The Runting Knife

LONG, TALL COMIC

2009-01-07T18:11:00.007-07:00

and i just a subtle lift provider on the other side

MERRY X-MAS GUEST DRAWING

2008-12-24T09:57:00.003-07:00

ANGRY NEON DISCO DICK-WHAL WITH FRIEND by Joe Henry

COMIC

2008-12-18T07:25:00.003-07:00

strumming my pain with his fingers

COMIC

2008-12-15T21:07:00.003-07:00

my only weakness is a listed crime

DRAWING

2008-12-15T21:05:00.002-07:00

Pretty Girls Listen to Failure

COMIC

2008-12-13T08:39:00.003-07:00

i walked right out of the machinery

DRAWINGS

2008-12-13T08:34:00.003-07:00

I Brought You In From the Cold

Valery Gergiev, Conductor of the Kirov Orchestra

COMIC

2008-12-09T22:00:00.002-07:00

if you liked it, then you should have put a ring on it

DRAWING

2008-12-09T21:57:00.003-07:00

I Will Draw You

COMIC

2008-12-07T21:07:00.001-07:00

you climbed the wreck, cold diamond heart still beating

DRAWING

2008-12-07T21:06:00.000-07:00

COMIC

2008-12-06T19:28:00.003-07:00

shetland made her jumpers

HOLY FUCK! A COMIC!

2008-12-02T15:04:00.000-07:00

eels up inside you

...AND A DRAWING

2008-12-02T15:03:00.002-07:00

Kicking the Sauce

COMIC

2008-10-19T21:21:00.004-06:00

comb a brush around their heads in the morning

PAINTING

2008-10-19T21:20:00.001-06:00

Face face

COMIC

2008-10-17T21:46:00.004-06:00

a cannibal's desire feeds the fire that burns in your head

COMIC

2008-10-15T06:39:00.000-06:00

i live in a bad part of town

COMIC

2008-10-13T07:50:00.000-06:00

my legs are so tired from all this standing still

DRAWING

2008-10-13T07:49:00.005-06:00

The Comic Man as High Art

COMIC

2008-10-10T08:42:00.000-06:00

i've got no houston to whine down to

PAINTINGS

2008-10-10T08:41:00.005-06:00

Leaves Fall

Set the Table

COMIC

2008-10-07T18:38:00.005-06:00

sneaking out the back door, to hang out with those hoodlum friends of mine

DRAWING

2008-10-07T18:36:00.000-06:00

Scared of City Life

2008-10-07T18:35:00.001-06:00

TUESDAY NIGHT LINKKNIFE:

PLAY SOME GAMES

Corpse Craft - Edward Gorey + Harry Potter + Puzzle Quest + Realtime Strategy = Totally FuckRad.

Dino Run - Run away from oblivion in charming 8-bit graphics, set to charming 8-bit music. Dinosaurs and retro games. Clearly, the good people at pixeljam are after my heart.

Totem Destroyer - Try to get a weird palsied duck creature to safety by destroying blocks. Fun? Yeah, fun.

Hoshi Saga - Simple, cute, and fucking infuriating; all you have to do is find that goddamned star. Also check out the sequels: two and three.

LONG, TALL COMIC

2008-09-11T10:44:00.003-06:00

swallow hard against your inner horror

COMIC

2008-09-09T08:55:00.000-06:00

the salt of the earth, and everything is grace

COMIC

2008-09-07T12:12:00.000-06:00

my love is the sixth station of the cross

PAINTING

2008-09-01T20:42:00.001-06:00

COMIC

2008-09-01T18:47:00.001-06:00

so i've called to capture devices

COMIC

2008-08-28T14:22:00.005-06:00

an ocean of violets in bloom

COMIC

2008-08-28T14:13:00.005-06:00

we're too young in the morning

T - SHIRT

2008-08-28T12:19:00.004-06:00

RUNTINGKNIFEFASHION

LUNCH HOUR COMIX

2008-08-27T13:45:00.004-06:00

printed in gold, 'cause details make the girls sweat

COMIC

2008-08-25T16:05:00.003-06:00

we run through the fields, the turning of wheels

TERRIBLE DEADLINE COMIC

2008-08-23T16:02:00.003-06:00

Starring: Alligator, Juvenil Madre, and Semicolon

COMIC

2008-08-21T14:37:00.003-06:00

take my shoes off, and throw them in the lake

COMIC

2008-06-06T10:02:00.001-06:00

and if a plainclothes meets you at your door

DRAWINGS

2008-06-06T10:01:00.001-06:00

Your Face is a Harbor

My Old Front Yard

guess who's living here, with the great undead

COMIC

2008-06-04T13:36:00.000-06:00

and my heaven will be a big heaven, and i will walk through the front door

+1

2008-06-04T13:35:00.001-06:00

THE RUNTING KNIFE CONSUMED BY MEDIA

Guided by Voices – Bee Thousand

As I find myself in the dark and shadowy nether region between the youthful, vibrant scenester and the aging hipster, I am desperately trying to avoid the pitfall of clinging to the music I held dear in the former classification as I approach the latter. It’s important to expand one’s tastes, I feel, but easier to stay the course and utter a hearty “Well, fuck it.” I refer to this phenomena as “first album was better syndrome” or “chronic pabst blue ribbon’s disease.”

