Because the risk of spoilers is finally gone, I'm re-posting the Game of Thrones drawings I made my brother for Christmas. They're still two of my favorite team moments from the books!
I especially like Jaime's weak little punch.
Whew!
I think I'm done for a little while. And by done, I mean I won't be traveling to exotic, far-off lands every other weekend. Now it's time to relax and make COMICS again! Hooray! So, sorry for the delay, but since I rolled back into town this week, all my Bonnie/Gods & Undergrads updates are going to be a wee bit late this week. Or "fashionably late", as I prefer to call them.
Allow me to say a hearty hello to all of you who came by to visit me at TCAF, holy crapola what an amazing show that is. If only all comic shows were in libraries and all of them packed to the gills with amazing readers! So much comics love and excitement all over the place, I got really spoiled. Besides having a fun time catching up with my pals Tim Fish and Greg Lockard, I ALSO got to be part of an amazing podcast DINTERVIEW (dinner + interview, according to Becky Cloonan) with Paul Pope, Becky herself, Glyn Dillon, and Jimmy Aquino of Comics News Insider. Li'l ol' me, chilling with some serious comics heavy hitters, trying to keep my laugh from being a cackle and attempt to add something to the conversation. You can find that interview here, and Jimmy also posted a one-on-one interview you can find here!
Sigh. Such fun times! I'll be over here beaming, so in the meantime check out some sketches I did at the show:
Also, I created these little family seal drawings for some of my Gods & Undergrads characters. Once I clean these up a bit, I'll be selling them as prints.
Squooshed between a comic convention in Portland, Free Comic Book Day, and an upcoming trip to TCAF, I present you with some of the sketches I've had the privelege of doing for lovely folkses in various cities . . .
Ohhh it's table display time again! And this time, I fear, I'm a little squashed. Whereas I usually luxuriate my products across a six foot table space, I've got two conventions coming up (Stumptown and TCAF) where I fear I'll have to contain my madness to just three feet.
Thus, it's time for some planning. I start out by drawing a 3' long (half of an average 6' table space) x 2' deep space on the floor with some easily removable tape (you can also do this on a large enough table, if the person you live with doesn't violently object). Sometimes I fold up the tablecloth I plan on using and place it inside, to see if it clashes terribly with my books. But if I've used the same table cloth consistently without any problems (besides the occasional ink stain), I can skip using it.
Then comes the tricky part. It's not just about fitting everything into the space as you lay it on a table ...
But making sure to create levels of height in order to stagger appearance, catch the eye, and also - yeah - cram in as much stuff as possible.
And since I have a lot of books, this gets a little crowded. I am a comics creator who has not one, but THREE ongoing series (Bonnie N. Collide, Gods & Undergrads, Lipstick & Malice), as well as autobiographical short stories (Boobage, Go For the Eyes, Mall Model, Middle School), and a new graphic novel (Glitter Kiss), I'm usually at a loss for how to compile and present everything. Do I age off some of my stories and stop bringing them along? Or do I condense them into cute packages?
Lately I've just been doing the latter, because I enjoy dabbling in packaging. But I've found presenting them in their packaging makes people reluctant to pick them up and unwrap them. So, the convenience of bundling them together becomes moot as I end up separating them anyway in order for people to flip through them.
What worries me the most about my gaggle of books, prints, cuffs, is that it doesn't seem very cohesive when viewed in a cluster like this. I can only do so much with uniform price stickers and labels. Plus there is something to be said for a good dosage of negative space.
Fellow comic exhibitors/craters/viewers of exhibit tables out there, what are you doing to conquer this problem? What do you like to see in a table? I think for now I'm going to keep incorporating some height (courtesy of these fine crates from Jo-Ann's) and fretting a little while longer.
No, I've seen neither version of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and I'm not sure I ever will. Even though I've heard loads of great things about the character of Lisbeth and Steig Larsson's trilogy in general. BUT luckily I don't have to see the original Swedish film in order to check out Noomi Rapace.
First she showed up in Game of Shadows, holding her own against scene chewing Robert Downey Jr. and the loveably scruffy Jude Law, and THEN as amazingly ripped Elizabeth Shaw in Prometheus. And though I've only seen her in two things, there's something about her cool, calm gaze that easily morphs into whatever she wants to be at that moment - serene, inquisitive, suspicious, dangerous. And with all that muscular, lithe power stored in her frame, you know there's nothing her eyes will tell you that her fists can't deliver. I can't wait to see her in more movies in general, and more action movies in particular.
