This Is The End....Of The Year Re-Cap!

I(so)HOPPY!

I always yell at the TV when I sit down to watch a new episode of one of my favorite shows and after 30 seconds I realize that all Uncle Jesse is doing is introducing numerous things from the "good ol' days", which then hazily wiggles into clips from episodes that I had already seen. Highlight episodes are the worst for the viewer, but the best for the people creating them, because all of those little happy highlights justify all of the sacrifices and stomach aches that went into that whole year of creativity.

I had an amazing year, plain and simple. A lot of that can be accredited to my girlfriend, the Zerofriends guys, my art-comrades, cartoons, and Cabin in the Woods.

But just like Full House, it's the end of the year, so it's time for a recap episode featuring some of my favorite things that happened this year. Starting....

...now:

This year was full of "firsts" for me, and a few for Chloe. Sharing "firsts" is one of my new favorite things.

Chloe taught me how to make my first felt craft on Valentine's Day, and I chose to make something kinda healthy. I mean, at least it was full of calcium.

2012 was the first year someone I didn't know had dressed up as one of my paintings for Halloween.

Chloe's first time seeing the Redwoods in person made me extremely giddy. She dressed appropriately as usual.

I went to Disneyworld in Florida for the first time in my life alongside Chloe, who was hired as a photographer for Disney's "LOOKING GLASS" photo project.  It's awesome that she was a part of that. You can see some of the photos she took HERE.

Chloe and I also started playing The Scribble Game, where one of us made a small scribble and then the other would have 5 minutes to make a full drawing and story out of it. We played this about 72 times this year and it was fucking hilarious.

I watched my first sunset on a beach.

Additionally (not on the beach), I went ice skating for the first time, i drove my first golf cart, I tried my first bowl of borscht, Chloe got her first root canal, we had our first delicious WOLVESMOUTH experience, I was involved in my first epic snowball fight on a mountain, and....

we found our first 727 Airplane in the FOREST!
And I got to see Dave Correia's first solo art show up in Portland at Upper Playground.

Let's see, what other memories can I conjure up with my html-coded-crystal ball...

Over the summer I got the opportunity of a lifetime when I was asked to curate the entire Halloween issue of Juxtapoz magazine, giving me the chance to interview and include some of my all time favorite artists....ever.

Earlier this year Skinner and I re-formed "The Butcher Kings" and took our nuances up to Portland and Upper Playground.

I also officially began working on a documentary called "Digging Up The Marrow" with one of my great friends, director ADAM GREEN.

Chloe and I went on numerous spontaneous road trips for no reasons other than VOODOO donuts and photos.

I realized this year how much I love going on daily Target dates with Chloe, even if its only to buy hummus and go for a quick ride around the sweatpants section. (In n Out dates are a close second)

I made old characters meet for the first time with new art!

I turned a ridiculous art show at Cotton Candy Machine into an even more ridiculous game show with the help of some makeup, a co-host, and a glittery microphone.

Here's a brand new video of the show in case you missed it.

And while I'm on the subject of transformation, Chloe and I turned a ridiculous apple fritter into an even more ridiculous vaudeville showman!

We spent my birthday spending more money in photobooths than the cost of a real camera.
And in addition to imitating Abe Lincoln and getting shot in a box with Chloe for my birthday, getting a one-of-a-kind hand made Heartfelt toy from her  made me plush. I mean blush. 

I learned not to be totally afraid of large crowds this year. That was fun.

Monster-maker Pat Gierhart produced an amazing Halloween mask based off of my "Aroma" painting (which you can still purchase! Here's more information)

I painted with old friends, and even older tools.

I got to force my shiny dome upon gazers of the television thanks to "ATTACK OF THE SHOW", which you can watch my segment here.

On top of this, I got to be on Chris Hardwick's THE NERDIST BBC show, and I got a great write up from my favorite human Aesop Rock over on MAGNET MAGAZINE's site.

I got to create some art for Weird Al (thanks to Gallery 1988), and then later be included in HIS NEW BOOK.

I got to hold hands in a checklist of a billion places... 

...but some of my favorite places to do so were at conventions.

Then there was that moment that Chloe and I realized our initials spell C.R.A.P., so we made "crappy" shirts.

I got to be a part of a huge Kickstarter campaign alongside Jon Schnepp and Titmouse Animation as one of the artists on the upcoming "Grimm Fairy Tales" animated series (coming soon!) Scribbling characters, monsters and backgrounds and key frames and then actually seeing them move their little legs made me just want to make more cartoons forever.

I got to venture up to the foresty weird gurpy town of Auburn and watch Chloe sing along to every SQUEEZE song as she watched them perform for the first time ever, despite being her favorite band for 20 years. (and then she got to shoot portraits of them and watching her excitedly freak out about that was one of my favorite moments.)

I finally discovered Breaking Bad this year, and we watched every episode from seasons 1-5 back to back and shortly after had to talk each other out of buying a Winnebago and taking chemistry courses.

...
Though I'd still like to do it even more, I got to spend a little more time with my family this year

As well as taking some family portraits of ourselves.

Whistleman showed up EVERYWHERE around me for a few weeks...

