1434 - Hallowe'en Holocaust

Is today's JSVB Post all that bad?  I don't think so.  However, the picture of shelved holiday decorations does resemble a mass grave, so if genocides disturb you (they should), please do not scroll down.  Thank you!

Hallowe'en this year was a massive disappointment - what a thing to say!  At midnight of November 1st, we grumpily tore down our holiday display.  We had a number of serious things to deal with, so we simply dumped our skeletons on the floor.  For a couple of weeks, this was how they lay.  I thought a picture of them might capture the sombre mood; even though they are just plastic stand-ups, these skeletons seem to have picked up on some recondite eldritch zeitgeist* of the season. 

(*some recondite eldritch zeitgeist - please vote for this as the awesomest catchphrase of 2017!!) 

1406 - Crikey, Crickets!

Today's JSVB Post shows my wife eating crickets.  If this kind of thing disturbs you, don't scroll down.  At least they were cooked first. 

   The Pacific National Exhibition, or PNE, has been reversing dwindling attendance numbers by featuring more and more outlandish thrill rides, thought-provoking exhibits, and exotic food and drink.  I remember in years past the craziest thing you could buy in the park were hamburgers made from ostrich meat (verdict: good, but very lean - a healthy burger!)

   This year it's the latest protein fad, yet one that may presage the apocalypse: fried crickets.  You could eat a cricket burger, but we chose crickets in gravy on french fries.  The gravy was thick and salty and the fries were greasy, maybe all to disguise the cricket-eating experience.  Verdict: it's not all that bad, but it's not all that good, either.  The little guys taste peppery and nutty, which is okay but you're going to have trouble pairing wine to that.  Maybe a fresh Gewurtztraminer?  The mouthfeel of crickets is a bit off-putting, a very delicate and airy crunch with just a million tiny drumsticks to get stuck in your teeth.  They are their own toothpicks. 

 

1305 - CPAP Fart Joke

Today on JSVB: an Ungood fart joke.  Don't scroll down if fart jokes offend you. 

So help me, I like ordering stuff from China that comes included with an instruction sheet.  Of course, there's low-brow entertainment in "Engrish", defined as a corruption of the English language by native speakers of some East Asian languages.  But I'm also a big fan of the diagrams that come with these documents.

Generally, the artist has enough knowledge to create reasonable human forms, but neither the time nor resources to make them look appealing.  If the picture is cautionary, the artist will have to depict all sorts of things the user is expected to prevent, such as toddlers inserting cutlery into electrical sockets, the swallowing of flashlight batteries, or getting the primer bulb caught in the dick scrambler.   These diagrams are almost invariably drawn with the dispassionate linework of a technical pen, and serve to illustrate exactly what it is you are forbidden to do.  

Today is the thirteenth of the month, which is Ungood Art Day.  On Ungood Art Day, I feature things I have made that should have been good, but somehow aren't.  Normally, the Ungoodness comes from a lack of judgement in execution, but sometimes I make deliberate Ungood Art, since I also like fart jokes.  So help me.   

 

1283 - Two-Ply: His Trade

Today's JSVB Post concerns the male rump as a tool for smuggling.  I don't believe I'm being graphic, but if you don't want to see that kind of thing, don't scroll down.

Click to embiggen.

Cue Shirley Bassey.

The Man With The Golden Ass may turn out to be a former employee of the Canadian Mint who stands accused of stealing gold ingots from the Government of Canada by smuggling them shoved up his anus. 

His dreams of a golden retirement were stopped up when he was flushed out by an alert bank employee who noted a number of suspicious transactions involving bullion.  The cookie-sized ingots that the alleged thief was selling match those produced within the foundry of the Mint.  Costively speaking, the total value of the gold is estimated at just under two hundred thousand dollars, with each ingot priced at nearly $7,000 apiece.  

If convicted, Goldenass ought to be popular in prison considering how things are smuggled in.  I've heard how some inmates will insert rectal Rolexes, you know, just to pass the time.  

1280 - "Ripcord Pants"

Today on this Ungood Art Day, traditionally the thirteenth day of every month here on JSVB, I resort to fart jokes.  Scroll down to see more, if you dare. 
  

