Live waiting room thoughts.

So as the title would imply I’m in a waiting room currently. Elle is having a tooth pulled and I am catching up on some comics.

However I can’t help but be a nosey bitch and listen in on all the conversations around me.

One kid cost his mom 1300 bucks and she just smiled and paid the bill. Assuming they have insurance what kind of dental work costs that much? Braces? Bridge work? Or was I just looking at the new face of the Joker?

A larger woman comes in and speaks in a loud enough voice that even I get embarrassed. She is going on about how she doesn’t believe in insurance and has some kind of “care credit” which I don’t understand. But I am way too lazy to look that up.

There is an older Spanish couple who have been burning through every magazine in this office. The man just flips like 10 pages and makes a comment and then flips so more. Its fascinating.

We are listening to uplifting music the whole time. Evidently Jesus is the easiest name to write a song about in history. I was unaware.

This office is kept at a brisk 65 degrees at all times. Normally I’m happy with something like that, however I wore shorts and have been here for about 90 minutes. I’m pretty sure my legs have frostbite.

I just finished all 5 issues of the new “Huntress” mini from DC comics. Issue 6 is about to be purchased. This is a pretty fun story if you have any time to add to a readin list I’d check it out. Far too few “girl power” books left out there.

And now my fingers hurt from smacking my screen for 10 minutes.

Regroup and Run.

 The Building, Home of the Alliance, is a buzz as lesser known members of the Super-Team are flooding in from all entry ways. On the top floor The Myth and The Legend sit. The blood stains from The Man’s head are still very visible but his body has been removed.

“I wish to know something Lance,” The Legend broke the silence, “Why was Tulane convicted?”

The Myth remained stoic, “He murdered two men and was found guilty, just like anyone else we have ever put in Rinker’s Gate.”

“Is it murder when a Police officer puts down a raving lunatic?”

“We are not the Police Katie.” The Myth reviews The Man’s blood splatter, “We are above the law on a number of levels, so we must adhere to the letter of the law far more than regular Police and Law Enforcement.”

“I see,” The Legend clears her throat, “So what Tulane said in his statement, was all true?”

The Myth shoots out of his chair tossing it back, “I’m not going to give that psychopath any credit or listen to a damn word he says!” He points to the blood on the walls, “Perhaps you’re interested in the sob story of a mad man, but I’m trying to think of a way to track him down and Avenge Marshall!” He walks around the table and gets face to face with The Legend, “Or were you too busy wondering about things that don’t matter to remember that our best asset just had his head removed from his shoulders?”

The Legend raises her eyebrows, “Best asset, Lance?”

The Myth pulls back into a more stoic stance again.

The Legend nods and stands up, “Well why you try and pull yourself together, I am going to address the other members of the Alliance.”

The Myth says nothing as The Legend leaves the room.

Ground floor of The Building, many multicolor costumed heroes stand around talking to one another. Much of the discussion is of shock, there are a number who seem honestly scared. In the middle of the commotion a hero wearing a Jester’s hat and mask combo, points to a podium. The Legend walks out and the room falls silent.

“My fellow members of The Alliance, it is my sad duty to report that The Man was, in fact, killed by a single gunshot to the head 35 minutes ago.” The room starts to fill with screams and shock and The Legend holds up her hand, “Fear not my…”

“FEAR NOT?!” The Jester capped hero shouts, “The Man was supposed to be invulnerable! I’m just a guy who can shoot lasers from my hands and fly a little! FUCK THIS!” The Jester cap hero jumps into the air and flies out of the building as fast as he can.

“Oh no.” The Legend sighs, as a mass exudes begins. The sound of all the members leaving at once creates a low level Earthquake in the streets of Chicago.

The Jester cap wearing hero finally lands on a rooftop. He takes off his mask and turns to look behind him. As he looks out into the nights sky he can see a great number of vibrant colors fleeing the Chicago area. His face is still covered by the darkness of the rooftop and the nights sky. He drops the mask and peels off his costume. As the items he was wearing hit the ground a small jetpack inside his cape is revealed. He walks inside the door on the roof and flicks a switch. There stands Harold X. Tulane, with a large smile on his face.

10pm.

“Chi Evvvry Body.” “Hi, Dr. Nick.”

It’s Thor’s Day so that must mean it’s time!

 

So working 2 jobs does tend to take a little bit of the steam out of one’s sails. Thankfully I have enough work “in the can” that I can send out a punch of stuff over the next few weeks without much trouble.

 

This week’s update will be the next chapter of SAVIOR. As the world of Harold X. Tulane starts to get bloodier and perhaps even a little more eye opening. The creative team is still working on the next page of MODERN HERO but I can assure you once we get the art situation worked out we will have about 3 or 4 weeks of constant updates. Which mean’s the story is going to really start to unveil itself and you guys can tell me what you think about it.

