case you are wondering, I, me, myself makes not a dime on them. They are promotional items of exquisite rarity that deserve a good home and will help in a small, but effective way to spread the gospel of me. Go on, you know you want one. Summer will be here sooner than you think.

I'd appreciate it a lot you guys.

Peace,

M.Z.

THANK YOUSE GUYS.

2010-02-15T07:07:00.000-06:00

A very heartfelt thanks to all of you who have written in either to express concern or to ask for a piece of commissioned work. I'm all set and have the things I need to do all lined up.
I'll be busy from a few weeks so I may not get back for a bit. Never fear, you all are never far from my mind...I've been blessed with while not millions of you, I do have a core of quantity people who give a shit. More than I deserve probably. Thankful none the less.

Now, on with the show..oh, and Karen is doing fine, considering.

Peace,

M.Z.

COME ONE, COME ALL...

2010-02-11T06:29:00.000-06:00

Yesterday afternoon My dear Karen, "Fhionn' to many of you was in a serious automobile accident and I need to ask anyone who is interested that as of now, I am taking commissioned work to raise funds. Anything is on the table, Sandman, Death, anything. Prices are reduced from my usual thousand to eight hundred shipping in the U.S. is free. I'll be able to take the first two. Any more and I will not be able to guarantee prompt delivery. Please be advised I am out of my usual ink, but I can still do full color, quite large pieces that I assure you will be my very best.

Please write. We both thank you.

Much love to you all.

M.Z.

NOTHING TO SAY AND I'M SAYING IT.

2010-01-28T06:57:00.000-06:00

Been a while, I'm going to rightly or wrongly, assume that somebody noticed.

There has been "things" ( you know, six legs, slimy, sort of greenish..) going on in my absence.

I've finished copy-editing the text and placement of said text for the book. As of this writing it's being re-worked to the highest standard that can be managed with a great deal of talent and a very modest budget. Wonders have been worked regardless. The whole editing thing was weird though. I can see the value of another set of eyes during this process as I've been staring at this book for a very long time now. But then again, who better to do it? I know just what I want from this thing and I must put on a different hat in this case. if it's screwed up, I blame nobody but myself. As it should be I think.

But it good to me......onward. Still keeping the fingers and other sundry digits crossed for the April release.

I promise that the next novel will run much smoother. The learning curve has been just nuts. I've used more than one air-sick bag over this. (the author makes a very rude noise.)

The sickness thing has been largely cleared up...though as I write, I'm recovering from a common head cold. It's been a very long, very sick winter. I for one will rejoice when the poppies bloom again.

And, very soon, I'll actually be painting again after far far to long a time. And this time, I'll have the time to approach the act with both the time and the will to do something at the top of whatever game it is I play with myself. No more rushing because I have to be doing something to make the rent or whatever. Though I do.

Who am I kidding here? There is never, ever enough time. Or money. God I hate money. In this country it's the only crime that's unforgivable on a very deep cultural level: the crime of having no money.

Geez I'm a happy guy today eh?

Remember, question authority. You know you want to.

M.Z.

WE ARE NOT A-MUSED.

2010-01-15T06:28:00.000-06:00

The first day back in the studio to explore the long in stasis leavings of a fevered mind.

Mixed results were had.

Rusty and squeaky gears, clogged vents, dust bunnies in the corners.

Minor drawing efforts and sweaty palms, dangerously suspended over the abyss of doubt.

Made it out in one piece, minor wounds and glad to be alive.

Going back in today armed to the teeth.

Divine intervention welcomed.

Full report at eleven.

"hang in the there."

M.Z.

ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER RAY OF HOPE.

2010-01-12T02:49:00.000-06:00

Well my dears, I actually didn't do a runner on you all. Though the "ten questions" thing was a bit premature. I was a bit overconfident about the state of my health and my ability to convince even myself I was in better shape than I was/am/. Sorry about that. Maybe some other time, ok?

As of this writing I'm still in a kind of no where state between health and illness. Everybody is as puzzled as I am. The fact of the matter is that I simply don't have the stamina I need to work, and every day that passes without making at least a little something has become a soft, pervasive agony.

I have laid some great plans for things to come, but hypothetical art is no art at all when push comes to shove. The Book continues to advance into a real thing soon to make a mess of what reputation I have left: "old dinosaur drops his trousers in public. No one impressed."

I can't wait. I know you're out there, i hear you breathing.

Oh, yeah, major insomnia this morning. I feel like on of those late night DJ's who play hours of strange melancholy jazz things at three in the morning. All neon in the rain and far off headlights.

