CricketBow Design

2012 Motor City Comic Con

cricketbow — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 04:58:22 +0000

I will have a table at the 2012 Motor City Comic Con selling art prints and other merchandise. It runs the weekend of May 18-20 this year. If you are going, please stop by and say hello!

The MCCC is a fun event and I’ve been selling stuff there for several years now. There are some incredibly talented artists this year, as well as cool celebrities. Butch Patrick, who played Eddie Munster on The Munsters TV show, will be there. I had my picture taken with him just last October when he came to the Redford Theatre to host a viewing of the 1966 movie, Munster, Go Home! Butch was wearing his “Team Edward” t-shirt, which was hilarious. I hope he’ll be selling them at Comic Con, because I failed to get one at the theatre. (Faces of friends have been blurred to hide their nerdity and increase mine.)

Find out more about the Motor City Comic Con here. Hope to see you there!

The Decay of Pumpkins

cricketbow — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 05:45:24 +0000

Every October I get a couple small pumpkins to keep on my desk at work. Rather than carving them, I draw faces on them with a permanent marker. The pumpkins will not spoil as fast and I can keep them around for a good month. They start out like so…

After Halloween 2011 was over, I took the pumpkins (now with faces on them) outside and set them next to a tree rather than throw them out. I figured animals or something would eat them as has happened in years previous. However, this year that did not happen. November, December and January went by, snow came and went, and other than a couple small gnawed areas, nothing touched the pumpkins. They were not even decaying very fast despite the fairly mild winter in Michigan this year. This next photo was taken on January 30, 2012.

From then on I started taking a photo every week or so.

Then, on March 9, 2012, someone cut down the large tree that I placed the pumpkins under. After it was down I noticed one of the pumpkins was still there. The other was gone, probably buried under saw dust and branches or smashed completely. The other pumpkin had a crack in the shell.

On March 13th I noticed someone (or something) had cracked the pumpkin open completely, revealing a strange almost petrified center dry to the touch and a very thin shell.

The face, still visible on the shell, smiling and getting ready to welcome the Spring. Only a dry husk of its former self, I am still curious as to why nothing ate it before the winter came. One thing is certain, I will try the same thing this Halloween.

Stingy Jack & the Jack O’Lantern

cricketbow — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 00:45:45 +0000

The Jack O’Lantern began as a turnip carved with a face and lit with a candle. How did this tradition begin? In Irish folklore, there was once a man nicknamed Stingy Jack. The stories vary slightly, but according to the legend, he was quite a character: always drunk and stealing and playing tricks on his family and friends. As he was stumbling home one night, he met the Devil. Jack tricked the Devil into climbing into an apple tree to pick an apple and while he was up there, Jack carved a cross into the bark so that the Devil was trapped in the tree. Before he would release the Devil, Jack made him promise that when he died the Devil would not take his soul. The Devil agreed and Jack let him go.
When Stingy Jack finally died, he was denied entrance into Heaven because he had led a sinful life and was not sorry for any of the stealing or cruel pranks he played on people. Jack descended into Hell where he once again met the Devil, who kept his promise of not taking Jack’s soul when he died, so he was not allowed to remain. To help Jack wander in the darkness of the afterlife, the Devil mocked him by giving him an ember from the fires of Hell to light his way. Jack placed it in a carved out turnip, and then used it as a lantern to light his way while searching for his final resting place. And so he became Jack of the Lantern or simply Jack O’Lantern.
The Irish began carving out turnips and placing lights inside them to ward off Stingy Jack and other wandering evil spirits. Immigrants that came to North America soon began using pumpkins, as they were much larger and easier to carve than turnips and other small gourds. Today, the pumpkin has become the food of choice to carve with scary or comical faces and many other glowing, creative works of food art. Many people still light them with candles because of the creepy flickering nature of the flame, but some will use flashlights or other small lighting devices now available to help keep Stingy Jack at bay.

Rip Van Winkle

cricketbow — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 04:00:46 +0000

“He stretched himself on the mossy ground,
And soon was wrapped in a sleep profound.”
A sketch for the story of Rip Van Winkle by Washington Irving.

Beware the Jubjub Bird!

cricketbow — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 00:28:13 +0000

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”

Some quick sketches for the notorious jubjub bird from Lewis Carroll’s poem, Jabberwocky.