Keeping up on unfolding events

 

A sunday peanuts funny

 

Shadow Falls Creek with my Peanuts camera

 

I went out for one of my morning photography walks this morning and grabbed the first camera I could find when I was leaving. It was my Peanuts Camera.

My Peanuts Camera (no, it's not 'cheap', it takes pictures in the style of a Peanuts Cartoon strip), is not as colorful as some of my other cameras, or dramatic, but I feel it nicely conveys the simple peacefulness of the woods I walk in. Because of where I live, it is sweet to think that it is likely that Charles Schulz walked among these same views 75 or 100 years ago. If he drew them I think he would have done a nicer job of it than these, but perhaps these give a bit of his flavor...

Three self portraits at work

 

Portraits of Marcus

 

Here is a cartoon that I think best expresses my relationship with my friend Marcus:

You may note that I have turned him into a cartoon character, but that's not all. We have given him the full portrait treatment here today! He will be a muppet and Dr. Seuss illustrations as well.

And so with that here are some portraits of Marcus, including a few discussions related to yesterday's post:

I visit the Scholomance

 

I went out for dinner with my friend Marcus the other night. This is something we do a few times a year, though after I am living in France it may happen less frequently. Presumably if we do manage to continue to do so in the future the meals will be better.

Naturally I took pictures of Marcus so that I can make various cartoons and portraits of him (more on that in another post). Curiously Marcus had a request. He wanted me to make a version of cartoon me in The Scholomance.

Somehow I did not manage to get why he wanted a cartoon of me in The Scholomance. He wasn't keeping that a secret or anything. I think I just somehow neglected to ask. My mind had immediately gone spinning off into the curious project.

For those of you who have missed it, The Scholomance is a fantasy trilogy by Naomi Novik. It's the best one since Lord of the Rings, as far as I'm concerned at least. The books mainly take place in a kind of grim, magic High School without teachers. This is a horrible, monster infested place made of grimy metal and set hanging into a void of nothingness. It is terribly dangerous, deadly even, but safer than the outside world which is fantastically deadly for adolescent magical youth. The school is a bleak, dangerous, desperate place that nevertheless is a little world that gives these kids a chance to make it to adulthood.

This rough description is not the main thing for me to tell you just why this trilogy is such a masterpiece. Surely I have done that already in clerkmanifesto a couple times in the past. This sketch is merely to give you the setting of the following pictures into which I have cast myself.

Ideally you would read The Scholomance Trilogy first, then check out my pictures. But you can probably also take them as they are if you want.

As to Marcus's request, assuming he's out there? 

Here you are.