And I'm not sure if this is true or not, but IMDB is telling me that one of her favorite scenes was when Patricia Arquette beat the snot out of James Gandolfini in True Romance (which I mentioned in my comic Go For The Eyes as one that particularly moved me as well). Swoon!
Click here to check out the other Kick Ass Women I've mentioned so far!
I feel like Claire and I are spiritually connected. Sure, she's immensely cooler and more successful, but we're the same age and both of us have small boobs. That's enough to bind us, right? When My So-Called Life was on TV it was so eerily close to what I was feeling and wanting to feel at the time. But in that paradoxical way, as it is when you're a teen, I loved and admired and hated it all at the same time. There were times when it was a bit too close for comfort, and then there were times when I was outraged my life wasn't as exciting as the adventures Rayanne was always dragging Angela into.
Claire was also Juliet when I was 16 and coming down from a Shakespeare high (though I was more into the 1968 film), Mirabelle in the movie version of Shopgirl, the book of which I adored, and in a zillion other things for which I give her mad props.
Anyhoo. Claire is immensely talented and I could listen to her ugly cry any day. Three cheers for Homeland!
As promised, here are the three latest editions to my Greek Gods series!
Hera's always a bit of a tough cookie to interpret. Wife of Zeus, mother of Hephaestus and Ares, perpetual scorned wife. Personally, I like to think of her as a dangerous multi-tasker. Sort of the ultimate conservative, political wife with the no-good but powerful husband. She's always painted (a bit unfairly) as nothing but a vengeful, jealous goddess out to punish every pretty little nymph this side of Olympus. But Hera, she's got her own thing going. She has the whole of Mount Olympus to run!
And now for her kids!
Poor Hephaestus. Judged from the start to be weak and useless, Hephaestus has proven his worth a million times over any other god on Olympus by keeping them stocked in armor and lightning bolts. Dude can make ANYTHING. Which is why, I guess as a reward, Zeus hooked him up with Aphrodite. Way to pay him a backhanded compliment, Zeus.
Because of course, here's who Aphrodite cheats on Hephaestus with ...
His brother Ares! Because what would the goddess of love be without the goddess of war? Ares has got to be the ultimate favorite child of a goddess who's constantly undermined by her husband - big, brash, ridiculously impulsive, destructive. Does it matter that he doesn't really think before he acts?
I can't wait to add more gods and goddesses! Let me know who you guys would like to see next.
Here are the wee sketches I did this weekend at CGS Supershow! I had a great time, hangin' out with local-ish creators who make me laugh. :)
A big thank you to everyone who came out and said hey-lo!
In my series of Greek God prints, while slowly adding more gods/goddesses, I decided I also wanted to update my Artemis print.
I always picture Artemis as an athletic redhead with brown skin traipsing through the underbrush. But something about this drawing (which I did years ago) always bugged me - she looked too friendly, her clothes were too bright, I dunno. Not to mention the fact that I suck at drawing shoes.
Here's the updated, broodier, more covert version. I like her much better. Like she's a secret ops goddess of the forest.
If you want to check out these or any of my other prints, check out my Etsy Shop for the latest and greatest. More gods and goddesses coming soon! (probably later today ...)
Now that show season is in full swing, I get to do one of the things I like best - commission sketches!
Now, I normally just do them at shows as people come up and order them from me, but this year I wanted to add another level. My next show coming up is the Stumptown Comics Fest in Portland, Oregon (actually, my NEXT show is CGS Supershow this coming weekend, but I don't have enough time to book commissions before that one. :( However, if you're GOING to Supershow, I will definitely still be doing commissions at the show!)
So if you're going to Stumptown this year and would like a commission from me, why not order one in advance? That way you can just swing on by and pick up your piece, rather than waiting and checking back and seeing if I've finally gotten around to it yet. The commissions will be on 5" x 7" Bristol Board, and they'll be $10 for pencil, $15 for ink.
Here's what a typical pencil sketch from me would look like ...
** The photo quality of these isn't great since I took them at shows with my phone. Basically, pencil = blue pencil.
And here's what an inked/graytoned one would look like ...
