D A N C I N G (DD4, Chapter Two, pages 38-44)

In which Alexandra's expectations are shattered.

(To read all of the posts with finished pages, simply browse the DD4 tag!)

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Aha! The first of Chapter Two's Big Fun Experiments, the four-page "Proper English Ladying" spread. I am very happy to be able to share the finished pages with you, after all the work that went into it. 

Just now, I've been messing with the text. Feeling too clever about the dual business of Alexandra expecting the tea to be to her taste (it is not) and expecting to be introduced to the life of an adventurer (she is not), I changed up the text to tell us she expects the tea to be strong and added the box describing it as "floral and flaccid." I'm trying to hit that balance where the elements that are there are doing their best work, making themselves known, and the ideas are clear versus not being too on-the-nose about it or to clumsy with the language.

I am particularly proud of the spray from Alexandra's mouth transitioning into the star field background. I hope it reads that way. This is the sort of thing I think is funny.

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ON UNFINISHED TASKS, ROUTINE, AND SATISFACTION LEVELS

Two days ago, our toddler and I spent part of the day stripping the side trim off our 2007 Mazda 3. It was held on with adhesive and many years ago, during a road trip to promote DD2 (I think?) under the mild stress of a Pacific Northwest summer sun, it started to peel off. I pulled up in front of Lucy Bellwood's house in Oregon with one strip sticking out at a 90-degree angle. To make it safe again, I secured it to the car using packing tape. And that's how it stayed for the last seven years, quietly nagging at the back of my mind but never being so much of a problem that it needed fixing.

Finally, finally! I bought some Goo-Gone™ and got the hairdryer out and sat in the mid-day sun and stripped those stupid plastic rails from the car. It took about the same time it would take to colour two comic pages, but the sense of relief and pride that I felt admiring the now-unmarred, shiny white sides of our old car—it was much greater than I ever feel when I finish a comic page.

Noticing this disparity in pride, I felt odd, because this comic is a much greater part of my life and is much more important to me than making our car look nice. Plus, considering the work involved, shouldn't every finished comic page deserve its own small parade? Why was I lighting off emotional fireworks for my stupid car?

Maybe it's because I had spent years and years wanting to fix that trim, accumulating need like dust in a corner, whereas the work of making the comic is  a well-swept floor, a need that is constantly addressed (caution: sloppy metaphor). Or maybe working on the comic every day makes it mundane, as even the most-special things fade beneath the light of routine like VHS boxes in the window of the video store (caution: untimely reference). Or perhaps I was proud of the car work simply because the task was novel and practical, and the change of pace was refreshing, working with my hands on something tactile. 

Or, or! Maybe it's because now that the trim is stripped, there's nothing more I can do about that problem. I can't put it on and strip it again, I can't strip it better. It is a closed book, whereas work on the comic is potentially unlimited (don't worry—it's not actually). If I decide that the elaborate spread I posted today isn't working, I could, theoretically, keep re-doing it until it feels the way I want it to feel. Maybe the relief only comes once I can't change it anymore, and that happens very late in the process.

Whichever is the explanation (and I'm sure it's an All of the Above situation), I thought it was an interesting comparison. One of the hardest things about making comics for me is being as excited about my work as I can be about other people's work, or, apparently, as excited as I can be about the newly-shiny side panels of my Mazda 3. I'm going to try to remember this lesson, though, because you, Dear Reader, deserve for me to be excited about PRACTICAL DEFENCE.

And you know what? I really am, but my excitement for making comics comes less in the execution of individual pages and more in how they all fit together as scenes and jokes and surprises and character turns and places that I can take you. I have at least two more special sequences to reveal in Chapter Two, among several other delightful scenes, and I'm over here rubbing my hands together and cackling over the potential for Chapter Three.

And if anyone wants guidance on how to strip the trim from a Mazda 3, shoot me a message. I'm a pro now.

What long-running task have you been putting off? It might take less time to solve than you think it will, and you'll probably feel amazing if you do it this week. Then it will be done, and you'll wonder why you waited!

TC