the BVS chronicles

bad excuses

2011-04-07T12:19:00.005-05:00

wow it's been almost a year since I updated this blog. consequentially it's also been a year that I've been working for the library. 2+2= Brett's excuse is he is unable to operate a blog while being employed full timesq. anyways , sometimes I write lengthy posts, post them and then delete them 10 seconds after posting them when I realize every word is spelled so wrong that the spell check is completely useless. that and my tendency to make work just for the sake of making work, and a distaste for sharing & self promotion leaves me with fewer and fewer posts on my blog notch. I have however been productive, at Minneapolis's pink hobo gallery on april 8th will open "the itch that burns" a show featuring mine and Mitch Loidolt's work.

here is a picture of me in staling some of the show.

after the fall of new york poster

2010-06-07T19:34:00.001-05:00

2010-04-30T09:05:00.004-05:00

poster for Cherry 2000 at the Trylon.
I'd never seen the movie before making this poster. I watched the trailer online and this one image grabbed my eye so I based the poster around that. I am glad I did, turn out to be the setting of a pivotal scene in the movie. This poster was fun to make, I got to pull a Will Eisner and incorporate the text into the drawing. sometimes it can be good to just use a nice looking font. I usually have in mind exactly what I want the font to look like, but I never studied typography enough to know off the top of my head what font I'm actually looking for. choosing the right font can end up being a dull chore for me.
Cherry 2000 is also a quite excellent film. Its a perfect mix of consistently bad acting, interesting settings and hilarious villains. kind of Indiana Jones crossed with the child of Blade Runner and Repo Man.

Low Blow #0

2010-04-19T18:26:00.005-05:00

I made a very special guest appearance in Aaron Poliwoda's latest comic, LOW BLOW #0.

guess I got roasted.

2010-04-05T16:35:00.002-05:00

America's favorite boxing Referee, Vic Drakulich.

ACCION MUTANTE

2010-03-25T00:07:00.006-05:00

Here is the poster I did for this week's screening of ACCION MUTANTE at the Trylon micro cinema.
****************************************************************************

secret of the ooze

2010-03-12T12:31:00.007-06:00

Awhile back I noticed a proclivity amongst the cartoonists of the APE,MOCCA,SPX,TCAF convention circuit to always be drawing gloppy slime monsters. these days I think it can be a little tiresome, I am conscious of it so I try and draw it less. In college I had a character I'd make mini comics about called Jelliot Plopson who was entirely made of slime. I think somewhere I have a 16 page of a story with him that I never bothered to print. I don't think cartoonists who draw slime are all doing it to be cool or bite down on some slop n' glop based trend. but I have to admit it just kind of happens. I'm not sure exactly why. when I pick up a pen or a brush and follow my natural impulses, I feel inclined to draw sloppy blob creatures. My only guess is it's generational. when I was a kid in the 80's, slime was a very popular toy and one my own personal favorites. You'd find that stuff everywhere. often in the entrances to grocery stores in those little eggs you get out of gumball machines. Also there was higher priced slime available too, officially licensed as part of the Ninja Turtles/Ghostbusters/He-man toy lines. There is something satisfying about letting that stuff drip on your hands and glop onto your toys.
Slime was even the official mascot of Nickelodeon! There was however a sinister side to slime. the 1980's remake of the blob is one of only three movies ever to give me reoccurring nightmares. one of the other movies to have that effect on me was Creepshow 2, specifically it's own blob based lake monster segment. As a kid I was the type who, whenever possible, spent my time under water. It was an easy thing to do growing up in the lake ridden cities of Richfield and Minneapolis.
I remember late in the summers occasionally finding weird golf ball sized orbs of green translucent slime floating in the water. The consistency of it was about that of tapioca. I didn't and still don't know what they were. I think I had been told conflicting explanations that it was seeds from lake weeds but also that it was the shells of fish eggs.
one day when I a friend and I were swimming through Richfield lake after it had flooded, and we saw that stuff floating everywhere. as we swam though the lake it was like swimming though a giant bubble tea, the globs were everywhere and in various sizes, some as large as oranges.
we had to scrape it off our skin and comb it out of our hair when we got out of the water.

