Process XXIV

I have always been bad at composition. I like drawing people, but not things. But things provide a sense of place. My first year as an editorial cartoonist for our weekly high school paper, my editor told me I needed to add background. If only a single line, so that y characters weren’t floating in space.

After I had created three comic strips for the daily paper at school, I self-published a collection (God, that was expensive and what no one was shopping for) and the cover is terrible. Just the main characters from each strip, floating in space.

Looking at that cover, I wouldn’t have bought it. Too much white space, as they say.

Creating a cover for The Negative Zone, I am creating a 1980s inspired superhero comic cover, with a bunch of inside references mostly from the class, and even from the class I took in 1988, if you can catch it.

And we are now fully vaccinated. And we have returned to the deck. The furniture is there. The lights are hung. It is time, once again, to work outdoors.

Meanwhile, on Thursday evening I attended the first in-person rehearsal in thirteen months. Same director, though Chennelle. From The Witches to I Hate This. A solo performance, one actor. But also director, playwright -- and cinematographer-collaborator, and a stage manager. A creative team, still distanced, still masked, but all in one room.

Is there a light? Can you see the light?