Day of Rest

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I've been having trouble lately with weekends. It's a constant struggle of:

  • Wanting to check things off of a list of things I made during the week
  • Making headway on home projects
  • Tackling freelance business tasks
  • Seeing friends
  • Visiting new places

... all bumping up against that overwhelming desire to do nothing and "relax".

Where does this impetus to do nothing come from? All week at work I'm sitting at a desk, or sitting in a car in traffic on my way to/from. Most weeknights I spend in front of the TV with a glass of wine and a sketchbook. Why do I think I need more of doing nothing?

I suspect that my particular problem is I make a GIGANTIC LIST of all the things I want to accomplish, and if I haven't knocked off 482 of them I beat myself up. And sometimes, when facing that gigantic list, it doesn't look like tackling any of it will make me feel better anyway. Sometimes it's hard to convince yourself that spending 16 hours working on a website that isn't visible yet was a good use of your time.

Maybe the secret is to plan smaller goals, smaller milestones, and then congratulate myself heartily upon completion. For example, today could've gone something like: "You brushed your teeth AND thought about going to the grocery store! Big day, good job, you!"

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Mean Girls

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I'm in the middle of writing a story featuring some bitchy female lead characters, and it got me wondering - how bitchy is too bitchy?

It's important for the characters to be identifiable, so some darkness is okay. I think it makes the reader feel more comfortable reading about someone who has weaknesses and faults just like anybody else. That's why so many people find Superman so insufferable - physically and morally invincible? Snoresville!

But if the character is too mean and nasty, or cocky, or obnoxious, it gets harder (or just more annoying) to read a story about them. It's all subjective of course, and sometimes I'll surprise myself with which characters I will and won't get behind.

Last weekend I watched Young Adult, which I've been dying to see since I first heard about it. It seemed to have all my dreams come true in it -

  • A plot featuring an ex-popular girl, disgusted by news of her old high school sweetheart having a baby and deciding to return to her hometown to wreck his life by winning him back
  • Played by Charlize Theron, a fave of mine (especially when she's playing a bitch)
  • Patton Oswalt
  • Star Wars references featuring Patton Oswalt
  • etc.

At first I was worried I wouldn't like the movie because Theron's Mavis character would be too cringeworthy - forcibly throwing herself into too many awkward situations. I can only stand so many of those onscreen before I have to bury my face in a pillow. (I think I hit my threshhold watching Lisa Kudrow's awkward antics in The Comeback). Or like when anyone in any movie EVER starts going through someone's drawers looking for something while that person isn't home. I will want to rip my hair out. THEY'RE GOING TO WALK IN ON YOU DOING THAT!!

Mavis is unlikeable to a fault. At the beginning, we're introduced to her pathetic life, holed up in a filthy high-rise apartment with a little rat dog and reality TV on 24/7, desperately clinging to the last remnants of her bitchy powers as she meets with an old high school friend for coffee. Mavis clearly never learned how to take care of herself, care for anyone else, or properly grow up. So when she decides to go on her home-town rampage, it's comic because we know she can only get so far.

But can she? Part of what I loved about her character was that she managed to surprise me with her level of commitment to the identity she'd created for herself and her insistence to remain oblivious to the world changing around her. After all, at 37 in a dingy apartment with a rat dog she could still go out any night of the week and snag a reasonably attractive one night stand. She could still convince people who loathed her in high school to try to befriend her, even now. She shamelessly manipulated people who were just trying to show her a little kindness and didn't feel an ounce of guilt. And yet, as selfishly horrible and ridiculously, cruelly ignorant to anyone else's suffering as she was - you still kind of wanted to see her go stir things up and wreck all those hometown lives.

Or maybe that was just me?

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Mean Girls

/

I'm in the middle of writing a story featuring some bitchy female lead characters, and it got me wondering - how bitchy is too bitchy?

It's important for the characters to be identifiable, so some darkness is okay. I think it makes the reader feel more comfortable reading about someone who has weaknesses and faults just like anybody else. That's why so many people find Superman so insufferable - physically and morally invincible? Snoresville!

But if the character is too mean and nasty, or cocky, or obnoxious, it gets harder (or just more annoying) to read a story about them. It's all subjective of course, and sometimes I'll surprise myself with which characters I will and won't get behind.

Last weekend I watched Young Adult, which I've been dying to see since I first heard about it. It seemed to have all my dreams come true in it -

  • A plot featuring an ex-popular girl, disgusted by news of her old high school sweetheart having a baby and deciding to return to her hometown to wreck his life by winning him back
  • Played by Charlize Theron, a fave of mine (especially when she's playing a bitch)
  • Patton Oswalt
  • Star Wars references featuring Patton Oswalt
  • etc.

