Work in Progress

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words + images

words + images (don’t bother clicking on this image; I deliberately uploaded a low-res version because I’m not ready to share that much of it.)

I started a webcomic but for some reason–probably terrible sleep patterns combined with weird eating patterns combined with stress–I got light-headed and dizzy and cross-eyed and exhausted and had to lie down for an hour and now it’s late and I can’t even imagine staring at Photoshop for a couple hours; I also seem to be nursing a low-grade migraine. The Man told me to take it easy and skip a night if I didn’t feel well, but somehow that seems like a copout. Like, if I made this commitment I should be able to honor this commitment, or what’s the point? One piece of original art a day is really not that much.

So instead here’s a little peek at something else I’ve been working on when I have some time. This project doesn’t have a name yet. I’m thinking it might ultimately just be named after the characters, but they aren’t named yet either. Possibly, writing about it will jinx the project, which I think is about 25% sketched out. Who knows?

I’m still working on the Prince of Darkest Agola project but that’s a really big and complex one; this one is more medium sized. I foresee it as coming out in blocks of 4 panels, so that each line of panels is one webpage. Could also be a printed book. Already there seems to be a fair amount of nudity, as my characters are apparently opposed to wearing clothes at home, so I’m not sure if I even want to put it up on this blog. Not ready to say too much about the story, but it is a genre bit. I suppose you’d call it paranormal romance, in the sense that it’s about a relationship between 2 supernatural creatures, but it’s not about the beginning part of the romance; it’s a story about a crisis in a longterm relationship. Even without names, the characters are really unfolding themselves, and there is some interesting backstory coming out, too.

These are just thumbnails, of course. I want to start working on character design. It will be black and white, and I want it to look kind of simple and rough, like a woodcut. Lots of long lines, really making the most use of the black and white spaces: chunks of darkness, slabs of light.

In case you missed it, here’s the article I wrote this week for Panels, which is about comics and refugees.

Pressing Issues Faced by Real Adults

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Remember how, when you were a kid, you couldn't wait to be an adult because adults could do anything they wanted to do?

Remember how, when you were a kid, you couldn’t wait to be an adult because adults could do anything they wanted to do?

1) I’m the health nut who loads the fridge up with fruits and vegetables and then gets all annoyed when there isn’t any cake in there, even though I can’t really eat any amount of cake without making myself sick.

2) Even when I worked out miles from my house, I still recognized the irony of driving to the gym. The Man and I are considering membership at a gym 1 block away. I’m curious as to whether he’ll want to drive there.

3) It’s perplexing that my stepkids have yet to find their father or me mortifyingly embarrassing. They still hug and kiss us, even in public. I don’t know what I have to do to fill these children with the shame that comes from thinking other kids are judging you based on your parents’ weirdness, and we are pretty weird.

4) My parents wanted me to be a doctor. Pretty much nobody’s parents want them to be an artist. Definitely nobody’s parents gaze lovingly into the crib and say, “One day, she could draw webcomics!”

5) How do lawyers and judges even work? The few times I’ve been in court I just wanted to scream and break things and punch a cop. I mean, I know they get recess and all, but I’ve never seen a playground at the courthouse. I’d rather stare at a wall than work in a courthouse.

6) The age-old debate.

A Shonda for the Vays Menschen

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I've seen some stuff, you know?

I’ve seen some stuff, you know?

It’s all true, anyway. An African cab driver really did ask me if I was raped, and a bitter, critical, English professor really did tell me that there was no way that could ever happen when I tried to tell the story in an undergraduate fiction writing workshop. I suppose that’s a big difference between fiction and non-fiction. Readers just won’t accept certain types of events in fiction: you can’t write too many tragedies into a story, or too many coincidences, even though strings of tragedies and coincidences of course happen in real life.

We’re used to reading clean dialog, too, and heaven knows people don’t really speak the way their words appear in books. People say “um” and “ah” and “like,” and they stutters and repeat themselves in a way that would be utterly annoying to read. Fiction isn’t like life, after all. Fiction wraps up. There are metaphors and meanings. Life is messy and crises don’t always happen for a reason, and people don’t always learn from them.

A “shonda for the goyim” is a Yiddish sentiment, which expresses that a Jewish person has done something shameful in the sight of non-Jews, which will then reflect badly on all Jews, because anti-Semitism. I’ve since been told that black people would say, “a scandal for white people,” or something to that effect. I had mixed feelings about having an entire panel depend on a phrase in a foreign language, but that’s really what was going on in my head, too, and I think it reflects an important parallel, the kind of point upon which fiction depends, but which life often fails to deliver.

When I was looking up how to say “white people” in Yiddish for the title (I hope vays menschen is correct; I known “menschen” is “people” and if “vays” is pronounced like the German word “weiss”  then it makes sense) I came across a couple articles asking if the Yiddish word “schvartze” was considered racist. Schvartze is the word that some elderly Jews used to refer to black people, and let me tell you, it’s racist as hell. At least it was when my late grandmother said it, usually in the context of, “Lock the doors, there’s schvartze everywhere.” And that’s what I was taught about black people as a child.

