Comics making has been slow going but fear not, its still happening!  Hopefully I’ll be able to start dedicating more time to them since I just switched my schedule around so I can work only 4 days a week.  Anyway, this comic was based on my trip to Chicago last week.

page 2 of 2.

Continued from yesterday’s post.  Honestly, really disappointed with how these two pages turned out but it was a valuable learning experience…or something…

Page 1 of 2.

This was my first experimentation with a brush.  I liked it better than a pen but think it doesn’t look as good.  I guess I’ll keep practicing but continue to primarily use a dip pen.  Also turns out that having a fulltime job significant affects my output…oh well…

Lynda Barry is an epicenter of creativity and inspiration for me.  She’s the pleasant reminder that doodling and free-handing comics is just as legitimate in many cases as thumbnail sketches, rulers, and lettering guides.  When I’m feeling frustrated or brain dead I turn to her book What It Is and just flip through the pages and see how she uses cartoony images, collage, patterns, paint, text, and comics to create these incredible hodgepodge images that  contain little secrets and details you may not notice upon first glance.

Her comic, “Two Questions” in What It Is has been particularly important for me. Barry struggles over the two burdening questions, “Is this good?”  and “Does this suck?”  She traces her life as an artist to locate just how she became obsessed with these questions, remembering how as a little one drawing and storytelling had felt liberating and organic.  Finally on the brink of madness she cries “I give up!”  and with that refusal to persist in the garden of “good and suck”  she is returned to her original blissful state.  As an “artist” (ugh, that felt awful to write) how could one not find that empowering?  Knowing that the people you think of as part of the holy grail of what you do go through the same turmoil until they finally say “fuck it.”

Lynda Barry was in Portland a few weeks ago promoting her new book, Picture This and I was unable to attend her talk.  I totally regret it.  It was liking missing the one time my comic auntie ever comes into town.  Whatever, having What It Is is wonderful enough and makes me feel like she’s here for me whenever I need her…is that creepy?

Edit: If by next summer I am still making comics I decided that I am going to go to Rhinebeck, NY and take Lynda Barry’s “Writing the Unthinkable” workshop.  Also, I’ll be able to see my fam.  Woop woop!

This morning I woke up, drew this, and then went back to sleep.

This is a totally vain comic I made for my friend Natalie’s zine.  I was asked to draw about something I’m passionate about.  So obvz I drew a comic about making comics!