Year End’s Odds and Ends
Belated Happy Birthday to Ivy! We went to Disneyland for her birthday on Tuesday after a very full day of work Monday, and yesterday was a lot printing and mailing, so I didn’t get much blogging, tweeting, or, um… facing… in this week.
Round One of the “rough draft” for the graphic novel is done! I’ll be working on revisions/rewrites for the next couple of months and then, starting in March, I’ll be doing finished art for two years. The book is currently at a whopping 461 pages, but I’m hoping it’ll get shorter in revisions. (Note that my “rough draft” is basically just a rough sketched-out version of what the finished book will look like, all captions and balloons in).
Fun fact: My roughs are done forty pages at a time in a single photoshop document so I can slide panels back and forth and think of the flow more organically and not let the page dictate pacing too much. They’re really big files!
The whole family is getting into the Avett Brothers this year.
Winter and I finally finished watching Deathnote on DVD. All the kids in anime club were yelling at her to finish it already so they could talk about it. That is one crazy show! (And oh, man, that opening theme and animation for Season 2…)
Still loving Mad Men.
The preview for Iron Man 2 makes me feel 14 years old again. In a good way.
Best comic of the year? For me, probably Asterios Polyp, but now that I have a bit of free time, I need to read a few more contenders.
Creatively, I thought 2009 was a great year for comics, music, and movies. Financially, though, it sucked donkey balls for a lot of people in our community. Let’s hope ’10 is better.
Happy New Year!
March 3, 2021
Perhaps 09’s Financial suckage and creative awesome are related. Creativity in the face of adversity. Lots of starving artists giving it their all.
Happy new year to you too, and happy almost birthday to your almost one year old blog! And thank you for all the great stuff you introduced to us this year.
dorka
YEA!! Congrets on getting the rough draft!
We all have our own whacky ways of working but yours, as always, takes the quirky cake!
(Heh. Speaking of contenders, guess what’s at the top of my pile?)
The *real* craziness is when people start finding all the hidden patterns in the story itself!
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Rough draft excitement! Congrats.
Watched some of the Death Note episodes recently,the animation for the opening theme in the second season was awesome!
“sucked donkey balls”?lol.
Waiting in anticipation for the Sculptor.
That’s awesome regarding the rough draft. Very exciting.
I agree that Asterios Polyp could be the best graphic novel this year — it’s amazing.
Asterios Polyp….when I was reading it,for some reason the question “What’d it’s point?” and a friend of mine who read part of it had the same feeling too.Also,I didn’t get the point of that ending with the asteroid.Still,yes,it was amazing.
This is just me but:
–SPOILER–
It’s a story of loss, growth, and redemption. A man who took so much for granted. A man who allowed only his model of reality to inform his behavior. A man haunted by the life he could have lead.
We meet him at the bottom of his despair and regret. Then Fate/God/Whateveryoubelieve intervenes, and forces him to start a new life.
There he learns a great deal about the complexity of human nature, a complexity that doesn’t easily fit into his narrow perception of reality. He learns to live instead of just critiquing life. And he has to learn this. Why? Because he must reclaim what he lost. Love.
He learns humility. And lets go of the burden of “The life he could have lead.” He finds love again.
Why the asteroid? Well, this is just me, but:
The story is bookended by acts of nature that are too substantial to be chance. It’s almost like Fate/God intervened to send this man on a journey. A journey that he must complete before he dies. It was his time to die. It was her time to die. They would have died alone, but now they got to share this one incredibly human moment together.
It moved me.
Christ.I don’t think I’ll ever need another explanation on Asterios Polyp ever again after that,lol.
Well, don’t let my explanation over simplify it for you. There are so many hidden gems in the book. It gains a lot from subsequent readings.
donkey balls huh? that’s pretty bad…;)
C’mon Scott – make that rough draft final ASAP!
Just read your book, “Understanding Comics” (Kitchen Sink Press) last night (job makes me something of a vampire). It’s been on the book shelf for several years and I “discovered” it again last night. I don’t even remember buying it.
It was once a dream of mine to be a cartoonist, but in my younger days, my discipline was, shall we say, lacking. That, and intimidation due to ignorance of the business aspect of it kept me from going there. Now, as retirement age approaches, the pen and paper are beckoning.
I don’t know if I can do it. It’s kind of like dating. I haven’t done either in years. The rust is thick. Dating, I can do without. But, comics? I think you may have started something there with your book.
Unlike going back to an old girlfriend, I think my wife will understand my need to start drawing again.