Bitter Moments with Count Chocula
Part VI: Sour Grapes



0 days...Happy Halloween!

Bitter Moments with Count Chocula
Part V: The Pumpkin King

Yesterday was the big costume contest at work, and some friends and I did a Tenacious D skit, featuring Sasquatch and Satan (with yours ghouly as the Lord of Darkness). We may not have been crowned "Pumpkin King," but the judges did create an award just for us: the first-ever "Skit that Went On Too Long" award. I guess we rocked a little too hard, for a little too long. The D would have been proud.

With one day left till Halloween, I'd say it's time to start helping my girlfriend with her costume. Can you guess what it is?

I'll give you a hint: whatever party we go to, folks are guaranteed to end up stoned.

1 day...

Bitter Moments with Count Chocula
Part IV: Brought to You by the Letters F and U

The family-friendly vampire industry is very small. So naturally, relations get a little tense from time to time.

In other news, skies above Pixar were particularly Halloweeny today. The spirits are stirring...

3 days...

Bitter Moments with Count Chocula
Part III: Darth Hater

The spook season is in full-swing now and my Improv group isn't the kind of crowd to pass up a good scare. So we're putting on a Lovecraftian fright-fest for our coworkers. I made this poster for the show, based on an old Tales from the Crypt comic.

We're printing several versions, each with a different tagline:

"Side-splitting fun."
"Bring your own fear."
"No ghouls allowed."
"Keep telling yourself it's just a show."
"We put the error in terror."
and, my personal favorite, "Tales not from the script."

4 days...

Bitter Moments with Count Chocula
Part II: The Twilight Chick

Looks like Kristen Stewart is Team Frankenberry.

In other news, I have another tale from London. I went to the UK last month, just weeks before I knew my pal Emma would be passing through. So I did what any friend would do: I left her a note. In a book. In a giftshop. In Tate Modern Art Museum. I gave Emma a cryptic clue, and to her credit, she found the note! Long-distance fellowship and short-term time capsules FTW.

"I was in the Tate to find this, but couldn't remember any of the clue Austin wrote... So I had a big dopey grin on my face when I accidentally found this in the art of A. I. book I was looking at."

-Emma Coats

For the record, the note told her to stop wasting her time at a modern art museum and go see some Shakespeare.

5 days...

CHADES CHALLENGE XXXVIII:
BITTER CEREAL

I usually procrastinate on the Chades (Character Design) Challenge, but this time the idea is kind of season-specific, so I'm posting a week early. I came up with a few Count Chocula ideas, so I'll be posting one-a-day till Halloween!

Part I: Oh Snap!

While we're on the subject, I should issue a warning: there is a new breed of jack-o-lantern on the loose. A cannibalistic race who preys upon weaker gourdes. This is the most terrifying vegetable since Attack of the Killer Tomatoes or Silence of the Yams! Beware....bewaaaarrrreeee....

6 days...

CHADES CHALLENGE XXXVII:
TUMULTUOUS GARGOYLES

You can only take so much CRAP from a pigeon.

If you have any gargoyle designs, let me know and I'll post them below. If not, you can always join me in two Fridays (November 12th) for

CHADES CHALLENGE XXXVIII: BITTER CEREAL

Zane "Stonecold" Yarbrough

Zane also came up with some great Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde designs from my mini-Chades Challenge last week.

9 days...

Rex Appeal

Thanks to by friend, Mike Sundy, for taking this pic of my zoetrope at the Oakland Airport.

"We clocked the T. rex at 32 mph."
-John Hammond

11 days...

Pencil to Pixel

If you're travelling out of Oakland Airport, make sure to stop by the Pencil to Pixel exhibit, where I've got a zoetrope installation along with Pete Docter, Angus MacLane, Cat Hicks, Don Crum, and Kevin O'hara. The exhibit is in Terminals 1 and 2, and will be up from now till February 11, 2011. Mine's the zoetrope with the dinosaur (not a Pixar character, unfortunately).


The exhibition coincides with the Pixar exhibit at the Oakland Museum. In fact, before you head out of Oakland, make sure to stop by the museum first.

12 days...

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

This guy (or is it these guys?) are the original Incredible Hulk. I'm surprised there isn't a more literal film adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's classic. Personally, I'd love to see someone as lovable as Fred Astaire, Dick Van Dyke, or Jack Lemmon (the basis of these sketches) as the good doctor.

This would be a great film for motion capture, as you could slightly alter the actor's physiognomy to get more monstrous proportions. My Hyde still has a bit of Astaire, Van Dyke, and Lemmon, but also a definite nod to Willem Dafoe and the late, great Marty Feldman. Who would you cast as Jekyll and Hyde?

Addendum 10.22.10
Zane Yarbrough has contributed some fantastically fiendish Jekylls and Hydes:




16 days...

CHADES CHALLENGE XXXVI:
FIERCE BARFLIES


"And another thing--that Twilight chick wouldn't know a REAL vampire if it bit her in the arse!"

You think alcoholics are bad? Wait till you see a nosferatu on a blood-bender. Not a pretty picture. If you have a fierce barfly of your own, let me know and I'll post the belligerent drunkard below.

Zane "Booze Hound" Yarbrough

If you missed out on this week's challenge, you can join us on Friday the 22nd for Chades Challenge XXXVII: TUMULTUOUS GARGOYLES!

23 days...

My Girlfriend is Famous

Well, she has a published blurb on her law firm's website, and I'm pretty proud of her. For all your real estate law needs, go Miller Morton Caillat & Nevis.

24 days...

TALES FROM LONDON
Chapter VI: The Globe

No trip to London is complete without a trip to The Globe Theatre for a bit of Shakespeare. The bard treated my friends and I to a madcap rendition of The Merry Wives of Windsor (little known fact: madcap is one of 3,000 words and phrases coined by ol' Shakes).

TALES FROM LONDON
Chapter V: The Bones

An Allosaur, playing a game of freeze-tag with a nearby Iguanodon skeleton at the London Natural History Museum. Next to Shakespeare at the Globe (which I'll share tomorrow), this was my favorite stop of the trip.

Elevated catwalks gave us an interesting perspective, looking down on the skeletons.

The one thing that bugged me was some of the messed up dino anatomy. The shoulder bones (corocoids, specifically, for you real dino nerds out there) were spaced too far apart in everything from the theropods to ceratopsians.

That's almost forgiveable, though. We're always revising our opinions about dino anatomy. The one really blatant error was displayed at kid's-eye-view on a video screen. An animated walk-cycle portrayed a Diplodocus walking like two blokes in a horse costume. One glance at any modern quadruped would have shown them that the front two appendages are still arms, even if they're walked on, and bend backward, like an elbow, not forward like a knee.

C'mon, England, this sort of sloppy thinking is why we had to save you guys in the war.

TALES FROM LONDON
Chapter IV: The Tube

Drawings from the London Underground. Subway underground, not mafia underground, unfortunately.

Tomorrow: drawings from the Natural History Museum, and how the Brits have dinos all wrong.

I Can Has Jack-o-Lantern

Today is my mom's birthday and it's become a bit of a tradition for me to buy her a bunch of Halloween decorations for a present. This drawing was for her birthday card. That's no ordinary black cat in that jack-o-lantern, it's Baby Bear, a little kitten my mom took care of for a while earlier in the year. Don't be deceived by his innocent looks, he's a demon in disguise!

Here's a late contribution to last week's Chades Challenge: Liberal Agents. The artists is animation film-making extraordinaire Adam Dix.