Dragon Affirmations

2 Replies
I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it, people like me. People don't understand me, but they like me. Some of them. Some of the time.

I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it, people like me. People don’t understand me, but they like me. Some of them. Some of the time.

It’s been a roller coaster of a week. I have seriously failed to clear off the top of my desk for five consecutive days. In fact, in trying to put the front room back together following some drywall improvements and in advance of a visit from my father-in-law and his new bride, I ended up dumping a bunch more stuff on the desk. It’s probably too trashed right now for even the cat to get on top and knock things to the floor.

Basically what I’ve accomplished today, aside from have the flaming death metal airbags in my Honda replaced and receiving my 7th or 8th (I’ve lost count) Review of the Day on Yelp, occurred purely on the interpersonal level.

As far as creative achievement, I got nothin’. Thus, mirror affirmations.

A Barrel of Monkeys

Leave a reply
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

Leave a reply
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.

When Harry Potter Fanfic Mashups Go Wrong

5 Replies
I guess I could have worked a lizard in there somehow but I could only think of Daniel Pinkwater novels and a minor character from Fullmetal Alchemist.

I guess I could have worked a lizard in there somehow but I could only think of Daniel Pinkwater novels and a minor character from Fullmetal Alchemist and this is weird enough as it is. Do kids still read Daniel Pinkwater?

The odds that anyone gets all 5 references here are kind of slim. Harry Potter’s pretty universal among a certain cohort, as is Snoopy, but there’s not a tremendous overlap there. I’m sure kids recognize Peanuts, but I don’t know how many of them, outside of the music theater group, know You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown. A lot of people love His Dark Materials but the first movie flopped and it’s not as popular as it ought to be considering how the book is. Guardians of Ga’hoole is a terrific story, too, but it’s even more obscure. The movie was straight up awful, and there are so many books that you have to be pretty committed to the story. I highly recommend it, though, if you would like to read something that riffs off of Lord of the Rings, is written for kids, and stars a large cast of owls. And then I threw in a terrible, but catchy, pop music song from 5 years ago.

So, like everything I do, its potential appreciative audience is already minuscule before I even ask anyone to read it. But here it is. The idea’s been cracking me up for a couple weeks already. I’m dying to see if anyone else gets even a chuckle out of it.

At least it pleases me.

I like this black and white style too. I’ve been using color and fancy backgrounds to cover up inadequacies in the artwork, but it’s time to scale back and let the lines start speaking for themselves. I have another idea that will look better in this style too, or at least in black and white with only a few colored accents.

Fractured Imperfection Mandala

Leave a reply
Sometimes you've just got to slam it out. With a baseball bat.

Sometimes you’ve just got to slam it out. With a baseball bat.

I actually like how off kilter this mandala came out, like broken shards reassembled, some pieces shattered to powder, never to be seen again, the remaining chunks exhibiting some semblance of organization. Fractured. Imperfect. Also, the colors remind me of pastels, rather than crayons.

Today I finally got a hold on that comic I’ve been mulling around for weeks. It’s no Legoceros and Arasquid, but it’s something. And it wasn’t nearly as difficult as I thought it would be. Of course, while I happen to find it amusing as hell, the odds that any individual will get all 5 references that contribute to the joke are fairly thin, because I am obscure. Anyway, you can not get all 5 references tomorro

Pumpkin Is the Spice of Life

4 Replies
Look, it's that time of year and I really felt like it needed to be said.

Look, it’s that time of year and I really felt like it needed to be said.

It may be an unpopular opinion, but it’s my opinion. I like pumpkin pie as much as the next person, and I can enjoy pumpkin (strictly in the months of October and November) in a variety of forms: soup, pie, perhaps in a savory dish like ravioli. I even enjoyed the unusual mashup of the Danish kringle with pumpkin yesterday. But, I have to draw the line. I don’t need my tea to taste like pumpkin spice, or my Oreos. Pumpkin spice, I believe, goes with actual pumpkin.

Anyway, I’m trying to get into the Halloween spirit. I need to find someone who wants to watch all the scary movies that have come out recently: The Babadook, Good Night, Mommy, The Visit. (No spoilers!) And The Man has acquired a pumpkin, which he promises to turn into a pie. Typically, I do the cooking around here, but I don’t have a lot of patience for fidgety things like pie crust, especially since I like mine gluten-free, which makes them twice as tricky. But the man is good at measuring things in a way that I am not. In fact, in his day job, he is a metrologist: a measurer of very, very small distances for very, very precise purposes. So he makes the crust. And since he’s making the crust, he can make the rest of it too while he’s at it.

So, while it seems obvious that the world disagrees with me on this, given the proliferation of weird pumpkin spice flavored things this season, and the fact that every year there are more of them in stores, I like to make a distinction. Pumpkin spice is for pumpkins, and you’ll never change my mind.

