Thursday, June 17, 2010

Artist Sebastian Horsley and death


Artists think and feel differently. I do not know if it is from their spirit, mind, desires, physical body, ... but they do. They are different.

Sebastian Horsley killed himself. His work was in some ways of thinking a journal of a very long painful suicide. Included amongst his work of self expression was his desire and indeed decision to be crucified to experience the moment.

So many artists also have killed themselves. Some as the logical end to a life of depression and sorrow. Others, seemingly, as a punctuation mark to their work. The artist mind and spirit, to reflect and create is different than other humans. But I am not decided as to whether I believe their desire to and likelihood of use of suicide is more likely than any other kind of human.

We all have our own baggage and issues to deal with. I am not saying anything about should do, or not do. This is simply a reflection.


Monday, June 14, 2010

Shameless Self-Promotion: Hannibal Tesla

Abandoned Towers, the webzine that has been running my comic Hannibal Tesla Adventure Magazine, has moved it's comics section here to Blogspot. So if you want to continue following Hannibal's thrilling exploits, you can do so at: Hannibal Tesla Adventure Magazine

If you haven't been following it, why not?

In the Futuristic World of 1935, Hannibal Tesla Man of Science, travels the world fighting evil along with his team of Able Assistants:

* Francis Xavier Grogan: Fighting Archaeologist
* Raymond Steele: Cinema Idol
* Elwood Braun: Mathematical Marvel
* Billy Highcloud: Navajo Ace

And Introducing Ginger DuPree, Plucky Girl Reporter!

Our Story So Far...

Investigating a robbery at a museum, Hannibal crosses paths with a criminal mastermind named Weng Hu. Now Hannibal is racing Weng Hu to Tibet, to find an ancient jewel which may be an alien artifact of incredible power! Will Hannibal beat Weng Hu? What is the secret behind his Sky Terror? And why does Ginger have a tail?

For the answers to these and other thrilling questions, go to Hannibal Tesla Adventure Magazine

Saturday, June 5, 2010

It could have all turned out so differently


The world is outraged by the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. As environmental disasters go it is somewhat huge.

People talk right now how Israel is bad oh so bad for killing nine people from a convoy meant to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza.

People talk about North Korea's nuclear aspirations and sinking of a South Korean ship near their territorial waters.

People think that Obama is a National Socialist.

People can talk or think all they like. We might well have ended up in far worse place had courage, luck, and determination to defeat evil not occurred. North Korea with three nuclear weapons? How about a Hitler's Germany with not only nuclear weapons but orbital space weaponry?

The younger we are the more it seems to be that we forget what happened before, that allowed us the luxury of being outraged at 9 deaths.

Here are some books to read to give a thought to a different outcome, and, a different future. Tomorrow is June 6, 66 years after the Allies began the final drive towards defeating Racist Nationalism in Germany. God bless all who died there, who bought my freedom through their sacrifices.

In addition to different outcomes from war, imagine the environmental disaster that could have come, from a world possessing nuclear weapons and being willing to fight a war to end all grievances, using them. The oil in the Gulf of Mexico today would seem a pittance compared to the devastation of the nuclear consequences of the war that didn't happen.

People like to think we earned the future, but we inherited it. People like to think that we are better than others for our enlightened views. But those views came from living in a world where 6 million Jews were gassed or baked in ovens, because they were Jewish. That hundreds of thousands of Roma people were executed or experimented upon, because they were Roma.

This world inherited its enlightenment from the past, where people made choices to fight what appeared to be evil. And I thank God they did.