Another custom comic from the Cartoon Commune. This time, a gift for a boyfriend who’s in the middle of writing a script for a private eye sitcom.

There’s this fancy meme going around where folks are drawing themselves as a teenager. here’s mine!

Here’s another custom comic book from the Cartoon Commune. This one was an anniversary gift.

While on the trip, I did lots of drawings of folks attending, but since I passed them out to the caricaturees, I can’t post ‘em…. but here’s one that I have a scan of, featuring voice artist Courtney Kowitz, who taught us all the fine art of dodging past little old ladies and weaving through crowds of gamblers while rushing through a crowded casino.

One of the most fun parts of the trip to Vegas happened while I was walking through Juarez on the way back. That’s when a dude tried to mug me.

I was wandering off on some quiet street (I walked from the El Paso airport to the Juarez bus terminal because I’m a cheap bastard) when a guy came up and asked (in Spanish) for some pesos. I politely said “no hablos espanol”, and kept walking. He walked up alongside me again, and demanded “MONEY! GIVE ME MONEY! NOW!” “No, sorry.” I said, as I kept walking. “NO?! NO?!” he shouted, a little bit of spittle hitting me in the face. “No,” I politely replied. He marched in front of me, put his hands on my shoulders, and said something that I’m sure would have been threatening if I understood a word of Spanish. He then, using simple English words, and hand motions, explained that if I did not give him my money, he would karate chop me in the neck. He then put on his most exxageratedly intimidating face, pointed to it and huffed “muy serio.” to proclaim how deadly serious he was about the upcoming Karate attack.

“So you’re a karate master, eh?” I said as I continued walking, well aware he could not understand a word I was saying. “I’m into Kung Fu, myself. Tae Kwon Do, Muy Thai… I did Gumdo for a while, but they took away my belt because I accidentally killed a man.”

He was getting more and more frustrated that I was attempting hold a casual conversation, and showing no sense of awareness that he was attempting to mug me. “MONEY! MONEY!” “I hear that,” I responded, “those karate lessons can’t be cheap. You know, I’ve got to admit, this is pretty exciting. I’ve never been mugged before- well, I suppose I still haven’t. I guess in order to even call it an attempted mugging there would have to be some perceived threat, and to be honest, you had to get up on your tippy-toes just to show me the Karate chop, so I’m not feeling it.”

As I continued casually rambling in English that he couldn’t understand, he continued threatening me in Spanish I couldn’t understand. We went about 5 blocks before we passed a market, and I finally said “Well man, it’s been great chatting with you and all, but I’m gonna go buy me a mother-freakin’ Torta.” I turned, went inside, and never saw him again.

On Wednesday, after taking a 2 day bus journey so I could fly out of El Paso and save the event coordinators about 400 bucks on airfare, I ended up walking around Texas for 24 1/2 hours because the thought of spending 18 darned dollars on a hotel room while waiting for my flight seemed way too fancy for me. But on Thursday, the event coordinator had arranged some accomodations for me…..

I would have hung around longer to snap pictures of the hot tub, the multiple cd/dvd players, and the many other items that were worth more than I make in a year, but all that fanciness was kinda freaking me out.

 

 

For a while, I’ve been alluding to this infamous trip to Vegas I was going on. Well, I just got back, and I’m ready to spill all the sordid details. First of all, you may be wondering…. I don’t gamble, i don’t drink, and I’m not particularly interested in seeing showgirls or Elvis impersonators… so what the heck brought me to Sin City?

Well, as most of you know, I work with a guy named Frank Frisina and illustrate a couple of poker comics… Life’s a Bluff, and Livin’ on Poker Road. Now, within the webcomics community, these may just be considered a couple of minor works by an artist who’s just under the bar of notability (in the words of Wikipedia). But in the professional poker community, that’s enough to make Frank and I VIPs, right alongside Olympic gold medal winning athletes, NFL players, actors, and poker pros.

We got invited out to the Jennifer Harman Charity Poker tournament. Not just invited, but flown out and put up in private suites. Unbeknownst to me, they even put up the money for me to play in the tournament, to which I had to explain that I have no idea how to play poker, and politely ducked out. I was supposed to walk the red carpet, but opted to instead hang out at the end of the red carpet and gather celebrity signatures on the drawing I was auctioning off to raise more money for the charity (The Nevada SPCA, a no-kill animal shelter)

 

  What drawing is that? Well, Life’s a Bluff typically donates original drawings to events like this to be auctioned off for the charity in question. Typically, a picture of a few of the big-name pros who will be attending. But I decided to take it one step further and draw EVERYONE attending.

As we got closer to the event, more people RSVPed, so I drew a second companion piece to include all of them.

My goal for the event was simple….. I had heard many, many times that the piece Brandon J Carr had done the year prior had been the second highest bid-upon item in the auction, second only to Doyle Brunson’s hat, right off his head. This year, I was going to beat Doyle Brunson’s hat.

The hat was auctioned off around the middle of the tournament, and went for $1000.

 

 

When it came time to auction off my drawing, I was a little terrified. It was several hours into the tournament, and 90% of the players had already been knocked out of the game and gone home. It was down to about 3 or 4 tables, and the pressure was on for the players to pay close attention to the game, because they were very close to the final table. So even those few people were not paying much attention to the auction going on at the same time as they were playing. Not to mention, that just about everyone who was featured in my second piece hadn’t shown up, so we decided just to throw it in as a freebie to whoever won the first one.

Shortly before ours, there was an auction for dinner for 2 with the Olympic snowboarding team, which not a single person bid on, and I imagine it must have been a painful experience for those snowboarders to watch the emcee spend 15 minutes begging the crowd for just one single bid.

But even though the pressure was on, my piece started to gain interest, as crowds looked closely to see who they could recognize, and to see if they were in it themselves. Some even found Waldo, hidden in the crowd. (The drawing was printed on all the programs, but seeing it close up, people were finally able to skim through the crowd.)

In the end, the drawing went for $1750, to that excited gentleman pictured below.

 

 I’ll post more about the actual event as I get more pictures, but also stay tuned for stories from the suite, and the tale of the dude who tried to mug me in Juarez.