ALL I NEED IS 8 PAGES! Part 1: NANOWRIMO 2020, "Karen's Dilemma!" (1983!) remake, etc.

[Sunday, April 11, 2021: A NOTE OF EXPLANATION: I originally wrote a version of this post back on December 1, 2020 and I shared it on a private Facebook group that has only two members, myself and Pam C. Pam and I are the lone members of something we call The Apple Corps Comicbook Club (ACCC), an informal art group that is actually a splinter group from the now defunct Crabapple Club, but read further into the actual post below to learn more about these two groups. Pam and I still meet infrequently via the Apple Corps, especially VERY infrequently in 2020 what with Covid-19, lockdowns and social distancing going on, but we DO still meet, and we DO still have ambitions to self-publish a comic (a single issue with a 10-page story each, that's the goal). Anyway, in November of 2020, I had this damn other idea in my head and shortly thereafter, Pam told me that her goal for Nanowrimo 2020 was to write out her plot for her ACCC story. The Nanowrimo deadline (Nov. 30) seemed like an excellent deadline to work with, so I decided to adopt it as well and to share my progress with Pam in our FB group. I was originally hesitant to actually share this with anyone else, but eventually felt comfortable doing so with Pam at least, but after sharing a couple posts, I figured: eh! what the hell? So, this is more or less the first of those FB posts, except in the process I found out that the formatting in Facebook is not the same as on Blogger, so instead of simply cutting and pasting the file from FB, I've had to re-type the whole thing here so it "sits right." And I found THAT task to be a phenomenally tedious job, so it's taken me forever. I'm sure there was probably a much, MUCH easier way to do this, but if so, I, the old, tech-challenged dude, wasn't aware of it and/or forgot about it.

Okay, none of this information was really important to share, but for you "blog completists" I thought it was worth the explanation. But, even this explanation you have to take with a grain of salt. The post you're reading now has been extensively re-edited, mostly for clarification and for reduction of redundancy, hopefully. But, since I seem to have some Mojo Jojo running through my DNA, that last point is debatable. Anyway... now you know. You may now continue reading at your leisure. Thank you!]

Saturday, November 14, 7:10 pm

An attempt at a progress report.

Sunday, November 15, 9:20 pm

Okay, after a couple days or so of trying to figure out what my plot is for these 8 pages, I've wound up exactly NOWHERE. I think the idea of expanding a flawed single-page story, and heck, not even a full single-page at that, into an 8-page expansion of arguably the same story was a brilliant opportunity... except I seem stymied from the get-go. I keep considering different approaches and none seem satisfactory.

Well, waking up this morning, it occurs to me that my initial approach is to cram all sorts of new stuff into the story, including adding new characters and sub-plots. In the back of my head, I think I realize this approach would require me to go beyond my specified hard limit of 8-pages. So, this morning, it occurred to me to literally expand EACH single PANEL of the original single-page story into a FULL-PAGE. It roughly works out that the original story has 8-ish panels to work with. Let's break it down into beats.

Okay, actually there's 11 panels, not counting the 12th panel which is the supposed "cover" image to "Interplanetary Romances" with Brad and Trudy.

So, my strategy is, try to break down those original 11 panels into their separate dramatic beats, especially organizing them into 8 pages/units. This seems like a constructive approach.

Wednesday, November 18, 10:49 pm

Yet, more impulsive bullshit projects I've suddenly decided to do. Although, this is a continuing topic of thought and self-discussion, so this is merely the latest incarnation.

In a recent post of mine on Facebook to my friend, I responded to her post where she said she was going to do Nanowrimo this year and she'd be working on her script for her comic book story for our Apple Corps Comicbook Club (ACCC) and our DECADE PLUS unfulfilled objective to self-publish a comic featuring a comic book story from both of us. It was probably as early as 2002 when we first discussed this goal back when we were the Crabapple Club at Great Arrow Graphics (GAG), so... 17-18 years ago? JEEZ. The Crabapple Club was comprised of five of us: Dan C., Josh H., Will R., Pam and myself, all of us GAG employees. But when Pam and I both eventually left GAG (well, I was let go in 2003, she left sometime later), we formed the ACCC splinter group and have been meeting semi-regularly since (meanwhile, the other members didn't continue meeting back at GAG).

Anyway, I have in mind the subject matter for my ACCC story and no, I haven't done any significant work on that story. Although, I have a rough, very broad outline in my head for it, at least.

But getting back to this new impulsive bullshit project (YAY!), it is NOT that ACC story (of course).

This spanking new project is simply getting back to my longtime goals to 1) do an 8-page mini-comic story AND 2) to update my first INTERPLANETARY ROMANCES effort.

As I told Pam in our private Facebook group:

So, I've decided on this so-called new project for my Nanowrimo project, or at least, what I'm going to focus on for the rest of the month. I've accumulated a number of unfinished art and comics related goals over the decades, but this time I'm choosing two specific unfinished comic book story goals, going back several years. The first goal dates back to the Crabapple Club when I saw Dan C.'s 8-page mini-comics that he created in his youth (BLOODHOUND! co-created with Adam (GREENPIECE) Owen). Ever since I saw them, I've wanted to try my hand at making at least one 8-page mini-comic, if not more. "Mini-comic" because they're only a quarter the size of a regular 8.5"x11" sheet of paper (so, 4" x 5.5", natch!). Well, THAT never happened. My second goal was to re-make my 1-page story "Karen's Dilemma!," an INTERPLANETARY ROMANCES story which I did for the Buffalo State College RECORD, the school newspaper; in fact that's the first and, well, only, I.R. comic story I ever did. As much as I like the effort I put into it and the original results, there are some issues I have with it every time I re-read it: specifically the telling of the actual "story" and especially the conclusion. [NOTE: This story was the only one (1) actual comic style INTERPLANETARY ROMANCES story I ever did (and that was barely a full page); my other I.R. efforts were a "faux comic cover" illustration of Brad and Trudy together (similar to a faux movie trailer, which is only a trailer for an imaginary, non-existent movie, this "cover" doesn't actually have a comic to go with it, alas!) and a faux pseudo-greeting card concept of Brad and Trudy and that drawing took several years to actually complete - not that I was working on it continuously, I simply started it in the 80s and then never finished it, finally getting back to it in the early 90s - but, hey! Better LATE, than NEVER.]

So, I've been focused on the idea of re-doing "Karen's Dilemma!" again, and I decided to do an 8-page version of it, so I'll be addressing both creative goals at once. However, I've made one adjustment: I'll be doing the 8-page comic FULL SIZE: 10" x 15" (original artwork). So far, I've been having a terrible time fleshing out the plot-line (uh, like, keeping it short and sweet) that I couldn't deal with the size restriction of a page only a quarter of that size (although those little, itty-bitty mini-comics DO look so CUTE!), so that's my (supposedly) lone compromise. 

At first, I thought this would be a comparative piece of cake, re-doing a story I've already written but simply doing a longer version of it. However, I immediately started complicating things - naturally - like considering all sorts of additional elements to throw into the story, because I'm being so seduced by the expanse of 8 LARGER pages to work with.