sketchbook drill core sample

2010-03-10T10:55:00.011-06:00

so this post is about my sketch books. a few years back I worked for this paper company. the place is basically a giant warehouse filled with paper and paper products. it made me want to draw all the time. during slow the moments as well as very busy times when I should have been diligently working, I would slack off and draw.
but I couldn't keep a regular sketch book in my pocket, not even one of these kind of small little ones. it was too bulky. and why would I?
I was surrounded by all these different types and colors of paper.
so I made these little 16 page pocket sketch books out of whatever materials were around, often decorating them with whatever samples of sticker stock were also laying around work.
I kept one in my pocket at all times and when I finished one I'd make another. I still like and have kept doing this with paper I find. it's fun for me to make books and to switch things up and draw on florescent pink paper once in awhile.
I wouldn't want to have to do that for 120 pages. Moleskine are nice and I love them but I could never exclusively use those. these days I wouldn't want to draw on only white paper for that many pages either.
however, it might be kind of pointless to talk about paper color when the samples I am showing today actually were all drawn on white.
I feel like there is something that lets me be more free and less precious with a folded and stapled mini sketch book. anyways, here is a drill core sample of my sketch book glacier. these are from winter 2007. there is definitely a running theme of vomit, but then again I've kind of had a lifetime love of drawing vomit. I believe we have here is possibly one of the first ever drawings of my character in the Intrepideers, Grimace Grimezone, as well as another one of my dungeons and dragons characters; Ganglion the Grim.

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disection of a photocopier

2010-03-05T12:23:00.005-06:00

so on one very cold winter one night in 2009 I was leaving the Crescent Moon bakery on central ave with my very good friend Patty. we had Just eaten dinner. crescent Moon, as you might know, serves one of the greatest and strangest pizzas I have ever eaten. perhaps my mind was addled by the pizza, but while walking to the car I was struck by an unparalleled vision of beauty. it was a old discarded PHOTOCOPIER! specifically the old 80's type that used to have multiple toner cartridges in it. it allowed it's user to make xeroxes in yellow and brown and red and all kinds of colors. devices such as these are very rare today. when I saw it I thought had found my ticket to comic book printing easy street. of course it's power cord had been hacked off. my optimism got the best of me. I imagined a scenario where some office worker was casually playing with a weed whacker, or perhaps electric hedge trimmers in the office and accidentally chopped off the power cord.

"great job dilbert you've ruined an otherwise perfectly working vintage photo copier with your careless clowning antics! now come help me get this thing down to the street"

I figured that with a little soldering iron and electricians tape I could have this thing up and running.
anyways my optimism must have gotten the better of Patty too because I somehow convinced her we should drag this thing back to the printing studio which was located 6 blocks away. since this monstrosity was to heavy to lift I told her to take the car and meet me at me studio, and that I would simply push and drag it the rest of the way. eventually with much struggle we got the thing into the space and I felt triumphant. visions of two and perhaps three tone mini comics were dancing in my head. I was sure that this weapon would be the perfect addition to my arsenal in my unending personal comics based war.

cut to roughly a year later. and the thing just doesn't work, the ambition I felt the previous night was completely gone by the next day. the copier sat for months without me making any real effort to repair it. at one point I taped an old power cord onto the frayed wires and tried to turn it on. one light turned on but the thing didn't even make mechanical sounds or anything. eventually the people I share the printing space said it was time to get rid of it. so I rolled up my sleeves and got the big lug into my truck and we were on our way to the county hazardous materials disposal site.

when I got there I was informed that photo copiers are an item they will not accept. they referred me to a center that charges 35 cents a pound for materials like this. my estimate is this copier weighs at least 300 lbs, perhaps even 500. that's a lot of weight and cash I don't have. apparently the only solution I came up with was to dismantle it myself, hack it into to smaller portions, double bag it in heavy duty yard waste bags and throw it away in the trash. basically the same method one would employ to dispose of an unwanted body.
you, dear reader mist be thinking:

"thats crazy AND stupid"

