Salgood Sam's Blog

Hi folks, so if you’ve been reading you know I’ve been on temporary layoff until march, and one of the ways I’m using that time was to get some big dangling life issues resolved.

Sorted out a pile of back taxes with the aid of an accountant, after hiring an OT for accountability help getting tons of paperwork sorted last year.

Now along with trying to get the next instalment of Mind Engine done I’ve been working on figuring out some things post late in life ADHD DX, confirming what has been long suspected but also getting a bit of formal help and also just resolving some ideas.

Booked a half dozen OT appointments over the winter to keep on track and help think of strategies, a lot of it has been mainly about executing on somethings I’ve been thinking about over the summer.

For about a decade and a bit I’ve been living with type 2 diabetes, which was getting somewhat under control pre pandemic but then I shifted to full time and very sedentary work in animation, and threw that all off track. Things got bad during shut down and then I was doing ok just after with going for walks but had other issues. And I’ve since fallen off the horse a few times.

For over a year, I’ve been thinking I needed some kind of new AuDHD self accommodation measure, to address the problem.

My main chronic issue has been a lack of focus mornings, remembering to take meds, what I’m doing for the day, thinking about active things and exercises, and all that. My default is to be a bit adrift for the first few hours of the day before my brain kicks in and I recall what I need to do. And I don’t mean just a bit foggy, truly blank. No thoughts, no intent, no memory internally of what I need to do.

Sometimes that’s not bad, I like a slow wind up but while that worked when I was younger and setting my own schedules, now for multiple reasons it’s MUCH more of a problem.

When I was freelancing full time I knolled my drafting table and work station the night before to remind me of things I need to do, but I’m no longer freelancing nearly as much, and I have to knoll my whole life more due to health issues, not just the days work.

Some folks can use internal strategies for this kind of thing but also being Aphantasic, that approach has simply not worked for me. Not for lack of trying, but internal systems or even a day planer once out of site, is of no use. I need something fixed in my space, that can’t be missed or hidden. That has ONE JOB. To be a brain dump/planning/medical/task station.

So I needed to set up this in a spot that I’ll see first thing. No room in the bedroom for more stuff, would get lost likely as well between my wife’s and my own clutter. So picked a spot in the middle of the apartment, across from the bathroom, feet from the bedroom but also every other space in the apartment. And designed a wall mounted secretarial style desk/counter/station for the spot. Spent some time over the last two weeks building it.

I’m not a pro woodworker but made many basic things over the years and a lot of ideas about how to build it spun out of watching Adam Savage and Dave Folgler do some things, so tip of the hat to them.

Been using it for a week and still fine tuning, seems to be working well! Much more consistently remembering to take meds, getting focused faster and making plans for what kind of gym/fitness stuff I’m going to do. Some critical life infrastructure for my home

I’m debating painting it, there’s a warp in the door I’d like to fix, water and a heat gun I read would take care of it. But think I want to use it for a bit and let ideas about any painting percolate, and for the moment loving the bare wood.

ED: By the by NO AI
was used for any of this.

That’s not remarkable to me or anyone who does a lot of woodwork, but these days… you never know. Best to be mindful of that IMO.

But also it occurred to me because the thought before, was I’m using this desk for doing a lot of things, people turn to AI powered apps to recently. I’m doing the tasks more manually, I don’t want those cognitive tools to atrophy. But I also deeply object to them for numerus reasons.

Ok please don’t do that if you can help it, specifically LLMs and image, video and song generators. For so many reasons, if you can help it in any way. Thanks. ~Max

Hello dear readers.

I haven’t posted on like since TCAF last year! In part just busy with other aspects of life but also on Substack, ambivalencies due to the platform publisher’s policies.

I’ve been considering going back patreon recently …?… and starting a new creator account there. I’m not generally in need of fundraising right now so it’s more about just a platform for publishing and distribution of media in either case. But it would be nice to find a place I can be sure I can have full trust in.

Which is also kind of why I’ve been thinking about trying to build mailing list functions into my website here too. I think I could install a mailing list infrastructure on it? So I could use something like ghost I guess? But that takes time and it’s low priority.

Mainly I’m trying to focus on some health and life stuff, and doing the work itself. Be more focused and organized. I’m kind of hoping to get the bulk of the next Mind Engine books done before March. Which should be doable, it’s a 60 page B&W antholagy.

I was running into some speed bumps doing pencils for a set of pages I’m adding to the beginning of the next chapter of The Box to elaborate, and make a smoother transition as a standalone chapter. I think probably also just work better overall when collected.

