Last night I got car-jacked by this little Baba Yaga! I was in the car-park of the grocery store, having bought snacks to take to Comics Club, and she knocked on my window. In very broken English, she conveyed that her groceries were too heavy, and could I drive her home?

So I did. All the way downtown! Luckily, she lives very close to where we meet for Club. But it was all a bit cheeky. I mean, what was her plan, buying a bag of food, along with three big bottles of cooking oil and the industrial-sized barrel of Tide detergent?

The word she kept saying most often was “Dear”. I bet she gets a lot of mileage — literally — out of that little token of affection.

I honestly didn’t mind; it was kinda fun. And it struck me that, yeah, as an elder, she is entitled to having other people take care of her.

P.S. After doing a ton of AI image-generation and exploring outlets for that, I’ve had some drawing to do again for work, and I drew a comic strip for myself. It feels really good to be back at that. That’s what I’m here for. The AI stuff may prove useful, but it’s as “creative” as using a vending machine.

P.P.S. And because my inner critic was giving me a hassle about posting rough work…

I started a project this year with no plan at all: a hand-drawn comic strip.

I work on it Saturday mornings when I go out for coffee. (I call these solo breakfast sessions my “Doodle & Noodle Time”.)

The strip is about a guy who’s hired to work as a janitor on Mars. Yes, I know, HBO has since released a program based on nearly this exact premise, “Fired on Mars”, but it’s snarky, ugly, and seems to hate its characters *and* science fiction, so I’m just pretending it’s not there.

Working like this, with traditional media, is a constant tightwire act and a dog to scan and publish in any way, so what am I thinking?

Well, I wasn’t thinking. I’m doing something I feel compelled to do, just for me. Maybe I’ll never share it. That would be okay.

It also feels like going back to the source, to those endless childhood hours I spent drawing with my best friend, Karl in his basement. He had muscular dystrophy, so we drew cartoons instead of playing sports (psst, I didn’t want to play sports anyway!). He was way better than I was, but, as fate would have it, I’m the one who’s still around.

Doing this project feels like being true to him, and to Little-Me, too.

By the end of this year, I’m going to fill up this sketchbook with comics. (I’m over halfway already.)

#workinprogresswednesday #passionprojects #comics #cartoons

I was dismayed to see that HBO is launching an animated program about a guy going to work on Mars — disturbingly close to the theme of the comic strip I’ve been working on.

But the trailer makes it look like yet another modern animation that’s 100% snark, like it hates its characters and hates its subject.

At first I felt like, “Oh well, there’s my thing gazumped,” but when I sit with it… My thing is full of flawed people (my ideal would be something like Commedia dell’Arte, or Twelfth Night, which is pretty much straight-up Commedia), but hopefully still has a heart.

As a kid, I loved space anything, so imagining that setting revives my feelings of hope, wonder, and play.

It’s the same with Apple TV’s “Hello Tomorrow”: I should be its prime audience member, but it’s so cyncial that I stopped watching it. Again, it seemed to have nothing but disdain for its characters and their world.

Hell, if you don’t like this, why should I?

Somewhere along the way we mistook “nasty” for “funny”.

When I finished my morning grocery store doodle-and-noodle session, I bumped into my pal David, a stage technician who said he’s working the follow-spot tonight. He told me that the show is great, and that he’s been loving the kids’ enthusiasm and awe for what they’re doing.

“To be honest,” he said, “they’re better to work with than a lot of professionals.”