In 2007, I read about a few people who kept daily diary comics. At the time, I was really struggling ideas and motivation to draw, so this seemed like a good way to get ink flowing.
I only managed to keep up the daily comic for just over three months, then I got out of the habit and didn’t bother to pick it up again. Which is too bad, because in addition to being good technical practice, it was always a great source for unexpected ideas. I was also happy to have about one hundred strips by the end of it.
About two years later, I was reading about a bunch of cartoonists and cartoon-related practices, and I came across James Kochalka. I had read some of his stuff before, but had yet to obsess over it. Typically, I’ll get turned onto an artist, and then madly consume nothing but their work for months and months … so there are a lot of great artists’ work I’m not really familiar with yet.
Then I started reading Kochalka’s daily diary comic, and I realized what a wuss I am.
Anyway, I’ve since started doing a quick strip before bed every night again. I’ve only been doing it for just over a week, but I’m hoping to seriously stick with it this time. It’s already paid off too. I’m finding myself much more inclined to draw comics in my sketchbook, which was mostly filled with faces up to this point.
To celebrate my hopefully lasting freedom from wussiness, here are some of my favorite strips from 2007.
That’s all for now…
Touring Saskatchewan
The last four days has felt more like four weeks.
I’m currently touring Saskatchewan with a troupe of artists, delivering workshops to elementary and high school students. It’s tiring work. Sometimes it’s tiring because of the early mornings, constant high-energy, and long evenings driving. Other times it’s tiring because I’m trying to play basic theatre games with a group of extremely energetic grade 2s.
But work aside, the landscape is steadily commanding my attention. Until I few days ago, the northernmost Saskatchewan community I had visited was Prince Albert. I’ve now been as far as Buffalo Narrows, and although it’s not as north as, say, Uranium City … it’s still pretty damn north.
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I’ve never felt such a sense of wild isolation. We missed a turn on the way to Ile-a-la-Crosse one night, and the wild, teeth-grinding, fist-clenching panic that overcame my body came as a surprise to me. The sight of headlights in the rearview mirror should have filled me with the comfort that we weren’t alone, but instead it only gave me a deep sense of dread. Like I had been caught. I drove virtually blind along the narrow, uneven road; my foot hovering over the brake just in case a deer jumped out of the darkness. There were no streetlights, only what was illuminated by the van’s headlights.
It’s easy to see where stories of shape shifters and tricksters originated, once one has driven lost down an empty, signless highway in northern Saskatchewan. A number of times I thought I saw the glowing eyes and hairy form of something on the roadside, or a large shadow figure running down the middle of the highway. Occasionally trees and bushes would appear to ‘pop in’ like polygons in a video game. Probably just tired eyes, and riled nerves.
In the daylight, the landscape is a different, thought perhaps no less terrifying and amazing. Psychological vertigo from a seemingly endless forest.
I have a blog.
If you are reading this, you are probably my friend, or you accidentally ended up here while researching the Scottish genealogies of North Dakota.
It’s my intent to use this blog as a supplement to my website, and to more consistently post my work, thoughts on art things, and hilarious images of cats juxtaposed with text. Like other bloggers, I tend to think a lot of things in a day, and I’m totally convinced that everything I think is so vitally important to the betterment of the human species that I am compelled to publicly document it for all to see.
But mostly this is just shameless self-promotion.
Hopefully more illuminating posts will appear after I’ve gotten this surprisingly awkward first post out of the way. I feel like I’m on a blind date here.
Anyway, I will soon post about some of my current thinkings and doings, which will include, but is not limited to, the following:
- Touring Saskatchewan, teaching art workshops about art with other artists.
- Jughead.
- Other things that have nothing to do with the above.
- The overuse of commas and bullets.
Please enjoy.