• Archives
  • Contact
  • Drawings
  • Meteor Mags
  • Music Albums
  • Paintings
  • PBN
  • Sea Monkeys
  • Secret Origin

Mars Will Send No More

~ Comic books, art, poetry, and other obsessions

Mars Will Send No More

Tag Archives: mothers day

Of Mars and Moms: A Memoir

12 Wednesday May 2021

Posted by Mars Will Send No More in quarterly report

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

comic book blogs, memoir, mom, mothers day, quarterly report, writing

It’s the week of Mother’s Day, and I’m currently working on a new story about a couple of moms, so this seems like as good a time as any to tell you that Mom occasionally drops by this blog to see what I am up to.

No, she doesn’t much care about comic books, experimental poetry, or the violent, profane fiction I torment the rest of you with on a regular basis. But she does care about her boy who has long since outgrown boyhood and is rapidly approaching his 49th birthday. So, I’d like to give some credit where credit is due.

This blog wouldn’t exist without Mom. Besides the fact that I wouldn’t have been born without her, she helped me get a jumpstart on reading at a young age. I was way into superheroes and dinosaurs by the time I hit kindergarten, and if not for Mom’s infinite patience with reading dinosaur books with me when I was a child, I wouldn’t have been conversant about stegosaurs and pachycephalosaurs while I was still in pre-school.

As a result, my kindergarten teacher must have thought I was some kind of child prodigy, because I was enlisted into an advanced reading group that deciphered complexities of the English language such as “See Jane run” while the rest of the class had nap time. Let me assure you: I was no prodigy. I only had some advanced reading comprehension, and a decent memory of things I’d read—both of which eventually served me well in slacking my way through high school.

Besides dinosaur books and basically any book about animals, space, or history, I had a youthful passion for comic books. That love did not diminish in my teenage years! But by then, times had changed.

In the mid-1980s, comics experienced a cultural shift. No longer were they relegated to the magazine racks of convenience stores and drug stores. Shops dedicated entirely to comics appeared, and the publishing industry responded by creating “direct market” titles meant solely for distribution to those shops. You might take comic shops for granted now, but they were a pretty big deal at the time.

When I was old enough to legally have a job, I picked up a gig as a golf caddy on the weekends to make a few bucks. The work itself truly sucked on a Saturday morning, but some of the old golfer guys tipped me nicely, and I’d leave the place with cash in my pocket. I wasn’t old enough to drive, so Mom would pick me up.

Our first stop? The comic shop. While Mom patiently waited, I discovered series and back issues that to this day remain among my all-time favorites.

Those reading experiences undoubtedly shaped me and influenced my future as a writer, editor, and that apex (or possibly nadir) of human evolution we call a comic-book blogger.

Mom, if you’re stopping by today, thank you for putting up with learning how to pronounce all those dinosaur names back in the 70s, for making sure I always had plenty of books and comics to occupy my mind in the 80s, and for encouraging me to keep exploring my creativity all the way into the 2020s.

You rock!

pop-up card

17 Sunday Jun 2018

Posted by Mars Will Send No More in art studio, postcards

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

butterfly, memoir, mothers day, pop up card

Mom and I have a long history of exchanging handmade cards. Store-bought cards can be wonderful, but there’s something special about knowing a person took the time to not just buy something but create something unique for you.

For this past Mother’s Day, I wanted to make a card that would be unlike any I’d sent her before: a pop-up card. It turns out the Internet has a treasure trove of tutorials and inspiring examples, so I picked one and ran with it.

Mine has a pretty simple front: a butterfly based on a design I pulled from an image search, with the black lines done in Sharpie marker and the color done with acrylic paint thinned with water. Mom likes blue and butterflies, so I couldn’t go wrong with a blue butterfly.

pop up card exterior

All the paper is Bristol paper: what comic books used to be drawn on before the digital age. I did all the butterflies and other colored pieces individually, then cut them out and glued them in place.