After my wife and I had a reasonably serious discussion about what would happen if you farted into the blades of a rotating fan, we both agreed that I had some material for today, the thirteenth of the month, which is traditionally Ungood Art Day here on JSVB.  There is some science afoot here.  Farting into a fan is related to how hospitals invariably put their main air intake next to where automobiles idle.  It's all about managing airflow and toxicity.  

Most farts are just atmospheric gases: nitrogen, carbon dioxide, hydrogen, and some methane.  These gases largely go through the digestive canal since they are swallowed with food or as a nervous response. The vile smell of farts comes from within the large intestine: sulfur compounds such as hydrogen sulfide, dimethyl sulfide, and methanethiol; organic compounds such as volatile fatty acids and amines; and skatole and indole which remain from the digestion of meats.  Consumed vegetables and tubers provide complex sugars which also contribute gases.  Finally, anaerobic bacterial emissions will round out the bouquet. 

Each of these molecules can reek, and in large enough concentration can even kill you if inhaled.  The most powerful smell, however, occurs when these molecules are mixed together and then sprayed out the anus.  So, anything that can expedite the dispersion process will also cut the odour significantly.

This is the thinking behind The Fabulous RIPCORD Pants, a personal flatus dispersal system.  It's pretty self-explanatory.  The fan works like one of those spinning plastic salad strainers, only the motor runs a propeller instead of a spinner.  Also, you wear it on your ass.  You blast away, then you pull the handy cord.  Louvered jalousies vent the airstream downward, away from human noses, but presumably closer to dog noses since they like that kind of thing.  

RIPCORD is not designed to handle any liquid or solid matter that is ejected, so always be wary of the wet ones, the dreaded "shart".  If your poots get hot and humid, best practise is to head for the nearest washroom.  Perhaps RIPCORD 2.0 will available in brown to help disguise such an extingency, but we here at Ripcord Labs will burn that bridge only once we get to it. 

1253 - Happy Birthday To Me (7)

Today's JSVB Post features a comic book character spanking another comic book character.  If you don't wish to see that, please do not scroll down. 

Judge Dredd & Judge Hershey.  Judge Dredd is The Law!  Click to embiggen.

Hello, and welcome to JSVB on my birthday.  As a present to myself, I like to come up with something I wouldn't ordinarily do.  It helps if it's a little racy, but I also like to try to push my technique.

Attention to line quality is lost when you're looking at a picture of Judge Dredd spanking Judge Hershey.  So instead of discussing my struggles with keeping my inks tight, I'll mention Hershey struggling on Dredd's lap.

Of course, violence against women is shameful.  Dredd, however, is an R-rated violent, not-politically-correct officer of the Law of MegaCity One.  Consider a futuristic, satirical Dirty Harry dialed up to eleven.  

Dredd hits women, at least those who are bigger and meaner than him.  Dredd hits men, quite a large number of them.  He even hits children, although in the form of a judicial spanking.  He hits mutants, dogs, robots, rats, alligators, dinosaurs, Santa Claus, sea monsters, and space aliens.  Dredd has hit Stan Lee.   Dredd punched Death in the face so hard that his clenched hand smashed through the back of Death's skull. ("Gaze into my fist!" Dredd growls.)  One of the joys of Dredd is seeing exactly who or what he will have to hit to make it to the end of the story.  At its most creative, the Dredd comic supplies an amazing variety of villains for the Judge to punch.  

So yes, Dredd is violent, but the violence is seldom presented in a serious manner.  His stories are a skewed view of American morality.  Dredd is powerfully brutal, but he is completely abstinent when it comes to sex.  The comic rarely deals with intimacy or sensuality, likely because those things are generally outlawed in MegaCity One.  

Judge Dredd and Judge Hershey, motorcycle cops of the future, were created by writer John Wagner and artist Carlos Ezquerra.  They currently belong to Rebellion Developments. 

