The Rockets’ Red Glare Mandala

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Patriotism is a circular argument

Patriotism is a circular argument

Clearly, this mandala celebrates the raucous chauvinism of America’s Independence Day. Originally, I think I had bigger plans for it, but somehow, just like real fireworks, it was a short display that ended too soon. Probably I should hold it back until July but who knows what the future holds? Today we celebrate the glorious 4th mandala, and that’s that.

Yesterday, while I was still reeling from my personal crisis of can’t even, I received the official invitation to become a regular contributor at Panels.net. I didn’t even realize until I skimmed the contributors’ bios that there are a number of really accomplished people affiliated with that site. Illustrious company. Go me. I really do have a lot to say about comics, and I believe I say them very well, thank you.

Today was one of the days I read to kindergarteners because it lightens my heart. We read 2 Jane Yolen books. Talk about a gifted writer! How many people in the world could create a story about a little girl being extremely quiet in the woods and end up with something that would keep a room full of 5-year-olds in rapt, delighted attention (Owl Moon)? Plus, the hilarious Recess Queen, which always gets a lot of laughs, as well as a short book about cowboys. I started my new bulletin board but made the mistake of doing the picture before settling on the words. Now I have about 12 tabs open, each with a different quote that might possibly be usefully paired with an image of an exploding volcano.

Dragon Comics 77

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Be careful what you wish for

Be careful what you wish for

Today was a rough one for me; I had to report for jury duty at 7:30 a.m. and that sort of thing always throws me off course in a thousand ways. But inspiration came nonetheless. You just have to force yourself to open to it. Although I believe in participatory democracy and the right to a trial by a jury of ones peers, the actual process of serving the legal system in this way is oppressive. Getting up early, going through a metal detector, being forced to sit in a room full of strangers waiting for your number to be called, getting questioned by strangers and forced to conform to their mode of speech and behavior, listening to a nonstop stream of dialog inside a windowless room for 7 hours a day, having this all supersede whatever it is that you’ve chosen to do with your life. Plus, the judge cracked a misogynistic joke and made fun of a potential juror’s accent.

Basically, I didn’t want to do it, and when I was excused it felt as if I myself had been released from a kind of prison. The trial was going to be a minimum of 3 weeks! Ain’t nobody got time for that. I was planning of forcing myself to open to the possibility of jury duty. But it was just too much, and instead I was born anew into the early spring sunlight and opened myself to joy and inspiration and found this comic.

The Fabulous Blue Morpho Butterfly

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The Blue Morpho Butterfly on the organic women's T.

The Blue Morpho Butterfly on the organic women’s T.

I do some of my best thinking in the butterfly and orchid house at the Tucson Botanical Gardens. It’s the same temperature year round, meaning it’s not only a nice place to hang out on a brisk (for here) 50 degree winter day, it’s also pretty comfortable during an average (for here) 110 degree summer day. Besides butterflies you can also spot tiny orange fish and vivid blue frogs under the foliage, and the hibiscus is always in bloom.

This digital painting took me about 3 weeks. It’s based on the same photograph I used as a reference to draw the butterfly in the comic, of course. I think it’s pretty stunning and would make a nice sticker as well. You can also get it on 2 style of coffee cup. I want to offer it as leggings but you can’t just slap a T-shirt design on a pair of pants, You have to adapt the image to a different kind of space. It’s time consuming. But it’s totally ready to read on your top half.

Get the Blue Morpho Butterfly T-shirt here!

Dragon Comics 76

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It's like deciding to ignore your lungs's need for oxygen.

It’s like deciding to ignore your lungs’s need for oxygen.

You know how you sometimes have these eye-opening dreams where everything seems infused with wonder and meaning and there’s some kind of message or idea you want to carry back to the real world but once you wake up and try to explain it to other people, even if you can actually remember the dream in its entirety, you still can’t communicate the deep and sublime feelings that it instilled in you as you slept? It’s like that.

