Original Art Sundays No. 260: Sharp Invitations: Linda, middle page

I'm rather proud of this page. I'll tell you about it in a minute, when I'm done crying.
I was all set to do the next page in the Curt saga. But I had some talks with friends, both trans and cis, that took me back to the early days of transition and the end of my marriage. Many of my trans friends have had relationships that survived the process of them becoming themselves. I am happy they are so blessed, and know (suspect) that theirs is not an easy road either. Much as Linda and I loved each other, the kindest thing we could have done for each other when I came out was to part ways.
But it sure didn't seem like it at the time. Not to either of us.
I could not get this out of my head. This had to be the next page I did.

I like writing on this a lot. It hurts like hell, but I think it's solid writing.
It sums up the desperation and bitterness we both felt as our life together careened to its inevitable conclusion.
I honestly don't remember if that song (There Is A War, from Leonard Cohen's third album, New Skin for the Old Ceremony) was playing in reality as she said that, but it certainly echoed in my head and in my heart right then. The irony and bitterness of the line was so precise, so cutting.
"You cannot stand what I've become, you much prefer the gentleman I was before."
Well, yeah.
She did.
Somehow I don't think this is quite what Leonard had in mind, but once you've considered it that way, there's no other way to hear it.
I had betrayed her by being myself, and she betrayed me by being betrayed.
In fairness, while she did say that line, she said it with much more kindness than I've shown here. And she said it in the response to the fatal, desperate question, "how do I look?"
This page does something I've been trying to avoid. It shows me as an adult male. While the reality of that past is inevitable and must be in this book, I don't want to see myself that way, let alone share that with anyone who knows me now. Inevitable as it is, it feels like I'm betraying myself to do these particular pages.
But truth is capricious. It's also elusive. Even in this, I'm going to put myself in the most flattering light possible, even when I'm engaged in the most dishonorable acts, like taking someone's husband away, as I did here.
There's so much more to the story of Linda and me. And dear readers, please don't paint her as a villain from this page. She's a complex and loving person who only did right by me, as you'll learn when the rest of the story is told.
Production notes: backgrounds continue to vex me, but in a very different way. I did a very nice background/environment for this page, but much of the detail was obscured by the placement of the figures. The page could use more heavy blacks, but it serves as is. I wanted to use the layout to show distance between us, even in the same room. I also wanted to show my emotional rigidity at the time. I was just a few months on hormones, and would cry at the drop of a pin (as opposed to my present stoic and stable emotional state, of course). I felt like I had to  be in complete control, and the more things fell apart, the more I felt a failure if I didn't maintain composure.
Tools used on this page:
Photoshop (update 2018)
Canson recycled Bristol  board
Straightedge, triangle, T-square
Alvin flexible S curve
lead holder and No. 4 soft lead
Iyota .06 fine line marker
Dr. Martin's Black Star Walnut India Ink
Crow quill pen
Princeton No. 4 synthetic round brush
Faber Castell 40% gray brush marker
Magic rub erase
Next: either back to the Curt story or a revisiting of Tranny Towers.

Best Comics of 2013, No. 5: Genius

(Note to the faithful: the final page of the current Surrealist Cowgirls story is done, but the scan files were corrupted and I will not be able to rescan until Tuesday. Have faith.)
Some years ago, a student recommended Steven Seagle's It's A Bird as a text for the superhero portion of my Graphic Novel course. Intrigued, I dived in and got a great deal out of it. However, I thought its premise, that a very limited man could not identify with a Superman, was too thin for two weeks' course discussion, and that the theme had been addressed more succinctly in Michael T. Gilbert's Mann and Superman.
However, I was quite impressed by the book, and when Seagle's Genius appeared this year, I was tantalized.

The story of a promising physicist whose fire burned out too early, Genius is told in awed yet vibrant tones. Visually and verbally, this book is the poetry of loneliness and inadequacy. Reading it, I kept returning to the line from Leonard Cohen's Story of Isaac: "my father's hand was trembling with the beauty of the word."

The physicist in question, Ted Marx, lives in fear of losing his job, of losing his dying wife, of alienating his distant father-in-law, of losing contact with his children who are growing progressively farther away from him.

But mostly, he fears himself, and fears that he will never fully understand or equal the work of his idol, Albert Einstein.

One day, his father-in-law casually mentions that he knew Einstein, that he served briefly as his military guard. Of course, Ted does not believe him at first. The old man must be addled; he cannot have known my God!

But he realizes the elder man tells the truth ("work on my used car" is a private father-and-son moment, nicely played).

And he learns that Einstein confided a secret to him. Awed, he asks for more information.

Only to be rebuffed. The elder man's principles are not to be compromised, especially to a man who he does not respect.

