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But it’s cold outside!

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I know I’ve been absent, especially on the last few installments of Free Art Friday, but I just had to post this week’s! This is really the only time I’ve had any idea who found the drawing.

I released the drawing in a movie theater and not long afterwards the person who found it sat down two rows ahead of me and seemed to be discussing it with her friends.  Felt kinda cool.  I was giddy before the movie even started!

As for the drawing — it’s starting to get cold here in Portland.  Time to drag out the big winter coats and beanies and ear muffs and scarfs and gallons of hot tea.

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Shields up!

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I know I said I’d post this before I hid it in the world, but I’ve suddenly got a lot of work to prepare in a short amount of time, and I just kind of forgot.  I did manage to get out and drop it off in the world on Friday though.

This week’s drawing was another warrior girl.  I realized I’ve been drawing a lot of girls with weapons, so I might have to mix it up for next week’s offering.  That’s still a few days off, however, so we’ll see — I can’t seem to plan that far ahead these days.

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Pisces

0028 Pisces

And here she is; the last of the Celestial Cuties in my zodiac series.  I’m actually kind of proud of this piece above all the others, but mostly because whenever I’ve seen a personification of Pisces, she’s almost always a mermaid.  I’m just happy that I found some other schtick to go with.  I hope you’ve enjoyed them!

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Free Art Friday

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Last week a friend clued me into this thing called “Free Art Friday.”  The basic premise is that artists all over the place will take a piece of their work out into the world and leave it for someone to find.  Viola!  Free art.  On Fridays.  I decided to take part; it sounds like it could be a lot of fun.

This is my inaugural drawing for Free Art Friday.  I left it in a cafe after I had breakfast with a friend.  I can’t help but wonder what happened to it.

I’ll be posting the future drawings before I go hide them, so check back to see what goodies I’ll be unleashing.

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Aquarius

0017 Aquarius

As we approach the end of the celestial cuties we find ourselves gazing upon Aquarius — the water bringer.  Though she appears towards the end of the list, she was the first sign I completed.  The fact that she’s my sign might have something to do with that.  Then again, it could be purely coincidental.  (Probably not.)

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Rose City Comic Con 2013: My Cutting-room Floor

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Rose City Comic Con is less than two weeks away and I’m about halfway to panic.  Productivity is in full swing and I’m cranking things out just as fast as my fingers will let me.  Still, not everything makes the grade.  This is an illustration I started and then abandoned in favor of a better version.  Want to see what I decided to go with?  Come see me at table B-09 at Rose City in two weeks.

 

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Depression

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Seems I’ve been talking to a lot of people about depression lately.  I think a lot of the problem is that there’s some confusion between situational depression and clinical depression.  I could blather on endlessly about my thoughts on the matter, but I once found the following piece of writing and I think it does a much better job of cutting to the heart of the matter.  I’ve never been able to identify the original author, but whoever they might be I just want to say thank you.

 

“Depression is humiliating. It turns intelligent, kind people into zombies who can’t wash a dish or change their socks. It affects the ability to think clearly, to feel anything, to ascribe value to your children, your life-long passions, your relative good fortune. It scoops out your normal healthy ability to cope with bad days and bad news, and replaces it with an unrecognizable sludge that finds no pleasure, no delight, no point in anything outside of bed. You alienate your friends because you can’t comport yourself socially, you risk your job because you can’t concentrate, you live in moderate squalor because you have no energy to stand up, let alone take out the garbage. You become pathetic and you know it. And you have no capacity to stop the downward plunge. You have no perspective, no emotional reserves, no faith that it will get better. So you feel guilty and ashamed of your inability to deal with life like a regular human, which exacerbates the depression and the isolation.

 

Depression is humiliating. If you’ve never been depressed, thank your lucky stars and back off the folks who take a pill so they can make eye contact with the grocery store cashier. No one on earth would choose the nightmare of depression over an averagely turbulent normal life. It’s not an incapacity to cope with day to day living in the modern world. It’s an incapacity to function. At all. If you and your loved ones have been spared, every blessing to you. If depression has taken root in you or your loved ones, every blessing to you, too.

 

Depression is humiliating. No one chooses it. No one deserves it. It runs in families, it ruins families. You cannot imagine what it takes to feign normalcy, to show up to work, to make a dentist appointment, to pay bills, to walk your dog, to return library books on time, to keep enough toilet paper on hand, when you are exerting most of your capacity on trying not to kill yourself. Depression is real. Just because you’ve never had it doesn’t make it imaginary. Compassion is also real. And a depressed person may cling desperately to it until they are out of the woods and they may remember your compassion for the rest of their lives as a force greater than their depression. Have a heart. Judge not lest ye be judged.”

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Getting Back to Work

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I haven’t posted anything in two months?  How did that happen! I took some time off, got busy, got distracted, and then got busy again.  Still, hard to believe it’s been so long.  I do apologize.

So, in hopes that you’ll forgive me, I offer you this.  It’s the (colored) first page of the comic I’m working on with my buddy Owen.  Remember when I wanted to do the whole book like this?  What was I thinking?