When I was first drawing the initial pages of the story it was an improvisational automatic drawing, a joyful doodlefest. Following my emotional compass and just drawing whatever the marks suggested to me they needed to be. No plan just making up as I go.

There was a script – A reworking of The Tinderbox by Hans Christian Andersen.

In teaching how to write comics one of the strategies I proposed to students was borrowing plots from more obscure public domain fairy tales and children’s stories.

An an example of what you can do with them, I stripped out all the pronouns, titles, names and honorifics, anything that identified who or what someone was. The process was inspired by something I’d read about how the script for Aliens was initially written by Dan O Bannon.

Here I thought of it as like scrubbing the meat off the collagen and bones of a story, to create the scaffolding of plot for a new infusion of Flesh and reinterpretation of story.

I hadn’t decided too much in advance about any of the visuals aesthetics. There were a few sketches for the soldier, something interesting that came out of an exercise I was doing in a cartooning class at Syn Studio.

Once I’d had them used them both for teaching teaching a while I started to get inspired by the proposed challenge myself!

The first drawings of my character – an unnamed Fay, Goat soldier protagonist in The Box – was a couple of sketches over coffee, and then right into the first pages I did.

I didn’t do any rotations, just drew what felt right inventing it IN the story. When I wanted to make some changes in the next bit I partly masked it by them getting a bath and grooming at the Inn. But the model has drifted a lot. Was slowing me down trying to keep consistent, some angles were getting more and more challenging! The shapes were morphing and I didn’t have good rotational quarter views very well worked out. I decided I needed to model it.

Later in the day after first posting this, I made them a stand for when not in use out of a couple bits of wood from my chunky bits collection. Holds their head more at the angle it would be when standing.The following series of photos and texts were posted to my various socials before getting curated here on the work blog and for the moment, on substack!

I need to get some more stands, I had a couple from the last time I made a bust using air drying clay [see bottom]. But only have one working one attached to the board I mounted this on is left so need a new one for this figure so I can keep using the work stand.

But, because of that I made it self standing too so no rush.

And that worked out really well. The base is also a PERFECT fit for holding to pose while drawing. It’s so crazy comfortable in my hand as seen in the last pics there.

I’ve made character busts before for drawing but not in a while and not ever with polymer clays.

Fortunately my wife is a crafting witch, and has an insanely well stocked Studio so I was able to borrow a block of Sculpey white to work with.

I made a copper wire-frame using a soft copper wire as a mounting base and then built up the form some more using tin foil. This was following a lot of instructional material I found online but also reflects processes I’m familiar with from clay modeling and sculpture.

Both my mother and I are actually quite fond of sculpting but I’ve done it much less than her until recently, I think with this medium I have found a new home in art!

This project is very specific to doing the head for my comics. I don’t need it a lot more refined than it is, there’s a bit of carving left to do but it’s very close and I’ll leave it up painted.

But I was having all kinds of ideas about how I might want to abstract something like this, or do something different and there has been this coffee themed figure I was thinking about for ages of making in Copper or bronze but…Going to revisit the idea, do it in Sculpey!

The base was imagined as some kind of scrap burned wood I imagined, I bet I could fake that If I wanted to… It was going to be sized around a REAL espresso cup for a hat, done for a display window for a cafe that’s long since closed.

But now…I can make it about a foot long and be pleased too. I could make the bigger one from parts, and pinned and assembled after.

This is going to be a thing finally! Ordered a modest bulk supply of the same material both to replace what I used and have more to play with. And look into some of the metallic ones maybe…

You can read the first instalment of The Box in Mind Engine | Ignition Sequence, available here!

Last page of that seen on the right!

Been holding off setting up my new POD stuff while the postal strike issues are still unresolved but your DRM free digital copy awaits you! Ideally all goes well and it’s joined by the next in May 2026!

~

I’ve explored making CGI models as refrence guides for other comics, taking a course in 3d Coat I got a fair bit done on one for the city in Pin City [in Revolver One] before the program froze up, and crashed not letting me save the work, just this last screen grab of it before poof.

As a secular leftist anti-Zionist Jew, I am always anti all things nationalistic, and as a result loath what the star of David has come to represent in my mind and to many others. It was never THE central Jewish Symbol, until promoted by Zionist to adorn their flag. But for many it means a lot.

