Author: Lucy Bellwood

Art

Filler!

A couple quick comics from the past few weeks to keep you all entertained while I scrabble around for scans and photos to put in the big Fragment wrap-up post. Also: submitted my registration info for Stumptown this year! Trepidation! Nobody hears back until December, but that’s no reason not to use it as impetus for producing lots and lots of goodies.

Anyway…on to the art!

I occasionally resent the fact that Portland remains relatively habitable in the winter, since Vermont seems to have a lot going for it in the “soul-crushing cold as impetus for cartoons and nothing else forever” department. However, the onset of fall generally leads to an inclination to stay indoors and slave away over a hot drawing board, which is a fine substitute in my book.

Also: Hoo boy. Sleeping in! Am I right?

Keep yer eyes peeled for more excitement soon.

Art

Tales from the Fragment – Stage 1 Complete

As promised, here are the panels for the wrapper portion of Tales from the Fragment, my latest book/comic project. The prompt was to make a low-budget piece dealing with the term “mapping.” It’ll be printed in an edition of 15 for the class, but I’m inclined to adapt it for further production when that’s finished. We’ll see. Anyway, in order for the orientation and layout to make sense, I’ve included a quick n’ dirty photo walk-through of what the final project will look like below the illustrations.

Cover – Exterior

Cover – InteriorThe Walkthrough

So, not the most glamorous photography in the world, and the choices for what goes where have also shifted somewhat, but the basic premise is the same. The illustrations above will be printed onto each side of the wrapper so that every step of unfolding it brings a new panel into view. The folded piece of 8.5″x11″ found inside the wrapper works on a similar system, ultimately leaving the reader with a full-page illustration of the map fragment that’s been stolen by our intrepid hero.

That’s all for now! Stay tuned for, uh, more of this? Also: gag panels for this week’s IPRC session! Woo-hoo!

Art

Zootimes!

So dudes: I went to the zoo this past weekend to draw animals. I had a blast and got a few good sketches done, but I also learned some exciting lessons. Turns out that if you sit down in front of an enclosure and start drawing animals, people begin treating you like an animal. Seriously. It only ever took about two minutes before loud mothers were looming over my shoulder, screeching “Look at the lady, kids! She’s a lady, alright! The lady is drawing! Gee, isn’t that somethin’!” I don’t think anyone attempted to directly engage with me the entire time.

However, there were some upsides. While trying to sketch a trio of distant lions in the (fairly) recently-opened Predators of the Serengeti exhibit, a lioness suddenly noticed the fact that I was relatively immobile and low to the ground and made a beeline across the enclosure to stand directly in front of me. Shortly thereafter, I developed a deep appreciation for the inches of plexiglass between me and this magnificent creature as she made it utterly apparent that she was bent on devouring my skull. She swiped, reared, clawed, headbutted, pawed, and bit that poor stretch of wall, eventually resorting to murderous licking when the other tactics proved ineffective. It was awe-inspiring and, of course, fearsomely adorable.

One particularly grating onlooker loudly told everyone surrounding me that they were obviously witnessing a once-in-a-lifetime moment of psychic connection, interpreting the lionesses’ vicious attempts on my life as blatant displays of affection and kinship — doubtless based on the fact that I possess a mane-like cloud of blonde hair and a birthday which falls within the realm of a certain astrological sign. While it would be lovely to think that this was the case, and that I’ll eventually spring her from her touristy prison so that we may go frolic on the plains of Oregon together, the extensive opportunity I had to examine her vicious fangs suggests that this is an unlikely outcome.

ANYWAY, on to the goods! Sadly, not as many as I’d like, but any drawing is good drawing at this point.

Finally, in other news, all the drawings for TALES FROM THE FRAGMENT are due this Friday, so I’ll be hard at work for the next 24 hours wrapping all that up. I guarantee you sneak peeks when appropriate, dear readership, but for now, let me just say that I never thought I’d need to download so many goddamn reference images of stalactites. Jeez.

