the squatters

so i always tell my kids that if they want to get better at something–they need to practice…& i have noticed that over the past 8 years of being a mom–i have gotten really good at picking up toys & doing dishes (insert sad sigh here)…. but what i want to be good at is comics. so i have to keep moving forward with my moses jones. i am not sure how i feel about this picture. i messed up a few times…i had to stop to put a baby to back to sleep once or twice…my paint brush & i had a few disagreements…and my lettering is crooked. however, i have not put up a new moses jones picture in several days. i thought about putting up more confusion perfume, but then just felt like i was re-running the comic strip “cathy”….

so here are a handful of new characters for moses jones to bounce off of. hopefully as i keep putting out pages, my technique will improve. with confusion perfume & other previous comics, i did “penciling” before i inked. for some reason that process–though prudent–did not suit me. so i do all my pictures with ink first, then some more ink, and i finish with ink. as i joked in a comment on one of my posts, i am used to living with my mistakes. i like the permanency of ink. i never have enjoyed pencils…or erasers. i would rather do a whole page over than to play it safe & pencil the image in first…yes, i live on the edge….

so here is a new page. another roll call page. hopefully page four will not be too far behind. even though it is only like the third week of classes, i have given up on my geography class and can devote more time to my comic…. i wish! i am too neurotic about my grades & about not being the “good student” i always have been (also known as the “good employee”)…. i really do wish i could just tell my geography class to go fuck itself…but i am a bit o.c.d. & cannot do that. so i will daydream about moses jones as i try to read about southeastern asia.

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roll call–the minions

kids are hard to draw. they are also hard to write. i anticipate this to be the most difficult part of this comic. i have always hesitated to include my kids in any of my fiction–because i don’t want to fall flat. i want their characters to be alive & kicking. plus there are just so damn many of them–but if i leave one or more of them out, i will never hear the end of it.
i guess we’ll find out how good of an artist/writer i am….
ps. i threw in the dog because one.) i love dogs, especially cattle dogs & think they would be the best dog for fighting zombies and two.) i receive a lot of comments when i go out in public with my four kids. recently i was told, “all you need now is a dog.”

dusty knickers–the accused

moses jones is repeatedly seduced by this questionable character. each encounter seems to conclude with another child. yet he remains a mysterious stranger.  dusty is alarmingly pretty for a man–with alluring big, blue eyes.

moses jones–roll call

i am working on “cast pictures” of my main characters–the ones i know about so far. today is the main lady–moses jones.

yesterday in the writer’s workshop i am in this semester, we talked about not writing the story in your head–but letting the story tell itself on the paper. this is largely how i do write. i get ideas. i write down partial ideas. i let these ideas evolve. sometimes for decades. it’s not procrastination–it’s creation–it’s evolution.

the story is starting to unfold for me in my scribbles & sketches…hopefully it will show up here sooner rather than later.