I could have just dumped it by the side of the road near a college and some students would have taken it. I could have made a craigslist posting for it and some sucker like myself would have taken it.
this copier must have some time wasting psychic power over me. how else would it have convinced me to take it with me in the first place? I grabbed my screwdriver, my crowbar and my hack saw. I turned the radio to LOVE 105 and tuned my mind on to destructive cyclone setting. in about 3 hours I was much covered with toxic black toner dust (don't worry too much I was outside and wearing a dust mask) had the thing reduced to neatly bagged rubble. perhaps if this whole comic book thing doesn't work out I can relocate to one of those towns in china that are just huge electronic garbage dumps. where people of all ages hack away at computers and VCRs to get the platinum and gold and other reusable metals out of the circuit boards. all the while breathing heaping lung fulls of toxins till their internal organs are composed of more heavy metal than human flesh.
it makes me wonder if there are also towns were people dig through the corpses of the people who work and die in the hazmat towns. if some little kid is somewhere is straining the liver and lungs that used to belong to a hazmat worker in order to get the reuseable platinum fibers and gold dust and coltan particles. which in turn leaves me wondering if my cell phone or my laptop currently contains any materials that were harvested from a human body? I guess this is a large digression.

But back to my copier, at one point while removing whatever thing the toner cartridge connects to I found this child's toy wedged deep into the innards of the machine. guess now I know what broke it.

and I guess that's the end of this tale, I don't know what the point is. perhaps it's a cautionary tale, beware of dreams that include interchangeable color toner cartridges. I've been around this town long enough to know where all the desolate industrial areas are where all the unsupervised hazmat dumpsters are. so I loaded up my ride drove into the sunset and made the rounds.

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Drifting classroom poster

2010-03-04T13:11:00.000-06:00

so lately I have involved in this project where myself and my good friends at Trash Film Debauchery (http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2201031206) show movies once a month at this very small but extremely awesome Minneapolis theater called the Trylon Micro cinema.(http://take-up.org/)
the last 3 movies we've done have been a part of a series of rare disturbing movies for children. I have been producing a limited run of silk screen posters to give away at the screenings. this is the one I made for the Japanese movie The Drifting Class Room.
(http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0125201/)
I didn't actually get to make a proper scan of the poster when it was done and now I don't have any left. I think the poster turned out nice. one thing is missing on the top there should be something saying Jan 27th at the Trylon Micro Cinema. that was something I forgot when designing the poster and had to be added in at the last minute when I printed it.

ok ok, so I've agreed to bring my blog back to life.

2010-03-02T23:58:00.000-06:00

so this evening I sat around saying I wasn't interested having a blog, or a website. or giving people any opportunities to view my work. but I guess I must have decided that that was a bogus proclamation.
it's just that in this past decade my relationship with the internet, marketing, self promotion,making money on the internet, and the concept of having a website has been pretty unfulfilling. mostly just 2 large steaming piles of apathy on both sides of the monitor.
well maybe it's time to turn my oppositional defiant disorder on myself. should I give this fad called an "having an ambitious internet presence" just one more chance?

I've decided to bring this little dried up crusted old neglected blog back from the dead. who knows? maybe this will be a good restarting point. we might even see a return of my website. when I do perhaps we can have a little gathering, a custom that we in the later days of the 20th century called "website launch parties". complete with the traditional free stickers and t-shirts no one wants.

back in 2000 I was a part of the internet scam biz and we had ugly t shirts no one wanted and that seemed important to the process.
did any of you ever see undocumented kitchen workers and homeless people in Minneapolis wearing t-shirts that said: www.platinumpersonals.com on the front. and the phrase "WHAT YOU WANT, WHAT YOU NEED" on the back?

I was a part of that.

anyways, watch out internet, I'm back to add more content you never asked for to begin with.

any tips, or offers of advice will be gladly received. but do know that as I read them I will be squinting my eyes smugly smiling and slowly shaking my head in disbelief and disapproval.

2009-06-19T19:28:00.001-05:00

so this is what most of my sketch books look like these days, actually they've been looking like this for awhile. here is one page I made just for all zero of you out there actually looking at this blog.