 

In the world of Leather Craft, I have purchased a new barrel for my swivel blade (pics forthcoming) and it has already improved my figure carving by at least 20%. There will be an update soon showing how to make Leather Roses (or at least how I do it). Just too late for this valentine’s day but maybe V-Day 2013 will feature some fine leather works.

 

That’s all for now, and be sure to check back around noon for the latest from SAVIOR.

 

Ric Susman

1945 was a very good year.

It’s my Father’s birthday. He turned 67 today, how is he going to spend this day? Most likely the only way my Dad knows how to live at all. He is going to get some work down, make more than I make in a week in a few hours, then go out and get some kind of awesome dinner.

I have only been close with my father since my Bar Mitzvah. For the first 12 years of my life I was a true Momma’s Boy. I spend every waking moment I could with my Mom. Any why not? She was awesome! She would buy me anything I wanted as long as it was within reason. A new toy, video game, whatever. Even cooler if I ever screwed up in school my Mom would be the calmer easier person to talk to about it. My Dad? He was a 6 foot tall fire breathing dragon.

But then one day something in my head changed. I didnt want to spend every waking moment with my Mom anymore. It certainly wasn’t her fault, she loved me just as much as ever and was still willing to talk to me about anything and help me however she could, but for some reason I just wanted to hang out with my Dad.

My Padre and I would talk sports all day long. Or we would go to baseball card shows and look for cards to finish our never-ending collection of former West Palm Beach Expos baseball players. Around this very same time we took our “Fossil Hunting Trip” out to Colorado, South Dakota, Idaho, Utah, and if memory serves a part of Montana. We spent a couple of weeks just driving from one fossil site to another. We even unearthed a number of fossils on our own at some special sites. As I get older my exact memories from that time start to fade, but I know it was really want cemented our relationship as Father and Son, and as friends.

Pop is always there for me when I am looking for some random advice and has even brought me into his business to a certain degree. To be honest I am just not as awesome as a journalist as he is, or my Mother for that matter (who was just honored in St. Augustine for her superlative journalistic work). Still he is there whenever I need help and I know that had my Dad not been such a big part of my life I would certainly have been poorer for it.

Happy Birthday Dad, I hope you like your Blog-day Gift.

With all the love in the world,

Your Son.

Get your CARVE on.

One of the simplest things you can do in Leatherwork is learning how to “carve and stamp.” If you have ever seen a piece of leather artwork that has some kind of design on it and it wasn’t branded it was made from stamping and carving the leather. My mask, my bracelets all had some kind of carving or stamping work done to them.

If you ever wanted to learn how to do that and you were shopping at the store I would suggest you take the “Basic Carving Class” that we have on the first Saturday of the month. Recently I had some free time during my lunch break and decided to do my first “basic carve” in about 2 years.

You see I used to work on leather all the time, but after spending about 2 years as an indentured servant for a company that I’m not going to name…ever. I was unable to really practice my art, so I was a bit rusty. Before I started in on making new things I needed to kick off the rust and get back to, well, basics.

You start with a small piece of leather, usually you want 4/5 once “vegtan” leather. This is a thinner “vegtan” leather but it will still allow you to stamp and carve on it. It’s important to remember that only unfinished vegtanned leathers will take carving and stamping. If you try to stamp on upulstry leather you will either waste your time or ruin your leather.

Once you have your leather picked out, you will need a design to work on. Now some master leather workers do not need a pattern they can just carve what the see in their head. As much as I would love to gloat, I am not anywhere that level. So I traced out my design, which is a basic western floral pattern. You can use tracing film and a pen for this step. Not a whole lot to explain, find a design, trace it.

Now that you have a design it’s time for you to wet down the leather, this will make it a lot easier to carve and stamp. You don’t need to soak it, just make it wet enough that if you place it against your carotid artery and see if its cool. If the answer is YES you can now start your work.

At this point I have already placed the tracing film on my leather and using a stylus I put the design on the wet leather. Even without carving the leather you can see that the design stands out pretty well, that’s just how it works, wet leather loves taking designs. Sometimes it’s a bit too easy and you end up accidentally adding your watch band or fingernails to your leather. So be careful when you use wet leather or you may end up with a nice reverse image of your watchband.

The finished product. I used the following tools to create this image. Swivel blade, to carve the leather. Camouflager, which adds that neat clam shell look to the side of the flower. Vainer, this gives the image it’s “teeth” and you can see it well around the inside of the bottom half of the flower. Pear Shader, it’s a small tool that looks like a pear and creates a lot of awesome smooth depth in your image, best example being found on the “leaves.” The Beveler, is a tool of the devil and is easily my most hated and feared enemy, you use it when you want to add a nice 3 dimensional look to your work. Just about everything you ever do will require beveling and it’s a tough tool to master, best example is the perimeter of the piece. I used a “seeder” for the seedpod of the flower, and a “mule’s foot” to make the nice “V” mark in the center of the flower. Finally a “backgrounder” was used to make the matted look of the middle of the bottom of the flower.

