Original Art Sundays No. 252: Sharp Invitations: Curt, p. 10

Welcome back!
I feel like I did back when I was drawing Tranny Towers on deadline. There's an energy to this I've not felt for some time. My art is flowing, and while it may not be as self-consciously inventive as it was on those strips, I'm pretty happy with the way it's turning out.
This memoir stuff poses some unusual challenges. As I noted to friends on Facebook, here I am tasked with drawing my own butt as I remember it from more than 20 years ago.
Some doors should not be opened.
But it looks like it turned out all right.
Ahem.
When last we left our heroines, me and Delia, she had awakened in my bed, screamed, slapped herself and went back to sleep. I was left sitting up in bed, nonplussed to say the least.
Read on.

Much to like here, I think. I've used the local color/texture of the wall to give the top tier a bit more weight. I wanted to keep the figures light on this one.
The hand fasting image turned out fairly well. I suppose I could have put a pattern on the ribbon she used, but the truth is, it was just a plain ribbon- pink, I think.
While I'm reluctant to overuse silhouette (after all, it's only been a couple pages back that we had a whole page done in that), I think it works and it's necessary here.
Real life notes: this happened. Delia sprung this on me with no warning, just lightly tossed the ribbon over both our hands. There was no official knot, which is part of many such ceremonies. She later laughed about it and said it was just some dumb thing she did on a whim. But she was a pagan who took her faith seriously, so I think that was just a cynical front. I think that in her eyes, however briefly, she and I were married.
I did attend her wedding to her boyfriend, the one she was living with while we were, ahem, keeping company, some years later. As far as I know they're still together. They live on the West Coast now.
She really did say the classic line from the pagan ceremony, "death does not part, only lack of love", but she said it during a later phone conversation.
Further technical notes: the world balloon in the first panel didn't behave. Also, I wasn't paying attention and ruled the panel borders on the right edge clear out to the cut line of the Bristol! Luckily, I caught it in time to fix it.
Doing the "squint test", I think the white highlights inside the silhouette of the last panel may not have been necessary, but by the same token, I don't think they do any real harm. Perhaps the hand fasting and the panel below it could have used a bit more weight, but I think they serve as they are.
Looking at past strips, I have a mountain of reworks to consider if I want this book to have integrity. So many decisions. Well, make them one at a time, and review before committing to a final version.
So there you have it. Without meaning to, I had a lesbian wedding in the 90s. Sort of. While I was seeing another woman, and seeing Curt. I guess that doesn't really count. But in the moment, it sure felt like it did.
I hope she's doing okay.
Materials used on this page:
Canson XL Recycled Bristol Board, 96 lb.
#4 soft lead in lead holder
.03, .05 and .08 tech markers
#0 and #2 synthetic brushes
Crow quill nib and holder
FW Acrylic Artist's White
Dr. Martin's Black Star High Carbon India Ink (love this stuff!)
Magic Rub Eraser
And of course, Photoshop, but very little.
Next: a quick gag page, and the first page of the next facet of the Curt chapter.

Original Art Sundays (Monday) No. 251: Sharp Invitations: Curt, p.9

Technically after midnight, so no longer Sunday. Still close enough to on schedule that I count this as A Good Week.
I had a setback in my personal life this week. However, it only slowed down my comic work for a day or two.
I'm grateful for that, as I feel like I'm hitting a stride. I tossed that bottle of gummy ink! I may get ambitious and rework last week's page. I'd also like to go back a couple weeks and redo the first panel of the page set in Loring Park. Looking at it now, that's pretty bad and would not be that hard to fix.
Reading over these last few pages, I notice there's not a lot of transgender stuff in this part of the story. It's an overarching theme, to be sure. But if every page were about that, it would be boring. I went to the symphony with a pal on Friday, another trans woman. She asked me outright, "can we not talk about trans stuff tonight?" I was fine with that. It's part of who we are, not all of it.
In last week's episode, we saw our heroines comforting each other, taking solace from their respective pain. Of course, it didn't hurt that we were both horny as hoot owls.
And we drifted away to sleep.
Read on.

This is exactly the way this happened. No hedging on this page.
I like the way this page came together visually. Clean lines, good energy. There's almost no variation of panel position relative to the viewer on this page. We zoom in and out slightly, but it's pretty much the same shot in every panel. I'm using the old trick of leaving a white outline around figures and backgrounds/environments surrounded by large areas of heavy black.
The faces are a bit looser/ more cartoony than I usually like to use for more serious work. I tried not to overthink it, to just draw it as seemed natural.
I love detailed art, but my work lends itself to simpler lines most of the time. I have a lot of similar paradoxes in my life. My hair looks better short, but I like it better long, for example. Play the cards you're dealt, baby.
By accident, I started using a scumbling brush for filling, and found it perfect for the "slap lines" on panel three- turns it out it was ideal for dry brush, which I already knew but had forgotten.
Not using word balloons on panel four was a conscious choice. I wanted her (my) questions to be floating in the air, as ambiguous as the situation. Again, hand lettering here.
It was a hell of a thing to sit up in bed like that, shaken and worried, as she quickly and easily fell back asleep.
In terms of environments on this page, I let the bed and the dresser (with its omnipresent lamp) do the job. The dresser is present in the first and last panels, to anchor the page visually in the so-called "real world". These are also the only panels in which Delia is sleeping.
The real Delia later spend some time volunteering for the Center for Victims of Torture. Rather brave and quite healing, I think.
Materials this page:
Canson Recycled Bristol
Soft lead and lead holder
.05 and .08 tech markers
Ames Lettering guide
Faber Castell Brush Tip Markers, large and small
Dr. Martin's Hi-Carbon Waterproof Black Star India Ink (yay, love this stuff!)
#0, 2, 4, and 10 Richeson Synthetic brushes
Crow Quill Pen
Magic Rub Eraser
Next: last page of the Delia sequence, though she shows up again at the end of the Curt story.

