skeletal

in

Found my way to the thing I was looking for in the thing I've been writing for a year, the ComicsThing: even though it seems unlikely, at the moment, that it will ever be brought to drawn reality – clearly, I'm not doing it myself – I made a pact with myself to at least finish a scriptment and have a broadstroke notion of what it would be.

This morning, I accomplished that goal: every piece came together once I figured out the right questions to ask myself.

For now, it's a 13-page scriptment/outline rife with lacking dialogue (beyond generally awful placeholder stuff), little in the way of layouts, and more than a few quandaries of logic, motivation, and character – but the skeletal beats are, nonetheless. there. And, while I know that 13 pages doesn’t seem like a lot, I should note that it’s assembled from a few thousand disparate pages and scraps of shards and notes. Such is the process.

Physical edition printed, clipped, and in its file; digital bits moving to backburner. Maybe someday I'll actually get to see it and hold it for real – but if not, it's where I wanted it to be, if only for myself.

nightmarish hybrid

in

And, in the continued clusterfuck fallout of the birdsite's Muskian demise, time to continue changing things up for myself.

Current solution: the Attendance Cards start the day before I work on whatever I'm working on; I then use the text part of this piece to be the thing I turn to when I need something else to write other than the day's MainProject, and publish at the end of the working morning as a way to close out the workday and open up this space to whatever other ephemera materalize. Attendance Card as daily image to accompany daily pieces, a hand-drawn signature – even though for this to work I’ll have to break Barry's rules even further: a horizontal orientation instead of a vertical one and probably a medium shot instead of full body. Current Attendance Card goal to make myself look less like a nightmarish Grogu/Cartman hybrid (even though I’m not trying to get better, just trying to enjoy myself).

side projects

in

Spent this weekend attempting to get a foothold on some things I've long wanted to do (but never made the time for) that, in my intent, would eventually become either, a.) more permanent background reshapings of my writing / work practice, and/or, b.) weekend newsletter writing alternatives (I'd rather do these sort of things on the weekend than make the newsletter weekly) and midweek breaks from my MainProjects rotation.

  • First, inspired by CW&T's Principles, I'm ginning up my own living document of my creative principles, if only for myself. It will probably debut in next Sunday's 90th issue of MacroParentheticals before getting its permanent home in the ether of here.

  • Second, I'm finally digging into Lynda Barry's MAKING COMICS in an effort to think in different ways and come up with new modes of imperfect expression for this space (expanding VIOLENTLY ADORABLE, among other things). Already inspired me to start a new thing this morning.

  • And third, I've been developing the business end of my practice and building up the bones and sinew of my own micropress publishing company as a vehicle for my own projects and, eventually, perhaps, for others: CW&T meets Third Man Records only with a paper cutter and recycled carboard and shitty binder-taping jobs. PRESS (A) is the handmade part of it – designed specifically to be crude – with the eventual goal that I'll release more fully-realized (read: actually printed in small batches by competent people) products as the project deems necessary.

As I know more, you’ll know more.

attendance cards

in

Spent the morning on side projects – more detailed post coming in a bit – and, among them, started Lynda Barry's MAKING COMICS – which has already given me a new thing – her Attendance Card exercise - for this space:

We begin each class by drawing a self portrait in response to a prompt. We draw for the length of a song I've chosen, about 3-4 minutes. I ask that you draw without stopping for the entire length of the song and include your face and entire body." (p42)

This first one took a bit of liberty with her rules (this took longer than four minutes and I cocked up the date/name order), but the next ones will follow those rules, more or less (will use a timer instead of a song because that would be another choice I have to make and I have a thousand 3x5 index cards from an earlier consideration instead of the class-required 4x6s that I need to use). Prompts, not sure. Handdrawn status updates. Will do these at the start of the work day and publish without text or title beyond my zk dating; any text pieces will be written throughout the day.

Who knows if this will become a regular thing or if this is just a passing enthusiasm - but it's, so far, a wonderful alternative to more writing to get the brain in a writing mode for the day's work. All Attendance Card comics can be found, eventually, in the Attendance Card tag.