It’s Robbie Cano, don’t ya know?

A lot of baseball-themed stuff recently. I suppose that when you’re trying to watch as many games out of 162 as your time allows, it might embed itself in your brain a bit. Last night’s Home-Run Derby didn’t help, either. A intriguing story for those that missed it: not just that Robinson Cano hit 12 in the final round, breaking the record, but that his father, who pitched a few games for the Astros in ‘89, was throwing the pitches. Well done, Robbie (and José) Cano.

(I think this fellow dove a little early.)

Falling Up.

Recently, I suffered a somewhat frightening accident; eight weeks ago, I fell approximately twenty-five feet, or the equivalent of two-and-a-half residential stories. I won’t dwell on what happened, because most of the people close to me already know, but suffice it to say that the incident was jarring in both the physical and non-physical senses of the word. In an instant, my day-to-day routine seemed awfully fragile.

Now, as the worst of the pain and disruption—hospitals, wheelchairs, and stomach injections come to mind—seems past, it is difficult not to consider it a crucial juncture. I was astoundingly lucky: as I tumbled, my reflex was to try and get my feet beneath me, and I succeeded. If I hadn’t, I might have died, or sustained different injuries with dire—and perpetual—consequences. Instead, if one plans to fall so far, they’d be lucky to come out as I have, with the ability to walk toward approximate normalcy.

In a moment, everything could’ve changed. Not to bore, or sound contrived, but that instant has made me blissfully aware of what I have, and starkly highlighted its temporal nature. I hope not to lose that clarity as the injuries fade further, for it has reminded me to continually invest in what I love, be it the people in my life, or the making of things, or any number of other pursuits that I value.

I do not intend to fixate on this, and will not broadcast this meditation any further. I fell pretty far, but thanks to a little luck and the continued support of those around me, my feet are underneath me, and I hope to land higher-up than I was before.

Cleaning out the sketchbook

I realized this morning that it’s been quite some time (mid-January) since I’d uploaded anything. To clarify, I have been working—a six-day trip to New Orleans notwithstanding—but much of my average workday has been devoted to digital work, which doesn’t usually end up on this page. In order to demonstrate a pulse, I fall back on a favorite crutch of many a blogging illustrator: the sketchbook dump. I could tell you that all my sketches get this degree of finishing treatment, but that wouldn’t be entirely honest.

And so, presented chronologically (for no reason whatsoever):

Boxing shows up a lot in my sketchbooks. It’s a shame it will slowly fold to MMA; no gloves? no ropes? What do you draw there? These are time-honored clichés for illustrators!

Just read about how the traditionally male-dominated field of butchery is becoming more popular with the ladies.

This is included for the facial expression of the woman: pure maneater. Steer clear.

And now, here at Tall Tales: objectifying women!

Something about Jay-Z/rap beefs/I don’t really know.

If you are a draw-er, and you haven’t drawn a map in a while, I’d highly recommend it. painted when I should’ve been packing better footwear for NOLA.

It’s not all gouache here, folks, because gouache doesn’t travel well. Above, travel drawings from the train. Incidentally, Cowboys seem to be catching up to Boxers in my sketchbooks; I blame FX’s “Justified.”

It’s almost baseball season; hopefully, the Captain actually earns a Gold Glove this year.

And finally, since today is the Least Productive Day of the Year thanks to March Madness, I present Kyle Singler; not only topically relevant, but proof that I did something today besides watching basketball.

For those who are curious, a sample of the digital work I’ve been doing:

Quite different, no?

Lucking Out.

The NFL and the NBA are in a pretty bad way concerning next season. Both are coming to the end of their current Collective-Bargaining Agreements, and each has their share of hurdles to overcome concerning new ones. In a worst-scenario, who stands to benefit? The NHL, of course. The only American professional sports league to ever cancel a season due to labor diputes might secretly be wishing the same upon its bigger brothers. Without football or basketball, the NHL’s popularity—always limping behind the other three major sports—should skyrocket.

What’s more, the 2004 NHL lockout has shown that a league can survive a work stoppage, and might even have paved the way for one side of these disputes: the owners. The 2004 lockout was certainly a victory for NHL team owners, who managed to regulate salaries under a hard cap when preventing such regulation was the primary goal of the Player’s Union, and the root cause of the strike. The owners have little to lose in a lockout except for the popularity of their franchises, and since the NHL has shown that can be salvaged, the owners should come out on top provided they can avoid being cast as the “villain” behind the stoppage. The players, meanwhile, wouldn’t get paid, and though salaries seem high in American sports, remember that those salaries need to last a lot longer than the duration of their employment: the average NFL player is in the league for three years.

What does it all mean? I think it means that a lot more people will know what “icing” is next year.

Where’s Marty?

Watching the New Jersey Devils this year has been excruciating, and not because they’re a terrible team. In fact, they’re a talented team in a tough division (Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, New York) with a good mix of wily veterans (see: Elias, Patrik) and exciting young players (see: Zharkov, Vladimir; Fraser, Mark) that just seems to lose focus and catch some rotten luck. However, the head-scratchingly bizarre disappearance of Marty Brodeur remains worrisome. Sure, he’s gotten little help from a young and inconsistent slate of blueliners, but last year, he won the Jennings Trophy—least goals allowed over the season—while this year he is statistically the third-worst goaltender in the league. He has handled the slump admirably, benching himself for a few games to take extra practice and right himself mentally, and there’s no doubt in my mind that the first-ballot Hall-of-Famer has at least two or three quality seasons left in him, but… just come back, Marty, we’re waiting.

Separation Anxiety.

Now that tumblr is back up and running, I can post something from the end of last week. Personal politics aside, I find the recent disregard for the separation of Church and State particularly unsettling.

View high resolution

Now that I’ve fixed a few technical issues, here’s a link to a higher-resolution version of the image of dearly-departed Mr. Phillips from before.

Goodbye, Wade.

One from the sketchbook…

On the practice of wiretapping.

Now that the circus is over…

…can the Elephant actually stand on a teacup?