Tag Archives: Enjoy

Celebrating 100 Posts!

I can’t believe it, but this is my 100th post to gegallas.wordpress.com!!

I started this blog in March of last year, not knowing where it would take me. It’s quite incredible how many amazing people are here on WordPress and that they have and continue to visit my humble blog.

For my 100th post, I’d like to share a drawing I’ve been meaning to squeeze in somewhere for a long time. This drawing is from August 2011, but really marks the point at which I discovered, after a long hiatus due to college, that I could enjoy drawing again.

December 2012 - 3

For my 100th post, I’d like to ask two important but simple favors from my readers:

  1. For those of you who have yet to check out my graphic novel The Poet and the Flea, it would be a great honor if you would go over to thepoetandtheflea.wordpress.com and check it out!
  2. If you’d like to receive notifications on Facebook about my new WordPress posts, please follow/like me at www.facebook.com/gegallas!

By the way, if you’re interested in checking out my 99 previous posts, head over to the contents page by either clicking on “contents” at the top of this blog or by clicking the following link: gegallas.wordpress.com/contents.

Thank you very much and I look forward to writing the next hundred posts of this blog!!!

***

For more updates, don’t forget to follow me on tumblr and/or twitter.

***

Copyright 2013 by G. E. Gallas


Celebrating 1,000 Followers!

Screen shot 2012-12-22 at 11.28.47 AM

Yesterday, to my utter surprise, the counter hit 1,000 followers (and a little over) here at gegallas.wordpress.com.

All I can say is: “Wow!”

Many thanks to each and every one of you who has followed this blog. Your “likes,” comments, kind words, insights, and encouragement have really helped me continue to strive towards my goals.

By the way, for those of you who are enjoying The Poet and the Flea (thepoetandtheflea.wordpress.com), don’t forget to press “follow” over there too! :D

Happy Holidays and sweet New Year’s wishes,

G. E.

P.S. I’m excited for my family’s typical Jewish Xmas celebration — Chinese food and a trip to the movies!

***

For more updates, don’t forget to follow me on tumblr and/or twitter.

***

Copyright 2012 by G. E. Gallas


Reader Appreciation Award!

http://thegeektransition.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/reader-appreciation-award.jpeg?w=250&h=186

Wow, I can’t believe I was just nominated for another award — that’s the 3rd one in a very short span of time! I guess my dedication is starting to pay off. :) Feels especially good after receiving a number of various rejections over the past few weeks.

I would like to thank The Geek Transition for nominating me and for these kind words: “She just released a graphic novel called The Poet and The Flea, and I think it’s pretty cool. You can tell she put a lot of work into it. Congrats on the premiere, G.E.!” Thank you very very very much!!

***

Rules

1. Link back to the person who nominated you.
2. Attach the icon to your site.
3. Answer the questions.
4. Nominate some other bloggers whom you feel deserve this award!

***

Questions

Your favorite color?

As covered in my post “A Bit More About Me“: Since childhood, I’ve always favored blue. But nowadays everyone would accuse me of being passionate about the color black.

Your favorite animal?

Difficult question! I’m torn between llamas/alpacas, red pandas, and Shiba Inu (if a breed counts as an animal).

Your favorite non-alcoholic drink?

Tea! Especially Earl Grey, Darjeeling, and Chai.

Your favorite number?

I’m not particularly fond of numbers. Though I prefer odd to even — it’s a question of aesthetic!

Your favorite day of the week?

Don’t really have a favorite day. My least favorite day is Wednesday.

Your favorite flower?

I have developed a fascination with the history of tulips after reading The Black Tulip by Alexandre Dumas.

What is your passion?

As you can hopefully tell by my blog, writing and illustrating. Also, Japanese language and culture.

Do you watch television?

I am a junkie for high-quality dramatic series like Boardwalk Empire and Mad Men, including a million BBC shows like The Hour, Whitechapel, and House of Cards. I just fall in love with the brilliant writing, the multidimensional characters, and the amazing actors. I also love really cheesy Japanese dramas — right now, my favorite is Guilty: Akuma to Keiyaku Shita Onna (Guilty: The Woman who Made a Deal with the Devil).

Who is your favorite author?

Another difficult question! Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces is practically my bible (I mentioned I’m a Jewish atheist, right?). I’m also quite fond of Robert Graves’s I, Claudius, Alexandre Dumas’s The Count of Monte Cristo, Yukio Mishima’s Spring Snow (Haru no Yuki), E. L. Doctorow’s Ragtime, etcetera, etcetera. My bookshelf looks frighteningly like a Penguin Classics library!

Do you like 80′s movies?

Not particularly. The closest I get are the BBC series Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1979) and Smiley’s People (1982) starring Alec Guinness. And yes, I also love the 2011 version of  Tinker Tailor.

What social issues bother you?

Oh, don’t even get me started — we’ll be here forever! Just know that I watch The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, and MSNBC (Rachel Maddow, Lawrence O’Donnell, and all of them) religiously.

How do you like your eggs?

Usually, I like them scrambled. But I also like them poached, especially for an Eggs Benedict!

When did you discover blogging?