The original story happened in a space 8"x8" square, and even that wasn't all story. Part of it was a large panel simulating a comic book cover and was the first image of Brad and Trudy in love. So, that first story was really crammed into a little space. 

At first glance it looks impressively busy and detailed, but as you read it, all the panels are fighting to be seen and heard. The art is fighting with word balloons, so there are lots of overlapping images and panels and as it is, the captions and word balloons are pretty redundant exposition-wise, which is rather ironic if you're considering the story's need for space. In hindsight, I'm forgiving myself for these problematic issues because at the time I was up against a newspaper deadline, so I was making decisions and moving along simply to complete the damn thing in time. Perhaps if I had an additional day I would have edited and organized the story more effectively, but alas. NOTE: the TRUTH is, if I HAD that extra time, maybe I would NEVER HAVE FINISHED IT!

Anyway, after wrestling with how to re-do the story the last few days, trying to just rough out a plot and layout for each of the 8 pages but getting nowhere, I woke up this morning with a new approach. I re-visited my original layout and realized that I told the story in 11 panels (not counting the "Interplanetary Romances cover image" panel with Brad and Trudy). It's arguably almost a 1-to-1 ratio of Panel to Full Page in terms of the single-page story to the 8-page remake version. So, starting today, I'm trying to break down these 11 panels into 8 dramatic beats or scenes, and maybe I'll finally make some progress in my goal to plot and layout my story over 8 pages.

Maybe this approach would have been more obvious to others, but it took some banging my head against an imaginary wall over a few days to get to this point.

Baby steps!

Anyway, 15 MORE DAYS TO GET THIS FINISHED!

...and to update the ABOVE post, now I have TWELVE days to finish.

Ah, nuts.

Thursday, November 19, 10:31 am

I've tried outlining the story and as you can see, it's already getting WAY out of hand. I'm still trying to cram all sorts of elements into the plot. I just need to come up with a story and then start laying it out.

For instance:

1. I'm considering approaching things from a JANE EYRE (the novel) perspective:

        A. Trying to write Starla's* dialogue (*BTW, and yes, the name of my protagonist is no longer "Karen" as it was in the original 1-pager, natch! I decided to shoot for a more sci-fi flavored moniker...) to resemble more the style of Jane Eyre's manner of speaking, an admittedly ridiculous idea AND ambition. 

        B. Scene parody of Jane at the Lowood Institution where her only friend was Helen Burns, but in this case, it's Starla's sheep, also named Helen out of respect. In this a School for Sheep? Space Sheep? Maybe a reference to animals sent into space? Out of all of Starla's ambitions for space travel and space exploration, this is the best she can do and she confronts cruelty at the School.

                i. IDEA: Combine parody of Lowood Institution and Jane's relationship with Helen Burns AND also Jane's being the governess of Adele. Starla names the sheep Adele Burns, a combination of names. Maybe she names all the sheep, an indication Starla's eccentricity.  

                ii. IDEA: Starla enrolls in a Space Agency hoping to eventually move up into research and also research a local planet, etc. Her boss (modeled on Mr. Brocklehurst from the novel), a longtime bachelor, has his eyes on Starla. He seems both cruel (or extremely strict) and yet fascinated by her, and then he learns of her ambitions. He proposes to her, first seducing her with a possible opportunity to fulfill her research and space exploration dreams, and then reveals it's both a proposal of marriage (possibly of convenience) to relocate to a new Starbase on the moon, but it's only open to couples and families. The hope is they can "naturally" populate and develop the Starbase. "Brocklehurst" emphasizes the need for her to become a mother and to bear children, their children, and especially HIS children. Starla is horrified by this new proposition and realizes what her boss's actual designs are for her and candidly tells him no, although unwittingly because she THINKS all this and then realizes she's been thinking OUT LOUD and he heard her (!). Humiliated, "Brocklehurst" immediately, impulsively transfers Starla to the Sheep Station, a remote, lonely outpost that arguably fulfills his promise to her to assist her with her research ambitions, but is challenging for its remoteness and lack of human contact. Shocked, but also stubborn, she accepts. That's how she gets to the Sheep School.

        C. How does she meet Gland? Is he stealing sheep for his own alien purposes? Right now, Gland is supposedly Rochester to Starla's Jane Eyre.

                i. IDEA: While at the Sheep School, dealing with her long-term solitude, Starla notices that the local alien bird-life which exist outside the dome keep crashing into the glass. Starla tries to figure out ways to warn the spacebirds, but alas, the best she can do is nurse the injured and bury the dead. And then one day, Gland accidentally strikes the glass and falls to the ground. What Starla doesn't know is Gland has been abducting animals from the planetoid for research purposes, a fact he doesn't reveal to Starla. Secretly, he eyes the sheep as additional subjects.

        D. Adreena is Gland's hidden assistant, a nod to Rochester's mad wife locked in the attic.

2. Sci-fi plots/references from film and comics.

        A. IDEA: In the real world that Starla inhabits, it's a little run-down, modest. She uses devices, etc. that are obviously from the future, but they look like they were designed in the 30s, like they could have been used in Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon serials. But she's constantly bombarded with ads and videos for the latest ideas which look SO much better and more advanced. Almost parallel worlds, the one she lives in, and the one out of her reach.

3. Plots/tropes from Lifetime Movie Network movies?

4. A supposedly feminine plot-line or at least feminine elements:

        A. Focus on Starla's thoughts on everything, showing on she focuses on trying to have confidence in herself and ideas in spite of what others may think or advise her to do.

5. Trying to figure out what my romantic plot-line is since I really didn't have one the first time.

        A. Starla considers "Brocklehurst's" and rationalizes how that can help her achieve her ambitions and how she could tolerate such a literal marriage since she doesn't actually love him.

        B. IDEA: Each of the chapters (Three? Four?) focuses on a possible romantic match-up for Starla:

                i. CHAPTER ONE: "Brocklehurst" (see A.)

                ii. CHAPTER TWO: Gland.

                iii. CHAPTER THREE: Starla, considering or resigned to "spinsterhood".

                iv. CHAPTER FOUR: Adreena.

6. Fashion.

7. Artistic approach.

8. Cheating with the 8-page format. Okay, I'm finally starting to have some ideas, definitely inspired by JANE EYRE. But as I start to think of more material, I'm worried that I probably will have too much for 8 pages to sustain. This is my Achilles' heel! One of the rules for this project is to keep to 8 pages and I need to do that in order to finish it (and hopefully by the end of this month!). So, here's my compromise: 

This 8 pages is simply a chapter but a complete chapter. If I do go this route, then I think I'll have enough possible story material to justify 24 pages (i.e. three chapters).

        A. IDEA: CHAPTER 1: The Sheep My Destination (or Why Can't Starla Get a Clue?) - format idea: Chapter title is a parody of a noted sci-fi work and also a specific comment on Starla's journey.

