Go For the Eyes - Page 1

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Here we go - Page 1 of my latest comic!

With this comic I'm going to try something new and actually leave my hand-lettering in. Normally I swap it out with a font that I created from my handwriting, which looks a little something like this:

It's a bold step for me! We'll see how long it lasts. Also, we'll see if I end up shading this one or not (I haven't decided yet, but I do tend to rely heavily on me grays. That's what we call it in my house. Me peeps, me grays. )

What do you guys think? Is it a keeper, or a little on the sloppy side?

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Sneak Peek Week

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Since I already mentioned in this post that I'll be releasing a new mini-comic soon (just in time for Stumptown, yippee!), I thought I should give you guys a sneak peek at it. This week, I'll be posting a page-a-day from Go For The Eyes, my latest autobio venture.

Since the book deals primarily with self-defense, feelings of inadequacy/weakness in threatening situations, and action stars in the media I've loved growing up, I'd like to invite everyone to post their own anecdotes relating to any of those topics. Ever taken karate? Ever found yourself in a situation that made your skin crawl, but weren't sure how to react? Ever had your nose almost broken by running into a teammate while doing sprints in volleyball? . . . Okay, maybe that last one doesn't really apply to this.

ANYWAY. If you've got stories, I wanna hear 'em! Let's all relish in our stories of FIGHTS.

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What I Read When I Was Supposed to be Drawing

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I mentioned that when I was at Staple! I was honored to be part of the Women in Webcomics panel with MariNaomi and Liz Prince. Ironically, we didn't talk about much about webcomics at all, but we did get swap a few tales of our experiences being comickers AND female at the same time (or as Mike Dawson/Alex Robinson put it - Ladytoonists!). I might write more about that topic later.

Most importantly, though, I also got to swipe a few of their comics.

First, I checked out Liz Prince's adorable Will You Still Love Me If I Wet The Bed. It reminded me a little of similar relationship/comic strip style comics, but with one important distinction: it was positive. Not just positive, but unabashedly sweet and cute and reminded you of what it's like to be smitten in a totally weirdo way with someone.

After that smooshiness, I turned to Liz's Alone Forever, which I have to admit liking an eensy bit more. This one was fun, witty, sad, mean, and awesome, and a lot more relatable. You get the perfect sense of what it's like to bop around in Liz's world for a while, and her search for love is as familiar as it is fun. Again, a "relationship" type comic that's full of snark and fun, not depresso-ness. Yay!

Next up, I turned to MariNaomi's mondo memoir Kiss & Tell .

I wasn't exactly sure what to expect from diving into someone's massive, personal, detailed relationship history in comic form. The book details all of Mari's private, fleeting, detailed, and thorough relationships with lovers, friends, and more over the years. I loved how surprisingly honest it was, but also how matter of fact. Even though she relates very private specifics, she does so in such a way that makes the reader feel comfortable relating to it without feeling creepy for spying. My favorite part was how she shared her experiences. This isn't an aggressive recounting, or one tinged with regret. It's a fun, voyeuristic ride that's peppered with deeper messages that catch you buy surprise. Lovely depth, I'll call it.

Awesome stuff. Guess I'll slink back to work now ...

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What I Read When I Was Supposed to be Drawing

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I mentioned that when I was at Staple! I was honored to be part of the Women in Webcomics panel with MariNaomi and Liz Prince. Ironically, we didn't talk about much about webcomics at all, but we did get swap a few tales of our experiences being comickers AND female at the same time (or as Mike Dawson/Alex Robinson put it - Ladytoonists!). I might write more about that topic later.

Most importantly, though, I also got to swipe a few of their comics.

First, I checked out Liz Prince's adorable Will You Still Love Me If I Wet The Bed. It reminded me a little of similar relationship/comic strip style comics, but with one important distinction: it was positive. Not just positive, but unabashedly sweet and cute and reminded you of what it's like to be smitten in a totally weirdo way with someone.

After that smooshiness, I turned to Liz's Alone Forever, which I have to admit liking an eensy bit more. This one was fun, witty, sad, mean, and awesome, and a lot more relatable. You get the perfect sense of what it's like to bop around in Liz's world for a while, and her search for love is as familiar as it is fun. Again, a "relationship" type comic that's full of snark and fun, not depresso-ness. Yay!

Next up, I turned to MariNaomi's mondo memoir Kiss & Tell .

I wasn't exactly sure what to expect from diving into someone's massive, personal, detailed relationship history in comic form. The book details all of Mari's private, fleeting, detailed, and thorough relationships with lovers, friends, and more over the years. I loved how surprisingly honest it was, but also how matter of fact. Even though she relates very private specifics, she does so in such a way that makes the reader feel comfortable relating to it without feeling creepy for spying. My favorite part was how she shared her experiences. This isn't an aggressive recounting, or one tinged with regret. It's a fun, voyeuristic ride that's peppered with deeper messages that catch you buy surprise. Lovely depth, I'll call it.

Awesome stuff. Guess I'll slink back to work now ...

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Musical Madness - Part 2!

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Now that we've covered that the boyfriend's fave musical is Camelot, last week I showed him my favorite ...

The Pirates of Penzance! (the movie version)

I have seen this movie many, many times. And I have put "With Cat-Like Tread" on mix tapes. And my family has tried (in vain, obviously) to mimic Kevin Kline's crazy leaping dance in this clip:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1r_KUjRRxM]

Showing it to someone, though, was weird. I was suddenly really self-conscious and aware of just how long some of the songs were (especially Mabel's) and Dennis wasn't too keen on there being so much singing. He kept asking, "What is this, an opera?"

The movie makes some sense but not really. A band of sweet-natured, gullible pirates have to give up their youngest member, Frederic, on his 21st birthday (when he's old enough to opt out of his pirate servitude). He promptly starts looking for chicks. Unfortunately, his nursemaid Ruth, who's also lived with the pirates this whole time, has been deemed WAY TOO OLD for hotsie totsie Frederic. Instead, he'd rather climb up a hill and lust after the first group of maidens he happens upon. (Don't worry about Ruth - she gets upgraded to a pirate, too)

Then there's a lot of confusion, a lot of tricking of the pirates with big hearts, and then my favorite part - when Frederic hears he's been born on Leap Day.

So get this - instead of being 21, he's just 5! Love it. The best part is, Frederic TOTALLY BUYS this as valid, and re-joins the pirates. Then some other stuff happens, but ultimately there's a lot of fight/singing. Which is the best kind of singing.

This musical (besides being my fave) is perfect to watch this leap year. G'wan, put on some spandex pants, make your hair really curly, and hunker down to see Kevin Kline and his amazing legs. Oh, and a bunch of people singing REALLY FAST.

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Something New (and a little hairy)

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Recently I've been in love with softer, sketchier work I've seen out and about in the world. My drawing style tends to be kind of on the messier side, and only really gets cleaned up when I ink over it. Which is pretty limiting most of the time. Even though at times I crave cleaner, more graphic lines, I lean heavily towards sketching (my friend once told me I start every sketch with "furious circles").

So I think I'm going to play around with no ink, just pencils to layers of color ... here's an example so far:

We'll see how this goes!

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