Welcome

Welcome to "O-train dot net", a website showcasing my artwork and comics. To post or not to post? That is the question of the modern age. While the internet famously has no delete key, and some of this stuff is childish, confessional, or crudely executed, putting it in a vault didn't seem right either. Once upon a time, it was a little weird to have an online presence but now, according to no less an authority than my friend's girlfriend, it's weird—even "creepy" she said—not to have one. These days everything has inexorably drifted online, reminding me of a line from an F. Scott Fitzgerald story: "Do you know, they say that all the gold in the world drifts very gradually back to India" (The Offshore Pirate, 1920). At this point in the internet's evolution, everybody has become their own one-man media outfit, complete with content-creation, branding, sales, and marketing. Well ... so be it!

Books, music, and art spark joy—even if they don't pay the bills. And any time stolen away from work and responsibility, and recklessly spent on them, is something to be celebrated.

About The Subway Series

The drawings of the The Subway Series date mostly from when I lived in New York City—although a smattering of other cities are mixed in. I was attending figure drawing sessions not far from where I lived and worked uptown. Then I moved to Brooklyn and suddenly I had a long commute. At some point, I was carrying all my art stuff en route to the drawing session and my wires must have crossed: Why wait for class? I started to draw people on the train, and thus embarked on a prestigious—if unfunded, unrecognized, and wholly imaginary—two-year subway drawing fellowship. It began as a way to pass the time and was never intended to be shown, which inevitably made it better than if this had been my goal at the outset. By the end of the fellowship, I had piles of notebooks and hundreds of sketches. One thing I'm proud of is that these drawings were done on bumpy, jostling subway cars with the uncooperative subjects turning about, changing positions, and then rudely interrupting my drawing when they got off the train.

About The Comics

The comics range in their degree of polish—some were tossed off quickly as jokes; others I labored on for weeks. When I started I knew nothing about the all-important process of transferring a drawing from the page to the computer for digital consumption, but my craftsmanship has evolved and the more recent comics are a product of both old-fashioned drawing and digital artifice. As much as possible, I like to work from life and live models, and sometimes I'll incorporate a stranger I've sketched in another context into a comic if they fit the part.

About The Political Art

Putting political stuff online is a great way to get blacklisted, lose friends, and make enemies. You can even sabotage your chances for employment or get banned from certain countries if you play your cards right. That is the goal of this section.

Digital Privacy Information

This website does not run Google Analytics, as it has always bothered me that the unsuspecting user has no choice to opt-out of this "service". I know what you're thinking:

• Isn't it the case that nearly every other website runs Google Analytics?
• Doesn't this run contrary to your own commerical interest?
• Do you mean to tell me that you're not forwarding my every click and every scroll to Google?

Yes, it's a radical act of human decency. Here's why I do it: