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Dragon Comics 20

You've got to faith f-faith f-faith, I guess.

You’ve got to have faith f-faith f-faith, I guess.

Here I’m just saying 2 things, the first of which is that, no matter how much you’re willing to believe in an abstract concept because someone told you there was something special about believing without evidence, you can’t expect everyone in the world to throw their grounding in reality out the window because your belief is important to you. It’s nice if you have a belief that sustains you through difficult times. It is not nice to discriminate against people who are not sustained by that belief.

The second thing I’m saying here is that it is RUDE to knock on stranger’s doors when you don’t have business with them, and no, your belief that you should share your belief is not business. I don’t come to your house to discuss change in allele frequency or the melting of the polar ice caps. I personally think that overpopulation is the single biggest problem facing the human race, but I don’t bang on your door to make sure you’re using birth control, even though I feel very strongly that 90% of all people with children have no business procreating.

Otherwise, all I have to say about this comic is that, in panel 3, when Dragon is whistling, the tune is supposed to be the chorus for Mary Lambert’s “I Don’t Care if the World Knows What My Secrets Are,” but the only sheet music I could find online for that song cost $5, and I didn’t feel like taking the time and energy I would need to get up and pick the tune out on my stepdaughter’s keyboard, because I had a cold, and I’m not that much of a musician. Those two bars of music would have probably taken me 45 minutes. Just click the link and then you can whistle along with Dragon.

Dragon Comics 18

Warning: Monster Bomb has been found to cause cancer in giant mutant laboratory rats in the state of California.

It probably doesn’t come as a surprise that certain real-life experiences informed this comic. As it is a comic, the retelling of the story shall be shaped to be more palatable than it was in real life.

Recently, we hired a contractor to relocate our laundry facilities from the utility room to the the front hall closet, and to turn the utility room into a bedroom. Unbeknownst to Man or Dragon, the contractor neglected to adequately seal the drain in the old utility room.

In addition, although he was asked repeatedly to leave the futon cover on the futon, a certain human insisted on removing the futon cover from the futon and throwing it over the not-sealed-up drain, for reasons which have yet to be revealed.

Then came the rains.

In this part of the country, desperate monsoons dump inches of water on the city in short periods of time. This, naturally, causes the sewers to temporarily become engorged. This of course, inspires certain creatures–for the sake of my readers’ comfort, I shall refer to these subterranean terrors as “marshmallows,” although anyone who has lived in a city knows what comes up out the sewers when it rains; however, let’s just say it was marshmallows–these marshmallows are inspired to come up out of the sewers through whatever means of egress they find.

So, when the marshmallows came up out of the sewers through the drain, they found a lovely little marshmallow habitat in the form of the wadded up futon cover, which was much nicer than the sewer. The marshmallows thought it would be more pleasant to relocate to the futon cover than return to the sewer. It was not until a few days after the rain that this development was discovered, by which time a truly nauseating number of marshmallows had infested the house.

The Man handily obtained a Marshmallow Bomb, which is an effective tool for murdering marshmallows without getting ones hands dirty, except that its use reveals the true extent of the marshmallow infestation; more than a week later, dead marshmallows, lying on their back with their horrible dead marshmallow legs in the air, still appear in the corners.

But this comic puts it all into perspective. Marshmallows are less dangerous, and easier to dispose of, than dead devils, wyrms, wargs, yetis, blobs, giant spiders, trolls, and weird alligator things with inexplicably long legs.

 

Dragon Comics 15

Some comics are just darker than others.

Some comics are just darker than others.

A storyline of sorts is coming into play here; this is going somewhere, other than to a place where every punchline is either Snake insulting Dragon or Dragon killing the snake (not that that will never happen, because it’s still funny to me, but there ought to be some degree of meaning what equates to verbal slapstick.

Cat is working well; she basically looks the same cat every time. I’m starting to get a feel for her, unlike Rabbit, who still doesn’t look right in any drawing. It occurred to me last night, as I was falling asleep, that this in, in part, because I am drawing her mouth all wrong. Rabbit will be cuter the next time she appears.

Dragon Comics 14

OK, I love this comic. I mean, I must have rewritten Rabbit’s dialog in the 2nd panel 12 times, and I’m still not completely satisfied, but this is precisely what I want to be doing: talking about serious things, and then flipping a switch and falling into a punchline.

This is another best viewed as large as your monitor can handle it, particularly the last panel.

When you don't wear clothes, body paint is pretty much the only way to add color to your wardrobe.

When you don’t wear clothes, body paint is pretty much the only way to add color to your wardrobe.

If you are not familiar with the work of Mondrian, check out this quick GIS. You’ve probably seen it, even if you don’t know his name. In fact, I’m only familiar with his name because I was on the forensics team in high school, in the “oral interpretation” division (i.e. reading out loud) and one of my pieces was Harlan Ellison’s “‘Repent, Harlequin,’ said the Ticktockman,” in which Mondrian is a summation of all that’s wrong with a rigid and orderly mandate in a modern, automated world. I’m not fond of the aesthetic myself.