And symbols are powerful. Thinking about that last May, I put on my designer’s hat and explored ideas around an icon that rejects Zionism and isn’t visually defined by that or all the baggage, and instead works to be an affirmative table setting for inclusive community building outside of the garbage the ethno-Nationalists have contaminated our culture with and the walls of fear and hate they erected against our closest living ethnic relatives, Palestinians.

Later I saw and signed ‘A Global Jewish Manifesto for Collective Liberation’ from Global Jews for Palestine, which closely resonated with what I was going after here.

Re my flag/banner/crest here: The goal was to come up with something that was both not Nationalistic, AND not Religious while acknowledging the role spiritual practice plays in our culture.

To be an icon for a constructive path for a Zionist free Jewish culture, in solidarity with Palestinians as our closest cultural and genetic cousins.

The only overt nod to religious ideas is the Hebrew text for Tikkun olam, which for me was presented early on as a Jewish secular vision of the call to leave the world better than you found it, work for social justice, the environment and ecology, a better future and human rights. “It’s an old idea that’s grown beyond the fait into secular Jewish culture.

The pomegranate in the center means something to both Palestinians and Jews. The seeds of the pomegranate symbolize the 613 mitzvot (sacred obligations) attributed to the Torah, and it’s an icon for righteousness, knowledge, wisdom, and fertility.

And given they are the direct descendants of the ancient Hebrews, it should be no surprise for Palestinians the pomegranate is ALSO a symbol of fertility, abundance, heritage and traditions, prosperity, and the continuity of generations.

The fruit is associated with the land’s agricultural heritage, as are the olive branches here, representing peace, wisdom, vitality, and hope. And, for Palestinians those I read are a symbol of identity, heritage, and resilience. The both have some hint of importance to the religious but work as secular ideas we share.

The central form is a deconstructed take on the Star of David, which is a symbol of Jewish identity and culture that predates the modern state and it’s flag, but has become the central one of the colonial project. So I was looking to get away from the angles and heavy single line, and reimagine it dramatically. Pushing away from the authoritarian air Zionism has brought to it, while also being largely responsible for making it a popular central icon.

As I mentioned at the start It was not nearly as central before and rising to importance first in 17c European Jewish communities. I wanted that there as the key overt deconstructive element, but It was something I wanted to explicitly re present in a constructive form leaning into unity. Instead of interlocked WALLS, a Jewish fortress. Instead It’s become the flowing forms of waves, energy, and movement. Ideally towards progress and solidarity.

The white blue red black and green of course, is a use of ALL the past cultural nationalist movements both Jewish and Palestinian. But they have been made subordinate to the off white field of the flag.

The blue lines on the Israeli flag are references to the blue lines of tallit, here I intertwined double lines of one part of the star form with the green white and black of the Arab Independence movements, including the Palestinian flag. Because the idea is to show them in relationship and partnership as cultural themes, together to form the whole form of the deconstructed star of David.

I don’t want this to be a nationalist icon but, it is ment to promote peace and cohabitation in the land and in the world.

And again, BOTH cultures see the white of their flags as being about “purity” and “noble intent and actions”. Don’t love the ‘purity’ part of that but the rest is a note I was going for. And because the purity thing bugs me a bit, and I wanted it to pop less and have the third white lines of the sign waves of the star stand out more, I added a very slight ivory/cream/gold back fill instead of pure white for the background field.

It’s ment to be a Jewish cultural flag, but welcoming to and inclusive of Palestinian culture, a people who’s genetic heritage is a direct line back to the ancient Hebrews who remained on the land, only converting to other faiths over time. So both cultures are present while having the past icons of either not dominate and instead assemble to suport something new.

Please feel free to share and use freely in the sprite it was created in, as outlined here. It’s covered by CC BY-SA 4.0 – Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International

#FreePalestine #endthegenocide #NotInMyName
~Max

Hey all, I’m just packing, doing the day before dance. Good thing I got a noon bus, so I can sleep in a bit. I seldom get to sleep early the day before a show or travel.

I got my table info a yesterday, so for June 7 & 8 you’ll find me at the Mattamy Athletic Centre, 50 Carlton Street, Toronto, On. I’m at table 233A in the Ice rink near the Zamboni gate on the north west corner of the rink in the old gardens! Looks like I have the spot at the end of my row so easy to find!

By the by TCAF is fundraising to help pay for the new space and related expansion and keep the show free, go here to do that!

