Hi, been a while.

First off, if you're offended by nudity, please feel free to ignore this message.

That said, deviant hotsinfulbody [link] had an image of hers taken, doctored, and re-posted it as a print for sale under a different name without even so much as crediting her as a source.

This deviant, [link] , has blocked every post telling of her misdeed, and has sent an abusive letter to hotsinfulbody with all sorts of offensive epithets contained therein.

DA is being horribly slow in responding to the half-dozen or so reports that have been sent calling this person out.

Please do your part:

1) Look at the original image here [link]

2) Look at the doctored image here [link]

All this person did was flip the image and change the colors of the clothing. It's too obvious.

Please, go to that doctored image page and report it. If enough people do it, it may spur DA to do something more quckly.

Don't let art thieves prosper.

Peace,
Stephen

Three years ago, I didn't have a job. My father had been diagnosed with esophageal cancer, and my nephew came down with aplastic anemia.

Today, I own my own business, my father's been cancer-free for two years, and today, my nephew was pronounced "cured."

Not that the past three years haven't been rough and rollercoaster-y, but today constitutes a definite win.

Here's hoping that the next three years straighten out more things for me, my friends, and family.

So I've more than 10,000 views of my homepage. Wow. Only took 3 years. Not bad for a guy no one's heard of.

Anyhow, I'm actually going to be posting again relatively soon. Been doing some life drawing, and some of it's turning out quite good, hence the posting.

Shop's still doing moderately well, although there's now a bit of a downturn. Not worried yet, though. Still ahead for the year.

Unfortunately, since the drawing's I'll be posting are likely to be considered NSFW, the mature tag will be on them. Of course, this does mean it's possible that I'll hit 20k views much more quickly than the first 10k.

Gawds, but I love all y'all pervs out there.

...to actually write something before I dive back into framing.

Well, been a heck of a year. Still have the shop open, making something that resembles money, am still able to buy comics and action figures (which is much easier to do if you're not addicted to alcohol or drugs), and am still married. Calling that an overall win.

Dad's still WAY thin. As in skeletal. Hope he doesn't get sick again.

Haven't had much (or any) time to do any drawing. Hope that changes in the coming year.

Was able to bring in a couple of friends part-time to the shop to help out and help them out. Hope to be able to do more (again, in the coming year).

Hope everyone has a great year being creative and successful.

As I type this, I've got a frame disassembled and just laying out on the front counter, so this won't be a long entry.

Well, this past month:

*  My wife and I got sick with some kind of flu that knocked us down pretty hard for about two weeks.
*  My stepson decided to go missing for nearly 24 hours (after he was supposed to be home, he was gone for close to 36 hours). He's fine, just not happy with his new living arrangements, which if I had my way would include an ankle bracelet with a combination GPS/electric shock function.
*  The first of many loan repayments was due, which fortunately we had. COME FRAME SOMETHING!!
*  I had a car accident last Friday. No injuries, and was mostly paint-scratch type damage, but still, grrrrrrrrr.


Oops, gotta go. Customer.

Okay, it's raining quite a bit here in San Diego, so business is a bit slow. Ergo, I have a moment, and I'm taking it.

It's been a bit on the hectic side, really. January was quite a scary month sales-wise. We barely covered overhead, and February started off the same, although it's been better the past couple of weeks.

On the other, fun, hand, I managed to wrench my back earlier this week, resulting in an immense slowdown of productivity. Whee! Falling behind schedule is FUN!

Mom's been responding really well to her psych meds, so she sounds almost like her old self again. Funny how a little pill can be all that stands between an individual and bat-shit-ness. Well, I gotta say, that's one of the more interesting things that I'll get to tell a doctor when he/she asks "any family medical history?"

I got to see an old friend this week. This person pops up only sporadically, despite my shop being less than half a mile from where this person resides. This person is also likely to read this. If this person reads this and sees "guilt guilt guilt guilt guilt" between the lines, then I typed it correctly.

Okay, my moment's about over.

Needless to say, my moratorium on art has sorta stopped. I just can't shut it off and not do anything. So, stuff will get posted, it's going to be a bit spotty for the moment, though.

Holy crap, it's really raining hard right now.

Man, I hope I rolled up the window in the van. Wait, my wife has the van.

I need more coffee in my diet.

Rain just let up. Like someone turned a faucet off.

And my moment's over. Back to work.

Well, since I'm not doing any drawing ('cause I'm at the shop all the time), I'm going to post images of the results of my framing efforts.

Meh. It beats not posting ANYTHING.

We'll see how it works out.

So I made it through the Thanksgiving holiday, and now am hurtling at near light-speed towards the Yule/Hanukkah/Christmas/Kwanzaa sortie of holiday blitzes.

Fact is, these annual events seem to be occurring faster and faster. I'm told this is a normal feeling as one gets older, and don't get me wrong; I LIKE getting older. It beats the alternative, know what I mean?

It's just that I don't appear to have any time to myself in order to enjoy these holidays. By the time I stop and take a breath, it's already late February and and they're selling Peeps and Cadbury eggs in the stores. Mmmmmmmmm, Cadbury eggs.

So I'm trying to not be in such a rush this year. Of course, owning one's own store doesn't lend itself towards taking it easy. I just need to try and enjoy myself during whatever downtime I have.

Have a great holiday season, y'all, and try not to stress over issues. It's all temporary, the bad as well as the good. Enjoy when it's good, bear through it when it's bad, and hopefully it'll all weigh in closer to the good.

Apparently, my life has developed a, shall we say "interesting," pattern.

Step 1: Enter life-altering event.
Step 2: Deal with life-altering event.
Step 3: Develop upper-respiratory infection.

It's "step 3" that's become such a pain in the ass. It happened when my Dad got cancer, when my wife got sick, and when I got laid off. Now, I've just got the shop off the ground, things are starting to move forward, and every two minutes I have to stop and do my best to cough up chunks of my left lung.

Like just now.

Ack.

Thank whatever gods you pray to that I don't do podcasts. I currently sound like a five-pack-a-day-smoker. Kinda like Don Fontaine, that guy who used to do the movie voice-overs. "In a world...where things aren't always what they seem..."

Bleah.

Anyhow, the whole deal's really got me in a foul mood. I can't even work up the energy to go and finish all my pending orders. I got about enough juice to do three, maybe four frames, then I have to go sit down. I'm taking decongestant and cough drops, which help a little, but I still feel like fifteen different shades of crap.

Argh.

I know there's people out there who have it MUCH worse than I do, and I feel for them. Really. Truly. Were it within my power, I'd be happy to go out there and ease their suffering.

But right now I have to go blow multi-colored snot out of my nose.

Whee.

In the words of the inestimable George Takei, "oh my."

I am a fully full-on business owner. Holy crap.

My new digs are at:

Frame It Yourself
5523 Clairemont Mesa Blvd.
San Diego, CA 92117
(858) 571-3540
www.frameityourself.net

This is a full-service custom frame shop with a twist. People who want to save time and money can do so by doing much of the labor on the frame project themselves. We cut the materials (frame, glass, matting, and backing), and the customer builds the frame, cleans the glass, and puts it all together him/herself. In many cases, one can walk out of here with a finished project in as little as 30 minutes.

I've been open for the past two days, and sales are at least meeting my goal, which is to say, I'm not LOSING money. This is good. If things can just hold on and go up from here, I might actually end up making money. Whee!

I spent the weekend prior to this doing a fairly major remodel of the shop. I had around 18 friends help me move fixtures and equipment, patch, prime, and paint the walls, and generally help clean up the place. It was TONS of work, but we got it done, and now all that's left is for me to finish putting up corner samples of frames and to start framing up samples to hang on the walls. There's a few there now, but it's still rather sparse. Sort of like my hair.

