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Dragon Comics 130

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If Hope lives inside me, why don’t I feel butterflies in my stomach.

Fast and dirty: woke up in San Francisco, drove to Oakland, flew to Mesa, drove to Tucson, put The Man to Bed only a little while after his usual bedtime, and knocked this little bit of silliness out a mere 30 minutes past schedule. Rough and patchy, just like my brain when I travel for any purpose other than relaxation or creation. This dragon is wrung out, though. Breakneck week. Good to be home.

Was thinking about the Blue Morpho all week, and then my brother took me to Paxton Gate, which is like a room out of my dreams, or heaven, and they had a bunch of blue morphos there. I didn’t even bother to ask how much. But it strengthened my resolve. More comics. We also peeked into 826 Valencia. I’m not sure my brother knew what it really was–he kept calling it “the pirate store” when he talked about taking us there–but as soon as we walked in I realized where he had brought us. So that was fun. There were a lot of inspiring moments this week.

But, overall, tiring.

Dragon Comics 129

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Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…

It’s a bit of hyperbole, but not much of an exaggeration. One iced tea 10 hours ago, OK, but if it were 2 iced teas after about 3 pm, I would be in trouble.

In grad school, I had this British friend, very British by his own admonition. One evening I did him a favor, and he asked how to thank me. Feeling a bit tired, and wishing to attend a yoga class later in the night, I suggested he make me a cup of tea. That is a very British thing to do. He selected an Irish breakfast tea. It was delicious! I had 2 cups! And I attended that yoga class, by golly! And then I vibrated for the rest of the night.

I do not drink caffeine after 3 pm now.

Dragon Comics 128

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ZZZZzzzzzzz…..

Wow, busy day. The Fox and Otter wedding was very wonderful but at the end of the day The Man and I found ourselves completely exhausted. Then I had a bad moment when the tablet wasn’t working again but it settled itself down. But still, it was a long day, and all I had was another insomnia comic, and I didn’t even have insomnia. I just got up earlier than usual and spent a lot of time sweating in the desert before breakfast, and then basically ate one massive meal in the late afternoon, and my brain was done and my body was done and my eyes were especially done.

Done.

3D Dragon Comics #1!

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You were probably expecting something with a little more depth, but that's just a matter of perception.

You were probably expecting something with a little more depth, but that’s just a matter of perception.

There’s a type of psychological intervention known as Sand Table Play Therapy, which basically involves arranging objects and figurines in a tray of sand. Sand is nice, but it also goes everywhere and I don’t really think it’s all that integral to the actual symbolic actions that comprise this treatment, which is basically about forcing rigid adult minds to become malleable enough to throw off the limitations of maturity engage in meaningful play. I’ve got a million of these little objects–I could easily have created dozens of different tableaux using stuff that’s already in my office–and it really is soothing to rearrange them sometimes. It’s also nice to justify owning all these tchotchkes.

I’d been thinking about doing this type of 3-dimensional photographic comic for a long time, even before I started this blog. Reading Dave McKean’s Pictures That Tick made it seem like time to try. For some reason, I thought this would be faster than actually drawing a comic, which was not in any way the case. It took twice as long as Dragon Comics usually take. But it was more fun, and got me away from my desk.

It would be really nice if there was some easy way to build a model that didn’t fully set: one whose features couldn’t be smushed, but whose arms and legs could be repositioned. And then I wish I had the equipment and knowledge to make stop motion animation films.

Anyway, I wasn’t really ready to do a comic about my demons, even though creating them yesterday also inspired me to do this. Maybe one day. I’m still puzzling over my comic about depression. It’s funny: seems like everyone gets depressed, and yet depression is a really personal and idiosyncratic experience. At least mine is.

Dragon Comics 111

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I'm actually really good at math for a liberal arts major.

I’m actually really good at math for a liberal arts major.

