Category Archives: Dragons

Dragon Comic 45

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Stand back! He's going to try engineering!

Stand back! He’s going to try engineering!

I added The Man’s name to the copyright information on this comic because this gag and half of the text was his idea. The machine, of course, is my own devising. If he had designed the machine, he would have gone for some degree of verisimilitude and not attached a Wankel rotary engine to a set of pistons an an egg beater, let alone had the brilliant idea to power it with a hamster wheel. I guess the solar panel only runs the water heater? Apparently he does not find the Wankel rotary engine as hilarious as I do. There was no doubt in my mind as to what kind of engine this machine would require.

Drawing the electricity arcing off the Tesla coil was a lot of fun. I’m not sure yet what the mousetraps and the pinwheel add. Perhaps one is for style and the other is to protect the machine.

In fact, this machine is not quite finished.

I’m a fan of Rube Goldberg devices from way back, and I suppose this comic could have taken that path as well, but that would have required a lot more forethought than I would have put into the machine. Furthermore, Rube Goldberg devices are meant to accomplish some particular task.

Does this machine has a function? Is is dangerous? Can it make Dragon’s life easier? Tune in next week for the answer to these and other exciting questions!

Another Day, Another Dragon

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Specifically, another day, another dragon painted on a wineglass at a rollicking good time Yelp event.

 

The head of the wyrm.

The head of the wyrm.

Technically, the Dragon painted on this wineglass is an amphithere: a winged, legless beast. The amphithere is a New World dragon. Purple mountains majesty!

The landscape is painted on the reverse side of the glass.

The landscape is painted on the reverse side of the glass.

The Yelp event at which I painted this glass was the Winter Zootacular, an event to benefit gibbons, according to the invitation. The glass painting table was hosted by a company whose name I immediately forgot. Not only can you paint wineglasses there, they will also give you wine to drink while you paint them. That is the business model.

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Closeup on the wing. Amphitheres are distinguished from European and Asian dragons by their feathery wings.

I’m interested in spending a lot more time painting. The Fox was with me at this event, and wasn’t interested in painting wineglasses, and I didn’t want to make him hang around. Plus, it was dark, and there were 50 other women crowded around me. I bet I could paint a way better dragon on a wineglass in more favorable circumstances.

 

Dragon Comics 44

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And we’re back!

We all know that feeling. Thus concludes this treaty on gluttony as a cultural imperative.

We all know that feeling. Thus concludes this treaty on gluttony as a cultural imperative.

A couple years back, the Fox, The Man, the Cats, and I were driving to Tucson from Death Valley and I had the clever idea that we should stop for lunch in Las Vegas. Specifically, I thought the Fox, who had never been to Sin City, would get a kick out of the buffets. Stupidly, we chose the cheapest one on the strip, which, at the time, was Planet Hollywood.

I didn’t even feel like I ate that much much, but apparently I did. The Cats and the Fox were perfectly happy to nom all the things. The Man and I did not fare so well. The man literally threw up. I was not even so lucky as that. All I remember is lying on the floor of a casino bathroom crying because I wanted to throw up, but couldn’t, and then finally demanding that we leave Las Vegas immediately, so that I could vomit on the Hoover Dam.

Sadly, I was unable to effect reverse peristalsis on one of the greatest modern marvels of the 20th century. Instead, I spent 7 hours crying to myself.

Since then, I’ve only eaten myself into a stomach full of angry bees once. Typically, I’m pretty moderate about what I eat; even if I eat a lot, I rarely eat things that my stomach can’t tolerate. As I was completely sick this Thanksgiving with a perfect storm of what appeared to be 3 separate microbial invasions, I couldn’t have overeaten if I tried. We’ve been really conscious about not cooking too much food, not going overboard with the Thanksgiving meal, for some years now. Still, hanging out with the Cats and the Fox, I am offered a lot of opportunities.

Dragon Comics 43

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HAPPY THANKSGIVING CATS AND KITTENS!

Only in America could we transform a celebration of gratitude for not starving to death into a celebration of Dionysian excess ushering in a month-long period of accelerated capitalism.