        B. IDEA: Title for the series: 2145 A.D.: THE PERTINACIOUS ODYSSEY OF STARLA SOLARO.

Sunday, November 22, 1:56 am    

FUCK.

So, those above notes? Screw them. No, the ideas are okay (well, maybe) but I don't think it's going to be 8 pages long, or hell, even 24 pages long. Maybe I should save it for my deluxe Jane Eyre "re-make/genre mash-up" sprawling concept?

But, now I'm working on ANOTHER idea for this 8-page exercise. The working title: DERANGED DETOUR. Originally it was THE DANCER'S DERANGED DETOUR. I liked the idea of the extended alliteration, but it just didn't really flow.

Anyway, who knows if THIS story idea will stay to 8-pages, either, but the concept, or at least, the separate elements within the "story" have me currently entertained and I think I have a Beginning Middle and End... well, maybe a Beginning and End and a very-needs-work, shapeless Middle. 

This is a completely different concept from the STARLA SOLARO idea. It has a space vampire, a werewolf/shapeshifter character and is set on an alternative parallel Earth.

Yeah.

Okay, anyway, I have EIGHT DAYS left to finish this, so it means I have to average 1 page a day in order to accomplish this (by my self-imposed deadline).

Fuck, if I can do three fairly finished pages by the end of the month, I'll be happy. But I need to still finish the story by the end of 2021. Thinking candidly, with three finished pages I'd still be further ahead of Pam, if I were being competitive.

Meanwhile, some "technical issues." I started describing color in the first bit of writing I did, so now I'm thinking I should do the story in fucking color. Dammit.

Alright, I'm going to try and do some writing.

Thursday, November 26, aka Thanksgiving, 1:33 am

OMG. 

So, FIVE FUCKING DAYS LEFT and I haven't even STARTED on this fucking 8-page project. I mean, other than supposedly thinking and stewing about possible stories, etc.

I dunno. I'm starting to give up hope that I'm ever going to do ANY drawing or comics creating, ever. EVER.

FUCK.

I think I really need to embrace the idea of me, as a self-conscious "artist," having and currently going through a so-called Shitty Comics Phase of my art "career" and just crap out miserable looking comics, miserably-looking, miserable to read as part of this phase of my "development."

Also I've been back to doing one of my bad habits again, which I won't get into here specifically, but whatever, that's going on, too, so that's contributing to my lack of any self-worth, etc.

FUCK FUCK FUCKKKK.

Alright, let me see if I can do anything constructive before I go to bed tonight.

GODDAMMIT.

(Oh, and there's definitely an uptick in the amount of swearing I've been doing lately, too, in case you haven't fucking noticed... the fucking heck.)

Tuesday, December 1, 10:04 am

Well, NUTS.

It's December. Yesterday was my self-imposed deadline and I did JACK SHIT on trying to do an 8-page comic before the end of November, other than a lot of "story" and "idea" notes and bullshit like that, as evidenced above.

There were maybe three separate though "overlapping" ideas (overlapping in that they may have shared some story elements... I think until I finally DO a story - like actual drawing, actual inking, actually on paper - some of my same ideas will occasionally migrate into various stories I'm thinking of only because I haven't actually exorcised them properly from my brain by using them yet in an actual story, if that makes any sense), and of these three separate ideas I keep eventually jettisoning them because I felt they were going to be longer than 8-pages. I hadn't embraced the Deadline Doom seriously enough to finally say "fuck it" and just DO IT. To a certain extant, I had that Deadline Doom in my DNA way back in the 80s when I did the original Interplanetary Romances 1-pager. Back then, I HAD to commit because the clock was literally running (newspaper deadline, natch!) and I didn't have time to back out. And in hindsight, the eventual story I created suffers from specific storytelling issues because I didn't have time to wrestle the logic or plot problems out. But the deadline also made me make creative solutions on the fly, like really cramming images together in order to get everything I wanted. I mean, visually, that's also a problem, it's way too crammed and doesn't breathe, but I DO like the inventiveness I employed to get certain visuals in: dropping a small circular insert panel to get a close-up; arrows to guide the eye-lines of the reader.

Eh! What are ya gonna do, hah?

ANYWAY, I have to somehow get back into that mindset of urgency and deadline discipline that I had way back when I was working on the school paper. SOMEHOW.

As far as I can see, these were the storylines I was obsessing about and entertaining doing throughout November:

1. 2145 A.D.: THE PERTINACIOUS ODYSSEY OF STARLA SOLARO (see above).

2. DERANGED DETOUR (see also above for some brief explanation).

3. MYSTERY PIT (very rough title): an extended version of KAREN'S DILEMMA, except thoroughly manhandled and re-worked. Now, the protagonist's name is Sondra Kerk and instead of Buff State for a setting, I've set it in the fictional state of EAST Virginia and located near a rip-off of the actual tourist trap, the Mystery Hole (located in the actual state of WEST Virginia, near Hawk's Nest), this time calling it the Mystery Pit. But, I keep wrestling with various UFO abduction tropes and then trying to subvert them, but with no success. 

The tropes I keep coming back to are:

        A. Sondra is abducted because she happens to be standing in a field of cows. The cows are being abducted and she is accidentally sucked aboard the UFO with one of them.

        B. I'm still hanging onto the idea of Gland and his assistant, Adreena, or maybe Gland and Adreena are simply co-pilots, but with very different ideas of what to do on their mission. This is an example of the "overlapping" I'm talking about, since I seem to want to use Gland and Adreena in the STARLA SOLARO story, too.

        C. But, I'm also considering a completely different storyline that uses a Mystery Hole idea I had after we vacationed in W. Virginia: an old woman has been patiently, desperately waiting for a long-lost love who (uh, SPOILER ALERT!) turns out to be an alien. The location of the Mystery Hole is significant to both lovers (but I don't know exactly what that means).   

        D. This morning I had a much darker idea for this story: the aliens are dissecting the cows they abduct and Sondra is horrified at their actions. But then they show her things they've discovered about humans in their years of studying our race, and we see all sorts of atrocities WE'VE done and are part of the social norm: animal testing, lynchings from our recent past with jubilant group photos, the crucifixion, etc. Sondra is horrified and... well, I don't know where to go with this after their idealogical confrontation. Does this story become a complete downer?

4. KAREN'S DILEMMA remake: Jeez. After reading the description for MYSTERY PIT, I realize that that story really isn't KAREN'S DILEMMA at all. So, part of me STILL wants to do a "proper" version of KAREN'S DILEMMA, so that's another idea waiting to be realized.

To sum up, while the STARLA SOLARO story is unwritten, it is loosely based on JANE EYRE, so I have some sort of guideline. However, I now have ambitions to make it a long-form multi-chaptered story, strangely adhering to the Charlotte Bronte novel, maybe. DERANGED DETOUR sort of has a (very rough) Beginning, Middle, and End, but I have to figure it out properly. The MYSTERY PIT story is pretty much up for grabs still in terms of where I'm going with it plot-wise.

Anyway, so now I have ONE big deadline left: December 31, 2020.

