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2/2/2004 - So... I have a story. And it relates to last weeks rather uncomfrotable posts regarding "Little Dee".
Back in 2002, I was in Europe for three months. During that time I had planned to stay with a friend of mine in Toulouse/France for the entire duration, to simply see what it was like to live in another country and to try and get some skill at the language.
She ended up being very ill before I arrived, and so I bumped myself by train to Claremont-Ferrand and stayed with a gentleman there (a brunoreader, you all are so awesome), after that I stayed briefly with her parents in Paris, and then I traveled with her down to Toulouse. She needed some nursing and setting up house again and so I lent a hand.
When she was soon on her feet, the whole sense of the trip was off-balance, plus after her illness she needed some space and time, and so it was best for me to move along. To alter my plans.
Somehow this was incomprehensible to me. One does not change plans. Simply put. I found myself in a total inability to alter what i had intended to do, even though I no longer even desired the oringal plan myself. Like I cannot think in a conversation, or decide when argued with until further contemplation.
My answer: kill the plan. Scrap it. Start at ground zero.
And so I did. Easy enough. I scrapped the plan, made a new plan. And it worked out fine and I had a lovely time.
And you're probably thinking this is all semantics, but i can tell you assuredly, that in my head... it's in the territory of the psychological side of semantics. In my mind the difference is somehow terribly important.
And so, Dee. I have not abandoned "Little Dee".... I have merely scrapped the expensive plan. A new plan is currently being formulated in my head.
And when I posted my painful (even painful for me to look at) post from last week, I had no idea what I was doing. Over this weekend I slowly began to realize. I was scrapping an inflated plan that was based on faulty information. Like Dostoyevki's Raskalnokov, i was baring my sins in the town square at the top of my voice. I was wrong. It was a bad plan (or poorly timed, in the least)
And now?.... Start fresh.
And that, my friends, is Monday's story.
(obviously, there will be more to come as thoughts develop more mature blossoms in my head)
(link: http://www.brunostrip.com/notes/200402.html#20040202)
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2/3/2004 - Daniel, I suppose some of you are wondering who he is. Well, hyperlink here (sixth strip), here (first strip), here (fifth strip), and here (fifth strip). I think he may have one more strip floating around somewhere, but I can't seem to recall exactly.
I actually drew the strip before I looked up his past strips (I did look up the first one to get some family resemblance with his mother). But yeah, i just read them all, and It made me sad to see that Bruno and his last conversation was actually about suicide. Maybe this was in my head for a long time. I know I should tell you all that it was all planned, so that it seems like some grand significant foreshadowing. I don't know.
I know, I know, they're only characters. Yes, i know.
Personally, I've had nobody close to me die, and I know i am very fortunate, even unusual perhaps, in that fact. I have had acquaintences from Greenfield who did not get out of the town's clutches, and who took their lives. I don't know why this is on my mind now. I mean, the theme for Bruno Book#9 is going to be "friends", and it actually will span 2003 plus the first few months of 2004, and it felt an important thing to say in relation to friends. We're all fragile, in one way or another. Maybe it was to balance last week's baby, the whole birth/death cycle. Maybe it's simply because of my "killing" of the first "Little Dee" marketing plan, as i posted yesterday. Or possibly it is that the last two freelance assigments i've done (both relatively recent) were both memorials. I rarely get freelance assignments, because i don't actively seek them probably, and I find this unusual that I am the choice for remembering. Well, I draw Bruno, so not that unusual.
No, not so unusual i suppose.
(link: http://www.brunostrip.com/notes/200402.html#20040203)
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2/5/2004 - Mary's an old friend of Bruno's from Bruno's home town. Mary appeared in a couple strips in the first month, and a couple strips sometimes later, here and there, and then when Bruno traveled cross counntry, Bruno stayed with Mary in San Francisco at the end of januarry 2000.
And I know... a new panel format for the phone conversation. Not that other methods don't work well, I like them in fact, it just feels right to p[lay with it when it feels appropriate to the strip. Hope it's readable
(link: http://www.brunostrip.com/notes/200402.html#20040205)
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2/6/2004 - So, my goal in keeping this sketchblog is as much for me to diversify, tighten, and enjoy my chops as it is for your pleasure. And so almost all of the time the sketchblog will purely be new stuff.
