SUNDAY 6th EYE dOOdle

"For where God built a church, there the Devil would also build a chapel."

-Martin Luther

"If Sunday is the Lord's day, then Saturday belongs to the Devil. It is the only night of the week when he gives out Free passes to the Late show at the Too Much Fun Club."

-Hunter S. Thompson

"Blessed be Providence which has given to each his toy: the doll to the child, the child to the woman, the woman to the man, the man to the devil!"

-Victor Hugo

CLICK HERE to SEE the  how the DEVIL comes out at NIGHT

CLICK HERE for the dOOdle ARCHIVE!

Valentine's Masquerade and Art Exhibit

Last night, Boheme Collectif in East Nashville hosted their Valentine's Masquerade curated by Joe Melanson.  The event featured live music, performances and of course art!  Aurora and I had a good time catching up with the art crowd and seeing all the colorful creations on display.  Here are some pics of the festivities...

An Open Letter to The Stewart-Houston Times about Success

"Trinitarian Christ"
(inks on page from The Holy Bible / 2007)

I grew up in a very small town here in Tennessee.  The majority of my extended family still resides on property which was once a family farm and lies on the county line separating Stewart and Houston Counties.  This area is so rural in fact, the entirety of both counties have one weekly paper to provide residents with their local news.

Recently, my hometown newspaper ran a column which has lingered in my mind the past few days- “Making Our Life Successful in God’s Eyes.”  I’ve found growing up with a devoutly faithful family and community that folks are quick to thank the Good Lord for their successes.  Likewise, they are just as quick to dismiss their failures and shortcomings as God’s Will.  The more my mind mills over the obtuse message of this article, I’ve found myself compelled to respond here on my site.

In her article, Loretta Threatt states, “We live in a culture which is very success-minded; but it is this very culture which is so wrong-headed that it measures success only in terms of a person’s career, education, financial status, skill, achievement, possessions, etc.  And we breathe the cultural air that honors and rewards those who chase one of these.”  The author goes on to say, “I believe the reason some people fail to succeed is their lack of God’s grace. No person can achieve success in these areas apart from the gift of Christ’s righteousness!”

Without evil, good cannot exist in the world.  Without losers, there can be no winners.  Without failure and shortcomings, there can be no successes.  Success is not something which can be reflected in terms of faith.  The “wrong-headed” social measurements Ms. Threatt mentions are the very foundations of the definition of success.  Much of Christian thinking is what one could call “blind faith” and takes self-determination out of the equation.  Success comes from hard work, aspiration, education and commitment- not from prayer and faith alone.

By linking success to Christian faith, the author assumes failure to succeed is inherently linked to being in the grace of her own Lord and Savior.  This rationale also implies anyone of a different faith than Christianity or anyone lacking faith altogether be it Agnostic or Atheist will not experience her true definition of success.  It is dangerous to foster a culture where everyone succeeds with God’s blessing, where everyone gets a trophy just for playing and there are no winners or losers in His eyes.  This is an example of how faith can shelter and ever worse disconnect people from reality.

Successfulness and contentment are two completely different life equations.  Some find contentment in faith, some in family, some in love and some in money.  Life can still be lived in content, faith and happiness without success being a factor.  However, success is found in achievement whether it be educational, artistic, athletic, financial or professional and is in no way based on indoctrinated belief systems.  Sure, faith can stimulate one’s ambition (but so can a good cup of coffee.)  Success begins within YOU and by pulling yourself up by the bootstraps and visualizing what you want out of your life.  You can be who you want to be and achieve what your heart desires (with or without the help of someone else's God.)

Three dOOdles Walk into a Bar...

Yeah, I got jokes today...

Creeeeepy SKRULL dOOdle

I subliminally evoked some Marvel Comics fandom recently when I illustrated this dOOdle.  I was drawing this devilish little face and finished before I realized it resembled a Skrull with a third eye!  For those of you who aren't familiar, the Skrulls are a shape-shifting alien race invented in the 1960's by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby to battle the Fantastic 4 and eventually the entire Marvel Universe as a whole.  They are the most ancient and notorious alien race in comics...

CLiCK HERE to GEEK OUT in the dOOdle OMNIBUS!

Sketchbook Entries

Last weekend, I got my first smart phone (finally, right?) Yeah, I bought in so I could take credit card payments in person (and read comic books while I stand in line at the Post Office.)  Along with the technology also comes Instagram!

 ~CLiCK HERE to FOLLOW ME!~  

Here are some pics I was sharing throughout the week of sketches from a small book I've been filling the past 10 months or so.  (Of course, the pics are filtered and stylized on the Instagram feed... these are the source pics from my phone.)

William S. Burroughs CENTENNIAL

One of my favorite authors William S. Burroughs wrote a good deal about the hot chills, dementia and withdraws of being junk sick.  I feel like I've been wandering through surreal streets narrated by old Bill's languid and sinister voice the past few days as I've gone through the motions with a bout of the flu.  Today is the writer's 100th birthday so I decided to put my tortured and rare form to work on commemorating him.  After overcoming a decades-long heroin addiction, he continued to write, paint, shoot his guns and love his herd of cats until the ripe old age of 83.  He defied society's every law- both legal and moral in his pursuit of a certain truth through his verse.  The writer founded a style and written world unmatched by any other voice in literary history.  Warts, bodily fluids and all, he exposed the delights and discontents of sexuality, addiction and depravity.  He found antiheroes in the dregs of society which he put on pillars to be fought over in court with groundbreaking obscenity cases.  Men like that make it possible for you to read and see what other crazed souls like mine share with you here... good show Bill- good show indeed.