vaillant

In fact, I would pay Stan NOT to sign any of my comics on the cover. As much as I love him, he shouldn’t sign in marker as well…

Just give time for people to forget the silly movies and they will land back to reasonable prices. Maybe not reasonable as once they were, but regardless… I can’t believe so many people could do WITHOUT a #45 or a #52 and all of a sudden "they need them"… ::

And I choose to call BS on someone who has a pattern of dishonest behaviour and complete lack of self responsibility. There are many degrees of gravity in dishonest behaviour, and while you are obviously entitled (?) to continue acting as you are, think about this. And it would be good to hear how you calculate the "degree of responsibility" (with "soul reading"?): I suppose at this point everyone obviously agrees on the objective elements of the situation at hand. But you should also recognize that me – or you – could have done much worse should we have lived in "Chip's shoes" so to speak. Ever considered that?

This wouldn’t prevent me from helping you in case you’d be "living out of your car" some day, anyway.

This "parable" just shows me the potential damage of unorthodox teologic improvisations.

BTW, Roy, I expect a chinese horoscope reading for me…

I quite agree with you, Jaybuck, mostly because having Chip a job now, he would be more distracted if he has to prepare and list the comics. On the other hand, he already shipped them – well, it’s their business, they’ll see what proves more effective. :shrug:

I wish to point out an essential aspect. While bad behavior can find explanations in ignorance, ignorance is not a justification to bad behavior. The thing of utmost importance in such cases, is a radical change in attitude. As Harvey as said when one is forced to deal with things – that is the good moment. In general, one needs to want to voluntarily address the issues, otherwise there is no moral and personal improvement. You can continue to experience difficulties (and even further failures), but what is essential is to recognize the problem has not been determined by simple "mistakes", but by a partial, more or less extended, degree of bad will. Force of will is not an "mysterious supply" that someone just has, while another doesn’t. I am talking of "good will", not of "force of will": the former is something which is always within everyone’s reach, but one must repeatedly keep it at the top of his/her priorities, otherwise it won’t gather strenght and momentum. Psychology? Maybe, maybe in part, maybe not. What I am talking about is chiefly a moral decision, even if one does not see entirely clearly (but who does, honestly? N/A, Columbia, Jeffro?). After having settled all your past deeds (when possible), you just need to go ahead, with all the help of people trusting you. I really do appreciate Harvey's interventions and Roy's attitude. Both are needed (aside from the discourse on "therapy", towards which I am very critical, but that is another matter). To summarize, what would be best for Chip, in my opinion, would be to follow the honest advice (and let the judgements slide). As soon as things will be better, my further advice would be to dig and try to mend and make up for past wrongs or debts he may have contracted. But all of this while always keeping the need to put honesty and good will at the top. Any morning, any given day God puts on earth, you always have to fight what Pope John XXIII called "my friend", which is our pride, the byproduct of our human nature. In the chinese horoscope I should be of the Rooster, but I am not sure I want to have to deal with Branget.

Right, Chip you just have to be sincere, and develop a change of attitude. There is no shame at all if one needs help, what was offputting to most was the partial lack of sincerity. I believe as long as you strive to be utmost sincere, you’ll also see what went wrong in the past (and why). All the best.

One of the worst Hulk annuals, and one of the worst stories by David Anthony Kraft, IIRC. And I do love anything related to Warlock. I don’t even know if I kept it, if not it’s the right moment to get rid of it.

Just a note: with my post I did not mean to "despise" the experience of time spent in the USA, rather making an observation on how easier would be for someone here in Europe for study to access directly sites and places which have historical significance in terms of art, especially ancient. US libraries have an amazing assortment of incunables and ancient european books, but here it’s often easier, and you can visit exposed writings (mural inscriptions et al.) if you are interested in lettering. Vienna is such an amazing place that I would go myself to spend some time here if I was younger and more inclined to travel. Travelling today means too much confusion for me that I did not like it much in the first place. When I visited Los Angeles I loved to imagine how the place must have been in the 1920s and 1930s, when Walt Disney was setting up his animation studios et al.

