Ernest Hogan's Blog, page 17

CHiCNONAUTICA GETS HOLIDAZED

Chicanonautica gets dazed for the season, over at La Bloga.

As in Halloween:

 

Dia de los Muertos:

 
 
Election Day: 
So, Happy Holidaze:
 

MY LOST ART REFUSES TO DIE

I probably have the timeline scrambled. As usual. Everything turns into part of a collage eventually—the great cosmic recycling bin of existence . . .

Anyway, I’ve been without a printer/scanner since about the time Covid grabbed the world by the throat. Who knows? Maybe the virus killed the chingadera. You can never be sure about these things.

This had me and my wife following my dictum about how when the going gets tough, the tough get creative, learning that taping a strip of paper to a contract on a computer screen and emailing a JPEG of it does the legal hoodoo just as well an actual scrawl on a sheet of dead tree.

(I’m wondering if technology will soon make the written signature obsolete, but I digress.)

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About that time, Emily (my wife for those of you who have better things to do than to memorize the details of my life) rushed out of the garage with an overstuffed, tattered manila envelope. It was full of a bunch of pieces of cardboard with pieces of paper glued to them. Collages.

 

They were something I did back in the late Seventies/early Eighties. This was a rough time for me. I was struggling to hack out a niche for myself in a world that didn’t seem to have a place for me.  I had an unhealthy and unnatural compulsion to create.

These mishmoshes of surrealism and sci-fi were inspired by the collages of Max Ernst and by the fact that I had a lot of old magazines moldering under my bed. Playboy, Life, Science Digest, and others whose names I can’t remember.

I had a lot of fun making them, and they were seen by practically nobody. I had no outlet for them. I put some in my portfolio, and people were disturbed by them.

Seeing them again makes me glad to once again have a printer/scanner. They are delicate and will probably fall apart. I also look forward to posting them online (thank Xochiquetzal for the interwebs). Maybe more people will be disturbed.

I can always use them for illustrations.

And maybe they’ll snag me some money.

Yeah, I’m a hopeless case.

The ones shown here are only a few. Watch out for more.

CHICANONAUTICA EXPLORES MEXICO WITH THE CUBAN AMERICAN JULES VERNE

 

Chicanonautica reviews another dime novel by Luis Senarens, at La Bloga.

Dime novel preceeded pulp magazines and comic books:

It’s about an airship:

It’s got alligators--or are they crocodiles?

And building a railroad across Mexico:

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EXTRA-FICTION CONTEST 2022!

 
Once again, writers of the Latinoid continuum:

Contest submission is free and is open for any Native or Latina/o/x person from or residing in the USA (of American Indian, Chicano/Mexican American, Puerto Rican, Cuban American, Dominican American, Central American, or South American origin). 

Manuscripts must be unpublished, in English, Spanish, or Ingléspañol. Put “2022 Extra-Fiction Contest” in the email subject line. Email Word format (.docx) unpublished submissions with short bio in third person in separate Word attachment and author’s photo (label your name, not author photo) to somosenescrito@gmail.com. One submission per author, 6,000 word limit, contact us beforehand if the submission is over 6,000 words. Submission is free. 

​Deadline is October 31, 2022.
Speculative-fiction stories published in Somos en escrito during the year are considered for the contest.

Judging the finalists is Ernest Hogan, godfather of Chicano Science-Fiction and author of Cortez on Jupiter, High Aztech, and Smoking Mirror Blues.

Prizes:
1st place: $100 and a copy of El Porvenir, ¡Ya!  Chicano Sci-fi Anthology.
2nd place: Copy of El Porvenir, ¡Ya!. 
3rd place: Copy of El Porvenir, ¡Ya!. 
Two Honorary Mentions.
All Finalists will have their stories published online in Somos en escrito Literary Magazine.

CHICANONAUTICA VS. THE PHANTOM OF COLONIALISM

Chicanonautica takes on Gaston Leroux, over at La Bloga.

He wrote the novel, The Phantom of the Opera, among other things:

The phantom was also in movies:

And on Broadway:

Did you know that Leroux also wrote a novel about Incan human sacrifice?

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RAMBLINGS ON GETTING ARTISTIC

Now that I don’t have a novel chewing on my brain, I’ve gotten back into drawing. Like you may have heard, I’m an artist/cartoonist/illustrator as well as writer. It doesn’t really help, more like further confuses the issues.

While working on the novel, I’d start a drawing, and sometimes it would take me months to finish it. As I keep saying, it’s like demonic possession. Now I’m cranking out a lot more.

Usually I start with an abstract expressionist squiggle that I thrash around until it becomes a surrealistic composition. A good warm up for a day of creativity.

Lately, I’ve been going back to my smeared grease pencil over Crayola crayon technique–got to check out a few stationary stores, and see if I can find some of those old-fashion rubber erasers that fit over the end of a pencil. The new kind actually erase rather than smear, which comes in handy for some effects, but not what I need. Meanwhile, I use a separate pink rubber eraser, but it’s better to have it all as one tool . . .

Ah, the technical difficulties.

I’m thinking of getting some watercolors and experimenting with adding some color to these pieces.

It would be fun to fool around with acrylics or oils, but that takes time and more space than I have in this little house. Maybe I could clear a corner of the garage for a painting studio . . .

