I cannot draw a newspaper from memory

Soren Pingo: Newspaper reader. I dunno... are wry comments always funnier when said by a newspaper reader? Now that I think of it, a future storyline is partly based around Soren's daily newspaper rituals. Librarians love reading... but is reading a newspaper when surrounded by books cheating? Maybe it's like flirting with the floozy checkout girl just because she smiled at you and then going home to your beloved wife. Maybe I'm thinking too hard about sexualized word delivery units.

So where was I? Oh yeah, I was going to see if I could do another family portrait with the Pingos because I haven't drawn many Sorens. This quickly failed as I somehow couldn't draw a proper Autumn without soiling the page with my drool. Ok, that sounds really wrong, especially after a paragraph where I implied newspapers have loose morals and inclination to naughty deviation. What I'm saying here is that I finally drew a worthwhile Autumn and then did one of those "about damn time" sounds - which resulted in my spitting all over the page. Maybe this is why my friends never invite me to parties.

Portrait failed, I tried to draw a Soren just for practice. As the title of this post states, I couldn't figure out the proper newspaper pose, so I gave him the blank cheer expression that he would have had in the posed family portrait. Somehow, with this guy, it's appropriate no matter the context.

Soren is also supposed to be a bit overweight, but I'm not sure how well that came across. It's surprisingly difficult to get these weight subtleties with the characters at this point. Soren is chunky. Deirdre is curvy. Sky is skinny and compact. Ivy is to be the moderately-slender control case. None of that really comes across with the strip yet. I'm not even getting into Harvey Linkletter, since I'm still not sure what proportions are going on with that guy.

Soren was named after the Dane that came to America and started my Paulsen family, by the way. Just FYI. (Edit long after the fact: Turns out he was Soren Hansen, but his daughter still bred Paulsens!)

The Et Family! *click* *click*

What can I say, crazy families are on my mind.

Drawing something like this is a MAJOR challenge, since every character (well, not the twins) are different heights and sizes. I can't claim the shot is any good at all, but anyone remotely close to accurate is wild success at this point.

I still love how varied the Et family is, even if it means more trouble than it's worth when cartooning. Gene is a buff-colored kitty, Sky is a gray tabby, Tiffany is a calico, Michaelangelo is an orange tabby, Frida is a tortoiseshell and the twins are white. This counters an earlier Et family breakdown, but now that all of them have been drawn in the comic, the current roster is more or less official. (I can still alter colorings if I want, but thinking of doing the strip in color makes me cry in fear.)

Oh, yeah. In case you're wondering, eight new strips are done (nine if you count the Black Friday one) and progress continues. 24 strips to go before Precocious BECOMES REAL!

In most comics, no one ages

Ok, so I've been working on the comic these past few days, which means precious few sketches to share and I have to scramble for content. Since I do want to average a post a day, as this is the only forum I feel I have right now, I need to figure out something. The other stuff I've been dealing with is not what I'd prefer to blog about. First, this is primarily an art blog for me to show off and work through my ideas. Second, I try my best not to be *that blogger* with the self-absorbed bullshit. Third, I don't like sharing things unless it's me-centric. Not only is it ego, but I'm not comfortable with discussing loved ones in too much detail. So many fools forget what a public place the internet is.

What you see here is something I fished out of the trash. Today everyone else was out and I was alone to take care of my grandfather, who was up and about more than usual. Since I had my pencil with me, I did a small sketch on a scrap of paper found in the desk drawer to talk about cartooning. It was something quick and lame, so I folded the paper up and tossed it. That's when I saw what the scrap of paper was. You can write the rest of this post yourself, so I'm going to take my leave before fully becoming that blogger.

Best panel I ever drew...

Now that I am "settled" in DC for a week or so, I finally have time to do some work. Lots of inking tonight, with two new strips finished so far. One, as you can infer, was the a breeze to complete.

If only I could be minimalist all the time...

Trapped in Limbo

With the change of schedule, my convenient return home for a dentist appointment became not so much convenient. With the crappy weather and a worried mother, I am not in Winchester for tonight only. With my aunt scheduling several appointments in Delaware *next* because she wasn't aware my schedule had changed to allow her to go up there *this* week, I'll likely be in DC until... hell if I know.