As his increasingly smaller life comes into conflict with the magnitude of the promise in the elder man's secret, Ted feels himself diminishing. This encounter with his dying wife sums up his utter failure to grasp the distinction between knowledge and wisdom.

At last, the elder man relents and tells Ted Einstein's secret.

I can tell you all that and it will spoil none of the book's rapture.
There's a school of writing in graphic novels (also in text novels) in which things are plainly stated, and the magnitude of their meaning is made clear by their simplicity. Clearly, Genius is a very successful example of this.
Teddy Kristiansen's painted art is sublime. The stylized faces do take a tad of getting used to, but it's a short lived problem. I've enjoyed his work on Grendel, Sandman, Sandman Midnight Theater, the aforementioned It's A Bird, and my personal favorite, his Deadman story with Neil Gaiman from the SOLO series. His style reminds me of another personal favorite, Bernard Krigstein, in that they both use very raw and stylized elements in service to the story. Kristianses is slated to release another collaboration with Seagle in 2014.
This is another book that will bear revisiting- not daily, but often. It's a beautiful, humbling read.
Next: Best Comics of 2013, No. 4: another for the mind.

Diana joins Trosper and Ignatz

Trosper and Ignatz have met Gentle Giant. So have I.
I was in New York and CT last weekend for the annual GORGG- the Global On-Reflection Giant Gathering.
This was the 11th one. I've been to 8, I attended the events in New York; Toronto, CA; Amsterdam, Netherlands; Portland, Oregon; Evora, Portugal; Qeubec City, Quebec, Canada; and Denver, CO. I missed the ones in Wales, London and Germany for financial reasons.
I almost missed this one for the same reason. I've had fiscal difficulties of late, and have been getting some financial help from a family member. Although I bought my plane ticket months before these problems happened, I wrestled with the ethics of going at all under those conditions. do I spend money under these conditions or waste the non-refundable plane ticket?
I had a room share, which cut my hotel bill in half, and they gave us a great group rate to begin with. and I know how to eat on the cheap, even in New York.
I decided it was more wasteful to not go than to go, so I set about finding the funds I needed.
So I got busy and sold a bunch of stuff. I figured that if I raised the money for the trip by selling my belongings, especially ones I should let go of anyway, it served multiple purposes. I freed myself of stuff I no longer needed, I was able to take the trip with a clear conscience and not waste the paid-for-ages-ago plane ticket, and I rejuvenated my spirit by spending time with people who hold a special bond with me.
The music of Gentle Giant speaks to us all, almost three decades after the band ceased to exist.
This year, in addition to the special guests we've come to prize so- GG guitarist Gary Green, keyboard player and composer Kerry Minnear, and drummer Malcolm Mortimore- we got an unexpected treat. Frontman, lead singer and band founder Derek Shulman stopped by for a couple hours.
Here I am with Derek.

The camera was uncharacteristically kind to me, and Derek was quite gracious. We managed to avoid mobbing him TOO badly!

Later that night, there was a jam session with all the great players jumping in (Derek had departed by that point).

Here's some stunning footage from that night: Jamie Krutz on violin and my dear friend Paul van de Hart on guitar, playing the GG barnstormer Mobile from the classic album Free Hand!

But the shining moment was earlier in the day, as Wendy Boulding (thanks to our hardworking host Jon Roberts for helping me with Wendy's last name!) rehearsed Memories of Old Days with my roommate Glen Bourgeois sitting in on bass, and Gary Green and Alan Benjamin on guitars! My only contribution is at the end where I tell Wendy, "Nice pipes!"





Although I did go on stage with the boys in Denver two years ago, I didn't even try this year, much as I always want to. Too many really talented players. I decided to enjoy it for what it was.
Apres' jam, I joined in a very loose guitar bash that ran till almost 5 AM.
I kept coming back to the same thought I have when I talk with comics folk or when I'm with family. These are my people.
So many things come to mind when I think about this experience. Do I really have to travel halfway across the country to share this music? To share it with these people, yes.
As Leonard Cohen says,
"I came so far for beauty,
left so much behind"
Except that what I left behind here was a sense of being beat down by life. To say things have been tough this year is like calling the Chicago fire a weenie roast. I needed this.
This renews me in a way nothing else does.
I am going to do everything in my power to improve my fiscal lot so I can attend next year's gathering in Scotland with the ribald (in every sense) John Burns and his lovely wife as hosts. It's possible that John Weathers, a dear kind man and the drummer for most of GG's work, will be able to join us again. His health is poor, but Wales is not so far as all that from Scotland.
Here I am with my partner in punning crime, John Burns:

There's an old saying that you can't have too many friends. For me that's becoming "you can't have too many families". This is one that's rare and valued.

Its great to have a family of over 100 people who all know the words to the songs!