Here's my last drawing goal(s) for 2020.

1. 5 DRAWINGS (new or unfinished (now completed))

2. Start working on CAT'S MEOW:

        A. Layout entire story.

        B. Pencil at least one page.

GO.

ALL I NEED IS 8 PAGES! Part...4?

NOTE: Here's ALL I NEED IS 8 PAGES, Part 1.

Saturday, December 26, 3:11 am

So, it's really late. I should go to bed, but I don't wanna. 

I also want to compulsively eat a bologna sandwich, but recently I impulsively made a spontaneous resolution to stop eating after midnight, so... DAMMIT.

Anyway, I fell asleep on the couch earlier and then woke up around midnight.

I've been on the computer more or less since then.

I don't want to go to bed because I feel like I haven't accomplished anything today (yesterday), but it is late, so I should just cut bait and start again tomorrow. NUTS.

Okay, just a quick update.

I've been trying to publish this other post that I started writing in November re: my take on doing a Nanowrimo type comic story. It didn't happen, but I wrote a series of posts in my private diary/blog on the same subject and then I decided to share it, figuring it was "safe" for public consumption, so to speak. But that supposedly simple idea took a detour into unexpected complications that I'm still trying to untangle (i.e. trying to smooth out various seemingly incompatible formatting issues between posting on Facebook and here on blogger). Meaning that, as I write this, I theoretically have 3 other installments that precede this post, but I'm trying to "fix" the first post and get that published first. Hopefully I'll publish that initial post in the next couple days while I'm still off (the next time I work is Monday (12/28)... and I start at 6:30 am. UGHHHH.)

While I try to work through the mess of Part 1, currently I'm still trying to start this comic story, and I feel (again) like I'm on the verge of finally starting something in earnest (meaning, actually having a script, even just for the first page, and then drawing/roughing out that first page, etc.). I mean, I'll believe it when I see it... but, anyway, I'm still struggling with trying to figure out the first page to this story before I go to bed.

Meanwhile, Christmas was good. It was a quiet day because of Covid, etc.

I was up pretty late last night wrapping gifts, and then I woke up and my wife and I had something to eat (she baked some cinnamon rolls... yum!), and then we opened our gifts. Let me say, EVERY Christmas she spoils me and this year was no different.

Afterwards, we went to visit her mom and exchange some gifts. It also snowed last night. Yes! A White Christmas! Okay, in recent years I've really become not that emotionally invested either way whether or not there's snow on Christmas Day or not; in fact, my general concern is whether the snow is going to be a problematic issue re: work, travel, clearing the driveway, etc., and I think that's a reflection of my ongoing aging and crankiness. Still, in this stupid, emotional year, a snowy, White Christmas seemed semi-miraculous and a reprieve from a lot of grief and anxiety. But man, I had to clear a LOT of snow off the car!

Alright, let me do whatever and then go to bed.

To be continued...

1:33 pm

...Indeed.

Meanwhile, I also have a handful of "loose ends" I'd like to address before 2021... and I don't know if I'll be able to pull any of them off. But, as usual, let me make a list and see what I can or can't cross off.

1. Publish previous ALL I WANT IS 8 PAGES posts (Parts 1-3) on this blog.

[NOTE: Finally, here's Part 1! (4/22/21)]

2. Finish posting #30DayFilmChallenge posts at my film blog.

3. Make room for my "new" (well used, but newer) computer.

4. Assemble my drawing table.

5. Try to clean/re-organize my bedroom/workspace.

6. Try to actually make some headway on this comic story. Like, draw Page 1?

Sunday, December 27, 8:36 am

DAMMIT.

I woke up maybe half an hour ago, but I could've slept more. Probably way more.

But Velvet (our black cat) was playing with one of the ornaments on our tree and I could hear her whacking it with her paw. She already spectacularly broke one yesterday. Well, we saw the results on the floor well after the crime was committed - shards of delicate broken glass and very fine gold glitter on the floor beneath the table - but based on circumstantial evidence we assume she's the culprit because 1) she's the only feline that insists on sleeping underneath the tree all curled up on the tree skirt AND 2) Velvet has shown interest multiple times in the hanging ornaments, sometimes standing on her hind feet to reach higher hanging ornaments. Aha!

Anyway, I was up damn late working on the story again, almost until 5:00 am. Way too late by at least a couple hours in terms of "acceptable" late night activity by my thinking.

And... I can tell I'm starting to jump the shark again in terms of story construction.

Whenever I'm attempting to SIMPLIFY a story idea, I seem to immediately start ADDING characters and plot "twists" (oh, believe me, that's a euphemism). Whenever I'm trying to SHORTEN a story, that's a certain cue for me to ADD chapters; the "trick" is I'm keeping the story short by considering a single chapter my story and thus, having my cake and eat it, too: "short" chapters for an "epic" story. And "epic" not necessarily by design but because my story keeps dragging on.

From three main characters, now I'm debating having five characters and a possible sixth minor character, and also, I've significantly complicated my one character's motivations and designs in the story.

That's pretty much where I left it last night when I went to bed.

Maybe I should just chalk up the improbable failure of how "good" this story is going to be to my anticipated "crappy comics period" as a cartoonist/artist. Ot more to the point, maybe I really need to just take the plunge and actually draw a first page and then try to solve story problems with each new page I draw. That would be more productive than I'm being now. Oh, and finally (eventually), put the finished story in a comic titled TALES THAT PROBABLY WON'T MAKE SENSE EVEN BY THEIR CONCLUSION BUT THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR TAKING THE TIME TO READ THEM.

Oh! And I forgot my NUMBER ONE method of attempting to do a comic story that I'm struggling with: start with a BRAND NEW IDEA! That pretty much happened again.

Less than a week ago I was full on fleshing out a "simple" idea using an old character I created when I was in middle school (I think): Super Shlump, an anthropomorphic superhero. Well, after a few days of my typical obsessing with the character and coming up with story ideas, it started getting out of hand, so I bailed and started re-examining "simply" trying to expand my original "Karen's Dilemma!" story (again), but I just can't seem to stop being overly complicated.

So... here I am.

Trapped in several "stories"* I'm not sure how to proceed with (*still debatable if they even qualify as actual stories).

Arggghhhh...

11:30 am

Getting back to Super Shlump.

So, the original idea I had for that Super Shlump story was: SS is all excited to watch the season premiere of this TV show he LOVES, called COOKIE UNLEASHED! Cookie is a sexy female canine-anthropoid ex-undercover cop/current private detective/maybe vigilante. Unfortunately, SS keeps receiving calls for help ranging from the trivial to the spectacular and he's beside himself trying to attend to them all and still be back in time to watch the show. And the constant dynamic/shtick of Super Shlump is that he's a reluctant hero. If anything, he helps out of guilt rather than actual desire to help humanity... uh, that is, his fellow citizens. As far as I can remember, I never did any actual Super Shlump stories back when I first created him. That's pretty much my m.o.: I just come up with characters but never actually do anything with them. So, trying to figure out what to do with SS now was a slightly tough nut to crack: what exactly DID I want to do with him? Well, I finally started to come up with some ideas that seemed to stick (whether these ideas are any good, well, I'm not totally sure...), but I seem to have a comic sidekick now, Zipper the squirrel, and possibly a female neighbor named Totie, another dog - maybe a poodle? Trying to figure that one out. By the way, at least it's Totie for now, still not sure if I'm going to keep that.