I've become my own cliche. Cool. I'd hate to be anyone else's.

Back to the (sort of) subject. The book is still on time for an April release, and I'll be appearing at some convention or another( at a certain point they all merge in ones mind.) on or about the release date. This will be my first public outing since 2003 in NYC...I believe a few more are in the works leading up to a few days in San Diego. Which I'm still conflicted about: I just dislike the "show of shows" on a very deep aesthetic level that is visceral. All Kafka and Tod Browning, if you get my drift. But, business is business. And contrary to the odd rumor, I'm not permanently in an asylum in new Hampshire nor dieing of AIDS in France.

Other than that, lets see........some limited edition tee shirts are waiting to be bought and get all sweaty, possibly a few prints, I dunno about that one, but speculation is the stuff of way to early in the morning coffee and cigarettes. "and next up you night owls, Bill Nelson, with the oh-six release, "Neptune's galaxy"......so sit back you holy fools and thieves and relax".

Oh, the dog thing fell through as per my luck. I swear, it'd be easier to buy an elephant than get a dog these days. You have to wonder.

I guess this is the "tid-bit" section as my enthusiasm wanes.

Lets see: long talk with Neil the other day about stuff I can't talk about.

Karen's been away at her parents place for the past week, so I've not only been sick and frustrated but alone and sick and frustrated.

I don't know if I've mentioned this but my agent the illusive man of mystery Thomas has a kind of strange endorsement deal with the primary(I may be wrong about that, details details.) distributor of Sennelier art products in the US. I use their shit a lot and love the quality: yup Zulli's sold out baby! Seriously though Sennelier rocks. Thy are FRENCH Y'ALL. Tres cool kiddo, and beat me daddy eight to the bar.

Ok. that's it. I'm talked out. Best leave before i get to boring...a good guest knows when to leave.

Usually before a drunken brawl starts. know what I mean?

Later cool cats and kitties.

M.Z.

THE END.

2009-12-31T06:56:00.000-06:00

A few things.

1. I'm finally starting to get better.

2. I can't wait for this clusterfuck of a decade to end.

3. This year I'm going to re-dedicate myself to actual painting, as it's been far and away to long since I did. I also will start the next novel. I've already plotted the thing out and have a working title. "Opal: a life in two days."

4. Try as hard as I'm able to get people to commit senseless acts of random beauty.

5. Get back here more often; I still have questions to answer.

Peace to you all in this coming year.

M.Z.

PEACE ON EARTH AND....

2009-12-24T07:43:00.000-06:00

This just a very short little note to wish you all a holiday season filled with creativity, love and good cheer. Thank you all for coming here and sharing the ups downs and middles with me.
In many ways, what I do is for you. I promise that from now on no matter what, I'll always strive to make only the very best things I can for everybody.
And yeah, I'm really beginning to mend.

My love to you all.

M.Z.

I'MA WALKIN.......

2009-12-14T06:04:00.000-06:00

In a word, "walking pneumonia".

Hospital Thrusday evening- tests-tests and more tests.

For at least a month I've been walking around feeling like the bad end of a manure spreader

and getting worse all the time.

So, the treatment lots of rest and killer mutant drugs that make me feel even worse.

If, after ten days or so, and yet more tests, I'm not better, off to the asylum and under the tender care of nurse DeSade, who will of course, beat the bastard out of me.

Your questions WILL be answered and opinions expressed, but please forgive me if I'm not front and center off and on.

Stay well and don't desert me, I'm around, just a bit shaky.

M.Z.

ps: the photos i've recently put up of blue roses are not died blue. the suntory corp. has really developed a rose that is a real blue and breeds true. i just dig the hell out of it.

m.z.

WHITE. AND.......

2009-12-10T07:35:00.000-06:00

Ok, one question down, nine to go. Come on y'all, I CAN'T HEAR YOU.

So, now a kind of answer in another. The White Doberman Pinscher.

If you go looking for information on the COLOR VARIANT I beg you to ignore the DPCA.

Pogroms and genocide are ugly things for a national breed club to endorse, but in my opinion and that of many, many other really fine breeders it is totally unacceptable.

QUESTION AUTHORITY.

Photos posted.

On to something else. It seems I have a face book page.

I'm telling you I am not in any way responsible for it nor does it have my blessing.

I just wish whoever put it there had asked me. Ok?

Right then....lets get them thar questions in...just make 'em good.

peace,

M.Z.

AH, HE'S AT IT AGAIN......

2009-12-07T07:43:00.000-06:00

Ok. The only reason I'm back here while essentially having nothing to say is most likely I probably do and I simply don't know what it is yet.