This letter really did come in the mail today. That’s crazy to me. I don’t get as many credit card solicitations per week as I used to when I had a job, or even when I didn’t have a job but the economy was great, but I still get a lot. Random companies just offering me a one time loan at 38% APR is a new one for me. These terms seem not good, but I guess they’re so favorable to the lender that they can afford to send out 1000s of these letters on the chance that 1 person with credit that’s not good enough for a credit card but still good enough for these people will consider this a good way to get some fast cash.

The other thing I get in the mail a lot, besides people offering to loan me money I don’t want to borrow, is people asking me to give to charitable causes. I do donate money to charity, but some of these places, while highly rated for spending responsibly, seem to waste a lot of resources asking me for *more* money. But I’m gonna give when I’m gonna give, and your dead tree missives have no effect on that. I don’t need 3 pleas a week; save that money and use it in lieu of a donation.

On the plus side, that means my name is on the list for a lot of poorly managed charities, by which I mean organizations to which I have never and will never send money, but who nonetheless send me free “gifts,” primarily saccharine greeting cards and flashy address labels.

I should do a post displaying my collection of free address labels. It’s pretty extensive at this point. I’ve never bought address labels. I actually don’t think it really takes that much effort to write my name and address. But, hey, everyone want to give them to me for free.

What a weird world. It seems like there’s more than enough for everyone, and yet we have really pervasive distribution issues.

Dragon Comics 103

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Yellow and blue make green, red and yellow make orange...

Yellow and blue make green, red and yellow make orange…

We used to have a concept book about color when we were kids, one with transparent pages that stacked up to reveal different colored animals. There were a bunch of creatures, all in different colors; the ones you saw depended on which pages you looked at and also which direction you looked. That always fascinated me. So that’s a basic visual gag.

This comic is also about The Man’s remarkable ability to fall asleep at any time, anywhere. I have seen him fall asleep in the space of 45 seconds. I have seen him sleep with small children sitting on top of him. I have seen him sleep on the ground. I have seen him fall sleep even though he’s only been up a few hours and slept 8 hours the night before. His happy ability to nap inspires insane jealousy in me, the chronic insomniac.

Anyway, It’s been a couple weeks since I’ve drawn a comic but it was fun to get back.

Dragon Comics 81

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Be vewwy vewwy quiet. I'm wistening fow the voice of inspiwation.

Be vewwy vewwy quiet. I’m wistening cwosewy fow the sweet sweet voice of inspiwation.

 

When we were kids, my brother was considered something of a math prodigy. He skipped the 9th grade to attend the Illinois Math and Science Academy and taught at the University of Illinois before he even finished his BA. While he was in college, he told me, laughingly, Paul Erdős’s statement about mathematicians being machines that turn coffee into theorems.

My brother went on to earn advanced degrees from some of the most prestigious schools in the world. On a recent visit, I mentioned that quote to him and he laughed, this time a little bitterly. He said that most mathematicians do their best work before they’re 25, and that if you haven’t had any brilliant and original thoughts in the field before 30, you’re not likely to, ever. It’s like your brain has lost same particular aspect of plasticity that allows it to uncover new truths about numbers.

That’s never been so of writers. It’s the rare author who has both a mastery of craft as well as an interesting story to tell before 30. Maybe authors don’t hit their stride until 40. It’s not at all unusual to come across an extremely talented person who didn’t even start writing until they had retired in their 60s. So age is actually an asset in this field. And I keep telling myself that. It’s not only the facility with words and the understanding of how to structure sentences, chapters, paragraphs, and stories. It’s also the vast increase in life experience: fodder to create stories. And this increases exponentially. I don’t only gain the experience of my own life. I also get the experiences of all the people I talk to, and all the characters in books I read and videos I watch.

There’s absolutely no reason for a person to feel as if they haven’t achieved enough. In the creative arts, your masterwork can still be in the future.

 

Dragon Comics 53

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One thing I learned from drawing this comic is that owls IRL cannot wear big floppy hats without covering their entire faces. Through the magic of cartooning, the owl's floppy hat levitates about an inch over her head to allow for maximum visibility.

