Monday, May 17, 2010


Probably due to some naval gazing tendencies of my own, I've always liked autobiography, and was enjoying the memoir fad of the 2000s before it began to trend toward TMI. But now every new confession of a midlife crisis, affair, drug problem or saga of the dating lives of single gals or frat boys is ripe for scorn, it seems.

When I first started drawing The Wonder City, I strove to expand my knowledge of the comics genre beyond Archie, and was naturally drawn to autobiographical stories, which are really enhanced by the comics medium, I think. There are so many wonderful comics biographies from Maus to Blankets to Fun Home.

But I also learned that the same derision that exists in literature for works that over-share, or are too precious, also exists in comics as reviewers bemoan a lack of good old fashion fiction, or artists fear being stigmatized for drawing inspiration from their own lives.

So in the interest of transparency, here are my two favorite pages from a story I wrote and drew, based on some vacation fun times, that will probably never see the light of day because I could never figure out what exactly I was trying to say. But it was very fun to experiment with painting my artwork (with gouache...though I didn't really thinking out the whole bleeding pen that resulted in putting wet paint on the inked drawings). And working with something I wrote myself was a huge confidence boost.

Note: Also in the interest of full disclosure, I drew myself with long long hair that I've never had in real life!

1 comment:

Sarah said...

I love this! I want more...I went there too and you captured it beautifully.