...even in the forest.
...

I got to see the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre in 35 mm at one of my new favorite theaters, the Nitehawk in Brooklyn, NY.

And speaking of movies, I had some favorites this year, which, if mashed together would have looked like this:

My favorites this year were Cabin In The Woods, The Hobbit, and Django Unchained, with Indie Game: The Movie, American Scream and Prometheus right up there with the rest of them, even though I'm still trying to figure out the beginning of Prometheus.

But watching this "Cabin In The Woods" elevator scene for the first time was not only one of the coolest scenes of the year, but of the last decade:

The biggest good surprises for me were The Avengers, The Loved Ones, The Watch (which has an unadvertised monster in it!), Grabbers, 21 Jump Street, The Dictator and Chronicle.
The biggest disappointments for me were The Dark Knight Rises (which actually had Batman in it for like 8 minutes and a terrible villain), The Master (which wasn't bad for a 3 hour movie it was just like...yah, I get it bro, the acting is good, cool.) The Sound Of My Voice and most of all, [REC]3.
And DETENTION gets my vote for "Good try, you annoying weirdo."
But time-traveling-bear/symbiotic-television/emoticon movies aside, the movie that annoyed me more than anything in the entire world that I saw this year? "Don't Go In the Woods", some kind of boring non-genre-indie-rock musical horror movie about kids or something that I can only say this about: I've stared into toilets at pieces of shit for lengths of time and gotten more enjoyment than watching THIS piece of shit.

As far as what I'm excited about for 2013, major-movie-wise? 
Evil Dead, Man of Steel, Elysium, The Hobbit 2, The World's End, Pacific Rim, OZ and Anchorman mostly, but the one I am most excited for reasons that I will mention later, is this new apocalypse-hits-hollywood movie from Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, "This Is The End".



As a bonus, my favorite song from any soundtrack this year is Jeremy Schmidt's bizarre theme to "Beyond The Black Rainbow" which you can listen to HERE

And CAGE actually made my favorite soundtrack song from last year even better this year when he added some madness to that fucking Serbian Film song, which you can listen to HERE

But the best album to come out this year by far is AESOP ROCK's SKELETHON.

I also discovered a comic this year called "The Boys", by Garth Ennis and Darrick Robertson...

which is one of my new favorite series. In it, superheroes are real but most of them are corrupt as hell because of their celebrity status. It's full of violence, degrading sex and a main character that looks coincidentally exactly like my favorite nerd, and author of "Nerd Do Well", Simon Pegg.

And speaking of Simon Pegg, a few months ago he mentioned me on his Twitter account and it made my week.

My other favorite book of the year is Scott C's "The Great Showdowns" which is better than any other pop-culture based product out right now (though OLLY MOSS's "Silhouettes" is pretty amazing)

...

This photobombing stingray photo made Chloe and I laugh so much for a week....

So it only seemed natural for Chloe to sew together some stingray costumes in time for Halloween and the New York Comic Con so that we could do some photobombing of our own.

And speaking of New York, Chloe was out in New York during Hurricane Sandy and it was amazing seeing her use her creativity to keep smiling during all of the madness and tragedy.

This past summer I teamed up with 99centbrains and we released a brand new, FREE, art based, creative iPhone app this year called "WayCooler" where you can use elements from my art to spice up your photos and make yourself "WayCooler". And additionally, you can also use the art elements to create full paintings and graphics to share online. You can get the app HERE on the iTunes store for FREE. And here's a silly/amazing commercial made by Stephen Reedy to help get the point across for ya:

Chloe and I went on more than a "cup"ple of dates this year, all of which were awesome adventures.

We went to an Enchanted Forest (which has one of my favorite haunted houses ever)

We snuck into Ellen's parking spot.

We played dress-up a lot.

We met a lot of mirrors.

We brought along some magical friends.

And Chloe indeed has some jump-for-joy-worthy friends that I got to meet this year

 

And we had our first "Black and White" date.

But my favorite date of the year was when we ran around New York for Chloe's birthday and spontaneously threw rogue public birthday parties for her around the city.

Like at Grand Central Station, mutiple parks, a meatball shop, a cupcake diner...

And even on the subway.

I also got to paint 2 of the biggest murals I have ever painted this year:

A giant 150 foot human centipede that I painted in San Antonio with L'amour Supreme and Skinner (you can see a high rez of the finished piece HERE)...

And two beans fuckin!

This year I spent a lot more time focusing on ZEROFRIENDS, which just meant that I spent a lot more time working nonstop on a company that I own with my best friends. It's awesome.

And I also got to hitchhike with them too!

In closing, as we are getting to the end of the episode, this year I found myself being the least sarcastic, stressed and cynical that I have ever been, because this year, I was genuinely joyful the entire year. It was fucking awesome. And still, out of all of these awesome moments, the one that was my favorite moment of the year, was the moment that Chloe moved in with me in California...

Because it led to our first Xmas together (with our first X(box)Mas Tree)

I'm glad we didn't explode when the Mayan calendar stopped this year. I had a great year. Happy New Year 2013. See you soonsies, you tiny raccoonsies!!