INKtober day nine–hereafter

i have started reading the obituaries. i know. it is a dark habit. the thing is, i am living back where i grew up, so it’s like i’m searching the crowd for a familiar face. except they’re dead faces. but that’s the thing. the pictures were taken when they were still alive. that’s the part that fascinates me. some of the pictures are from the 80’s or even older. some are recent. whenever i look at them, i wonder if there was any inkling at all, that this would be the picture put in their obituary. did they pick the picture? some maybe, the ones who knew it was coming. others didn’t know. like the car crashes, shootings, house fires. who picks their picture? why did they pick that one? out of spite? because they sincerely thought it was a good picture?
i told dusty not to use a picture from when i was younger. it’s just confusing and weird to me. he agreed–except he said he would use this one:

because i always joke that i look like mike myers (actor not fictitious serial killer) in it. so he is saying he would use this picture & say that mike myers died.

also! today’s picture was a shout out to my series “old people with animal parts.” you can click on my page called “art by em” and see them. i love that series. old people faces are very artistic. i’m not sure why i added the animal parts, but i felt like it worked. so i decided to try it again and picked a face out of the obituaries and started. i might have picked too happy of a face. wow, he looks happy. i do better with somber faces, i think. and  it turned into some sort of pagan hereafter picture. i’m not sure (once again) what my picture is about. youse all can decide for yourselves. i just draws ’em.

i like that inktober is giving me a chance to try new things. i don’t know if this one was successful, but i finished it. i’m hoping i will find new directions & new inspirations by the end of the month.

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feelin’ like a comic slut

so, like the oxymoron i am, i am a very modest exhibitionist. why, just the other day i was about to get a pelvic exam at the doctor’s and i was like, “you want to look at my what?” which is especially silly since i have given birth four times. maybe someone has managed to have a modest birth, but that person is not me. my first two i was strapped down naked to a table & cut open. my second two i walked around mostly naked for several hours–not caring who saw me–writhing in pain & eventually pushing someone out my twat while someone took pictures. ah, childbirth.

that too-much-information introduction is to set the scene for how i feel about my on-going adventure with networking. yesterday, through the forum webcomic underdogs, i learned about comic rocket, smack jeeves, and comic fury. so i am trying to put moses jones on all of those sites as well. additionally, i decided to actively post her on ello & tsu, which i have pages on, but not really any content…yet. and how often should i post? daily seems like over-doing it. twice a week? three times a week? which days? i like thursday. it is such a nice day. maybe sunday too…. i only have been posting once a week on tapastic & deviant art, but i kinda shot my load on tapastic by posting all of my moses jones (almost) to date.

so many places to be.

plus! last night i drew panels for trying a page of lisa the lion as well as a page of hey diddled. i want to get those going & post them on their own page of a comic site as well.

what to do with the children…closet? duct tape? public school? we’ll see…. (right now 3 out of 4 of them are screaming while i try to update this blog. ah, a day in the life of the stay-at-home graphic novelist.)

my favorite

here is the last one in my series of “old people with animal parts.” this one is my favorite.

i haven’t finished anymore moses jones. i have been trying to catch up on sleep instead. i think over the weekend? maybe? i hope to get a chance, but–fuck it–i really need some sleep. again, i appeal to the universe for a benefactor…a personal assistant…an extra two or three hours to the day….

hopefully i will be back before the weekend…maybe with just a sketch or another older piece to post.

captain tentacles

seems i’ve developed a facial tic…it isn’t the first time. i have a tendency to ignore stress until it starts manifesting in physical ways. facial tics are one of my go-to stress alerts. except i googled it & found that women my age are the most common sufferers of something called hemifacial spasm which starts as an eye twitch and keeps on keeping on until one entire side of the face is spasming. as if i don’t have enough self-esteem issues. now i’m worried i’m going to end up looking like the joker unless i start getting more sleep, finding more ways to de-stress, and quitting coffee. coffee is a cinch. sleep & less stress…not so much.

i started this post yesterday. only got so far as this. then i went to bed at 6pm. yet i am still tired. i feel a bit better today. but i also feel like a boiling pot of ants. i wish i could just pick up & change my whole life…but with four kids & a disgruntled ex…that’s easier said than done.

