E.J. Barnes, Illustrator

Links & Fun

All work and no play makes Jane a dull girl. Here are some of E. J.'s rants and raves, including links to other people, institutions, and information worthy of note.

• Blaster Al Ackerman, author of the Ling Master stories
• Creative clubs, networks, and communities
• Comics creators
• Other visual artists worth noting
• The Intergalactic House of Fruitcakes
• Other small press luminaries
• Science Humor
• Kabbalah. My opinion, my favorite source, and how to play Kabbalistic Billiards.
• Travel
• Rants
• Recipes
• The Obligatory Cat Picture

"Blaster" Al Ackerman

"Blaster" Al Ackerman, one of my favorite short story writers, is the author of the Ling Master stories, which I am adapting as comics. Most of his work has been published in the small press (including the "marginal" press, below the underground). Blaster has no site of his own, but is referenced widely. The following sites should leave you even more confused about this enigmatic character, who has been described by various folks as "America's Cervantes" and "the Yogi Berra of the Twilight Zone."

• Seven By Nine Squares, a maze of twisty little passages, all different/alike. For "Spanish Art" read "Mail Art".
• The TAM Interview. I honestly have no idea who or what TAM is.
• Chela Gallery Show: In 2002, a retrospective of Blaster's drawings was shown at the Chela Gallery in Baltimore.
  • The writeup
  • Some pictures from the show
• In July—August 2008, the Gormley Gallery at the College of Notre Dame of Maryland exhibited Blaster's most recent art project, the Thriftstore Mystery Paintings.
• Blaster: The Blaster Al Ackerman Omnibus is available by mail order from Normal's Books in Baltimore. Read this book! It will change your life! Or maybe just make you never want to touch Vienna sausages again.
• I Taught My Dog to Shoot a Gun (out of print)
• John Held, Jr.'s description in his Mail Art Archive (see under "United States of America")
• John Held, Jr.'s interview with Blaster, from before he moved to Baltimore, so it's more than a decade out of date.
• Shattered Wig Press publishes recent writings by Blaster and others. Shattered Wig Nite events feature poetry readings and performance art, including poetry readings by Blaster. They have this bad habit of not updating their online calendar, though; the 14 Karat Cabaret calendar is usually only slightly more up-to-date.
• Friends of Blaster:
  • "Language poet" John M. Bennett, obliquely referred to in "The Squid Boys of Terre Haute". Blaster loves to parody his writing at Wig Nite poetry readings.
  • "Vernacular writer" Jack Saunders, cast as the antihero of "'I, The Stallion!'" My portrayal of him does not look anything like him, any more than does Blaster's portrait of Saunders on the latter's website looks anything like what Saunders was like when he was younger. Though at least Blaster got the glasses and hair right.

Creative clubs, networks, and communities

• Trees & Hills Comics Group is for comics creators in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Western Massachusetts.
• Opus Terra Salon, is an occasional Pioneer Valley event, an opportunity to be entertained the old-fashioned way — by getting together with other people in person to make music, tell stories, recite poems, play word games, draw jam pictures, and whatever else comes up.

Fellow comics creators

• Steve Peters is creator and publisher of Awakening Comics, a spiritual journey in print. Steve's inks blow me away. Some stories are "jams" in which each panel is drawn by a different artist. I've got a couple of two-pagers in some of his comics, as well.
• Donna Barr writes and draws what she calls "drawn books." Her best-known character is perhaps the desperately funny and heartbreaking Desert Peach, but she's got other stories as well.
• Carla Speed McNeil writes and draws Finder, a science-fiction comic with some fascinating sociopolitics underpinning it. Funny, freaky, tragic, thought-provoking; like all good sci-fi, it sometimes edges into the territory of satire.
• Rex Mundi is a comics series written by Arvid Nelson, a story in an alternate 1930s Europe in which the Reformation failed and the French Revolution was squashed. Secret manuscripts, Latin puzzles, and Knights Templars are woven together in a mind-blowing mystery. (See the painting I entered in their art contest last Spring.)
• Bill Shafer is author of the profoundly politically-incorrect comic book, GlueBoy. Inspired lunacy, definitely not for the easily offended. His current enterprise is Hyaena Gallery in Burbank, CA. Wish I was there, 'cuz it sounds like he and Sharon have set up a very cool place.
• My inner 12-year-old LOVES Onion Head Monster! Deceptively crude, yet stylish and vigorous art, city-smashing monsters, rampaging giant sea monkeys, evil doctors who make you cool your heels in their waiting rooms, and Vaudeville slapstick puns make this series irresistable. Old-fashioned fun.
• Hilary B. Price is writer and artist of the daily newspaper strip Rhymes with Orange. She knows cats.
• Sean Wang is creator of the comic-book series Runners, a science-fiction humor and adventure romp. The first mini-series has been collected as a trade paperback, and the second mini-series is ready to rock.

Other fellow visual artists

• Signe Baumane is an animatrix from Latvia, who now lives and works in New York with the rest of the Avoid Eye Contact crew. WARNING: Her stuff is not for the squeamish!
• Julie Zickefoose has been drawing and painting birds a lot longer than I have. Her realistic renditions of birds in natural settings are based on field observations, and have appeared in a number of birdwatchers' publications.
• Mo Ringey is a Northampton, MA, artist who specializes in mosaics. Not just any mosaics. Mosaics made of colored tempered glass that makes nice little tesserae, rather than wickedly jagged shards, when you smash it (which is actually pretty difficult). She started with auto glass. And it's not just mosaics out of tempered glass, but mosaics covering antique refrigerators, washing machines, and other recherché objects. She also has a morning show on Valley Free Radio in Northampton
• Vitek Kruta does eye-popping trompe l'oeil paintings, but my first encounter with his work was his 3-D Mandalas!