I truthfully can’t remember exactly. I remember first using a computer when I was 4 years old. And I started using deviantART sometime in middle school, if that counts.

Why do you like to blog?

I don’t always like blogging, but I’ve discovered how incredibly wonderful bloggers are on WordPress. Unlike other social media sites, bloggers here seem to have a bit more etiquette. I enjoy sharing my work and receiving positive feedback from other talented bloggers!

***

Nomination

G. Martinez Cabrera

It’s been a true pleasure collaborating (Elias & The City of Catswith Gabe thus far, and I look forward to our future projects!

***

For more updates, don’t forget to follow me on tumblr and/or twitter.

***

Copyright 2012 by G. E. Gallas


Work in Progress: “Elias & the City of Cats”

Just wanted to share some of the work I’ve been doing collaborating with writer Gabe (G. Martinez Cabrera) on the children’s book Elias & The City of Cats.

I’m really enjoying working with Gabe — we’re good at bouncing ideas off one another and both have the creative energy to push one another to make the best book that we can!

Currently, we’re working towards creating a mockup of Elias to shop around to publishers.

A few weeks ago, Gabe took the time to cut up his story and arrange it into a format that gives me a better idea of the images he’s looking for. From that, I worked on a rough sketch storyboard draft of sorts.

Recently, I showed Gabe this first rough draft, and from our discussion I’m putting together a second rough draft. I’m sure both of us will be doing a good number of drafts before we have a polished mockup!

Elias and Ignis, preliminary character designs.

Ignis, another preliminary character design.

Two pages from the first rough draft.

Another two pages from the first rough draft.

The second rough draft, in progress!

***

For more updates, don’t forget to follow me on tumblr and/or twitter.

***

Copyright 2012 by G. E. Gallas


Much Ado About Bubbie: Bubbie’s Mad About Hamm

This is an idea I had a while back for a comedic blog about my Bubbie and her antics. If you all enjoy this, perhaps I’ll write a few more, such as how Bubbie voted entirely Democratic except for Mitt Romney because she thinks he’s handsome or how Bubbie now has a crush on Jake Gyllenhaal because he’s a “nice Jewish boy.”

***

Much Ado About Bubbie

Bubbie (noun): A term of endearment for a Jewish Grandmother.

Example: My Bubbie doesn’t keep kosher outside of the house.

My sister Sydney, Bubbie, and me.

Bubbie’s Mad About Hamm

My Bubbie Isabelle has a crush on Jon Hamm.

Just like the rest of the family, Bubbie tunes into Mad Men every Sunday night to watch the admen of 1960s Madison Avenue drink, smoke, whore, and gossip – not to mention dish out sexist, racist, homophobic, xenophobic, and anti-Semitic dialogue by the second, all of which (with the exception of the anti-Semitic variety) go unprotested by my Bubbie, a true product of the time.

To me, the series is a literary masterpiece on film regardless of how small the screen. To Bubbie, it’s just another one of her “weekly stories,” on par with General Hospital and The Young and the Restless.

Jon Hamm plays the brooding protagonist slash advertising genius, Donald Draper, on the show. Ever since reading in The Kansas City Star that the handsome actor is a St. Louis native, Bubbie – who’s lived in Missouri for over seventy years – has harbored a vicarious pride for Mr. Hamm. Much to my family’s embarrassment, this is not Bubbie’s first crush on a man that is at least a decade younger than my dad.

One time on vacation, while my family was checking into the Waldorf Astoria for a night, Bubbie was mesmerized by the dazzling charm and good looks of an Israeli desk clerk.

What a five-foot tall, eighty-something-year-old – complete with her teased-and-set helmet hair, her rhinestoned schoolteacher sweaters, and her constrictive girdle that makes her waddle – would want with a thirty-something-year-old desk clerk was not exactly a welcomed thought in my thirteen-year-old brain.

…a thought that was only exacerbated by the phrase Bubbie used to convey her attraction to the young man:

“He can put his shoes under my bed any day!”

Bubbie employs the same phrase in regards to Jon Hamm.

Whenever I phone Bubbie, my curiosity always gets the better of me. I can’t help but ask her what she thought of the most recent episode of Mad Men. And just like that, she goes off on her classic rant.

Firstly, Bubbie is angry at the show for not portraying the 60s how she remembers it, what with the show’s excessive drinking, smoking, and sex in the office. “When I worked in an office, they didn’t do that kind of stuff!”

Furthermore, Bubbie not only treats Jon Hamm as if he truly exists during the 1960s, but as if Jon Hamm is accountable for his character Don Draper’s actions. Whenever Don Draper does something that Bubbie doesn’t approve of (for instance, whenever Don has sex with a woman he’s not married to – an incident that occurs almost every episode and with what seems like a different woman every time), Bubbie is not only upset with but in disbelief that Jon Hamm would do such a thing, as if she’s oblivious to the profession of acting.

That’s when Bubbie whips out yet another one of her famous phrases, this time to express her disappointment with Jon Hamm’s behavior:

“Why, it’s disgusting!”

***

For more updates, don’t forget to follow me on tumblr and/or twitter.

***

Copyright 2012 by G. E. Gallas


Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 2,591 other followers