I've been really pushing myself to do more art lately. I used to draw a LOT when I was kid. Mostly in my high school notebooks—I've done the occasional mural or big art piece, but I haven't done anything like that in a long time.
I avoided art in college because it wasn't something that I thought I could make a living doing. Also, if you major in something like English or Political Science, then fine art or illustration electives aren't very practical, because it's hard to figure those classes into a degree. I was very much all about min-maxing so I could take the fewest classes possible, have no student loan debt, and pay for it all out of pocket or using what little grant money I was eligible for.
As the quality of televised and digital entertainment has degraded over the years, and not wanting to be bombarded by the sheer negativity of it all, I've found myself spending more time listening to music and reading comics. It's been a gradual transition for me... That isn't to say that I don't spend entirely way too much time watching garbage on YouTube or mindlessly surfing, looking at things I'll never buy, or researching video games, or learning things that have no real practical purpose in my life other than to be interesting topics for cocktail parties that I'll never attend, etc.
Something happened though... A tipping point? I did attempt doing a web comic maybe a year or so ago, but I never stuck with it. I have revisited the idea though, and this time I sat and thought about the story ahead of putting pencil to paper, I drew a few outlines and sketches first.
Just from my 9-to-5 and thinking about the type of comic that I wanted to read, I came upon the idea of an insurance company in the relatively near future. But it's going to evolve beyond that, because, fuck it, I have a story universe where people live on Europa and Titan, and giant monsters are a real thing. So I'm going to play with the surreal and the supernatural, the pragmatic and the practical, and I want to put it together to highlight the absurdity of life and the human condition.
Not sure if this will technically be a review of the album... But it's the one album that I've been listening to a lot lately. I only had a mild fascination with Pierce the Veil when they first came out. After I'm done ranting about music today, I'll talk a little bit about MTK Ultra tomorrow, which is a web comic I'm working on and developing.
