A Day In The Life Episode 8

...And now back to our program already in progress...
As I recall, this had to be cranked out in a hurry and it shows. Anyway, enjoy! And thanks to everyone who wished me a happy B-day! Muuuuuaaaaah!
ps Technically, it's 7:34 am here in AmDam ( I bet they hate when folks call it that...) and shortly I'll be getting in the Tardis and going back in time to LA LA...I hope I can sleep the entire flight....

Happy Birthday, Belasco!

I'm taking a day off from revisiting "A Day In Th' Life" to wish a happy birthday to a person without whom this blog wouldn't be possible: MEEEEEE! Yup, it's my boithday and I'm spending it appropriately enough in Amsterdam. A beautiful city. Legal marijuana and live sex shows. What's not to love? Actually, it's much more than that and I highly recommend it as a destination for anyone who hasn't partaken (partook?) of it's charms. Also a very special shout out to my pen-pal, Jerry, who has been a great host and become a new found friend!
I've done tons of drawings while on sabbatical and to say some of them are quite trippy would be an understatement. Can't wait to share them but I'll finish posting the ADNTHL strips first. Also a reminder to anyone in the Palm Springs area this weekend coming, I'll be there on Saturday as one of the guests of honor at Blatino Oasis! They're giving me and Tiger Tyson an award for services rendered or good servicing or something like that. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a gold plated dildo, so keep hope alive. I suppose this is a life time achievement award in gay years...Anyway, I look forward to meeting and shaking everyone's freshly sterilized hand (like Kelly Ripa said to Clay Aikin, " I don't know where that hand's been...") Lol. Until then, "Goedemiddag!" (Good afternoon...and if you think that's spelled funny, you should try the word for "hand jobs in the alley" ....But I kid.....I keeeeeeeeeeed.

A Day In The Life Episode 7

A Day In The Life Episode 6

Can anyone who's been reading these things closely spot the huge mistake I made in this strip? As I recall the time I wrote and drew this, I was also doing a Boo story for GBM magazine as well as juggling a demanding day job. It's pretty funny that I only caught the mistake after digging these strips out after all this time!

A Day In The Life Episode 5

A Day In The Life Episode 4

Ok, so I'm on vacation, not bored, but I have an annoying habit of traveling to another city (in this case, New York) then doing exactly what I would be doing if I were at home which in this case would be blogging from a coffee house. I've been in this Starbucks in Greenwich village for about five hours now. Oh my. And I thought Los Angeles had the market cornered on delusional mental cases (not to be politically incorrect but these folks are one taco shy of a combination plate!)But otherwise the eye candy has been dandy! I do love New York! So anyway, here's another strip. Hopefully, you get a chuckle out of it.

A Day In The Life Episode 3

After doing the first few "A Day in the Life" strips, I quickly began stream-lining and simplifying the characters. Most artists I think find after they draw a character repeatedly, they end up finding ways to draw that character in the most economical way possible. Looking back at these strips after having done them almost ten years ago, I see the evolution of them more clearly. The first couple I've posted were definitely done under the influence of Tim Barela, the creator of Leonard and Larry, one of the oldest gay slice of life comics that I knew of and a big inspiration to me as to how I would do "A Day In the LIfe". The strips to follow are much more in my own cartoonier style.

A Day In The Life Episode 2

A Day In The Life Episode 1

Long ago and far away, the mid 90's to be exact, there was a little comic strip I did called "A Day In the Life" for a magazine out of Detroit. That black gay culture magazine was Kick Magazine, helmed by the fabulous Curtis Lipscomb. Back then it seemed every town with a sizeable black gay population had small home grown lifestyle and club-zines. It was a heady time because a lot of us were getting our first artistic exposures in these xeroxed, hand stapled labors of love. Some went on to greater fame and distribution, more went by the wayside when life, economics or both got in the way. But for a brief shining moment there was a lot of activity in the independent press as well as black gay culture in general. So anyway, back to "A Day in The Life"....If memory serves, Curtis approached me at DC Pride one Memorial Day weekend in either 95 or 96 about doing a comic for him. I think I had already or was about to create "Boo" at this time but couldn't say 'no' to Curtis. He's an Aries and they don't take 'no' for an answer usually. Anyway, the comic was born and in exchange for my services, I was allowed to advertise my little chap books that ultimately made up the contents of the "Brothers of New Essex" anthology. It was terrific exposure and I got lots of orders. Anyway, ADNTHL was the polar opposite of my erotica and really challenged me to use a different set of muscles for doing stories since I only had one page to get an idea across, i had to think of this as more of a comicstrip with a punchline rather than my usual multipage stories.
In this first installment, we meet best friends, Billy and Dane. Billy's the straight-laced buppie and Dane is the avant-garde free spirit. I had just relocated to Los Angeles from Chicago and this strip was a reflection of my mindset at the time. It was around the time the DL was rearing it's ugly head and having openly gay black characters would go out of style in life and in fiction for about ten years. Thank God, that's turning around slowly but surely. These strips are definitely of their time when things were different and there was excitement in the air about the possibilities of being black and gay. Enjoy them for what they are/were: my attempt at a slice of life from the mid-90s right before everything would change.

Ch-ch-ch-changes!

