Hi patrons,
Introducing: Dame Dynamite! She's supposed to be an old-fashioned, well-established superhero in Turtle City. Usually when I create a new character, I visualize a real human face and simplify/exaggerate the details. In this case, I modeled Dame Dynamite's face on classic Superman drawings:
I might try and push that further as we go along. (Shiny black lipstick? The almost-no-n...
2020-03-24 01:30:19 +0000 UTC View Post
Becky here! I love doing watercolor postcards from Turtle City, but am usually short on time and ideas. For...reasons, I was thinking about Turtle City during pandemic flu-times, especially with Lillian's father being a doctor. I pictured kid-Lillian barricading herself behind stacks of books while her parents worried in the next room.
I hope you're all doing okay, given the circumstances! Barry and I understand that some of you might be in a precarious space with regard to employment,...
I absolutely love Barry's dialogue here! It's so snappy and smooth, you'd never know that some of the lines were written a month apart. We knew that in this page, Lillian notices Ruth's discomfort at the anti-Semitic tirade, breaks out of "impartial reporter mode," and insults the protester to her face. But it took ages to decide on a line for panel 7. When Barry first drafted the page, I commented "something snappier here?"
He patiently kept sending me possible one-liners, while I kept...
2020-02-29 19:52:16 +0000 UTC View Post
I looove drawing quirky faces and interesting lettering. Thanks for the script, Barry!
If you're curious, here's a video of a real anti-war protest from July 1941. You'll probably recognize some of the outfits and signs. :) Maybe don't read the Youtube comments, though.
As always, thanks for supporting SuperButch!
2020-02-18 07:04:32 +0000 UTC View Post
Ta-daa! I frickin love libraries.
I based this building on a former Carnegie library in Olympia, WA:
I loved the unique way that the entrance faces the corner, rather than one side of the street. Also, I thought the patch of grass in the middle would be a good site for the protesters to gather around. Turtle City is large enough to warrant a bigger library, though. So I added a couple of stories...
2020-02-12 02:26:20 +0000 UTC View Post
Hi patrons,
Last Saturday was the annual Hourly Comic Day, where a sliver of artists on the internet document their waking hours with goofy journal comics and post them on social media. I'm usually working at the theater on Hourly Comic Day, so this seemed like a good chance to give it a whirl. It was also a nice break from drawing small, carefully-rendered vintage crowd scenes!
Notes: We eventually found a new housemate, and the podcasts referenced in 3pm-7pm are 2020-02-05 21:29:16 +0000 UTC View Post
It feels so good to be able to show you this page!!! Panel 4 involved Google street view, streetcar research, and basically making a collage in Photoshop, so it took awhile. Every day this week has been a cycle of "I just have to do X and Y, and THEN I'll be done... ok it's taking longer than I thought, but TOMORROW I just have to do X and Y..." I was feeling pretty frustrated with it, to be honest, but I logged in to see a nice note from a new patron, so--Thank you!
Fun news, I got int...
2020-02-03 20:30:38 +0000 UTC View Post
Welcome back to weekly updates!
Credit goes to Barry for this cool page layout. The script had a few suggestions. I liked his idea of using Gladys Bentley's silhouette as a panel border, and I wanted to include both a panel of the four friends watching the concert, and a close-up of Lillian. I also didn't want the page to be made of identically-shaped panels. I associate regular panel grids with action, and this is a moment that Lillian is savoring. So I drew Gladys's silhouette, the fr...
2020-01-22 21:51:00 +0000 UTC View Post
We're baaaaack! Thanks for your patience over the holidays. I hope it's not too late to say Happy New Year!
2020-01-13 22:23:46 +0000 UTC View Post
Hi patrons,
I don't have the next page done yet, so I hope you like process posts! :)
Becky
2019-12-10 04:40:42 +0000 UTC View Post
Hi patrons! Becky here. In lieu of a new SuperButch page this week, please enjoy these cartoons and photos from GeekGirlCon:
GeekGirlCon is one of my favorite conventions to go to! The energy is always really positive and sweet.
Also, Barry, Naomi, and I have a favorite place to get sandwiches after setting up on Friday (and before leaving Seattle on Sunday):
2019-11-27 06:39:08 +0000 UTC
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Barry added this page to the script pretty recently, after realizing that Alicia, Tammy, and perhaps some readers would scratch their heads when Lillian mentions Gladys Bentley's wife. I really like the dialogue on this page--Everyone is so cute! One of Barry's notes on my first draft was that EVERYONE was smiling in EVERY PANEL, and could I please switch it up a little. :)
Is anyone going to GeekGirlCon in Seattle t...
2019-11-15 08:13:41 +0000 UTC View Post
Hi patrons! Becky here. I had so much fun drawing Mona being unabashedly excited about Gladys Bentley! She deserves some fun.
Naomi and I recently got back from a 9-day trip to visit the relatives in Brooklyn. This is the view from the kitchen window, which I love:
2019-11-06 06:30:42 +0000 UTC
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Hi patrons! Becky here. The theme for this page was rabbit holes. We're back at the Rabbit Hole; my coworker got me hooked (don't judge) on a flawed-but-cool Alice in Wonderland-themed musical called Alice By Heart; and I fell into a fun research rabbit-hole while choosing everyone's outfits.
I was looking for a new dress for Mona, and found this:
I thought it looked exciting, fun, ...
2019-10-17 22:57:55 +0000 UTC View Post
Hi Patrons! Becky here.