I could pretend otherwise, but it’s the truth, and that’s what fiction and nonfiction have to have in common.

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.

Blue Lotus Mandala

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img009

Sometimes you just have to lay it on thick.

If you are interested in reading the unvarnished truth about my spiritual beliefs, someone has been inquisitive enough to interview me about it and industrious enough to type up the interview and post it on her blog. The timing is great, because it’s Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and a lot of the interview is about why I don’t practice Judaism even though I was raised in a traditionally observant household. Or perhaps because I was raised in a traditionally observant household. There may be a comic in there somewhere, although that might prove even harder to write about than the chronic pain disorder.

Clouds are my religion. Mountains are my religion. The bulletin board in the breezeway of the elementary school where I hang my cut paper projects is my religion. All these mandalas are my religion.

As for other people’s religions, there’s really only one thing that interests me, and that is their mythology. But there’s only one thing that’s really important, in the long run, and that is whether or not you follow Wheaton’s Law. If you think your divine creator is telling you it’s OK to be a jerk, you might want to examine whether your beliefs are spiritually uplifting or merely self-serving.

Insomnia Comics Ah Ha HA ha ha ha

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Heeeelllllpppp mmmeeeeeee....

Heeeelllllpppp mmmeeeeeee….

This is all I’ve got right now. Normally, I’m person who really requires 8 hours of sleep a night. Last night I got 0, with maybe a 2 hour nap in the mid-afternoon. It hurts to word. Eyeball my comic. Pencil erasers don’t really work in Tucson. Something about the dryness of the air, maybe. Like, upvote, whatever.

The Stories of Our Lives

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That's so cool! I was actually thinking about getting into smashing the patriarchy myself. Is there, like, some kind of newsletter I could subscribe to?

That’s so cool! I was actually thinking about getting into smashing the patriarchy myself. Is there, like, some kind of newsletter I could subscribe to?

I’m getting excited about writing again. As a few people know, I have written 10 novels. Two of them are bouncing around the Internet, 2 of them have been nudged and prodded by a couple agents and a publisher before whimpering off with their tails between their legs, and most of them just sort of exist. They have plans, but no executions. After completing my last novel, I massive undertaking, I sort of walked away from 25 years of constant novel writing to think about visual art; you can go back to page 1 of this blog and read it in order to get the entire story. It takes a while to tell it.

But I did send the ms for this last novel, an 800 page behemoth, out to the Desert Rats: Rabbit, Fox, and Owl. And I’m just starting to get some feedback on it, and the feedback seems good. The revision actually seems possible. I’m rereading it myself–it’s been about 2 years, I guess–and liking what I have, seeing where it could be tightened, noticing problems that didn’t get fixed in my last pass.

Plus, I’ve been working on a short story in comic form. Short stories are not my forte. I’ve only ever written a couple I was completely happy with. I can do novel, and I can do flash, but short stories elude me. But working in comic form might be liberating. I know the entire story, suddenly. It started out as a 16 panel gag, a short of blunt, deadpan, New Yorker style punchline at the end, but it took 20 panels to get to the end, and by the time I got to the joke it was more poignant than funny I was too invested in the characters to let their troubles be a joke and immediately I started to see the solutions to their problems. Now it’s 56 storyboarded panels, and if I can get out the rest of the dialog and thumbnails and actually find a style and draw the entire thing, I will feel much more confident about my graphic novel project, which is only one chapter from being completely scripted (although I stopped storyboarding before that, when I realize my thumbnails were completely useless and that you can’t put 12 panels on every comic book page if you want the images to actually express something.

As for this photo comic, it’s, as The Man has taught me to think of it, Kaufmanesque, in that I know it’s bizarre and I really couldn’t care less whether or not you think it’s funny. I think it’s funny.

Revenge of the Helicopter Kids

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Listen, you don't know my parents like I do. My parents are better than those other parents and they deserve special treatment.

Listen, you don’t know my parents like I do. My parents are better than those other parents and they deserve special treatment.

If you, like me, have 150 Facebook friends with school age children, you’ve probably seen a bunch of photographs in the last couple weeks featuring kids in new clothing and various attitudes of excitement or embarrassment holding signs proclaiming “First Day of Kindergarten,” or some similar sentiment. Well, my cousin posted a picture of herself hugging her 5-year-old with a caption explaining that she was probably the worst mother in the world because she wasn’t going to make him hold an adorable sign before he went off to school, and that the child would probably be scarred for life because of this moral failure.

So that’s where this comes from. But it comes from other things, too, like the Boy once again losing his Kindle privileges because he was watching YouTube when he was supposed to be doing homework. I’ve been thinking along similar themes, how we hold our kids to higher standards than we hold ourselves, and most of us would find ourselves without smartphones if some higher power took them away when we used them to screw around on the Internet instead of work.

