Original Art Sundays No. 282: The Third Sharp Invitation, p.4

 Here we go with another new page. 

To recap, the book's title, Sharp Invitations, refers to the things that you want that cause you pain. You're pulled towards them and afraid of them, even though you want them.

In case you've lost track, here's what's gone before, documented in previous chapters. My first sharp invitation was my impulse to touch the blade of a push lawn mower when I was five. My second was my attempt to hang myself when I was eleven over being trans, though I didn't yet have the language for it.

My third sharp invitation was gender confirming surgery. That's where we are now, in the aftermath of the surgery, still in the hospital, with me drifting in and out of awareness.

Tried to keep this one simple. I finally got back into real ink! My walnut ink is lighter than I recall from my last bottle, even with darkening medium added. So I fell back on my monster sized bottle of Sumi-E ink.

The textures in the last panel are simple Photoshop fills. A couple minor fixes are necessary before going to press, but this one is pretty much there.

I just made up the skyline in the window. It's very much like the skyline I used as a background/environment on the cover of my first self-published work, Ink Tantrums, about a hundred years ago.

The middle tier feels a little light, which is common in my work. In this case, I'm okay with it, because it's balanced by the weight of the images around it, and because coming out of anesthetic is a very soft experience. 

The face in the last panel really got away from me! Grr! I compensated by re-drawing it, but still wasn't happy with it. My ultimate solution was to just take the face from the top tier, copy into a new Photoshop layer and goose it a bit. It works now.

Materials for this page:

• T-Square, Ames lettering guide, Canson Bristol board
• Lead holder, #3B leads, eraser
• Black Walnut ink and darkening medium, Sumi-E ink
  
• Crow quill pen and nib
• Brushes: No. 2 Kolinsky, No. 4 Richeson synthetic, Tight Spot for corrections
• Chartpak black marker
• Tech markers: .01, .05, .08, 1.0 
• And of course, Photoshop 2019
  

There are two pages left to this chapter. It segues into the chapter on Curt. I've already published 19 + pages of that chapter, so I will do some editing before concluding it. The chapter, in many ways the core of the book, has evolved considerably from its original 5 pages of crude sketches in the draft version!

Next: the penultimate page of this chapter.

Original Art Sundays No. 111: Tranny Towers Support materials

You find the strangest things in a move.

As a case in point, these are pages of character notes for my attempt to expand Tranny Towers into a graphic novel. This attempt was still in the funny animal subgenre, which I let slide away when I created a dozen or so pages of the same story under the title TranScending, some of which I've published here in the past.
Many of the notes are simply extensions of the established characters in the then-current strip. Actually, a few of these characters,
Dena, Athena, Trina and Sonia had lives that predated the strip.
Trina and Sonia appeared in my first strip in TransSisters magazine, and Sonia was in a strip in TNT News a bit later, offering editorial commentary on the MN State anti-welfare legislation that included elimination of state-funded surgeries.
Athena was in my strips in GAY Comics issues 18 and 25.
Dena joined her in issue 25, and both appeared in my first self-published comic, Ink Tantrums No. 1. Drop me a line if you'd like a copy. Out of the 250 print run, I still have about 50.
In addition to the aforementioned appearances and truncated attempts at a larger work, I tried a trans related strip with a lighter touch circa 2003. I submitted the following sample strip to Queue Press around 2003.
One issue came out after the strip's rejection, then the paper folded. So it goes.
This has never been in print.

I rather like this one, but nobody else seemed to. I think it could have been a lot of fun, playing with light hearted gags.
One of the reasons I backed away from doing a long-form story about trans issues is that most of them are  the same story. Outing, bashing, suicide attempt and self-acceptance. It's an important story, but I'd like to think we have more than the one. Rachel Pollack's character Kate in her Doom Patrol run (pictured below) is an example of the possibilities of trans narratives, possibilities that are seldom realized. 

Next week: well, it's Christmas next Sunday and I don't know if I'll be around to blog. I might post early (or set up a timed post or some such).
We'll find out when we get there.
In case I don't see you, may your holidays be kind to you.

Hey kids! WIN Alarmingly Bad Comic Art!

Hi, folks.
According to the counter on the side, I've had over 9600 readers of this blog to date.
The cynics and naysayers try to persuade me that most of those are robot hits (which must really hurt, them being metal and all).
But I say thee nay! I know at least some of you are out there in flesh and blood and all the icky bits contained therein!
So here's what I'm agonna do.
Fanfare please....

(Of course, that's not my work, but John Byrne doing two of his best characters in the style of the late great Don Martin!)
I have two back to back summer teaching contracts starting on June 10.
Post a response to ANY post you've read at this blog on or by that date. If you like what I'm doing, hot socks! If not, let me know that as well.
I will post all responses in their appropriate topics, and the Top 5, judged by arbitrary criteria like most insightful, most challenging, most fun, or closest to what I had for breakfast, will win. Each of the Top 5 posters get a signed copy of my first comic book from 1994, Ink Tantrums No. 1, along with anew piece of art for each.
Ink Tantrums is the book that my friend Katherine Collins said had "alarmingly bad art". She did, however, praise the writing endlessly. And she really liked all of my follow up book, so there was some vindication.
This book also contains the first appearances of the Surrealist Cowgirls.
I'll do a piece of original art for each of the winners as well, and will do something a bit better than Alarmingly Bad!

Original Art Sundays #82: oddments: Elvis Has Eaten the Building

I'm going to try a fresh rotation.
An oddment (something outside the storylines, a fun piece), followed by
A Tranny Towers page, followed by
A Surrealist Cowgirls page, followed by
A Private Myth page.
This will serve to give me time to do the work. This is especially significant as regards A Private Myth. The emotional aspects of those pages really take their toll, and balancing them with lighter fare will do my head good.
Today's oddment is from Ink Tantrums No. 1, my first self-published comic circa 1994. It's a silly little page. Had the idea, banged it out using some shoddy tools, one of the more fun pages I've ever done.

The Elvis jokes had become the rage again in the early 90s for some reason, and my Gamera fascination played against the HHH Metrodome was- oh, what the hell, I was just being silly.
Great fun to draw this one!
This was after Commercial Art school, but before MCAD.
Next week: Tranny Towers.