Anyway, when I got to the point that I realized that I not only had a protagonist but two possible regular supporting characters (if I decide to continue with SS in additional stories), then I wondered about his origins. When I came up with him, all I had was a simple character design, figured it was going to be funny, and that he was a junkyard dog.

Now I'm wondering how he did come to be, how he got his powers. Also, what kind of world does he live in? Like, what are my rules for these anthropoid creatures? Obviously, it's not just dogs since I have a squirrel character. But even that posed questions: are all of these creatures anthropoidal? When you start dealing with smaller animals, like a squirrel, let's say, I think the temptation is to keep it squirrel, maybe bipedal, but pretty much keep it squirrel-like. While, anthropoid dogs can be less weird looking with human bodies and animal heads. Does that make sense? Or is that just me? It's part of the same question when you see funny animal strips that have various species in the cast, yet they're more or less on the same size level. But in real life, the sizes of those animals are extremely varied. Case in point: in Frank Cho's LIBERTY MEADOWS, one of the animals is a frog yet he's the same size as the other mammalian creatures (there's at least a pig and a dachshund and... a small bear, I think?). 

Okay, I just googled "Liberty Meadows" in an effort to jog my memory on the cast of characters and even Cho "mixes and matches": he not only has a frog character the same size as the pig character, but the dachshund is presented more realistically, like, a regular dachshund. So, in Cho's strip, I think he picks and chooses his approach. Part of me is pretty sure he simply finds the idea of a frog being the same size as the other characters as an amusing "funny animal" conceit, and part of me thinks he just likes to draw what he likes to draw: beautiful sexy women (Brandy, the female protagonist) and a dachshund, because they're cute? Or he has a dachshund? Or both? Digressing slightly, Cho also occasionally goes off on indulgent drawing tangents, doing a single intricately inked drawing for a Liberty Meadows strip and the subject matter sometimes having no connection to the actual LM universe, and he'll excuse its appearance in the strip by disclaiming he's "breaking in new ink nibs" or something to that effect. Actually, I have no problem with those brief digressions. I think they're pretty cool. Anyway, these represent some of the choices Cho makes, and because they come from the strip's creator, it gives some personal flavor to the strip as well.

That inconsistency with animal size is an almost common funny animal conceit in funny animal comics, I'm pretty sure. I mean, Mickey Mouse and Goofy look like inhabit the same universe. True, Goofy's taller to Mickey's shortness, but simply taller the way a regular tall person in comparison with a short person usually is. Except, Mickey's a MOUSE and Goofy's... a dog? And then, Disney complicates things more by the MOUSE owning a REGULAR dog, Pluto, who walks on all fours and doesn't talk, like a dog. Weird. But, as an audience we seem to accept it, pretty much. I mean, I can accept it intellectually and just ignore it the "factual discrepancies," but occasionally I'll stop and think about it (when I'm reading Liberty Meadows, for instance), and it screws with my brain ("why is that damn frog so BIG???"). 

Anyways... bla bla BLA BLA BLAHHH.

I guess I just have to figure out the rules for MY universe. 

And that also includes my drawing style. The original design for Super Shlump is very funny animal looking, but now I'm toying with updating him to be more... realistic looking, for lack of a better world. That approach may be more interesting to look at technique-wise, I think, but I don't know if it's conducive to this type of strip. Like, if Garfield and Odie were more realistically drawn, would GARFIELD be as funny? Questions! Questions! So many questions!

Which means I have to get off my think-y ass and get going with my drawing bad self.

It also occurred to me that I could do an actual mini-comic (as in mini-sized) with Super Shlump's origin. I could even draw it funny animal style, and then for the larger version (10'x15"), do this other SS story with Zipper and Totie and etc.,  and I could try drawing it more "realistically."

These seem like good creative exercises, because I could then compare drawing styles and see what I think and decide how to proceed further if I do decide to follow through with additional Super Shlump adventures... something I have been thinking about, of course.

Alright, I'll leave it there for now.

More to come, of course.

And...

... FIVE DAYS LEFT UNTIL 2021!!!

COVID-19 DIARY - POST #2: "The Caliegia (Remake)" progress report, etc. (Day 33-104)

Saturday, April 18 (Day 33)

Sunday, April 19, 10:40 am

Huh.
Well, it seems I've gotten into a new habit: I go to write something in a post, start with the date and time, and then disappear and not write anything. I was going to write something yesterday but only got so far as, well... you know.

Anyway, here I am. So what? Yes, "so what" indeed.

[NOTE from November 19: Okay, I actually wrote THIS post before my last published post (POST #3), but I didn't realize I never posted POST #2! D'oh! So, here it is, out of order. Sorry!]

It's the third day of the three days off and I really didn't do much work on "The Caliegia" like I hoped. I finally sketched out some very rough character drawings of the title character, much to my unhappiness. The actual sketches are serviceable, but the Caliegia, the creature, makes no sense to me. It seems like an arbitrary combination of animals thrown together: a human torso and head, ram horns, large wings, a horse for the front part of the lower body, and the most mystifying animal element for me, the hindquarters and tail of a large lizard, or perhaps, dragon. All the parts seem unwieldy to me. I'm obviously being too literal or taking this whole thing too seriously, but I think it affects the way I approach drawing it. Ugh.
What-fucking-ever.
It is what it is.
Yes, I'm making changes left and right to the original story and characters, etc., and I'll be honest, I was set to alter the animal composition of the main character if I could come up with a suitable replacement for the dragon ass. But, in attempting to also maintain a "Greenland feel" for the creature, it seemed that viable candidates were mostly impractical because they were primarily sea creatures: walrus, whale, seal. The walrus was perhaps the most compatible in terms of size match-ups, but again, now we're dragging our ass around if the back is all walrus. Another possibility was a polar bear, which seemed interesting, except it's too small compared to a horse. Although, having said that, the dragon section I'm sort of basing it on a prehistoric phytosaur (yeah, I've never heard of that before until I started looking for Greenland beasts, current and prehistoric). 
Oh! But it just occurred to me, maybe there was an ancestor of the polar bear that was larger...?

And it seems there was! There's some possible fossil evidence of a "King Polar Bear" (although in Alaska, but... pfft!). And one site mentions that its elongated skull compared to current polar bears lends itself to some legendary (and modern) tales of the "weasel bear," a bear larger than a polar bear but most notably with a longer neck.