It's been a hectic weekend, including biking in a sunny afternoon hailstorm to set up for an amateur comedy contest that was renting performance space from the theater:
BUT, here we are with a page update! Hope you enjoyed it. :)
2019-10-01 06:17:11 +0000 UTC View Post
Hi Patrons! Becky here.
Barry and I are back in the swing of things after last weekend, which was 3 days of Rose City Comic Con!
I didn't get a picture of our Artist Alley table, but if you want photographic evidence of the convention, here ya go:
Barry, Naomi, and I are already getting travel-plans together for GeekGirlCo...
2019-09-20 17:34:25 +0000 UTC View Post
I am having so much fun drawing Lillian in a wildly out-of-character outfit! I originally drew her in button-down pinstriped PJs--maybe Kansas had "borrowed" them from a hotel guest--but I realized it would be easier and less suspicious for Kansas to dip into her own wardrobe. This is a simplified version of a nightgown in "fashionable clothing from the sears catalogs, late 1930's," which is my most-renewed library book.
Naomi usually has to remind me not to start these posts with an ap...
2019-09-10 06:04:39 +0000 UTC View Post
Hi patrons! Becky here.
Thanks for your patience. This page was a blast to draw, but it seemed to take forever! ...Now that I think about it, this page involved research/discussions/phone calls to my mother about head mirrors and otoscopes. Barry and I also decided to make the font for the comic a little smaller, so that we can fit more dialogue on the page. (Thanks for re-lettering, Barry!) I've also had a ridiculously eventful month.
Naomi and I went to Seattle with friends, to ...
2019-08-20 05:29:30 +0000 UTC View Post
Hi Patrons! Becky here.
I first read about the Japanese hotels in the Pacific Northwest in Street Roots, a local newspaper that focuses on homelessness, but covers a lot of interesting local history, too.
Thanks again for supporting this project!
2019-07-30 16:54:57 +0000 UTC View Post
Well, I thoroughly enjoyed drawing 4 pages of dogs and babies, but I guess it's time for Lillian's story to pick up again. :)
Shout-out to my 4th grade classmate who said that my basset hound drawings were too "cute" for the comic book club! Drawing a ton of basset hounds in like 1994 came in handy after all.
Thanks again for the kind words about the Prism Awards!
2019-07-23 05:55:53 +0000 UTC View Post
Becky here! It’s true: SuperButch just won the 2019 Prism Award for best webcomic!
(This picture was photobombed by my historical lesbian coffee mug from someplace called Feminist Horizons, which feels very appropriate.)
The Prism Awards for excellence in LGBTQ+ comics are given out by a publisher called Prism Comics. The awards were at San Diego Comic Con, so Barry and I weren’t able to be there in person, but a friend of Barry’s emailed us right away with the good news. Ba...
2019-07-19 05:51:29 +0000 UTC View Post
Becky here!
Turtle City is in the Pacific Northwest (off I-5, if you noticed the highway sign on page 107). So a lot of Portland and Seattle details end up in my drawings.
Soon after I moved to Portland, I took a biking tour of the Northwest quadrant of the city, and was struck by this sight:
(Sorry the photo is sideways; I don't know why it's loading sideways)
This is only a ...
2019-07-17 09:02:28 +0000 UTC View Post
Becky here! This was a really fun page to research. (Hats off to Barry for finding a bunch of old houses on Google satellite to help with the perspective in panel 3!)
It took awhile to choose outfits and hair for everyone for this scene. (There's an extra pressure with webcomics, knowing you'll be looking at these characters for months or years. At least, that's how it felt.) I was at my computer, trying different search terms, wishing that I could just stumble upon a documentary about ...
2019-07-08 16:50:46 +0000 UTC View Post
Annnd we're back to weekly updates! This week's drawing soundtrack was Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and Jessica Jones on Netflix, plus the You're Wrong About podcast.
Since we got back from Chicago, Naomi and I tabled at a small one-day comic [swap? sale? event?] down the street from our house, and at Olympia Comics Fest with Barry.2019-06-25 22:51:59 +0000 UTC
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After a weekend behind the convention table, I’m sitting in First Slice—a delicious, cute Chicago cafe that also feeds people in need!—and wanted to give you an update.
The first update is that you can’t go wrong with Michigan sour cherry OR chocolate peanut butter.
...
2019-06-03 20:28:02 +0000 UTC View Post
Hi Patrons,
Believe it or not, we've reached the end of Issue 4, and the beginning of convention season! Barry and I have had a couple of story meetings, and the next segment of the script is in progress, and (especially after this conference!) I'm excited to start drawing the next segment of Lillian's story when I get home.
We had a great conversation at the panel on Creating Queer Historical Comics. Our comic output encompasses (left to right) autobio comics about activism in Orang...
2019-05-20 02:21:56 +0000 UTC View Post
I laughed SO hard while I was drawing this page! Poor Tammy.
I just looked at some earlier drafts, and wow, I'd forgotten how many tries it took to nail down everyone's poses and iron out the pacing! The Photoshop layers all have names like "panel 1 Lillian pose version 3."
Here are two earlier drafts of the page. The first one has completely different pacing, and a penultimate panel that mirrors the 2019-05-13 20:30:42 +0000 UTC View Post
It took awhile to legibly draw a broken stack of wooden pallets. After this page, I'd spent so much time thinking about them, I started noticing every wooden pallet in every alley in Portland during my bike commute!
I can't find any reference photos of those in particular, but please enjoy the view from the Hawthorne bridge:
2019-04-30 06:31:49 +0000 UTC
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