The Penguin

Here are some laws of the universe. I post them here, gentle reader, so that you don't have to find them out for yourself: 1. He who tries to be loved by everyone will have the friendship of no one. 2. Rearrange a brick wall with your head, and then you will know how to change another man. 3. Tyrants change the world; Saints change themselves. 4. Here is the truest test of a wife: paddle a canoe with her for twenty miles. 5. There is nothing more hateful than a forced laugh. 6. Any man who claims to know himself is a liar; any man who tries to explain himself is a bore. 7. The grasshopper did only what he wanted, and died of cold; the ant stored up for the winter, and died surrounded by seeds. Now find the happier of the two. 8. There is such a thing as being too decisive. 9. The only way to deal with anxieties is to ignore them to death. 10. Live simply, and you'll live free.

Woo-hoo! Just finished the first rough images for our (mine and Jay's) new dinosaur comic book, currently called Redtooth. Working with dinosaurs as subject matter is a walk down memory lane for me; I used to be absolutely obsessed with the beasts, before adolescence came along and said "grow up". Well, now I'm back at it, and it's nice to know the skills haven't gone away. I'm reluctant to show the comic book roughs here; firstly, they're messy (all my roughs are - half the time I'm the only one who can figure them out). Secondly, I'd like Jay to decide whether or not he wants them posted yet; maybe he wants to keep it under wraps. I dunno. I'll ask him. At any rate, this is less of a "show me" blog and more of a "let's talk about it till our brains explode" blog. And that's exactly what we'll do. We'll talk about dinosaurs. Firstly, let me clear up something that's been a perpetual headache for a lo...

My hands are shaking uncontrollably right now. Spent all last night at Gone Wired Cafe, hashing out the upcoming comic book project with Jay (Dinosaurs!), and then all of this morning finishing up my final project for my Design and Communications class. So no sleep last night. Usually I do pretty well with it - a little loopy, but none the worse for wear (the trick is to say to yourself, "Oh, you just went to bed at 1 am, so that's why you're tuckered out this morning...you did get some sleep." Not especially convincing, but to a sleep-deprived mind it's better than nothing). The problem here is that I have to drive from Howell to Lansing - an hour's drive, on a good morning; ergo, the necessity of a bite of the bitter bean, otherwise I'd spend my morning wrapped lovingly around an unyielding object, like a tree or a concrete median barrier, due to a mid-commute snooze. The problem with one cup of coffee is that it necessitates another to get over the subs...

All lies and jest, still the man hears what he wants to hear And disregards the rest. - The Boxer , Paul Simon I'll just ponder as I wander here for a minute. We as humans - well, perhaps I should keep it local - we as 21st-century Americans seem to love being validated in what we think. What I mean is, we love to hear our own ideas repeated to us, especially by someone with "authority" (read: a PhD), in order that we may again repeat the same idea to someone else who holds the same ideas that we do. This is understandable. It's not easy to give an opposing worldview a fair shake, especially if that worldview is pumped out with a lot of aggressive rhetoric and propaganda. Each side will only choose to report that data which makes itself look good, and its opponent look bad. Thus, if you are on the same side, you'll cheer and clap; if you're on the other side, you'll fume and change the channel - and hopefully find some rhetoric you can cheer for. All this ...

Just a few words about my favorite sculptor - possibly my favorite artist. Gian Lorenzo Bernini, folks. Now I know you've all heard that name before, somewhere in the sleepy haze of boredom that was Art History class; and perhaps in your apathetic leafings through the textbook, at 3 AM on a Monday, while cramming for the final exam, you happened upon something like this: Did you stop to look at it? Did you stop to consider that this could possibly be carved out of solid rock? Did you thrill at the fact that, yes, not only was Daphne morphing into a tree, but that there were individual leaves shooting out of her hands - also solid rock? And that hair...! No. You didn't. You let the pages slip through your unfeeling fingers, and let your head fall into the book with a thud. When you awoke, the page was shiny with drool. Shame on you. But seriously, folks - in the profusion of Renaissance artists (and boring treatises on said artists), Bernini often gets lost in the mix. Or when ...

Be sure to check out my gallery every so often; it's at DeviantArt ( comicbook1287.deviantart.com ). Right now there are only a few pictures up there, but I'll be adding more, and eventually I'll have comic book panels up there, too. So rest assured, even if you get there now and go, "What the hell is this?!" it will get better in time. I even have one print up for sale (" Katana "), so if you want to buy that, go ahead! Also, whenever I'm out at a Con I'll be selling original sketches. Right now a rough sketch goes for $2.00, and an inked sketch goes for $5.00. Jay has the latest sketches with him right now (they're promos for an upcoming project), but as soon as I get them back I'll let y'all know.

Awesome second day at XcapeCON. Sold an inked sketch to Marc Wolfe , so I was pretty stoked. He's a cool guy, pretty down-to-earth; he studied (for a brief period, at least) under Dennis Preston at Lansing Community College, my Humorous Illustration instructor last semester... Actually, hold on. Let's talk about this for a moment. Do you realize that I studied under Denny for sixteen weeks without having the foggiest notion what kind of recognition he's had? Or that I'd never heard of Marc Wolfe before I sold a sketch to him? Come to think of it, though, if you're not much into comics or cartoons (or Lansing, I guess), you probably haven't heard of these guys either. Isn't that strange? Here I've been drawing and generally building toward comic book work for fifteen years (at least), and yet I'm either so isolated or so lazy that I don't know half the people I'm supposed to know. Or am I supposed to know them as, you know, them? All I know i...

Yes, ladies and gentlemen: believe it or not, Rick is a Con Virgin. (By Con I mean, Comics Con - not, "ripping off old, rich ladies"-kind of con). I have been in front of the booths before, perusing the divers and various wares, but never behind the table, showing off my stuff. This is actually rather interesting, because I never did get my own space. I sat next to Jay Jacot - good old Jay - and practically squished myself between the stacks of Comics Obscura mags and displays. Somehow even my one-ton portfolio binder managed to find a space in there, and, egads, people were actually stopping to look at it. I tell you there is no better feeling than corralling perfect strangers and shaming them into looking at your stuff. And guess what? I even sold a drawing! I got a commission for a Robin (as in, Batman and Robin), and I daresay it was a pretty good rendering. As in, you could tell where the arms and legs were. And that he was human. I jest. It was damn good. Bow before m...

Well, here we are. This is the first blog site created specifically by and for Rick Schlaack. Never has the world witnessed such an event. There will be a ticker-tape parade, complete with marching band, armored limo, and enormous balloons. Welcome to RixPix. This is a blog site dedicated to comic books, animation, cartoons, and pretty pictures in general - hence the "pix". A major portion of this site will also be devoted to a rising star, wunderkind, and all-around good guy - namely, me - who is trying to get his start in the heady world of Sequential Art. Hence: "RixPix". Now you may ask: "Rick, what sort of comic books, animation, cartoons, and pretty pictures will you be reviewing?" The answer is: whatever I feel like. Whatever strikes my fancy. Whatever inspires, or infuriates, or exasperates, in that big nebulous universe called "art". Hopefully coherence will emerge out of chaos, or at least a general pattern; but don't be surprised i...