Guest Artist: Tessa Varju

Today is my niece Tessa's seventh birthday. This is a picture she drew while we visited her in NorthCarolina this past summer.

That little guy in the center - with the crazy eyes... that's me.


A shockingly accurate depiction.




Here's a little sequence she drew featuring the robot from my ! story.


Happy Birthday, Tessa! Love ya.

What now?

With ! finished, and Uncertainty not yet ready to begin posting, this is going to turn into a more of a sketch blog than a comics blog. I see "cartooning" (comics making) and drawing as two subtly different disciplines - with "cartooning" more akin to writing than straight illustration. I've always felt the cartooning part of me is stronger than the image making part, but I have to find something else to fulfill my obsessive need to keep up an internet presence.

So bear with me until I get the next story up and running here.

To start off, here is a first sketch for a small project I'm toying with. Not much but it gives this blog a rare burst of color...

! - the end

Pages fifty-two and fifty-three finish this story off. I hope the finish does not disappoint.
For better or worse, it's all over!

For those of you who are interested, there is a print version of ! is in the works. It may take some time though. I have many, many revisions to make to the comic and have yet to work out the particulars of publication (I'd really like one long accordion fold if I can manage it). All of this has to take the backburner to my next project too. I've been leaving Alexander hanging for too long now.

It'll happen eventually, though. And at least now you can read the whole story.

Thanks for reading!

! - page fifty-one

The story so far.

! - page fifty

I had to sit and think about how to draw that stairwell there.
Sit.

And think...


That's ridiculous!

The story so far.

! - page forty-nine

If you've been with this blog a while, this should start to look kinda familiar.
Remember?

! - page forty-eight

(The story so far...)

! - page forty-seven

Okay, at this point I can say with relative certainty that there are only six more pages left to go.
(The story so far...)

! - page forty-six

New year, new page. Ho-hum...

(The story so far...)