You’ll also be able to look for my distinctive new rack! Care of Andre-Guy Landry’s Sinister Rabbit Studio! Looks good eh? I think I’ll paint the bottom front plate white though and do my sig over in black paint to make it really pop. I was able to send him some custom spects for what it would look like and with a few tweeks he pretty much exactly did what i was thinking of. :D

Most of my books are with Luc from Pow Pow who’s by the way, one of the nicest people I know here in the Montreal Comics sene. But I’ll have to carry my prints because my cloths’ go in the same bag LoL. Should be fine.

True North Country Comics Podcast’s John Swinimer did a interview with me about Mind Engine and things that if all goes well will air Saturday so watch this space!

I need to book more of those, so if you’re seeing this and do interviews or reviews of comics, give me a holler?

I’ve been commenting on things where people use GenAI that one of the worst aspects is the lack of connecting with other people let alone any community building that goes into getting that slop generated. On top of all the other things about it I don’t like. Most of the good stuff and luck I’ve had has been thanks to the help of other people! Good thing to remember in these times.

Ok I need to get things packed and ready to go! Hope to see anyone who can make it at TCAF!

PS if you can’t wait until then or won’t be at the show, you can get the digital edition from my gumroad store now FYI!

Cheers!

Hello all! Hope this finds you well, I’m here wrapping up mind engine and getting ready to launch it at FBDM/MCAF next weekend!

So I’m pretty hyped if not a little nervous because I’ve left the printing so late. But I’m just doing it small press style, with a local printer I’ve used before. I’m confident given the short runs I’m doing they can get it done in the couple days I’ll have. 

Today I’m using my home printer to do a mockup proof, for going go through it and having my wife give it a look over with a highlighter to try to catch any errors and make sure everything falls into place.

One of the perks of small runs is there will only be 50 or so copies with those errors in them? LoL. I’ve not sorted out what if any Print on Demand/drop shipping option there will be for it, but a digital copy will go up at my gumroad shop next weekend.

I’ve taken the next week off so I can focus on getting that printed Tuesday, and getting things ready for the show as well as attending some of the events leading up to the weekend Festival. 

Also a little over a week ago I got very last minute news that I’ve been granted a table at TCAF!

I’d been put on a waiting list and given how close the show is getting – in early June – I’d kind of written off attending but I guess with all the unfortunate issues around crossing the Canadian border from the states for some creators spots came up free? Lucky for me I’ll be able to present my newest book there as well!

I don’t have information about where I’m going to be on the floor but soon as I do I’ll update this post with that and of course the weekend of share it on social media so you can find me.

I’m going to cross post this update to my substack which is for now still up and I remain a little uncertain as to what to do with all that. I’m pretty confident I can recreate most of the functionality right here on my own home site the way I was thinking in the last post I shared here, but it’s going to take some time, effort and research that I just haven’t had room for. 

I don’t want to have to keep moving my mailing list looking for the best fit, and setting my own up will take a little work, so that’s why I haven’t made the jump yet. But as soon as I sort it all out expect to see updates coming from probably my own mailing list and dot com domain? 

Hope to see you at the festivals,
stay safe and keep making things!
– max

A peek at the inking on the new layout of pg10, not a ton will get done this weekend it looks good so far I think.

It continues to be interesting to work over the digital versions of this art I’d done in clip studio. It’s so overly detailed!

Click to embiggen! Click to embiggen!

Some of the details when I do want to keep them, I’m doing with my draftsmen’s lamp but even then, I can only do about half the level of detail I was zoomed way in on my tablet.

And this is good, I was getting way too tight really.

This wasn’t my primary reason directly for backing away from working that way, but also these look FINE this way, it was unnecessary I think, and bogging me down. I think a lot of my peers get enamoured with the feeling of control and refinement it gives them but it slows us way down I think and in my case was constantly a fight to keep things from getting stiff.

I had a simple hack using a dot grid as my temporary backdrop with it set to on dot per half inch so I can sort of tell how close I was based on how many dots I could see. But even with the temptation to go in and clean this up more was always there. So back to paper and my old school, friendly feeling tools.

Makes drawing like a hug again. Which, we all could use right now I’m sure.

Click to visit the hub, check out the members and how to join!

In other retro news, I’ve just joined a webring! Both this blog and Sequential are now part of WEBLOG, set up by writer Greg Pak!

You can see the link in my sidebar and feel free to use it to surf over to the next one in the ring when you’re done here!

In keeping with my thoughts in this recent post I love this as part of a move away from the walled gardens a bit. Maybe a lot, if people are brave and join us in numbers.

Randomly this reminds me of themes in my old short ‘Where the Wind Things Were’, you can read that here or get it in print in Revolver One.

