We recently connected with Grandpa Moses and have shared our conversation below.
Grandpa, thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?
It is natural to keep going, no matter what. I received a permanent heat related injury at work over 1 year ago, after 4 months of physical therapy I have THANKFULLY been able to begin drawing once more, complete the lettering for the WIG POWDER cover, the endpapers & centerfold as well. I am still unable to be out in the sun or function in the day. Due to this I have adjusted to a nocturnal lifestyle.
Like many Americans I am also in the process of downsizing, all my belongings have been in storage for over a year.
I have put on hold the art I was working on & have gone ahead working on series 2 (see pictures). Without my supplies I have used a wash of morning coffee grounds for dirt, childrens’ model paints & back-to-school colored pencils for the cornstalks & a recycled sky painted long ago. In this way I am have been able to keep moving the story forward.
With a few final touches the final panel of series 1 will be complete. Strange having it packed away for all these years & inaccessible has allowed me to narrow my focus & set my sights on series 2.
Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
I am just a storyteller. My focus is only on the continued creation of this “Snake Oil” series of Happy Cat Comix. Through color, motion & fractal clues the works act in concert with one another, hopefully giving the observer not only a more detailed view but indeed a much deeper view of the orrery of interconnected relationships of characters and locations through contextual clues & tons of miniature in-story “easter eggs” littered throughout. in this way meaning is not just added but geometrically multiplied with each new drawing (or at least is meant to be).
Snake Oil is a story of prophecies fulfilled, of death & rebirth. A story of the collision of chaos & order. An inevitable/unavoidable crash at the intersection of 3 snake oil salespersons, 3 sisters & a giant. Oleandra, Osceola & Oleusa are 3 powerful matriarchs who firmly rule over an ever replenishing society gorged on riches from pillaging their neighbors. Forged on indentured servitude & industrialized by secdroid labor. With the death of all but 1 of the Giants the exploitation colonialism of Wakamankwa has gone unchecked. With resources dwindled from their previous conquests they set their sights on the “Sinking of Pie Town”.
With Snake Oil Part 1 basically put to bed, I have generated an edition of 10 stickers & 10 postcards celebrating the characters & locale of Part 1 of the series, These are available through eBay store: happycatcomicsandcollectables.
DM Instagram: @happycatcomics or @happycatcomix & I will add a print of most any image posted to that eBay happycatcomicsandcollectables store ranging from $3 – $25 for large 18 x 24 actual drawn size prints. (all prints are dated & signed on back w/makers mark (middle R fingerprint) for easy identification, authentication & provenance)
email: [email protected] for licensing opportunities.
Stay Tooned: for NEVER BEFORE PUBLISHED work appearing in the next couple of weeks in Issue #26 of @spreadlovezine Underground comix out of Canada (available in comic book stores everywhere) & also Texas’ own indie comix zine @the_meat_puppet Issue #2.
Coming up: I will have 3 postcards at renowned @brassworksgallery Portland – “2nd Annual Postcard Show” 12.14.24
(still available: “Behind the Bench” 3 Postcard Triptych (pictured in the lower 3rd of the b/w photo here) from the “1st Annual Postcard Show”.)
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
1) Love your work & keep it up. If you love it & don’t think you’re good just keep doing it.
2) Follow your vision. Don’t worry if it doesn’t make sense at the time, it will work itself out. Don’t worry about beginning middle or end, or making sense to others, worry about being authentic to your own vision.
3) Make time for your artwork or writing if you work days or especially nights take 5 minutes & do a little each day, don’t work at the post office, don’t work for amazon, don’t burn the candle at both ends for a day job, the regret will always outweigh the reward. Life is short, don’t abandon your own work for years at a time.
What is the number one obstacle or challenge you are currently facing and what are you doing to try to resolve or overcome this challenge?
The biggest obstacle is living nocturnally and living out of storage, overcoming it has been kind of easy because I have had things on the back burner, like the making of these stickers & postcards & the editing and drawing of this WIG POWDER prequel zine. Stuff I have been meaning to do for years but just wanted to finish Part 1 of the series first. Now without a studio, just working at a kitchen table, with puppy dogs banging into the legs while i am painting, with limited supplies, I have been able to execute most of WIG POWDER in a short time despite illness and having all my clothes and stuff stowed away.
Who knows maybe all those hundreds of pencils and pens and brushes and studio knick knacks were distracting me too much.
Now I just have these 3 pups that keep me grounded in the kitchen area when i’m home so I’m always reaching out and coloring a little in here and there with these terrible childrens’ colored pencils, coffee grounds and pencil nubs.
Less can be more i guess.
Photos: 1) artist w/ mural (July,2014) 2) Chamber Egress (WIG POWDER endpapers) 3) WIG POWDER (cover) 4) work in progress detail from WIG POWDER centerfold 5) postcards 6) stickers
Contact Info:
- Instagram: @happycatcomix and also @happycatcomics
- Other: vivavinyl1 on the eBay marketplace
Image Credits
all photos C 2024 Happy Cat Comics