My computer is now at the shop, where I'm typing this from. This will put a rather severe dent in my on-line time, at least until I get enough money saved up for a new home system. Hey, if the shop does well enough, I might even attempt a shot at my $2200 god-system. Here's hoping.

Until then, if you're in the San Diego area, and you have artwork in need of framing, come check out my shop. Mention deviantart.com, and I'll knock 20% of the price. How's that?

Even though I've not drawn or painted anything in the past six weeks, I've been incredibly busy.

I've got all the legal paperwork done insofar as the purchase of the frame shop goes. It's a lock at this point. Just a matter of 13 days before all Heck breaks loose.

I've been designing the new shop logo, website, stationery, work orders, and the overall look and feel of the place.

I've got a placeholder website up at [link] .

I've been going around to local vendors and acquainting myself with them and letting them know what's going on with the shop.

And I've been targeting certain demographics for a nice marketing onslaught come November.

I'm pretty sure this would not have been possible for me ten years ago.

Oh, I'm certain I could have come up with all these ideas. I just don't think I would have had the maturity to follow through with any of it. I also don't think I would have had the necessary experience to feel confident enough to push through all the myriad obstacles that have popped up for the past month.

That said, I'm pretty much rocking Rock Band: Beatles Edition on expert level. So much for THAT much maturity.

I'm also becoming hellishly fond of the show Three Sheets on the Fine Living Network. It's a show about drinking/getting drunk/being social with friends/getting drunk/dealing with hangovers/getting drunk/world travel. It's pretty damn awesome, and if you get that channel (or the Mojo channel (!)), then I highly recommend it. It puts the "fun" in "functional alcoholism."

Speakin' of which, I'm nearly out of Glenfiddich 15 year, in case one of y'all was wondering what to put in my Yule stocking this year.

This will be my LAST journal post at least until November 10, by which time I should have the shop up and going full steam ahead.

Heck with it, I'm getting another bottle of 15 year NOW.

So I'm buying a business in November.

I work part-time at a frame shop in the Clairemont area of San Diego, CA. The owner is turning 70 in a few months, and made me an offer on the shop that I just couldn't say "no" to. So I found some individuals who were willing to underwrite the project, and on the 1st of November, I become the new owner.

To quote Richard Pini on how he felt just prior to the release of Elfquest, "Butterflies the size of adult pteranodon."

It's not as though I don't have experience running a business, it's just never been a business I owned.

At any rate, this will probably be the last thing I post journal-wise for quite a while. I've got a lot to do between now and then, and doing stuff online will be rare and brief. Once I've everything more or less completed, I'll update with more particulars, especially for those of you who might be in the San Diego area and have need of picture framing.

Well, here goes nothin'.

So ain't that a kick in the pants?

I guess Marvel was getting tired of their corporate sponsorship envy with DC, and so agreed to be acquired by the Disney Juggernaut of Happiness.

People are already fretting that their favorite ultra-violent characters, such as Punisher and Deadpool, will be re-branded into family friendly properties.

Don't worry, I've already some sketch ideas in that category.

And I guess this [link] was more than a little prophetic, it turns out.

Personally, I think Disney has its work cut out for them, being that Marvel has its characters licensed all over the flippin' place, including Universal Studios Orlando, where they currently hang out in a theme park. It's going to take some time to get those licenses back so Disney can start having Marvel characters walk around the magic kingdom.

Can't wait for Dr. Doom to move into Cinderella's castle.

...since I had a SHAMELESS PLUG!!

I've got a zazzle store, with all sorts of nifty items!

T-Shirts! Posters! Stickers! Coffee Mug (yup, only one so far)! Drinking Steins! HOOKERS! Well, maybe no hookers. Yet.

It's all here at [link]

Come on, be a "nerdy old man" and help me buy my frame shop!

Okay.

Well.

Last Wednesday was my wife's surgery to remove her hyperactive parathyroid gland. At this point, if you don't know what that does, just type "hyperparathyroidism" into google and have at it.