News

The Shift

The past couple weeks have brought many things! Allow me to fill you in on them:

1. An unexpected family medical situation, which had me down at the UCLA Medical Center for four days, put a chaotic end to my summer. Fortunately, everything was resolved satisfactorily — aside from the fact that our family road trip to Portland had to be canceled. So I suddenly found myself trying to pack a carload of stuff into a very meager quantity of checked and carry-on luggage. Fortunately, via a series of compassionate airline workers and cunning bribes, I managed to stow away on a 747 bound for the Pacific Northwest with bags that very definitely did not fit the size/weight restrictions.

2. On that note: I have returned to Portland! Moving into a new house always involves a lot of “How did I amass all this useless SHIT?!” but it’s enjoyable nonetheless. Books are on shelves, which is always a good sign, and I’m going to pick up a new drawing table this afternoon! This will greatly assist in the process of producing MOAR COMICS.

3. I finished my latest binding project, a handmade cookbook for a dear friend, which can now be seen on the arty-type books page. Take a peek!

4. In the midst of all this chaos, Baggywrinkles Vol. 1 is being readied for its first proper print run. I’ve been hard at work designing and inking the covers and will hopefully be producing the first 100 copies very soon. Sneak peek at the progress: It’s going to be beauuuutiful.

I’m slowly wending my way through the halls of PayPal, too, so I’ll be able to sell copies directly through the Emporium when the time comes — watch this space!

Main

Lighting the Fire

In the little town of White River Junction, Vermont, far away from the bustle of the big city, there’s this school. It’s not your usual school. It’s pretty small. Pretty new. But it’s a marvel — a straight up phenomenon among graduate programs, among schools, among communities of any kind, so maybe you’ve heard of…

CCS was founded in 2005 with a commitment to delivering excellent education in the field of comics, cartooning, and graphic novels. They offer certificate and MFA programs as well as summer workshops for youth and adults alike, one of which I attended during the first week of this month. The 5-day course is designed for students who have personal projects they’d like to workshop and push to completion with the support and guidance of professionals.

The experience, alas, doesn’t really fit well into words, but the basic breakdown went like this:

I arrived is a messy haze of uncertainty, unsure of what my project was going to be, worried that my choice to major in studio art was going to turn out to be just one more failure-bound attempt to find my tribe of like-minded people. That my dedication to my own creativity was waning. That I wasn’t any good, or worse, that I was a poser. That I’d be “found out.”

In short, I was a mess. Somewhere, vaguely in the back of my mind, I had thoughts about doing some sort of mythological adaptation series, or a one-off about traveling alone in Europe, but nothing had even been doodled about, let alone planned to the point of being serviceable. But on day one, confronted with the stirring words of our first lecturer, the frighteningly prolific Jason Lutes, in a room full of 36 other aspiring cartoonists of all ages and backgrounds, I found myself thinking about sailing as a potential topic. It’s something I’m passionate about, it would be a blast to draw (if I didn’t go mad from all the rigging), and I doubt there’s very much else on the market at the moment that deals with it from a 21st century sailor’s perspective. Suddenly, my brain seemed to open up to the possibilities of creation again, and thus Baggywrinkles was born.

Of course, I didn’t know it was going to be called Baggywrinkles right then. There’s a whole messy cloud of potential nautical titles on my first page of sketchbook notes, all crawling over one another like ants, the occasional hopeful circled in darker lines. But as soon as I jotted it down, I realized it was perfect. It’s one of those profoundly bizarre sailing terms that makes no sense at all while managing to be vaguely charming and curiosity-piquing. “What’re those fuzzy things?” is also the most frequently-asked question any sailor will come into contact with when people visit the boat — understandably. I mean, look at this thing:

If that’s hanging five feet above my head, I damn well want to know what the blazes it’s doing up there and whether it’s hungry for lunch. (It’s also interesting and vaguely alarming to note that when I Google image searched “baggywrinkle,” the only listed related search was for “weiner mobile.” At least we know I’ll be attracting a classy audience.)

