Category Archives: dragon comics

Dragon Comics 116

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The pencil is mightier than the fang.

The pencil is mightier than the fang.

Usually, I like to think of myself as a pretty calm and thoughtful dragon, but sometimes, lately, for example, the little foibles of humanity can enrage me. I was seriously screaming at clueless drivers who were completely innocent of the rules of the road, especially those pertaining to the 4-way stop, and one car in particular not only almost caused an accident, then made 2 turns and a lane change without signaling. The driver remained blithely unaware of the mayhem he left in his wake.

It’s rare that someone dates to disrespect me to my face, though. Not since the late ’80s, anyway. Usually, if anyone tries, I cut them right down because I’m proactive like that. Every so often, for political reasons, I find it more prudent to smile and pretend. And then stew. And then make them a low level villain in a novel. Anyway, I think this comic helps.

The greatest thing you can do to someone who is rude to you is kill them with kindness. Smile and give them a big hug whenever you walk by. Call out their name and wave if they unexpectedly enter the room.

Or, you can draw a hilarious caricature of them and pass it around to people sympathetic to your cause.

In the end, dragons stay dragons. And vulgar, constipated people stay vulgar, constipated people. Eventually, most people work out which is which.

Dragon Comics 115

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It's the dust rhinoceroses that you really have to watch out for.

It’s the dust rhinoceroses that you really have to watch out for.

I don’t know if the weird stuffiness in my face is allergies or a sinus infection, but I do know for certain that I am a terrible housekeeper. Very little motivation to clean exists in my mind, and while I enjoy a tidy environment, the actual act of putting things away tires me, the vast majority of commercial cleaning products make me sick, and I am definitely allergic to dust. Typically, I live in chaos. But, I have guests coming, so even though my head has been threatening to explode for the last couple weeks, I felt compelled.

Between my lack of natural talent and the debilitating effects of congestion, combined with a steady diet of antihistamines and pseudoephedrine, it took me about 4 hours to do what a normal person could accomplish in less than half that time. And the house still doesn’t look especially clean. If you manage to avert your eyes from the floor, it’s passable. But the floors are pretty gross. I vacuumed (with the haunted Dyson from Dragon Comics 21) so the dust bunnies are mostly conquered, but nobody’s mopped in months. And here I am, with a thousand pounds of pressure in my skull, nowhere near bed despite the Nyquil I took 2 hours ago.

Anyway, dust bunnies. They’re disgusting.

A Barrel of Monkeys

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Don't be sad. You're still more fun than a barrel of fish or a barrel or pickles.

Don’t be sad. You’re still more fun than a barrel of fish or a barrel or pickles.

When you think about it, a barrel of monkeys sounds like a real nightmare. Once you open it up, the cat’s out of the bag, so to speak. You’re not going to be stuff them back in. There are going to be raucous, unsanitary primates swinging from your chandeliers and diving into your Cheerios.

I guess when you think about it, sliced bread really isn’t all that great either. It’s not like cutting a slice of bread is some kind of major imposition on your time or energy.

The thing that would really improve my life in a way remarkable enough for me to craft a metaphor concerning its greatness would be a housekeeping robot, one that could tidy up and accomplish deep cleaning tasks. My allergies would especially appreciate a non-breathing apparatus capable of dusting on a regular basis. Yes, I intended to clean my office today, and yes, I chose to do something more interesting and meaningful with my time. So it’s a little bit gross in here, but not as bad as it would have been had someone unleashed an actual barrel full of monkeys.

Dragon Comics 114

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I really do have a headache and The Man is asleep so there's no one to block out the light.

I really do have a headache and The Man is asleep so there’s no one to block out the light.

Even without a migraine, I’m pretty photosensitive, which is why you’ll see me wearing sunglasses 90% of the time the sun’s up, and sometimes even when it’s not. With a migraine, the light sensitivity is much worse. But I’m committed to drawing webcomics every day, or something like that, so here I am powering through. And as I’m sitting here I’m seeing these aggressive flashing lights out of the corner of my eye. Something weirdly sharp and sort of painful and disorienting. But I’m only seeing them at certain angles, to the point that I’m starting to worry that I’m hallucinating or having a stroke or something. Every time I try to get a line on what’s bouncing off my eyeballs, the lights disappear, like a UFO whenever there’s a reliable witness in the area.

Eventually, though, I look over my shoulder, at which point I notice that there are 2 cops standing in my driveway, and the lights on their squad car is flashing violently all over the place. So I’m not having a health crisis. I just live in a horrible neighborhood.