But from time to time I'll have a day like today, and it might not get done. But when i traveleed last, i pulled out a pile of stuff from my Dad's attic. So today, you get one of those. one I've been wanting to post.
It was a children's story I wrote, I'm guessing near the end of college, and the basic premise being that this poor young fellow, who resemebled me quite a bit, was regularly and distressingly vexed by this young lady, who also, though he hated to admit, inspired him. This brief scenario I'm posting was kinda' the climax if i recall (I'm sure the whoe text is lost somewhere to be found someday), and then he misses her, and the reunite, happy birds chirping, etc.
Oh, and my goal was to do all the text on a transparent overlay (pre-computersavviness) so that every page looked like the "FOOM!" one in style. I added the text via bottom font for the rest so that you know what's happening.
And also, though the "FOOM!" page is my favorite page, my favorite line, from elsewhere in the text, but which i still remember to this day was "She threw in some carrots and shouted, "Eureeka!" And then, God knows why, she grabbed the paprika."
Anyhow, enjoy, and have a great weekend. :)
(link: http://www.brunostrip.com/notes/200402.html#20040206)
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2/9/2004 - I just ate 2/3 of a package of Oreos. Ginger tea and drawing Bruno is what I used to sober me up. Next time i will hopefully have the ginger tea and draw Bruno without the Oreos beforehand.
(link: http://www.brunostrip.com/notes/200402.html#20040209)
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2/13/2004 - This week's sketches are just this and that. Two weeks ago Kevin noted that my sketches were pretty, and so I sketched his wee lad. Um. For better or for worse. All the rest are from National Geographic except for the fleshed out drawing on the left. He's just from my imagination. But unlike the other sketches I've been doing, he was penciled first.
(link: http://www.brunostrip.com/notes/200402.html#20040213)
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2/17/2004 - It's interesting drawing Stanley's house again. I considered photo-referenceing a "real" house for him to move in, but kept the old one instead. But like, for instance, today's strip. Since i drew blueprints for his house (they're in the back of Book#2), I know that they parked the car in the garage, came in through the dining room, and that's why they have to come in through the door they come in through to the living room, which is why I had to spend way too much time doing a funky perspective (although, i do like how it looks). I'm a strange lad.
(link: http://www.brunostrip.com/notes/200402.html#20040217)
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2/20/2004 - Well, I enjoyed last weeks sketches, doing a bunch of free inks from photos with no pencils first, plus doing one cartooned pencil and ink. I enjoy doing the free-inks, even though they often come out haphazard, because everything else I draw is so damn uptight, it's good to let loose (as people cringe, saying "that's you letting loose? You gotta' get laid, boy"). And I enjoy creating the cartoony one, because I like just goofin' around and making characters, i used to do it it math class all the time (I was an "A" math student, btw), plus since I'm working on writing other comic projects, it's a good place to toodle about and try to come up with things I like. And so, yes, I continued it this week and may do it again.
Although, i may note. Last week i did the "free-inks" first and then the cartoon. And this week i did the cartoon first, but didn't like it as much. I think it helps to look at life first, jog my memory, flex my fingers, and then the cartooning pulls a stronger feel of that "something" to it.
It is a bit strange sometimes for me to look at the setches because they in-so-many-ways resemble the person I'm drawing, but since it's not pencilled, the parts don't fit together quite right. Kip's (bottom right) nose and mouth are kinda' in the wrong spot (his head came out very round too, but was "fixed" in Photoshop), and DJ Tamara at times looks more like Judi Davis than herself (a complement actually... well, in my mind)
And that's it. Still seeking volunteers to help do the mailing list.
(link: http://www.brunostrip.com/notes/200402.html#20040220)
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2/23/2004 - Much posting today, first the mailing list, then personal stuff.
For those who are currently helping out with the mailing list. Depending on the number of papers, complexity or site, speed of internet connection, and helpfulness of editors, I have found that it can take longer than had been estimated. If at any point you are "done with it", do not stress about it. Just email the info you've retrieved and that's totally fine. I appreciate any help I recieve in this porject, a project which I've found is much bigger than anticipated.
