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Salton Sea

This is the Salton Sea in Southern California, one of the several huge salt sinks in the western United States. I thought I knew the story, right? Crazy engineer guy wants to up water irrigation of both California and Mexico sides of the valley, international fights over who owns what portion of the Colorado River, some ill-thought-out canals that silted up and overtopped and boom! You have the Salton Sea, all of the sudden. Fast forward past the 50’s where it became a beach resort and you’ve got this toxic salt soup that no fish can live in that’s just sitting there, evaporating slowly and poisoning everything around it. Not quite. Here’s some things I didn’t know:  

Wasn’t the first time a sea formed in the Salton Sink, and the largest flood-in was 28 times bigger than the 1905 flooding.  

Wasn’t even the first time the Colorado was diverted into canals to support valley agriculture, that honor belongs to the Cahuilla Indian tribes way back a thousand years ago.

The canal didn’t fail in 1905, it was deliberately opened up to divert around a silted portion to make repairs.  

The mass die offs of fish and birds from the 90s stopped when the Salton Sea underwent a massive cleanup and restoration project and now that the lake is managed, both levels and wildlife have stabilized.  

Far from not being able to eat the fish, Tilapia from the Salton sea provide a huge tonnage of meat for consumption every year and it’s commercially fished. (Good old tilapia can live literally anywhere I guess)

saltonseaauthority.org/get-inf…

There’s still lots of fish skeletons around the lake though. I didn’t paint them in. Instead I painted in one of those wonders of the desert: a Haboob. Apparently they’ve got dust issues down at Salton Sea, just like practically every other desert and big old storms roll through when thunderheads collapse further away across the plain. It’s truly awe inspiring and not a little bit terrifying to watch a haboob roll over you. Phoenix tends to get hit with one at least once or twice a year. The wonders of nature never cease.  

And the party on Eynhallow is going strong.

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Lake Mendocino

So this is Lake Mendocino. This week I thought ‘hey, why don’t I paint some place that’s burned down last week’ and went and looked at a map. So I threw a dart into the board around Mendocino County wouldn’t you know, I picked a spot that hasn’t burned down. Turns out California is a lot larger than 3 million burned acres, even if that is a record since about 1770 when the Spanish stopped the Indians from razing the place to the ground every year.  Lake Mendocino is just south of the August Complex fire. Well Lake Mendocino doesn’t look like it’s in danger, so potential vacation spot? It’s a reservoir formed by Coyote Dam just east of the Russian River and north of Ukiah. Wikipedia says there’s a nuclear bomb shelter in the dam, which sounds very cool, but ‘citation needed’ I can’t find any other data on this legend. Wikipedia also lists the lake’s official website as a .mil. a .mil? So the lake is owned by the Army Corps of Engineers.  There’s a fish hatchery apparently, and….what the army corps of engineers runs a fish hatchery? Steelhead trout apparently, mmmm delicious. Anyways, I’m starting to believe in the bomb shelter, and probably a lot more than just that. Who knows. It looks like a great place to go fishing. In fact they have an entire section of the website dedicated to ‘bow and arrow fishing’. What? For goldfish? The things I learn painting pictures. XD

California is weird. California comic books are also weird.

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Downieville

This is Downieville California, a gold mining town up on the Yuba River that I became aware of after reading a ‘true-life adventure’ book about gold mining in the Great Depression (Bacon & Beans From a Gold Pan, by Jesse Coffey)

Jesse and his wife moved from near where I live now to Downieville when the gold in the Agua Fria creek was just about all mined out. He describes in fascinating detail the climate, the people, finding old friends and most importantly, striking gold. So I’d recommend. Nowadays there’s about 300 people living there. From the looks of it, the town is entirely governed by E Clampus Vitus. Here’s a great write up of the town’s history. Apparently, at one time they nearly beat Sacramento in the bid to become the state capitol.

Xander is giving a little speech today.  I figure less nsfw than last week.  Still a little.  

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Silverado Canyon

California. 

