Finding a Way

It has never been a problem of knowing what to do, or how to go about doing it.
Regardless of field, the common wisdom concerning getting any sort of work (especially creative work) done is easily found, echoed in a million books on writing/drawing/what-have-you. I won't go into them in depth here, but it always comes down to a simple idea:

Shut up and get to work.

Maybe it's the direct simplicity that scares people; no room for misinterpretation there. No, the only recourse for someone desperate (is it fear? I think it is fear) to put off getting started on (insert any project here) is to hop from book to book, soaking up ever more wisdom and instruction on how they might best proceed.
As one who's read more than his fill of these books, I assure you: eventually you know all too well what you must do.
The question then becomes: what particular devices do we each employ to prevent ourselves from doing this relatively simple thing?
Just as the best way to work is unique to each person, so are the specific designs by which they keep themselves from it. I can only name a few of mine by way of example; you have to identify your own. But perhaps this will help.

Obstacle One: The Implied Expectations of the Vessel

Be it a Moleskine notebook (like the one I'm writing this in right now), or a sleek and fancible Sketchbook, it is the experience of procuring a book specifically to work in, and promptly feeling petrified to sully its pristine pages with anything but the most quality work (itself a dubious, amorphous notion). Fine journals are a fine thing, but when they work psychologically to make us overly precious about what we fill them with, their purpose is corrupted. More on this later.
My second obstacle is the notion that I must know precisely what I want to say and where I want to end up (and must identify all of the in-between steps) before I begin.
This flies in the face of all that ubiquitous, obvious wisdom: nearly all works, of every stripe (pick any specific book/comic/tv show especially dear to you as example) were almost certainly conceived as they went along, rather than extensively mapped out and executed in a linear fashion. All were begun and all change in the making. The growth and progress we so easily recognize (and assume to be both intentional and inevitable) most likely happened entirely by accident. That is to say, naturally.
Yet still the delusion holds sway. If you don't believe me, trust that I have several unfinished drafts of blogs which remain untouched simply because I have yet to figure out exactly what I want to say with each.

The third obstacle sounds a bit silly when said aloud.

Whatever we make must not, at any point in its existence, suck.

And so on.

Your obstacles may have some things in common with mine; no doubt you could make your own list of things that stand in your way. Never a bad idea.
But what then? If you're like me, the one thing you know just as well as what you should be doing is why you aren't doing it. Your knowledge on this subject will be thorough, specific, and vast.
The question of what to do with all this information is what interests me the most. Here's what I've come up with:
It's no good to abandon your notebooks or any other tools just because of the mindset they may induce in you; at least, not altogether. Sometimes having something shabby or handmade (point: not store-bought) helps. But this is often impractical. Mass-produced notebooks are made to be written in. Moleskines' paper feels wonderful against the hand. There must be a compromise.
To put it another way: you have to figure out how to make the things you have work for you. If that means trading in the fancy sketchbook for its DIY cousin, so be it. But only if that's what you really need.
Before I started writing this, I surveyed all the previous entries in the journal. Each page was crammed with tiny, near-illegible lines; none of it invited review. Even as I wrote them, I knew I'd likely never go back and read what I'd written. It seemed beside the point.
But if these things are to become useful, they have to be easy and inviting, at least at first.
I turned to a blank page, and began writing sentences in letters 3 or 4 times larger than usual. Barely a paragraph's worth fit on a page.
And immediately I felt the difference. By loosening up my grip and taking a little more space to stretch out, I found a way to make the Moleskine work for me.
It's that kind of redefined relationship that I want to find with all my tools. I encourage you to try to find the same relationship with yours.

If you need it.

PZS Announcement

Hey guys,
I'm a little late with this, but I'm going to be at the Portland Zine Symposium all day today and tomorrow selling my comics and generally mingling. It's happening in Smith Memorial Ballroom on the PSU campus and entry is free. If you're around, come and say hi!

