Turns out, according to a study from Colorado State University, that people who adorn their cars with such markings are more prone to road rage:

The number of road rage incidents — bouts of aggressive driving such as speeding or tailgating, or confrontations with other motorists — has risen dramatically in recent years. In 1995 the American Automobile Association found 12,000 injuries and 200 deaths were linked to US road rage. In 2008, the numbers are estimated to exceed 25,000 injuries and 370 deaths, and many more road rage incidents, especially those that do not lead to injury, go unrecorded.

Psychologist William Szlemko and his colleagues at Colorado State University in Fort Collins wondered whether increasingly crowded roads might be contributing to rising tempers. The volume of vehicles on US roads has gone up by 35% since 1987, whereas the road network has swelled by only 1%.

In humans, as in many other species, overcrowding leads to increased territorial aggression, and the team suspected that this was what was happening on the roads.

Zowie. I do know that I’ve been feeling more tension on the roads of late, and that I generally take notice of cars with “will drive for blood” stickers on their bumpers.

- Daniel

You can pull up in a zipcar city, and you can see exactly where and what kind of cars are available. Basically, they seem to keep track via gps and a google map. That way, you can go “hey, I need an Element to move my paccinco machines; where is the nearest one?”

It looks like they’re only in a few cities right now, but heck, I think it’s a pretty good idea. It sort of reminds me of those cities that have the free bicycles, that you can ride where ever you need to go, and then leave them behind.

If we’re going to get off of this stupid oil / gasolene dependency this century, we’re probably going to have to come up with some more creative ways beyond just ”carpool” or “drive less” or “take a bus”. (All of which are valid.)

Have you every used zipcar or something like it? Does it work for you?

So the stars aligned a month ago when I was approached by a local Phoenix Arizona billboard company.

Basically, they asked if I’d want my artwork up on a vacant billboard; as you might imagine, I jumped at the opportunity. The catch: none, beyond not being able to make it a pure branding piece.

It’s on the Santan highway in SE Phoenix, which I’m told, has like 100,000 cars pass it every day. I figured that it was a great chance to introduce them to (Chadworth) Machine and Beastio, and give them an inspirational thought during their torturous commute.

A big thanks to Jim at www.oibillboards.com. If your business needs a billboard, give them a call: 480-990-0800

- Daniel

Kevin Hedgpeth of the Art Institute of Phoenix, graciously set up the event and the model.

We had about 10 participants, and it was a really calm evening of drawing. I only really got to see Jerry Salinas and Jason Cheeseman-Meyer drawings, and both were expertly drawn. You can see that Jerry is pretty dang accomplished; his drawings were very beautiful.

I don’t know the last time that I did academic drawing, but I’m pretty sure that it was back in college about (gasp!) 20 years ago. Hey, don’t laugh. 20 years can go by in a moment.

I’ve spent the last 10 years trying to learn how to draw with vectors. It’s often been frustrating and difficult, but now it IS how I draw, and I love it. Not surprisingly, it hasn’t helped much in the area of life drawing.

That said, it was a fantastic challenge that I look forward to attempting again. It’s great to break out of your comfort zone every now and again.

- Daniel

Sure, like most, I’d read and loved Calvin and Hobbes, Far Side, and Peanuts as a kid. I’d also read most of the others, like Hagar the Horrible, Beetle Baily, and Bloom County.

I often forget that I did a very awful comic in my High School’s newspaper called “Hype”. It was about a metal head who hated hippies and hung out with a giant bunny. Basically the metal head was an idealized version of myself, complete with long, spiky hair, big wrap-around sunglasses, and a matching bad attitude. It was pretty messed up, but then, so was I. By then I was hip deep in playing bass guitar in all manner of bands, which occupied most of my creative time for the next 10 years.

When I was going to college in Portland, OR, I discovered Life is Hell, and loved it’s bold iconoclasm. Comic strips could be cool.

Shannon Potratz reintroduced me to comic books in the early 90′s, after a long hiatus since childhood. I’d read a few, but I never considered myself “into” comics. I had D&D to contend with.

I digress.

Shannon turned me onto Mike Mignola just before he launched Hellboy, and it turned my head around. I’d never seen anything so cinematic and graphic; Mike kicked my ass, and continues to do so everytime I reread one of his books. Mignola lead to Miller, Geof Darrow, and other comics of semi-superhero status or less.