So, with this dubious and titillating title in hand, I dove in. And I mean really dove in. There was nothing in my life aside from comics for every one of those 5 days. No updates for friends and family, no journal writing to take the edge off, no supplemental reading, no sightseeing in the Northeast, nothing. Just me, the drawing table, a mugful of pens, and a superstar lineup of comics professionals telling me to keep pushing pen to paper. There were rabble-rousing pep talks from Alec Longstreth, inking demos with kick-ass comics veteran Steve Bissette, whirlwind screenprinting technique seminars with the effervescent Jon Chad, and kaleidoscopic spreads of minicomics from Robyn Chapman. And what’s more, their enthusiasm was contagious. I caught the bug, or it caught me. However that works.

The upshot was utter, electric dedication. I came out the other end brandishing a fully-inked, 8-page comic — with plans for a second issue already boiling over in the back of my mind. Of course, there were a couple days there where I didn’t really sleep, and definitely a couple meals that I sort of forgot to eat, but it was more than worth it. The satisfaction and astonishment of seeing what I’d managed to create in such a short period of time were enough to have me dancing with glee all the way back to California.

Because really, if you can create something like that in 5 days, there are no more excuses. All the daunting specters of creative work vanish when you’ve pushed yourself to just charge through them at full speed without stopping because you can’t get an angle or a pose or a word balloon right. It’s like the sensation runners call “hitting the wall.” The ones who know what they’re about generally reach that point and just punch their way through it. When I used to hit that spot, I’d back down and find something else to do, but now? I go at is with my fists. Because I know that whatever’s on the other side is worth fighting for.

Why else would they have stuck it back there in first place?

Main, Manifesto

How Serious is Serious?

I got that dreaded envelope in the mail today. You college kids know what I’m talking about. The one with the innocuous, yet strangely threatening reminder from the Registrar? The one with neat spaces to plan your future course load? The one that talks about declaring your major? That one. It came.

Maybe this isn’t such a big deal outside of Reed. Most colleges allow kids to dabble in uninterrupted, inter-disciplinary bliss — Art and Physics? Absolutely! Political Theory and English? Why not! Majors and Minors are nice that way. Unfortunately, working in a program like Reed’s, “minoring” in another subject generally means writing a second thesis.

Generally, I’m not one for New Year’s resolutions, but during my quiet celebrations to usher in 2010, it occurred to me that this would probably be a good year to start taking myself seriously.

Okay, that sounds wrong. The free-spirited are always preaching that whole “Don’t take yourself too seriously” schtick — and by and large, I agree. Life isn’t meant to be spent in deep, brooding contemplation. It’s for living — pure and simple. However, there’s a difference between taking life seriously and taking yourself seriously. And in my book, the latter has a lot to do with taking a certain amount credence away from things you end up doing for other people, and giving it liberally to the things you do for yourself. Especially in the halls of higher education, it’s really easy to lose track of those things you used to like doing on lazy afternoons. It’s easy to forget that you ever had lazy afternoons. Life is a whirlwind of things that must be accomplished for other people. Some of those things may be pleasurable, they may even line up with you personal interests, but there’s a lot to be said for giving the rest of the world the finger while you give yourself the time and resources you deserve to complete something that gets you fired up.

Where’s this going? Right here. I maintained a sporadic blog while traveling a couple years ago, and it proved a nice way to keep in touch with friends and family, but its time has long since passed. This blog is a little different. More evidential. More challenging. Even, should it come down to it, more coercive. It’s designed to keep me working, keep me thinking, keep me remembering to make time for the things I care about.

So welcome to the new arena for my artistic adventures. With any luck, this blog will track my progress as I begin self-publishing my new minicomic BAGGYWRINKLES, working towards my certificate in Comics and Independent Publishing from the Independent Publishing Resource Center in Portland, and getting the guts up to table at the Stumptown Comics Fest this coming Spring.

Stay tuned!