the music of Heinz von Hermann

This morning I was working on the graphic novel, and had his music on in the background. Several times I became aware of how good his stuff sounded and felt. You don't have to be a household name to be solidly worthwhile and satisfying. [Maybe that can be my goal as well!]

This mixed media illustration from my WIP is getting a decent response from those who've seen it, so I thought it might be fun to share here:

Completing an entire comic page, start to finish, in one day! I can't remember the last time I was able to do this. [I'm sure today's achievement is in part due to the extremely rare occurrence of a day with no appointments, no errands, no obligations, and minimal chores, along with a relatively pain-free hand/arm.]

Today I finished drafting the script for my graphic novel. Now to draw it! Now to figure out how to draw it!

This is such an odd project for me, and such an odd place for my head to be in during a project. I can imagine all sorts of problems and complaints readers will have with what I'm doing and how I'm doing it, but none of them dissuade me. I feel like I've never before made a comic that is so much for me, and if other people don't like it, that doesn't mean I'm wrong. It's weird not needing to worry about audience reaction....

Just decided I wanted to update my influence list, o lucky reader!

Here are my current all-time Top Ten Cartoonists. Today's list is geared toward those whose work I not only enjoy and appreciate, but whose work speaks to and inspires my own current work. So they're more about where my cartooning head is at right now — therefore, some old major idols and influences don't appear, or appear differently ranked:

1. Bill Watterson
2. Dik Browne
3. Alex Toth
4. Lee Holley
5. Hank Ketcham
6. George Lichty
7. Mort Walker
8. Frank Robbins
9. Jaime Hernandez
10. Leonard Starr

And, to flesh things out further, here's my Top Ten of cartoonists currently working:

1. Jon McNaught
2. Thom
3. Anthony Auffret
4. Vera Brosgol
5. Pascal Girard
6. Seth
7. Julien Neel
8. Brian Crane
9. Tonči Zonjić
10. Tauhid Bondia

Enjoy and/or dig!

making a breakthrough [okay, maybe more like a baby step forward] in designing a character for my graphic-novel WIP

Getting enough comic strips drawn to give myself a buffer of time so that I can try to produce a painting as a gift for an upcoming special occasion.

[Sometimes my creative life feels like I'm spinning plates.]

[Actually, the other parts of my life do, too. Just Sayin®.]

I was recently talking with Barbara about a local artist [acrylic painter] I have met and conversed with a few times... and how I always find it flattering but odd when I realize that said artist talks with me [and about me] as if I am a peer. Barbara says that I am one and should certainly see myself that way, but I have trouble with this. Then she got talking about whether I realize that I am a good artist, and that my art is good.

Afterward I thought about it for a while, and realized that I do think that my work is generally Good Enough®, but I don't think of it as Good®. Since then, I've been struggling to define for myself just what the difference is, between good enough and good.

Finally I settled on something like this: if I look at a piece of mine, and I don't see things that I wish I had done differently, or parts that aren't quite what I would like.... if the flaws are not glaring, but are acceptable instead, then I can say the work is good.** Then I got thinking about which pieces of mine I can say that about.

I came up with four. Out of sixty years of arting.

Not sure where I'm going with this, I still need to mull over and hash out. Wondering if other people make a similar distinction between good-enough work and good work. I just wanted to get this down while I thought of it.



** and is this how I judge whether other people's work is good? Not sure that I do. Yet more sutff to mull over....

trying out my new specialty pencil sharpener [designed for carbon and charcoal pencils] and finding out it works exactly as hoped

My 56^th acrylic is, once again, a visual that mysteriously popped into my head and stayed there. (As usually happens with any abstract that I feel moved to pursue to completion.) There's something about this colour palette that seems to connect with me, seeing as I used this same one last year. I can see me using these colours to sub for the white/gray/black palette I'm accustomed to working with in my cartooning, and doing value studies that way. (I even have a vague idea for the next one...)