Hello Dar

Hi guys.
Working on a proper new blog; just wanted to give you a heads up that the Spring Music links will be taken down on Friday to make way for new records.

xo

Closing the Book of Face

Oh, internet. How you entangle.
I used to be pretty indifferent about the online communities I used. Being somewhat late to the party (I never used Friendster or Livejournal - okay, that second part's not true, but I digress), I figured each newly ubiquitous community was okay as long as it served its purpose and didn't make my life too complicated. When Facebook sprung up, however long ago, it seemed a godsend; the ugly, non-functional mess that is Myspace had long since worn out its welcome, and back then, Facebook was simple, clean, and spartan. Plus it seemed a good way for people to keep track of me, if they felt so inclined. Anyway.
Cut to the present, and the natural evolution of popular online communities has once again played itself out: Facebook has turned into something bloated and ungainly. Where once it was elegant, it is now an eyesore. Again, digressing, but I'm going somewhere with this.
This is not the place for me to list all the things I don't like about Facebook; the faux-connectivity it creates, the bizarre share-all mentality it fosters. That is another blog, for another time (though probably unnecessary). No, the issue here is that of knowing what you want out of your internet, and then working to get it. I'm a firm believer that the internet doesn't have to be a black hole of distraction and lost time; but navigating it responsibly is a difficult thing, so I try to help myself as best as I can.
I've long been a proponent of Twitter as an alternative to the Facebook micro-blogging tool, as Twitter wisely focuses on what is being said while all but eliminating who is saying it (although, inevitably, 99% of people seem to use Twitter exactly as they do Facebook - 3rd person updates about their lunch, etc.) My views on this are strongly influenced by Rands' article about proper tweeting, and how to make the most out of it. The long and short of it is: Sure, you can now let your friends and family know exactly what you're doing any minute of the day. But why should anyone care? And why is it worth sharing in the first place? But the digression continues.
I'd go it one further and put forth that for those already sold on Twitter, a beautiful application like Tweetie is the way to go - simple, elegant design, completely eliminating the need to even open the web browser. It delivers content, and nothing more. Beautiful.
And this is where Facebook loses me.
The purported strength of online communities, as best I can tell, is that they allow you to stay connected to people you might otherwise be unable to. This is a noble cause. However, whatever its intentions, what I see happening more and more on Facebook runs something like this: People update snippets about their daily lives, others comment on them (or 'like' them. What?), and the whole thing becomes this surreal, almost high school-esque drone. Almost nothing is actually said, and it is said all day, every day.
I understand that a lot of people like Facebook for this very reason, but as I said earlier, this is about figuring out what works for each individual, and for me it's somewhat frustrating. I don't usually think to share details of my daily life; how much more valuable is it to offer some insight that might reach someone out there in the ether, and in turn make their life a little bit better? Much as it feels like it sometimes, the internet is hardly a void. And don't even get me started on the influx of pointless quizzes that have spread throughout Facebook like a cicada plague lately; again, well and good if people like them, but from where I'm sitting it all adds up to distraction, and that isn't why we're here.
The final nail in the coffin came in the form of Tumblr. It serves the simple purpose of being a platform for short, multimedia updates (as opposed to this blog, which does just fine for these lengthier missives), and it allows complete customization (as well as a simple, tasteful UI) that makes sharing content easy and attractive. I am sold.
The downside to Tumblr, they all say, is the absence of a Comments feature. It is one-sided, narcissistic. Yelling into the void. Perhaps, I answer.
But the counter to that is twofold: First, there is this here blog, with its comment-friendly nature and a link to actual contact information. Second, in the land of Facebook, where the comments fly free and easy, how much communication is actually going on anyway?
I aim to document, and share what I find. I figure that's the best any of us can do by our friends on the internet. And RSS is your friend, folks.
You know where to find me.

More Music for Springtime

Hello again! And so soon!

Assuming by now a few of you have heard my Spring Mix, I thought I'd go it one further and make available to you some of the albums I've been listening to lately. They are by no means representative of all the spring music out there - these are just my picks for this spring, this year, right now. What I do know is that they will reward you if you give them a chance. So with that said, please, Enjoy.

And get outside.

The Dodos - Beware of the Maniacs
Arthur & Yu - In Camera
Menomena - Friend and Foe
St. Vincent - Marry Me
(Edit: Links are now down. Sorry.)