Black Cat Bulletin Board

1 Reply
A cat is watching

A cat is watching

Happy October! My funny little black cat, who has been the subject of at least two other blog posts, gets her chance to shine in the spotlight, or rather, glower in the shadows. I knew I wanted to do a black cat bulletin board this year, and I was trying to figure out how that would look on a black background. At the same time, after searching for relevant text, I found this Rainer Maria Rilke poem:

"Black Cat" by Rainer Maria Rilke

“Black Cat” by Rainer Maria Rilke

Ah, “invisible.” That was the key. I went in yesterday and blocked out the poem, then inked it with a silver metallic Sharpie, which died halfway though, so I had to run out to the nearest Walgreen’s and buy their last silver Sharpie, but even so, the text didn’t take that long. Maybe an hour. I went back in today to put it together. I had some big ideas about making the eyes sparkle with the gold and bronze Sharpies, but it didn’t look as great as I thought it would, and the bronze Sharpie was dying, even though it was new in the package. Anyway, yellow is more striking.

My kitty is fierce.

My kitty is fierce.

I used black construction paper for the ears, nose and mouth (the background is black butcher paper, so it’s a subtle difference) and the whiskers are the silver Sharpie again. Very minimalist, which took a lot less time than usual, but I did spend quite a while on the eyes.

More Insomnia Comics

Leave a reply
The heavenly cloud sleeping Monica dreams that she can write comics in her sleep.

The heavenly cloud sleeping Monica dreams that she can write comics in her sleep.

My inability to full recharge my brain each night on a regular basis is an endless source of inspiration. Sorry if the final panel is too creepy. I promise you, it’s worse on the inside. I was up until 3:30 or 4 a.m. last  night, and then up at 6 because the A/C finked out again and it’s still about 100 degrees here once the sun rises. And even though I fell back asleep after helping The Man fix it, FedEx rang the doorbell at 9. So my head is buzzing.

Also started a new bulletin board and finished a Panels piece today. Ain’t no rest for the wicked.

Dragon Comics 113

2 Replies
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.

Found Objects Mandala

Leave a reply
Art supplies are expensive. Found objects are not.

Art supplies are expensive. Found objects are not.

Owning a flatbed scanner and having the ability to make convenient facsimiles of 2-dimensional drawings is great, but admittedly, I find the actual act of scanning pages so annoying that tonight I spent and hour constructing a mandala out of rose petals, almonds, glass stones, the spent casings from a nail gun, and plastic Buddha-shaped toothpicks instead of 2 minutes scanning an old design.

My object choices please me. I considered other object, like pennies, quarters, screws, nails (we are doing some work on the front hall), spent glow bracelets, silverware, and cashews, but this feels right. The little rainbow heart in the bottom right is something I made in my Trickster’s Hat period, out of leftover bits of construction paper from a bulletin board. I thought if I started doing more of these, making them more complex, that could be like a signature.

I also thought that what I really want to do a 3-d mandala out of is M&Ms. Well, the Candy Year* is about to begin, so it could happen.

The first cold of autumns appears to be upon, which is wholly unfair, considering it was 95 degrees today. I am not one of those white girl who pumpkin spices everything and loves autumn (regular readers of this blog know I am, in fact, a blue dragon). I freaking *hate* autumn. The changing of the seasons from summer to not-summer depresses me. Cold weather bothers my body and disturbs my spirit. The only thing that I want pumpkin spiced is pumpkin pie, and I only want maybe 1-2 slices of that in October and then however much pie I can eat Thanksgiving weekend. Anyway, I’m sneezing all over the place and really unfocused. Boo.

Today I wrote a rough draft of an article entitled “Powerful Women of Webcomics,” 9 book reviews, and copy for The Man’s new business website, but it doesn’t feel as if I accomplished much. My only other daily accomplishments were taking a 2-mile walk and cooking a delicious dinner of gluten free macaroni and cheese, shrimp scampi, and mushroom and spinach pakoras, all from scratch, obviously. I am not so far gone as to consider making a box of Kraft dinner a daily accomplishment.

I have some more writing to do, and then I will be taking this Nyquil and, if the heavens smile upon me, passing out.

*The Candy Year refers to the period from mid-October to the end of April when people, regularly, every other month, keep giving you treats: as soon as Halloween decoration are up, it begins, with little miniatures and Hershey’s Kisses everywhere; no sooner have you consumed your Halloween candy then you are called upon to help finish up this Thanksgiving pie; the pie being digested, out come the chocolate Santas, Christmas cookies, bouche Noels, and fruitcakes; all this is cleaned up over New Years, and then everyone makes New Year’s resolutions to stay off the sweet stuff until Valentine’s Day rolls around, when you’re offered fancy chocolates and terribly candy hearts; which you still have when you’re suddenly confronted with all those jelly beans and creme eggs in your Easter basket. The candy year ends when people suddenly start considering their summer plans and thinking that they might want to put on a bathing suit again.