Author: Lucy Bellwood

Art, Main

Roger Fenton vs. The Crimean War

To whet everyone’s appetites, here’s the first page of a short comic I just finished about Roger Fenton’s photographic exploits during the Crimean War. The comic is partly a response to this piece in the NYT, which discusses In the Valley of the Shadow of Death, Fenton’s most famous shot. This was some wild speculation about where the image came from with a healthy dose of artistic experimentation thrown in. I’m getting more and more excited about watercolors these days, and wish I’d had more time to tackle painting this, but I may still go back and add some more detail. The inking was all done with a fountain pen in a sketchier style than I generally go for. Any thoughts on the difference greatly appreciated. I’ll post another page tomorrow. Enjoy!

Art, Main

Bros of the Crimean War

The massive post-poly/mono-comic site traffic explosion (more on that later) has tapered off somewhat, but I still feel bad that people seem to be checking back and I have yet to do anything new. So, here are some Crimean Bros to be going on with. Bask in all their muttonchoppy glory. A choppy sea of mutton. And so on. The comic that I’m working on around these studies will be up by Sunday, so check back thereabouts for fun new material that has nothing to do with my previous work (sorry, you fierce poly-mono debatin’ dudes). Might also have a quick bonus comic done in the next few days. Keep checkin’.

ON WITH THE MUTTON.

Uncategorized

Mondays

Before I pass out and forget everything, I need to throw this information somewhere for posterity.

I arrived on campus with a bagel and some coffee (rare for me) this morning at 9am. I just got home 10 minutes ago. In the intervening 15.5 hours I…

– Read 120 pages of Rousseau’s political writings

– Attended a lecture on the social contract

– Checked out 5 more books for my thesis

– Wrote a 3-page response essay

– Shipped comics to California, Pennsylvania, and Louisiana

– Read the entirety of Art & Fear and Claire Siepser’s comics-based thesis (~100 pages combined)

– Requested 10 books on inter-library loan

– Cut out and assembled 257 Baggywrinkles buttons

– Read 150 pages of McCloud’s Making Comics

– Wrote critiques of 12 classmates’ comics

– Researched, scripted, and thumbnailed a 4-page comic about the Crimean War

– Revised my thesis proposal

 

I’m really, really hoping this gives me enough of a reason to slack off for the rest of the week. Goddamn. I don’t know why I do this sometimes.

 

Main

The Year of Living Monogamously

This is a thorny one.

Our first assignment for the Graphic Novels and War course at Reed this semester asked us to explore a conflict. Specifically: “the largest conflict you’ve become aware of in the past year and how it has shaped you.” I tried to pick something a little more distant and less self-involved than my angsty issues about relationships, but if I’m honest, the questions outlined here have changed me drastically over the past 12 months.

It’s hard to post things of this nature out on the Internet for all to see. Partly because these characters are recognizable to the people who know them, partly because I move in a lot of circles that are heavily populated with poly and open folks. I should point out that I’ve talked with many of them in the course of this saga, trying to understand who’s making it work and how, where the nuances and challenges lie, and discussing whether I’m crazy to stick to my guns on this issue. Should I sacrifice my beliefs and emotional safety for the sake of staying with someone I love deeply? The answer seems easy on paper. But things like this are never simple.

Everyone is different. Everyone has preferences. Levels of trust and communication between individuals vary wildly, people’s emotional history is scattered all across the map. There is no simple answer. This was just an attempt to organize some sort of response to what’s been happening — even though I’m still far too caught up in it to feel like I have any real distance.

So with all that serious disclaimer stuff out of the way, here’s some art.

That’s all for now.

Art, Main

Wherefore: The Box

Finally got around to properly photographing the sculptural container I created for the preliminary Wherefore illustrations last term! Woo!

The premise of this project was the creation of an interactive structure that could contain the six illustrations I completed while integrating text from Hélène Cixous’ Coming to Writing — an extremely beautiful and provocative essay about cultural identity and the power of the multiplied voice. I highly recommend it.

There was a vague thought of making the final volume of comics small enough to fit in said box along with the folding art/text piece, but I realized the resultant work would have to be laughably small. Still, there’s the potential for a massive Turkish Delight box in my future if I want to create one that can contain a full-size book.

Anyway, on with the piccies!

