The Book

I'll continue trying to read Ishmael Reed, Stan Gooch and Stephen Jay Gould. I'll be tempted with that new pile of books downstairs, Dick Hebdige, Joseph Campbell and Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and a few more.
    Fantasy trilogy is done and I may want more. Something decent. Not a ten book dynastic wank-off.
    Between fantasy, folklore, myth, pop culture, paranormal, theory, sociology I have it covered. A little history of science, the occasional witch blog, Black or Native American cultural studies, crappy comics, pamphlets and arcane poetics. I wish I could merge all this in what I myself make. maybe I do and I don't notice.
    I tried to buy art supplies today, some nice bristol board to cut into panels so I can start drawing. I know there will be duds, wasted paper, crappy third attempts, aborted sequences. But that's ok, that means I'm working. Right now all I have is the taste of blood in my mouth.
    The art supply co-op near me had nothing I needed paper-wise. Not for this project. I bought four six by eight wooden panels for painting because I was there and I should have some such on hand when the feeling strikes. Wood over canvas because I scrape and gouge.
    I have to go downtown now. I always knew I had to go downtown. That art supply shop near me has great stuff but never what I need. Once they were out of white acrylic paint. Good job, guys.
    I'll try again tomorrow, downtown. The problem with that is if I do I'll get home later and there is stuff to do around the house. There are radiators to remove, parquet flooring to cut and glue down, expanding foam to stick between the walls and spray.
    Lots to do. I'll find the time to goof-off too I hope.
    It's all going in the book.

Reading In The Rain

Got up early to cross town to see my doctor for five minutes. Restocked by prescription for Synthroid. I'm good for the next year now. I gained almost ten pounds since last year but my blood pressure isn't as low as it used to be. It's normal now, whatever that is or means.
    When I got home I took the baby out for a stroll, saw some friends, walked with coffee until I got to the quiet streets. I am finding that a new pleasure for me is staying put on some street, under some tree, rolling the stroller back and forth as baby sleeps, while reading some book. I can't say enough how much I love this. I got to a park, it was drizzling a bit and I found some bigger trees to continue my reading.
    It's an alone time in corners of the neighbourhood. I can read a bit knowing the kid is getting his nap and no one will bug me. I don't mind raindrops hitting the pages of my book any more. It's over, the preciousness.
    It's still raining. No one has come into the shop today. Retail is dumb. I'm going to close early.

My Fantasy Novel

My fantasy novel will include a map of the terrain. I'll try not to make the sea in the west. I won't mention anything about anyone going west as some sort of step-in for nebulous death. I won't have swans or giant eagles. I may have elves. If I don't have elves, I won't have radiant, wise, ancient beings of light. I'd rather just have elves than some race of frost people the reader will respond to with 'why didn't he just have elves instead of these non-elf elves ?'.
    The trilogy I'm reading now has too many near-misses of Tolkien and King Arthur. King Arthur makes sense because he actually makes an appearance. Middle-earth and all that show up as if there was no other template available to the author. Even the names echo names found in LOTR but without the cohesion.
    My fantasy novel will be a trilogy but a short one. I want kids to read it but I may mention stuff that school boards wouldn't like. There will be a map and there will also be something I found very helpful in the trilogy I'm finishing up now, a list of characters in the front of the book. Great idea. I need to go back and see who the Dark Lords' first lieutenant is versus the Ancient Power of the Forest.
    My fantasy novel will not have a dark lord that must be defeated by the end of the book. In fact, there will be no dark lord at all. There may be evil and darkness and a deep dark evil but he won't live in a tower in some barren land and he won't have slave armies of gross sub-humans that can easily be slaughtered without misgiving by our heroes.
    My fantasy novel certainly will not have characters, in a moment of sober reflection, face the sea and sing. No one will do any singing in my fantasy novel. If they do, you can bet your shiney behind that I will not include the lyrics. If someone wants to sing they better just sing and get it over with. Like so : "Ranoth, heading back to his chambers after his appointment as Second Guard to the Queen, went by way of the armouries. Through the quiet turns of the stone corridors, he hummed to himself at a volume that was sure to disturb no one."
    I probably won't have any ships in my fantasy novel because I don't know anything about ships and I don't need anyone to hoist sails or stand on the prow as opposed to the non-prow.
    Anyway, it'll be a fun book to read once I get around to writing it. So far all I've got is what I don't want it to be.

Reading

Write a word, a phrase. Followed by another and another. I'm not convinced. All I want to do is read. Summer windows wide open, stacks of books beside the couch, in my lap, cool water and fruit in a bowl. Reading theory and history and folklore, science fiction and fact, fantasy and myth, Gorging on it, drowsing as if with too little beer. Luxuriating as if no one will call, for hours, for days.
    Roll me over, call me for supper, pour me a drink again and again, I have notes to take, breaks maybe for coffee and dreamy walks.
    Let the words flow into my sleep, let me start with a nod and try again to polish off the chapter before I lay the text, splayed open, on my chest.
    My yearning pulls me here, to this desire. So simple that if indeed I had days to squander, I'd be a fool and seek diversion elsewhere, forgetting this one true love and seeking distraction in some shiny, moving thing.