Announcing the Spring Mix

Greetings all.
I'm pleased to say that the Spring Mix is finally complete, and instead of bothering with cds and packing and all that nonsense, I'm making it available for download right here on the blog. The catch: since it's digital, it requires a little leg work on your part. I've zipped all the songs (plus cover art) into a single file, which you must take into your iTunes, or whatever player you use, and arrange correctly. After that, just find yourself a sunny spring day (or a good pair of headphones), and Enjoy.


Spring Mix 2009:

1. Okkervil River - The President's Dead
2. Arthur & Yu - Lion's Mouth
3. The Dodos - The Ball
4. Marnie Stern - Transformer
5. Jens Lekman - Julie (Remix)
6. Lykke Li - Dance, Dance, Dance
7. Yo La Tengo - Beanbag Chair
8. They Might Be Giants - Another First Kiss
9. Menomena - Rotten Hell
10. tUnE yArDs - FIYA
11. The Mountain Goats & Kaki King - Black Pear Tree
12. St. Vincent - What Me Worry?
13. Rufus Wainwright - I Don't Know What It Is

download

Hourly Comic Day

So as you may or may not have known, yesterday was Hourly Comic Day, a sort of mini-marathon of comic-making. The goal is to draw a comic for every hour that you are awake. It was definitely a challenge (especially since I had to knock out a regular Mighty Bu comic as well), but it was also a lot of fun (although I became somewhat grumpy near the end, as you will see).

UPDATE: Blogger's image hosting is too small for my liking, so I've hosted the files at my webcomic's site instead. Click here to see 'em.

yeah yeah yeah

I want a t-shirt that says ALL I REALLY NEED TO KNOW I LEARNED IN MY BLOG ARCHIVES.

Blogging from the Front Porch

First of all: ACKPHTHPTLTLBLOOBLOOOFFFFF.

Ah. Better.

It is nice having an office, but the downside of it is that I spend most of my time in a basement room with hardly any natural light. I feel more and more like a vampire (albeit one that wears a purple robe and foot duvets) when I trudge downstairs each morning with coffee in hand. The place was once a makeshift recording studio - cardboard coffeeholders still line the ceiling - but even the small amount of light afforded by the two tiny windows is not enough to keep it from feeling gloomy. And that gloom has apparently translated into an inability to turn out a proper blog for the first two weeks of the new year.
So here I am on the porch.

As far as portents go, 2009 has not shown any sign of being better or worse than '08 just yet. Which is to be expected, I suppose. Foolish shortcut-seeker that I am, I awoke on the morning of January 1st thinking I'd be able to shake off all of my mental baggage and simply plow ahead into my work; who needs hours and hours of practice when you have the magic on New Years Momentum working for you?
I am this way about a lot of things. Why?
It is perhaps helpful that 2009 has offered up so little thus far, therefore making it easier to quickly realize the naivete of my initial approach and so set it down. I remember thinking, on New Years Eve, how all the world seemed poised to Make A Go Of It in '09, and that all the collective positive energy would no doubt carry me along. How can a person entertain such a notion? Answer: because it is a nice alternative to having to shut up and do the work.
And yet, and yet. You know the drill.
I'm as good at anyone at finding creative reasons to put off doing my writing and drawing practice. But if 2009 has shown me anything thus far, it's that it isn't about to start making it any easier for me to beat the system.
That's the state of things, folks. Stop trying to make your workspace perfectly clean, forget trying to get all the stars to align in order to make your words more pure and concise. It won't work.
So to build upon my initial plan for this year, let me add this: There ain't no easy answer. Best stop trying to find one at all. Gets in the way of doing the ground work. It's on the ground that the guts are made. It's on the ground that the well is filled.
I've got a lot of work to do.
Better get to it before I just start talking.