Here's the handy dandy Paypal button to order. Simply include a note with what you want the sketch to be, or you can always send me an email at lipstickisspress at gmail dot com.
Besides the fact that I'm obsessed with Greek Mythology and have included Eos in my comic, this day always makes me think of Eostre from Neil Gaiman's American Gods. All rosy, plump, and eating her bounty in San Francisco. :)
Hooray, it's my favorite time! Time to figure out a new diet plan, and figure out how to mesh it into my life! Woo hoop!
For those of you who are unfamiliar (you lucky ones) with my diet struggles, you can check out my journey so far by going here. Basically, I have SIBO (small intestinal bacterial overgrowth), which I only just discovered last year. No idea how long I've had it for or what initially caused it, although some creepy research out there suggests long years of birth control usage could weaken the gut and make it more possible. Really, contraception? Way to bitch slap me for 16 years of loyalty. So what SIBO does is basically make it hard for your body to absorb the nutrients it needs and forces it to react to certain foods badly in an attempt to keep the bacteria growing. It's disgusting, I'm sorry to put you through its description.
ANYWAY, since SIBO's my new BFF, I've been spending a bit of my life lately trying out various diets, taking repeated breath tests, and visiting a series of nutritionists and gastroentrologists. It hasn't been fun, although it has been weirdly educational (who knew I'm now allergic to cantalope, one of my fave childhood foods?) and definitely opened my eyes to the struggles of the food allergy sufferers out there. Turns out, some people can be just as hostile to a person for avoiding certain foods (diary, soy, gluten) as they were when I first decided to become a vegetarian. It's weird having to defend why you don't eat bread to someone who is clearly offended by the mere idea. Just because I'm not eating the bread doesn't mean YOU DON'T GET TO EAT THE BREAD. I'll be over here with my gluten-free slice of emptiness. I'm fine, leave me alone.
So on to the diets I've been trying. When I first visited my nutritionist, she put me on a gluten/dairy/soy free diet of nightmares that shocked me to my core, since up until that point ALL I was eating was soy, dairy, and gluten (bread, cheese, and fake meat - nectar of the gods!). She even took away my cheese for a time. I don't think I have to describe to you how dark that period of my life was. I immediately lost weight because I had no idea what to eat. Basically, I had to become an adult, try new things, and cook a lot more recipes. Next I moved on to the Low-FODMAPs diet and spent months trying to both make sense of what I could and couldn't eat and explain it to others. It's a lot harder when you suddenly have to keep accessing a spreadsheet on your iPhone of your allowed foods. While on this diet I tried a couple rounds of herb protocols to wipe out the SIBO (which didn't work) and finally an antibiotic for 30 days which started to make me feel like a whole human again. It actually helped, yippee!
. . . But of course it didn't rid me of SIBO entirely. So faced with going back to my FODMAPs-free diet, I started to get angry and frustrated, since it seemed like the diet alone was only making things worse. Breath test after test, herbs or no, the SIBO had been worsening. So why the crap should I keep avoiding apples and pears if it doesn't matter?? I went rogue with my own research (which I don't suggest, especially if you're as awful at research as I am) and discovered some support groups where people told me the only thing which helped them eradicate SIBO was the Specific Carbohydrate Diet, established wayyyy back in the good ol' 1980's. In looking into it, it was simpler, easier to understand, and very much resembled the latest fad Paleo Diet, which meant there was a slew of great recipe blogs and resources out there.
So now, with a whole NEW mess of rules, a new spreadsheet to put on my iphone, and more food fears to tackle (guys, I really hate cooked veggies), I'm ready for GUT WAR PART 3. Do I have any fellow SIBO sufferers out there who want to share their tales of woe? How about SCD-ers? Also, you Paleo people out there - which are your favorite blogs?
Even though my 13-year-old cousin thinks that lately OUAT has fallen off the wagon and isn't "doing enough fairy tale stuff", I for one am impressed/relieved that the show seems to have gotten its mojo back.