3:00 pm

I told my wife about my wrestling with these various beasts in the Caliegia's description, especially the giant lizard or dragon-ass component and that I just came across the King Polar Bear find, so that I'm going to make some changes. She said that sounds good! Although, she's amused by how hung up I am on this detail in a fantasy story.
That's a legitimate point.
I guess these details are subjective to either a creator or an audience in terms of whether they have issues with it or not with regards to believability. I actually have a tendency towards some unbelievable scenarios in my stories or plots, but once I have that idea or story, I usually try to work on making it (somewhat) believable. But, even that is flexible. Sometimes, genre allows you to get away with an explanation or very little (or no) exposition, because, sometimes an audience is willing to accept something simply because it's in a genre story. That seems lazy on some level, and sometimes it is. But sometimes, an audience doesn't care how something works in a film and will accept that it's there because of the genre. Like, I remember a locally made zombie film, and the opening ten minutes spent a lot of time setting up why this zombie outbreak was happening. At first it was cool and believable, but as more minutes went by and they were explaining more specifics about what happened, it occurred to me that it was overkill. The exposition was no longer interesting but simply keeping us from getting on with the story. We came to see a zombie movie, let's get on with the zombie film.
And, with that in mind, I think I'm committing the same storytelling crime.
ARGH.

Saturday, May 2, 11:28 am

Holy fucking shit. I'm more pathetic than I realized.
So, I re-read some of what I've written above to see where I last left off. My current schedule has been very consistent: three days working, with four days off, including three of those days off all in a row, Friday-Sunday. So last week, I didn't get ANYTHING done on my Caliegia story. Nothing. And I was really looking forward to having those three days off and accomplishing at least something on the story. I mean, hell, my original game plan was to have seven pages of the story done (or at least pencilled) by the end of April and here it is May 2. Holy crap.
But, what I didn't realize was it's been TWO weeks since I last worked on this post. I thought I had scribbled down some progress just last week. Ugh. Man, I simply SUCK.
Although, comparatively speaking, at least I'm keeping some kind of track of my "lack of progress." I mean, I think my usual approach is to do absolutely NOTHING. And have no idea of the passage of time and how I'm accomplishing nothing as said time flies by into oblivion. At least now, I'm keeping some sort of tab and I at least have some kind of anxiety of how every day I seem to be an utter waste. Yay! I'm winning!

In the Netflix documentary, DE PALMA, about, well, filmmaker Brian De Palma (by the way, I'm not sure if it's De Palma or DePalma or Depalma. In the film CARRIE, I think it's spelled Brian Depalma in the opening credits. Whatever) - a doc I've watched at least twice all the way through (most recently a couple weeks ago) and sections of it multiple times (a perk of using a streaming service) - towards the end, he says that a filmmaker's most productive part of his career is in his 30s, 40s and 50s. He uses Hitchcock as an example, saying people mostly talk about his films from that period of his life, not so much his later films. Great. I'm 60. I pissed away my 30s 40s and 50s. Oh, well.
Seriously, there's nothing I can do about it except eat that fact and move on.
Fuck, I kind of blew off my 20s, too. Except for the couple years I worked on the Buffalo State College RECORD.
Anyway, I bring this up because, man, working on this Caliegia story has been like pulling nails. I'm second guessing all my creative choices, and I'm not convinced I can pull off drawing ANY of my ideas, and I say that because I hate all my drawings so far. No, that's not true. I didn't like my original versions of Vampirella introducing the story, but then I think I got a serviceable version of her body. So, progress is there. It's just very slow.
The solution of course, is to JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP AND KEEP FORCING MYSELF TO MAKE PROGRESS, even teensy bits, because even something that's barely progress is mathematically more than zero.
Sorry. Yet another desperate "self pep talk," again.

12:10 pm

Well, I'm on hold with our bank as I try to take care of some stupid stuff. I have, like, a 10-minute estimated wait. And I'm making typos like a muther as I try to type while holding this phone against my ear with shoulder. Grrr...

Yeah, I'm in a seriously depressed state re: this damn Caliegia story. I don't like any of my writing, I don't like any attempts I've done trying to draw the Caliegia character herself. HEAVY SIGH.

Some of my self-doubts are about my attempts to re-write the story. I think I'm just incredibly long-winded, plus, I'm no longer convinced that the so-called "character development" I'm attempting to do between Yura (my name versus writer Nicola Cuti's original, "Djii") - the Caliegia herself - and the hunter, Toklo (versus "Vjor") is developing anything. As I read my dialogue efforts back, I think I'm just having them blab at each other inanely (insert yet another groan).
So, suppose what De Palma says is correct. I blew it. Whatever amazing creative potential I had, it was in the past, and now the past is gone, so suck it up, Kimmel, and enjoy your miserable existence.
Also, if creativity comes from the equivalent of some physical muscle, I believe that muscle would not be my drawing arm, but actually a part of my brain, a muscle that considers how to translate an actual object or subject into pencil and ink lines on the paper so that it looks like said object on the paper to any reader. And if the brain is a muscle, then, like other muscles of the body, it needs to exercise to stay in good working order, especially now that I've hit a certain age (i.e. 60). So, whether I like it or not, this Caliegia story really is, foremost, an exercise. I think any comic story I produce this year is merely an exercise, a step in working-out my creative muscle(s) and trying to get back into drawing (and inking) shape and beyond whatever storytelling shape I was in during my "prime," and by that, I mean my prime age-wise. That goal, of course, could be out of my grasp, but we'll never know. Even if I don't attain a certain excellence in my art that I would have had years ago, I can at least create some artwork and add it to my output rather than have nothing (or pretty damn close to nothing for an "artist" my age).
I guess that was another "self pep talk." I'm not sure how positively motivating it was, but eh! What are you gonna do?

Meanwhile, in my recent obsession with reading underground comics from the 60s and 70s, I now want to read more Rand Holmes after picking up Harold Hedd #2 on eBay. I may get this $35 book on Holmes from Fantagraphics Books. It reprints the Harold Hedd stories, I believe, plus a number of other underground tales he did. Reading HH #2, I was struck by Holmes' artwork as well as the topical subject matter (smoking pot, homosexuality, smuggling marijuana across international borders, etc.), and it made me think of how mundane and nonsensical my ideas for comics are. My comics seem to be about nothing. Probably because I have nothing to say. Another area that needs to be improved, if possible.
Alright, enough of this babbling bullshit. I'm going to put some laundry in the wash and then try to do some work on Caliegia.
Later.

Sunday, May 3, 12:40 pm

Oh, great. I've misplaced my camera. What the hell...

Friday, May 8, 11:23 am

THANK GOD IT'S FRIDAY!
More specifically, THANK GOD I HAVE THREE DAYS OFF!!

In addition, last night in my bumblings along the internet, I came across a current fine arts painter named Roberto Ferri and looking at his work has rejuvenated my enthusiasm for working on THE CALIEGIA.

3:00 pm

Meanwhile, I HAVE found my camera. Yay!
I've also been itching to buy more books/comics on-line. I wanted to get some more collected Wally Wood material, but some of that stuff is out of print, or excessively expensive because it's out of print, or it's available digitally (Kindle, etc.), a path I'm not really interested in going down if I don't have to.
Oh, but I'm going to spend more money, don't you worry! I'm just going to have to do some more research as to what to spend that money on...
Meanwhile, yesterday, I received my limited edition copy of Jan Strnad and Richard Corben's MUTANT WORLD and SON OF MUTANT WORLD.

