Ribbon dancing? I have no idea really.
Edit: it should really be viewed large.
Dear spam accounts,
I know you do what you do because it’s what you do, but please, could you refrain from liking things I’ve posted that almost no one else likes? It’s heartbreaking when a drawing I’ve done that received zero interest from others get a like and I with a smile click to see who you are and… You’re who you are. Which would be fine if you really liked my drawing, but I don’t think you do. You toyed with my feelings in order to I’m not sure what really as I didn’t click your spam links on your tumblr. Lets just agree that this is a failure on both our parts and that makes it even worse!
Thank you.
I hear the rain fall and I can smell the way the wind mixes with the tea. It’s a good sound and it’s a good smell. The tea has a tinge of cocoa and it is sadly more apparent in the smell than taste. I refrain from squirting chocolate sauce in it — a cup of tea should never ever be treated as ice cream. Even if, and I say this emphatically, even if they occasionally fall into the same comfort zone.
Feeling the warmth as I hold the cup wrong with a steady two-hand grip. Right now, everything is okay. Just right now. I know it will cease to be soon, and there’s nothing I can do about it except to refuse let it define and break me down. Easier said than tried. The unhappy has been here for so long it’s a part of me, an useless appendix.
But for now it’s not here. Even smiled a bit earlier. Tired to touch people but that only works when they’re close and not… elsewhere. And some are not known enough for it to work anyway, the mental blocks keep both external pain and comfort away. It’s a really crappy trade-off. Especially since I’m more or less convinced that comfort is more scary than pain. I can handle pain!
But this tea. Damn I wish it had more chocolate flavor.
Cheeseburger. Drawing this made me want one now! Now! But no, I can’t get one.
While I’d love to draw and perhaps even co-create a comic for all ages, one that’s cute and poignant and funny — sort of like Calvin and Hobbes except a bit more weird as I like weird — it is more and more clear that the Mars comic is not that. It will be about love, friendship, boredom, sacrifice, breakdowns, and the human spirit. It will not be for everyone, I’ve always suspected that but there are little doubt now as it’s changed tone a bit. It’s kind of bleak but filled with hope, I think.
What I thought would be a sequence towards the end is now in the middle, it has not be really in order to use the spread. (I did briefly entertain the idea of a big fold-out spread in the middle. That would probably not be the least cost effective though.)
Reading Becky Cloonan’s excellent Wolves I also know that if I manage to get it printed — this has always been plan A as paper always beats rock — proper shading is the way to go. Originally I planned on strictly black and white bit no, fine half-tone patterns will be needed. I really want to make it in Swedish though, but that on the other hand will affect the price and number of copies.
I cannot lie and say that the people who’ve worked with Brian Wood isn’t a damn big source of inspiration for a lot of my own things. It’s too damn obvious. While we’re roughly the same age, they do make me feel like a kid who don’t really know what I’m doing. I don’t want to copy or something like that, it’s the way the tell a story with their images that I admire a lot. The humanity in the lines, if I’m allowed to be silly and poetic.
More and more it’s starting to feel as if I can do this without letting people I admire down — this is what the headspace tells me, I don’t really think they’d care one way or another except that my brain think so. Me and my brain, we need to clarify how we work together better I think. Either way, I wouldn’t be the crappiest “comic artist” in the world, the script might be another matter entirely. (Fingers crossed though.)
I had this list figured out for Thursday List of Doom but when I started typing I realised it was wrong. It was things I’ve seen online this least week that that was petty and stupid and worked against people being better towards other people. But the list, it was petty and stupid too. Which can be fun, I’d be the first to admit that stupid things can be fun. It just was the wrong kind of stupid. So go on with your lists about how to make non-Harry Potter fans pissed and abandon you just because you can’t accept people who don’t share obsessions. It’s your choice.
My choice is this: I’m going to count down until tomorrow when there’s a new QI and learn stuff. And eat some cookies. I got cookies today.
However, one thing on this list I need to address. Animated gifs with subtitles and where the person is seen to speak only two syllables out of a complete fucking sentence. Stop doing those. They’re annoying, idiotic and has no fucking function what so ever. Do a gif or do a fucking captioned snapshot. Not both. Because of the previous mentioned reasons but mostly because it looks like shit. No animated shit, which is worse since it’s shit times the number of frames.
You know how it is, when you lie down to sleep all the thought keep hitting you in the face. Slapping you wide awake when you almost, almost fell asleep. Last night there was lots of rain and it was a bit chilly and perfect sleeping weather really. But then came the brain. Obviously I’m the kind of person who weep when reminded of friends I see far to seldom. Seriously. You can smell the tears on the pillow if you want. (Smell them damn you!)
Moral of this is that force me to choose between my friends and you’re the first one out. And it’s almost too easy to make me cry.
Being in a hick town means around here that from time to time there’s a surge in free verse Christian communities. It’s been quiet for quite a few years now but today I heard song and a PA system from a direction where there had previously been pentecostals. So it might be those that have returned.
