PSA: Hiatus

We'll be offline for at least 2 weeks, possibly more. Expected date of return is June 18th.

I may post a few images in the meantime, but no promises or guarantees are made.

Day 65: Lightning

 

Lightning (1995 or 1996) Technical pen and sharpie over pencil on paper. Cut out and collaged onto black bristol.

This is really more of a draft than anything. I never really finished it, because my heart really wasn't in it.

There are clear problems with the anatomy, especially in her feet and legs. I was concentrating on the head and arms, so the legs were just kind of afterthoughts. I'm looking at reworking her, too.

I was working on this, or some other random sketch around the same time, during slow patches while waiting for customers to come to the register at the comc shop I worked in. A guy I recognized form conventions came to the register, I rang him up, and he noticed my work.

"That's really good. Do you take commissions? I'll pay you ten bucks for drawing."
"Depends. What of?"
"Joan of Arc."
"In battle? Or on trial?" I know where the drama is in the story, so I figure those are the two most likely requested vignettes.
"At the stake." Okay, ew, but that's dramatic, too.
"Uh, okay, come back tomorrow and I show you a rough. Something like that I can't work on at work. Rory's not paying me to draw for you."

I work up compositions on the bus home, do a real rough with recognizable people in it at home, and bring it in to work the next day. She's standing at the stake, defiant, brave, etc. Some scumbag is leaning in to light the fire, there's nebulous crowd at the back, clouds in the sky. It's still mostly just blocked in, though.

Guy comes back, looks at the sketch, and says "That's not what I want. Can you change it?"
I don't even want to ask, but ten bucks would have bought me two meals back then.
"Okay, how do you want it changed?"
Smiling, he says, "Can the fire be lit?" EW! But, yeah, MORE dramatic...
"Okay, come back later. Like I said I can't work on this here."

I change it. There's flames, scumbag has moved back away from the heat, I've drawn in outlines of smoke. She's still defiant.

He comes back, a day or two later, asks to see it. I show it to him while ringing him up.
He says, "Uh, can you change it again?" Inwardly I am beginning to have alarms go off.
"How?" ...
"Oh, can you make her naked, like the dress had burned off and on fire and dying and (pauses) liking it? Like she's ... giving in? Enjoying it? Oh, and make the ropes more obvious, like across her front." My lizard brian is running in circles of disgust and anger (ewewGRRRewewewGRRRewewew...), but I just give him a blank stare. Someone gets in line behind him.
"NO. Keep your ten bucks. I don't do snuff pictures. You'll have to find someone else to do it. Maybe at a con? NEXT!"
"Please? I really wnat it, I know you can do it."
"No. There's a line. I'm working here." And, fortunately, someone came over and asked him to move so I could do my job.

That whole experience really creeped me out in a deep, deep way.

In light of recent turns in the industry, I'm creeped out even more. This is apparently the new target audience for comics. And he wanted me to, essentially, take this and make it into this. And they've given him, and everyone like him, what he wanted.

PSA: Epiphanies

I wrote earlier today, when submitting a link to today's art:

I struggled with posting it. I had to get angry enough over something to even put that picture out there. I have to say that I'm afraid of the backlash, that I might never get a creative job again, etc.

But, if it puts another voice on the side of the WTF? Maybe it's worth it.

And, reading that, when the reply came back to me, I had a chilling realization.

I've become afraid of my own darkness. My own sense of humor, which I thoroughly enjoy, my old attitude of "fuck 'em if they can't take my opinion," all of that has become a source of ... shame. Of fear. That's not right. What happened?

I think it speaks a lot to the state of our culture that, in order to become socially okay, to not have our kids taken away, to not be discriminated against, or be threatened in other ways, women (and minorities, and queer people) have to allow our independent spirits, our very souls to be crushed. In the name of adaptability, acceptability, peace. We compromised ourselves into corners. Well, I know I did. I'm certainly not alone.

That, right there, is what's wrong with the whole objectification of women in comics problem. It plays right into that. It helps create that atmosphere that causes the give-in-or-give-up mentality. Why do we have to be the ones who compromise?

I'm done with that. I quit. Things are going to get a little darker around here, maybe a little grittier. My style won't be different, really, but you'll see more of those pieces I've been sitting on.

Because I was afraid to show them.

I'll mark them as mature or offensive, but I won't hide them.

Not anymore.

day63: Angry Girl (objectionable content)

 

Angry Girl (1995) Sharpie over pencil on paper. Some digital cleanup because the scan was bad and I can't find the original right now.

I did this as the flier art for an Accustomed To Nothing gig, in 1995 or so when I worked with the band's manager at Comic Relief in Berkeley CA. Brian asked, I drew stuff all the time, so I did it, and I got to go to the gig too. The flier had a big chunk of text over the middle finger so people wouldn't yank them from where they got posted, but this is the original art, no censorship.

I struggled with posting it. I had to get angry enough over something to even put that picture out there. I have to say that I'm afraid of the backlash, that I might never get a creative job again, etc.