Chris Ware was discovered not long after this, and his work continues to capture my imagination. The draftsmanship, somber storytelling, and fabulous color and design make the Acme Novelty Library some of my favorite books of alltime. I get drawn in about every time I pick one up.

Today, I read comics haphazardly. I don’t hit the comic store weekly or anything like that, but I do always have comics around to read. Indie folks are always handing me their comics, and I read most of them. Sometimes I trade with folks that I like or admire, and yes, I do got to the store from time to time and pick up graphic novels. I’m into stories, not soap operas, so collections are what I like the most.

Some of my favorite webcomics are WE THE ROBOTS, ScaryBear, HER, Kawaii Not, Kiskaloo, Kukuburi, the F Chords, PVP, and so on. I’m discovering new ones all of the time, since I’m behind everyone else. (I’ve been busy!)

It’s an exciting time for comics, even though traditional book sales are supposedly falling. There are far more independent books being produced today than any other time, and that’s besides the fact that there are tens of thousands of comics being made right now on the interwebs. Comic sales may be down, but there is a LOT of creativity and consumption going on out there.

It’s not dead.

It’s a crazy time, but I’m really glad to see comics shared with someone other than gigantic publishers.

I can’t wait to join the noise with my little comic wreck.

- Daniel

So, if you tried it and failed, it’s ready to go once again.

Sign-UP!

Thanks,

Daniel

Of note, the store was all botched in Internet Explorer on the PC. I’ve spent about a week finding the solution, and now it should finally be actually displaying product details.

It’s as secure as it could be, as I don’t collect any of your personal credit card information at all; you’re paying PayPal for your products, and PayPal pays me.

Other than that we’re just prepping for Saturday’s launch party, and beyond that, the launch of the comic itself. We’ve got a bunch of framing to do.

I’m really excited to finally get it out there, after months of working on it. I’m not a terribly patient guy, though I’ve done pretty well for the last couple of months.

- Daniel

If you end up coming to our show at Red Hot Robot, you can get them first. All are 12×18 film, with a pleasing satin finish.

I’ll be adding them to the store soon.

THANKS to all of our Steam Mates for coming out of the woodwork, and checking out the new comic, new prints, MNSTR Bags, and the acrylic panels.

Once it got rolling, the crowd didn’t really let up. I was going to try to do some demos, but every time I tried, there were people who had questions or who wanted to know what it was all about. I had to oblige them.

However, some people came to see the demo itself.

Lesson learned. Next year, we’re going do a demo at a set time, no matter what. So, if you want to see some vector drawing, you’d get vector drawing.

I’m going to try out some screen-capture software here, and see if I can’t make some online demos here on SteamCrow.com, so you won’t have to wait another year to see how we do what we do. I’ll let you know how that goes.

Here’s what Phoenix New Times had to say about the event.

We ended up a little overwhelmed with people to talk to, so some things slipped. Photography, is one of those things.

Here are a couple shots that we took of the Popcling panels before the show at least:

The acrylic measures 30 x 36 inches, for scale

If you came to the show and have any good crowd shots, we’d love a copy. Drop us a line, and let us know.

Thanks again for everyone taking the time to come hang out with us, and check out the super-cool Red Hot Robot.

- Daniel

UPDATE:

James Britt was in attendance, and he offered these photos for your perusal. (Thanks, James!)

This is where the journey begins.

Endless traffic in a monster world. Halloween on wheels, punctuated by the steampunk scents of oil, smoke, and hot steam filling the cab.

We’ll be outfitting you with a new Monster Commute comic, Monday through Friday.

<>

My family and I carpool together, here in Phoenix, Arizona. (3 hours a day is pretty normal.)

We’ve spent the last few years feeling like we’re living in our car. It’s sometimes been scary (that one time we got run off of the 101), often frustrating (wanting to throw my shoe at the police helicopter), and occasionally interesting to watch life on the serpent highway.

I’ve had to add this situation to the mythology of my brain, and see if I could use this situation into something that would keep me out of the local asylum. (Web comic counseling?)

Now, when I look over the ever blazing highway, I try to look for story ideas, instead of a place to jump out of my moving car.

Welcome to my hellway highway.

- Daniel

I decided to do this comic a bit before I knew what I wanted to do it about.