Mocca Report

2009-06-11T15:02:00.001-05:00

from Gangsta rap Posse, by Benjamin Marra

so I just got back from New York. I had a good time at Mocca, sold lots of comics and met cool people, and saw allot of cool comics. all and all had a good time, as I always do every time I come to New York. this year the show was held at the 69th Regiment Armory, the same location of the famous armory show of 1913 where modern art was first introduced to Americans. so almost 100 years later the both actual and cultural wars are continuing to be fought at Lexington ave and 25th street. so that felt kind of cool. what wasn't cool was the temperature of the show, very hot very sweaty. it left you feeling exhausted and in need of a bath and an Advil but who ever said comics were for the weak?
physical discomfort isn't always a bad thing, there were weird army guys in the balcony menacingly watching over us. late on Sunday when everyone was wilting and tired they should have had one of them dress up like Sgt.Slaughter and march around and call people weak maggots and force people to do push ups. also the Mens room was kind of like descending into the Minotaur's lair, that's a compliment by the way. I attended the Tom Kaczynski and the Gary Panter/Frank Santoro panels, they were both illuminating and thought provoking. I wish I had made it to the Fletcher Hanks panel. Had a great time meeting people and going to fun parties. I feel really recharged and excited to make comics which is always a good thing. I hope to come back next year.

Thanks to my Good and true Pal Ann Marie for letting me sleep at her apartment, we ate tons of awesome food and drank much beer.
in non comic based New York Updates for the first time saw the Cloisters. I also saw allot of really amazing stuff at the MoMa and the New Museum, including this amazing painting by Jakub Julian Ziolkowski, definitely a artist I will be paying attention to.

TCAF report!

2009-05-13T16:14:00.000-05:00

Behold! The Intrepideers in comic book form!

Ballad of the Intrepideers Drawn by me and Written by me and Kelly Krantz!

The Intrepideers and the brothers of blood By Tim Sievert, you may have read it online but now it exists in paper form!

so Tim and me and Tom K just got back from Toronto. after 2 long 18 hour drives, I really wish that place was closer. not only was it my first time at TCAF but my first time in Canada. We Yanks have a lot to learn from Canada about 24 hour availability of Donuts. Toronto felt to me like the perfect combination of medium sized city and big city. it seemed like what we Minneapolitans would like our city to be. retaining the unique traits and laid back character of a medium sized city but having lots and lots of people able to support lots of things and businesses like big cities can.
we stayed at the Hyatt regency hotel and when we showed up haggard and half dead to check in we felt very out of place for such a swanky modern designed hotel. TS and I both commented that it was the kind of place our freind Mary O'Regan would have loved. I had a fantastic time at TCAF and a fantastic time in Toronto. TCAF was held inside of the large 4 story gugenheimian Toronto reference library. it was free to the public and I think the other Indy type comic conventions should follow this model, as it brought in a shit load of people. not only that but the staff was amazing,I was worried about making change and how many trips to the ATM I might need to make, but the convention staff went to the length of walking around breaking change for people, and offering to watch your table if you needed to leave for a minute. unheard of at an American convention. also thanks to Chris Butcher and Peter Birkmoe of the Beguiling, Toronto's finest comic book store for doing such a good job setting up this show and for providing free food at the super fun after party. While Tim was at the Top Shelf table Tom, myself and Mike Dawson set up our own table, we got to meet lots of super excellent people sold comic books and had a very good time.
TCAF was one of the best conventions I've been to and I hope to go back next time.
anyways as you all know I never ever take photos on any of my travels, but this time we had Tom K along, and he did take photos, so for once you may see what I saw, or what Tom's camera saw. prepare to see photos of Comic book people who you may or may not know, and the throngs of Toronto's comic book enthusiasts.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/robot26/sets/72157617981875907/

2009-03-25T21:09:00.001-05:00

2009-03-25T21:04:00.000-05:00

Blood of the Imbeciles

2008-10-04T08:00:00.001-05:00

Scream and Scream some more! the comic book that no one asked for is here Blood of the Imbeciles stands before you. Dare you venture further? 24 pages of pulse palpitating pap sandwiched between a 2 color silk screen cover, all delivered in the valiant verbomaniacal Von Schlosser verism.
written,drawn,misprinted,staples and folded my yours truly. available, as usual, wherever I am available.

front cover

back cover

2008-06-05T15:54:00.000-05:00

apologies to "you know who" for the swipe.

2008-03-14T17:36:00.001-05:00

The Hodag of Rhinelander Wisconsin.

Torso task force

2008-02-12T17:37:00.000-06:00

2007-12-12T09:46:00.001-06:00

this is what this is

2007-12-10T23:56:00.000-06:00

here are some of my latest sketchbook scrapings. enjoy.

it's all about me!