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Torrey Pines

Tried out a different program for painting this week, Krita which is a free open source painting program designed with comic artists and traditional painters in mind.  And it is indeed impressive. Go download it.  It handled quite well, although with my enormous comic files, I'll probably have to stick with Photoshop for the end phases.  I inked the most recent comic in it and it went really well.  It's got a lot of script integration too so I could port my database handling over there pretty easily.  Much more to be explored, but it was a really fun thing to do, break out of the old and into the new.  

What's happening on Eynhallow.  It's not going well.  But when is it ever.  

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California Oaks

Are all on fire today.  Tis the season.  Smoke is in the air.

Feels like Eynhallow.

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Seiad Valley

Way up north this week. Deep in Jefferson. XX. Jefferson is huge though, I moved to Jefferson without even knowing it everyone has Jefferson signs. Go (whatever our state mascot is)! This is the view from Stein Butte of Applegate Lake, the summit is not technically in California, but it’s about .5 mile from the border. Siskiyous mountains, Seiad Valley , all that stuff. I love how wild the mountains get up there, it goes weird and steep and very fjord-y up there in the Cascades. Anyhow, give it a hike if you’re there, the views look incredible. Pacific Crest Trail goes through here.  

Xander is not making things awkward this week so, sfw!

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Tunitas Creek Beach

This is Tunitas Creek Beach, on Highway 1 near Half Moon Bay.  It’s a bit of a secret beach because you’ve got to climb down (and up) a rope to get to it down those sheer cliffs. It is a county park though, and they only let you go if you’re accompanied by a park ranger.  Rent a ranger.  I wonder how much that costs?  

Fair warning on Chateau Grief today, Cartoon Violence up ahead.

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Brandy Creek Falls

This is Brandy Creek Falls of Whiskeytown California. Whiskeytown California! Why don’t I live there? There’s a whole gol durned Whiskeytown National Recreation Area by jumped up harry. It’s up by Mt. Shasta, and unsurprisingly was one of Shasta County’s original gold towns back in the 40’s. The real 40’s of course, not the fake 1940’s.  According to wikipedia, one of the guys found a 56 ounce nugget. And now I’m really regretting not moving there. In Whiskeytown National Recreation Area there’s 4 gorgeous waterfalls to visit and enjoy though. Here’s the park service’s pics: It’s so remote and unvisited apparently that they just discovered a new 220 foot waterfall in….2004. By studying aerial photographs. There is only one possible explanation: Bigfoot lives here. Or did, until the Carr fire of 2018, a relative left Redding over that one, evacuated and never came back.  Crazy fire jumped the Sacramento River, the biggest river in California.  I’m sure that was a surprise.  It also caused an F3 fire tornado that lasted half an hour.  It did a number on the Whiskeytown National Recreation Area and some parts of the park are still closed due to probably erosion of trails and stuff but the Park seems optimistic that the trees are growing back well.  There’s still gold in them thar hills. But Whiskeytown nowadays takes a dim view of gold prospectors.  

Meanwhile, Xander is getting beat up.

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Dante’s View

This is Dantes View looking along that huge Death Valley, Black Mountains, Furnace Creek, Panamint Mountains area.  It’s about a 30 mile view. In a bunch of directions.  On a clear day though allegedly you can see Mount Whitney.  Thus you can see the highest and lowest point in the US at the same time!  Dante Alighieri of course is the Italian poet, born 1265 and died 1321, the guy who wrote the Divine Comedy that gave everyone the portrait of a humanist rebel Lucifer that’s become so fashionable.  Better to rule in hell than serve in heaven etc.  There was a very famous 1800’s edition illustrated by Gustave Dore which have some of the best examples of what I’d call ‘comic book inks’ ever produced.  https://duckduckgo.com/?q=divine+comedy+gustav+dore&t=brave&ia=images&iax=images  Incredible use of gradient in a simple line and the imaginative fantasy of the compositions is really a sight to behold.  

Suddenly I feel the need to caveat the link to Chateau Grief with the phrase:

Abandon all hope ye who enter here.

Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch’entrate.

