From Recession to Concession

The Original Artwork for my Seattle Weekly Comic.
You can see the completed story here.

I'm a big fan of the human eye.  I love how well-adapted our vision is in picking up subtleties and a lot of my decision-making in comics plays to this.  It's why I don't use panel borders on my pages, and why I very rarely outline anything in a scene.

Also, just this year I fell in love with white space.  I don't think I've ever used it as efficiently as I can.  As a woman who works exclusively in black and white, I've been neglecting half of my palette.

Today, I have a comic out in Seattle Weekly.  It's my second comic with them.  While it's my intention to do comics journalism about Seattle's music scene - like this one about The Crocodile - this week's comic is an autobiographical story about my decision to go back to school for web development.

The decision was driven by how expensive Seattle has become to live in, and is fueled by my disillusionment with the nonprofit sector.  There are several programs that the State of Washington offers that pay for job retraining, and I'm working with WorkSource to get my tuition paid.

I think the editor was excited about it because so many artists are having to make tough choices, now, in Seattle and a lot of them are choosing to leave.  I'm hoping it will resonate with people.

Finished panel, with text covering
up the signage.

What I am excited about with this comic is that it's the first time I didn't outline narrative boxes or word balloons.  I'm seeing how much I can pare away, visually, and still move the story.  I want people to feel totally and naturally immersed in the art.  It was a fun experiment, and Seattle Weekly didn't bat an eye at the missing outlines, so I'm assuming it worked ok.

I am pseudo-obsessed with making good-looking original art, and I draw entire panels even though I know I will be covering up a lot of the visual details with words, so I'm posting the orginal art here.  You can see the completed story at the Seattle Weekly's website, or pick up a physical copy from the stands before next Wednesday.

I do want to add that I totally riffed the art of John Criscitello and his Woo Girls in one panel.  Credit where credit is due! 

I'll be doing another comic for Seattle Weekly on the Macefield Festival in September.

Girl On The Road posts about comics, publication and community on Tuesdays.

Though I Walk Through The Shadow of Uncanny Valley . . .

Mark Campos at Bistro Montage in Portland,
featured here with Moxie, My Sweet.

Living with a fellow cartoonist has its benefits, particularly when they are a long-standing feature in the minicomics world.  My housie Mark Campos wrote the anthology Moxie, My Sweet - illustrated by some of the finest cartoonists Seattle has to offer - and has drawn stories for anthologies like Not My Small Diary and Fantagraphics Treasury of Mini Comix.  Mark is not only experienced in the practical aspects of making comics, his head is full of cartooning history and theory.

I'm not like that.  My comics tool kit contains little more than combining a disparate background in fine arts and poetry as an approach to telling stories.  I have limited knowledge of the medium and it's context and having seasoned cartoonists to turn to while I attempt creating a graphic memoir is invaluable.

Uncanny, Isn't It?

Panel with self-portrait on a Chicago train platform.
What is wrong with this picture?

Creating Girl On The Road hasn't been precisely "Write script. Grab pen. GO!"  I've had to make decisions as simple as page size and as difficult as fictionalizing elements of an autobiographical story.  Somewhere in between, how to stylistically approach drawing people is one of the hardest things I've wrestled with.

The book is partially travelogue, so I want backgrounds that deliver a specific location in the story. But the core story is relational, so I want characters that are expressive.

My attempts at marrying photo-realism and expressiveness have not gotten me where I'm going yet.

Back to Mark Campos.  As I sit cursing at the kitchen table over the fact that an image I drew straight from photo reference looks like a mutant, he factually chimes in "It's 'Uncanny Valley'."  And DAMMIT if he's not right.  It is.

Things That Look Almost Human Creep Us Out

Screen grab from Manly Guys Doing Manly Things
by comics blogger Coelasquid.

Uncanny Valley is a term developed by people in robotics.  As certain corporations race to invent the humanoid robot that everyone will love, they keep running into the problem that robots that look like humans freak real humans out. 

There's a dry Wikipedia article about it, but I found an absolutely AWESOME blog about the Uncanny Valley effect as it relates to comics here.  Funny as hell.  References Soundgarden.  You should check out "Close But No Cigar" on Manly Guys Doing Manly Things and get a hard laugh out of it as well as some good information.

What I got out of it was reinforcement that I need to put my hands up and step away from the light table.  My just-slightly-off photo-realistic drawings of people are just-slightly-off-putting.  Even if I had an exact photo reference for every panel of the book, it wouldn't be enough to carry the characters.  But at least I have something of a measure to judge against when assessing my next crop of drawings.  It might keep my book from falling into the Uncanny Valley.

Thanks, Mark.

 Girl On The Road posts about comics, publication and community on Tuesdays.

Hey! Ho! Let's Go!

Draft title page for my sample
chapter "Girl On The Road,
I-90 1994"

As part of my grant proposals in support of the graphic novel, I outlined that I would use my blog to document my process as I go.  Well, I've officially dived into the drawing portion of things, and here's where I'm at.

Discipline 

I've been told more than one time that I need to write every day to be a writer, told to draw every day to be a cartoonist, and famously informed by the poet Eileen Myles "You wanna write a book?  Write a book. That's the only way you're gonna write one."  So OK.  There are things I'll finally be applying to accomplish my first graphic novel. 

 

Here's my short list:

Draw A Page A Day

At least draw every day, with the goal of a page a day, six days out of the week.  I'm only on page #4, so my due date for raw art on my sample chapter is going to be the end of May.  Since my first and second days were dedicated to an elaborate front cover image set in a sunflower field and an equally elaborate draft title page (above), I'm hoping I can complete two or more pages of art on some days to make up for the truly challenging visuals.

Schedule Business Hours

On the seventh day, I blog.  I build and update my website.  I finally scan work to my ETSY shop (Check check).  I research outside work and draw commissions.  I'm going to concentrate on scheduling as much of the work as I can for completion on Tuesdays.

Just Say No

Panel detail from page #4. 
The Chicago Picasso!

I said yes to a lot of really interesting projects over the past year - most of which somehow culminated over the span of only a few recent weeks.  I love anthologies.  I love art galleries.  I've thoroughly enjoyed creating work for themed art shows.  AND I'm not going to get any further towards my aims as an artist until I complete a graphic novel.

So I need to apply some pretty strict criteria to what I say "yes" to moving forward.  Basically, unless it's a paid illustration gig or something I have a truly deep personal connection to and can complete in a reasonable amount of time, I'm going to be turning projects down.

I am going to contribute to My Small Diary Issue #19 and, of course, Prince did just pass away, so yes to the Prince-themed art show, dammit.

 Girl On The Road posts about comics, publication and community on Tuesdays.