Go to any show and look back at the bar. You’ll see them there, the Infected, recounting the days when Matador was still a relevant record label, a faint glisten in their eyes and a Hot Water Music tattoo on their calves.

That being said, I am going to go ahead and recommend an older album (“Well, fuck it”), praying that it does not speed the proliferation of those stagnant musical miasmas.

I’m not sure why people seem to have forgotten about this band. It’s not for lack of songs; their catalog puts Lil’ Weezy to shame. And as I troll the waters of Facebook and MySpace, other bands of the era are well represented; stuffed and mounted as in the game room of a British burra sahib, under “Favorite Music.” For instance, Sonic Youth gets an appropriately healthy nod. Yo La Tengo, also.

But I’d like you to listen to GBV’s seventh album and opus one, Bee Thousand. It’s really good.

It’s not just the simple songwriting (which is genius) or the achingly warm lo-fi recording (which is lovely), it’s the fact that Bob Pollard and co. have synthesized these elements into something that, like the Shrike, exists in its own space. Do this experiment. Listen to a song you like. Then a Bee Thousand track. Repeat. You’ll find that after the initial adjustment your ear must make to the degraded sound quality, you are swept away.

Songs start then end, suddenly and mysteriously in washes of guitar, and then they start again. The vocals harmonize like a British Invasion band and still retain a sense of American folk familiarity. The lyrics are obtuse (Don’t hide / The snake can see you) but still decipherable (Give me time to light / A sentimental torch tonight). My favorite lyrics come from the summertime-evoking opening track “Hardcore UFOs” :

Sitting out on your porch
Watching Hardcore UFOs
Drawing pictures
Playing solos
'Till ten

WTF, right? But it works! Long before “bedroom recording” became a mainstay of the music journalist’s arsenal, Guided by Voices already had the 4-track and a $90 pawnshop guitar out and were making incredible, familiar, and kind of shitty-sounding rock music.

Please for to listen:

Usher ft. Young Jeezy – Love in This Club

I guess there is some controversy surrounding the credibility of this single’s production, but who cares?

First, If this guy can use Garageband to make a cool beat and charge six figures for it, I still have hope to be the next Timbaland.

Second, I can totally bounce to this.

The Coen Brothers – Burn After Reading

Yes.

It reminds me of this, but funnier.

COMIC

2008-06-02T13:59:00.000-06:00

time can't erase a feeling this strong

DRAWINGS

2008-06-02T13:58:00.000-06:00

The Lopsided Revenge of Clubman

Try Not to be a Weirdo

Scribbletree One

toward the mirror and my make-up

COMIC

2008-05-31T10:23:00.003-06:00

#2 in the continuing PTLS series. I apologize for a slow update week; I got some new ink pens and a bottle of india ink and I'm trying to figure that shit out. It's like playing dress-up with comics.

you kept us awake with wolves' teeth

DRAWINGS

2008-05-31T10:12:00.006-06:00

I Got Some New Pens

P & P

Bathroom

i thought all the good ones were gone

+1

2008-05-31T10:10:00.000-06:00

SATURDAY LINKKNIFE

The Naming of Things - A game designer and English liaison for a Japanese RPG blogs about condensing long Japanese translations of in-game enemies into 8 English characters. I have the same trouble when naming characters in Final Fantasy games. My best 8-space work: Handjob?

I don't mean to post a lot of Sigur Ros nonsense, but....

...they got all nudie and tropical on me.

and introducing...

The Runting Knife Muxtape: Cutting Ears

summer runts mixtape

1. Skunks - Manitoba
2. I Am A Full Grown Man - Phosphorescent
3. Gods of Earth - Totimoshi
4. I Am A Cinematographer - Bonnie 'Prince' Billy
5. The New School - The Tough Alliance
6. Isn't This a Lovely Day? - Ken Baker
7. Uptight - Stevie Wonder
8. Always Be My Baby - Mariah Carey
9. George Washington - Hope of the States
10. Dreamboat - Hum
11. Another Space Song - Failure
12. Milton Road - Mice Parade

Twelve tracks to enjoy the present Colorado-weather-mood-upswing by. Go to the drive-in. Take a bike ride. It's nice out. Email an inquiry for a .zip file of this mixtape. I will entertain trade offers for a full-on physical mixtape + origami case w/ runting knife cover.