Dragon Comics 113

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I shall return to my studio forthwith, but first, let me take a selfie.

I shall return to my studio forthwith, but first, let me take a selfie.

There’s absolutely zero balance because selling yourself is a full time job and if you put enough effort into the process to make a difference, you’re left without time or creative energy to achieve your primary objective. Or maybe I just spend too much time on the Internet. I can’t dispute the fact that I’m getting more traffic than ever, mostly from Reddit (but obviously getting Reddit traffic boosts your reputation with Facebook and Google) but I’m spending less and less time producing content…ah…I mean, making art. Dragon Comics are great but they don’t really move me forward from a creative standpoint. They’re more of a standby.

Well, tomorrow I’ll start on my Halloween bulletin board. That should cheer me up and possibly even inspire me. Plus, high quality content.

I also have to turn in a listicle and 11 book reviews by tomorrow night. I’m sure I’ll have time to accomplish all of that in between making lunch for The Man and hanging out with the Misseses Kitty.

Dragon Comics 112

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Introverts of the world--well, when I say

Introverts of the world–well, when I say “unite,” you know I just mean emotionally, intellectually, spiritually. I wouldn’t actually ask you to, say, leave your homes or interact with other human beings. What kind of a monster do you think I am?

The Internet is pretty much the greatest thing that ever happened to bookish, socially awkward, and otherwise introverted nerds. Now we can interact with other human beings! On their level, even! Sometimes even above their level! Minus all that uncomfortable physical proximity and weird self-consciousness, and without the need to constantly decompress afterward.

In fact, people who know me as an adult often have difficulty believing what an introvert I am. I’m not shy, and I’ve overcome most of the social handicaps that really perplexed people when I was a little dragon. I’m perfectly capable of going to a party and enjoying myself, even being the center of attention, although I’ll never master or comprehend the art of small talk. But when I’m done, I’m done. Too many people frazzles my circuits. It probably doesn’t help that many of my friends are significantly younger than I am. The Man and I are both 40, while the Fox and Mrs. White Kitty are in their early 30s and the Otter and Mrs. Black Kitty are actually in their 20s. We probably enjoy a wilder nightlife than most people in our cohort. We get invited to a lot of sweet parties thrown by really cool people. But sometimes, I can’t handle it.

Sometimes, all you want is to sit quietly and read, and no amount of funnel cake, legal intoxicant, or whimsical diversion can entice you.

The Man is an extravert himself, and would happily immerse himself in group dynamics every night of the week. Personally, I have weeks (this one for example) where I’d be perfectly delighted never leaving the house. It’s draining, and it cuts into my creative time.

Of course, the Internet cuts into my creative time too. It’s a delicate balancing act.

More 3D Dragon Comics

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I'm not sure if this was really worth waiting for.

I’m not sure if this was really worth waiting for.

It’s pretty sticky here after a day of weird and constant monsoons, and I thought I might take a night off from the blog, but around midnight I got kind of itchy about it, like drawing comics is some kind of ingrained habit. Or chemical dependency. I couldn’t relax until I made *something* even though my head hurt and my eyes were swimmy and all I wanted was to relax. Sometimes I have to remind myself that I’m doing this for me, not for clicks or likes or money. So it’s OK if I produce something that isn’t funny or informative or meaningful to anyone else. It just has to be meaningful to me.

This one went along fairly quickly, once I created a new template, although somehow I messed up the text size so you really have to click on the image to see it clearly, because each panel ended up being as big as my normal single panel comics, and I didn’t adjust the lettering. It’s too late. My head hurts too much. Click on the image if you want to know a few things from inside my head. You can also just admire the pictures, with which I am fairly satisfied.

I was outside the public library at 1:45 a.m. again, due to the fact that I have been, as Mrs. Kitty says, “Cox blocked,” and mysteriously lacked sufficient Internet to upload a single image, despite my paying these people $70 a month, every month, for high speed access. Unfortunately, I couldn’t even get online there, for whatever reason. It looked like they had changed their network completely; I hadn’t used it in a couple weeks. I’ve been trying to post this thing for well over an hour and am too tired to drive to the next place I know I could get online.

***

Now it is the morning and my Internets have magically returned. Hooray. Here’s my blog.

3D Dragon Comics #1!

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You were probably expecting something with a little more depth, but that's just a matter of perception.

You were probably expecting something with a little more depth, but that’s just a matter of perception.