Just to add to the cheer, I got home to find my mother's laptop all wonky and in need of fixing. After punching in a few times, it rebooted a few times and that seemed to do it. Yay! Then I moved to my computer to burn some CDs for my aunt, thinking I was heading home tonight. My computer decided to crash instead. Instead of restarting, Microsoft thought that would be the perfect time for an update! (Or, more likely, this is why computer crashed in the first place.) It has been flashing, "Installing update 1 of 1, do not reset or pull the plug!" for about four hours now. I'm sure rebooting mid-update can only have good outcomes. Hey, at least I got the other computer working!

So now I am in Winchester, while my working computer and art supplies are in DC. What the heck do I do to justify a blog post?

I FUCK WITH A WEBCAM OF COURSE!

First I capped the sketches I did here, but I can't do any Photoshopping as that program is being held hostage by Microsoft. With the ART out of the way, the only thing I could do was make funny face. It just had to be done.


Ok, I may be pale as a ghost - yet my scary factor leaves much to be desired.

JAZZHANDS!


Check out the BREEZY look! There should be a beach scene behind me.

Uh... I just wanted to see what capping did if I wiggled my fingers.



Just what am I doing to this cat?

Hey, it was either stupid pictures of me or ANOTHER LONG ESSAY! What would you have preferred?

I hope you people are reading this!

I was going to put this at the end of my last post, but figured you'd be skimming and would likely miss it.

I'll be in DC for an extra week, returning next Sunday or Monday. I'll be needing some peer group bonding by then, so don't forget about me!

The reason I'm staying here is the same reason I was certain to be at home: The kitchen remodeling is entering its endgame and the epic finishing of floor is happening this week. This means no one can use the house for a week. Initially I was going to keep the cats with me downstairs while mom stopped by in the mornings to let the dogs out, but she was warned the fumes from the finished might cause further brain damage to our already dim pets. So, new plan! Mom will be living downstairs for the week with all the animals.

I had already committed to spending the next weekend in DC to allow my aunt to finally return home and spend some time in HER life, with her partner. For those not in the know, my aunt had come to visit my ill grandfather almost four months ago, thinking she was going to stay just a few days. Seeing that my grandmother was working herself to death to take care of my grandmother, my aunt knew she had to stay and help care for the caretaker. (I am one of three extra helpers who come periodically to help care for the one caring for the caretaker.) This is a well-earned visit home for my aunt and I am happy to fill in - even if I'm wholly useless in the house upkeep stuff.

Tomorrow I drive back to Winchester for a dentist appointment. Then it's gathering clothes, grabbing my precious lightbox to help me with comic creation, trying to fix my mother's laptop, grabbing an early dinner (anyone free?) and heading back to DC.

Thank you for suffering under my more-words-less-art recent blog trend.

Artistic Victory!

Tonight, my lovely grandmother and I were chatting and joking around as we sorted through the many thousands of pill bottles years of living has thrust upon the family. She excused herself to go give my grandfather his pills, but returned because he was sleeping peacefully. I, meanwhile, had gathered up my laptop (which was upstairs because we had entertained my grandfather with a live steam featuring puppies) and was about to head downstairs for the evening. Since she was back, I put down the laptop and sat down across from her on the couch to chat some more.

And my heart swelled with pride.

My grandmother had leaned back in her chair, crossed her legs and curled her one arm up to her shoulder. Directly behind her on the wall was my monoprint, "The Furnace," which was done with her as the inspiration. Her pose perfectly mirrored the composition, with the jacket behind her further adding to the impact with it's bold red. It was absolutely stunning to see everything I had put into the piece sitting live and vibrant in front of me. "The Furnace" is about a strong matriarch whose brilliant soul carries her amazing nature through generations. Anyone who knows my grandmother knows that she has a power in here that is magnetic and inspiring.

I had to get a photo - but I had no camera. Oh. WAIT! Webcam to the rescue! Did you know I can set a different resolution for my webcam? Suddenly I could take a decent photo with it! While the uneven lighting (and my inability to hold the laptop in the proper position without collapsing) wouldn't allow me to show her mirroring the pose, I still wanted to capture her with the art she inspired in the background.

Seeing what I saw tonight reaffirmed why I am an artist. Everything I wanted to say with the artwork successfully came forth. This piece was always a gem, though. When I first put it on display, my grandmother was immediately drawn to it. She knew she had to have it and commented to my aunt that she didn't exactly know why. My aunt, the artist, immediately saw the connection. I had not told them the piece was about my grandmother, but they knew it was meant for them!