Art

Annual Badgers

Hello all! I return from California (not particularly) bronzed and (moderately) well-rested. As I scan a few things and prepare to reprint the Baggies, I thought I’d post a few badgers to be going on with. For the past 3 or 4 years I’ve drawn my father a badger every year for most major holidays. It’s about as close a thing to a spirit animal as I think he’ll ever have, and it’s been his nickname forever and ever. Fitting. Anyway, some of these rely on strange Bellwood family in-jokes (or, in the case of the most recent, a familiarity with Eddie Izzard), but I thought they might be amusing for the general public as well. Here are three of the most recent to keep you occupied.

(Art-Stix is an artistic endeavor launched by my father last year. He designs awesome artistic bookmarks.)

Enough badgers for now.

 

 

Art, Main, News

Thanks, Infos, Travels

First off, THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU to everyone who came out to the Zine Symposium and braved the musty stench to chat, browse, buy comics, and generally make my weekend totally awesome. It was a great experience and has me really excited to get going on a number of new projects. Pictures will probably materialize in the next couple weeks.

On a connected note: the Symposium was such a success that I’ve actually sold out of Baggywrinkles No. 2! I am a) mad at myself for not printing more in the first place and b) completely thrilled in spite of a. This was a completely unexpected turn of events, but rest assured I’ll be getting it reprinted as soon as I can. Orders for the single issue and the Combo Pack will stay open on PayPal, but just be aware that there will be a 2 week delay on those shipments. My sincerest apologies for that, but I’ll be out of town for the coming week and won’t be able to tackle the printing until I get back. If you’re in Portland, there are several copies still available at Reading Frenzy downtown, so if you can’t wait I’d say that’s your best bet.

In featured Portland events, I’ll be dancing as a finalist in the Portland Blues and Jazz Dance Society’s Annual Strictly Blues competition tonight at 10:30! The venue is at SE 6th and Alder in Lenora’s Ballroom. Admission is free for first-timers, there’s a lesson for newbies at 8:30, and the dancing goes until 1am! Nothin’ to lose there. The lineup is going to be fantastic and I’m utterly thrilled to be dancing with such rockstars, so come out and see us strut our stuff!

Finally, I’ll be going home to Ojai for the next week or so to get some concentrated work done on Wherefore (that autobio graphic novel project about dual citizenship and cultural identity I was going on about all the time a few months back). I’m behind on my goals, so getting out of Portland will be a good impetus to power through a lot of a pages. As a result, I’ll be off the interwebs for a bit, but rest assured, updates will resume very soon indeed!

Thanks for checking in, and I’ll see y’all in a week!

Main, News

PDX Zine Symposium Tomorrow!

Hey sailors (and non-sailors)! Just a reminder that I’ll be at the Portland Zine Symposium tomorrow with a bundle of awesome stuff to sell. “What kind of stuff would this be?” you might ask. I WILL TELL YOU.

There will be Baggywrinkles 1 & 2, Tales from the Fragment, nautical button packs(!!!), squeaks of the coveted squeaky walrus (only 5 cents!), and (new for this event) genuine Monkey’s Fist necklaces! Check out this knot-tacular action:

A little bit of background, for those of you not familiar: The Monkey’s Fist is a knot generally tied around a spherical, heavy object (like a lead ball or, in this case, a marble) to create a long-flying projectile. The proper term for such a thing is a heaving line, which was often attached to heavier mooring lines when the distance required to get them to dock was too far for a sailor to throw the line itself. With the heaving line attached to the mooring line, it was possible for a sailor to launch the former a long distance (due to its weighted end) and then let those ashore haul the mooring line across.

While flinging heaving lines is damn good fun, it can become a bad habit for docking, so remember kids: they’re a privilege, not a right. And throwing a mooring line on its own inherently makes you more of a badass. So don’t get lazy.

EH-HEM. ANYWAY.

SOME BUTTONS!

I don’t know why having buttons makes me freak out in an “OhmygawdI’marealcartoonist!” kind of way (possibly because everyone seems to have them and they’re “cool”), but I’m really excited to have them. I’ll be selling them in packs of three, but if you ask nicely I’d probably sell you one on its own for 50 cents or something. There are a few nerdy sailor ones, several that say “Stay Baggy,” a rare few that say “The entire ocean is broken,” and some general nautical varieties. If I have leftovers from the Symposium this weekend I’ll get them up on the site.

That’s all for now! I really encourage you all to come out this weekend, since the event is free (FREE!!!) and there will be something like 140 awesome people tabling. Unfortunately we don’t get table assignments until the morning check-in, but if you really have to know where I am before you come, I’ll be posting my location on Twitter once I’m set up.

Hope to see you guys tomorrow!