2007-11-15T02:00:00.000-06:00

hey check this out!
yours truly is featured on the daily crosshatch, they wrote about my mural. read on!
http://thedailycrosshatch.com/2007/11/13/brett-vonschlosser-mural/

mural for urban outfitters

2007-10-23T10:22:00.001-05:00

Hey dudes. I have drawn a mural for Urban Outfitters.
specifically the Uptown Minneapolis location.
co there and look at it, or don't, because I have pictures of it up.

chace for the cure

2007-09-24T09:10:00.001-05:00

Tim Sievert and I did this comic for Eric Lappegard's tribute show and anthology. It's pronounced (chaw-say) for the cure. It was a lot of fun. I hope you enjoy it.

they see me rollin, they hatin

2007-08-29T01:54:00.001-05:00

so we all know about my bike, the most lovable affable bike of them all the Boneshaker.
or Boneshaker classic edition as I like to call it. once a mere Bridgestone mountain bike turned mutant cycle by yours true.

BONESHAKER CLASSIC
well please allow me to introduce to you, the latest edition to the family, the one the only
Boneshaker vol 3: season of the witch! *
this majestic single speed creature I have cobbled and stitched together like Frankenstein from the parts of other bikes. and learned I allot along the way about bottom brackets. she's a fine and tall piece of machinery.

the creature thus be born
behold and tremble.

*this is the third Boneshaker, Boneshaker 2: son of Boneshaker is a fine cycle but fraught with calamity and as of now unavailable for photo ops, rest assured Boneshaker 2 will rise from the grave and ride again one day.

2007-07-04T13:55:00.000-05:00

Mocca was tons of fun. any excuse to go to New York right? I saw some awesome comics, meet some really awesome new people, and got to say hello again to all the people there who I all ready know. Our table was Across from Drawn and Quarterly, Next to Buenaventura press and right near Fantagraphics, so we were in great company, and me Max Anna and Britt sold plenty of comics, more than we had anticipated we would.
and I got drunk on Top Shelf comic's dime at the Top Shelf after Party. so over all the first year at Mocca was a all around success.

so without further ado,
here is the Mocca Pictures

here is Anne Marie, and good example of why I am not known for my photography skills.
Anne Marie was kind enough to let me sleep at her place.

Anne Marie And George.
On thursday Anne Marie took her EMT training class final test and we all are pretty sure she passed it. so now that Anne Marie is hopefully part of the population of New York City's first line of defense in emergency situations. we all decided we'd better go get wasted. here we are out side of what I think is Trash, in Brooklyn. we were here before the mcad kids who live in New York showed up, but after we missed George's friend's band play there.

this is the famous Puck Building, formerly the home of Puck magazine, America's and western first successful humor magazine. Puck Magazine Built this building in 1887. Naturally it was the Ideal location for a comic con.
the Little Golden Cherub in a top hat is Puck Magazine's mascot

top shelf !

here is Max,as usual when I travel I don't take very many Photos, and I didn't get any of Brit or Anna, Or of Zander Cannon who we were surprised to find was our right hand side table neighbor.

here is me, and our table.

The Glad Optical! front cover

the glad Optical Back cover

at the show i saw plenty of super awesome books. but here are the best things I saw and got at the con.

"My Boy" by Oliver Schrauwen. I got this from the Belgian Publisher Bries' table. it's a pretty weird comic. the story of a man and his very strange baby

note: this is a new comic, not some unearthed turn of the century comic. this Oliver Schrauwen seems to have mastered Making comics that looks like some weird lost Windsor McCay nightmare. it's beautiful. this was the book I saw everyone walking away with so I assume Schrauwen is bound for more success in America.

and More in the Obviously right Up Brett's Alley, was the comics From the Closed Caption comics people. they are all from Baltimore and make really cool Mini comics. I wish i had Bought everything they had, but instead i bought just a few.

here is their Anthology book.

Lugubrious Dunes, by L.Milburn.
see what I mean about right up my Alley. Both "Lugubrious" and "Dunes" are in my top 20 favorites Nouns and Adjectives.
Lugubrious Dunes is a story about a bunch of weird mutant creatures, one with chicken head, living in some kind of structure and inflicting pain onto one another.
and the "gem" of the show has to be Gem Cave. by Ryan Cecil Smith, also part of closed caption comics.

this is fully and intricately screen printed.
observe as I unfold.

fucking awesome.