3:43 pm

Ugh, my brain is all over the place.
I have to buckle down and get something accomplished.
I just have to do some drawing today. SOME thing. It's turned into this insurmountable proposition. I can't seem to do anything I like, but maybe I have to just crap out a bunch of hideous work and finally get to the good stuff in the process. For instance, this is a drawing I did a couple weeks ago. I don't like it, especially the face (not to mention, now that I look at it more, the eyes are crooked-- the right eye is slightly higher than it should be. Grrrr!). But, I did discover I liked the effect of covering up one of her Yura's breasts with her hair. I thought it increased the erotic quality of the image. And the drawing itself isn't too bad, kinda-sorta. I'm just fussy.
Grrrr..!

Oh, and though I didn't elaborate on it much in the drawing, the bottom of her IS supposed to be a horse.

Sunday, May 10, 8:30 pm

Holy crap! This is, like, going to be the FOURTH three-day weekend in a row that's gone by that I haven't really moved forward on this damn story!
I have to puke out something tonight.
If it sucks, then I have to work on fixing it, but even something shitty is better than a page absolutely BLANK.
ARGHHH!

Thursday, May 21, 9:06 am

Today's Thursday. I'm starting a four day weekend. Usually I work Thursdays, but I switched shifts with another guy this week to have today off. Something going on today with my wife at her work and I'm busy being the spouse. We'll be practicing social distancing-- oh, yeah, that's still going on.
Anyway, so I'm starting my SIXTH multiple day weekend. There's also ELEVEN DAYS left in the month. I really have very little to show progress-wise on this freaking comic book story. Part of me is thinking I have eleven days to do some significant progress or else, I should just throw in the towel and decide to do something else with my life.
But, I have to do some other crap with regards to this event with my wife. So, later!

Friday, May 22, 11:48 am

Okay, I have some catching up re: yesterday but now we're planning on getting some gardening crap done and I'm planning on being the dutiful spouse. In other words, gardening is not my bag. Which means I have to get dressed and clean out my car's trunk to make room for soil, etc., because my wife's car is getting inspected and also an oil change and maybe some other work done today. Ughh...
But, yesterday turned out pretty good!

2:17 pm

Well, I guess I'm having another productive day, although, not in regards of drawing. I've been doing house chores, including cutting the freaking grass yesterday (which turned out to be herculean task due to the ground still being wet and the lawn tractor's battery being low on power). Today I've finally tried cleaning out my car trunk, which turned out to be an archeological dig. Found lots of my CDs back there, though!

Sunday, June 28, 3;11 am

Wow. It's been over a month since I last updated this post. Well, what else is new?
So, I'm going to wrap this post up and move on because there have been some developments in my life and the world, and like my dad has often said and I often quote him saying it, "Time waits for no man."
In terms of my life, my best friend Steve has returned to Facebook. I don't know how long this will last, but he's back and that's not a bad thing at all. He doesn't spend much time on FB, I don't think, but he has been dropping comments on my FB page. Especially when I'm posting my typical cat GIFs that I've found on the internet. And his comments have been about me wasting time on the internet when I could be drawing the comic book story he wrote for me to draw back in, like, 1984 (literally).
I'm not really sure about the exact year, but it was definitely in the mid to early 80s.
I can't remember if I asked him to write me a story to draw or he did it spontaneously and sent it to me, but either way, he wrote me this horror story. It's called "The Cat's Meow" and it's very "The Tell-tale Heart" in spirit. To the best of my recollection, I started working on this story three different times (at least), the first two attempts yielding almost a full first page pencilled, but two different approaches. One exhibited my fascination with manga at the time as I utilized speed or action lines in one of the panels. The other approach chose a more cinematic style (though studied), not so much in shot selection but as if I was using a tracking camera and moving from one destination to another.
The third time I tried to draw this script, I mostly concentrated on taking photos of my fellow employees as possible character models, but it never got to the drawing stage, or not much of one.
Anyway, cut to 2020: Steve's back on FB, dropping hints on where's this comic book story? And... I planned on getting to it, finally, this year, as a matter of fact, juts later. It was to be part of my first year as a sexagenarian and my late stages of pursuing some sort of art career, or at least, updating/improving my measly and outdated portfolio.
"The Caliegia" was going to be my first effort and this goofy fan art based on this local cosplayer was going to be this other one. And then, maybe I 'd start "The Cat's Meow" except, I'd have to find the script first, and I'm pretty sure I have it... somewhere in this basement...
But, that initial strategy has all been scrapped and now "The Cat's Meow" has taken my primary attention, more or less. I've been talking to Steve about me actually doing this fucking story for once and how I had to track down the script first, but he miraculously located the script first and e-mailed me a copy.
So, Step One, I have the script again!
Step Two: well, draw the damn thing.
I think my actual Step Two is rough out the entirety of the story first. I really have no clue how many pages this thing is going to be, and I think it would help if I knew that. Plus, laying out the damn story, even roughly, would be a huge accomplishment for me.

Meanwhile, in the world at large, other things have been transpiring. New York State is slowly trying to open back up... we're at Stage Four, or maybe Three, I don't really know. but, people are going back to work and the general public is starting to do things like eat out again. Meanwhile, some people feel like their rights are being infringed upon if they have to wear a mask out in public. Some people have just been acting like things are back to normal in terms of social interaction and that's a cause of some disagreements, another topic of draw-the-line bickering on Facebook, Twitter, etc. Meanwhile, on May 25, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, four policemen were arresting a black man named George Floyd, and as they were arresting him, they put him to the ground and one officer kneeled on the back of his neck. Whether you feel it was or wasn't a proper use of force, the real issue is the officer stayed on his neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds and Floyd eventually died of suffocation, despite his cries of being unable to breathe and despite the fact that three other officers were present witnessing this.
This led to public backlash and the slogan "Black Lives Matter" was in the news again and protests erupted nationwide. Except this time the protests became a persistent rallying cry and even now there are some protests still persisting. So, this has been going on.
Finally, just this week, a local film and theater actor passed away after being in ill health for a while. His name was Michael O'Hear and we knew each other through the WNY film community circles, and prior to his death, he had been in the hospital and there was a GoFundMe going on to raise money for his medical expenses. I knew he was in bad health, but 72 hours before he died, I thought he was on the road to some sort of recovery in a sub-acute care facility. And then, suddenly he was dead. He had taken a turn for the worse and I didn't realize it until he was gone. Michael is the fourth person I know who has died since the whole social distancing started. 

Sue K. (her maiden name) who I knew when I was going to Buff State, died suddenly while taking out the garbage of all things (she lived in another state). Apparently she collapsed in her driveway. If I understand correctly from her brother, because of Covid, we'll never really know why she died so abruptly and her death was ruled due to natural causes. 