But, if it puts another voice on the side of the WTF? Maybe it's worth it.

I'm posting this particular piece today because things are getting weirder than usual with regard to how women are presented in comics. Like, hentai-weird, in non-brown-wrapper packages. Super girls have always been treated like the cheerleaders of the super world before now, but lately it's become ridiculous, and they are being treated, routinely, like softcore porn actresses in bad victimization storylines. It wasn't this bad in the 1940's.

Women of the comic world are getting more vocal than they had been, and it's not like the women who write, draw and edit comics have been exactly silent on the subject. The ire has always been there, but now it's getting more organized. I don't really count myself in with this, since I never wrote a comic, or got beyond storyboarding one, and working up character designs, but I've always been a reader. Since I can remember. I used to read comics at recess in the fourth grade. I loved MAD, I read Xmen and Batman and Sgt Rock. I didn't like the girly comics. I'm such a tomboy that some of my male friends would forget there was a girl around.

Hey guys? I like the gritty, real-life tone that a lot of comics have taken. I love satire, the worse, the better. HOWEVER - this is a big however - gritty does not equal violently porny. Ever. If you can't wrap your head around that, the gesture above is for you.

Thanks.

Visceral reaction on my part follows:

Strong women can be strong without the necessity of their getting spanked by some bad guy in spandex, honest. It won't make your dick shrink to read about it. Grow the balls to buy some hentai books and stop trying to make regular comics into porn. I swear nobody will laugh at you if you by a copy of Legend of the Overfiend.

PSA: It's not about me, it's about all of us.

I don't know if you know who Tom Artis was, but he died recently after a long illness. His family is destitute. He was part of several comic books I read and enjoyed.

There's a fund to help his family. However many people read this, please send a little bit.

Days 57 and 58

Urgent personal business interferes with art. I was busy, and away from the computer all day.

Day 55: hiatus

Busy with non-computer things today. Art tomorrow.

PSA: day 51

There was no day 51 post. I plead hot, humid, awful weather that made my computer shut down, followed by a trip to the ER for my kid.

I was pretty uncomfortable, too, but I did manage several more sketches. I've been working on some copyleft illos for Wikipedia, and that's been kind of draining. But I'll try to get more art up.

I think I might even be able to pull something out for IF this week. We'll see.

PSA: This Is Not a Spam Blog

Why am I posting this? Because, apparently, someone has flagged my blog as "objectionable". Just this one. Which begs the question: Why? I'm a real person, all the art posted here is my own (though I blog under a pseudonym to protect my family's privacy). None of it is obscene. I post once a day, maximum.

Seriously, if you have an issue with me, leave a comment. I'm fairly upset by this.

IllustrationFriday: Day 39: Milo?

 

Milo? (2007) Digital. Family snapshot, cropped, re-edged and digitally edited in Photoshop, with added text.

The Illustration Friday theme this week is "Remember." This piece, which I have been working on variations of for a couple of years, is the perfect thing. There were two previous versions (in 2002, I think), but this time I started from the original snapshot and reworked towards the real feel I wanted, which was something evocative of the golden cast of good childhood memories.

There really was a puppy named Milo, but I don't know if this was him. He (and his other dog family members) beloged to my aunt and uncle, who were forever fixing up this enormous old house of theirs. We lived nearby and my uncle was pretty close to his sisters (my mom and aunts), and he was really a great influence to have in my life, since my mom was a single parent at the time. The snapshot was taken in early or mid 1975, I would have been about 4, before I went into kindergarten in the fall. Most of the dogs, my aunt, my cousins and the house, were still around into my teens. My uncle wasn't - he died on my sister's birthday the year after this was taken.

I don't know if he took this picture or if my aunt took it. I don't really care which dog it was. It's a little bit of a lost time, and that's why I keep it.

Day 36?

Day 36 was called on account of thunderstorms and my taking too damn long to finish the piece I wanted to post. That one will be up in a week or two. My muse bit me on the ear, and I have to do Much More Work on that one.

Many appo-logies for the incon-weeeniences.

Textual interlude: Toy design

Hey, where's day 13? There is no day 13. Look! My April fool joke was a lack of posting.

I'm thinking making a few plush Gregors. Okay, stuffed Gregors, as I suspect a plush cockroach wouldn't really work. Maybe an edition of 5. Or so. With accessories... Anyone interested? They'd auction for a starting price of about 30 dollars.

I'm also considering some more dolls. Still percolating, though.

More Later.

Just what the Intarweb needs, another Art Blog.

I used to be an artist, hey, sometimes I still am, though that gets shoved to the back burner most days. A new-years resolution this year for me was to create a blog, just for my art. I'll be posting a piece a day.

What is really going on here is that I have decided to try to explore my creative process and perhaps return to using it regularly, by posting, documenting, and writing about each piece, once a day.

My other blogs may suffer from occasional (or is that frequent?) lapses of content, but I assure you, and myself, that this one should have enough content for at least a year.

If this works, there will easily be more.
M.