I think your point was clear Kav, especially after all the back and forths and explanations. And I think miraclemet summarized it very well: if it’s not excessively expensive (and you are willing to devote the time), even a short period of study or work abroad can be good. You have also to consider what he’ll be able to be exposed in Vienna as a city: all the opportunities to see and visit things firsthand that he‘d never be able to see while staying in the USA. Once one of my american friends which are lettering and typography historians or studying these matters anyway, told me they were very envious of all the libraries and historical sites I could visit and see "whenever I wanted" in Italy. Well, even Rome is far for me that I don’t like to travel, but you get the point.

David, c'mon, don’t be so 'snob'… There is a lot of valuable advice and good considerations as well, if you skip past presumption. @kav: tech was speaking in general, not questioning the qualities of your work, which are evident. You have developed style, and this is not necessarily what people looking to hire for commercial work are interested in. What has been criticized in your advice is this "absolutization": it’s clear that there are many paths in pursuing an interest or gain a formation in a field. It‘s not always possible to earn through one's own interests, but if one manages to do so (even to a limited degree), now that’s a valuable skill you have acquired. I‘d say your attitude is central to how what you pursue will develop (and into what). @Mercurius: While in Vienna, make a full immersion in Jugendstil for me.

I'd like to make fine furniture. Haven't built a single secretary's desk out of fine wild olive burl with brass and mother of pearl inlays yet Have you been sharpening your carpentry skill all this time though building simple tables chairs etc or did you just wake up one day and say 'I'd like to build fine furniture. I think I'll go to Vienna to study furniture building'? Here's the indications someone has a 'dream'-they spend at least 8 hours a day pursuing it, for many years. My dream lasted 30 years. never panned out. I don't have the space or the money required for tools and supplies to even start I did hear of a college course that has fantastic results and gives certificates. If I were to attend and pass, that certificate might get me a loan to finance opening a workshop. Just can't take two years off work to attend a woodworking school. But if I had the chance I'd take it, even though I've never even tried it. That’s how I was suggesting to broaden the scope in reference to kav's comments (which have a good degree of validity anyways) – often you find that working within a class, and with a serious teacher, you gather (even a limited) knowledge which was something missing from your self-education in a given field. I for sure feel like so: I have no specific dream as far as working goes, but I have a lot of dreams for projects, and although I’d love to be a publisher that is an example of a work that you hardly start overnight by simply being "self taught".

If Mercurius has (or gathers) enough money to attend an art school in Vienna I can see why he might want to do that (aside from learning to paint). If he is interested in art history AND in the place itself (with all the historical artistic implications), this is not strictly related with the constancy, persistence and self-effort kav invited him to practice. As someone wrote (Revat) he might also be interested in attending a school because of the experience. I don’t think schools are comparable worldwide, let alone today. You may find it’s a waste of time or you may find it enriching. A pair of friends of mine, after attending the typeface design academic course at Reading ended up doing quite different things (one works at Apple in Cupertino, another has worked in a famous stone cutting laboratory in the UK and ended up designing typefaces for third parties): http://typefacedesign.net/

What were the "penny cigarettes" and the "young guys" (put between quotation marks)?

I second s14roller's advice… A genuine question: if you do not like sports at all, what prompted you to collect sports cards?

It happened to me once… I stopped doing it but it’s always rewarding.

Love that book. I always thought the octopi looked cute and maybe they just wanted to be friends. Then the mean Earthlings started indiscriminately blasting them. Startling to me Surely they do not look particularly menacing, let alone malignant. This gives the image a definitely weird feeling… @Sardo!

I understand what you mean, but if you think about it, adding the request or not does not represent a substantial change: the fees are de facto the payment for the service offered by PayPal, so there must be someone that pays them, be it the buyer, the seller, or both in a split fashion.

You are correct and I stand corrected. I made an insensitive remark regarding you Chip and for that, I am sorry. I apologize to you directly. It means a LOT to me that you posted this, Brock. Thank you so much. As "bad" as it might have sounded I was pretty much sure that comment was just unfortunate humour and not a malignant one. But hey, where do you get that kind of humour from, Brock? ::

comeaux comments are pretty convoluted too… ::

At one point, he claimed that he was trying to be better. I guess we now know that was a load of excrement Or maybe he just did not manage to attain that so far… I think the eBay comment, even if not implied as "threadcrapping" was superfluous, simply because of the degree all know Roy, and his integrity. At least he should be spared such kind of comments.