If our beautiful relationship is to stay intact, there are a few things I think you should know about this weekend…
First…
I'm not sure if God vomited a specific pattern of golden bile atop the clouds along the path in the sky through northern California and Oregon, but hopefully He did, and hopefully those clouds are illuminating GOLD so I can follow those sons of bitches up to the Emerald City to hang with the Wizard and look at some comic books. It's been a while since I have had the pleasure of going to a comic convention and saying hi to this guy:
But that's exactly what I'm doing…kind of:)
This upcoming Saturday, I am taking a quick and whimsy plane ride up to Seattle to get some coffee, try to read some poetry with Kurt Cobain's ghost, and visit the EMERALD CITY COMIC CON.
I will be appearing/signing/meeting you beautiful souls on Saturday, March 13, from 1-3 at the Zerofriends Booth (#909) at the convention. I won't be there Sunday, as I have to get back to California and tend my beet farm with Dwight Schrute who is in town this weekend, but Zerofriends will have a booth there with all of our regular fun stuff. And since we always like to have at least one new release at each show, and since I don't have the power to "release the Krakken" like I want to, we are going to be releasing a new limited print of my recent painting, "The Zookeper's Secret".
Here is the info on the con, my magical appearance, and the print release:
What: EMERALD CITY COMICON
Where: Washington State Convention Center, SEATTLE, WA
When: March 13-14
Why: Because comics still rule. Not comics like Dane Cook. Real ones. Like Batman 'n shit.
What part 2: I will be signing at the Zerofriends booth #909 on Saturday, March 13th from 1-3.
What part 3: Zerofriends, on top of having a ton of other products, will be releasing this dandy new limited edition print, "The Zookeeper's Secret":
"The Zookeeper's Secret"
By Alex Pardee
Limited Edition of 100
22" x 17" Printed with archival inks on Velvet Cotton Rag.
Signed & numbered by Alex Pardee
$45.00
A little detail of the duckface:
And here is the story of "The Zookeeper's Secret":
There isn’t a zoo within 100 miles of my house, but somehow, my neighbor, a middle-aged, Warcraft-obsessed hermit named Lyle, insists he’s a zookeeper, yet I’ve never seen him leave his house for longer than an hour. When I confront him about this, he just laughs and tells me a mundane story about how a snake got into the Koala cage, or how a kid pretended to be a monkey and threw his own shit all over the gift shop floor. But his favorite stories always revolve around this secret animal that he, along with the zoo scientists, are studying profusely until they have enough info to reveal it to the world. Some kind of underwater rabbit that can breathe both on land and while submerged. He calls it a Swimbit, but he says that’s just a “code word”. Lately there’s been a problem with the Swimbit. It seems that a sore on its torso has actually grown and morphed into a visible parasite, complete with arms, legs, and “the devil in its eyes”. The parasite is clearly sucking the creatures blood, Lyle told me, mixing it with its own, and spitting the plasma back into the Swimbit’s bloodstream. Lyle said he tried to remove the parasite but failed. The swimbit is dying, but you couldn’t tell from the look on his face. Lyle says it has less than a week to live. But the parasite, on the other hand, might end up destroying the world.
Now, secondly….
Along the same coast (that may or may not break off into the Pacific Ocean within a few years according to THIS GUY), I will have a piece in the Mo'Nique-sized HI-FRUCTOSE MAGAZINE'S 5th ANNIVERSARY ART SHOW! Too many rad artists to name so I suggest you just follow a DIFFERENT golden brick road down to LA and go check this out:
Info: 5th Anniversary of Hi-Fructose Magazine
Saturday, March 13th, At CoproGallery
Bergamot Station
2525 Michigan Ave. T5
Santa Monica, CA
Here is the piece that I did for it. It's a 3 parter, documenting my 3rd favorite (not so famous) mythical beast, the UNIRKEY:
Detail of the main painting:
Concept sketch from the first time I saw a Unirkey:
And finally, the little-known story of the Unirkey (which also comes framed with the other 2 pieces):
"If the X-men were real, my Grandfather's Great-Great Uncle Randy would certainly be a part of the team. Instead of being a cool super mutant though, he's just kind of a...well...mutant. He suffers from a disease that allows him to age, but doesn't allow him to die. At all. He looks kinda like how the guy at the end of Indiana Jones looks when he chooses poorly, except for like, he's alive. And awesome. I don't see Uncle Randy much anymore as he seems to like going to Egypt a lot since he says he fits in there better and gets to play funny pranks on tourists where he lays down in sarcophaguses and then jumps up and scares people. He's hilarious.
One of my favorite stories that Uncle Randy used to recite to me when I was little was about his third favorite mystical creature, the Unirkey. He said that in 1621, the Pilgrims begged the Heavens for a turkey big enough for the 53 of them to feast upon to celebrate their harvest. To their disbelief, a 240 pound wild turkey fell from the sky right onto the serving platter on the middle of the giant dinner table.
"GET IT!" yelled the head pilgrim. But the turkey was too quick. It clawed its way off of the table and soon had a band of hungry pilgrims chasing it into a small patch of forest. Little did anyone know, a once-in-a-lifetime event was happening in the forest at that very moment: A 6-eyed Unicorn who lived behind the rainbows was bathing in a waterfall in plain sight. The unicorn sensed the fear in the giant turkey from the sky, and acted accordingly. The unicorn exploded out of the waterfall, ducked his neck down, swooped up the turkey, flung him onto his own back, and galloped straight through the band of Pilgrims, piercing almost all of them with it's majestic horn. After the Unicorn bolted into the sunset, no one heard from, saw, or mentioned that incident again. Until years later, in the middle of the same patch of forest, on Thanksgiving, behind the waterfall, someone saw something. It was giant. It resembled a turkey...but with six eyes...and a breathtaking horn. And it seemed to be....glowing. When the man approached the magical beast it had vanished. More sightings were reported behind waterfalls all over the world over the years, all occurring on Thanksgiving. Rumor has it that the giant turkey and the unicorn were quite smitten with each other, and that this mystical Unirkey is their love-child. But what does it want? And where will it strike (a pose) next? No one knows, but if I were you, I would pay close attention to any form of flowing water on Thanksgiving, as you might be in for a surprise."
So yah…umm, that was a lot to take in. Sorry. Don't worry, I'll have more tomorrow. For serious. Goodnight.
PS. My puppy just pissed on my couch. Damn. Damn. Damn. Gross.
