Original Art Sundays (Monday) No. 230: Sharp Invitations, One-page story

Didn't post last week, due to time limitations. I'm taking vacation from the FT job this week to work on the graphic memoir. As usual, it's going slower than I hoped, but faster than I expected! with my final deadline four weeks away, I have to retain pace and optimism!
A few weeks back, I was getting frustrated at being stuck on this project, and suddenly thought about Speigelman's MAUS. That amazing work, all done with ballpoint pen on regular printing paper.
I was at work that night. I took a #2 pen, a cheap wooden ruler, and a piece of paper from the printer, and dashed this out in about 20 minutes.

Well, it was a good question!
I kept thinking about Calvin & Hobbes as I drew this one.  Going for that energy, that freedom of a precise yet loose line.
Despite its crudity, I think it makes the book. This book has a serious, almost grave tone to it, and I need to break that up a bit.
When I got the page home, I went over it with a brush-tip marker to give the lines a tad more weight. I've also cleaned up the text a bit more than this image shows since doing the scan.
I currently have several new pages of this work (I've lost track), and I'm presenting it as a Work In Progress at MCAD this Thursday!
Next: more Sharp Invitations.

Original Art Sundays No. 178: The funny animal/comic strip/comic book Enterprise

Missed last week's post. I was preoccupied with preparing for a new job. Many logistic difficulties- government forms, meetings, etc. Well, the job orientation is tomorrow, so we're back in the saddle again!
Working on a 4 page Surrealist Cowgirls story (and a couple fun Cowgirls side projects), but they're not ready to post yet.
As a placeholder, here's an airbrush piece from 1990!

The craft is rather crude, but it's a fun piece anyway. It grew out of my then-partner's love of both Star Trek and the Pink Panther.
Starting top left and going counter-clockwise:
The Little Mermaid as Dr. Beverly Crusher
The Tasmanian Devil as Lt. Worf
Omaha the Cat Dancer as Counselor Troi
Opus as Lt. Commander Data
Calvin and Hobbes as Acting Ensign Wesley Crusher
Pepe lePew and Commander Riker
center: the Pink Panther as Captain Picard (Captain Pinkard!)
So there it is. More pure silliness.
Next week: back to the Cowgirls!

An excuse to post something wonderful!

I need to nest an image for use in my parting post to my Graphic Novel course, which ends on Tuesday (sob!).
Therefore, I am adding this classic strip, the last Calvin & Hobbes, to my blog, just so it has a URL.
Besides, it's such a great philosophy!