The universe is big. Very very big. The chances of you and me and everyone we know existing as we are is infinitesimally small. Let us celebrate our unlikely time on this planet!

I do that by drawing silly pictures. What’s your pleasure?

These Days …

On Monday afternoon, Sarah had a plate and some screws installed in her upper arm to stabilize the bone and allow it to heal better. Due to covid restrictions, the hospital doesn’t currently have a designated waiting room. I ended up spending a few hours sitting in one of the two chairs in the elevator lobby. I had brought my sketchbook and drawing tools, a graphic novel and my phone to pass the time. I read the graphic novel and then spent most of the rest of time scrolling on my phone. Far too much of that scrolling was done on Facebook. I made quite a few snarky comments on other people’s posts. It being Columbus Day, quite a few people were posting about what a complete piece of shit the man had been.

One of my FB connections reposted a tweet from an elected official that made the claim that, whatever else he did, Columbus had proved that the Earth was round. Most of us know that this is a lie, I commented that the official “had failed to deliver intellectual gold. Cut off his hands.” For those who don’t know, Columbus forced the natives that he’d enslaved to deliver a certain amount of gold. Those who failed to do so had their hands cut off.

That evening FB informed me that my account had been suspended for 24 hours  for violating “community standards”. Being exiled bothered me less than the claim that FB has “community standards”. FB is a giant corporation with billions of users. It’s not a community. It’s a business. People and communities use it. I guarantee I haven’t violated my community’s standards.

I spent so much time scrolling rather than drawing because:
a) That chair by the elevator wasn’t a comfortable place to draw
b) I didn’t know how long Sarah was going to be and I wanted to be available when she needed me.

I gave her to the hospital folks at about one. At about 4:30 the doctor called to say that the operation had gone well and he thought that Sarah wanted to stay in the hospital overnight. I didn’t think that sounded like her so I decided to wait a bit. let her come out of the anesthesia and then check again. At 5:30 I checked again and was told that they were getting her ready to come home. She spent the night sleeping in her chair in our library. I slept on the couch nearby in case she needed me during the night. Both of us were happier that way.

I took Tuesday off from work in order to look after her.

Checking my FB account on my desktop rather than my phone lead me to discover that my account had been flagged back in July for making a similarly violent snark. It hadn’t been restricted because “mistakes happen”. Silly FB. I spend a good amount of time on FB not calling for the execution of the corrupt and the corrupting. My posts aren’t accidents. They are also not actual instructions for murder.

I went back to work on Wednesday. And again on yesterday. We’re short handed. My truck, which has rarely sounded healthy even after it has been serviced, currently sounds as rickety as I feel. Parcel volumes were down slightly from before my injury but there’s a local election coming up so we’ve got a lot of policital mail to deliver instead. Yesterday we delivered voler pamphlets. I like delivering voter pamphlets and ballots even when the rest of the day is a mess. I believe in the democratic process. I like being able to play a part in keeping it running.

Power Dynamics: Octobriana

Welcome to another edition of What The What, the podcast in which I interview some of the more unique personalities in our society. I’m Blane Walker. The last few weeks I’ve been speaking with superheroes, those folks with powers beyond the normal. This week we’re chatting with Octobriana. As usual, I’m speaking to you from my home studio here in Portland, Oregon. Octobriana is calling in from an undisclosed location – possibly in Eastern Europe, maybe next door. Will she tell us?

Blane – Hello Octobriana! Thank you for joining us.

Octobriana – Hello Blane. Are you well?

Blane – I’m great. How about you?

Octobriana – I’m sore. I was in a firefight with agents of the Opression last night. I was very drunk and that slowed my reaction times. I got shot more than I should have.

Blane – You got shot?

Octobriana – Eh. I am the Devil Woman, yes? Being shot is tiresome but part of the life. I am still here. The Opression agents are not.

Blane – I’ve never heard of the Opression. Are they some sort of terrorist organization?

Octobriana – All mercenaries are terrorists. The Opression is just one of the many companies that profit from the murder of the lower classes.

Blane – Speaking of lower classes – are you a communist?

Octobriana -… I was. Are you suggesting that the lower classes are communists?

Blane – Well, the so-called lower classes are often duped into thinking that communism and socialism will provide them with good lives without having to work hard. History shows that communism and socialism lead to opression and totalitarianism.

Octobriana – Propaganda from the upper classes claims that fairness and justice for the lower classes will result in more unfairness and injustice for those classes. The trouble with all systems is corruption. Systems need organizers and managers and far too often it is those who want power who take charge of political and economic systems.

Blane – So you’re saying that communism would work if people were good and kind?

Octobriana – Most people are good and kind and willing to believe that those in power are also. It is that naivete that allows the corrupt to take power. It is that kindness and forgiveness that allows the corrupt to flourish.