Only in America could we transform a celebration of gratitude for not starving to death into a celebration of Dionysian excess ushering in a month-long period of accelerated capitalism.

In brief: after 9/11, although I have never loved New York and didn’t know a single person there in 2001, I was one of those Americans who sort of lost their minds. For 3 days I did nothing but listen to NPR and freak out. I had to leave grad school in the middle of the semester to go home to my mom for a week. I was treated for PTSD. And then one day I woke up and said to myself, wait a second, I’m a fantasist. I can escape this world any time I like; I just need to go back to my novel.

We live in trying and complicated times. All QWERTYvsDvorak can offer is a moment of (hopefully) comedic escape. This is my first attempt at a purely visual gag. This Thanksgiving, I will offering gratitude for myriad blessings, and remembering those less fortunate and those whose lives, by a trick of fate, are so much more difficult than mine.

QWERTYvsDvorak will be taking the week off to enjoy time with family and recover from whatever bacteria has settled in my lungs. Comics and updates resume Wednesday, December 3rd. Be good to one another, people. We’re all we have, really.

Dragon Comics 42

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Seriously. You should try it sometime. You'd be surprised how well it works.

Seriously. You should try it sometime. You’d be surprised how well it works.

Right now I’m grateful that I actually finished this comic. After 4 days of nonstop holiday cleaning, I find myself sick like a little kid, with an actual fever and everything. So if this comic makes no sense, blame it on my 100.5° temperature and my inability to breath the air that remains after you run the cleaning cycle on an oven where you regularly roast entire chickens. Not to mention my allergy to pretty much every cleaning product ever. My house is now toxic to me, and the sad part is that it doesn’t look substantially cleaner than it did before we started.

This is another comic that’s more about me than the kids. In reality, the Girl is something of a Pollyanna, with a strangely sunny disposition and a powerful ability to love her family. Although she also loves butter, sugar, milk, salt, cheese, and Taylor Swift. The redundancy of dairy products is due to the fact that The Man really did grow up on a dairy farm.

Not sure how many more comics I can write this week, since there’s family coming and also I am now the walking dead. We’ll take a little break for the holidays. Web traffic drops off like crazy at the end of the year, unless you’re selling holiday gifts.

Dragon Comics 41

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Don't think about it too hard. Time travel is still completely nonsensical.

Don’t think about it too hard. Time travel is still completely nonsensical. In some reality, the cats are just passing the earring back and forth between panel 2 and panel 3 for all eternity, like a moebius loop. 

You know how it is when someone really wants your help, but you’re so sure that the thing they’re asking couldn’t possibly be helpful to them. You want to be a good friend. You want to comply with their request. At the same time, you know that it’s a waste of time, yours and theirs.

Maybe trying is better than doing nothing.

Time travel remains nonsensical.

 

 

 

 

Dragon Comics 40

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My medium is metaphor. Mixed metaphor, I guess.

My medium is metaphor. Mixed metaphor, I guess.

It’s merely a coincidence that this 40th Dragon Comic publishes on the day on which the world marks my 40th trip around the sun. I assure you that this has no bearing on my maturity level. I do like how this arc comes sort of full circle, from satisfaction with art, to dissatisfaction with art, to depression about art, to straight up depression, to comedy about depression, and back to satisfaction with art.

There’s something classically right about black humor (thus, Dragon holds a copy of Hamlet, one of the best examples of gallows humor, in panel 1) because as long as we can laugh at our terror, our pain, and our uncertainty about life, we know that these things have not yet consumed us. When Hamlet fools with Yorick’s skull in the graveyard, it gives him, at last, the presence of mind to consider his own inevitable death while stirring in him the sensations of life. Ophelia’s death, and the clowning around it, spurs him on to the death and violence of the play’s conclusion. We all die, so why not keep merry? Whether or not Hamlet avenges himself on Claudius, he and Claudius and everyone else will die, like his Yorick, like his father, like Ophelia. Love cannot save us from death, but humor can save us from fear.

I’m 40. I’m mortal. I’m going to die. But until then, I’m going to laugh. Even when I’m depressed, I’m going to laugh.

All Dragon, All the Time

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It’s not going to be forever.