Oh, and if papers don't respond, feel free to try other people on the staff, or else just send what you have my way, include the paper name, addy and telephone #, and then note the contact person (or people) you tried, (so i don't try them again), but leave the comic editor field blank.
For those who haven't jumped aboard, I am still seeking any volunteers who wish to lend a hand in making the database. All good either way.
And then, about me? Nothing unusual. Just questioning my entire life and feeling pretty selfish and crummy as a human being. You-know, just one of those soul-serching patches one has to drag oneself through. The type of thing I go through probably at least once a month. It'll be fine, but the days have been long lately.
And actually, the days were literally long last week. i switched my sleep schedule from 8 hours to 6 hours in order to work on the mailing list. But it just makes me too cranky and unhappy during the day (even the "Bruno" art last week felt clumsy somehow)., and so I have relented and decided to return to 8. I'm guessing this is likely a very good thing.
Oh, and Wednesday's my birthday. Thirty-one. Funny how birthdays have come to be such milestones for me, and so I really really wanted to get some part of "Little Dee" to one of the printers (I'll be using two) before then, but I've wanted to use a campaign that reads something like "April showers bring May flowers, and the flower this May is named Little Dee" but since the mailing list would need to be done by the 10th or so of March, I'm guessing that's not a reality (this is not a plea for assistance, I'm simply talkin'). But that's okay, it's really just another arbitrary date.
What I really want this birthday is to want something, a rich fulfilling evening, and to have it be something which can actually happen on that day (or within a week or something). But I don't know what. And life, as ever, is just in a weird place right now, and so it will simply be a quiet time. It would be a reflecting time, but it already seems to be a reflecting time, so no sense in redundancy. But I believe it will be a nice evening with Bethanne, she said she'd make her grandmother's chocolate frosting (maybe even cake to go underneath it), and frankly, that sounds like as nice an evening as a po' boy could ask.
g'night. -c
(link: http://www.brunostrip.com/notes/200402.html#20040223)
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2/24/2004 - Die a thousand small deaths. That's from something I think.
I am still going to attempt to release "Little Dee" for May 3rd. As I've done before, I guess I needed to kill the non-working plan rather than change it. And of course i didn't realize it until after I had already confessed the little death in the town's square. But my revised plan has been good, there were just some snags, things which could be changed, but i cannot see change. I can see now, and if now ends, next now can begin. I am so tired and crazy.
I still think I am going to try and sleep 8 hours. Maybe starting tomorrow.
(link: http://www.brunostrip.com/notes/200402.html#20040224)
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2/24/2005 - happy birthday, me. yay.
(link: http://www.brunostrip.com/notes/200402.html#20040225)
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2/26/2004 - Strange how quickly the week goes, i feel I can barely say a peep out of Bruno before the week's up. Which is funny, because at the same time it's making me slow the pace a little bit. i no longer feel constrained by "trying to wrap up the mini-story by the end of the week." But yeah, not sure what, but it's just new. Simply new.
And sorry the backgrounds are shoddy here and there. I had planned to photo-source a new house for Stanley, but it just never happened. I thought this might be okay, I mean I drew blueprints for his old house (in book#2), but still they keep leaving me wanting.
I don't know. Don;t know where I am in my head these days. The text feels good, and the expressions today feel right on. I just don't know where I am.
Which is probably why the dialogue has sounded as it has. Not "blah blah blah" but rather a sad sort-of searching. Who knows.
(link: http://www.brunostrip.com/notes/200402.html#20040226)
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2/27/2004 - Sketches this week. Bruno in Space was just due to silliness, blame Mr. Mudron (you can also blame him for wrestler, Bruno Sammartino). Owen, Jenn and Kevin's baby seems to be getting some default spots here, don't know why. Cute kid I suppose. And then Molly and Griffin from Dicebox By Jenn Lee (no pencils Jenn, so don't worry, they'll look better with time and practice).
Oh, and I almost forgot, me vs. digital camera. If I recall correctly, the camera won. (drawn from picture taken with 35mm)
I admit it's no stellar week. Not much juice in me right now.
(link: http://www.brunostrip.com/notes/200402.html#20040227)
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