At first I was worried I wouldn't like the movie because Theron's Mavis character would be too cringeworthy - forcibly throwing herself into too many awkward situations. I can only stand so many of those onscreen before I have to bury my face in a pillow. (I think I hit my threshhold watching Lisa Kudrow's awkward antics in The Comeback). Or like when anyone in any movie EVER starts going through someone's drawers looking for something while that person isn't home. I will want to rip my hair out. THEY'RE GOING TO WALK IN ON YOU DOING THAT!!

Mavis is unlikeable to a fault. At the beginning, we're introduced to her pathetic life, holed up in a filthy high-rise apartment with a little rat dog and reality TV on 24/7, desperately clinging to the last remnants of her bitchy powers as she meets with an old high school friend for coffee. Mavis clearly never learned how to take care of herself, care for anyone else, or properly grow up. So when she decides to go on her home-town rampage, it's comic because we know she can only get so far.

But can she? Part of what I loved about her character was that she managed to surprise me with her level of commitment to the identity she'd created for herself and her insistence to remain oblivious to the world changing around her. After all, at 37 in a dingy apartment with a rat dog she could still go out any night of the week and snag a reasonably attractive one night stand. She could still convince people who loathed her in high school to try to befriend her, even now. She shamelessly manipulated people who were just trying to show her a little kindness and didn't feel an ounce of guilt. And yet, as selfishly horrible and ridiculously, cruelly ignorant to anyone else's suffering as she was - you still kind of wanted to see her go stir things up and wreck all those hometown lives.

Or maybe that was just me?

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Incognito

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I have to apologize for being a bit in hibernation over here. I've been wanting to redesign my website for a long time, only recently settling on creating a new site in WordPress, and I'm afraid it's going to take me a while to figure all this stuff out! I'm pretty old school HTML/CSS. It's like I want to rip WordPress apart and see the nuts and bolts, but then I go "Woaaahhh" when I see the nuts and bolts and remember I don't know PHP or jQuery. I decided the best thing for me to do rather than create a whole site from scratch was to buy a template and play around from there, but apparently it's still going to take me a while to figure things out. I wanted a site that was clean, minimal, and better organized than my current site, but when I started creating one I realized I kind of found it a bit boring. LOL. Clearly there's going to be no satisfying me!

So anyway, if I'm a bit quiet over here, it's because I'm spending my nights and weekends yelling at my computer screen. In the meantime, here are some pics from my recent trip to pretty, pretty Portland!

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Weekend Hermit

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I spent all of last weekend accidentally holed up in my house by myself. There's a particular weekend in May that is usually reserved for the perfect storm that is my mother's birthday, my brother's birthday, and Mother's Day all rolled into one. But even though this weekend was all reserved for those festivities, they were all cancelled at the last minute and I found myself with loads of free time.

Now, for a lot of comickers, this would be a dream come true. We crave solitude and the indoors, shunning sunlight and interaction. And this is usually the case for me too. I work at home one day a week, and it's always a struggle to force myself to leave the house just on that one day in order to mail stuff, run errands, drop off books at comic stores, etc. Do I drag myself out of the house the four days of the week I'm not working at home? Yes. But begrudgingly.

My dream is to someday make my own schedule and work from home at will. I love being holed up all day myself and not having to go out into the sunshine and be around the public.

So that's why it was troubling that this recent unexpected stretch of hermitdom . . . Started to get to me after a while. I made it through Friday without a hitch. Plenty of stuff to do, plenty of fun meals to make. Come Saturday, knowing I had limited time before I'd have to go out and meet up with family, I was productive and level headed. But once Saturday plans fell through, even though I delighted in having more free time to myself, I started to feel ... twitchy.

I read somewhere once that people need to see at least one human face a day. Not a photo, not TV. They had to get out and look at a real life person in order to feel okay. Like when you work in a cubicle all day, they tell you just being able to see something green and alive outdoors reduces your stress levels and allows you to pretend you don't work in a tiny box.

Something must happen when you're sequestered, even for a little while, that requires you to remind your brain you don't live in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. That there are other people outside, in case you need them.

I don't think I'd ever get cabin fever. I see The Shining as a fun vacation spot. But I do know this - on Saturday, I was forced to break hermitdom by powers beyond my control and go out in search of a face. And then, magically, I felt better again.

How do you guys deal with the solitude? What's your quota of human faces per day?

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Happy Mother's Day!

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SharkMom_5
SharkMom_5

Happy Mother's Day to everyone out there! Here's a little photo of me and my mom on my 3rd birthday. I think it accurately sums up the patience it takes to be a Mom ... y'know, just trying to open a package while her kid is screaming for her Strawberry Shortcake presents, wearing a birthday dress over her clothes, and making sure to involve a balloon in the situation.

photo (1)
photo (1)

Sketch Dump!