How I Make Comics

The comics I make tend to be silent. Wordless comics, in theory, are able to be read by an international audience of illiterates. Cartoonists Without Borders. The first ones I made were like the twelve minute guitar solos of obtuse comics. I was making comics I myself wasn't reading, heady conceptual games, lots of obscure symbolism, some heavy handedness. The stuff I read is mostly inane humour comics. I read that stuff over and over. Dumb jokes. And Archie.
    The stuff I make aims at some seriousness. I crave to make thought provoking stories that warrant multiple readings, the ten year olds getting some of it, the illuminati getting some other bits. Every short story I used to make was in a different style, I'd hop around in graphic land experimenting, always experimenting. A few years ago I rediscovered pencil and this led to a larger body of work centred around a couple of consistent characters. It's visually cute and makes up around a hundred pages of material. I'm not sure if I've exhausted this particular world or if it will shape shift into the next permutation. I've always hoped to integrate all my fave motifs and characters into one cohesive cartoon universe but frankly I'm not sure if I have the patience.
    It isn't narrative that tugs at me so much as moments. And moments don't exist until they are actualized on paper spontaneously. This method of working makes for a lot of pre-job anxiety but ultimately proves rewarding. I don't know the beginning, middle or end of a story when I begin it. I simply delve in and somehow narrative accretes around my efforts, my discrete moments intuitively building a story. The anxiety comes into play before I start working. All possible styles and motifs crowd my head, each making a strong case for being the thing that will make a decent comic. Of course, this onslaught of potentialities tends to freeze me in place. No work gets done but endless notes and scribbles, and even these lay in piles and never have much to do with the work that eventually get's done.
    Right now I would like to begin my next graphic novel. I'd like to use words. I am wondering if it should be a continuation of my previous works, the richly pencilled adventures of a young magician and his cat. Also in the running is a new approach made up of little 'billy heads' talking about my life, the pithy version of the writing on this blog. This is liberating because I very much want to integrate text into my comics but am unsure how to. With the talking head approach I can veer off into any visual universe because the little head can set it up nicely. Another approach I am seriously considering is a funny animal strip showcasing my famous bunnies. These big eared tricksters would simply be bandying about ridiculous word play. Again, text. Then of course, there is my desire to explore the merging of abstract comics with textual poetics. The fourth and possibly final solution would be to create a cohesive narrative that employs all these directions. Multiple styles telling one overarching story, a work of undeniable complexity and genius.
    Frozen in place. Stock still. Pencils collecting dust and guts churning anxiously. This sounds all too precious and intentional. My passing glimpses reveal an over wrought attempt at a master work. One makes trouble for oneself if that's the thought going out the gate. Failure or frustration will ensue. So I don't know what this next graphic novel will be until I start it. A branding nightmare. It may look like nothing I've done before, it may end up being too oblique for a publisher to bother with. Procrastination also rears it's familiar head and I end up with jots and plans, confidant statements about pagination and panelling. Maybe a title or vague design thumbnails. I need a format before I start. I need a stack of index cards or pre-cut paper, lots of it, to draw on, to waste until I settle into the groove that emerges.
    So the first step, invariably, is preparing paper I've bought specifically for a new project. And new pencils and erasers. New gear sitting there waiting to be hit on, waiting to reveal via first false starts and then a fury of inspiration, an unfolding paper world.
    Wish me luck.

Books And Records

I repeat myself. I've told certain stories and even non-stories so often to so many people I have forgotten what I've said to who and in what context. I walk down a street with my partner, we pass a house and I say So-and-so used to live there. I know, she responds, you've told me. And not once, I've probably mentioned it every time we pass the damn place. It's not like I even had the best times there, it's simply personal trivia, and that means there's a lot of it.
    Our friend Joe tells me and another pal the same crazy stories. We know we yell, and laugh. He scowls and mutters about how he bores us with the same old stories. We love those same old stories and we love Joe so it all works out.
    I'm trying to write a block of text everyday and so far I've gotten through forty days. I started with recollections of my childhood but now I have forgotten what I have already written. I don't want to slog back through my archives to see if I've mentioned a certain event. The one that sprang to mind today was when my brother brought home certain albums when we were teenagers. How our eyes lit up when the stylus hit the vinyl. The records that most visibly affected us were the ones you would think, The Velvet Underground, The Stooges, The MC5, typical teen rock blow out. We would come home after perusing the second hand book and record shop. I'd hit the books and John would dig through the records. Most often he would just take his records to his room where the stereo was and listen on his own, maybe with me hovering around the door. Once in a while the listening was a collective agreement. Have I told you this story before ? How our eyes lit up when we first heard the first chords of some certain album ? Have I told you how John would look for records and I would bring home slim dog eared volumes of poetry ? I loved that so much, being fourteen and browsing second hand books. It must have been 1983 or so, we rediscovered a shop that our big cousin brought us to in downtown Montreal years before. His name is John also and he took his little cousins on a tour of certain spots, McGill campus with it's sculptures and this store. We must have been under ten. That was a great afternoon.
    Well, as budding long hairs we found that shop again and I'd veer left to the books and my brother would go straight to the records. Silently we'd browse in our own corners. Sometimes I'd have to wait for him and sometimes he had to wait for me. If I dared buy an album it was one that was somehow associated with the fantasy books I loved. I brought home Gentle Giant and King Crimson, occasionally something more obscure. Progressive rock was everywhere in those days, every second hand album under five dollars, I'd usually spend three bucks. One book I still have, a book that has stayed with me and has changed the way I look at books cost me forty cents. It's a small anthology of concrete poetry, beat up and resonating with charm. John didn't care much for what books I bought, but he was taken by my enthusiasm and though he wasn't much of a reader back then he would hold a book in esteem if I couldn't shut up about it.
    I have told some of these stories before. I've bored younger people to tears about having had to gamble money on a record. I've told you before about books and rock and my brother. I'll tell you again. My friend Joe says I should draw these stories of me and my brother and our forays into rock music and weird art. Drawing stories is not like telling them straight up with words. It's tedious and I don't feel like it right now. It's enough I've made it to forty days with a daily writing habit. Let me get through eight months and I'll see what I want to draw. I'll be ready then too, to do something I've always been kind of ashamed to do, and that's draw the same drawing over and over again. Scratching the itch. I can't wait for that. Just take my favourite motifs and shamelessly work then until I reach clarity.