Looks like I’ll have the pencils for episode eleven done tonight…if I’m not being distracted by this really cute new neighbor that I have that is. I’d hoped to have them done by Sunday night but it just wasn’t possible. But as long as I can start inking on Wednesday I can have eleven up by the end of this weekend.
I hope those of you reading this series get as many giggles while reading eleven as I’ve had drawing it. This one’s been a lot of fun to draw. It’s about something your gay neighbors go through during adolescence…that period of time when (if you’re a guy, say) you start realizing that you’re looking at other guys in a sexual way and it’s embarrassing and you don’t want to and you keep trying to stop you’re utterly unable to stop. Your eyes just keep straying back to that really cute guy, and then they wander all over his body like a pencil sketching out every line and curve…and you catch yourself doing it and you think ‘stop it’ and you look away and then a few moments later your eyes just start straying right back again… I can laugh about it now, but back then it was very, very irritating…
I finished episode nine of A Coming Out Story last weekend, and I have a road trip coming up in another couple of weekends. I’ll be on the road for most of the month of July, first going to visit some friends in the mid-west, then out to the Four Corners area to explore a tad more, then to California and a visit with my brother, then to Portland Oregon and the O’Reilly Open Source Developer’s Conference. Given my past performance getting out new episodes it seemed a sure bet that I wouldn’t have anything more up until August at the earliest. But I have a head of steam up now, and I really really want to get episode ten up before I leave for the west. It’s one of several upcoming ones I’ve been chafing at the bit to do since I started scripting this series in 2005.
So I’ve been trying hard to push everything else in my life aside for a couple hours every night after work. Naturally several things suddenly popped up that needed my immediate attention and I thought I was once again letting precious drawing time pass on by. But somehow I’ve managed to finish half the pencils on episode ten already. I’m shooting to have all the pencils done by the end of this coming weekend. Then I can have the episode up for sure by the following weekend. Or even sooner.
I’ll probably take my portable drawing board (it has a parallel attached to it), my small scanner, the Wacom tablet and drawing supplies along with me on the trip. I might be able to get another episode out while I’m on the road. It really bothers me that I’ve been working on this thing since 2005 and it’s 2007 I only have nine episodes up.
Just FYI for those of you waiting for another installment of A Coming Out Story…(and there are actually quite a few of you…I’m very grateful you’ve all stuck with it while I try to get these out…) I just finished the pencils for episode 8 – Wherein our hero tries to actually speak to the object of his affections. This one has taken me a while due to work pressures at my real job. But I have the rest of the Holiday Weekend to finish this and it looks like I might have it up by the end of the day Sunday. Stay tuned…
I could put a graph up on the right hand sidebar, showing my progress on these, like some other web cartoonists do. One bar for the pencils, one for the inks, and one for the finishing up stuff (Photoshopping the captions, word balloons and touching up…)
I have another Mark and Josh one in the works too…
I haven’t fallen off the edge of the earth…just hanging out with my brother in Oceano California and de-stressing. Which is why I’m not posting a whole heck of a lot lately. It’s very easy to forget the world when you’re walking the sands and looking out at the beautiful California coastline around Pismo Beach. And the even more beautiful California surfer boys.
In the meantime I’ve managed to finish the next episode of A Coming Out Story. Yes, I brought my drafting supplies and a scanner along with me.
…in which our hero discovers that libidos aren’t easily dissuaded. Click on the image to go directly to the new episode, or Here, to go to the main page.
Click on the image to go directly to the new episode, or go to the main page of A Coming Out Story…Here.
This one was intended mainly to introduce my circle of friends and add a little to the setting. I never intended for it to take so damn long to produce…I just kept hemming and hawing about how I wanted to do this one, which is a very repetative sequence of panels, and so I did other things and let it slide for far, far too long. If I want to finish this thing before I’m 100 I need to be a tad quicker at getting these out.
This one is about a certain blind spot I had in my teen years, that drove some of my friends nuts. They kept waiting for me to grow up and "get it" and I kept wondering why they often looked at me like I was from another planet. Little did any of us really understand that I was growing up right on schedule, just on a slightly different course from theirs. Paradoxically, had I a better understanding of my own homosexuality, I might have had a better understanding of their heterosexuality, and how hormones were jerking them around too, in their way. And when a guy with a ‘C’ average at best said he was going to go help one of the foxiest honor roll girls in the school with her homework, I might have been able to read between the lines a tad better then I usually did.
Just So You Know I’ve Been Doing Some Work Around Here…
I’m starting to get scolded now for not keeping my cartoon page up to date, and I won’t have this week’s political cartoon(s) ready until late Monday. So just so you know that I’ve actually been somewhat busy in my art room these past few days, here’s a peek at the next installment of A Coming Out Story…
Click on the image for the full size version, if you like. I have four more sets of panels like this one to finish, but I’m close. I expect to have the next installment up this Saturday. I think I’m getting my steam back. The story gets a little fun-er now. I have two political cartoons on the drawing boards that I’m almost done with too. I should have them up late tomorrow. I also have another Mark and Josh cartoon…two in a series actually…in the works.
Old friends of mine can hopefully see now why I’m being coy about names and faces. I am as much a product of the 60s/70s as any other boomer child and I decided when I set out to do this story that I wouldn’t censor the pot smoking (among other things) that went on back then. So the names, and a few faces, have been changed to protect the not quite so innocent. And if my old friends want further inoculation, they can simply point to my introduction to the series, in which I plainly state that the story I am telling is one-third things that really happened to me, one-third artistic license, and one-third pure fantasy.
I think I’m getting my steam back here. I should be a bit more productive in the coming weeks. Hopefully I can get back into some kind of rythm on my Coming Out Story. I have something like fifity episodes scripted already (and there are more I need to work out) and I don’t want to be doing this thing for the rest of my life, so I need to figure out ways I can get these things made faster. Part of my slowness in getting this installment out has been in experimenting with new ways of working, both on the drafting table and in Photoshop. I’d like to get myself to a place where I can turn out a new episode every two weeks. Otherwise I’ll be decades finishing this thing.
So When’s The Next Coming Out Story Episode…Coming Out…???
I haven’t abandoned my Coming Out Story…honest. And I’m not going to make excuses here as to why it’s been since last November that I’ve posted an episode. But I’ve got the pencils at least finished on the next one just now. I think maybe another week on the inks. This next episode is 17 panels long, and it’s about why my friends back then used to worry about me. Since I started this thing as a web comic, I’ve been determined to make the most of the freedom the web allows me. Some episodes are kinda short, and some are pretty long. Well…I let myself get bogged down on a long one and I shouldn’t have.
I really want to get more episodes done and up, in part because I’m still a ways from introducing my two favorite characters in the series…
The one with the white shirt, tie and pocket protector (and jeans and sneakers) is my right brain. The one with the peace symbol, beads, tie-dye shirt and bells is my left brain. They actually have more on-screen time in this story then my libido, but they won’t get introduced for another…uhm…four episodes yet.
I was also thinking this morning, about putting a couple of Mark and Josh mugs up on that Cafepress thing for sale. I have a vague idea about the design. And maybe some Busy Gay Mafia mugs…since that seems to be one of my more popular cartoons.
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