I've succeeded. I'm a real artist!

The View From the Ivory Tower

This post was supposed to show up yesterday. (In fact, I can leave it with its original time stamp for the 29th if I so desire... which I ended up doing because I forgot to fix the time stamp before hitting the post button. Whoops.) Problem is, I'm stealing the internet! He who lives by pirated wi-fi, dies by pirated wi-fi. No connection meant no posting.

The other delay came from my grandmother and aunt playing against type and shopping lightning fast. These two are grand masters of social shopping. "Talking to the wonderful people in line is half the fun!" said my grandmother. (I'm paraphrasing, of course, but trying to be as accurate as memory will allow.) Thinking they would be gone for hours, I sat down to write an essay and have a long chat with my aunt's partner, a kindred spirit in the anti-shopping mindset. Thinking I had hours to meander around before getting to my point, I launched into a back story for context. Didn't even finish with that before the shoppers were back. How rude! Anyway, by the time I got back to the laptop, wi-fi was dead.

And now... LOTS OF WORDS AND NO PICTURES!

One criticism I am sure to face when I unleash Precocious on the populace will be the justified accusation that it's all just too negative. Another will be that the strip is unbearably elitist. This would be when I giggle.

An artist can't help but project themselves into their work, and Precocious is very much the dark and twisted workings of my head on display. I like my humor like I like my coffee - intensely dark, then corrected with cream and sugar!

My characters are mean, violent, snotty, inconsiderate and foolish. The nice and redeemable characters either have their good natures abused or are treated like an outright enemy! What is wrong with me? People, please! Conflict is funny.

Precocious was created when I was around 11, and the underlying theme remains the same: It's all about classism. Not only do we have clear divides among economic brackets in the elitist-sounding Gemstone Estates, but we have intellectual elitism on display with the children attending the incredibly elitist-sounding Poppinstock Academy. Who are the worst enablers of this? My main characters! They outright ignore those not like them, down to pretending the other side of their classroom doesn't exist!

That would be the intensely dark coffee mentioned before. The cream comes in the form of the treatment. I'm making fun of myself via proxy with this strip. As much as I like to let my pride prop me up, doing so means I miss so much in life. If you take me out to a bar, I'd likely embarrass myself because I've always dismissed bars as being a home for the base elements. No, in reality the bar is just another social gathering place for all types! I think Dana's amazing story of love and happiness can prove I'm a damned fool.

The reason my kids come off as negative is because their attitudes are foolish. Autumn keeps getting her comeuppance for her competitive streak. Bud is decidedly warped because of his tendency to isolate himself. Jacob's desire to be a part of some grand design often ends with him spending energy on pointless endeavors. Tiffany's space cadet nature can also be seen as a consequence of pure self-indulgence. If I had made my children sweeter, that would imply their intellectual isolation was a *good* thing. These kids satirize the faults intellectuals can have. Intelligence is a wonderful thing. Knowledge as a weapon (the tagline of my strip) cuts both ways.

The character of Max is vital to Precocious. He's a saint and, aside from some blind optimism that strays from realism, he has no personality flaws. My official character biography calls him "history's greatest villain." Max is the control character that needs to pop in every so often to confirm that it's *my* kids are whacked. Later on, the other side of the classroom will also contribute. Kaitlyn Hu is fully sane and perceptive; she's the good Bud. Vincent Iddenstein and Yvette Nutely have their quirks, but they're also good at heart - it's Tiffany and Jacob with creamy souls! Quincy Wozwax is overly competitive, like Autumn, but even he's remarkably social with his nerdy world.

Now for the sugar in this equation. While my characters are often seen as irredeemably evil, there's no way a strip like that can persist without suffocating under its own darkness. The main kids *are* redeemable and they do have souls. Their elitism is the tragic flaw that causes their downfall time and time again; not something that will doom them to a lifetime of evil. They talk big and talk bad, but it's more dark humor than pure evil. They are "haters" that bandy about insults and harsh words freely - but it's not so bad because they all understand the rules of the hater's game. As I've always put it, they hug by hitting! They're normal, but this version of normal is skewed into the darkness.

A Calvin and Hobbes strip once had Calvin remarking how a little bit of antagonism could make any boring conversation into something exciting. The final panel had Calvin beaten into the ground, claiming his point was proven. That's what I'm going for!