One thing I learned from drawing this comic is that owls IRL cannot wear big floppy hats without covering their entire faces. Through the magic of cartooning, the owl’s floppy hat levitates about an inch over her head to allow for maximum visibility.

Happy New Year!

Sometimes, scripting comics comes easily. Monday’s comic sprung, fully formed, into mind, every word in place. Today’s comic script came after a difficult labor, one panel at a time, with no sense as to the outcome. Even after panel 4 was completed, I spent hour staring at it looking for a punchline. The owl asking if this was better and the dragon concurring. The dragon stating that waiting was actually pretty nice if you knew how to do it. In the end, I’d like to believe that panel 4 is drawn with such palpable joy as to render words unnecessary. The reader can see that the situation has improved; no words are needed.

As the year winds down, it’s hard not to reflect. I quit my job at the beginning of 2014 and began drawing all the time. I started this blog and the QvD T-shirt shop. I sold a few T-shirts and a few copies of an embarrassing book whose authorship I don’t like to claim even though I totally wrote it. Finally, I’m living my life in a way that feels more or less authentic. According to the laws of the New Age, the money should follow, right?

Not that you go into the arts for the money, but it’s also nice to earn your keep.

QWERTYvsDvorak is going on winter break as of now. We’ll be back January 5 with new comics and drawings and T-shirts and hopefully a dragon hat. Have a great holiday!

Dragon Comics 51

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Why I otter...

Why I otter…

Apparently people are enamored of “the machine.” Personally, I think it’s kind of a mean-spirited device. It gives you *almost* what you want, but not quite, because it delivers the thing you want in such a way that you almost don’t want it anymore. You would be better off without its generosity.

At any rate, a machine this powerful probably can’t be destroyed, although it can be stored in the guest bedroom with all the craft supplies and exercise equipment you never use, buried under antique furs and baby toys and ugly prints inherited from long-dead great-aunts. Dragon’s Cave, unlike my house, offers unlimited storage space, so there’s no question of setting the machine on fire on the front lawn.

Just so you know, the otter will share the doughnuts with the fox and the girl and the boy. He can’t eat that many doughnuts himself. Although I suspect the real otter would have no problem taking doughnuts from a kid for the sake a big laugh. But I’m sure he would give them back later.

I feel like the fox is as much a victim of this prank as the little girl, but something about the way he’s drawn suggests that he knew this would happen and he’s in on taunting the kid. But that’s not the kind of fox he is, I swear. I wanted to give him the punchline in panel 4 but nothing sprung to mind, so there it is. He’s just watching, feeling relatively certain that the otter is just messing with him and will dole out the doughnuts soon enough. Also I like the kid perspective: the girl did suffer, as only a child denied is capable of suffering.

Dragon Comics 49

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In relationships where one partner is more resilient than the other, it's not uncommon that the weaker partner can gleefully say and do things to the stronger partner that would be devastating if the stronger partner said or did to the weaker.

In relationships where one partner is more resilient than the other, it’s not uncommon for the weaker partner to gleefully say and do things to the stronger partner that would be devastating if the stronger partner said or did to the weaker. Emotionally speaking, that is. 

As mentioned last week, I actually enjoy being suspended by the ankles, but there’s a limit to everything, particularly inversion, which can become dangerous in certain situations over long periods of time. There are many benefits to inversions, and I’ve even heard yogis suggest something to the effect that every minute of ones life spent in inversion adds an extra minute of right-side-up time to life. Of course, I’ve also had veterans assure me that, after a certain point, inversions can be deadly. So let me reiterate: after a minute or two, the health benefits of inversions are limited to inversions you accomplish using your own muscles, under your own power. Being strung up by the ankles and left for dead is not healthy.

Of course, neither is laughing at your friend’s inadvertent misfortune, regardless of how hilarious their situation might appear to you, particular if you are reminding them about something that happened years ago, and especially if you actually played a rather large part in their situation. Just remember that.

Meanwhile, the poor fox is pieless and in serious danger of starving to death.