I chose not to color this piece as I wanted to show the natural color of the leather. In a few weeks Ill take another photo of it to show you all how it aged.

Ric Susman

Reasons for Madmen.

“Greetings my fellow Earthlings, if you don’t know yet, my name is Harold X. Tulane, formally of the Alliance, formally known as your “Savior.” Harold takes a breath, “And I just killed The Man.” Harold pauses as the camera pans back and shows Tulane standing in a dark room next to a rather large sniper rifle. He addresses the weapon for the camera, “This is a 300 caliber sniper rifle that I have laced with a chemical that I created which shielded the bullet from The Man’s heightened senses.”

“I know the first question” Tulane speaks as he sits down in front of his desk and stares into the camera, “will actually not be “Why,” but rather “How?” Tulane nods in approval, “The explanation is going to take a few minutes and I have, limited time. However in reality, it’s simple, my ability was to be the greatest defensive mind that has ever lived. I just used my gift to reverse engineer a way to kill anything on this planet.” Tulane laughs, “after all the best defense is a great offense.”

“You see 5 years ago I started doing the one thing the members of the Alliance swore they would never do. I started killing those who would murder for their own gain.” Tulane reaches into his desk and pulls out a hand buzzer and a monocle. “It is a known fact that I killed The Card and The Fowl, and these are the trinkets I kept for myself. Because I wanted to remember I did the one thing that mattered in the world.” Tulane checks his watch and nods at it, “Those two men, and I use the term loosely, were responsible for the deaths of hundreds over the course of their crime careers. No amount of rehabilitation was going to end their cruelty and evil. So one day I sat down at a desk similar to this one and used my power to figure out the best way to stop either of them from harming me.” Tulane grins from ear to ear, “What my beautiful mind came up with, was a fool proof way to execute first The Card and then The Fowl. So I did just that.”

Tulane reaches into his desk again and tosses part of an orange jumpsuit with a number and a group of letters on the back of it. “What did I get for my troubles? A quick and unfair trial and then tossed into a cell in Rinker’s Gate Prison.” Tulane’s face loses all emotion, “My own friends and brothers-in-arms left me to rot in a jail full of the murders, rapists, and awful beings of unimaginable power.” Tulane looks down, “Make no mistake, when my identity become known within the jail, I was beaten and raped on several occasions.”

Tulane check’s his watch, “The Man has been dead for just about 15 minutes now. If you don’t believe me why hasn’t he appeared to stop this message? He was able to hear your heart beating from space.” Tulane folds his hands, “So while the other members of the Alliance are scrambling to come up with some kind of bullshit spin, I’ve commandeered the world’s information database to tell you this one thing.” Tulane check’s his watch again, “In roughly 11 hours The Alliance will be ash and you people of the world will know the truth.” His signal cuts off.

9pm

Some small changes…

 

Hello everyone. Welcome to what I hope will be the new constant, “THURSDAY” updates. My new work schedule has me off just about every Thursday, baring unforeseen circumstances. I have always said that I would update weekly and since we launched in December it has been more than just once a week. So if anyone was disappointed to not see an update for the last 6 days, sorry for the confusion.

Speaking of confusion. This page, like any work of ART, is a work in progress so expect some tweaking from time to time. First and foremost I have streamlined the categories pages. Now when you click “Modern Hero” or “Leather works” you will only see posts that pertain to those things alone. This should make reading the WebComic and ProseComic a lot easier for new members of my little world here.

One of my readers also posts on the www.mistersaintlaurent.com message board and mentioned that he was having trouble figuring what the point of my blog is. Allow me to explain. This blog is a multiple use page for me. It allows me to express my opinions on politics or life in general. It also allows me a forum to post my stories and my leather work. The only reason I am the main character in “Modern Hero” is because finding actors to work for free for a WebComic that will only be read by 10′s of people, is pretty tough. So hopefully that clears things up for you. Basically anything written under the banner of “Thoughts,” “The Work Out Plan,” “Leather Works,” or “Dress Up” is all things I do in real life. “Modern Hero” and “Savior” our my creations that I am releasing to the world.

I hope this clears up any issues my friends have noticed so far as we are still very much in our infancy here at the ARTRS. For today 2/9/12 there will be 2 updates later on today. The next page of SAVIOR will be up and a new write up on my first day back to working at the leather store will be up towards the mid-afternoon.

Ric Susman

The Mayor of Orlando.