I admit, I initially approached the show with a lot of suspicion. I watched the first season, mildly amused and confused at all the weird relatives from other dimensions and wondering when these little insecure weirdos would get their memory back and realize they really were *gasp* princes and princesses. I tolerated the Snow White/Prince Charming storyline mainly because I loved the juxtaposition of the romantic past of the perfect couple compared to the desperate school teacher / philandering husband stealing glances in the present. Unfortunately, though, that and other ironic storylines were cut short when the curse that left everyone in Storybrooke without memory of their previous glory (and cricketness) vanished and suddenly all of us viewers were hit with exactly how drab and boring fairy tale characters would be IF they WERE really in the modern world. Suddenly everything was dramatic and overacted and Snow/Charming made my skin crawl just by looking at eachother. Making out in a room adjacent to their daughter/grandson who are just trying to make a decent meal? NO!! Not cute!
For a while I kept watching just so my friend and I could discuss how ridiculous the outfits were that Belle had to wear to go hunting.
Or wish that one of the few decent actors on the show, i.e. the Mad Hatter, wouldn't have left.
I wasn't sure how long I was going to last. I started lagging a couple episodes behind. I avoided broaching the topic of the show with my friend, just to hear her sigh heavily and say "it's going okay, I guess". I had kind of given up. But then, one afternoon in desperation while prepping for a comic show, I needed episodes to put on the background while I stapled and put together book after book. So I turned on some good old cheese-a-riffic Once Upon A Time.
I have to say it was the moment when Captain Hook punched out Prince Charming that won me back. And now all of a sudden there are surprises and real consequences! Buffy-esque moments of surprise when characters get shot and lose their memory! People who are pure of heart realizing how lame that is! I'm not sure if I'm completely sold yet, but with the last episode featuring Queen Regina in an especially creepy new light (reminding me of nightmares I'd have as a kid of witches craving children to steal) I'm delightfully intrigued enough to keep watching. Now, if they just brought back Graham and his impossibly tight vests, I'd be all in.
For my friend's birthday, I made sketches of some Game of Thrones characters ...
And then put them on a t-shirt with her nicknames for the characters.
She thinks the way Jon Snow says "pups" is funny, that Melisandre is the hottest woman on the planet, and for some reason still isn't won over by Peter Dinklage, becuase she claims he always used to play jerks so she hasn't gotten over that yet. Don't worry, we'll win her over to Team Tyrion soon ...
This is how I feel, learning that I have to swap my first low-FODMAPs crazy-pants diet for a NEW crazy-pants diet ...
Oh well, out with the FODMAPs, in with the Specific Carbohydrates Diet! I'll let you know how this goes.
After a whirlwind trip to the west coast for some Seattle lovin' at Emerald City Comicon, I've returned! Here's some stuff I did . . .
First and foremost:
Met my all-time favorite comic book idols ... Wendy & Richard Pini, creators of ElfQuest!! ElfQuest just happens to be THE comic that got me into comics, after a friend handed me her parents' copy while I was getting my hair dyed black in her basement. After that, it was all over. Suddenly I was seeking out comic book shops and doodling as many versions of the Pini's beloved elves as I could on book covers and sketchbooks everywhere. I've re-read the main series several times over the years, and was beyond thrilled to hear they're continuing it as a webcomic on BoingBoing, updated every Monday. You can find all the comics in their digital library here, and apparently uber-cute t-shirts here! I just ordered this one. Yep.
So beyond being blown away by sitting close to my comic book heroes, here are some of the other swell peeps I got to chat with:
I didn't get to spend nearly enough time in Seattle or hiking up its hills (seriously, I was shocked it was all San Francisco with its hilly streets), so I'll definitely be headed back soon! And maybe to look at something other than the inside of a convention center. Maybe.
I almost got some Bonnie and Gods comics up for you guys before I left, but sadly ran out of time during the inking phase. Curses! But that just means double double updates next week!
And just a reminder for all you peeps attending Emerald City Comicon this weekend, I'll be chillin at table E-11! ;) Come by and I guarantee you'll get to see me shoving food into my face. Because that's what I always seem to be doing when people come up to talk to me at cons.
Monica Gallagher is a comic book creator, illustrator and freelance designer making work for hire with a positive, feminist spin.
Heroes Con Table ii-1276 - Charlotte, NC // June 20 - 22
Tucson Comic Con - Tucson, AZ // Aug. 29 - 31
Small Press Expo - Rockville, MD // Sep. 13 - 14
Denton Comic Art Expo - Denton, TX // Sep. 27
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