Eliminate the superfluous, the unnecessary. Be lazy! Edit your art continuously, at every stage. Save work! Focus on the remaining (important) picture elements. Emphasize what is important in a scene. Save drawing! – Alex Toth

Alex Toth was of a generation of artists and creators who understood what it meant to be a comic book artist, a cartoonist and an animator. They understood the delicate balance between creating artwork and drawing something people would want to see. American comics seem to struggle with this concept while Japanese anime has somehow found the line. Look at any Barnes and Noble Booksellers book racks and you’ll see the success that comes from knowing not only what to draw, but what not to.

I’m half done with the Census training now. Not liking it so much. I’m an artist, not an office worker. Boy, is that apparent right now. This is tough but at least I’m doing it. Meaning: paying some bills. A big hurdle for me, truthfully. Doing something like this.

I need to get back to doing a few of the things I was doing before life got in the way. Not that life has gotten out of the way necessarily, it’s just that if I don’t just start, nothing worthwhile will ever happen. I simply can’t wait for life to settle down, ’cause it ain’t gonna’ happen.

The LOST BOOK has been an ongoing project for far too long. It’s been 99% done for a few years now. I’ve just been waiting until I could give it my full attention – Not gonna’ happen.

Another thing that was planned, worked on and never actually finished is a short, live-action commercial / film intended to help push the book. Maybe get a little notice and put the idea of a live-action KW into a few people’s heads. It was also very, very cool. I’m thinking about taking a lot of what has been filmed, re-filming some things and re-editing it myself to give the “feel” I want. I’m also thinking about recasting the role of Morgan Stone since I’ve stumbled into someone who really looks like I’d envisioned the character.

Above is my cousin John. A dead ringer for Morgan Stone. Ironic since he wasn’t even born until AFTER “Knightwolf” made his first appearance. He has the shaggy black hair, the heavy features and the attitude of Morgan Stone and I’m excited about what I might be able to do – Bringing the character to life.

J.D. Davis as Morgan Stone from Knightwolf (the lost book).

Life can be so difficult. The people in your life can sure make things far easier or far more difficult depending on the people in your life. I guess, in this, I’m lucky. I’d be luckier if I Knew a millionaire or two, but I’m about as lucky as I could get, my lack of wealthy friends excluded.

I always feel better when I’m able to accomplish something. “Something.” Anything. It tears me down if a day goes by where I didn’t, even in some small way, make progress – or at least an effort towards progress, even if that effort was fruitless. Which it mostly is.

I like to think that I’m becoming a better, stronger person because of the life I’m leading. I say I LIKE to think that because if I DON’T think that then life just sucks and that, well … would just plain suck.

Life, and hope, continue.

Artwork has been both a blessing and a curse to me over the course of my lifetime. It’s been a drug that can take me on the wildest high or drag me to the lowest low, leaving me crashed and shaken. I love it and I have no idea why I can draw.

Ever since I first started drawing at the age of four people have always assumed that my life would be easy and money and success would come automatically because of my art. They were wrong.

Art has robbed me of the freedom to decide, unencumbered who, and what, I would be in my life. My grades were always surprisingly good in school. I could have done anything, gone to any college and become anything I desired. But I couldn’t. I was an artist. THAT was my gift. My drug. The one thing in my life I just couldn’t shake. The dream that wouldn’t go away.

While art has often been my saving grace, giving me a sense of self (I AM an artist.) it has also been a burden I couldn’t shake. “WHY can I do this? WHAT is the reason? The purpose?” I have always wondered why. If I was for some reason blessed with the ability to create funny pictures, there must be a reason. Some “good” I was intended to do. Some service I was intended to perform for others. But what? What in the world good could I bring to this world drawing funny pictures in funny books?

Recently it finally hit me. This many years later. Something obvious and something I’d been told before – Maybe I couldn’t, I didn’t need, to change the world or teach great lessons with this artwork of mine? But there was something I could do. Maybe I could give people joy and happiness? A little entertainment as they moved through this difficult, fear-fueled world of ours? And maybe, just maybe, this was that “great reason” I am able to do what I do? Not to change the world but simply make it a little more palatable, more enjoyable, while we’re all here?

Make people happy. What better goal in life is there really?

It’s April 20th which means it’s my birthday. Born on the “cusp”  I’m both  Taurus and Aries. None of which really matters at all. Birthdays tend to mean less and less as the years and the decades pass quickly by. Older. That’s about it. Nothing to celebrate there. Time to reflect on a lifetime of dreams not (yet) reached and a time to make new plans and plan new dreams.

I’ve finished a few new commission pieces. I have to say that drawing has been a real life saver for me.

All of the above images were created by me and belong to someone else. Meaning I’m posting them with permission. Permission you probably don’t have so don’t copy and paste please.

In many, many ways I am a very fortunate man.