A few helpful links:

Cory Doctorow - Writing in the Age of Distraction
gapingvoid on being creative
The Second Virtue of Writing
Craig Thompson on getting started

The Year of the Exploratory

All right. That's quite enough of that.
A friend of mine remarked recently that he hates blog entries in which the author apologies for how much he or she hasn't written lately. He wished that the author would just get on with it and write something, already. No good comes of further delaying actual work by bemoaning the various reasons for the lapse. And I agree with him: it is more or less pointless.
But.
If I am to give in to some backward-looking lamentation and offer some explanation as to why I've been silent these past two months, believe me when I say that it is inextricably connected to what I have to say now, and bears on what I will say in the future as well.
And now I hardly know where to start.
Writing things down, for me, has always served one or two functions. First, it provides a record of my life, thoughts, and progress. Documenting each day gives that day the feeling that it has not been lost, and no matter what specific details and observations I write, it is heartening that they have been set down.
But secondly, and far more importantly, is the fact that writing things down acts as a buffer against the incoming tide of new information: like Dumbledore's pensieve, it lets me take each day's barrage of information and store my thoughts and experience somewhere else than in my head.
I forgot how important this was.
I've never really believed that I would one day go back over my old journals and re-read what I'd written. Even if something was particularly profound or clever, I knew the odds were good that I'd never give any of it another glance.
I can see, in hindsight, that the real value of daily writing is not anything that I wrote on any particular day, but the sanity purchased by simply doing it.
And this is where the silence comes in.
When you slip from a discipline (I better speak for myself here - when I slip from a discipline), it naturally gets harder to pick it back up the longer I wait. Not just because I'm giving in to procrastination like any normal person - if that were all, it should be relatively easy to cope with. But in my case, the longer I wait, the more keenly I feel all the unrecorded days weigh on my mind. Inertia intensifies. The number of specific things I'd intended to say blur together until I feel fairly choked by the prospect of cracking the massive exterior that's grown over the period of lost time.
So it seems entirely appropriate, then, that another new year is upon us.
In years past I've downplayed New Years Day as just another day, dismissing the notion of resolutions. It was probably no more than this: at that point, I found myself in a strong enough place to make such claims. I do not find myself in such a position now.
Admittedly, I'm less interested in tiny, specific resolutions than a few general gear shifts. It's not just what I will or will not do; it's how I'll try to approach them. I know all too well that part of the reason I've been so paralyzed lately is that my standards for myself are quite high. I don't practice writing very much at all, and yet being unable to express myself perfectly right out of the gate (as foolish people like me expect to do) has made me doubt myself, write less and less, and so on and so forth. As 2008 comes to a close, my discipline is in a bad way.
A few years ago I audited a course at Reed College. My professor, Ken Brashier, would give us our daily reading assignment, but in addition, we were each to prepare something written for the next days discussion.
He called it an exploratory.
In the framework of the class it sounded very serious, but really it amounted to simply writing down your thoughts, unformed and raw as they were, about the reading. A simple idea, but an effective one: it forced us to come up with something, anything, to say about material we were still processing. And then to go on. It would never be perfect. It would just be a rough sketch meant to catalog our progress each day.
So, I've been thinking.
No resolution that obliges you to turn your life around with 100% success can be expected to be met. To say that this year I'm finally going to get rid of such-and-such behavior, or finally do that thing I've been putting off, is a bad beginning. I know, at this moment, that I'll fall again and again. It's crazy to think otherwise. But a resolution to try and do better than I have while allowing for this? Well, that sits with me comfortably enough.
The exploratory is the first step. Practically, it will take the form of more frequent updates in this blog (if you guys can stand it). I'll write, and try to let go of my perfectionist grip on the things I do. I'll write, and it'll be crap a good bit of the time. But it's a good start.
Thanks Ken.