Ok, so I tried to change the layout a bit but for some reason my Zazzle items are being chopped off in this layout as well as some other minor pains such as those little hammers that are next to my links. It was mentioned to me that the old layout was hard on the eyes because of the stark white images against that harsh black background. We'll try this for a while for the summer until I can learn how to have more control over this e blogger layout interface. arrrgh. Anyway, here's an oooold drawing I did back in the 90s and a newer one of a twink-type. I thought the contrast in techniques was interesting. We'll be going back down memory lane in a big way over the next few entries so stay tuned. Same Boo-Time, Same Boo-Channel

Mid-day Delight...

I Confess...

To being addicted to blogging. When I first started this site, it was primarily to show my sculptures I was doing at the time, then once I had temporarily gotten those out of my system weeks could go by without a peep from me, but now...Well, let's just say I got it bad and that ain't good. Posting is like potato chips (and ass): You can't eat just one...
joking!!! or am i? But I digress...Here's another post, so put ya face innit and enjoy!

Burly Boo
Play wit dem puppies
DIY
Fancy Freek
We like to Watch

Watercolour Boo

I took some time from lettering/dialoguing the Boo meets Oasis story to do this. I must confess to having a bit of ADD. I bore quickly and if I've already told you this, fyi, I have a poor memory too. I'll be a mess when I get old and have a good excuse not to remember shit! Anyway, to break the tedium of doing something that is a bit more meticulous, I like to go the opposite direction and do something that can be free-flowing and not deemed right or wrong (well, right or wrong by me...I don't care what anyone else thinks usually...lol). So this watercolor was a fun excercise. "Exercise" is the bullshit word I learned to use in art classes to justify something I took about a half hour to do before class.lol...and guess what, they fell for it everytime! God, how I hate those crappy art school critiques, but I digress. ADD,bad memory, AND I ramble! Enjoy!
Watercolour Boo

Sneak Peek: Work in Progress

Since this blog is called Belasco Art and Comixxx I figured I need to show some actual comics periodically so you guys don't forget my original claim to fame. Here's something I've been working on but taking way too long to finish. As most folks who know me know, the easiest part of creating my stories for me is the drawing and the hardest part is the 'writing'(which is why I have more Boo stories than any other since there is rarely any dialogue in those). Some artists I know have the exact opposite problem. Anywho,these are the first three pages of an 18 page story to whet your appetites.

Misc.

EARLY EDITION

The Late Edition....

Bo Darris

Here's my rendition of one of my favorite porn stars from the 90's...I wish he'd made more videos....I realized recently that he may have subconsciously inspired some of the thicker guys I've been drawing of late. He was the original Diesel man...Thick and Juicy all over, but curvaceous! MMM MMMM

BELASCO in Palm Springs!

I've been meaning to post this sooner, but as you all know by now, I'm my own worst promoter. Ok, here's the deal: I am one of the guests of honor at what I believe is the first annual Blatino Oasis in Palm Springs the weekend of June 22-25. I will have some books, tee-shirts and some other stuff to sell. I have no idea what to expect, but damn, the flyer looks like it's going to be off it's meds! I was going to say, 'off the chain' but that's been done, right? One of the ironies is that I have a character named 'Oasis' who would have been the perfect promotional tool for the event since he is a stripper, but of course, I forgot to send a jpg of him to the organization, so Boo's on the flyer. Probably for the best, since Boo's the more popular of the two until I do all the other Oasis stories I have in my head! Anyway, I'm hearing the event may be close to be being booked up but if you're interested in attending, there's probably still time. Anyway, consider yourselves alerted! Hope to see you there. It's clothing optional too. This is one of those times I wish I had replaced one of my eyes with a mini-cam....heheheh Click the title of this post to go to the Blatino Oasis site for more info!

Color Boy

Hey, y'all. Been busy with getting the yard ready for summer...I hope to entertain some so I've been doing a lot of DIY stuff. Very butch, don't ya know. Yes, Belasco does tools...ahem, power tools. Anyway, of course no sooner than I get the high end Photoshop CS courtesy of an unnamed source, my damn scanner goes out. Mercury must be in retrograde. It effects (affects?) us geminis doubly (pun intended) so anything mechanical or travel can be sticky. Luckily I have another scanner hitched up to my old antiquated G4. But it's a hassle scanning onto that machine then burning a disc so I can upload it on my MacBook Pro. I'm sure there's some smart way around this problem but I haven't had the patience to figure it out. Anywho, since it's quite a process to get these sketches to you guys, I'm going to parcel them out sparingly over the next few days so I don't blow my wad, so to speak. First up is a quickie water color I did a few days ago. I used to do color work a lot in the early 90s but time and a demanding job got in the way and I hadn't picked up a brush for years. I'm rusty as hell, so it'll take time to get back up to snuff. For those of you who got the first releases of the novel B-Boy Blues and it's two sequels (before my cover artwork was dumped in favor of photographs...), those covers were done in watercolor and were pretty representative of the level I was working at back in those days. I'll be interested to see how this will gel with my looser drawing technique. Anyway, I call it 'Color Boy'. I was feeling the start of an typical L.A. summer, a mix of sunshine, listless relaxation and the ennui...Any of you L.A. transplants (those who aren't giving the rest of us a bad name, that is) may know what I'm talking about...Enjoy!

Color Boy