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I've posted a couple of these as I was doing them, but here's a consolidated bunch of some sketches I've done recently ....

There was this amazing little girl at Stumptown who was dressed as a little Catwoman ... the best part was the whole time she was there, she kept running around and sneaking up on her dad to karate chop him!

... And Free Comic Book Day last weekend! I had such a great time at Collectors Corner - Randy really knows how to throw an event! The line was out the door, around the corner, and down the street. Check out the super cool documentary they put together about the day! (there's even an embarrassing part where I introduce myself and my website)

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Sketch Dump!

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I've posted a couple of these as I was doing them, but here's a consolidated bunch of some sketches I've done recently ....

There was this amazing little girl at Stumptown who was dressed as a little Catwoman ... the best part was the whole time she was there, she kept running around and sneaking up on her dad to karate chop him!

... And Free Comic Book Day last weekend! I had such a great time at Collectors Corner - Randy really knows how to throw an event! The line was out the door, around the corner, and down the street. Check out the super cool documentary they put together about the day! (there's even an embarrassing part where I introduce myself and my website)

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Welcome!

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This is what my office space used to look like ...

And what it looks like now, with the latest edition to our family, Aloysius Humperdinck Gallagher!

After years of using Frankenstein PCs, it's going to take me a while to get used to this sweet baby. But I think I'm up for the challenge! I'm mousin' sideways!

(and yes, that is a poster of Albi, the Racist Dragon)

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Go For the Eyes - now for sale!

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Hooray, I've finally gotten my act together and put my latest comic, Go For the Eyes, up for sale in my Etsy shop! I'll soon have it available in my BigCartel shop too, but this at least gets the ball rolling.

I debuted this 24-pager at Stumptown last weekend, and already got some SUPER awesome feedback by people who were kind enough to share their own stories of self-defense with me. For some reason, (even though I've already have made comics talking about my boobs and my experiences as an embarrassing mall model) I felt really nervous about putting this particular story out into the world.

Autobio is always funny that way - sometimes you couldn't care a bit what people read and think about you, and other times you feel a bit twingy about it. I'm super glad I finally wrote this book, as it's been banging around in my head for a long long time, but now that it's out there I'm sure I'll rethink all the ways I could've said more.

How do you all feel about autobio? Love it when it's REEEALLY personal, or prefer it with a touch of distance? What about you autobio writers out there - ever feel more hesitant sometimes than others when putting your work out there?

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Go For the Eyes - now for sale!

/

Hooray, I've finally gotten my act together and put my latest comic, Go For the Eyes, up for sale in my Etsy shop! I'll soon have it available in my BigCartel shop too, but this at least gets the ball rolling.

I debuted this 24-pager at Stumptown last weekend, and already got some SUPER awesome feedback by people who were kind enough to share their own stories of self-defense with me. For some reason, (even though I've already have made comics talking about my boobs and my experiences as an embarrassing mall model) I felt really nervous about putting this particular story out into the world.

Autobio is always funny that way - sometimes you couldn't care a bit what people read and think about you, and other times you feel a bit twingy about it. I'm super glad I finally wrote this book, as it's been banging around in my head for a long long time, but now that it's out there I'm sure I'll rethink all the ways I could've said more.

How do you all feel about autobio? Love it when it's REEEALLY personal, or prefer it with a touch of distance? What about you autobio writers out there - ever feel more hesitant sometimes than others when putting your work out there?

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Free Comic Book Day Tomorrow!

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Tomorrow is the most magical day of the year - Free Comic Book Day!

Even though I'm freshly back from visiting Portland and exhibiting at the Stumptown Comics Fest (and dying to talk about it), I wanted to take a minute to plug how awesome Free Comic Book Day is and the independent comic book stores that support it. Held the first Saturday in May every year, the main mission behind FCBD is to support comics and get new people interested in reading them. Most stores offer free comics, giveaways, fun events, creator signings (I'll be at Collectors Corner in Baltimore - hollah!) - simply check out freecomicbookday.com for a list of participating stores, or just google the closest comic shop in your area!

When I was growing up in a teeny Maryland suburb, I found an amazing comic shop called Zenith Comics. The fact that it was located a couple stores down from a used CD store and next to a 7-11 made it a perfect storm of teenage hangouts. Zenith had a great selection of comics, graphic novels, and anime rentals, but most importantly it had owners who were willing to talk to 15-year-olds and let them lounge about the place for hours, happy to sit and chat and lounge someplace outside of their family homes.