Catching Up with Fall

A quiet evening at home is a rare thing these days.
I know I've been rather incommunicado lately, so it may help to mention that I've just recently settled into a new house with some friends, ending my 2-year stint of living above a bus stop on Hawthorne. So long, noisy streets. Moving into the lush bubble that is Ladd's Addition has made the world seem a good deal quieter.
And what a crazy time it is in the world. Up until a few months ago, I hadn't followed politics too closely; hell, before trudging down to the Waterfront Park to hear Obama speak a few months back I'd never even heard the man's voice before (on that day it was not exactly clear - by the time I arrived the crowds made anything in earshot nigh indiscernible. But I digress).
Cut to now, mid-October. I've been catching up with the world in a number of ways. I finally discovered Hulu, much to the detriment of my productivity, DropBox, which makes the slow, temperamental file-transfer site YouSendIt seem Stone Age by comparison, and Twitter's constant stream of Election-related updates. It's Hulu that has really helped me reconnect with current events: Who knew you could have The Daily Show dropped in your Queue four days a week with the push of a button? A long way since TiVo, we have come.
At any rate, all this newfangled interweb technology has got me quite over-stimulated with Election-frenzy information, to the point that I'm starting to lose sleep over it. My resigned position over the last several months has been more or less pessimistic about the possibility of any real change (this shirt says it well). Sure, I'm hopeful, but anyone who's ever been let down will tell you it's better to prepare for disappointment than walk into it blindly. At worst you get what you were expecting, at best you're happily surprised.
But this has been changing over the last few days.
Maybe it's the influx of articles like this that do it. I know I can't read anything by Mark Morford or watch an episode of Jon Stewart and really allow it to get my hopes up; but any sign that the people on the fence might actually be backlashing against McCain at this late hour for the vile personal attacks that have been the mainstay of the McCain campaign lately is another matter.
And yet the more that little kernel of hope and possibility gnaws at my brain, the more worried I become. Have you seen those people in the McCain-Palin mob? I am well aware that places like New York and San Francisco and Portland are bubbles of primarily liberally-minded voters; but outside the small world I live in people are quite different. They are fearful and violent. Already there are accounts of incidents like this and this coming to the front. How many more people share these men's sentiments?
I am afraid.
For while a McCain victory (which, inevitably, would turn into a Palin presidency, something absurd to the point of seeming like some Monty Python sketch that never was) would no doubt be a spirit-crushing disappointment, an Obama victory brings out a different fear altogether: the fear of what certain Americans will do should it occur.
More than ever in my short life, I'm afraid of us.
So I hope that all goes well, and resign myself to trying to live as well as I can in the meantime. Trying to spend more time enjoying the simple quiet of walks through my new neighborhood, where squirrels and crows are the only life I encounter. Trying to savor the changing of the seasons, and think that while the whole world seems to be on the verge of something, be it for better or for worse, it's still a lovely evening that I'm pretty grateful to have to myself.

Hello.

I'm not dead.
I have been quite out of the habit of writing. But this is changing. I've found a reason for it again. I have also not given up on the cartooning (especially the 3-on-the-3rds). It's had its rough periods, but the Bu is still chugging along.
I've just taken a much needed break from the world.

I'm coming back now.

My Kingdom for a Punchline

As any of you who've been keeping up with the Bu know, I'm still jumping around stylistically, and am enjoying the variety so far. However, I've been feeling increasingly frustrated with the process of writing the comics themselves. There have been times when I came up with a good punchline and the thing just wrote itself, but the more common situation is that of me sitting at my desk drinking coffee as I labor for hours trying to craft something funny. I'd never considered how difficult this can be to do on a regular basis. I've analyzed the formulas employed by a couple of my favorites, done the bulk of my comics so far in imitation of one of them or another, and yet I keep coming back to that old truism: make the kind of comic you'd want to read.
So I take it apart over and over again and try to establish just what this means to me. Sitting at the bar at Noble Rot tonight, I finally confronted the fact that I don't really like telling jokes in my comic. The idea of trying to structure a comic to get the most laughs seems dishonest and misguided. Already I've had several times when I felt crippled by the pressure to write something that would appeal to others, which is a backwards approach to the whole creative act in my opinion. So much of humor, to me, is bound in the context of specific situations, and the observation of true things. For my money, a sharp observational insight trumps a comedian's zinger ten times over.
Another thing I mean to avoid is humor based on outright mockery. I am critical of a good many things, but it doesn't feel right to use the comic as a platform to cast my judgments about, at least in such a direct manner. First, because I'm trying to stop being so self-centered all the time (I'm embarrassed by how many of the strips so far have been based on real-life events, for various reasons), and second, because while it's tempting to want to make fun of other people and their mysterious ways, it isn't all that funny.
Who knew writing humor was such a complicated business?
By the by, do any of you know of a decent comic layout program that I can get for free? I'm thinking about experimenting with a strictly photo/clip-art based style (maybe even creating a second webcomic devoted solely to it) which will let me indulge my more verbose side, but all the programs I've seen so far are awful..

