Tag: illustrating

Serious things

“What did you do last night?” she asked as we walked through the neighborhood in the pre-dawn moments of the day.

“I worked ’til six. Clocked out. Made supper. And spent a couple hours drawing.”

She did not say anything for a few dozen steps. She took the kidlingers on an adventure the night before. And she was tired.

I continued. “The challenge is that it takes me nearly an hour to set up. Not just gathering tools like pencil, ink, brush, illustration board, and setting up a space to work. But planning. Composing a page. Thumbnail sketches. Reference materials and such.”

She listened. We walked further. In the hour before sunrise, I looked East. I saw Venus. Or maybe Regulus. Possibly both.

“By the time everyone got home,” I said. “I had finished marking out a page and composing three panels.”

She told me about a conversation with the one of the kidlingers as we walked. We exchanged comments about plans for the day. We continued for a quarter mile or so before returning home.

Thoughts of last night’s drawings were pushed into the shadows of a day filled with choses sérieuses.

Narrative Non-Fiction Comics: UPDATE

The Indie features part one of my creative non-fiction comic, Strange Familiar Place, this month. It has been a year of trying to find a place courageous enough to take the risk on a no-name amateur artist.

The Indie is available at: Malaprops, True Blue Arts, Pack Library, Woolworth Walk, Rosetta’s Kitchen, Mellow Mushroom, Hannah Flannagan’s, Fine Arts Theater, Early Girl Eatery, Port City Java, Burgermeisters, Lucky Otter, West End Bakery and many other locations.

Previous thoughts and intimations on creative non-fiction comics: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]

Narrative Non-Fiction Comics: Update

The publisher received the first installment of my creative non-fiction comic this week. It has been almost a year since a posted about a creative non-fiction comic I’ve been illustrating and writing. 1 2 3 4 5

The irony is that Drawn,6 an illustration and cartooning blog, posted this on Monday:7 “Goodbye one-page diary comics; everyone’s blogging now.”

It appears the one the inspirations8 for my work now has a blog (which isn’t bad) but he posted this: “In the old days i’d have made a one-page … but today we squander our narratives in a blog.”

The first installment is due to hit the streets in December and the medium is horribly dated. Another source of inspiration9 has a blog as well but hasn’t updated since 2003. However, Vertigo released a five-issue miniseries by him that began in September.10

Maybe it’s not as bad as Drawn considered.

NOTES:
1) Coffeehousejunkie, “Comics and Narrative Non-Fiction,” November 3, 2005, accessed June 17, 2026, https://coffeehousejunkie.net/2005/11/03/comics-narrative-non-fiction/
2) Coffeehousejunkie, “Comics and Narrative Non-Fiction Continued,” November 18, 2005, accessed June 17, 2026, https://coffeehousejunkie.net/2005/11/18/comics-narrative-non-fiction-continued/
3) Coffeehousejunkie, “Narrative Non-Fiction Comics: part 3,” January 4, 2006, accessed June 17, 2026, https://coffeehousejunkie.net/2006/01/04/narrative-non-fiction-comics-part-3/
4) Coffeehousejunkie, “Narrative Non-Fiction Comics: part 4,” January 11, 2006, accessed June 17, 2026, https://coffeehousejunkie.net/2006/01/11/narrative-non-fiction-comics-part-4/
5) Coffeehousejunkie, “Narrative Non-Fiction Comics: part 5,” February 14, 2006, accessed June 17, 2026, https://coffeehousejunkie.net/2006/02/14/narrative-non-fiction-comics-part-5/
6) Drawn!, accessed June 17, 2026, http://drawn.ca/ (page no longer available, web site deactivated)
7) Matt, “Are blogs killing one-page diary comics?,”November 27, 2006, Drawn!, accessed June 17, 2026, http://drawn.ca/2006/11/27/are-blogs-killing-one-page-diary-comics/ (page no longer available, web site deactivated)
8) Eddie Campbell, November 30, 2006, eddiecampbell.blogspot.com, accessed June 17, 2026, http://eddiecampbell.blogspot.com/
9) Harvey Pekar, November 30, 2006, http://www.harveypekar.com/categories/harveyPekar/, accessed June 17, 2026, https://www.warnerbros.com (page no longer available)
10) DC, November 30, 2006, accessed June 17, 2026, https://www.dc.com/comics?cm=5975 (page no longer available)