anyhoo. here is the 6th in my series of “old people with animal parts.” he is my second favorite. i really do like the idea of creating an old people with animal parts comic. because i just kind of let the picture tell me what the animal part would be. it seems like there could be a lot more to the experience…so here’s hoping i don’t stroke out before i get a chance to write that comic!

dear lady

i have the layout painted & the text written…but i have not finished page eight yet. it’s been a rough few days with a cranky baby who does not want to let me sleep. so i’m pooped. i have text for at least 2 more pages, but i also have a bunch of geography homework. maybe i can do some drawing while listening to podcasts….

so here is my deer lady. she is interesting because the photograph i was using as a model was of this very flamboyant man, mustache & everything…& then i realized it was actually a lady. i left off her mustache when i drew her portrait. and added a deer hoof, of course.

what will i do when i run out of ready art and do not have new art? y’all want to see random doodles or mine? or i could start posting my kids’ artwork. there is NO shortage of art there….

i know i would prefer to be posting a new page every day, but alas–i am but human.

not the devil

just another old person with animal parts. i will run out of these soon. i am saving my favorites for last. meanwhile, i do know what happens on the next page of moses jones but have not had a chance to write it down or do a preliminary sketch to figure page layout, etc. hopefully tonight! being an overtime mom & a halftime student really puts limits on one’s time & energy. trust me, you don’t have to try it yourself–unless you are so inclined.

mama/artist/student…not for the timid nor the weak of heart!

but i love it.

again, if anyone wants to be my benefactor so i can hire a personal assistant & get more art produced, i would not be too proud to take help.

here is my kudu horned fella. he looks very devilish, but that wasn’t necessarily the intent.

i wondered while i was doing this project if the old people were morphing towards their next life or if the animal bits were symbolic of the naturalness of aging…or if their animal nature became more exposed with age…. hmmm…might make a good comic…..

smoking cockatiel

i’ve been doodling…thinking about plot & the worldscape of my comic…but i’m stuck a bit on the what happens next. i have next year’s story written…& five years from now i know what happens, but the here & now is escaping me.

i remember as a kid, going and seeing king kong in the theater–no, not that one, the jeff bridges 1970’s king kong. it was my first pg movie. but, anyhoo, from that movie and similar movies of the ’70s, i deduced that a good movie starts out slow & one must endure the slow parts to make it to the exciting parts–hopefully without falling asleep.

setting the scene, i would call it now.

i’m trying to set the scene & ease us all into moses jones’s world. it’s trickier than i would think. or, rather, it’s not as simple as my six year old deduction of “that’s just how it is.” there is a craft to it. i don’t want to just show all my cards…but i want it to be enticing….

and that’s what i’m working on.

meanwhile, here is another in the “old people with animal parts” series. my cockatiel lady.

moses jones will be back after this short break….

bunny ears

the good news is i am close to having my geography homework done…not a whole lot has been retained in my brain, but hopefully some of it made it through the maze of zombies and worries and worries about zombies to root in my brain and make me a bit more geographically intelligent….
the bad news is that i have not yet written or drawn page six of moses jones. so here is another in the series of old people with animal parts.
i was just reading about russia in my geography book, so my brain picked this old person–who looks mildly slavic to me–to post tonight.

leopard head

i was totally going to do another page tonight, but then i fell asleep trying to get my toddler to bed…she was doing this awesome thing of screaming at me instead of laying down for bed. she is two & a half, but she refuses to talk. sometimes that happens with kids. i’m told i didn’t talk until my irish twin (born 13 months after me) started talking. so my toddler is a great communicator. she is a gifted mime & knows a lot of sign language, but when she is frustrated, angry, or very very tired–she resorts to this ear piercing scream. so lovely. but i actually fell asleep to her screaming at me. i guess i was just that tired. and i did not wake up to blow off my geography & draw page six of moses jones. instead, i am posting a picture i did for my drawing I class final–crosshatch–a series called “old people with animal parts.”

enjoy!