I often fantasize about retiring to fool around with paint. It’s a lot of fun, but then what do I do with the damn things? I never understood the fine art audience. Who are these people? What do they want? I’d probably have to open my own gallery, and/or run around talking people into buying paintings, which is kind of like selling ice boxes to eskimos.

I’m more of a cartoonist, but never could get a good cartooning gig.

These skills do come in handy. Being the cheapest artist I know, I can come up with something if I need it.

Like now, I’m going to have to convince someone that an insane novel is worth publishing. Maybe some art would help? I can co character studies, and lettering. So what I think things should look like, maybe some sample covers.

Mostly, I want to get back to making filling up those sketchbooks part of my life again, not just something I visit when I have time off from earning a living.

There I go, dreaming of some kind of utopia again. It would be nice.

Meanwhile, I keep getting all these visions in my head. They're pretty weird. Maybe I should draw them . . .

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CHICANONAUTICA MEETS A MAD SCIENTIST'S MEXICAN DAUGHTER

Chicanonautica reviews The Daughter of Doctor Moreau at La Bloga.

It's by Silvia Moreno-Garcia:

 

And takes on H.G. Wells:

And his novel The Island of Doctor Moreau (filmed as The Island of Lost Souls):

That she set in the Yucatan:

CHICANONATUICA MEETS A MAD SCIENTIST’S MEXICAN DAUGHTER

Chicanonautica [LINK] reviews The Daughter of Doctor Moreau, over at the La Bloga.

It’s by Silvia Moreno-Garcia:

And it takes on H.G. Wells:

And his The Island of Doctor Moreau, that was filmed as The Island of Lost Souls:

Moreno-Garcia set her story in the Yucatan:

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COKOCON IN THE TIME OF COVID

 

After a couple of years of pandemic CoKoCon was live, in-person again. Emily has a nasty cough courtesy of the extra-wet climate change monsoon, so I had to go all by myself. It felt strange. Would there be anything of old-school, “traditional” fandom left?

The launch of Artemis 1 was scrubbed that morning. I hoped the rest of the weekend would be better. I wasn’t sure if it would be. There was apocalyptic weather all over the world, floods, droughts, heat waves. Here in the Metro Phoenix Area we were having an Excessive Heat Warning.

Meanwhile, fans were also gathering in Chicago for WorldCon and Atlanta for DragonCon. Bigger events. More like the modern conventions. I put links to my books on Facebook and Twitter, for coventioneers checking in there.

I put one of my bandanas in my pocket before I left. Good thing. Masks were required to enter the convention center. I was asked for my vaccination card, for the first time since I got it.

Covid ain’t over yet, kids.

The Native-style Wild West in the lobby was the only decor. We could have been in an orbital space colony.

A friend, who was wearing a kilt as usual, had a couple of my books for me to autograph, others said hi, recognizing me despite my bandido guise.

Without Emily, there was only one other panelist, Diana Terrill Clark, to talk about “Soundtrack for Your Writing.” We had a small but lively audience, and we all had fun. It’s what happens when science fiction is the common ground for diverse interests.

After, two old friends, a mad scientist and his forensic DNA analysit wife (both now retired) took me to dinner. This is what I miss about old-school fandom, relating to people, a human, if weird, community, opposed to consumers gathered to worship corporate product.

The next morning Emily felt up to going to the JL Patisserie where we had our usual quiche and coffee, but she wanted to go home after she started coughing. On the drive back home, I had ideas for sequels to the novel I just finished.

I remembered to take along El Porvenir, !Ya! and Speculative Fiction for Dreamers, but forgot my sketchbook. My convention-legs are gone . . .

My first panel was “State of the Industry” with Jenn Czep and Adam Gaffen. I commented on my surprise at the title, that somehow, after all these years this has actually become an industry, then laid down some ancient sci-fi wisdom. There was a lot of talk of riding indies and falling biggies. The small presses, hooked up with the interwebs are thriving, finding new markets. If I can’t get a big time deal for my new novel, I’m sure to find it a home, and readers. 

It would be nice to make enough money to retire soon, though.

I had a signing. I was supposed to be doing it with Emily, but without her and no sketchbook, I had to get creative. Luckily, Tezcatlipoca inspired me to gather up some blank-backed flyers. I took a selfie with the books, drew a self-portrait, and an old-timer with a walker talked to me and wrote down where to order my books.

Bruce Davis was the only other panelist for ‘Writing Near Future Science Fiction’ We rambled around the subject. Covid seems to be the latest Great Leap Forward for societal mutation. We got into intercultural interactions, and creativity as a survival tool. People came up afterward and asked about the books I had brought.

In all, it was a pleasant, goofy, human-scale event. Us old-timers are still around, but dwindling away, and attendance is rather skimpy. I hope this kind of convention keeps happening. The younger generations need our bad influence.

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CHICANONAUTICA RIDES AGAIN WITH THE EXTRA-FICTION CONTEST

Chicanonautica announces the 2022 Extra-Fiction Contest at La Bloga (Guess who’s the judge again . . .)

It’s our imaginations, gente:

Folklore collides with pop culture:

And ¡GUAO!

Because if we don’t do it . . .

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