Steadily Rolling Backwards Downhill Fast

That's how today's shaping up work-wise, bleagh. 

Last week I really pushed on a script and it finally got finished up Friday night, and then I pretty much slept through Saturday. We set up the webcam and tried testing it again and things just aren't happening with the connection or whatever the hell's going on. So,my plans for doing some sketching and signing for a first webcam/livestream/whatever it's called. Sarah thinks we might have to hook it up to my desktop computer, but who knows. Bleagh. Bleagh, I say!

I also wasted an hour trying to access some material for the Patreon that probably anyone with half a brain could have realized was pointless right off the bat. I just don't function well with technology, or machinery, or mechanical devices, or things with more than three buttons, or math, or science, or logic, or systems or memorization. I'm very visually-oriented, I'm the kind of driver who remembers the way -- if I remember it -- by landmarks and repetition, I never know what streets I'm on for most of the way (this is why Manhattan stymies me on the rare occasions I go in by car, everything I knew by sight is seemingly gone and replaced by a chain store or a condo). I still can't tell you what the three cross streets I can see from my house are named after living here for, like, two decades. I can't remember my cell phone number, I have it written down on a post-it, and have another post-it in my wallet for when I need to enter the number for my prescriptions at the pharmacy. 

I realized recently that a big reason why I have so much trouble drawing is that I never learned or developed a system for it. I feel like I'm making it up as I go along even now, even with things I've created and have drawn for decades. I never learned fundamentals, or the working/commercial shortcuts and basic approaches and rules of thumb  that many books and courses teach. I have the books, I refer to them, and I can't remember a damned thing. In one ear, down the gullet, into the stomach to cause more ache. The way to block things out, break things down, know what the contours and where the landmarks are on the body and all that -- sometimes I can dredge some of that up, most often I feel like I have no idea what I'm going to end up with on the page. I blunder through, and waste a lot of time. 

Being stymied by drawing is one thing, at least I can push through it. I can draw even if I'm losing sight of what I was originally going for. Even the simplest technology throws me and very often I come to a task I've done before and I'm flummoxed and defeated and can't accomplish anything until Sarah helps me. I write a lot of directions and steps down for tasks but still goof things up. Learned helplessness, fear of looking or feeling stupid, avoidance, these and more are my little hobgoblins. I would love to try using a table to make some gag cartoons and things, but I still eff up paper and pencil. Oy. I'm doomed when Sarah finally kicks me to the curb one of these days, that's for sure! 

Anyway, I was hoping today's post would include a link for a livestreamy thing, hopefully that will happen soon. I'm going to start signing those books and comics anyway because they need to get out so JHU Comics in NYC can try to sell them. I was supposed to do a Marvels Snapshots: Fantastic Four signing just as the shutdown started kicking in around NYC. So hopefully I can help them sell a few of the extra copies that they ordered. 

(Art above is from one of the Bart Simpson stories I wrote and drew for Bongo Comics back in the day. RIP Bongo! They were always great to work for and paid really well.)