Ok, have to go update Sequential with something, and wrap up for the night. Back to the animation mines doing props in Harmony 24 in the morning!

~Max

Did some editing and finished inking pg 9 over the week. Started lettering 9, cut the next page, and compressed the next three after into one.

Revised the work I had from what was planed before into new blues, and starting inking 10 now. Doing the panel boarders is a sacred ritual at the start if inking of a page.

Nuts is a sequel to Dream Life, but it will have it’s own feeling for sure. My sensibilities and wants have changed too much since I worked on the first one.

I’m still posting these to Cara by the way, and link to it or my site here on other socials.

I’m all for boycotting & counter tariffing as strategic leverage against Trump’s BS.

But there is a certain palpable, corpse ridden murderous hypocrisy, to this contrast in stances.

I’ve been reflecting on the issue of ethical and unethical platforms for publishing your work and promoting it.

Without getting too into the weeds most of you know about the issues with xtwitter. I closed all my accounts there several months ago and frankly was never a avid or heavy user so I don’t claim that that was a great sacrifice.

But I’ve backed up all my meta data and have prepared for the possibility that I’ll be shutting down my Facebook and Instagram accounts at some point in a foreseeable future. It’s the year of the snake after all isn’t it!

Some of the current WIP on my desk as eye candy!
Scroll down page or click to open the slide show for more!

I started link blogging on sequential directly again, posting new C-Lists once a week. And set up accounts on BlueSky [sequential] and Cara over the last year. Others as well but those ones are my prefered options and seem to be doing well. I’m not prepared yet to leave Meta, and I feel similarly about Substack for the moment. But to varying degrees they are both up for consideration now.

I don’t think Zuckerberg has ever been an ethical actor but he’s taken a turn for the worst more recently. And I feel that Chris Best is at best, being foolishly ideological about his idealized notion of absolute free speech.

His recent statement on Substack Reads, I take issue with giving Elon any credit at all for standing up for free speech. That claim is either knowingly disingenuous, or he’s trying to diplomatically differentially opacificate his critiques with faint praise.

The fact that once he took over, the only actual free speech is that which praises him or agrees with him underlines the point. I left a note stating my thoughts but I’m sure that’s lost in the flood of comments there. Many have expressed their issues with his position, I will be watching what they do next.

Unfortunately I do like the platform and the independence journalism that’s thriving on it. And follow several like Drop Site and Zeteo that I find invaluable right now.

And really, I don’t want them to get into moderating, so as to maintain the unfettered journalistic landscape evolving there either frankly. I don’t think a more active hand in gating what is published is the right call at all.

But I do think morally, he should demonetize Nazis and hate based ideological content creators at the very least. It’s not so much a question of free speech but facilitating the financial profiteering off fundamentally antisocial ideologies that break the social contract intrinsic to tolerance in a free Society. Demagoguery for profit should not be allowed.

So all to say I was pondering to myself what should I do for mailing lists, and media blogging?

A look at the first 7 [8 if you count page 0 here] from Nuts,
the second book of Dream Life | a late coming of age.
Hopefully te first chunk is to be published in may of this year!
I’ve set myself this as a goal.

I’m embarrassed to say it took me several days to simply think ‘oh that’s right I used to do that on my own site didn’t I!‘. An old writer acquaintance reviving webrings got me going on that tack of thinking finally. So obvious this side of it.

So I’ve moved the link for my work blog back to the  top of the menu list to reprioritize that aspect of this site! There will be things to consider like increased server demands again but I think for the time being that should be fine.

And I think what I’ll do is continue to use the substack as a way to update but the body of the post will mostly direct here. But in time I can set up my own native email list via this domain too.

I think its time

we flee the walled gardens

and venture back into

the wild webs,

don’t you?

More to come soon
but this will mark the official rebooting of my old workdiary,
the precursor to the processpod! 

Stay safe and see you soon.

~Max

When you’ve drawn 10 pages of a story digitally in clips studio, but then a full-time day job in animation and the rise of generative AI turns you off working on personal stuff digitally nearly so much?

So you decide to use those first 10 as pencils and do the rest traditionally from this point on out! I’m going to do just inks with no tones for mind engine, but for this story will probably come back to it to add the tones, like I did for the first book once collected.

I have a two and a half month crunch to get a bunch of this done and a few other things to put together a book for the Summer festival season, so when putting up the schedule in front of me everywhere I work. I have a more involved Substack post about all this going up mid day Monday here.