Tag Archives: Comics

Cruz day-in-a-life with a fictionalized spin

during my creative writing group I wrote this a real day in my life — followed by a Sci-Fi rewrite – or how my mind reimagines the daily grind away with a few aliens from outerspace and whynot say in that fictionalized account I was a vampire.

7:AM I’m up a half hour after the crack of dawn — that’s about the time of day a big slice of the sun settles in the right side of the apartment. The dog on bed is dead weight his way of telling everyong in the house it’s hella too early to be awake (I agree) — my dog is nicknamed the old lady because he’s 10 years and that’s 500 in dog years if you’re lucky enough to sleep by my side. I sit in the same chair for 20 minutes eyes closed — half asleep — doing the mantra and knocking back those big worldly worries to the curb.
8:45AM The smell of fresh coffee coming from street vender trucks fills the Grand Concourse in the Bronx. I spot a vendor selling chicken empenandas and think that’s a bold choice for breakfast. Sure enough, two women are chowing down on freshly cooked empandas and for at least five whole minutes my world view is rocked.

Rewrite

from my musty bedside filled with dirt the dog had smelled the change. He registered it with a long whimper calling for the end of times. Being a creature of the night I knew this day was coming humans were weak blood vessels.
The crash of New Jersey happened while I was on my chair meditating. A dark cloud with the smell of roast pig pushed into the Bronx and I knew it didn’t just carry smoke. I thought it could use some of grandmas spices.

* Follow me on Twitter @HenryCruz101

Vampire cartoons rise from the dust in my bathroom walls

I‘ve been sketching in notebooks since I could hold a pen…here’s a sketch that my cat ate — her new name is Ms. Hater or Ms.-Thing-makes-art-better (you be the judge)

Inspiration is like that weird dude who shows up uninvited — when you least expect it, um, like say — when you’re finishing-your-business-in-the-bathroom…’few months ago I saw a vampire on my bathroom. yeah…most people would say that’s just dust “go clean your bathroom
and I’d reply: judge much, hey judge-judy maybe I really really like Vampires?

Here’s the vampire I saw — again, just a dust patch near the bathroom window — but before I cleaned it away forever I sketched what I saw on a yellow post-it note

and later this

Same thing happen a week later, here’s the pic I snapped of the dust from my bathroom — tell me what you see — and yeah, if you’re wondering I did eventually clean up that dust somewhat afterwards:

If you’re like me you saw a Cat-that-thinks-she’s-a-Vampire, or something like this:

I now have two characters in my growing Vampire family, I’m sure they’ll be tweaked as I re-draw, streamlined into something easy to draw as I draw them more and form them into fully formed characters (at least in my mind) that I will use for the the weekly web cartoon strip.

* Follow me on Twitter @HenryCruz101

How Enrique Cruz became a UrbanDictionary.com definition

In the late 1990’s before going into comedy I moonlighted for about 10 years as my alter ego Adult Video Director Enrique Cruz — my birth name is Henry Cruz — not a huge stretch to for me to flip it & use the Spanish version of Henry, which just happens to be Enrique — drum roll — my porno name as a porn director became Enrique Cruz

remember as a kid growing up in the Bronx my grandma — who spoke very little English — used to call me ‘Rigue — short for Enrique — or Pee-Wee another great family nickname because my height was the short size.

Every director will say they have the best fans, hold my drink while I whip out some of my fan praises — starting with CypherAvenue.com dropping words like these just made me blush with pride that I was doing the work of Jesus — if he lived in modern times and drank too much wine:

“things took an up-swing after the mid 90’s under the guise of “Blatino”. Director Enrique Cruz came on the scene and revolutionized gay porn with Off Da Hook, Tiger’s Brooklyn Tails, Off Da Hook 2 and Aprende…Enrique Cruz brought forth men who looked like me, had my swagger and showcased a youthful attitude to match.”

And there’s this gushy five-star-out-of-five-review for my Aprende movie:

“I have been a HUGE fan of Enrique Cruz since I saw Tiger Tyson’s breakout role in “Sweatin Black”…I loved how Enrique seemed to have an eye for the visual and enjoyed new camera angels and somehow had the HOTTEST black and latino actors, guys you see on the street and just wish they were ‘down’!!!”