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Santa Barbara Island

This is Tiny Santa Barbara Island off the coast of California in the Channel Islands. It’s about 640 acres or just slightly larger than Dismalland. It’s surrounded by cliffs, so they had to build a dramatic and precarious-looking dock so you can climb up onto the top and there’s a ride along the island that rises to 634 feet above sea level at its highest point. Quite the interesting geology, it’s not a volcano. Highlights from nps.gov’s writeup of the geology: the northernmost rocks of the Channel Islands show that the planet’s pole was 100 degrees off from where it is now, by the time you get down to Santa Barbara Island in the south, it’s less. I’m interpreting this as a pole shift over time, but NPS says that the islands themselves rotated around their center of mass 100 degrees over time. What would we do without experts.  Santa Barbara Island is composed almost entirely of volcanic rock, but no one knows where it came from or is even presenting a theory as to how it formed. However they notice a significant similarity in the composition of volcanic material on the islands and on the mainland Santa Monica Mountains. Additionally there’s evidence of significant sea level fluctuation over the last buncha years via the formation of ‘marine terraces’ or vertical stripes of land that show where the ocean once eroded it. This ranges from 400 feet below sea level to 1000 feet above sea level. Hey Los Angeles, watch any disaster movies recently? Best quote: ‘During one of these periods, 15,000 to 10,000 years ago, there was extensive stripping of vegetation by mammoths.’ I would dearly love to know how they came to that conclusion, but this is simply bomb-dropped without explanation. Sigh. My aquatic elephants conspiracy theorizing will have to wait.  

Santa Barbara is the patron saint-ess of people who make bombs, use dynamite, and calculate ballistics apparently. The details are ornate. There’s a huge kind of tarot vibe I’m getting from Saint Barbara, what with towers and lightning. So it is perhaps fitting that General Sebastián Vizcaíno discovered the island and named it for the saint whose day they were celebrating at the time 4 Dec, 1602. Vizcaino later became ambassador to Japan in 1611 surveyed the eastern coast of Honshu and did some good conquistadoring for the mythical Islands Rico de Oro and Rico de Plata legendary islands off the coast of Japan.  My Spanish may not be good but even I recognize those.  Info no doubt to be found in the Shan Hai Jing.

Which is harder to read than a comic book.

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Mission San Juan Capistrano

This is Mission San Juan Capistrano, or ruins thereof, founded in 1776, and consecrated by Franciscan Fermin Lassuen, who looks like he could be someone’s grandfather  that jaw, man. This guy was Junipero Serra’s successor and practically the pope of California. 21 missions in all, and I’m going to paint ‘em all eventually. I’ve got Mission San Luis Rey  (Saint King Louis IX). And two of Mission San Juan Bautista(Saint John the Baptist).

So the obvious question to ask is, who the heck is San Juan Capistrano? Hoo boy, John of Capistrano 1386-1456 was a warrior priest. And by that, I mean he rode into battle on the side of Jesus Christ and Dracula. At age seventy. Triumphantly, I might add. In fact it took the Black Death to take this dude to his heavenly rest. So how did this all happen, well it all seems to center around that super important historical figure that no one talks about John Hunyadi, who had his fingers in more pies than I can keep track of. There was an unbelievable amount of military stuff happening in that era, so I’ll try to just keep it to the Siege of Belgrade.

