The Ballad of the DMV

Lately, I haven't been posting portraits. This is partly due to a resolution I made to complete more comics, which means I spend more time drawing cartoony-looking people than real ones. I've also been riding my bike to work whenever it's not raining or snowing, and so my time on the subway has been much more limited. However, one trip to the DMV was all it took to get this drawing together:

The face for the portrait above began at the DMV in midtown Manhattan, while I was waiting for my number to be called. The DMV is a black hole from which time does not escape. The warping and sudden disappearance of whole hours within a DMV office cannot be explained by relativity or string theory. It is outside the boundaries of science, outside the entire space-time continuum. Wars could be won using the DMV's devastating "queueing" technology - don't fire rockets at your enemies, just open a DMV office in their territory. They'll enter, take their place in line, and slowly die of starvation. I barely escaped with my life.

The poor man I was sketching must have been at the DMV for days. His hollow eyes were drained of all hope, and his jaw, at one time probably taught with resolve, hung slack in despair. You would think that someone so dejected wouldn't move around as much as he did, but annoyingly he kept shifting his head. Couldn't he at least have had the decency to accept defeat and stay still? But nothing is ever easy. The final drawing reflects my efforts to reconcile all the different perspectives, without Cubism.

I tried to mold this man's features into a peaceful expression, for even if redemption does not await him at the teller window, at least he can attain it though the power of ART.

Two Pages of Cat Badness

A quick story about cats, and one of their loves I only recently discovered: popcorn. Apparently, they will do just about anything to get it, including climbing bookshelves and knocking over popcorn tins. But don't worry! No actual shelves, tins, or cats were harmed in the making of this story. I put this together on the fly in my sketchbook, without any penciling or planning, but hopefully the story still comes across and is enjoyable:

I don't know what was going on with that circular panel on the first page, where our heroes suddenly transform into strange, non-cat organisms. I think after drawing the vertical panel of the popcorn in all its magnificence, I had a kind of meltdown, and then couldn't deal with drawing the next few panels. Fortunately the layout came back together again after that.

Things have been a bit busy for me lately, so I must apologize for my updates not being as frequent. However, I spent the long weekend working up some new subway portraits and comics, so get ready for more updates this week!

Ping Pong Skillzzz

One of the greatest things that happened to me in 2010 was the entry of ping-pong into my life. Since my place of business acquired a ping-pong table this past spring, hardly a day has gone by that I do not play for at least 15 minutes. As my ponging experience has gradually advanced, so too has my knowledge of the vast array of ping pong strokes that can be executed during a game. I've set some of these out in the diagram below. Those of you who play will likely recognize them, and those of you who don't are in for a glorious education:

Mastering the backhand Quarterback Sneak has been particularly difficult for me as I have trouble dislocating my thumb at the appropriate moment. Just gotta keep working on my timing!

People say the best games are easy to learn and difficult to master. If that is the case, ping-pong is one of the best games even invented. It is ridiculous, exhilarating, maddening, and hypnotic, sometimes in the span of a single shot. It is insanely addicting. It has just enough of an element of chance built in to be consistently unpredictable. In short, to borrow an expression from my sister, "It's the illest."

Fake It 'Till You Bake It

One of my and my wife's favorite yearly traditions is the Christmas-to-New-Year's break. For the past few years, we have both been fortunate enough to have the week between Christmas and New Year's off, and it is during this time that we are at our most adventurous. We watch a dangerous amount of movies , sleep precariously past noon, and read comics and other books to perilous excess. Swept up in this heady whirlwind, I often believe myself capable of extraordinary, impossible feats, like baking.

This unfortunate story is all too true. I've vowed that in the New Year, I will learn how to make this bread pudding recipe without poisoning anyone. It's a delicious recipe when it comes out right (i.e. when my wife makes it), and contrary to what my bungling suggests it is really not all that difficult. My wife and I got it out of a Nigella Lawson cookbook, and I've included here a video showing how Nigella herself puts it together. I guarantee that if you use fresh cream, you will not only avoid much unpleasantness, but will also eat the whole thing in one sitting. Enjoy!

The Mustachioed Man

This drawing has nothing to do with the holiday season, but I suppose if this man had a beard as bushy as his mustache, he would somewhat resemble Santa Claus:

Though I am prone to exaggeration, the man on which this drawing is based (I saw him on the subway) really did have a mustache as large as is depicted here. In fact, I may have even toned it down to more clearly define the overall shape of his face. This man also had intricate jowl-folds and forehead creases - great for sketching, though I was somewhat awed by the complexity of his facial landscape. Looking at this drawing now, I'm not sure I was truly able to do it justice.

I also experimented a bit with ink washes in this drawing, hence the gray tones. Some of it was successful, though in hindsight, I wish I had scanned unwashed version of this drawing as well, for comparison.

Not sure what I'm going to post next, but a new comic about married life in the Choi household will be coming soon - you heard it here first! Not that you would have heard it anywhere else, but first is still first.

Comics about comics on the night before the night before Christmas

Hello everyone. This is a comic about married life. It is also, in some sense, a comic about making a comic, but before you cringe I assure you that it is not about the "Artist's Struggle," unless this refers to the Artist's struggle to get his wife to watch a movie with him:

I shouldn't judge though - if anything, I'm worse than my wife when it comes to books. My wife and I both react to books as if they were black holes. Get too close to one (especially one we've already read), and we're drawn inexorably into their pull, never to be released. It doesn't matter what we had planned, we MUST finish that chapter or paragraph or 200-page section, we HAVE to reach that crucial plot point, resolve that suspenseful bit of foreshadowing. It's like a bad addiction. Hooked on phonics, if you will.

It's the night before the night before Christmas, folks. I hope you got all your shopping in :)

Hey Beard-o!

Hi everyone. My name is Noah ("Hi Noah"). I started growing a beard about a month ago. As most of you in this support group have probably experienced, once you have a beard it starts to change things.

People say I don't look the same and I didn't believe them...I had been convincing myself that really I was no different. But today I'm here to admit that I am different, I've changed. Now that I have beard...I...(imagine a few tears here)...sorry, this is hard for me to say...I LOOK LIKE MY DAD:

For some context, my Dad and I play ping-pong once a week, and are both quite serious about it. When I showed up last time with a full-on beard, the drama that erupted was not far from what I've illustrated above.

So yes, my dear readers, I'll come out and say it. I've grown a beard. If you see me on a regular basis, you know this already - it's hard to miss. But if you don't, then I will assure you in writing that it is truly spectacular.*

* by spectacular I mean it's...well, it's there.