2007-06-05T01:35:00.001-05:00

lately I have much enjoyed watching television's American Gladiators, shown in rerun form at 12 am central time on ESPN classics. it's a really great show for you to watch. depicted here is a phenomenal contestant, and apparently a demolition derby driver in his civilian identity. but known to us only as the enigmatic Purple Roundy. as a kid I used to watch American Gladiators with the assumption and expectation that as an adult, sometime I would have to be on American Gladiators, i expected it to happen. this wasn't a dream or ambition, I just assumed it was something that every adult who was awesome would one day called upon by the gladiators to truly prove their mettle. one day it would just happen and I'd have to be prepared. Malibu,Nitro,and Gemini, I am ready for you, are you ready for me?

fight

2007-01-22T21:54:00.000-06:00

2007-01-02T03:12:00.000-06:00

LEARNING TO LOVE LAUGHTER PT.16 : BASKETBALL COMICS

2006-12-20T00:38:00.000-06:00

do you like your comics not funny, or really not funny?

my sunday so far

2006-12-20T00:34:00.000-06:00

1.
wake up at 12.

2.
eat bowl of Flintstones strawberry iced fruity pebbles, wonder why i gave them a chance in the first place, infinitely inferior to original in both color(washed out and pale looking like if you removed the magenta layer in a cmyk photo of original FP) and taste(taste sort of like original with strange added flavor vaguely reminiscent of freshly cut grass)

3.
shower. dress one's self.

4.
watch pretty much every thing that shows up when you search California raisins on youtube.com
particularly enjoy home made stop motion video made with old video camera and free hardey's California raisin figures to the tune of 'big girls don't cry"
after chuckling subsides Briefly stop and think of billions of starving dieing people in the third world, and remember that goggle paid 1.6 billion for this.
and that you spend your days off watching it.

5.
stare at unfinished drawing and think about combing your hair and putting socks on.
remember that Balzak wrote 85 novels in only 20 years.
would my Life be better without computers?

6.
on to the comics Journal Message board, engage in discussion of will eisner's Character Ebony White and time warner media conglomerate and it's shady copyright holdings for various characters, eventually discussion digresses to Wolverine VS Hulk.
take Hulk's side.

7.
Livejournal...

ok i have to stop now and do something productive with the rest of the day, draw my comic, do my laundry, comb my hair.
engage in some less degrading activity that will contribute to the betterment of my life..

Exciting day yesterday at Big Brain Comics;

a bird got inside of the store.

need i say more? it'll let your imaginations fill in the rest.

here is some laffs

2006-12-20T00:33:00.000-06:00

2006-12-20T00:32:00.001-06:00

2006-12-20T00:32:00.000-06:00

2006-12-20T00:30:00.000-06:00

2006-08-25T02:41:00.000-05:00

New torso comics coming soon

2006-05-25T17:20:00.000-05:00

Hello internet, it's me Brett.
well ladies and gentle men, here is a sneak peak from the newest Human Torso misadventure.
it should be seeing print in the pages of bottle rocket magazine. Coming. uh... Soon. Or whenever they print it. That is all.

.....odsijfojfoiefsajopmwerdf

2005-03-10T03:27:00.000-06:00

um well. what's been going on that's cool i my life. not a whole lot. except for this
edited edited edited, never mind how i got this... blah blah blah

this is a photo album from the skull and bones society that i have come into possession of. there are no dates anywhere but i searched one of the names, john patton, who became a Senator from Michigan, and was a yale graduate in 1875. i didn't expect to find answers so fast.

anyways there like about 100 some images in the book. here are some of them.

the skull and bones society.

this is the back side of that photograph...with names

this is apparently john patton. most of the book is photos like these, there are about 50 of them. note the skull and bones tie pin

this is the base ball team

this is some of the professors.

so my friend anne stole this from her dad, and then she borrowed it to me, and then moved to new york without getting it back, then my friend scott had it for a few years, now i have it again, and I am scanning it all in and planing on making a duplicate of the book for myself so i can give the origional back to her, but apparently she dosen't want it anymore.
this will probably turn into a larger more obcessive project.