As I type this I'm listening to Bob Dylan's "Series of dreams"...a sort of personal mantra followed by "Jokerman'....which is so Blakeian and rich in imagery that it shakes the foundations of my self.....maybe a level I aspire to in my own work. Funny, I take more inspiration from music than other visual art forms.

Hmmm....what to say?

Ah, got it....( two minutes passed before I just wrote that.)

At one time, a good decade before me and comics collided I had a chance to become a world class wildlife artist. But a move like that requires in equal measures, connections, luck and a big spoon full of personal support. One thing throughout my artistic career that has until now has been a total lack of personal support.

Ok, another idea.....lets see how it flies. If it doesn't work, that's ok, if it does I'm in for some serious writing.

If ten people, all different, write to me with ten good questions, I'll answer them all right here as best and as honestly as I can. How's that? I figure ten questions about just basically anything shouldn't be to much or to difficult.

Go for it. I'm ready.

Love to all,

M.Z.

FOR LACK OF ANYTHING ELSE TO SAY...

2009-11-25T14:16:00.000-06:00

Well, here it is, almost "thanksgiving". A few million turkeys down and a new crop coming up for new years day. Pass the antibiotics mom!

Ok, really, nothing much to say. We're getting by, and the stuff of daily life happens and we get up and do it again. Century Guild will be doing a "Universal Boy" limited edition tee shirt at some point. I voted for the lunch box, who eats lunch any more? Someday, when I'm all grown up and stuff, and I am out and about signing a book here and there, I think I will insist in my contract that a dozen roses be on the table next to me so I can give them to people. Well, at least a dozen people anyway.
Seems like a nice thing to do. I may leave the thorns on.

I hope all of you are alright and making do.
I guess I'll be back when something exciting happens.

Love ya all.

M.Z.

PEEKABOO.

2009-10-30T14:43:00.000-05:00

Ok.

If you are even a bit curious about the so called, "BOOK" I keep rattling on about you can have wee peek at a few pages over at the Century Guild blog.
Don't say I didn't warn you. Under sixteen must be accompanied by a parent or guardian.

Ta, must dash.. I'm accepting the Dorian Grey Memorial Deviancy award.

M.Z.

FOR THE FOUR.

2009-10-25T17:06:00.000-05:00

The title of this post has to do with the fact that I have four "followers" that have taken the time to actually stand up and be counted. I consider myself lucky to have that many. So, from now on, I'll be writing for you lot. Thank you.

Lemme pull yer coat for a minute ok?
Look, there are big things happening here. Oh, nothing you can see yet, except that that from now on, the color of the text when I write here has changed. No, nothing for you to see yet.
Yet.
There is going to be a while before anything really new, anything that points true north, that signals that there is foreword movement coming. If I were so inclined, I might say that artistically, I'm on hiatus....unpaid leave of absence. "But why Mr. Zed" you ask?
Here's where the coat pulling starts......

I've been more or less in the public eye for nearly a quarter of a century. My very first published work in the comics medium was Puma Blues number one, cover dated August 1986. Right now, that feels like forever, and few extra days for seasoning. I've written here recently that I've been basically bed-ridden for three weeks now with a really evil flu. One tends, if one happens to be me, to think quite a bit when my hands are doing nothing any more productive than blowing my nose, scratching my ass or changing the radio channel. This can be extraordinarily troubling if you have a boiling pot of pasta for brains. Throw shit at the wall and study what sticks. Throw anything, nothing off bounds, just whip it out and hope for something interesting to happen.
What essentially happened was that after absolutely nothing stuck was that I realized that after twenty three years of slowly, steadily being seduced into the artist I am today, I'm bone dry.
After the completion of Fracture of the Universal Boy, I had, in fact summed it all up, said it all and the only way to keep going was to keep re-plowing the same field until I either drop or go barking mad. Neither option seemed like it had a lot to recommend itself. As the saying goes, " I may be crazy, but I'm not stupid."
And so, the demolition began. Let me tell you something, (tug tug.) the absolutely worst, most devastating thing that that can happen to a true artist, ( as opposed to an entertainer perhaps?) is the idea of stasis. Of not progressing to someplace valid and true. Of simply giving them what they want, or expect or maybe even need rather than being able to reach inside and be surprised, and excited by new things, concepts and challenges. A sort of living death. Ok, perhaps I have higher expectations of myself, or it could be I'm just a pretentious asshole. But, after the Book was finished I found myself with a very clear choice: either go on singing "i can't get no satisfaction" until I get carried of by the nice friendly guys with the stiff white coat, or some very serious self examination comes down.
Just what the fuck I needed right now. Sick, broke and looking down a black hole of a future. Oh, yeah kids, I'm thrilled. Alas, we don't always have a choice in these matters, we must remain open to ideas when they come, no matter how distasteful. I believe it's called being a grown up.
The process of essentially stripping down twenty odd years of personal history to get to a point where nothing remains except the truth is not recommended unless you have the proper tools.
We humans have a near infinite capacity for self deception, and I'm no better or worse that anyone else in that regard. Eight years of therapy helps. trusting what skills one does have for real helps too. Eventually, if the courage to look yourself in the eye and see every line, pock mark and white hair without blinking can be accomplished you get to a place that is clear, unvarnished and open as a the thrill of first love.
That's about where I am at the moment. In love for the first time, and I don't know if she loves me back. Talk about nervous. Shit. I have butterfly's eating my intestines and my deodorant ain't working.
It's all about love. L.O.V.E.
The mystery's of life and the human heart. Awkward, pimple on the nose, aw-shucks every time I see her I get a boner.