Another friend, R., succumbed to cancer after having beaten it for several years. Sadly, the cancer had resurfaced in recent months. 

Also, the brother of my sister-in-law passed away as well. Because of the Covid lockdown going on across the country, all of these people didn't and won't have the usual send-off with friends and loved ones we usually expect since we now have to live by social distancing restrictions. Michael's death was the most prominent example because a large number of friends have been mourning his passing the last several days and they'll have to wait for some kind of memorial in the future when it's deemed safe to do so, I'm assuming, hoping.

I'm NOT saying we shouldn't be social distancing nor that we shouldn't be wearing masks. I'm not saying that at all.
I've been very fortunate so far with regards to health and also being able to work, so to a certain extent, I've been blessed considering the fact that a lot of actual shit's been going on.
And I've been feeling very mortal lately.
On a superficial level, I just need to motivate my ass and get some shit done before it's my time to go...

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.

STELLARA ULTRANOVA (Part 3): I STILL have no freaking clue what to do with this character...

Tuesday, December 31 (New Year's Eve), 4:43 am

Man, I fell asleep on the couch tonight and woke up like 45 minutes ago.
My dinner plate was still on the TV tray/table next to me, with some uneaten squash on it. There was also the bowl with what was left of my salad.
The heater was still on and I shut that off.
I finished drying some clothes that were in the dryer, then took those out and threw in the wet pants from the washer and started drying those.
Then, I've been on the computer surfing Facebook ever since.
Compelling lifestyle, huh?

Anyway, getting back to Stellara Ultranova.

5:21 am

I just re-read my last post on this whole concept. I also did a little editing on it, because, well, I could.
One of the things I shared in that post were my three basic inspirations for working on this idea and this was the third one:

I decided to do the poster/DVD cover for Beaver Alley Studios' film, A CHRISTMAS MONSTROSITY. It's due in less than 2 weeks and I haven't done actual shit on it, yet. Hmmm, typical. Meaning, with regards to Stellara Ultranova, this whole obsession I have with her has nothing to do with impulsive artistic inspiration, etc., but in reality, it's simply me avoiding working on the CHRISTMAS MONSTROSITY poster. AHA! J'Accuse, Kimmel!

With this in mind, a fourth reason is me avoiding working on my Apple Corps Comics (ACC) story that I hoped I would finish a year ago (January 2019).

11:05 am

And I just re-read that post from January 2019 and, well... wow.
Okay, a number of things. It's just interesting to see how I consistently have NO idea of what I'm doing when I'm coming up with an idea and how it keeps changing all the time. The original post was about a story called "Joyride" I was thinking about and then I bring up my ACC story and also, I discuss several ideas and characters for my funny animal concept for a comic series, TABLE SCRAPS. I'm all over the place. And I don't think I'm developing an idea... I'm just changing my mind a lot.
Which is par for the course, and that's fine, if that's my usual brainstorming method, but, I really need to supplement these verbal idea-spews with some actual drawing, even if they're only doodles.

Saturday, January 4, 2020, 3:09 am

Dammit, I really need to go to bed. I've been mostly on the internet for the last couple hours. Although, at least tonight, I've been unusually diligent (well, for me) in looking up various topics and questions in terms of research for possible ideas/plots/concepts for further developing Stellara Ultranova. One idea I have is calling this sci-fi comic DREGS and the main characters being Stellara and her two best friends, Eltron Gammastorm and Akidra Magnestar. Yeah, I know! Aren't all of these characters' names the corniest things you're ever read??? Ah, sue me!

Friday, January 17, 10:59 am

Yes. I'm still focusing, thinking about things that I have deemed are lower priority.
From a 2020 Art Goal perspective, these should be my Top 3:

1. My ACC story.
2. Overhauling my "portfolio."
3. Finishing the A CHRISTMAS MONSTROSITY poster.

Yes.
BUT, I still keep thinking about STELLARA ULTRANOVA aka DREGS.
YES YES YES. I know!

Well, I'll just say this by way of a brief update: I've now changed Stellara's friends' names to Fracas Magnestar and Akidra Gammastorm. The word "fracas" popped into my head the other day and I suddenly thought that might be a much more interesting name for Eltron than "Eltron," especially since my original name for him was Deltron, but there was already a famous Deltron in pop-culture so I altered it slightly, but then I thought the name became less interesting. Fracas is much better. Also, I switched Fracas' and Akidra's surnames because I'm thinking Akidra is more plugged into the emotion of anger, so this seemed a much more appropriate fit.

Friday, February 7, 3:51 pm

Yesterday, I think... (oh, who cares!) I started thinking about using the idea of the captivity narrative as basis for a possible template for plotting out a bunch of stories and timelines for my DREGS idea. My wife is the one who has a PhD, specifically researching the history of one woman, Susannah Johnson, who wrote her own account of her and her family being captured by the Abenaki Indians in August 1754 during the French and Indian War. My wife published a version of that narrative annotated with hundreds of historical footnotes. Anyway, before I met my wife, I didn't even realize there existed a literary genre called a captivity narrative, and Susannah Willard Johnson is a particularly fascinating subject in terms of the woman herself and also the many ways her family intersect the history of the time.
So, it occurred to me that perhaps a conscious effort to transplant the captivity narrative idea might be cool to my DREGS idea, except with a sci-fi leaning. Maybe.

Friday, March 20, 1:13 pm

Or maybe not, re: the captivity narrative angle. Ah, who knows! Certainly not me.
Anyway, an UPDATE 42 days after my last entry above.
So, the biggest thing that's happening to me is the World News: we're in the middle of a Covid-19 virus (aka Coronavirus aka Wuhan Virus) pandemic! Amy's been home from school since this past Tuesday (March 17, St. Patrick's Day). She's been preparing this week to teach on the internet next week. Schools are closed, the St. Patrick's Day parades locally and nationally were cancelled, and as of half an hour ago, NY State Governor Andrew Cuomo declared that 100% of businesses should be closed except for essential businesses. Yesterday, Cuomo declared 75% closed.
Yes, so this is a big change of narrative in terms of this individual post. However, being the single-minded artist I am (...Really? That's a bit much, dude...), the current state of self- and government-imposed "social isolation" is painting a perception of secluded isolation, namely, the perfect environment for CREATING ART. YES! And also doing household chores... dammit.
So, I'm specifically starting a series of posts intended to document my efforts to be more productive creatively during these unique and uncertain times, and my ideas, etc. for STELLARA ULTRANOVA won't be left out, by god! The first post is under the title "PORTRAIT OF A WANNA-BE ARTIST DURING COVID-19."

I have two specific Stellara ideas I'd like to do during this period. One is a pin-up, the other is a short, sort of quasi-stream-of-consciousness story that touches on various ideas I have for the concept that I'm just going to distill down into this one story, almost like a trailer or illustrated concept pitch for a series, for lack of a better description.
If I finish the pin-up or the first page of the story, I'll add it here as a graphic.

Having said that, I'm going to wrap this up and move on.
To be continued...