The Intergalactic House of Fruitcakes

(started by students with too much time on their hands, an ancient artifact of the old 'zine scene)

The I.G.H.F. is the first, and usually the only, certified OTIS-worshipping organization on this pathetic little planet. Its co-founder, Pope Geoph of the Infinite Spellings, wrote the Introduction and Fine Print to the Kabbilliards instructions elsewhere on this site. I am an official Saint of this organization, having bought my canonization circa 1989 for $14.00. You can't get a bargain like that any more. Plus, they made my cat Acting High Priestess of Brow, God of Mindless Violence, when the previous High Priestess (a human) went missing, presumed eaten by Brow.

Here are the classic I.G.H.F. writings. I drew one of their four-arrow OTIS logos years ago — the one with a man and a woman's faces to either side, which appears in the Flash Intro, and on the Unwashed Heathen page ("What do you do?"). They used to sell T-shirts with this design; ask Pope Jefffe if he still has any.

Other Small Press Luminaries

• Invisible Books. Translations of ancient Egyptian, and collections of odd-ball rants from editor Jacob Rabinowitz, plus Ackerman, Thom "Shock Totem" Metzger, and others even more controversial.
• John Held, Jr., unofficial online archive keeper of the Mail Art scene. (Note: The closest thing Mail Art ever had to an official archive keeper was a woman named Jean Brown, who lived in a Tyringham Shaker building, and upon her death gave her collection to the Getty Museum.) John's online archive has more information than you would ever want on anyone who ever participated in Mail Art — including "Blaster" Al Ackerman (see "United States of America").
• Pine Tree State Mind Control. Be warned: They will start work on your brain the moment you get to the site. Turn your computer speakers off if you want to be safe.

Science Humor

• The Journal of Irreproducible Results (JIR). Founded in 1955, to my knowledge the oldest science-humor publication in English. Under new management since 2004.
• The Annals of Improbable Research (AIR). Founded in 1995 by outgoing JIR editorial staff during the dark Blackwell Scientific days. Hosts of the Ig Nobel Prizes.

Kabbalah

You may have noticed some Kabbalistic imagery in the Mandalas section. Needless to say, I have more to say on this topic than just pictures.

• Kabbalah for Shiksas, my essay on the recent publicity surrounding Kabbalah.
• Colin Low's Notes on Kabbalah, my favorite source for Kabbalistic information on the Web. His are the best explanations of the individual sephiroth I have read in any medium. (Perhaps I, personally, relate so well to his writings because it is clear that his background includes an education in natural science, and a career in computer software.)
• Kabbilliards, a game some Otisian friends and I invented during the yuppie billiard craze of the 1990s. Introduction and Fine Print by Pope Jeoffe I of the Intergalactic House of Fruitcakes.

Travel

My partner, Brian Bixby (the historian, not the lawyer), and I, E.J. Barnes (the American cartoonist, not the Australian singer-songwriter), have been to a number of interesting places, including:

• The Baltic Countries, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia; for a comic-book rendition of our vacation, please see Birds of the Baltic
• Numerous Shaker sites:
  • Brian alone: Sabbathday Lake, near Poland Spring, Maine. The last Shaker village with living, practicing Shakers, having outlived the Canterbury group.
  • Canterbury, NH, the most recent Shaker village to "die out." Big gift shop, new restaurant, excellent guides, lovely view of the surrounding countryside.
  • Enfield, NH. Small but proud, with a working herb garden. A great view of the village and lake from the adjacent hill.
  • Hancock, MA, near Pittsfield, the first Shaker village to be turned over directly by vacating Shakers to a museum organization. Home of the famous round barn, an atypical but efficient design.
  • Mount Lebanon, NY, just up the road a piece from Hancock, MA. Part of the old village is now a prep school, while some of the South Village has become a Sufi retreat.
  • Watervliet, NY, near Albany; the first Shaker settlement. Only a tiny fraction of the Shaker buildings still standing are open to the public, but Mother Ann Lee's grave is nearby.
  • Pleasant Hill, KY, one of the largest "living history" sites. An excellent site with attentive, well-read guides, and a pleasant restaurant.
  • South Union, KY, can be "done" in an afternoon. Some of the buildings are in the process of restoration; others were sold to a Catholic order sometime after the Shakers vacated in 1922 and are off-limits to the public as they are still occupied by said order. The charming old "Tavern" (bed-and-breakfast hotel) is right by the railroad tracks, which, unlike in their heyday, no longer carry passenger traffic. The Tavern, however, is (on a nice day) walkable distance from the village; the proprietress is a superb cook.

Rants

• Wisconsin Death Trip: The Cat Shooting Bill of 2005 and the Rural Feral Cat Problem. Revised 10/7/07
• Terrible, isn't it? No, it's awesome. On the evolution of slang.
• The Story of Mice^(TM) Cat Food.

Recipes

Click here to open my recipe files in another browser. Some of these recipes were copied by hand years ago, and the original source is missing or the author of the cookbook in question unrecorded. I like to give credit where due, so if you can help identify some of the sources that I've left vague I'd love to hear from you.

The Obligatory Cat Picture

Are any of these links dead? If so, please let me know and I'll fix the problem.