I'm in fact, re- dedicating myself to the honest examination of heart and soul. Having decided that the old bag of tricks will not help me here, I've decided to just grow a set and ask her out.

Throw it at the wall and hope to God that it sticks. And brothers and sisters, I'm scared to death. But damn it, i feel alive.

Now the hard part......praying you'll be interested in what happens enough to be the fly on the wall and gimme an amen, thumbs up, you go dude....whatever.

Rather cryptically I'll leave you with this: Paris 1920.

Just wait.

Peacefulness...

M.Z.

BITS AND BITS AND BITS

2009-10-23T17:48:00.000-05:00

I hate the fucking flu.
Three weeks now of slowly rotting on the sofa pulling enough of myself together to get to my doctors. I almost went second stage, ie: pneumonia. Not good. So I've busied my self with composing paintings in my head. Six so far, two of which I've practically fainting to do. But that could just be the drugs. I'm beginning to think that if I was forced to never, ever make pictures again I'd slowly suck up into my head and kill myself.

Another bit: I must have pressed a wrong button somewhere and deleted all my saved addresses from the web mail I get here. So, i you've written to me about something and I haven't written back, blame my creeping technophobia. Sod it, I'm sorry.

One more bit: I'm planning to finally finish the tattoos on my left arm into a finished piece. That is, if the artist I want to work with ever writes back. All our lives seemed to run by day planners.

Yet another: today is the day there has been sunshine since I came down with the plague. Things just get better all the time. I should have been an urologist.

And yet again: I'm burning all my old canvases tomorrow. I hate the sight of them. It's my party and the quest list is crap.

One last thing, and promise to go away: when I'm reasonably lucid, I'm plotting and researching my next book. This has lead my to finally come to terms with my birth in Louisiana and it's culture. Still wouldn't want to live there, but I'd visit in winter sometime. "native son returns" and all that.

There.....all(most) all off my chest, which hurts right now, but not as much as a week ago.
So, Pierre, if you're reading this by chance, send more Gauloises, PLEASE I'm back to work Monday and I owe you big time my friend.

I DON'T BELIEVE IN FLU SHOTS.....it's a paranoia thing.

Loveliness to all....

M.Z.

DREAMLESS

2009-10-07T18:47:00.000-05:00

I suppose I should show up now and then. It's just a bit difficult when essentially I have nothing to say that matters. The book is done. Yay. The question I was absolutely unprepared for was, "what now?"
Oops. Didn't think of that. The bottom has fallen out of my raison d'être. Simply put, I just don't know where to go to re-establish my love of work. The old ideas and concepts seem stale, a bit mouldy about the edges and inedible. And just as perversely, I find that the idea of really painting again on a large scale is slowly becoming more and more attractive. This would be of course suicide, quick and efficient and very painful. I just can not hope to support my family by investing large scale in fresh painting gear.....couldn't afford it anyway. It will be early spring before I can even hope for any returns on the book at all. So, I seem to be facing a very long, cold winter casting about for both renewed inspiration and a decent living.

Everything I try to cast an eye towards in the way of fresh feelings comes back a vague echo of whatever I was hoping to find. A kind of "been there done that" vibe that alternately pisses me off of makes me want to just go hide in a hole. Part of the trouble lies for better or worse is the one salient fact that for ninety-nine percent of the "public out there sees me as strictly a comic book artist, when in fact I was always an artist that did comics. I have no real other mojo.

This HAS to change. I MUST have more options. Damn it.

I guess I'll just have to get through this part. But I'm not happy with things.

And writing it down didn't help.

Later,

M.Z.