COMIC

2008-05-25T10:22:00.001-06:00

aboard the boat, the sweet louisa

+1

2008-05-25T10:21:00.001-06:00

SUNDAY LINKKNIFE

Who Goes There? - Online in its entirety, the 1938 Sci-Fi novella by John W. Campbell that provided the basis for John Carpenter's movie The Thing. Who doesn't love anything to do with Kurt Russell? Oh, wait. I guess there's that.

Budget Hero - Balance the nation's budget in a game. Like in all videogames that offer me a choice, I try to be the biggest bastard I can be. So long, social security. Say hi to the education program in hell.

Pacmanhattan - I really, really, really want to do this.

COMIC

2008-05-23T10:38:00.000-06:00

down with the buildings, worlds on your shoulders

+1

2008-05-23T09:32:00.000-06:00

RUNTING RECIPES

Last night, I kept my head down, stayed away from windows and other sharp objects, and made chili.

The best thing one can do when weathering a deadly storm, I feel, is to cook chili. This is truth from on high, etched into tablets ancient: "And lo, did Moses add chopped onion and it was good, and yea, for it was blowing a great tempest."

So, in this +1, I will share my recipe for

RUNTING KNIFE $15 CRUNCHY VEGETARIAN STORM SHELTER BEER BOTTLE CHILI

You will need these ingredients, weaklings:

1 bag morningstar farms fake-ass ground beef

1 medium white onion

1 bell pepper (color depends on your sense of aesthetic)

1 packet McWilliams Chili Spicemix (or, if you can find some Melange, all the better. Long live the fighters.)

1 bottle beer

1 can tomatoes, diced

1 can whole kernel corn

1 can sliced (or baby) carrots

1 can red beans

1 can kidney beans

1 can pinto beans

The $15 part of the recipe title is important, because, if you are poor like me, you can taste value. Only buy ingredients that are on sale and generically branded (Kroger brand, in my case).

It's vegetarian because I don't eat on flesh, but you can easily use the real stuff instead of the facsimile dress rehearsal beef that I do. It should be noted that the fake beef is better for you, and tastes pretty okay.

The beer can be your choice. If I am feeling ritzy (and I have some around) I will use IPA. If I am feeling malty, a porter. Or, like last night, if I am feeling too hungry to care, Busch Light.

To cook this up, essentially all you do is fry your (fake) beef a little in a skillet, then mix everything in a big pot over medium heat for about 20 minutes, adding salt and other spices to taste. Stir it alot. It feels like real cooking that way.

But, because I have a deluded sense of self-worth, I like to think the sequence in which I open then pour cans into things matters. I generally do it this way:

Beef in first

Kidney beans and Tomatoes (strain juices first, you get you moisture from your beer)

Spice Packet (I also like to add cinnamon, chili powder, and crushed red pepper at this point)

Beer In. Use about 3/5 a bottle. Drink rest.

Red Beans and Corn

Pinto Beans and Carrot

(Add more spices here)

Chopped Bell pepper

Chopped Onion

Adding the vegetables last affords the "crunchy" to the title of the recipe. If you like a sweeter, rather than spicy chili, skip the extra spices beyond the packet and just go for cinnamon and a dollop of peanut butter. Serve with tortilla chips and optional Cholula, sour cream, and shredded cheese. This should make enough to last two people about three days.

In addition to punishing my GI tract with manfood, I also took in these, which all felt stormy-weather appropriate:

Jose Gonzalez - Broken Arrows

Loscil - Stratus

The Audition

Homer Smith feat. German Nuns - Amen

COMIC

2008-05-21T19:46:00.000-06:00

the fed rallies on my tail

DRAWINGS

2008-05-21T19:40:00.000-06:00

Mutants

No Seeds Today

I Work In Coffee

the last spoken word, the genus absurd

COMIC

2008-05-20T07:44:00.000-06:00

This will be funnier if you go here.

the trees are brown and we all sleep

+1

2008-05-20T07:43:00.000-06:00

I have always carried a certain torch for things fantastical, so today's comic should come as no surprise. I attribute my fancy almost in whole to my mom's abrupt switch from romance to fantasy novels in my youthful years as her daily printed sustenance. If things had not changed, I probably would have nicer pecs, longer and shinier hair, and would have by now gently caressed a great number of heaving bosoms and quivering womanhoods.

That being said, if any readers want to throw back a few Elixirs of Fire Breath, I have a complete HeroQuest set (essentially D&D Lite) which is, like a dormant Necronomicon, anxious to again start its dark work. I am completely serious on this offer.

Moreover, I am a motherfucker of a DM.