My 2 guest essays ran on Panel.net in the last couple days: the first one is about world-building and the graphic novel Aya, and the second is about reading comic books to a blind person. It seems like people liked them and I will be writing more in the future. Pretty excited about that. I’ve also been trying to keep my book review blog updated. I probably only read about 2 adult books a month, but sometimes I read 10 or 20 kids’ books.

This week I have a bulletin board to create, too. Everything depends on whether I have to serve jury duty, though. Ug. I really believe in democracy and the right to a trial by jury, I just don’t like being personally put out to ensure that it happens. I hate the courthouse and I hate being awakened too early and I hate being bossed around and I hate being forced to sit in merciless plastic chairs in huge rooms packed full of strangers. Jurors should be allowed to serve online. I would be much less uncomfortable if I could watch a trial on my laptop in bed.

Dragon Comics 75

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Nothing like a little vacation from reality to make you appreciate vacations from reality.

Nothing like a little vacation from reality to make you appreciate vacations from reality.

I love having a family, but it’s not really possible to get very much done when they’re around. People want feeding, chauffeuring, cuddling, that sort of thing. Art, for me, is an extended and quiet process. It requires long chunks of time in which to think and feel before creation even begins, and then it wants no interruption as the new work unspools.

That’s why I take writing retreats once or twice a year, sometimes with other writers, and sometimes alone. I only use the computer for work-related tasks, avoid all social media, and spend every minute I’m not writing doing something inspiring: cooking, reading, hiking. Talking about writing. It helps keep me sane. I always set a lot of rules and a lot of goals, and I usually do pretty well with both. It’s a special, sacred space and I wish I could enter into it more often.

But having a family to come home to is a beautiful thing. Even though I sometimes miss having days on end filled with nothing but writing and quiet, I would miss my family more if I didn’t have them. the The kids will be able to take care of themselves someday. Not sure about The Man, though.

This Mandala is Very Busy on the Cellular Level

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This Mandala is Very Busy on the Cellular Level

Not entirely amorphous…

It looks to me like a diagram out of a biology textbook, or else a page torn from the sketchbook of a character in an HP Lovecraft story. Amoeba? Planaria? Nudibranch? Ancient unspeakable horror? The colors are great, though.

Looks like Wednesdays are going to be a bust for me, artwise, until we finish this salsa dancing class at the end of the semester. I do the majority of my work between 10 and 2, but by the time we get home from the après-class gathering, it’s well past 10. Wednesdays are my volunteer days, so I did pull down the old bulletin board and put up a new background. However, this week is a particular Tucson holiday: Rodeo. Our schools don’t get a day off for President’s day, but we do get Thursday and Friday off for the Fiesta de los Vaqueros, so the school is closed until Monday.

Now it’s late, but I think there’s a good chance I can finish the new T-shirt design I’ve been working on.

Dragon Comics 74

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You've got the power!

You’ve got the power!

A long time coming but here it is: comics about self-affirmation and belief in your true core’s strength. The answer was right there all along.

So far this has been a good week! My friend the Owl sent me a job posting for a website looking for someone to blog about non superhero graphic novels. This is my thing! I have a deep background and many ideas to share on this subject, and I am professionally trained to write and to deconstruct texts. Yet, knowing about the process of reading open calls for submission triggers my fear of rejection. What if, despite my knowledge that I am perfect for a job, I fail? What does this say about my belief in my abilities, if I cannot even escape the slush pile? This is the sort of thing that tears me up and prevents me from putting forth the effort.

But I put forth the effort. And I made the cut. My little essays are going up as guest posts and if everything works out I will probably get my own column. To write about non superhero graphic novels. Which is a thing I would be doing anyway.

Another fun thing that just happened was the advent of my 100th follower on this blog. Hello! Everything’s coming up Dragon!

The Venus of Continental Reserve

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***Depending on how stodgy your place of employment is, this content is potentially not safe for work. It contains stylized representations of the nude female figure, and while it is not exactly rated-R, it might not be OK in certain situations. Please enjoy in an appropriate environment.***

Don't scroll any farther if you are afraid of what you might see when I move my thumb.