It’s Sunday, I want to lie on my bed and read and listen to good music. Their songs are not what I consider good music — give me some Woven Hand or the Handsome Family! And a PA system? In the middle of the town? Sheesh. I had to listen to the Velvet Underground’s the Quine Tapes a bit louder that usual. (I’m not one of those who must have music really loud, so it might have been normal volume to some of you.)
Anyways. The forty minute version of Sister Ray is amazing. Had it existed on soundcloud this would have been an audio post.
I can’t lie and say that today has been good. I’ve been trying to ignore and keep busy but it doesn’t work. The twine ball of anxiety in the stomach spins faster and faster as well as get more and more tangled. I would love to be free of it but I’m not. It makes me want to scream, cry, cut away pieces (which I don’t, so don’t worry. I can’t stand to see my own blood and the medication keeps the rationality function on), or just give up and somewhere while I wither.
Very little makes sense today but nothing has changed since yesterday or the weeks before that. Still doesn’t make sense. Everything goes down. All the things I do, the mind asks why I keep struggling, trying to improve or… Yeah, fuck, even bother to reach out. The only answer I have is “what else can I do?” and that do seem sufficient. For the negative voices that is, I’m not so sure it’s sufficient for me. Not so sure at all.
Fanart week: Kitty Pryde and Lockheed stopping by to say howdy.
“Why do you draw a lot of scarves on every character?” is not a question I get often but I think I should. The scarf is the ultimate in both comfort and what makes people look gosh darn cute. A good knitted sweater and a long warm scarf is the ultimate in wear — or outwear, it can get quite hot if you wear it all when inside.
Skrivbordslampa. At first glance it’s a perfectly fine word but no, it can be quite problematic. First off, lets break it down as it’s a compound word.
Skrivbord + s + lampa.
Skrivbord means desk, and is in itself a compound word from skriv and bord, write and table respectively.
S is a common infix with compound words, there are rules and exceptions and lets not go into those now.
Lampa means lamp. Simple as that.
So skrivbordslampa means a desk lamp. Wohoo! However. If the hyphenation gets a tad wrong it will have some devastating results which will change everything. Normally it’s hyphenated skrivbords-lampa, but skrivbord-slampa can happen. It can! And slampa means slut. So you see, quite quite different all of the sudden.
Bonus: the Swedish word slut means end. And the French word for end, fin, means pretty in Swedish. So now you know!
Second version of the River Tam drawing.
I am the kind of idiot who draws his forum avatars in the size 1500 x 1500 pixels. There are problems with making details visible when resizing it down to 120px… The kicker? I’ve done the exact same thing several times now. I never learn since 1500 is considered small in my mind.
Now to bed. (My throat hurts again, the other side this time but hopefully it won’t require antibiotics. I hope. Hyperbolically the weakest body ever.)
Things I’m not
- A complete ass
- Handsome
- Stupid
- A morning person
- Expressive of emotion
- Happy where I am in life
Things I am
- An occasional ass
- Funny
- Pretty good at drawing
- A connoisseur of cookies
- An impulsive book buyer
- Emotional about far too much on the inside
- Brimming over with good taste
- Available for parties
[…]
So let me ask you this - if you could live your whole life without the desire to be something special, without aspiration, don’t you think that would be better? I’m being serious. My gift is the ability to direct that kind of energy, make things personal, moral, a crusade. I don’t know if I’m doing anyone any favors.
While I wouldn’t know any better, I’d probably be happier. But at the same time it wouldn’t be me. And I have a slight different take on a few of the platitudes — not all — and that is you shouldn’t be afraid to fail and fail hard. This is something those who succeed should heed as well instead of always being cautious.
Then again, I believe that the struggle to improve is a deeply personal one and if one sees it as a competition with anyone else, then you’ve already strayed from the path. The aspirations that evolve constantly are personal, it kills complacency and to me, it’s also something of an ego destroyer. (It also makes validation a bitch but that’s something else.) Not sure if this is typical though. But you know, the road there is more important than the destination. Shit, now even I do platitudes.
Without the desire to be something special, to do something special, yeah, I’d be happier. I’d also be dumber and my life would be more boring and the world would not have any magic. A dystopia without a soul and no heart window-dressed as a paradise. I’d rather be dead.
1996 was the year Patti Smith returned, when R.E.M. did their last good album and Unbunny released their first. It was also the year I graduated from gymnasiet, turned 19, and became loathed in the local parts of the business I’ve spent three years in school for. (Printing press operator!)
I had a summer job at Ljungby Grafiska and later in the autumn I jumped in whenever they needed to. One day I was really sick, high fever and all. No way I could drive in and operate machinery, I told them this and they seemed to accept this. It was also the last time I heard from them directly. In 1997 I bumped into one of the people who studied the same things but in a younger class. I got spat on and called a traitor. It was odd and I was as you might imagine very perplexed and asked why. Apparently, being sick is a crime against the community.
The joys of an industrial small town filled to the brim with pettiness… I swear, had this been in the US it would have been trailer park county.
(Beth Orton — Live as You Dream from the 1996 album Trailer Park.)