Bon Iver - Skinny Love live on Jools Holland

Burning Star Core at South by Southwest

The Minibosses - Kid Icarus and Ikari Warriors in Somebody's Back Yard. (Radical.)

COMIC

2008-05-15T08:28:00.000-06:00

don't look back on the birthing

DRAWINGS

2008-05-15T07:24:00.000-06:00

A Black Man

Your Girlfriend in the Grass

Hello, Radio

division is not a secret

+1

2008-05-15T07:20:00.000-06:00

Thursday Linkknife

Understanding Games - Two weeble-shaped pixel men explain the theory of video games. Watch / play all four. Great chiptune music.

Ghostco - The online portfolio of Matthew Woodson.

Heima the song from Heima the movie.

HCWDB - Barrels of laughs.

COMIC

2008-05-14T12:15:00.001-06:00

politickal humouar.
i like a fair fight.
poor 'publicans.
poor quality drawing of peter cushing.

show you my soft skin

+1

2008-05-14T12:12:00.000-06:00

Ale Enlightenment

I like beer.

I didn't used to.

But now I consider myself somewhat of an epicure. I feel that I am a rare find, and this is peculiar. I live in a town with 5 craft breweries, and people still go non compos mentis for the soymilk tastelessness and banquet beer alcohol content of skinny dip. It makes no sense. I should be surrounded by teenagers taking secret gulps of strong golden ales from jacket pockets, and filling nalgene bottles with imperial russian stouts, but when I go to house concerts, all I see is pabst and fat tire.

Let the knife help you.

I love this beer:

It's a seasonal, which helps me understand in part the suburban fervor surrounding the aforementioned skinny dip. But that is merely supply-and-demand economics. I digress.

This hoppy little gem marries the bitter singularity of an IPA but with a sweet malt finish and an imperial thickness that is at once so curious and delicious, your tongue dons an off-pink blouse and a cardigan, gone to solve the taste mystery like Angela Lansbury in Murder, She Wrote.

What all this means is that I get bummed out when it's not in season.

Currently, I am bummed (in the california, not british sense).

Until I found out about Lagunitas Brewing's seasonal Lucky 13 Mondo Red. I discovered it on the shelf next to my perennial favorite beer impulse buy, Lagunitas' Maximus IPA ($3.99 a bomber), which also comes Runting Knife Recommended. It's exactly the same as Extra Special Red! Okay, Odell's is a bit better, but I can't be a chooser, especially when the 22oz bomber goes for $3.99. And at an abv in the neighborhood of 8.3%, you'll only need one to start to not feel your teeth, and your friends' experimental british-invasion downtempo noise band will become that much more listenable.

DRAWINGS

2008-05-12T13:09:00.001-06:00

Lack of comics due to comic coffer re-stocking. They are up as soon as I scan. In the meantime, here are some drawings I drew. I think "drawings I drew" will become a semi-regular feature (read: distraction when comics are scarce).

Julia Roberts Was In "Charlie Wilson's War"

Ballet Class With Big Ups To Paul

My Roof And Plane

COMIC

2008-05-04T12:26:00.001-06:00

+1

2008-05-04T12:08:00.000-06:00

Justice is essentially an electro ode to the compressor. And I couldn't be more down. Thanks for taking the power back from Madonna and Vertical Horizon, boys.

Also,

Play some arty-256-pixel-window-throwback-indie-videogames.
I suggest passage and bloody zombies.

COMIC

2008-05-03T15:24:00.001-06:00

COMIC

2008-05-03T13:47:00.002-06:00

+1

2008-05-03T13:47:00.001-06:00

here is a blog.

it will have comics, +1.

here is the first +1.

I made it out to the Finest's sidewalk sale last week ago. It was my first in a while.

I did not ruminate on the future of music in its commercial medium.

I did come away with six cds for three dollars. I decided that I like to keep

a Noirian attitude regarding these things.

They are as follows:

This was my prize find. Though it is no Year of the Rabbit or Secrets of the Lost Satellite musically, in terms of rarity, this shit is the Ken Andrews Holy Grail. I actually found two of these, still in wrappers.

Also still in wrapper. I can't remember the last time I had to solve one of these devious plastic Lemarchand's Boxes, but the 8 minutes of rubbing my index finger at the corners of the jewel case was worth it. I was off my rocker with 1994 industrial.

Do you remember Scapegoat Wax? They had a semi-hit in the early 2000's called "Allison" back when there were all kinds of Beck / Soul Coughing-esque bands and MTV had an infinite budget for new shows? Yeah. These girls remember, too. Worth all 50 of the cents it cost.

I got a Kid 'N Play cd.

I got a "this is fort apache" sampler with buffalo tom and radiohead on it (?).

I also got a cd by the very Juno (the band, scooter, not Sassytalk Morningsickness) sounding post rock band "Sons of Atom," whom I had never heard of.