JoCo Cruise Crazy 2 Fancy Sketch/Photo Hybrid Comic Part 2



Rob, David and I hosted an officially unofficial event on JoCo Cruise Crazy 2 called “Advanced Drinking and Drawing” (AD&D for short). The idea was, as panel one lays out, fairly simple. We (3 dude whose job it is to draw pictures on the Internet) will sit in the hot sun and drink cold drinks (purchased by YOU) and draw pictures for you until either A) said drinks run out or B) said cartoonists fall over the railing and are swallowed by what is about to be a extremely drunk whale.

I have to say it was a SMASHING success. Well, it was a success and we were SMASHED. We drew for about 3 hours and there were a good 20 or so Sea Monkeys (JoCo Cruise goers) hovering around us with cocktails and shots for most of that time. The only idea I’ve ever had that approaches the genius of “Give us free booze and we will draw dick pictures for you (I DID draw David like one of my French girls)” was “give me a living wage and I will draw dick pictures for you.” While the latter may have a greater impact on the well being of myself and my family, the former is somehow more profound. Like, I want to go set up a reverse hard-lemonade stand on the side of the road and sketch lewd Batmans while strangers poor drinks down my waiting gullet. Sadly I think the success of AD&D relied more on “right place, right time, right people” than “Best idea ever, this should work anywhere, hey is that a daycare? They have booze, right?” and thusly its ability to be replicated in the real world is certainly marred with difficulty.

One of the things that I love the most about events like JoCo Cruise Crazy is that the performers and organizers basically just set the wheels in motion. It’s the enthusiasm of the participants that keeps the whole fantastical thing moving. The days were JAM PACKED with official events. There were multiple concerts, sanctioned hangouts and late night party times EVERY SINGLE NIGHT, but in addition to all of that there were at least several dozen fan created and curated events through out the week. The Sea Monkeys were running games, teaching classes, putting on concerts, scribbling on cardstock for hard liquor… making things, and just making things better. Participation and augmentation are why a geek audience is such a special thing. They can’t help but get involved and leave things weirder, better and more covered in felt and hot glue than they found them.

I hope to get into more of the details and specifics of the AD&D shenanigans in the coming photo comics, but if you crave more Rob, David and Joel goodness, the three of us were guests on the Paul & Storm Podcast which took place live on the cruise. It should be uploaded soon and available HEREish.

[special thanks to Carrie Landers for use of her photo in panel 2 and to Sara Chicazul for requesting the Batman tryptic sketches]

COMMENTERS: What’s the strangest thing you’ve ever accepted in trade for work provided? Booze for drawing is nothing compared to barrels of squid for roof repair or a case of pickled turnips for putting a bunch of squid into barrels (to pay the roofer).

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  1. I used to build scenery in NYC professionally. During this time a friend payed me in ice cream sandwiches and hugs to build him a set.

    Loving the cruise highlights!

  2. About 10 yrs ago I was a server at a BBQ restaurant and we had this one old couple who no one but me wanted to serve because they were "creepy",… thing is they were just old hippies who were very eccentric but I actually liked them alot. Usually they would tip in $2 bills or dollar coins or similar,….. one day they tipped me by giving me a stuffed bobcat,…another time they tipped me by giving me a 1990 Pontiac Grand Am [my car was on the skids and falling apart],…another time they tipped me a Meatloaf tshirt [back in the day they had been roadies locally and also did concessions and souvenir sales and still had boxes of the shirts from a tours throughout the years they had worked] . Scary part those are just the top 3 I remember,…lol

  3. As a musician doing what I do for booze is basically standard procedure, or was until I switched to mainly playing children’s music, accomodation and meals are pretty common too but I’ve also been paid with photos, a ham, tshirts, a window, car hire, computer repair and clothing. Nothing outrageously interesting… But if anyone does something cool for a living in Victoria, Australia and would like me to play children’s music for them, hit me up.

  4. Damn. Now I've got two songs stuck in my head, and I'm thinking about the Robin project I did for one of my mom's friends for Halloween. So, thanks for driving me nuts, and reminding me of my mom's friend's nuts threatening to poke out of his Robin panties. 0_o

  5. It's great giving "gifts" to the bartenders at my local bar. I've gotten so many free drinks for bringing in my baking experiments. Can't say I've gotten anything weirder than a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster.

  6. At my first con, I didn't feel like filling out any tax forms (plus I really didn't think my stick figures and hand turkeys would net me any income) so I ran the whole thing off a bartering system. My table ended up full of random odds and ends including, but not limited to, food, shirts, posters, jewelry, bits of string, shoes, magic cards, shoes, bad poetry, shoes (you'd be surprised how many people willingly give up their footwear), and a real life, honest to God, human baby.

  7. I drive a tow truck for a living, and I towed a woman's broke-down car back to her house, and she (an aesthetician) waxed my eyebrows. Pretty goddamn awesome, I must say…

    • Guess it would have been creepy to have asked them to take a go at your "downstairs" while they were at it huh?

  8. I don't think I've been paid in weird stuff – just practical/awesome stuff. I did one job that paid me with a flat screen TV and one job that paid me with a 27" iMac.

  9. My dad is a lawyer in a rural area. He's been paid for legal services with driveway snowplowing, and house painting. When I was in high school he'd occasionally have me act as secretary for a day and pay me in Magic: The Gathering cards.

  10. We were once offered a live cow in exchange for a used computer (we were a computer repair shop) but as we didn't have the time to look after one (let alone a large grassy fenced area, despite being on 10 acres), we didn't take it.

    My Dad used to occasionally get salmon in exchange for repairing boat engines for the local fishing boats, though. And I did once help paint the basement of the local comic shop for a burger. But I was in college and REALLY hungry. XD

  11. hmm… I had been given cookies & a hot chocolate in exchange for ironing a few things (laundromat job)
    a cute fleece hat made just for me to make someone a rather easy webpage layout, and kinda expensive animu figures to make slightly more complex webpage layout

  12. When I was 16 my neighbor had me sponge-paint her yoga studio. She paid me in glass beads and hummus.

  13. Okay it ate my comment I'll try again.

    My top 3:

    A mostly functional Vespa in exchange for building a 4 foot tall stone wall along my old neighbor's 6 acre property.

    35 lbs of apples, peaches, and pears for exterminating hornet hives, but not the beehives at an orchard. (The guy they hired before me was a bit iffy on that last part) Also finding and killing a huge ass rat that had the owner of the orchard screaming like a little schoolgirl.

    A nice selection of pre-Castro cigars, and two bags of drugs for taking my great uncle Harvey to his doctor's appointments and the hospital the year before he died of cancer. I gladly accepted the cigars, but turned down the offer of drugs. (Not only because I'm not a druggie, but frankly I was terrified at having that many drugs in my car. I'm talking a Hunter S. Thompson amount of drugs here.)

  14. I think anything I have in this category is a result of doing garage sales with friends…1 giant unframed mirror for a complete "Mod Disco Dancer" costume….a small stack of shirts and sweaters for a coffee grinder….

  15. I was once paid a cheeseburger for building a stage set. I also appear not to learn from my mistakes because I also painted a set for what was supposed to be a letter of recommendation from the dean of arts at a local university, but turned out to be a "fuck you, I left the university and I'm not returning your calls".

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