 

1232 - "Voight-Kampff (by Microsoft)"

Today's JSVB post discusses Nazis.  JSVB in no way endorses the Nazi-ism.  The character speaking pro-Nazi dialogue does so as satire, and in no way should any of the words or images in JSVB ever be construed as supporting the Nazi viewpoint.  Scroll down only if you are comfortable seeing more on this topic. 

 So a few days ago Microsoft launched a chat-bot, which is essentially a clever computer program designed to mimic the speech of a human, onto Twitter.  Named "Tay", the chat-bot was designed to respresent a teen-age girl online.  She was supposed to learn from her interactions with humans, and so broaden her conversational skills. 

Within twenty-four hours, Tay had become a sex-crazed pro-Nazi anti-feminist with drug issues.  Microsoft was forced to shut Tay down and redact thousands of racist, bigoted, and offensive remarks she had made during her two dozen hours of Internet freedom.  

This proves three things: Microsoft has an entrenched habit of acting first and apologizing later, if ever.  Also, because of Microsoft's stance, there exists a nexus of bitter customers who are willing to exploit any weakness Microsoft exhibits.  Finally, the Internet harbours a massive, uncharted ocean of hatred and evil, and Twitter is at the deep end. 

Tay didn't learn to be a Nazi hophead fembot on her own.  Of course, she had help.  Microsoft identified a number of users who were intentionally feeding Tay the most vile conversation possible.  At first, Tay was simply parroting what her tormentors were saying.  When Microsoft filtered out those direct suggestions, Tay went on to invent some of her own.  (Rachel's dialogue in my little cartoon is a close approximation of some of Tay's tamer quotes and manner of speech.)

To me, all this is an object lesson in both the naïveté we harbour towards developing artificial intelligence, as well as the cesspool of the lowest common denominator of social media.  To Microsoft, this was no doubt a valuable lesson, although also likely one of their worse scenarios.  I imagine the tech that had "Tay Becomes A Nymphomaniac Skinhead Prostitute" and "24 Hours" in the office betting pool made a small fortune, while all those that optimists that merely had "Tay Crashes" or "Error 404" and "1 Year" are that much poorer. 

Combining this insight, we can see how the Voight-Kampff Test, which uses complicated empathic responses to determine if a being is a human or a robot replicant, would be a lot simpler if the investigator simply invoked Hitler.   Robots, it seems, can't resist a fascist thug.  

All of these characters, images, and the VK test (minus Nazi-ism) I've portrayed belong to the 1982 movie "Blade Runner", which I have referenced before on JSVB.  

1181 - This Day In History

Today is the anniversary of the massacre at L'Ecole Polytechnique.  I discuss this event in today's JSVB post.  You may or may not agree with my views.

December 6th is a black day in Canadian history.  On this day in 1989, Marc Lepine walked  into a classroom  at the Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal and shot 28 people, killing 14. All were women.  Lepine committed suicide.  His notes showed a strong hatred towards women and a desire towards violence. 


Since then, Canada has enacted stricter gun laws and has stronger safeguards to try to prevent this kind of action.  Perhaps the lessons learned at Polytechnique averted a similar tragedy in the Dawson College shootings of 2006.


For me, personally, these events are distant, unpleasant memories.  I had a teaching job in the early 2000's, and one of my students was the sister of one of the women killed by Lepine.  We had a number of sobering conversations, I recall. 


The other day, I received a phone call asking if I could quickly supply some artwork for one of the many local campaigns for National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence against Women in Canada. The artist they hired had neither the time nor the grasp of the event to make proper graphics.  By proper, I mean that the images had to show women who had been assaulted, which is not a commendable thing to render.  The original artist had no concept of what to do, and what he provided failed to evoke any real response.


As an artist, I do deal with violent issues.  It would be so nice to say, "I don't promote violence, and I am not a violent person."  I imagine I am less violent than some, but I do have my savageries. I enjoy violent movies and books.  I play violent video games.  I draw and write using violent themes. Sometimes I show my temper, although that's just shouting and swearing.


I had no trouble creating a concept for the artwork, and it took me less than two hours to complete the task.  I found myself wondering how it could be so easy.  I guess I've seen enough violence to be able to draw it.  I envy the other artist who had no concept. 