The surgery, though complicated by the gland's location, went off without a hitch. The thing was located behind her upper-right thyroid gland, which put it dangerously close to both her carotid artery and her laryngeal nerve. Fortunately, her surgeon was a man of some skill, and was able to extract it in its entirety without damaging either structure.

Within 20 minutes of its removal, her PTH (parathyroidal hormone) level was back to normal. Isn't it great when things go according to plan?

She was able to be taken home about three hours after the procedure, and spent the following 48 hours either sleeping or being incredibly stoned. Friday evening, however, I got a glimpse of the woman my wife used to be. Each following day, I got to see more and more of her. Today, she spent nearly the entire day with me.

We've still a few tasks ahead of us. She needs to be weaned off the heavy narcotics, then the anti-anxiety med. Once that's accomplished, then we'll have her back in full form. Should only take another month or so.

Now that this entire event is coming to a close, we are pretty much decided on our next course of action. The owner of the frame shop I've been working at on and off for the past 15 years is retiring after over 30 years as a professional picture framer, so it's about 90% likely at this point that we'll be taking over the shop as the new owners, starting in November. We've got a lot to do before then, so we're pretty happy that the both of us will be able to share in the duties until then. It's been a long time coming, but we're finally a team again.

Man, it's been a LONG six months.

So, how does one cope with the fact that, after all the build-up and the four days of hyper-mega-super-geek overload, it's all over now and it's another 361 days until the next San Diego Comic-Con?

I find that Scotch helps, but for those under the age of 21 it's not recommended.

Now, your life might already be so geeky that the Con might not even have been that much more of a boost than, say, a long weekend spent at a spa for the mundane crowd. For those who have achieved that level of nerd-vana, I vulcan-salute you.

However, for those of us who revel in the camaraderie of tens of thousands of fellow trekkies, fanboys, brownshirts, and wannabe jedis, going from that blessed fellowship to regular life can be a bit of a downer. So, here's some pointers to help one readjust to daily life and/or get over the fact that it's just bland and boring as hell.

First of all, a year isn't that long, and the older you get, I've found, the faster a year goes by. For example, I had planned on getting into better shape to possibly wear a costume this year, and was going to start six weeks prior to the convention. Then, at some point, I blinked and the Con was upon me, without a single sit-up being completed. This becomes more and more of a likelihood after age 40, apparently.

(And no, the sit-ups, as yet, have not commenced. Next year's Con is still MONTHS away.)

Secondly, for those of you who dwell in San Diego, the once-thriving Mini-Con at the Scottish Rite center is firing up again starting in November. These little slices of Con Heaven will be occurring every three months, so the wait won't seem so long. Indeed, I may be getting a table there to foist my twisted imaginings upon the countless dozens.

Next, try watching Iron Man, Watchmen, and/or The Dark Knight at least once a week until the next Comic-Con. Avoid movies like Daredevil, The Specials, and Ghost Rider unless you invite those friends who don't mind if you all provide your own running commentary, a'la MST3K.

Again, I must point up the healing properties of single-malt Scotch. Not advocating underage drinking, still.

If your OCD will allow it, start next year's costume project now. Take your time. Be detailed. Make Geoff Darrow-esque designs and follow through. Be the hot-glue and styrofoam H.R. Giger. Give us amateur photographers something to look forward to.

I'm not attempting this personally, but maybe going out and getting some sun might help. It's supposed to be marginally good for you in small doses, and may help to elevate your mood. Me, I can't abide it at all. It threatens to wipe out my natural translucence.

It also may help to focus on other occurrences that take place in less time than next year's Con. For example, the new Star Trek movie comes out on DVD and Blu-Ray on November 17. That's only four months from now. Heck, it'll probably happen before my first sit-up. If you're not that patient, Green Lantern: First Flight arrives in stores TODAY. How's THAT for a birthday present, Lethe?