My feelings on helicopter parents are well-documented. OK, there are worse things you could do to your kids, but when we’re talking about good intentions gone wrong, wrapping your kids in bubble wrap and protecting them from every possible bump the universe might have to offer while arguing with teachers, coaches, and other experts on particular aspects of childhood why your kid is better than other kids and deserves to be treated differently is a terrific way to raise a completely helpless and ineffective human being. How long do you plan on doing this, I wonder? When I taught at the college level I heard of parents trying to advocate for their kids, and a couple kids told me their parents were going to call me, but my standard response was that I wasn’t going to talk to their mommies and daddies because they were grownups and responsible for their own behavior. Legally, I wasn’t supposed to discuss their grades with their parents either.

Still, my supervisor assured us that parents would call anyway. From the kids, I heard firsthand that their overbearing parents didn’t prepare them for life after high school. They didn’t know when to go to bed without being told; they didn’t know when to get up. All their lives they’d been told they were the best, and suddenly it turned out that they were just like everyone else. And, having never been allowed to fail, they didn’t know how to succeed on a level playing field.

Seriously, moms and dads, back off! Your kid should be given more responsibility every year so that they have actual adult experience when they are 18. They should be allowed to fail, over and over, so that they learn about consequences and how to make better decisions. They should be taught not to throw a fit when they don’t get everything they believe they deserve. Otherwise, they are going to be mightily disappointed when college spits them out into the real world and they don’t get every job and raise and promotion they think the world owes them.

However, if any children would like to argue that I deserve something more than I’ve achieved in life, I would welcome the effort.

Pain Map

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Be gentle. You have no idea about the weight of other people's burdens.

Be gentle. You have no idea about the weight of other people’s burdens.

I’ve never applied for any type of disability, but The Man has 3 pins in his knee, which resulted in a medical discharge from the Air Force, and he did have a hang tag for many years. We only used it when we were absolutely out of spoons, but even so some vigilante once left a note on the windshield accusing us of not being handicapped enough. It’s not a contest, people. You don’t want what we have. Also, the picture on the sign is just a symbol: there are disabilities other than being a paraplegic confined to a wheelchair.

This was the hardest comic I’ve ever scripted. Fibromyalgia is a subject I don’t care to discuss much (see panel 2). Adolescence taught me to never expose any weakness. Whenever the subject came up, doctors dismissed it and no one sympathized, or cared, or, I suspect, believed me. Most people don’t know that I have a chronic pain disorder; I try not to let it dictate my life, and when it does, I try to make sure that it doesn’t dictate other people’s lives. But the reality of my life is that I do have a chronic pain disorder. Invisible diseases exist, and you can’t judge someone’s level of disability. Clearly, I’m better off than many, because I’m still generally able to hide the problem, but that doesn’t give anyone a right to question its existence.

If I bring it up in person, you better believe there’s a reason that information is being shared: I have limits. I only mention it here because of consumer demand for a continuing series of comics cataloging all the excruciating reasons I’ve failed to summit the heights of my potential. It’s all about telling the most horrible parts with brutal honesty. I’m not complaining and I’m not looking for sympathy. I just need you to understand that this is the truth.

Boiling Hot Mandala

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Summer’s end in the desert means it only gets up to 95° during the day.

This one sort of reminds me of an electric range as well as a pot of boiling water or that game where the floor is lava. You might think I’m feeling the heat, but in fact, it’s cooled off significantly around here. When the temperature is in the 90s, I find myself gravitating back to long pants and even to long sleeves in the evening.

Our long weekend was supposed to be a camping trip, but we found out on Thursday that the heavy monsoon rains had washed out the road to the campground we’d booked, and also there was a party The Man wanted to go to on Saturday night. We ended up having a blast Friday, too, staying local but running all over the city for a little bit of everything good Tucson has to offer.

I’m working on another comic about the terrible facets of my life, which people seem to like reading about. I started working on it about a week ago, but then I stopped, thinking, “Man, this is heavy; no one wants to hear this.” And then I got another PM from someone saying, “Thanks for writing all these serious, personal stories in comic form.” Every time I think I’m done with a particular form, someone contacts me to ask for more. So, soon you’ll be able to read a comic strip about chronic pain, which, clearly, you have been waiting for all your life.

I’ve also been storyboarding another comic, a more traditional kind of comic book story that I guess would fall into the category of paranormal romance. I intended to write 16 panels with a punchline, but the punchline didn’t come to the 20th panel, and by that time I had invested enough into the story that I didn’t want to play it for cheap gags. I wanted the characters to learn and grow. So instead of drawing a 4×4 grid and telling a short joke, I’ll probably end up with about 25 2×2 grids that tell a complete arc, with flashbacks and character development and plot and conflict and resolution. I’m not sure when I’ll get to write it, but I’m ready to get back into more detailed writing and storytelling. I could do more, every day.