Blane – Do you see yourself as a fighter against corruption?

Octobriana – That would be foolish. Fighting corruption is like fighting with the tide. One doesn’f tight the tide. One either builds on solid ground or lives on a houseboat. I fight for those who lack the skill and power to fight for themselves.

Blane – So you protect the weak?

Octobriana – No one is weak. To live is to be strong. I allow the kind and the generous to remain so by being their rage.

Blane – Isn’t that a little self aggrandizing?

Octobriana – I have outlived two centuries. Modesty is a virtue I abandoned decades ago.

Sketchwork

I’m sort of between projects at the moment. I’m writing this newsletter every week. I’ve got hundreds (!) of designs in my online stores. I’m got more in the works but the initial rush to create and post designs is over. I’ve been taking commissions again but I don’t currently have any on my plate. I’m planning comics – sort of. I’ll address that later in this newsletter.

In lieu of a major project to hold my focus I’ve been sketching. The subject matter is all over the place but mostly I’m drawing people. It never hurts to draw people.

Process

Since I noticed that writing this newsletter didn’t actually get me to write comics I’ve been outlining a graphic novel. I’ve been using Google Sheets to do it. I mentioned this in a previous newsletter but I didn’t post an example of what it looks like. This week I’m doing that.

Sheets is a spreadsheet app. It’s not intended for creative writing. I’m using it for outlining because it gives me a visual grid that helps me pace a comic story. Comic stories and the pages of which they consist are, for the most part, constrained by how they are expected to be published. A web comic can have any number of panels and  pages. It can fit an infinite canvas. I might publish comics online first but, ultimately, I want to see my comics in print. That means designing pages to fit a printed page. Printed comic books (in the traditional monthly pamphlet format) have a page count that can be divided by four. This is because each sheet of paper in the pamphlet represents four pages. Short stories in anthology comics are often eight pages. The stories in Misspent Youths were 32 pages. Stories in comics with internal advertising will break the “divisible by four” rule but the actual printed magazine will still have a page count that fits the model.

Books, either paperback or hardback, still fit the “divisible by four” rule. So, when I think of a story, I think of pacing it in four page increments. The screenshot above shows a story broken into twelve page chapters. I’m imagining these pages to be printed at the trade paperback size of 6″x9″. At that size, it’s best to use 6 panels or less a page. More than that and the pages become cramped.

This is not a story yet. It’s not a script. It’s an outline. It’s me riffing off ideas that my brain has been kicking out while I’m delivering mail. I’ve done five outlines so far. This is practice. I’m getting used to imagining comic stories again. I’m thinking the story being told in the “decompressed” style of manga. The first outline suggested a 600 page story. I did a second outline that suggested a 660 page story.

Yikes.

I had a protagonist that I found interesting. I had some supporting characters with potential. I had some antagonists that had were worth keeping around. The plot was basically one bad thing after another. The protagonist gets targetted by the antagonists for abuse and torture. The protagonist endures and finally escapes. I enjoyed the process of outlining the story. The characters did some surprising things and pointed the plot in different directions than I’d planned. Creating the outlines was good practice but  writing and drawing 600 plus pages of abuse and torture doesn’t seem like a good use of my time.

So I tossed out everything but the characters and the flashback sequences. Thf flashbacks are what’s in the screenshot. I have a separate spreadsheet for the characters.

From there I’ve started two more outlines. I added characters and a more complex plot. I gave the protagonist some allies and the antagonists justifications other than just being horrible people. I haven’t finished either outline. I abandoned outline number three at 514 pages and outline four at 432 pages. For the first two outlines I’d been winging it, adding plot elements as I went along. For versions three and four I had a better idea of where I thought the story would go and there was no way I’d get there in under 800 pages.

And so I started a fifth outline. I tossed out some of characters. In real life even the shyest of us know and interact with dozens of people. In fiction, it’s better to keep the cast streamlined. I’m still ended up with way too many pages. The hardest part is getting Chekov’s guns placed.early on so they don’t unbalance things when they need to be used. In this story’s case those guns are influential characters and important information. While some of the most important characters appear in flashback, I haven’t managed to get them to show up in the story until after the 400 page mark and that’s way too late.

I ‘ve currently got a sixth outline in progress. Again I tossed everything but the flashbacks. I’ve got copies of all the previous outlines if I want to pull elements from them. I’m enjoying the process. I don’t actually expect to end up with story that I’ll draw, much less publish. That’s not the point. Not every creative activity has to have a public display.

____

Hmmm. I’ve rambled more than usual this week. If you made it this far, thank you! If you didn’t, well, okay. Hopefully you enjoyed looking at some of the pictures.

May the week be kind to you. May you find joy in the small things as well as the large.

See you next week!