32 minutes ish? I just sat down and made myself make something, wasn’t counting the time but the second page just ended up falling out of me. I ordered a new journal last night after I made this! So we’ll see if I can get it back on track. My life, that is. And my sleep schedule.
Brother - 13.02.25
31 minutes ish. Been swimming in heavy stuff in my head recently after a few days up in Donegal - chats with my little brother helped bring me back down to earth! Nice to remember that comics can just be about nothing in particular.
I’m really enjoying rewatching Suits though, especially the soundtrack - full of songs I thought I “discovered” much more recently than the early 2010s!
Fiction? - 11.02.25
30 minutes. Fiction, for a change! This is from yesterday (Tuesday 11th), I’m skipping today. Hopefully now I’m back home things will get back to normal, but it’s hard now the time is getting longer!
Backwards - 09.02.25
29 minutes + a couple. Should have made this yesterday - I knew at the time it would be a more energetic result and maybe even a therapeutic process, but it brought up all the weird autobio questions about mining your pain for art, and besides, I needed to sleep! My grandad is much better today, but it’s still a weird time. It’s never felt as strange having American grandparents in Donegal as in medical settings - at home everybody knows them and they have their role in the town for 25 years, but once it’s time to go to hospital, we’re just the shower of odd Americans singing hymns in a room off A&E (and I’m American by association).
Memory - 07.02.25
28 minutes (with frantic pauses to find pens). I’m away from my house for a few days so the scanning will suffer, my apologies!
NSFWheels - 05.02.2025
27 minutes - give or take about 5, but 3 of those were drawing the first warning page. More chronic illness recovery feelings! This scenario was genuintely unthinkable last year, or the year before that. I had given up skating long before I gave up sex, and I still get low-energy fear about both of them, so it’s amazing and honestly unbelievable to feel like I can function at maximum capacity without paying a huge cost later.
Content aside, I absolutely love drawing with a coloured marker, but janey they don’t scan well! I was looking back at some early Long Covid diary comics I had done a couple years ago, and wanted to try to aim for that standard again, which might just be possible with these longer sessions.
Apples - 03.02.2025
26 minutes. I really recommend checking out the song.
It’s difficult to gauge how specific to get in these comics, but I think the vagueness allows me to allude to more? Or maybe it’s an ass-covering cop out. See you tomorrow.
Hourly Comics Day - 01.02.25
Didn’t manage a daily today, but here’s Hourly Comics Day! 12-1am was spent cleaning these up and posting them, FYI.
Babydoll - 30 & 31.01.25
So I broke the rules of the Gentle Comics Habit and skipped 2 days, then to make up for it I broke the rules again and did 2 in one day, but both felt necessary for a mental reset. This week has felt really heavy and I’ve been napping, feeling like the old sick days of being in bed 20 hours a day, but with really fun and exciting stuff peppered in between. I think I really didn’t prepare myself well enough for dealing mentally with the physical toll of exercise, and it’s stressing me out to be achy all the time - some part of me is waiting for all the recovery to come crashing round my ears. The best I’ve felt all week was making these 2 comics back to back though - it’s embarrassing making fan stuff, especially since it’s being posted to my “professional” website, but as soon as I thought about Venom at the park it was a done deal, and of course it had to be a zine. The emotional journal-style stuff is just a fringe benefit!
24 & 25 minutes, plus 5 to finish off the back of the zine + colour in the black parts.
Odie - 28.01.25
23 minutes. I’ve been falling back into a stressful procrastination mindset recently - trying to remember that I just recovered from being sick for 2 years, and to give myself a bit of time, because often when I feel like I’m wasting it, gifting it to myself freely can help assuage the shame, which frees me up (eventually) to do the work. Add in a bit of intentionality to your procrastination - make a badge! Walk a dog! Listen to Poirot! Back on the grind tomorrow.
Prang - 27.01.25
22 minutes. After doing a single drawing of a building today I thought I could tackle drawing the sports hall, from memory, with no sketch - at least the last panel self portrait is a dead ringer. I’m back on the 0.1 fine line and I think it’s definitely the superior choice at this scale.
Fringe - 26.01.25
21 minutes. I’ve started adding some underdrawing in places, and I think there’s a pretty big difference in the result, but who knows. Unless I expand beyond one tiny page, I think refining the lines is the move. Or taking 5 minutes to actually plan, beyond a couple of images or keywords!
Bob - 25.01.25
20 minutes, one of which was spent trying to find photos of old hairstyles.
All over the map - 23.01.25
19 minutes. Was it the wind? Something knocked our toothbrush caddy off the wall and left the bathroom floor a maze of brushes and tubes. I’ve been up til 4 applying for a job. Hope you’re all doing wonderful.
Descent - 21.01.25
18 minutes on the dot. Mountain pictures to follow…
Confusing - 20.01.25
17 minutes (plus one minute to finish writing my sentence, I will not apologise!). This concept made sense at the time but now I think I’ve probably shortchanged both concepts by combining them.
Drogheda Zine Fair - 19.01.25
16 minutes? Every post is on a one-day delay at the moment, so this is about heading to Drogheda for the amazing Zine Fair on Saturday. What a lovely event with a great vibe. Can’t wait to go again (especially now I know the trick to escaping the car park).
My scans are gonna be a bit janky the next few days while I’m away, just a heads up…
Irish Goodbye - 17.01.25
15 minutes. Got home after midnight, a lovely day. The next few days I’m away, will try some alternate scanning methods…
Gestation - 15.01.25
14 minutes (+6 minutes, probably).
Park Loop - 14.01.25
13 minutes. I’m so embarassed about being afraid of dogs and I’ve mostly got over it, I love living beside the park now and seeing them all BUT there are 2 dogs there that have it in for me, this is the third and worst time with this wee guy. I was standing there literally frozen, panic rising, and his owner just ambling along, no rush, it gets to the point where he’s running into my legs before she arrives and leashes him, and I’m so freaked out and ashamed that I said “sorry”. Sorry your dog is so stressed out by me walking the other direction, 20 metres away. I just immediately go into this shame place where I think the behaviour is evidence that I’m a bad person, because dog people always say that dogs not liking you is a red flag. But most of them do like me, even if I don’t always know what to do with that. My dad instilled a fear of (big) dogs in me as a kid, which was then transferred to all dogs (and frankly, dog owners) when I was bitten in the park and the owner was unapologetic, just saying that the dog didn’t like 1. children and 2. running, so seeing a running child set him off. So I don’t have much faith in people’s ability to manage their perts.
Late posting this because I put off making it until I absolutely had to go to bed, so no time to scan last night.