Over the years its been the fan love for my Enrique Cruz films that I feel lead to being featured in a Out Magazine profile, a Village Voice newspaper interview, written up in The National Enquirer, written up in a history book on Gay Porn, and even a mention in the Arts Section of the New York Times Newspaper

and of all that big media love, my personal favorite kinda nails what I was really trying to do in the films mixing things like “homothugs” “Down Low Gay Culture” “hip-hop culture” hence this lovely Enrique Cruz definition for UrbanDictionary.com

Enrique Cruz is a famed director of black and latino (blatino) gay pornographic films based in New York City…In the mid to late 1990s, Cruz’s films helped to usher in a new era for black gay pornography. His films were innovative in that hip-hop culture influenced the behavior of the models/actors filmed on screen…” click here for full Urban Dictionary definition

Wow, I did some usher-ing of a NEW era…so why NOT
* Follow me on Twitter @HenryCruz101

Dumb dog peed my pajamas

I live a few steps away from the Bronx Zoo — actually it’s four blocks from me but if you like to skip like I do that counts as steps — ‘makes total sense to have a dog, and I also recently acquired a girl cat — because I needed something pretty to post up on Instagram — I hear cat PICs are huge on there, and plus she catches any mice that try to come by) —

remember I live near a Zoo (when in Rome, you pack the farm with animals).

I named my dog Kaye-Kaye and most days we enjoy our nights alone with him on my lap while I’m doing computer stuff like scrolling through important penis enlargement emails & sipping my warm spicy Chai tea — because I’m a little fancy.

Last night the dog was on my lap and shaking — I knew it would be soon time to go outside…

but, I waited a bit, and that dumb dog peed on my pajamas while on my lap — I know what you’re thinking, hey aren’t you mad?

No, the opposite…we had this eerily-loving-post-pee-bonding-moment-of-zen — I cleaned up the mess and hugged that dumb dog.

You haven’t fully lived until your dog pees on you while sitting on your lap — note to self: tweet that —

here’s a snowy video of what a normal pee time consists of

* Follow me on Twitter @HenryCruz101

Cruz Book Quotes: Funny on Purpose

Aim your comedy guns at the right target is my basic takeaway from those who do comedy right and why I’m liking today’s comedy book by Joe Randazzo “Funny on Purpose”

on page 15 we get Seven Traits of highly successful comedy people: Self-Doubt, Excellent Procrastination Skills, Fear of the unknown, Laziness, Fear of Failure, Poor planning, a Need to Express something to the world — personally, I’m good for “Laziness” and a dying “need to express something to the world

my favorite quote on creating-funny is from page 38: “The two primary functions of comedy are: to push the bounds of comfort and to challenge authority. Without these two principles – and an important and universal third principle, which is to smear the edges of tragedy with a shared sense of the absurd – one does not have comedy.”

finally, grab a listen of author Joe Randazzo’s Viewpoints radio interview chatting “Comedy and Comedians, How do they get so funny?”


 

‘really loved what he said here about the late Joan Rivers — in the business for decades — still tried out her jokes at small clubs before she decided they were keepers.

hey, I’m a keeper too why not…
* Follow me on Twitter @HenryCruz101

Cruz Art show reviewed in the New York Times

Remember in 2003 when I screened my behind-the-scenes ‘making porn‘ video apart of that ‘DL: The Down Low in Contemporary ArtGallery show and it got reviewed in the Arts Section of the New York Times newspaper? – What — No, you say…let’s roll that videotape bob

Okay, I only got one line in the NY Times review, but how many artist can say they got reviewed in the mother-fucking-NEW-York-Times-Arts section??

“Enrique Cruz, known primarily for his gay porn films, makes an art gallery debut with clips of dramatized encounters that combine gansta machismo with same-sex eroticism in subtle ways…”

Nowadays, you can listen to me debate on my new podcastOur HeadSpace Episodes # 1 – 28 on our Souncloud channel

* Follow me on Twitter @HenryCruz101

Birth of a web cartoon world?

It started a few months back when I bought a stylus for my iPad. Around the same time I was seeing cartoons made-of-dust on my bathroom wall –

the logical brain says it was just dust but my mind says: ‘ooooh no, that’s a fully formed cartoon cat on my wall’ — maybe I need new glasses, but that resulted in more doodles and finally I came up with this cartoon on modern dating:

and when it snowed, I sketched some more and came up with this called Snow Day:

here’s a rare making of video – me inking over my pencil sketch on my iPad to clean up the lines (impressed yet?)

Over the coming weeks I hope to turn all my doodling into a weekly web comic with characters and a story line – all right here.

* Follow me on Twitter @HenryCruz101