Here’s the interior:

pop up card interior

Thanks to the sturdiness of Bristol paper, which is a bit like cardstock, the card can be displayed open like this. It took me the better part of a Sunday to put it all together, but this barely scratches the surface of what’s possible in a pop-up card. People have made everything from multi-layered hearts to dinosaur skeletons, so clearly the sky is the limit in the pop-up master class.

The basic idea is pretty straightforward, though. The body of the card is two pieces of paper. For the interior pop-up sections, you cut one of those pieces along lines perpendicular to the center fold. You fold those cut-out sections so they pop up at right angles to the fold of the main card. Glue the inside piece to the outside piece, without putting glue on the folded pop-up sections. Finally, cut out and glue anything you want to attach to those sections.

Bristol paper is sturdy and well-suited to being painted and displayed, but it can be challenging to make precise, smooth cuts in it with scissors. I originally intended to cut out the butterfly antennae. I settled for drawing them on with Sharpie after I glued the butterflies in place. If I were making another card from shapes with finer, more complex details, I would try a thinner paper stock for those pieces.

Mars Will Search No More!

Mars Will Stat No More!

  • 6,148,159 minds warped since 2011
Follow Mars Will Send No More on WordPress.com

Mars Will Advertise No More!

My Comic Shop banner

Mars Will Categorize No More!

  • art studio (95)
  • crime (41)
  • dinosaur (222)
  • educational (140)
  • first issue (110)
  • golden age (133)
  • humor (23)
  • indie (182)
  • jungle (58)
  • MeteorMags (11)
  • music (40)
  • occult (77)
  • poetry (56)
  • postcards (34)
  • quarterly report (29)
  • science fiction (404)
  • superhero (436)
  • war (45)
  • western (10)
  • writing (20)

Mars Will Tag No More!

2000AD abstract acrylic advertising Alan Moore Alex Nino alien Al Williamson Amazing Spider-man animal inside you animals art Avengers Batman big box of comics Bill Mantlo birth black and white Black Panther books brains Brave and the Bold Captain America Carmine Infantino Cat Charles Yates Chris Claremont Classics Illustrated collage collection comic book collage comic books crime Dark Horse Comics DC Comics dinosaur dinosaur books dinosaur comics Dinosaurs an Illustrated Guide Dr. Doom drawing Dreadstar dreams EC Comics EC Comics reprints Fantagraphics Fantastic Four first issue Flesh Flesh the Dino Files Galactus George Perez Gilberton Gil Kane Godzilla golden age guitar Harvey Comics Image Comics indie box Indie Comics Inhumans Jack Kirby Jack Kirby art Jim Lee Jim Starlin Joe Simon John Buscema John Byrne jungle Ka-zar Kevin O'Neill Last Gasp library of female pirates Life on Other Worlds lizard Man-Thing Mark Millar Marvel Comics Marvelman memoir meteor mags Micronauts MiracleMan monsters music occult OMAC origin painting pastel Pat Mills pen and ink pirates Planet Comics planets poems poetry postcards prehistoric mammals Prehistoric World Prize Race for the Moon racism Ray Bradbury Robert Kanigher robot Roy Thomas Satans Tears Savage Land science fiction self publishing Silver Surfer sketchbook sundays Smilodon Spider-man Stan Lee Steve Bissette Steve Ditko Steve Rude Strange Sports Strange Sports Stories Strange Tales Strange World of Your Dreams Superman Swamp Thing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Teen Titans Thor time travel Triceratops Turok Turok Son of Stone tyrannosaurus rex underground comix Vertigo Comics VT Hamlin war war comics Warren Ellis Warrior Weird Fantasy Weird War Tales WildC.A.T.S Wolverine writing X-men X-men covers Young Earth Zabu

Blog at WordPress.com.

  • Follow Following
    • Mars Will Send No More
    • Join 937 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Mars Will Send No More
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...