Don’t scroll any farther if you are afraid of what you might see when I move my thumb.

A friend of mine likes to plan things. He likes to arrange them. He enjoyed complications. He had an idea for a party game, and he asked me if he could make a little piece to be used in the game. Originally, he was talking about a “token,” but as he discussed it with another friend who was helping him organize, the word “fetish” kept popping up. When I finally got added to the thread, I saw the word “fetish” and said, “Well, if that’s how it is, I’ll just recreate the Venus of Willendorf.”

Her shape is classical: her coloring? Not so much.

Her shape is classical: her coloring? Not so much.

I was guided not only by this old representation of the female form, but also by some speculation (which I read in Jean M. Auel’s Earth’s Children books) as to how such icons might have been used. the way the legs are formed, the figure could be stuck into the ground to stand by itself, potentially guarding a space. In a spiritual sense, of course.

Side view: who needs arms when you're shaped like this?

Side view: who needs arms when you’re shaped like this?

I had to mix my own color: gold, yellow, and white, with a touch of pink, but once I got the caucasian skin tone down, I liked the idea of using some modern colors for accents. The original Venus has no face, just ringlets of hair around the head. I decided to go with this sort of Princess Leia look for this girl’s hair, and if you’re going with purple hair, why not have hot pink nipples. My Venus is about half the size of the Venus of Willendorf. Part of the specs said that the fetish should be small enough to be concealed in the hand, so this thing is only about 2 inches.

Sweet cheeks :)

Sweet cheeks 🙂

She took about 2 hours to model. Per usual, I learned a lot by making her, and could probably do a better, faster job if I wanted to make another.

Dragon Comics: Guest Comic 1!

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I'm so tired I can't tell if this looks right.

I’m so tired I can’t tell if this looks right.

A couple months back, the Fox asked if I was interested in fan art of my comic. Oh, my goodness! Who wouldn’t be? He said it was OK to save his drawing for a day when I just couldn’t get a comic out, and this seems to be that day. I have a massive headache, I’ve hardly slept all weekend, and I’m so tired I can barely thing, so here it is: Fox Comics!

The Fox is a rather talented writer and artist. He certainly has the “bizarre realities that can only exist in comics” down to an art. There’s a little joke between us here, as he is of the opinion that if it tastes good, you should eat it, while I have been largely sugar and gluten free for about 5 years. I’m not saying that I never have a piece of cake, but generally I eschew carbs in general, and flour and processed sweeteners most particularly. I just feel better that way. So, although we are very good friends with many things in common, his “Eat all the things!” attitude clashes with my “At least 80% healthy” diet.

I love the drunk-looking cupcakes, the flying pie, and whatever is going on between the tiered cake and the fork. Green Jello kind of freaks me out, though.

If you are on Furaffinity, you can see some more of his drawings here, but you have to register with the website to get at the content.

Most of this afternoon, I was concentrating on my first professional photography gig! The model was a bit shy at first but opened up and was soon enjoying herself. We were shooting for about 3 hours, including some short breaks. Originally, we had planned to use a my friend’s swanky house in the suburbs for half the shoot, and then hike a bit into Saguaro Park West for the second half, but we ended up getting so into it that we never left the house. I think the client is going to be very happy with the results.

Dragon Comics 73

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Choose your friends wisely.

Choose your friends wisely.

This is part of the child mind, the beginner mind, to approach the task with a sense of innate wonder. Every time, there exists a moment of awe and a feeling of newness, a joy in the process and another at the outcome. It doesn’t matter what anyone outside of that experience thinks, and anyone inside the experience will witness it with the same breathe of amazement. What comes after, when the internal, made external, moves through the rest of the world, does not change these sensations.

What comes after, when the world passes judgement, has no impact on the artist or the creative process.

Another night when I started too late and my head has gone all swimmy such that the screen is blurry. Comic: that’s all.