work
Decision: Will only assign any given day to working on a single project. Shifting gears between several messes with my head too much.
Quite enjoying the degree of experimentation that Project OLDBOOK (pictured) is affording me right now, and it seems to have come at a right time as it is starting to inform how I might handle a particular scene in the next TSG I've been thinking about.
And that is the last TSG script in the bag. The chapter is coming out at 48 pages, quite a lot, but certain scenes need to breathe and as much as I'd like to be done with the thing sooner rather than later—something a smaller page-count would certainly help achieve—I just can't find it in my heart to condense it much further. It's mad and beautiful and gloriously demented and I cannot wait to draw it all.
Winds so strong I woke up to find the back door of the house blown wide open. Subzero temperatures expected next week, the annual freak weather incident apparently. Will have to bring all my plants inside, some quite large, and live like a crazy plant daddy for a while.
Scripting/thumbing what may be the most difficult 10 pages of comix I've ever had to conceive of, the last 10 in the very last chapter in THE SOLAR GRID.
I recall upon releasing the very first chapter way back when, and it was considered strange and eccentric. I think this last one will make the first one seem hella conventional (and maybe even boring?) by comparison. Shit gets weird, not because I want it to necessarily, it just kinda happened this way. Will try to wrap these up today, eager to get back to penciling pages.
A few years ago, I was so attracted to the idea of developing comix the same way one might've gone about making a French New Wave film; conceiving of the story as you're working on the actual pages. In essence, thinking of the making of the comix page itself as part and parcel of the writing process. Comix as writing, there's something quite sexy about that. But now I wonder if it might be better to actually write the whole thing out first. Not outline, but properly write the whole thing.
Not so sure about scripting it out though, that might be too boring and time-consuming of an endeavor. Perhaps write it all down in prose like one might go about any prose story. I'm sure there's an argument to be made that if it's a good prose story, it must be good in comix (with necessary adaptive measures employed). Although the opposite isn't necessarily true; can't imagine MAUS or SCOTT PILGRIM or anything by Chris Ware working strictly in prose. And that's a good thing, doing with comix what only comix can do. Which probably means that by going prose first, you're likely to come up with something that may not tap into the full potential of the comix medium.
But it would be the safer thing to do, having your entire story fully locked in before drawing anything.
17 pages into script & thumbs for the very last installment of THE SOLAR GRID. Listening to the characters and letting them take control rather than force anything that really shouldn't happen.
Endings are the most sensitive part of any story, especially ones that've been 8+ years in the making.
16 Celsius in Mexico City today, but I swear it feels more like 6. Even if the weather apps claim otherwise. It's the humidity, which just as it tends to make things warmer come summer, makes the world much colder in winter. It's the kinda cold that gets into your bones. Mexico City in December is evidently not for me.
But I did make a breakthrough in THE SOLAR GRID today, a singular plot point (albeit a rather drastic one) in the very last chapter that allows for the ending I've always wanted to come together more smoothly. So, all is well.
Starting to get that What-Am-I-Doing-Here(?) feeling, despite having met a few people here in Mexico City which you'd think would make one feel like less of a displaced outsider. I reckon part of it must be the nature of the AirBnB I'm at which turned out to be a little too hostel-like, and as such does not invite spending a while lotta time at. I spend the vast bulk of my day bouncing between cafes and now all I want is a home-cooked meal and the comfort of my own studio. It's only been a little over a week and I still have yet another 5 days to go. Feels like I've been here for close to a month. Time passes very differently when each day isn't so different from the one that came before or the one that comes after. Cannot cut my trip short though, as I still have yet another dentist appointment on the agenda, in addition to a handful of Spanish classes, and also quite a bit of thumbnailing/scripting on the very last THE SOLAR GRID installment.
But being back in my own bed would be nice, as would the embrace of my little boy.
Never got around to writing about my time at Cairocomix (four weeks ago already!) and Zinefest Houston less than a couple weeks ago, both of which were amazing. Time has passed though and I'm already in a very different headspace. It's been wall-to-wall madness for many months now, but as the year comes to an end, so do the many disruptions that have colored the majority of 2023 for me. At least, I think so anyway.
Playing catch up on many fronts here at the studio, and boy do I hate playing catch up. Makes me approach the work with many anxious feels that are less than ideal.
Been a few days on this double-page spread from the next THE SOLAR GRID, and the end is still not very close in sight.
I like where it's headed, but I can probably spend the next couple of weeks fussing over the details that can go in the background. I think instead I'll cast it aside for now move on with the remainder of the chapter and come back to it when all other pages are at the very least roughed out. I tend to leave a lot of drawing for the inking stage anyway.
Comp copy of THE BIG BOOK OF CYBERPUNK arrived, and what a sight to behold it is. Obligatory glamor shots of the thing below, along with a look at the impressive table of contents and the opening page of my story, CRISPR Than You.
I quite like how they're categorized by theme, and I thoroughly enjoyed reading Jared's sub-intro for each section. A truly masterfully put-together collection that—at over 1100 pages—will take me quite a while to get through and most likely fuel years of inspiration in the process. Very humbling to be a part of.