Things change. They always do despite my best efforts to hold back the passage of time and prevent the loss of what I love and the oncoming onslaught of what I don’t. Meaning, I suppose, that life ticks on and on and I grow older and older. Not great. Usually. Now, there was a time when life was exciting and each day presented new and exciting challenges. I have to wonder at what point new and exciting challenges became something more akin to “work” to me and not quite new and exciting but yet another reason I’d need to change what I had already just “made”?

Old fogy? Shall I admit to this truth of fact or continue to deny it and dream of what could be, what was and whatever else?

This year has already presented a ton of changes for me to deal with. Most of them not so great. Most of them actually downright terrible. I could look at these changes as possibilities to grow but for some reason I find myself wanting to curl up in a ball, dream of something actually working out, and lament what I’ve lost. Not just in the past month but over the past several years.

Positive, right? Be positive and pro-active. I mean, being negative and pessimistic never does any good. I say if you must go down at least go down with a smile and a laugh. Well, that’s what I say. What I do? Something sadly different.

Such is life.

The first (super) hero I idolized was the Lone Ranger. Of course for the first several years he was the Long Ranger to me. No. I never questioned his name. I was a kid and took it for what it was. While other kids were pinning towels around their necks and flying around pretending to be Superman, I’d strap my six-shooter cap guns to my hips and ride my imaginary horse Silver.

The Lone Ranger appeared to me in re-runs (of course I didn’t know that then) early each morning and every Sunday afternoon. I’m not really sure why the Lone Ranger appealed to me so much as a kid, but to me he was the ultimate superhero. A masked man riding a giant white horse righting wrongs and camping out with his best buddy Tonto.

The Lone Ranger influenced my ideas and my art for years. In many ways he still does. That mysterious stranger who shows up out of the shadows, rescues everyone and rides off again. The legend and the myth. I still eat that stuff up. Now, while my interests have grown and started including spies and P.I.s and robots and sci-fi and superheroes, there remains deep inside me that old thrill whenever I even see a picture of that Masked Man. Heck. The truth is if I thought I could get away with it I’d still wear that old plastic mask and strap those six-shooter cap guns on.

The great heroes never die. Their legend just continues to grow. Man. I’d love to create something like that.

…

Right now I’m continuing to work on a commission piece that’s been sitting on my drawing desk for longer than I’d care to admit. I think I’m finally making some decent progress on it. Fingers crossed my life can maintain some sense of balance and hope while I’m working on it. I do not need a breakdown now. I’ve got too much to do and sadly there’s no one else to do it if I don’t.

The search for work, jobs and money continue. Annoying survival. Such a nasty need.

Life is pretty simple: You do some stuff. Most fails. Some works. You do more of what works. If it works big, others quickly copy it. Then you do something else. The trick is the doing something else.

- Leonardo da Vinci

So that’s the trick.

… Isn’t it annoying when brilliant people’s advice to the rest of us is simply to be brilliant? Sure. Thanks. Helps so much. I’ll get right on it. I’m good to go. I got it now. Can’t believe that I didn’t get that before. I feel so silly. Be brilliant? Why didn’t I think of that before? So simple. So clean. So perfect. Maybe when I need advice on cooking I’ll go to a famous chef and ask for their advice and they’ll say, “Cook good.” and then I’ll know their secret as well – Cook good. Shoot. I can see now how simple life is. All of life.

Maybe Nike does know? … Just do it.

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.

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?

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.

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).