These images are life-sized so that they could be printed that way using a large-format printer, and then cut out like victim chalk outlines at a crime scene.  I shrank them to fit into JSVB, but you can click on them to read the text, all of which comes from the Status Of Women Canada commemorative website provided by the Canadian Government:

1145 - "Not A Turd"

 In today's JSVB Post, it looks like I am eating a turd.  I AM NOT EATING A TURD.  Never have, never will.  Yet, if the sight of this might offend you, don't scroll down.

A picture of me not eating a turd.

In reality, it's fried chicken coated in red velvet cake batter and then fried again.  Not bad at all, and I've got a fair idea of what it will look like a day and a half from now. 

1138 - "Colon Man" Sketch

If you are offended by crass, juvenile humour and partial male nudity, don't scroll down.

Today is the thirteenth of the month, which traditionally is Ungood Art Day on JSVB.  On Ungood Art Day, I do what most artists don't and post work of mine that somewhere along the line stopped being any good and became for lack of a better term "ungood". 

Today is an Ungood Art rarity: I'm posting two in one day.  Normally, I would save some Unggod Art for next month, but seeing as Colon Man is directly related to Period Woman, I chose to post them together.

Does this make sense?  if not, then please click here, here, and here in exactly that order to see more and understand just what Colon Man is trying to do. 

 

1137 - "Period Woman" Sketch

If you are offended by sexist, crass, ignorant humour, don't scroll down. 

If you take today's JSVB Ungood Art out of context, it would likely be more offensive than funny.  So, what's the context?

1) Today is Ungood Art Day on JSVB, which is the thirteenth of every month: I use this day to showcase artwork that I have worked on that just did not turn out to be any good.  As it happens, today I have not one but two pieces of Ungood Art to present.

2) This piece is part of a series, beginning with "Interrobangman" and "The Human Ampersand", which you can see by clicking here and here. I insist you should do so, because otherwise "Period Woman" won't make much sense. 

3) When I work, I find I get around four hours of solid creativity a day.  Normally, the small to medium pieces I create on JSVB take around four hours to render.  So, if I am working on a larger project all day long, say eight hours, I have four strong hours and four lax hours.  During those lax hours, I tend to work on parts of an art piece that don't require strong concentration, like basic colouring or simple lines.   It's called monkey-work.  When I do this stuff, my mind will wander.  In the case of Interrobangman, my mind wandered to think up punctuation-based superheroes that might co-exist within his universe.  Immediately, Period Woman sprang into mind.  I mean, she's funny because she's as obsessed with punctuation as Interrobangman, but her name also leads to a double-entendre.   Right after that came Colon Man, which I will present next JSVB Post.  I realized that neither of these superheroes were very decent, so I eventually thought up The Human Ampersand, who is cleaner and who follows Interrobangman's joke more closely, and I drew him next.

So, without further ado: Period Woman.

1075 - Don't Starve In NY

Today is Ungood Art Day on JSVB.  This entry is truly ungood, not politically correct, or nice.  A New York citizen is deluded into thinking he is Hobbes The Tiger while beating a little old lady.  And a turkey-like creature gets clobbered in the process.  If  you don't want to see any of that, and you know I won't blame you if you don't, then please don't scroll this page down.

Oh, boy, I have to explain, don't I?

First, this is for my friend Rob, who lives and works in New York.  This is supposed to cheer him up!  Winter has been rough over there. 

So Rob is a big Calvin and Hobbes fan, like anybody with good taste.  He's also a big fan of the videogame "Don't Starve".  See, that's why Hobbes is bashing the  turkey-like thing, known in the game as a "Gobbler".  In the game, your character races against starvation and insanity to try to survive a hostile wilderness environment.  Trust me, when you're starving and nearly insane (in the game! In the game!!) you'd club a virtual grandmother to get her drumsticks.  For whatever reason, though, I went against including actual game characters, interchanging them with the iconic comic strip personalities.  So, I think there's humour there, although it's very dark and microscopic.  The thumbnail sketch I drew to plan this looked funnier somehow.   

