Parsing

I’m writing this for me.

Drawing at three in the morning, it gets to a funny point where I just put the headset on even when I don’t plan on listening to anything — the extra weight and pressure on my head is comforting.  Helps me focus.  Like a soft vice.  Or a tactile laser.

By the bed is a stack of trades I haven’t burned through yet.  Giffen-Maguire Justice League is about done, but catching up on GL will have to wait… and that Frank Frazetta Testament book looks fatter every time I ignore it.  Reading Comics? Serious Business.

Alex made me read Grant Morrison’s New X-men five years ago, and that’s what brought me back into comics.  This is all his fault.

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Two days ago, had a sitdown with Politician XOXO’s people about putting together campaign strip.  On the fence about the whole thing, and still feel a little dirty.  Fairly certain candidate isn’t all that bad (as far as candidates go), but that substrata of professional cartooning just registers as… soupy.  And not in a good way.  Comics should be fun.

Dad bought me my first trade when I was eleven.  Finished The Dark Phoenix Saga in one afternoon.

I can’t stop watching videos of mice getting eaten by piranhas and snapping turtles on Youtube.

Roby let me read his Teen Titans comics when I was too young to care about the words, and George Perez Starfire had a weird habit of making me feel funny in the middle.  Stupid alien.

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PLUCK went live on Zuda twelve hours ago.  I am irrevocably valid.  It’s funny working with a weekly deadline.  You’re forced to parse your style down to its essential components and bare necessities.  You draw three lines where two years ago you would have put six, and an alternating crosshatch.  You develop go-tos — fixed solutions for compositional problems.  A mental laundry list of Wally Wood shots.  Grids.  You read Blacksad and anything Quitely to keep from becoming repetitive and boring.  You devour Stuart Immonen.  Because you still have those four other pitches you’re working on, and you sure as hell don’t want those falling flat.  It’s a constant and hectic chase of self-criticism and improvement.  This is the lab, and the scientist is the rat.

Glad I’m seeing my girl this weekend.