Three by Three All Day!

I'm a little late with this (y'know, with the whole Bu thing takin' up the majority of my time), but I assure you I did in fact draw all these on the Third (okay, the last one was begun around 11:15 and finished around 12:30, but hey, I had to wait for Pat Benatar for finishing inspiration). At any rate, I'm sorry for the delay.
Here are my contributions for this month's 3-on-the-3rd:





























































Also, in case you didn't know, Lindsey and Sanguinity have made a whole entire website dedicated to this comic adventure. You should totally check it out.

Kthxbai!

A Quick One While I'm Away

Alas.
It seems apparent already that I'm a bit too busy and overwhelmed to keep up with the 100-theme project. Which isn't really any kind of excuse, but I am getting way too stressed, stretched, and generally depressed about everything else to justify the added pressure. I've been neglecting piano practice and yoga, much to the detriment of my emotional and physical well-being. And anyway, I'm still drawing all the time, working on improving the quality of the strip as well as my technique. So apologies for jumping the gun a bit there, I just need to recognize my own limitations.
On a different note, I've been feeling a bit schizophrenic about the Bu lately. I'm very conscious of wanting to do something new with each one, either a different layout/format or a different pictorial style. Which is all well and good, but I imagine it might be a little jarring from a reader's perspective. I am aware that given the fickle nature of internet-surfing these days, you have a better chance of keeping people interested if you maintain some degree of consistency, if not going quite so far as using recurring characters. I've thought about making it into a serial comic with a progressive storyline, but that just seems to close the door on so many ideas I want to explore... I love the freedom that drawing standalone comics affords me.
I've been reading as many different sorts of comics as I can get my hands on, and I can't escape the fact that serialized comics - both of the web variety (like QC or Girls with Slingshots or Sinfest) and well-known strips like Bloom County or Doonesbury (both of which I have tremendous respect for) are limited by their 4-panel formats. Their comics on any given day are rarely that funny. Sure, there's the occasional strip that makes me laugh out loud, but their real strength is in the cumulative development of the characters and the story and the fact that they can tell jokes everyday while at the same time building something big and lasting. I admire that. It's also worth mentioning that most of those strips update at least five days a week, so there's less pressure on each individual comic to be funny. Whereas a twice-a-week comic carries (at least in my mind) the responsibility to make up for those days in sheer brute comic force. And honestly, the urge to set up a 6-10 panel comic, totally self-contained, in order to explore whatever amusing thoughts I have, is just too hard to resist sometimes.
I know that the comic is still young, and I'm in no hurry to lock myself into a specific format. I'm just musing about it, and I'd like to know what you folks think.

Variations on a Theme/Birthday Pizza

So already it is clear to me that I will probably not be able to keep to the theme-a-day deadline I initially set for myself. I probably could do it, but that would be piling a little more stress on than is really necessary, especially since the project is so individually-oriented (my friend Joanne has undertaken to explore each them via haiku, for instance). That said, I'll aim instead for one every other day or so, with some leniency.
And now it is my 28th birthday, as of a few minutes ago. Not many words just now on this, as it doesn't feel like much to talk about. I dealt with the imminence of 30 in last years' birthday blog, and my feelings have not changed in that regard since then. We'll see how the rest of the day goes, but really I'm not anticipating much in the way of birthday goings-on. I'll go to work in the morning like any other day, help my boss move some stuff after, and hopefully have a relaxing evening after that. Ideally there will be more cartooning. And it wouldn't hurt to treat myself to a Reggie Deluxe before work, I suppose :)
At any rate, I've just finished another installment of The Mighty Bu, and am now going to get my 29th year on this planet underway properly by taking myself out for late-night pizza as a reward.