The Turks were invading Hungary. The Hungarians sent for help, but none was coming. Transylvanian poo bah Hunyadi is even getting raided by the Wallachian throne in allegiance to the Sultan. So Dracula takes off to conquer Wallachia with Hunyadi’s blessing (from Hunyadi’s former puppet, lol) and Capistrano starts preaching in the streets to raise the army. Hunyadi’s got cash so he hires a bunch of mercenaries, but Capistrano starts a freakin peasant crusade. Everyone packs up and thirty thousand guys go to rescue river fortress Belgrade currently being besieged by 160,000 turks with heavy cannon, ships, infantry, cavalry and child-slave Janissaries who were brainwashed and then when adult sent as killers to ensure the continued repression of their own people. Dracula had been handed over by his father as a child hostage to these people. Damn. That’s three brigades. Anyways. The Sultan starts shelling the castle on July 4, 1456.  It takes two weeks for the crusade to walk to Belgrade. Hunyadi takes the mercenaries and immediately sinks a bunch of ships in the Sultan’s flotilla, breaking the naval blockade. They immediately bring food to the starved defenders of the castle. After a week or so of skirmishing, the Sultan breaches the castle with the Janissary corps. Hunyadi gets everyone to start a fire between the mind controlled Janissaries and their support column, rather successfully managing to separate the groups so that he could kill the invaders and repulse the turks still outside the castle walls. The turks take heavy losses, the castle remains in Hungarian hands. Daylight comes, and without consulting any of their military commanders the peasant crusaders seize John Capistrano and tell him that they’re going to push the advantage. 70 year old Capistrano rides out in front of them. The castle defenders charge the enemy camp and the turks are so surprised they scatter in a complete rout. Hunyadi seizes the opportunity to lead a charge out of the fort and captures the Ottoman cannons.  The Sultan and the brainwashed Janissaries try to rally the army but it’s no use and everyone flees across the river. The Sultan takes an ‘arrow in the thigh’ *cough* and is evacuated back to Constantinople. Dracula is victorious in his effort to take the Wallachian throne as well and we all know how that worked out. The peasant crusade has its brief victorious moment, and then Black Death breaks out due to unsanitary camp conditions. Both Hunyadi and Capistrano die of the disease within a few weeks. Dracula held the line against the Turks until his death (and after, some say ), one of his lieutenants in the battle was Stephen the Great, who reclaimed his throne as King of Moldavia as a result of the battle. The pope, Callixtus III, ordered that in celebration of the victory, the church bells should all ring at noon, every day. And so it continues to this day. And that’s what’s up with San Juan Capistrano. Things I didn’t know about history 101 for sure. A wild tale. Battles! Excitement! Glory! Charge, Men! Anyways. I think this is the second or third time John Hunyadi has popped up in stories from my paintings. I wonder where he’ll show up next.  

Meanwhile Xander continues to flash those teeth at everyone like he knows something.  

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Mt Lassen

This is Mount Lassen kinda looking up the side where it blew out in 1914. It’s an active volcano. It was discovered by the inimitable Jedediah Smith in 1821, passing through on his way to discovering all the other things in California. It was named for the local blacksmith Pete Lassen, who was a Dane, apparently Lassen is a corruption of Lars-son, came to California in 1840. He was a traveling blacksmith fixing all those conestoga wagons and horse feet coming to California during those early days. Lassen was in an out of the way spot to do this with, so he had to dream up a way to increase traffic through one of the most remote regions of California. Advertising. Contemporaries called him ‘the wily Dane’ and he sent advertising agents out everywhere trying to convince 49rs to use his particular trail and guide/blacksmithing services. Turns out the trail was 200 miles longer than any of the other routes. Naturally with this sort of entrepreneurial spirit, he fell into company with John Fremont, who stayed at his house and admired his ranching and farming skills. Pete Lassen was allegedly murdered by a Paiute sniper while prospecting for silver, an incident that contributed in the lead up to the Paiute War. The murder was never solved but they brought back Lassen’s body and buried it in Susanville where’s he’s got a rather Egyptian looking black obelisk as a grave marker. Now he’s got an entire county named after him, population 35,000, main employer, Herlong Federal Correctional Institute and High Desert State Prison Max Slam in Susanville. It’s remote out there, but Lassen peak is definitely a sight to see, or if you’re especially brave, climb up to 10,457 feet. Teddy Roosevelt made the mountain a National Monument in 1907. That must have been spectacular when seven years later it blows up with no precursor earthquakes. The mountain erupted for several years. In fact, they’ve got it on video:

Other things also liable to erupt with no precursor earthquakes.