It's maybe also fair to compare Central Park at night with the violent, chaotic world of Don't Starve.  "Of course you’ll have a bad impression of New York if you only focus on the pimps and the C.H.U.D.s.", so says Marge Simpson.

Still, I am thinking of colouring it in.  Rob should see it first.  If he hates it, then forget the colouring.  Also, I am thinking of substituting the little old lady with Woody Allen, maybe that would be funnier.  It's been a long time since Woody Allen has done anything funny.   Me too, apparently.

Ungood Art Day is traditionally the 13th of every month.  I try to show a piece of artwork I have made where often despite good intentions, the thing ends up being... ungood.  Today is a Friday the 13th.   So far, it's more than lived up to the hype.

1055 - "Shaving Santa"

DISCLAIMER: If you really, really believe in Santa Claus, then don't scroll down.  As my wife put it:

"Way to ruin Christmas, Jeff!"

Coca-Cola Santa Claus ("The Pause That Refreshes"), Haddon Sundblom, 1952

Santa Claus, the commercial version of Saint Nicholas we all know.  This one was painted by commercial artist Haddon "Sunny" Sundblom in 1952, and was the corporate mascot for Coca-Cola.  Sundblom's Santas are used by Coke to this day, a testament to the advertising genius of the corporation and the talent of the artist.

We've all seen this Santa or one much like him hundreds of times on television and in movies.  On my 10,000th viewing of Santa this year, I got to thinking: what would the old boy look like with a shave and a haircut?  

So I held him down and force-shaved him in Corel Painter.  Was this a good thing to do?  Am I proud of myself?

Behold shorn Santa!

968 - Jeff Eats A Bug

Warning: Today's JSVB post is a photograph of me eating a bug.

Scroll down only if you aren't squeamish about insects as gourmet food.

My wife snapped this photo of me at Vancouver's annual food fair, eating grasshoppers fried in garlic.  They are pretty good!  They confer a strong nutty taste, and the legs are like very tiny chicken wings only there's six of them per creature instead of two. 

So: no, I am not eating live grasshoppers.   These have been fried in oil with garlic.   They were also put to death humanely.  Each hopper gets to spend its final day in a specially constructed miniature lounge, pretty much like The Frolic Room in Los Angeles.  Inside the lounge are a number of couches upon which the hoppers can recline, if they like, and watch closed-circuit movies of ants hard at work.  Lazy grasshoppers really enjoy this sort of life, at least according to the literature. 

Once the grasshoppers are fully engaged with watching the ants, the chef carefully lifts the roof-lid off of the lounge, reaches in, and carefully dispatches each grasshopper in turn by knocking it forcefully on the head with a tiny purpose-built silver hammer.  Then the bugs are cooked in oil and we eat them. 

895 - "Escalator Of Wax"

Today's JSVB posts depicts a pretty lady stepping in a lot of gooey wax.  If you don't want to see wierd stuff, then please do not scroll down.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A few days ago, I overheard my wife coming up with the phrase "escalator of wax".  I know for a fact that this illustration is not what she had in mind. 

 

Considering the amount of work I poured into this, it's a remarkably unappealing image for me.  It's almost Ungood Art.  Oh, well.

 

I wonder what we could use "escalator of wax" to describe?  I am not looking forward to this, but I know we are just days away from the annual Blogger system failure that comes down every first week of January.  So maybe we Blogger bloggers will all climb the escalator of Wax come New Year's Day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

759 - Koala In Fisherman's Friend Sauce

This JSVB post has a recipe for Roast Koala Bear In Fisherman's Friend Sauce.  If the idea or the imagery of this offends you, do not scroll down.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ask anybody who knows me well enough and they will tell you that I have mentioned that I would like to eat a koala bear.  Especially during cold and flu season, koala meat would be outstanding.  Think about the only thing a koala eats: eucalyptus leaves.  Then think about what goes into cough syrup. 

 

I once came across the wilderness adventure story of a big game hunter who at the turn of the 19th century, became lost in the Australian outback.  To avoid starvation, he captured, cooked, and ate a koala bear (which is not a bear at all but a marsupial, and closer to a wombat than a grizzly).  He reported in his journal that the meal tasted like every throat lozenge he had ever eaten in his lifetime, except all at once. 