Original Art Sundays, no. 250: Sharp Invitations: Curt, p.8

After midnight by two minutes, so technically Sunday. I have a very full day coming up, so thought I would post earlier rather than later.
When last we saw Delia and me, she had frozen over having her face touched.
Read on.

Silhouette. Yeah.
That's the way to go with this one.
I was inspired by a sex scene from Don McGregor and Marshall Rogers' Detectives Inc., which showed the couple in silhouette. It was a difficult sex scene in a darkened bedroom, and Rogers rendered fully realized backgrounds. For him, for that page, the right choice. For me, here, no.
Silhouette has two primary purposes here. It's universal, the shapes are relatable to most people. Also, the silhouette was prominently used in eras we now think of as rather placid and quaint, which makes their use to communicate such painful events rather jarring.
This page is also text  heavy, violating the axiom of "show, don't tell". This is of necessity, if I'm to continue to respect Delia's privacy. The stuff she went through was pretty bad, and as I've said in the past, it was HER stuff, not mine to tell. I'll tell that it happened, but not what it was. I hope that's not a cop-out, as we used to say.
I also wanted to communicate a bit more of Curt's rage. The drawing here is deliberately crude. The figures in the silhouette on the second tier are intended to communicate that ferocious energy, the stuff that started to really scare me.
Yeah, what I was doing then was dishonest and hypocritical. I'm not going to try to excuse that. I just want to fully communicate everything relevant that was happening then.  The events and conversations alluded to on this page are a condensation of several of my nights with her, but the core actions, along with those on the next page, did all happen in one night. As before, I suspect the real Delia would find my memory and interpretation of these events laughable.
I chose to hand letter here, knowing it would be uneven. As long as it's legible, the slightly jarring quality contributes to the disorientation I'm trying to communicate.
Materials for this page:
Canson Recycled Bristol
#4 lead and lead holder
Ames lettering guide!
Pro 4100 India Ink. I swear I'm throwing this bottle away. Even working in large flat areas, this was like painting with gum.
Synthetic brushes, #2, #4 and #2 scrub brush
Staedler tech markers, 0.5 and 0.8
Magic Rub erasers.
Next: we conclude (for now) the Delia interlude in the Curt story.

Original Art Sundays No. 249: Sharp Invitations: Curt, p.7

The next page is done, so here we go.
When last we left our heroine (me), she was happily surprised to find that Delia had told her boyfriend she was spending the night with her.
Read on.

Much I like here, a few things I don't. There's enough background/environment to give a sense of place, but not so much as to detract from the action. Just a hint of a dresser and a lamp (which I still have but now sits on my desk) to give a sense of place. I did some preliminaries in which my usual dresser top clutter was included, but decided it was too much of a distraction. This page is about one thing, and the dresser ain't it.
The layout is simple. Two panels without dividers, split by shift in viewpoint and in action, implying closely timed moments. I'm using the old trick of dropping borders to slow action, but using a partial overall border to contain and define the area.
I thought a lot about how raw to make the sex scene. I shied away from showing The Act, partially out of my own modesty (which will be blasted out of the water in upcoming pages anyway), and partially out of respect for Delia. If the real Delia is reading this, she's probably howling with laughter at that. Then again, maybe not. She always could surprise me.
I stole a bit of a Frank Miller trick in the first panel. In his image for the Images of Omaha collection, Miller used cast shadows on the bedding to define the form beneath. I could have pushed it further, but my art tends to be of the less is more school, and I'm good with where it ended up. The shadow creeping on the wall from the lamp still needs a bit of clarity- possibly I'll just use Photoshop, since everything else on the page is working very well.
After much consternation, I elected to completely remove the dark background on the two-shot in the bottom tier to concentrate on us girls.
Delia's comment was very telling. In the next page, I'll tell a bit more of her story, but not much, because it is HER story. While she once laughingly told me she'd share her story with anybody, that's her choice, not mine. Here, you get just enough that it helps define our relationship.
Again electing to work in ink rather than pencil. Curt's story (of which this is still part) will be told in pencils, inks, and photography. I just hope the bouncing between media doesn't detract from the flow.
Materials used on this page:
Canson XL Recycled Bristol.
#4 and #2 lead and lead holders
Magic Rub eraser
Pro-4100 India Ink. This stuff clogs my crow quill nibs like crazy, but it's great for brush work.
#1 Sable brush and #4 synthetic brush
Ames Lettering Guide (yes, really), 0.3, 0.5 and 0.7 tech markers
Ellipse template
I'm emotionally raw today, as I prepare for a new class I'm teaching starting Wednesday night and am writing a very emotional postscript to the current work, possibly the most honest part of the whole book. Still, it feels good to stay on self-imposed schedule with this.
Next: more of Delia by way of Curt's story.