I knew that it had to be about a topic that I was both knowledgeable and passionate, which whittled down the list quite a bit.

However, the topics that I know about are fairly well spoken for, in the comics/entertainment world:

• D&D/Fantasy – This has been covered by hundreds, if not thousands, of comics – drag.
• Office Politics – Dilbert and the Office come to mind, and they do a good job of it. Dead subject for me.
• Bands – Dawna and I were in bands for most of our teens and 20s, but I feel out of touch. It’s been a long while.
• Monsters – Not so much a topic itself, just as something that I knew the comic had to include no matter what.

I started to feel a little demoralized when I looked at the list. I didn’t have really too much more that I am really knowledgeable about.

So, we were driving one Saturday evening, and I was really grinding my mind trying to come up with a topic for this new comic. At one point, I looked up, and only saw a mess of traffic. “Traffic” I groaned, all angry and depress. But then, I realized I had it. “TRAFFIC”! I quickly told Dawna the concept, and we were off.

So anyway, that’s a little about the process that I use for some of my projects.

- Daniel

I’m not a driver.

Some people, they just love cars. They’re born to drive, and they seemingly can’t wait to get behind the wheel and start expressing themselves by changing lanes or accelerating or rapid breaking.

Me, not so much. I like how some cars look a great deal, but driving itself is an exercise in patience and self-control; 2 things that I don’t seem to have a stock of. I find it frustrating to get lost, or to be nearly killed by the cell-phone talking moron with the SUV. More often than not, driving just makes me mad.

Couple that with the fact (psychosis) that I have visions of crashing in a horrible fiery death ever time I get behind the wheel, and you can see that my interest in driving is non-existent. Cars themselves are overpriced and not terribly durable so that does not improve my attitude much either.

I do enjoy simulated driving, since the stakes are much lower and most video games about driving don’t feature much traffic. But, it’s not really the same, as I can quit at any time.

I suppose that I should probably live somewhere European, where I can take a train, walk, or bike to wherever I might need to go.

While I love the idea of Europe, I’m probably much closer to being a hermit, since that is far simpler and much more likely.

- Daniel

The other day, he decided to get into the action, and do his own version. (With no coaxing from his old man. Who says “old man“?)

Anyway, I thought that it was pretty delightful, and funny.

I like how happy Beastio and Machine are, and check out the Steam Crow head on the top.

Classic.

- Daniel

Why are people in cars so often jerk-weeds?

I have one theory; driving is anonymous. It’s sort of like the web; if no-one knows who you are, it gives some people (a minority) a chance to act like a dill-hole. I’m sure that you’re totally famillair with the idea.

To take it a little further, I think that big cities have lead to the downfall of any sort of “community” feeling. Phoenix is big enough that pretty much anywhere I drive, I’m surrounded by people I’ve never seen before, and probably will never see again. That means that there is little chance that there is a consequence for being jerkly.

Imagine that you lived in a community, where most everyone knew everyone else. Sure, your business would be out in the open, but it would add another layer of accountability to the situation. Act like a bastard, and chances are that you’d be embarassing yourself and your family once word got back to them.

Am I saying we should all live in sheltered little towns where everybody watches everybody else? Not at all. But I do feel like our communities have eroded to a point that our only cultural currencies are television, sports, and election propaganda.

- Daniel

My adolescent years were dominated by living on a farm.

I’d lived in the city until about age 14, when my mom and stepdad decided to move us into the country.

Once there, my stepdad loaned me out to other farmers, to stay busy and learn some responsibility. I bucked bales, repaired fences, and eventually drove tractors plowing fields and such.

Being a spacey kid who just wanted to play D&D, draw, and read Tolkien all of the time, I wasn’t all that focused on the art of driving, farming, or plowing.

I’d always forget to do things like releasing the emergency brake. On a car, this will prevent you from moving. On a tractor, it doesn’t do much at all, as it’s just made to keep the thing from rolling away.

I’d plow for hours, and then wonder why the body of the tractor was glowing cherry red when I’d hop down to take a (erm) break.

As you might imagine, my step-dad didn’t find much humor in this, which he’d communicate by socking me in the shoulder. Hey, he had to get my attention somehow I guess.

Can you imagine what it did for the fuel economy? The mechanics?

Good times.

- Daniel