Unfortunately, as is usually the case, Zenith eventually folded and was replaced by a run of the mill "Sports Cards & Memorabilia" shop. But I quickly found another comic store to fulfill my needs at the local mall (now a freestanding shop - Beyond Comics!), and thereafter every place I moved I was able to find a great local comic shop to suit my needs (these days I rely on Collectors Corner, Amazing Spiral, and Atomic Books). Even when I went on family vacations, I insisted on dragging my dad out to thrift shops and comic book stores. There will always be a NEED for these local comic shops and their hard working purveyors. We trust them to scour the distributor listings, get to know the repeat customers, and recommend titles to choose from. They provide a wonderful haven for imagination and lively discussions of what everyone loves - stories.

So as long as we keep remembering to support them in their noble mission (a.k.a. bringing comics to the masses) and don't just buy everything via Amazon, they'll continue to stick around and not go the way of Zenith.

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Free Comic Book Day Tomorrow!

/

Tomorrow is the most magical day of the year - Free Comic Book Day!

Even though I'm freshly back from visiting Portland and exhibiting at the Stumptown Comics Fest (and dying to talk about it), I wanted to take a minute to plug how awesome Free Comic Book Day is and the independent comic book stores that support it. Held the first Saturday in May every year, the main mission behind FCBD is to support comics and get new people interested in reading them. Most stores offer free comics, giveaways, fun events, creator signings (I'll be at Collectors Corner in Baltimore - hollah!) - simply check out freecomicbookday.com for a list of participating stores, or just google the closest comic shop in your area!

When I was growing up in a teeny Maryland suburb, I found an amazing comic shop called Zenith Comics. The fact that it was located a couple stores down from a used CD store and next to a 7-11 made it a perfect storm of teenage hangouts. Zenith had a great selection of comics, graphic novels, and anime rentals, but most importantly it had owners who were willing to talk to 15-year-olds and let them lounge about the place for hours, happy to sit and chat and lounge someplace outside of their family homes.

Unfortunately, as is usually the case, Zenith eventually folded and was replaced by a run of the mill "Sports Cards & Memorabilia" shop. But I quickly found another comic store to fulfill my needs at the local mall (now a freestanding shop - Beyond Comics!), and thereafter every place I moved I was able to find a great local comic shop to suit my needs (these days I rely on Collectors Corner, Amazing Spiral, and Atomic Books). Even when I went on family vacations, I insisted on dragging my dad out to thrift shops and comic book stores. There will always be a NEED for these local comic shops and their hard working purveyors. We trust them to scour the distributor listings, get to know the repeat customers, and recommend titles to choose from. They provide a wonderful haven for imagination and lively discussions of what everyone loves - stories.

So as long as we keep remembering to support them in their noble mission (a.k.a. bringing comics to the masses) and don't just buy everything via Amazon, they'll continue to stick around and not go the way of Zenith.

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Portland for the Weekend!

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Have I mentioned that I'll be exhibiting at the Stumptown Comics Fest this weekend?

My two li'l printers are hard at work right now churning out copies of my latest autobio mini-comic GO FOR THE EYES!

It's debuting at Stumptown but I'll have it for sale from my shop when I get back. 24 pages of pure awkward, undiluted self-defense! Can you dig it??

In the meantime, you can preview the comic right here.

I'll be exhibiting at table D-18, alongside the superbly talented Mike DiMotta! We'll be there with loads of smiles (and layers, probably - it's unpredictable Portland, right?) and stuff for you to look at. Come on out and visit!

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Portland for the Weekend!

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Have I mentioned that I'll be exhibiting at the Stumptown Comics Fest this weekend?

My two li'l printers are hard at work right now churning out copies of my latest autobio mini-comic GO FOR THE EYES!

It's debuting at Stumptown but I'll have it for sale from my shop when I get back. 24 pages of pure awkward, undiluted self-defense! Can you dig it??

In the meantime, you can preview the comic right here.

I'll be exhibiting at table D-18, alongside the superbly talented Mike DiMotta! We'll be there with loads of smiles (and layers, probably - it's unpredictable Portland, right?) and stuff for you to look at. Come on out and visit!

[otw_is sidebar=otw-sidebar-4]

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Portland for the Weekend!

/

Have I mentioned that I'll be exhibiting at the Stumptown Comics Fest this weekend?

My two li'l printers are hard at work right now churning out copies of my latest autobio mini-comic GO FOR THE EYES!

It's debuting at Stumptown but I'll have it for sale from my shop when I get back. 24 pages of pure awkward, undiluted self-defense! Can you dig it??

In the meantime, you can preview the comic right here.

I'll be exhibiting at table D-18, alongside the superbly talented Mike DiMotta! We'll be there with loads of smiles (and layers, probably - it's unpredictable Portland, right?) and stuff for you to look at. Come on out and visit!

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