COVID-19 DIARY - POST #3: : A blast from the past, "The Cat's Meow". Attempt #4 (and hopefully the final, successful attempt..?) (Day 109-248)

July 3, 2020 (Day 109 since the social isolation started) 10:20 am

Yesterday I got paid and for some reason, it seemed like a smaller paycheck than usual. But, I just checked it, and no, it's correct.
I just don't make a lot of money working roughly 24 hours a week at a rate that's less than a dollar more than the NY State minimum wage. But, I also don't really want to work more hours. What I NEED to do is try to focus more on earning money as a freelance artist in the hours i'm not working my regular job.
That's a GOAL, yo.
Meanwhile, yeah. I'm also trying to finally finish The Cat's Meow, the comic story that my best friend Steve D'Addieco wrote for me to illustrate back in... 1984, I think (cripes).

4:34 pm

Oh, man. It's already 4:30???

I'm really not very focused today. I've done a couple productive things, but nothing big and I accomplished those tasks in spite of myself. I'm just meandering through the day, I'm not very focused.
One of the stupid habits I've gotten into is realizing there are some tasks I have to do, prioritizing them, and then... not wanting to do it, But then I don't do anything else because I feel I should do this prioritized thing FIRST. Except I don't wanna. So, I don't and don't do anything else either, etc., etc., fucking etc.
Maybe simply articulating this idiocy will motivate me to get off of my ass and get it over with.
God, I'm stupid.

Meanwhile, in this First Year As A Sexagenarian, I'm hoping to rediscover the impulsive energy I had when I was a twenty year-old, just plunging into projects rather recklessly without much forethought, although this time around, actually following through on them. Self-analytically speaking I think I've gotten more hesitant over the years due to second-guessing myself out of perfectionism AND self-doubt and then, also realizing I tend to procrastinate so being self-aware of this performance weakness ironically sabotages my self-confidence as well (as opposed to informing my self-knowledge and attacking this weakness head on).
Whatever. If I am at all going to get things done, I just have to get through these mental obstacles and self-handcuffing practices.
I have to. I HAVE TO.

Friday, July 17 10:54 am

Yesterday was Thursday, and I actually remembered to post something on Facebook re: #ThrowbackThursday. I took a bunch of pictures from a sketchbook I was working on in 1979 and also some issues of the Buffalo State College RECORD from 1984, mostly. The sketchbook is from when I went to the Art Institute of Pittsburgh. The photos aren't the greatest (I don't know why part of it always seems out of focus). But I posted some of my self-portraits, also a drawing I did of a lion from the Buffalo Zoo. Some of the things I didn't post were other pencil figure studies from class, a couple other unfinished zoo sketches, my attempt at caricatures, and then some character design stuff I did later, like, after I came back home from Pittsburgh. The RECORD stuff was assorted cartoons and some spot illustrations. Maybe I'll actually get my ass over to Office Max and properly scan this artwork and re-post these, but for now, here's what I shared last night:

Thursday, November 19, 4:08 pm

Jeez, FOUR MONTHS LATER???

Okay, I need to wrap this post up, publish it, and move on.

Well, catching up a bit, but broadly:

My wife went back to school (she teaches at a private boys high school, juniors and seniors, AP and Honors English) in September but there were a number of new procedures they instituted. Of course, everybody is still wearing masks. The boys had these portable plexiglas foldable cubicle things that they put on the desk in front of them. I've never seen them. They either have only a front and one attached piece (so L-shaped) to keep it upright, or its 3-parts and opens up like a U, so the student has a wall on either side of him as he watches through the front piece, if this makes sense. I believe it's the latter, because that seems to make more sense. Unfortunately, they're not the most durable things. I guess some broke the first day as students accidentally dropped them. Duct tape has come into play to fix these things. After a few weeks, my wife eventually got some rolls of clear packing tape to offer kids who had busted "plastic walls/portable cubicles" (I'm not sure what they actually call them). 

In addition, the school's windows have been kept open to increase air circulation. Of course, it's now November and we're in Western New York, so things have been cold. Except for last week when we had a stretch of delightful unseasonably warm days (high 60s, even 70s!). I don't know how long they intend to keep doing that, but it may have be a moot point now since, as of yesterday, Governor Cuomo has returned Erie County us to Level Orange (from Level Yellow), so next week (11/26) the school starts teaching remotely again to all the students.