In Which I Add 100 Things to My Itinerary

Hello again! And so soon!
Well, I was milling around on the old internet just now, as I have been known to do from time to time, and I came across a drawing challenge on Alec Longstreth's illustration blog which caught my eye. I poked around a little bit (there's another example of it here). Basically, it is an exercise in drawing a picture (cartoon, watercolor, etc, the medium is unspecified) about a single theme each day for 100 days. That's really all there is to it. With such a wonderful list of themes to work through, I imagine that it will be a really fun experiment both in interpretation and varying styles. Again, this is not something that begins on a set day like NaNoWriMo, nor are there any real strict guidelines as to the timeline of it all. I'm going to aim for one a day. I invite any of you who like the idea of it to join me in the challenge. I'll be posting the cartoons in this blog as they are drawn, so expect a good deal more tiny posts from me in the coming days. I will probably also be documenting the whole thing with notes and assorted reflections, as I am wont to do.
Wheeeee!!


Update: here we go. One down, ninety-nine to go.

Our (New) Favorite Holiday

Why hello, Blogger friends. It's been awhile.
I surface again with my July contribution to Three on the Third, which, as in past months, has made for quite the busy day. I'd thought I would have a good deal more to say after having gone so long without blogging, but now that it comes to it there's not much that isn't already captured in these three little comics. Life is crazy and busy and full of practice and learning to be patient and a million other things. The Bu continues to grow and change, and so far I've been happy with what I've done (it's even gained a small readership, thanks in no small part to the kind folks over at the PSU Writing Center). I am more than a little bit surprised and delighted by this. At the least it is all the more incentive to keep drawing :)

So without further ado, I'll leave you (for the time being) with the 3 other comics I drew yesterday.

Peeking Out from the Trenches

So it's taken me a bit longer to get around to this than I intended (which seems to be the case with everything in my life these days), but I have been wanting to write a proper blog in which I check in about the whole comic process thing, how it feels so far, and whatever else. Sorry to be so single-minded, but it really has been consuming my existence lately.
I have now had more than one person get back to me saying they like my 'style,' as it has been thus far. I get a bit nervous hearing this, as I've been trying to push myself a little bit with each one, and try a different format each time. There've been multiple occasions where I was just too behind schedule and had to fall back on something familiar, but in general I've tried to avoid this. Don't get me wrong; I'm glad people are enjoying not only the comic's content but the art as well. It's just that I'm at a point where I want to move beyond my current style, which in my opinion is very limited, albeit pretty cute. I'm not trying to abandon cuteness here; it's more that I'm getting sick of myself. I should remind myself that even Craig Thompson gets sick of himself and his 'style' all the time (I heard it from his mouth), and take some consolation. It's not that I dislike the way I've been drawing, but that it feels lazy. I can do it without much effort, and it's not really helping me improve.
That said, I know that there has been some progress. I know that it takes time to really develop any skill. It's just hard when you see other artists (published or otherwise) produce things that, to them, may seem tedious, but seem quite beautiful to me. And then I look back at my own sketchbook, and my hand keeps drawing like itself. Sigh.
My road right now is still that of slow imitation, learning from the artists I admire (though I think I may implode with guilt if I rip off xkcd one more time). Sometimes the whole stick figure thing bothers me because it feels like an artistic cop-out, other times I find it really expressive and fun to play with. Also, as Scott McCloud has pointed out, there are many good reasons to employ stick figures instead of more specific characters from time to time.
I just don't want to get complacent.
On a different note, I am very much wanting to improve the general layout of the site. What I'm looking for is the single-comic main page look, with a side panel where I can say a few words about each strip, much like Jeph Jacques does with Questionable Content. I've found it really insightful to go back into his old strips and read about his progress from doing it twice a week, to three times, to making it a full-time job. Right now I can only dream about doing that myself, but it's nice to read about it.
So I want to throw it out there and see if any of you fine readers are html-savvy enough to help me design this sort of website, or know someone who knows how... I've registered a proper domain for the comic, but am holding off on choosing a webhost until I have a lead on how to make it look the way I want it to. It's probably very simple, but I don't know where to start.
With that said, I must tear myself away from this computer and get back to drawing. I'm in for the long haul; I have to practice some more.

Three on the Third, the 3rd

Hello! Just a quick posting... yesterday was a busy day for comics, getting the biweekly strip of the Bu up as well as doing these little cartoons. I've got to run out the door for coffee now, but I'll write more about all this drawing soon. Happy Three on the Third!