Of course, Rabbit is adorning Dragon with the iconic image of Van Gogh’s “The Starry Night,” which most people are more familiar with. I have the print hanging on my bedroom door. I’ve also seen it held out as a piece beloved by people who took one art class in college and haven’t looked at a painting since then, but, obviously, I don’t have any space to be snooty about art. It’s a beautiful painting even divorced of meaning, and it had a lot of personal meaning for me. It very much is a work that, to me, expresses the kind of deep connection to the universe, intertwined with awe and wonder for the universe, that I feel when I look at a sunset or a storm cloud.

I learned a lot from studying Van Gogh’s “Blue Irises in a Yellow Vase“; from copying “The Starry Night” I basically learned how freaking amazing Van Gogh was. Do you have any idea how many colors there are in this picture? A lot. Even looking at a very good copy (I recall seeing 3D reproductions that actually used scanning technology to recreate his brushstrokes) you don’t see as deeply into the nuances as you do when you get down to the pixels. Wow. Just wow. I spent more time on “The Starry Night” than I did on anything else this week.

Dragon Comics 11

White dudes: so oppressed, so voiceless.

White dudes: so oppressed, so voiceless.

Every night is basically a Man talking party in certain company. 

All I really have to say about this comic is that I had a lot of fun drawing hands this week. Friday’s comic has some even more amusingly drawn hands. The Man looked it over and informed me that Dragon is using the wrong finger in panel 3, but I guess that says more about his worldview than my ability to draw hands. It’s funny, because in a lot of circles the ability to draw hands is sort of considered the benchmark. I think hands are only medium-hard; it’s faces that cause me the most grief. 

What I’m not entirely satisfied with is the placement of the word balloons in this comic. That’s another important skill in creating a visual narrative, and it’s not always obvious how to line them up so they’re read in order. I’ve actually read quite a bit on this, and I get that it’s part skill and part art. And if you think it doesn’t matter, you should read this hilarious takedown of inexplicable newspaper comic Mark Trail in Cracked. Actually, the whole article is hilarious. But actually, people have written much more serious pieces about word balloon placement. And it’s even more important in a bigger format, because then you also have to think about panel placement. Simply placing 9 or 12 equal-sized boxes in a grid over and over gets boring. The best artists can create a magical flow of images that sweeps the reader along from action to action in a visual way that somehow reflects the action, but done incorrectly, this method can just confuse the reader.

I’m fair from having to worry about that. But it is interesting to consider how the chosen format affects the storytelling. I’ve already got a little story planned out that examines this, but first, Dragon has a few things to say about art, friendship, truth, and beauty. Stick around!

Dragon Comics 9

I apologize in advance to any splendid otters who may just randomly stumble upon this comic strip, and also potentially any foxes even though obviously any similarity of these characters to any people/animals/mythical creatures, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Clearly, drawing a comic that is really only a thinly veiled depiction of ones friends and family could be a very dangerous pastime, unless all of ones friends and family have a really great sense of humor. Which, of course, mine do. But still. Purely coincidental.

I drew that otter around 1 a.m., looked at it, and then laughed for about 10 minutes straight.

I drew that otter around 1 a.m., looked at it, and then laughed for about 10 minutes straight.

I definitely do not know any large, muscular, barrel-chested otters. That would be utterly ridiculous.

Dragon Comics 7

Three cheers for insomnia! Weirding up my world since 1977. This is the comic that Dragon deserves, but not the one that Dragon needs. 

Is this a webcomic? Everything is confusing when your brain forgets to power down once in a while.

Is this a webcomic? Everything is confusing when your brain forgets to power down once in a while.

Truthfully, silencing my demons is a full time job. This comic is OK. The lettering is influenced by my lack of sleep. Sorry about that first word bubble. Too tired to see straight. If only someone would buy some T-shirts, I might have more time to write better comics. 

Dragon Comics 6

And I am only escaped to bring thee this webcomic.

From now until eternity, everyone who enters that cave will enjoy the gift of glitter.

From now until eternity, everyone who enters that cave will enjoy the gift of glitter.

The persistence of glitter and dragon’s identity issues notwithstanding, how much more magical could it get? This comic seemed to take a very long time to draw. I don’t know if it’s because I tried a few new things, or because I drew  it while coming out of stomach bug and finished it after a night of insomnia. Per usual, I’m pretty satisfied, although I of course still see a bunch of things that could be improved. But I can get better with practice.

What are you doing, Dragon? Part 5

This is a webcomic.

This is a webcomic.

This concludes the 5-part story arc. I learned a lot this week, and the results are pretty heartening. One of the things I learned, though, is that I’m not quite ready to draw dailies, regardless of whether the world is ready to read them. Even in this very rough style, it still took me about 3 hours to do each of these pages. It’s just too much of a time commitment right now, although you haven’t seen the last of this Dragon. The next arc has already presented itself, and I may try some single-panel comics in the near future. However, I want to devote more energy to the graphic novel as well as to a couple new T-shirt designs. But, as silly as it sounds, what I’ve done here this week fulfills a dream I’ve had for a long time. I’ll come back to this. 

In case you’re missing mandalas, here is a special mandala for your Friday pleasure: 

And by special, I guess I mean that if this mandala was a kid, it would ride the short bus.

And by special, I guess I mean that if this mandala were a kid, it would ride the short bus.