But, things have been at a more "relaxed" level for several weeks now. I can't remember when it started. End of summer? Earlier? Sorry, I'm bad at taking notes.

We haven't stopped wearing masks when we go out in public but slowly things have been getting more lax: people eating in restaurants, stores opening, etc. At the grocery store I work at, they had been leeping customers to one line and then peeling them off to the individual cashiers as away to monitor how many customers were in the store. That's stooped happening and returned to a more conventional, open method (people just getting in line at whatever cashier was open) but i don't if that will chaneg again now that we're back to Level Orange. I'll see tomorrow. As it is, yesterday we returend to spraying sanitizer ion the grocery carts we pull in. We had been doing that, then we stopped and left it up to the customer to use cart wipes. Also, we only sanitized the carts every two hours. The cart wipes were always available, it's just that us sanitizing the carts when we brought them in was another level of sanitizing. So, we're back to doing that.

And if they go back to watching how many people are in the store at the same time, well, that's going to be fun as we go into the weekend before Thanksgiving.

So... that's a bit of an update.

Oh, also, we had the election and a couple days after Election Day, since there were so many mail-in votes across the country, Biden was declared the winner but Trump wouldn't concede (the actual election day being Nov. 3, I think Biden was declared winner on Nov. 6). He still hasn't officially conceded, but there are now news stories saying:

“Do not expect him to concede,” one top aide said. More likely, the aide said, “he’ll say something like, ‘We can’t trust the results, but I’m not contesting them.’”

Another adviser said that after the legal battles and recounts, the closest the president is likely to get to a concession is, “he’ll acknowledge the results and that we’ll never know how accurate they are.”

“But we’re not there yet,” the adviser said.

(from NBC News, Nov. 11)

So, we'll see about that.

Anyway, I'm not sure when we actually stopped doing the lockdown thing over the summer. But, it's now 248 days since the original social isolation began. Things were loosened up a bit, but we're still dealing with Covid-19 as we go into the winter.

As for my attempts at trying get some drawing down, I'm still failing spectacularly at accomplishing anything. In late August and the beginning of September, I suddenly went back from working 24 hrs/wk starting in April to working 40 hrs/wk because they were short-handed as kids went back to school. But then they hired a new coordinator for our department and I was able to ease back a bit and I'm more working more like 32 hrs/wk. The additional 8 hours is great, actually, because I got into the habit of buying more stuff on-line this year, especially from eBay: underground comics, old paperback novels, etc.

Speaking of which, I have to stop my impulse shopping for a bit and start saving up for Christmas!

But, I'm digressing again!

I've impulsively started anew project this month: re-making this one-page comic story I did back in '82-'83 when I was working on the Buffalo State RECORD. My original intent was to do an 8-page remake of the original 1-page comic and to set Nov. 31 as my deadline, a specific response to my friend pam trying to write her script for her comic story as part of her Nanowrimo (National Novel Writing Month, natch!) challenge. 

So, that was my initial goal: re-do the 1-page story, "Karen's Dilemma!" as an 8-page story and finish it Nov. 31. I think i decided to do this Nov. 15, halfway through the month. Okay, I'm already behind, but still, since the original 1-page story was done in 11 hours to meet a newspaper deadline, I thought it was still do-able.

Of course, since I started thinking about this project, it's already going through some structural changes, but I'll leave that for my next post...

Although, I will say this: the (working) title for this 8-Page re-make comic story is, 2145 A.D.: THE PERTINACIOUS ODYSSEY OF STARLA SOLARO.

COVID-19 DIARY - POST #1: PORTRAIT OF A WANNA-BE ARTIST DURING COVID-19: #MyQuasiSelfIsolationCreativeDiary (Day 1-32)

Tuesday, March 17, 10:27 pm

Ah, nuts! Hang on. I was going to start this post, something I was thinking of earlier today, but i really should do a couple other things first before I wind up not doing them at all (What? NO.)(um... yes).
I'll be back.

Thursday, March 19, 9:57 pm

...Okay, it's two freaking days later, but here I am! Ta-daah!