For this pilot episode, I've done my best to throw in subtle clues to this. Bud remarks that their conflict is the "current" war, implying they do this all the time. The kids spend more time arguing semantics (and writing official documents) than actually fighting, because the challenge in building a grand scheme is more important than the negative fighting. When it's all over, they walk off content, wondering what they should do for fun the next day. In the end, they just wanted a water balloon fight - but they had to set it up in their way. Just like me, they can't tackle a normal task without doing something foolish to turn it into an epic event.

Even so, the redeemable aspects of my main kids might be *too* subtle. This is where Dionne, Suzette and Roddy enter the fray. If I have Max and Kaitlyn on one end, showing the contrast between my kids and well-adjusted people, I need to have some negatives on the other end to prove my children have sweetness and innocence in them as well.

Dionne is wonderful for that. She is fully aware than my kids talk a good game, but could never fully devote themselves to the path of evil, and she is delightfully malicious in exposing it! Dionne plays the evil game better than anyone, and she'll always win.

Suzette is the big red "Do Not Touch" button personified, always a risk to fly off the handle. She may have *small* point in claiming she's a victim of circumstance, but when she gets worked up her fire burns bright and hot. Again, while my kids scream at each other all the time, none can match the fury of Suzette.

Roddy's role as the outsider helps put my kids' quirks into perspective. He is usually right in pointing out how their attitudes and behavior are unhealthy and unkind, but his bitterness over the whole thing constantly makes him look worse. Roddy doesn't understand the "hater" mindset is another way to have fun, so he's eternally frustrated. Roddy is also my concession that this strip is far from normal. His frustration is fully justified, but he'll never be able to win until he understands of the insular bubble created by the Sapphire Lake kids.

I like my coffee as the intense dark roast, with double cream and one sugar. Get it?

Articulate Friday

Rant post has been put off again due to good things. Yay!

So, with my DVD player dying... I feared I might have had to brave the frightening outside world on this soul-destroying shopping day. Then I remembered Amazon.com! I found the DVD player I wanted on sale *and* it'll be shipped to my doorstep for no additional charge. Yay internet!

This bonus holiday strip is the result of my joy. The poor parents must brave the brutal shopping environment... except for Sydney, who is rewarded for her laziness!

You've died of dysentery, Charlie Brown!

Ok, so I'm half-conscious and watching some Peanuts special about about the Mayflower... maybe I'm getting the wrong lesson here. I dunno. This thing is serious filler after the nostalgic bliss that is a Charlie Brown Thanksgiving.

I had never seen that before, as far I remember, and it was fascinating. The show played out as if it was a series of four-panel strips converted by brute force into animation. It totally didn't work, especially with kids doing the voices, but I could really appreciate the writing. This special obviously came around after Franklin, Woodstock and Marcie were new additions, which means I'll reach that era in the Peanuts archives in the next volume that comes out in six months. By the way, Woodstock was freaking HILARIOUS when he was introduced! I have newfound appreciation for that bird. Just so you know. Also, Woodstock, with extreme excitement, consumed a plate of turkey in the special. Does that make him a bird version of a racist cannibal?

I'll try to make a (happily) cranky post later with a sketch to share, but for now it's the food coma "glory be to conspicuous consumption" thing that dominates.

This Thanksgiving we went the "let someone ELSE do it!" route. Not only did we have a local grocer cook/order our meal, but we brought in a beloved family friend. She and my aunt's partner did ALL the work - and one hell of a job! - while the Paulsens sat around and joked. Lazy Thanksgiving = awesome! Store-bought Thanksgiving turned out to be pretty damn good. The only dish I found lacking was the stuffing, which everyone else adored - so maybe I'm just being persnickety. The mashed potatoes were all consumed, but whatevs - I FINALLY GET MY DAMN LEFTOVERS!

It's been a great day. Even running out to the store was very enjoyable. Everyone there was just beaming and pleasant. I guess when you know you're going home to stuff yourself with as much food as possible - and the biggest problem is, as the guy on a cell phone said: "Honey, they don't have any Neapolitan left - should I just get a bunch for an assortment?" - it's hard *not* to be happy. Don't worry, folks, I WILL FIND THE RAIN CLOUD ON THIS SUNNY DAY! Just... later. I have to return to the coma now.

Overheard from the Peanuts pilgrim special just now: "EVERYONE DIED!?" "Oh, yes!" Awww. This show is better when I don't pay attention.