 

While about my business today with my partner Elle, we found ourselves at a local CVS. As the guy rang us up, he noticed the shirt I was wearing was for BIG ED’ B-B-Q in New Jersey. It was a shirt that was given to me by my cousins who still live in “The Old Country” a few years back.

We strike up a conversation and after a few minutes we wish each other a good day and I head out the door with Elle in tow. She then looks up at me and says, “Why don’t you just run for Mayor?” I look at her puzzled a little bit and ask her what she means.

“Everywhere we go you either already know someone who works there or end up striking up a conversation with someone. It’s like the whole city already knows you or wants to know you. So why don’t you make us some damn money and run for Mayor. Maybe you can get a fur coat for letting a company dump pollutants in the lakes.”

I was a little taken aback but I can understand where she was coming from. Ive been in retail management for like 6 of the 10 years Ive been out of college. First I ran a Hollywood Video, then I co-ran a HotTopic, then The Law Firm days happened (I made A LOT of friends at the Law Firm) and that lead me to the Leather Shop, The Other Movie Store, and The Comic-bookery. So plenty of people have seen me in some aspect or another for a long time.

However I do have to admit that something else has haunted me for a long time. No one believes me when I say this but I swear and anything you consider worth swearing on, at least once a week someone tells me they recognize me. A couple of weeks back when arranging books at the Comic-bookery an middle aged woman asked me if my name of Arthur, because I was the spitting image of her son’s math teacher. This literally happens to me all the time. My good friend chArles (no website currently but you can look him up on my Facebook) once said that G-d just ran out of extras and so faces tend to repeat themselves.

I can believe that, that maybe I just have a very common face. After all I’m dark hair, dark eyes, could stand to drop some weight, am roughly 6ft tall, etc. etc. its like I’m right out of “central casting.” So maybe I should run for Mayor, or maybe start with the head of the PTA…even though I’m not a teacher and don’t have any kids. It’s a start to a political career though. “Greatness from small beginnings” and all that.

Ric Susman

Savior – Things can get messy…

8pm.

The Building, home to the Alliance. The world’s Champions. On the top floor The Man, The Myth, and The Legend are sitting around a long table reviewing the footage of Harold X. Tulane, or as they knew him “Savior.”

The Myth, clad all in all black save for a large white skull on his chest, speaks from his behind blackened mask. “I was to believe Tulane was still under lock and key at Rinker’s Gate.”

The Legend, sits across the table from The Myth. She is wearing a gold and blue corset with matching crown and forearm bracers. “I too was not aware of the end of his incarceration.” She looks towards The Man, who is leaning back in his chair, his large red M pressed against a silver background looks to be shining in the dim light of the penthouse. “Marshall, Tulane was in your city of operations, how did this happen?”

The Man stands up and walks towards the now paused image of Tulane’s face on the screen in front of the table. “He simply went under the radar. His crimes, though brutal, did not merit a constant reminder of who he actually was.”

“Meaning you forgot about him because he killed someone who was giving you a hard time.” The Myth said coldly.

The Man’s demeanor changed in a heart beat. “You have no room to make such accusations Lance! He killed The Card after all, your supposed nemeses, and The Fowl.” The Man’s eyes glowed green for a moment, “Just because it happened in Chicago and not The Bronx doesn’t make that any less your fault.”

The Myth stood up and slammed his fists onto the desk, “They were only in YOUR city because I chased them out of mine, and I don’t even have your AMAZING powers,” he pointed to his head, “Just a brain that I was actually born with.”

“Gentlemen enough!” The Legend stood in between the two men, “Why is this “Tulane” causing such a riff?” She kept both men at bay, “What is it you two know that you haven’t told me, or anyone else in the Alliance?” As the two men started to calm down she paused for a moment, “Does the Purple Bow know something I don’t?”

The three paused together and started laughing, “That guy doesn’t know how to tie his shoes.” The Man said to lighten the mood. He sighs, “Ok the reason why Tulane could be such a threat is that “Savior” was a brilliant tactician.”

The Myth interrupts, “His,” he waves his hands, “Power, is essentially that he can’t be struck by anything, he simple is the ultimate defensive strategist.”

“So how did he manage to kill two of your greatest foes?” Legend said as she drops her arms to her sides.

The Myth looks down, “That’s why we put him in Rinker’s Gate,” he mumbles.

The Man rolls his eyes, “We don’t know Katie, we just don’t know how he was-

BLAM!

The Man’s head explodes in an instant as blood and brains and an eyeball bounces off the back wall of The Building. The Myth springs into action but The Man is dead before his body even hits the ground, The Legend looks to the other end of the hall and see’s a very small hole in the wall that shows light from the other side. Before The Legend has time to investigate further, all of the TV’s, cell phones, and computers turn on with Harold X. Tunlane’s face looking rather smug.

Modern Hero Panel 3