Friday, March 20, 9:06 am

Okay, maybe three days later. Don't even ask. I think I'm just disorganized, distracted, and a bit tired. Mostly distracted and tired. BOY, am I glad I have two days off! For the last two days I've been obsessively preoccupied with a potential comic project ("potential" because, well, who knows if I'll ever follow through (am I right???) i.e. see my Stellara Ultranova obsession and where has that gotten me so far with concrete examples of drawing: NOWHERE, BUB.
Anyway, today's the first of two days off, so we'll see...

Backtracking quickly... episode (er, that is, daily life) recap:

The U.S and the world is currently dealing with this virus, first described as the Coronavirus, now more officially called Covid-19. Originating from China, it was first announced in December, 2019. Here's a timeline.
Wow, I just read this, to be honest. Most of my information regarding Covid-19 has been haphazard (because I don't regularly listen to the news - yes, I'm a willfully ignorant jerk), or anecdotal in the sense it's what my wife tells me who does follow the news more diligently, or what I hear or see at work (I'm still working 25-40 hours a week as Helping Hands Assistant (i.e. I pull grocery carts from the lot, etc.)) and how the current "social distancing" climate affects my grocery store, or what I sporadically get from Facebook and other internet sources (so, mostly memes and FB statuses).
My wife has been home from school working since Tuesday, March 17. She went in Monday (faculty and administration only, but the day before it was announced that schools would be closed) to learn what the policy and procedure was going to be re: teaching on-line from school.
When I drive to work, there's an electronic sign over the O-190 South just before the I-290 ramp and usually it informs drivers during the commute how many minutes until the I-990 or Downtown. AS of Wednesday, it's been saying "STOP THE SPREAD... SAVE LIVES... STAY HOME" Another version on the I-290 West (heading home) added, "#FlattenTheCurve".

Anyway, so many people are staying home from work and there's a general sense of a quarantine going on, or more officially, "self-isolation."  Because I'm still actively working, I don't completely embrace that feeling, except intellectually I do feel that an "opportunity" to focus on artwork, etc. is upon me. Hence... the subject of this post.

I'm arbitrarily choosing MARCH 16 as DAY ONE of this self-isolation because that was the first day it affected me: we cancelled Monday night's BM-VM meeting at the Screening room. Actually, over the weekend the Screening Room cancelled it's events until mid-April (for now, it may go longer). Because I'm still working, I needed to pick a date that sort of applied to me in terms of the virus "directly" affecting me, so to speak, if that makes sense.

Which brings me up-to-date enough to get into my...
QUASI-SELF ISOLATION CREATIVE DIARY.

My hope is to document my progress and also what's going on in the world around me re: this virus. So, there will definitely be a lot of bla bla bla, but I'm also hoping that there will also be images of artwork I've been doing. I guess we'll see, huh?
Anyway, I've recently discovered this local self-described "novice cosplayer" who did a cosplay of a character from a brand new comic, Canopus, and then made contact at Pulp 716 (N. Tonawanda division) with the comic's creator, Dave Chisolm, who stopped by at the store last month (I think) and was delighted at her enthusiastic support and made her a sketch based on one of her Canopus cosplay photos. I think that whole experience inspired me and then I started thinking of drawing/comic ideas with this cosplayer, mostly because of her Twitter account. As a sort of "tagline" for her account, she describes herself as a "shark fighter" (just to be silly, I'm assuming), but then that made me think of doing a drawing of her a shark fighter. And then, I started getting carried away (who, me? No!), and my impulsive drawing idea for a "fan-art" pin-up picture, soon morphed into a two-, no, actually, three-, aw, what the hell, a probably FOUR-page comic story that CONCLUDES on the so-called pin-up image as the last page of the story idea.
But, again, we'll see what this actually translates into in terms of physical artwork, dammit!
Because, part of me is also thinking I should finish something I've already started first, just to get this under my belt and out of the way. There's no real deadline here for the cosplayer project other than my own typical obsessive impulsiveness.
So, I'm going to do that.
Thus, we have this:

I did this drawing (as part of a Drink and Draw night... alas!) way back in January 2016.

Sorry for the REALLY crappy quality of the picture. I bring this drawing up because Pam (from the Apple Corps Comic Book Club) recently talked about something called "Work-in-Progress Wednesdays" and I thought the concept was good, i.e. using the day as a gauge to see how we're progressing on certain projects. I chose five very old drawings I've started but never finished. This Drink and Draw effort was one of them. So, this is my "something that I'm going to finish that I've already started" first project. And then, I think that will "give me permission" to start working more in earnest on the cosplayer project.