There’s a type of psychological intervention known as Sand Table Play Therapy, which basically involves arranging objects and figurines in a tray of sand. Sand is nice, but it also goes everywhere and I don’t really think it’s all that integral to the actual symbolic actions that comprise this treatment, which is basically about forcing rigid adult minds to become malleable enough to throw off the limitations of maturity engage in meaningful play. I’ve got a million of these little objects–I could easily have created dozens of different tableaux using stuff that’s already in my office–and it really is soothing to rearrange them sometimes. It’s also nice to justify owning all these tchotchkes.

I’d been thinking about doing this type of 3-dimensional photographic comic for a long time, even before I started this blog. Reading Dave McKean’s Pictures That Tick made it seem like time to try. For some reason, I thought this would be faster than actually drawing a comic, which was not in any way the case. It took twice as long as Dragon Comics usually take. But it was more fun, and got me away from my desk.

It would be really nice if there was some easy way to build a model that didn’t fully set: one whose features couldn’t be smushed, but whose arms and legs could be repositioned. And then I wish I had the equipment and knowledge to make stop motion animation films.

Anyway, I wasn’t really ready to do a comic about my demons, even though creating them yesterday also inspired me to do this. Maybe one day. I’m still puzzling over my comic about depression. It’s funny: seems like everyone gets depressed, and yet depression is a really personal and idiosyncratic experience. At least mine is.

Dragon Comics 111

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I'm actually really good at math for a liberal arts major.

I’m actually really good at math for a liberal arts major.

This letter really did come in the mail today. That’s crazy to me. I don’t get as many credit card solicitations per week as I used to when I had a job, or even when I didn’t have a job but the economy was great, but I still get a lot. Random companies just offering me a one time loan at 38% APR is a new one for me. These terms seem not good, but I guess they’re so favorable to the lender that they can afford to send out 1000s of these letters on the chance that 1 person with credit that’s not good enough for a credit card but still good enough for these people will consider this a good way to get some fast cash.

The other thing I get in the mail a lot, besides people offering to loan me money I don’t want to borrow, is people asking me to give to charitable causes. I do donate money to charity, but some of these places, while highly rated for spending responsibly, seem to waste a lot of resources asking me for *more* money. But I’m gonna give when I’m gonna give, and your dead tree missives have no effect on that. I don’t need 3 pleas a week; save that money and use it in lieu of a donation.

On the plus side, that means my name is on the list for a lot of poorly managed charities, by which I mean organizations to which I have never and will never send money, but who nonetheless send me free “gifts,” primarily saccharine greeting cards and flashy address labels.

I should do a post displaying my collection of free address labels. It’s pretty extensive at this point. I’ve never bought address labels. I actually don’t think it really takes that much effort to write my name and address. But, hey, everyone want to give them to me for free.

What a weird world. It seems like there’s more than enough for everyone, and yet we have really pervasive distribution issues.

Dragon Comics 110

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dragon comics 110_edited-1

I mean, there are options, but not if you’re constructed entirely of pixels and whimsy.

It’s half past midnight and I’m sitting in my car, parked outside of the public library, because Cox Cable is far more vested in sending me almost daily dead-paper communications trying to sell me cable for the TV I don’t own and long distance for the hard wired phone line that’s not connected to my house than they are in maintaining the Internet connection for which I pay them nearly $70 a month. They’re just a massive bunch of Cox over there. It’s incredibly frustrating, how often our Internets simply disappear for no reason–sometimes it’s for 15 minutes, sometimes it’s for 2 hours–and you know they never reimburse us for that lost time, even though you can be sure I’ll be hearing from them if I forget to pay the bill.

Anyway, the library Internet is slow–it took 5 minutes to upload that image–but functional. I’m pretty sure it’s not illegal to park outside the public library and hop on their network at night. This is certainly not as terrible as it was for me to actually use my key (I worked there in the 90s and had to open on Sundays) to go into the library at midnight to use the network and also sometimes to borrow VHS cassettes without checking them out. I probably would have lost my job if I got caught doing that. Probably the worst thing that could happen to me here is a cop telling me to move along.

Not to brag, but The Man and I had a pretty raucous weekend, with multiple pool parties, a vision quest in the desert, and dinner for 16 at a revolving sushi restaurant with no revolving sushi. It was basically nonstop from Thursday night until he went to bed, and even then he kept getting up and eventually ate half my waffles, so I didn’t get to work until after 11. This is my lame explanation for the low quality artwork today. However, the Owl wanted a Dragon Comic, so here it is.