Crowds and Architecture and Horses, Oh My!

A quick update this week! I was legitimately bewildered today when went to snap pics for this post and discovered I had inked… three? Pages? Since last week's post? I rifled through my finished pages and double-checked last week's post to make sure I wasn't mistaken, but no, that's the case. How did that happen?

The answer is a whole bunch of things including household work schedules and holiday-related activities, I guess. Still, a bit of an unpleasant surprise for me.

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GIVE THE GIFT OF PATRONAGE

I saw this post today (below) and I'll be honest, I'm sold.

We have so many weird behaviours around money and what we value. Or I do, at least. And I think one of the hardest value propositions around is, "I want to be a patron of the arts."

If there's someone you know who has enjoyed DD in the past, or who might in the future, consider sending them a Gift Membership. For the price of three pints of Guinness from Speed's Pub in Ladner (plus a 20% tip), you can buy membership for a whole year, and you're doing your friend the favour of not asking them to make this choice, and they'll get to see so many finished pages next year, and (if they're like me) they'll feel better than if they drank three pints of Guinness (I max out at two).

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LIBRARY COMICS REPORT

Recently I remembered that I could still take out books from the big city library where I don’t live anymore, and they have a great comics selection, so that’s what I did.

Ordinarily I have a strict if-you-can't-say-something-nice policy about books that I don't like, or which aren't working for me. But last week I was banging on about listening to my own sense of taste and I noticed that these library reads were saying things relevant to that discussion (where I shared some thoughts around how long PRACTICAL DEFENCE had turned out to be). So I’m breaking my “keep it positive” rule to talk about what I learn from books I don't love. I will not mention their names; and/but don’t worry, none of these are your books.

First of all, I picked up the eighth volume in a series I’ve been enjoying. By the seventh volume I was starting to ask, “umm is this going anywhere?” The eighth volume offered no answers. Just the opposite. It doesn’t seem as though it’s building to anything, it just seems to be… continuing.

I hope that the episodic chapter-by-chapter nature of PDAP doesn’t feel that way. I hope it feels like a coherent story moving in a proper direction. I’m reasonably confident that it is, but then I already know where it’s going, while a reader does not. I can never know exactly what this book is like for a reader encountering it for the first time.

This unnamed comic's eighth volume reminded me to make sure that each chapter of PDAP has worthwhile payoffs, or that it plays an interesting variation on the themes, or else I might see my reader's trust waver, as mine is in this case.

Another book I borrowed, all I ought to say is that it reminded me why I stopped buying a certain type of floppy comic. I picked it up for the art, which is gorgeous in so many ways. The story, however, was mean and grim, seemingly designed to pull the reader from one issue to the next, not really saying anything worthwhile. It reaffirmed my belief that when it comes to comics, the story is what counts. A good story can make the most unappealing art seem lovely and perfect, but while beautiful art can (and does) draw me to a comic, it will never make up for an unappealing story. That was the case here.

On the other hand, I stumbled upon THE GRAND ODALISQUE, illustrated by Bastien Vivés, who I like, so I snatched it up. This is a cheeky, reckless, fast-paced story about three lady art thieves. Vivés illustrations have the simultaneous qualities of moving beautifully — the posing is perfect — while also being as cool and cigarette-smoking laid back as art can be. The action, meanwhile, is fully over-the-top. It proved to me that that sort of juxtaposition is good, giving me confidence in PDAP’s maybe-unusual blend of elements. Sometimes I worry that DD and PDAP don’t really fit anywhere — not easily at least — but books like this remind me that this can be a boon. Being hard to categorize can be a feature, not a bug.

UPDATE: apparently Vivés has said some gross things. More here. Ughh. What a shame on every level.

I also picked up the fourth volume of Andrew McLean’s HEAD LOPPER. I’m only part of the way through as I write this, but it’s fun and I like the characters, so I kind of don’t care where it goes because it’s making me smile. It’s reminding me how much I like good character foils, and how much I value good, funny, light-hearted character interactions.

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 I must have mentioned this when I posted the pencils for this page, but I'm very happy with these hands (above). If only the ring wasn't on the wrong finger. (Fortunately, I can flop this panel and it should look proper.)

 Hmm I wonder if all the crowds and all the architecture (above) have something to do with why I finished so few pages this week. I wonder. I wonnnderrrrr.

I just noticed that in the page above, in the top-right panel, Mom is facing the opposite direction from the previous panel. I think it works, though? because of that thing you can do in comics where you can ignore the 180º rule in certain circumstances? Her eye line connects to Vignelli in the previous panel, which tells us that's what she's looking at, and it all works? I think? This is another one of those occasions where I wish I could be looking at this with the fresh eyes of a first-time reader.

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Okay all, I'm going to sleep so I can wake up tomorrow and do some inking. It's the first full work day I'll have this week!

I will also mention I listened to Robin Wall Kimmerer's new book, THE SERVICEBERRY, about "the ethic of reciprocity that lies at the heart of the gift economy." I love it and it has given me a lot to think about, especially in the context of webcomics. I hope I can write about it but I doubt that will be next week. (Oh, also, I recently listened to SAPIENS, and THE SERVICEBERRY makes good companion listening. I enjoyed SAPIENS, but it can be a downer, whereas SERVICEBERRY is 100% upper.)

Until next week,
I remain,
100% upper,

TC