Evening of Comics.

I inked 18 pages today. Now it was mostly line work, and for a mini-sized comic, but that doesn't lessen the feat.

Today actually felt like spring. Maybe it was walks around the Cathedral neighbourhood with pals, or crushing on a new coffee shop girl (barista babe?), or chasing the Lily puppy around my parents' back yard, but it felt good. I hibernate through winter (which amounts to about five months of the year here in Saskatchewan) and I run with a vengence through the rest of the year.

This comic is being thrown together in anticipation of the Cathedral Village Arts Festival wherein my brother and I will load an old baby pram up with comics and tour around the neighbourhood hocking our comicbook-wares. Also, the Queen City Comics festival is next week or something, so it would be benneficial to have new comics. I do wish I wouldn't drag my feet so much with my websites and stuff. It irks me that I have no website to note in this comic, though I'm loathe to register a domain just for the sake of it.

Twenty-Three Years

Today is my birthday. I am happy and excited for the year to come. I had a much needed conversation with my brother about comics, games, and girls. An optimistic outlook on life is not a bad way to start one's twenty-third year alive.

rabbits

I'm attempting to run with this webcomic idea. On the sly, I've been researching, writing, plotting, etc. In a lot of ways, it's easy because I already have a pretty solid idea for a comic, but what trips me up is the format. I mean, part of me would love to just invent a situational comic: characters occupying roles for the purpose of comedy, but it's kind of trite and the comics that do it do it very well. The other option is of course a straight up graphic novel online: also appealing, but more difficult to sell. Online comics update between one and three days a week on average, but these are primarily strip-based. It's much more challenging to have each page exist as a stand-alone post and maintain momentum; updates aside, comic pages don't always read as complete. Pulled from their narrative, they lack context. This is the same problem I have with selling my originals as art.

I guess I have a few options: do a strip, do a page-by-page, do both, or combine. I see online as a means for distribution for this project, but maybe I just need to quit thinking and do something. Too much planning is dangerous.

Current online comic reading list:
Nedroid
Daisy Owl
Allan

Any thoughts on formats or webcomics in general are welcomed. I'm trying to get my shit together.

drawing more, working less

I finally have a break from work and stuff. I've been practicing drawing with my tablet and have been sketching/painting in my spare time, to the point where I think I'm ready to tackle some kind of public project. Maybe it's inspiration from the success of the comics show, but I really want to be publishing consistently. It's difficult when my most of my comics lay unfinished or thrown aside, but rather than stagnate, it might be a good challenge to keep it up, and form some sort of work ethic. I can count about five different unfinished projects--three if I break them up into like groups. Maybe by adding to that with a little more lazy of a project (something that doesn't necessarily need 100% artistic integrity) I would be a bit more impassioned or at least be able to juggle back and forth when I get bored/lazy.

I don't know how I feel about a web comic, really. But I've been following a few that are actually enjoyable concepts or story lines. And when I think about marketability of a product/project, I kind of get excited. Like if I had a user base, I could offer a pretty satisfying product.

I've had an idea floating around for a "graphic novel" for a long time, but I'm starting to realize it might be easier to collect a back-catalogue of work and then throw it together as a graphic novel (like any moderately successful webcomic ever). If I were to treat it even as a monthly or bimonthly update, I could easily build a tight comic page by page in my spare time. The keys are: A, making sure I can commit and B, being decisive in my execution. I don't want to start anything half-assed, or underdeveloped. I've followed too many comics online that fall into the cliche of themselves or just peter out of existence.

It's difficult to think decisively about these things, but everyone else on the internet seems to do it. I think it's just a matter of establishing a product, and then supplying that product. I'm not even sure why the idea of a webcomic is taboo to me, but maybe I want to keep this and my other art separate. At least for now... bah.

The Commitment of Play

This probably doesn't belong here, but I'm falling asleep and had a thought I need to remember. I just finished sketching a page of a comic that has to do with a kid playing make-belief and it got me thinking about my own history as a make-believer. The more I thought about some of the games I used to play with my siblings or even alone, the more I began to remember the fervour with which I used to play. That feeling is what needs to be in everything I do. As a grown up (I guess I consider myself one now) I have too many obligations: to employers, to friends, to society, to myself; but I distinctly remember having an obligation to play. I'd make up games and play them without a care for anything, including myself. It was about finding the game, and playing it. Nothing else. I didn't do it because I needed money, or wanted to be recognized in my chosen field of study; I played because the idea that a game could be played meant it should be played--and come on, I was like four-years-old, there was nothing else to do except be bored.

Anyway, that feeling of playing has never left my memory, and even though I don't always remember that that is what it's about for me, there are instances when the planets align, I lose all attachments, and can happily commit to whatever it is I'm doing.

Dying of Death

I hate the inevitable sickness that the transition between seasons brings. I'm starting to realize that for all my middle-ground demeanour, I'm a man of absolutes. I like my Winter cold, my Spring fresh, my Summer hot, and my Autumn depressing. Or something. Depending on my mood.

The comics show is up at the gallery now. It's been very well-attended and well-received, so I am well-happy. It's encouraging to have something career-affirming like this show happening in the city. It's that little touch out outside justification that lets me drag through the grind and continue working towards something ethereal and altogether unattainable.

always in training

The puppy's name is Lilly.

Killed by karate last night, my body started doing weird things. Just moving wrongly and now hurts all over today. It's nice. I've been stepping up my training for some reason. Not so much with karate (I've fallen into only doing that once a week) but with everything else. I can't really explain it except to say I'm operating in a heightened sense of tension. I've been working harder and longer on projects even when I'm totally wiped, and slacking off much less. Maybe it's the impending spring, but suddenly everything I do is with purpose and direction, though I don't know at what it's aimed.

Saw an old art school friend of mine tonight at work. One of the central characters of many good/bad times in university. Fun. Hopefully collaboration is in the future for us, though if I continue my recent bout of extreme introversion I doubt if I'll ever see her again.