Meanwhile, to celebrate this first day off, I have some housecleaning/chores to address first (and breakfast!).

Stay tuned.

Tuesday, March 24, 9:41 pm

SELF-"ISOLATION": DAY EIGHT.

Friday, April 17, 9:59 pm

I guess I didn't have anything to say over three weeks ago...

SELF-"ISOLATION": DAY THIRTY-TWO.

And, boy, objectives have changed since then.

First, I haven't finished the above drawing, nor did I actually start working on it, other than thinking about it and giving this impulsively drawn character a name, Flauna Chamois (pronounce sham-WAH), and thinking it is a "concept character" now, for lack of a better name or label. Meaning, I was considering this might be the first in a series of "pin-up" style drawings of this character, and they all have a sort of advertising/fashion theme, the meanings of that to be further explored. This idea came about because I was thinking I'd give Flauna a coat to wear in THIS drawing, and I was going to make up some odd design. But, we'll see...

...because now I'm fixated on something else. Of course.

Two things, actually.

1: The COSPLAYER/SHARK-FIGHTER comic.

and

2. A totally OTHER project: THE CALIEGIA (REMAKE). I've actually started working on this project. I recently purchased the Dynamite comics "replica edition" of VAMPIRELLA #3, originally published by Warren Publishing back in the 60s. These replica editions are really cool! They reprint everything, not only the story content but also the original ads! So, these editions are a real nostalgic blast. Plus, it's an affordable way to check out these old stories. As much as I like the replica edition, the actual stories in this issue aren't that hot. You get a real sense of some of the cultural dynamics were at the time. They play up the female characters in these stories, the one big difference between CREEPY and EERIE magazines from VAMPIRELLA is the inclusion of a sexy female element in the stories, so not only the Vampirella character as a host who also stars in her own continuing storyline in the mag. But also, you see how these horror genre stories are at that time. Sometimes it seems all you need is to include some genre element to make the story serviceable. And sometimes the female element is blatantly exploited in the story. I'm not saying it as a criticism, but as an observation. Anyway, bla bla bla... so I bought this replica edition, and one of the stories sort of caught my eye, "The Caliegia," written by Nicola Cuti and drawn by Dick Piscopo, an artist I wasn't familiar with before. For some reason, I found the story and art to be lacking, and as is my tendency at times, I impulsively decided to re-do the story... okay, impulsively acting is a perpetual tendency of mine. The original impulse was to focus on the art, but then, as i re-read the story and started thinking about my re-make version, I started thinking about ways I'd do the story differently. So, I've started really investing the overhaul of this story. Here are some very preliminary behind-the-scenes peeks at my "progress": 

These are examples of my flailing about trying to draw and interpret a character, Vampirella, for the intro of the story, but also trying to figure out how to break down the first page of the story. The first image in my first attempt at drawing Vampi, but then I didn't like the pose. I also wasn't sure how my drawing would eventually fit in the space on the page, so I started drawing her on a different sheet of paper, figuring I could transfer it when I had a better idea of how much space it was going to take up.

Anyway, I'm a bit happier with how her body turned out, but I've been mostly preoccupied with the writing the last couple days, trying to figure out my takes on the main characters.

Meanwhile, here's a link to scans of the original story.

Alright, I'm going to end this and move on.

Here's my current game plan (and we'll see how long THIS strategy lasts..!): 

1. The original "Caliegia" story was 7 pages long. I originally decided I was going to keep my remake version to 7 pages as well. But then I started working on the story and writing it, and I knew within a day of making the 7-page limit that I was not going to keep to that restriction. But, I'm also aware of my compulsion to start projects and never finish them. So, I've revised my restriction to a deadline. I'll take as long as I want with the story page-wise (whatever that means), but I'm going to try and finish the first 7 pages by the end of April.

2. I'm also going to attempt to finish that SHARK-FIGHTER story before the end of April, too.

That seems like an over-stretch, though. Maybe I should at least aim for plotting and laying out the story. That also seems like a challenge (for me), but far more do-able than finishing the whole damn story.