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Palm Desert

This is Palm Desert, California with that good old desert smog.   There’s a great little store somewhere out there in the desert along the highway where you can get date shakes and cactus shakes.  I always got the cactus ones, they were delicious.  So Palm Springs was the Old MacDonald Ranch, not farm, and they changed the name when they planted a whole bunch of date palms in the 20’s and started selling them.  It’s hot hot hot desert country there and so it attracts a bunch of those old wealthy boomer retirees who are trying to mitigate their arthritis on the golf course.  It’s famous for its tennis clubs too, and presumably bridge and bingo nites.  There are 30 golf courses located within a 10 mile area, in fact, it’s just all golf courses and little McMansions stuffed in the odd nook and cranny in between greens.  I don’t know how to golf, but if I lived there I’d totally learn because it looks gorgeous.  Just kidding, I have to work for a living.  Have another mimosa.  And read a comic book

And read the new Codename Magic Episode!  (Shill shill, am I doing it right?)

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This is a frame from my 3 episode short story comic Codename Magic which is live on Webtoons this week!  I wanted to bust out into magnificent technicolor in this piece, right as the action starts to heat up and bring in those beautiful summery hot tangerine and flamingo pink.  Sort of eye popping colors to set the scene as we start to unwind Xander’s journey into a sleepy little California town (lol Palo Alto) to analyze an alien artifact that ate someone’s dog.  Go give part 1 a read if you haven’t already!  https://www.webtoons.com/en/challenge/codename-magic-b/list?title_no=453121

Technical Stuff:

There’s a fun bit of internet lore behind this location too, the site of the mysterious Palo Alto CARET Lab (Commercial Applications Research for Extraterrestrial Technology, right across the street from the USGS building if anyone’s interested) and all the crazy 1970’s psychic research CIA/US ARMY program called the Stargate Project conducted in this whirling maelstrom around Stanford University. It sounds totally fake, or at least totally stoned.  Here’s the wikipedia page: . It was declassified in 1995.  The rabbit hole on the Stargate Project goes deep.  Anyways the CARET stuff can be found here and involves something that the authors don’t have a name for but are trying to figure out, the use of written language as a kind of hard-coded computer instructions to accomplish physical effects in the real world. I can help them out here, that’s straight up rune magic, and the implications of a sort of sci-fi fantasy crossover here has always intrigued me.  Just.  Don’t do drugs n’ stay away from the clockwork elves. Also you gotta read Codename Magic, and give me a like and a follow if you’ve got a webtoons account.  Otherwise just read it, you don’t need an account.   It’s a ton of fun, even if you’re not into comics.  

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This is my title page for a fun little project I’m doing to enter webtoons’ short story contest,  I present: CODENAME MAGIC!  Yeah, whoever could that be.  Wonder what sort of trouble Evil Overlord Xander got himself into back when life was simpler and he was a hippie?  Wonder no more!  Twenty-year-old Xander’s got to go see a man about a little green alien artifact, and as you may start to suspect, there’s more going on here than meets the eye.  

It’s formatted in a more traditional webtoon style than Chateau Grief, but the really exciting thing is….dun dun dun….I got pages.  Once webtoons wraps up, expect a standard size comic book pdf or print or something of these honeys, because *chefs kiss* they’re looking gorgeous.  It’ll finish in 3 long episodes and it’s a contest so please stop by webtoons and give me a fav and a follow.  

And now we return to your regularly scheduled programming…

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Moonlit Village

This is a recent commission book cover I did for a novel entitled 'The Demon Under the Mountain' and so of course I thought of the mighty Untersberg outside of Salzburg where they filmed the opening scene of the Sound of Music.  Legend has it that King Charlemagne sleeps undying buried in the caves of the mountain and that one day when the circling ravens decide that the world needs the king again, he'll ride out with all his fair knights to conquer evil as Holy Roman Emperor and rekindle the golden age of chivalry.  No quixotic endeavor for him.  King or demon under the mountain....the hillllls are alllllliiiiiiiiivvvveeee!  

Whether form of a demon or of a crowned king, perhaps neither, perhaps the ravens can tell.  You know the ones, they're on the ambulance logo.