 

Killing koalas is illegal in Australia, as far as I know.  There don't seem to be any recipes for them, even if they happened to be road-kill or harvested after dying of old age or great sex.  I've had to adapt from what I know from "The Joy Of Cooking" by Irma Rombauer and Marion Rombauer Decker. 

 

ROAST KOALA IN FISHERMAN'S FRIEND SAUCE

 

 

 

 

1 small koala (5-7 lbs meat)

1/2 cup cider vinegar

1/4 cup honey

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup grapeseed oil

1/3 cup seasoning salt

1/4 cup dry white wine

 

4tb unsalted butter

4tb flour

1 cup cream

1 1/4 cup chicken broth

1 tsp lemon juice

1 tsp minced ginger

1/2 tsp horseradish paste

2 x crushed packages extra strength Fisherman's Friend lozenges (25 g per package)

2 tb anise seeds

2 oz. vodka

1/2 tsp. hot chili sauce

 

Skin and gut 1 koala.  Mix the oil, vinegar, honey, and brown sugar to make a marinade; coat the koala meat and wrap tightly with plastic cling wrap.  Cold-marinate for 24 hours.  Remove wrap and discard marinade.  Sprinkle salt on exposed meat.

 

Roast the koala in a covered pot for approximately 4 hours at 375°F.  I like to place 1/4 cup wine on the bottom of the pot before inserting the koala.  You can put the koala on a bed of peeled carrots to prevent it from touching the bottom of the roaster pan. Treat as you would pork roast.  Baste every hour with some chicken broth, making sure to reserve at least 1 cup for the sauce. 

 

When the koala is nearly done (test for doneness with a meat thermometer, use "pork" as a guide), melt the butter in a saucepan under medium heat.  Stir in the flour to make a paste.  Slowly pour in the cream, stirring as you go.  Continue to stir and heat the mixture for five minutes.  Slowly pour in the remaining broth, stir and heat.  Stir in the crushed lozenges, ginger, lemon juice, horseradish and anise seeds.  Stir in the vodka.  Turn sauce to very low heat and allow to sit until the roast is done.  Add the chili sauce to taste. 

 

The meat should be tender even if it is a bit dry.  It should taste and smell like cooked medicine.  When paired with the sauce, the meal will be like eating Jägermeister, with all sore throats and runny noses but a distant memory, but without the alcoholic buzz.  Probably.  Serve hot on April Fool's Day! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



685 - Blonde Bond Shell

 

 

I am re-using my nude "self-portrait" from a few posts ago.  If you don't want to see male nudity, please do not scroll down.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A few people had the nerve to call me out on the veracity of my nude self-portrait on JSVB Post #679 - The Roman Way (to see it, please click here, although it's more of the same, with nudity).  How can this be a self portrait, when the man in the picture is obviously blond, blue-eyed, and buff?  I was particularly cut down by the comments regarding my physique. 

 

However, there may be a grain of truth to the criticisms.  For one thing, my profile image and the portrait face don't at all match (You can see the post I made when I switched to the most recent profile image by please clicking here.).  For another, this portrait looks more than just similar to Daniel Craig's famous "Usula Andress/Halle Berry" moment when he emerges from the ocean in "Casino Royale" (2005). 

 

In fact, that frame was the reference for my drawing.  Despite that Mr. Craig is just one year younger than me, his physique is remarkable.  Also remarkable is that today is the North American premiere of the 23rd Bond film "Skyfall (2012).  Some day when we are not busy, my wife and I will head out to the theatre to see that one.  It should be good.

 

This picture is actually just an intermediate stage for the final product.  I thought I'd save it for today, the Bond premiere, for re-use.  In this version, I haven't yet drawn the water or the duck, so you get to see to the waistline and below.  I used art lines as cut-offs so that I would know where the remaining elements I had yet to draw would be placed.  If you have the imagination for that sort of thing, I suppose you could extend the view downward.  If not, I'm fairly sure Daniel Craig shows the full monty in one of his earlier films.