Dragon Comics are definitely a finite thing. There’s no termination date or anything like that, but there are other projects in my mind, projects planned out more carefully than this one.

That said, there is a lot of Dragon.

Last week, at a Yelp Elite event, there was a wineglass painting station, and somehow, Dragon turned up there!

That snake would drive anyone to drink.

That snake would drive anyone to drink.

Then, because people were leaving and there were still undecorated wineglasses, I added a mandala to the night’s accomplishments.

Mandala wineglass is on the right, seen with Dragon and a bunch of other decorated wineglasses.

Mandala wineglass is on the right, seen with Dragon and a bunch of other decorated wineglasses.

I rarely drink, and when I do, it’s usually from my buddy Jeff’s Woodeye Glasses, so they’re just sitting on the bookshelf right now, but if I ever get that Kickstarter together, these glasses will probably be a reward.

There's nothing like other people's badly drawn rendition of your badly drawn characters.

There’s nothing like other people’s badly drawn rendition of your badly drawn characters.

But that’s not all the Dragon. You see, this little dragon is about to have a birthday. One of the big ones. And her kind friends threw her a rather intimate little party. And Dragon even turned up there.

I don’t eat vast quantities of cake, or dessert in general, since I have a very low tolerance for flour and sugar. But this treat came from a local bakery called Cakelab, which specializes in gluten-free desserts. So I ate about 10 times as much sugar this weekend as I would normally eat in a year. And I’m kind of feeling it, if you know what I mean. Ouch. The cake is delicious, though. 

So, Dragon is pleasing to people, and Dragon is a stepping stone to something else. But right now, Dragon is ubiquitous. I still have one more comic in this little arc, plus a standalone for Friday, with humor that’s terribly nerdy and not at all black. The world is dark sometimes, and so is my sense of humor, but it’s all in good fun. You’re having fun, right?

Dragon Comics 39

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Depression sits right on your chest.

Depression sits right on your chest.

Don’t feel sorry to me. I had an excellent weekend and had to scramble to finish this comic even though it was halfway done Friday afternoon. But instead of drawing, I had a good time and enjoyed myself in every possible way from then to now. I am not personally depressed now, but I do know what it’s like to have depression sitting on your chest, weighing down your every thought. That experience is known to me.

 

Dragon Comics 38

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I'm not kidding. If you can't handle painful symbolic representations of brutal reality, go read Ziggy. Or Garfield. Or Marmaduke. This is nowhere near as bleak as it's gonna get.

I’m not kidding. If you can’t handle painful symbolic representations of brutal reality, go read Ziggy. Or Garfield. Or Marmaduke. This is nowhere near as bleak as it’s gonna get.

If you’ve been following the adventures of Snake and Dragon (make sure your brain reads that to you in the voice of Boris Badenov ) this all makes perfect sense. If you haven’t, let me know what you make of it. As I may have mentioned, short fiction has never been my forte. Stories and characters develop over time, and this arc is far from completion.

Brutal honesty is something that I do, but typically only when it’s either directed outward, or, if it’s directed inward, when there’s no one else there to notice. Broadcasting my own issues is pretty far beyond me.

When I was a kid, I was frequently told what an incredibly and offensively selfish human being I was, and, probably as a result, I grew up into a martyr and a nurturer with zero instinct for self-promotion. Possibly, promoting my faults is not the path to commercial success, but at the same time, I don’t really know a single artist who doesn’t deal with these issues in some way. When your sole goal in life is self-expression, it’s easy to fall into the trap of fear. Artists have to project a ruthless belief in themselves. You cannot make art if the snake or the parrot or whatever is sitting there over your shoulder screaming about how badly it sucks, how badly you suck.

We all have the snake, but until we either tell it to shut up or learn to ignore it or stand up for our own belief in what we’re doing, we don’t get to create.

When I just considered myself a writer, I wrote about 4 hours a day. Now, I typically draw between 5 and 8 hours a day. That doesn’t mean I don’t hear the snake. I’ve just been telling it to go to hell every 30 seconds since the beginning of the year. Once you get the habit, it gets easier not to care about the snake’s definition of failure. The act of creation is the measure of success.