Finally, one must realize that Comic-Con, as good as it is, really only SHOULD happen once a year. After all, if it lasted longer or occurred more often, it'd be more expensive. I don't know about y'all, but those four days deprived me of over $300 that I didn't really have, and 2/3rds of that went towards food and transportation. Not to mention that I don't think the Gaslamp District would survive more than one onslaught of fan-kind a year. You also have to consider the booth babes and female costumers. They need the rest of the year in order to recover from the relentless ogling they sustained from the gazes of the socially-challenged before braving that gauntlet once more.

Until someone comes up with a traveling convention, that one can follow along like a Deadhead, we'll just have to muddle along with our humdrum existences as best we can. After all, now it's only 360 days until Con.

My wife goes in for surgery in nine days.

She's finally having her hyperactive parathyroid gland removed. She still has three others that are okay, so once this one's gone, she SHOULD go back to normal.

Thing is, we don't know quite what that is.

You see, she's been dealing with the symptoms of this condition for possibly over ten years. This gland messes with calcium and phosphorus levels, and could have potentially messed with other hormonal balances.

I've only known her for ten years, and only been in a relationship with her for a little over six years.

So I figure it's going to be something of a novelty, having a healthy wife. I wonder if this means I'm going to have to get in shape...

Nine days. After six months of doctor visits, we're down to nine days.

She had her pre-op appointment today, so it's just a matter of waiting.

In other news, I have yet ANOTHER potential business opportunity, although this one smells slightly more legit than the last one. More news when there's something to report.

Next stop: Comic-Con, then the hospital.

So I got laid off last month.

Got the resume updated, started sending it out. Applied for/got unemployment, 1st check should get here next week.

So an old friend contacts me once he hears about my situation and offers me a job. A very lucrative-sounding job.

The next week is spent building me up for it, with him flying into town this week to give me an advance and prep me for my first assignment, which is to take place in the UK.

Only it's not happening, apparently.

This individual was supposed to fly into the UK this past Friday to cement the deal with a third party and provide financial backing for a project.

He never showed. Not answering his cell. I received one cryptic text telling me to tell some woman that he loves her.

Fuck it. I would like at least ONE of the people who offers me a great opportunity to be legitimate!

So even if this guy IS sincere about his offer, he's letting the shit from his personal life affect his business dealings to such a degree that it's going to screw his reputation, possibly permanently.

The really tragic thing in all of this is the third party in the UK, who now has to hold off on the project, perhaps indefinitely, and tell all the workers involved that it's not happening.

And the job hunt continues.

My wife's surgery is supposed to be scheduled this week. Way things are going, it'll fall right into the middle of Comic-Con. That's just how it's working right now.

I'm NOT giving up. The brief spark ignited by this bogus job offer hasn't died. It WILL happen.

For each of the first 14 people answering this journal I will put his/her avatar and links to the three deviations I like most from his/her gallery on the list.
If you answer, you'll have to do the same on your journal, putting me on the first place, and continuing the list with the next 14 people.
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After three months of constant pain, my wife has a painkiller that's starting to work. By Friday, she is supposed to be mostly pain-free. It makes her slightly stoned, but that's something she's willing to deal with.

My stepson's out of the hospital, and is on a low-fat diet for the next two weeks while his pancreas recovers.

After dodging bullets for the past year, I woke up this morning with my back feeling like the Hulk played Dance Dance Revolution on it. One word: Percocet.

The biggest degree of progress concerning my art is something that should have happened a long time ago. I like vikings. A lot. I'm a big-ol' Norse Heathen, and Swedish, to boot, so vikings and the Viking Age are things that are near and dear to me. However, I've come to the conclusion that I just simply don't want to write about them.

How's that for a revelation? I can draw them, and like doing that, it's just the putting it together with a story that I find boring as all Hel. At least I realized this before getting too deep into the webcomic.

So what AM I going to do? Guess we'll find out, eh?