Rising

These days it doesn’t take much to take the auspices. I’m feeling them in my bones, although with no sense of how to resist directly. I’m also just plain feeling my bones. That makes sitting on my hands doubly painful. But what to do?

Reaction

As previously mentioned, I have restarted work on Sleeper Awakes. The cradle and crucible of Habdvarsha, this is a big book rough in all its pages. It will be a while before a result is ready for show. I may not be the slowest reviser tackling awkward sentences, but the title-holder doesn’t rest easy.

The existing text is pocked with Dvarsh from before it’s re-invention. That has to be fixed, though reconnecting with the language in depth is bittersweet. At the same time, a lot of hilarity, vast imagining and elbow grease went into that artifact. Nice to confirm that I made it well. However, swelling with pride, pausing to chuckle, sitting to mourn, none of these map well to calendars or clocks. By fits and starts, progress happens. You will have to read what the story becomes to learn how it responds to gathering darkness.

& Action

While the literary imperative slowly hacks a path through the weeds, I am also drawing.

Back at the first of the year, I had an idea for a comic strip and began to develop characters. I have been drawing them repeatedly but diversely in many postures and actions. It’s a way of discovering who they are, what they look like and what they do. The protagonist has a name, but I generally refer to him as the old cowboy. A class of supporting characters based on monk parakeets comes along. A thoroughly antagonistic antagonist remains cloaked in secrecy for now. Other players wait in the wings.

The original idea for a “comic strip” has evolved away from easy labels. “Sequential art” covers many bases. “Strip” remains an ancestral concept, but what unfolds may be only incidentally comic, only incidentally narrative. The forecast calls for mostly absurd with a chance of topicality. The old cowboy’s niche will grow as he ambles.

Panel No. 1 is in production. The photo at the head of this column includes sketches of the old cowboy and two preliminary versions of the intro composition. The latter include a wordless ideogram. That is the title. Whatever this sequence turns out to be, that ideogram is the title.

I won’t ink the production drawings. They will be pencil and colored pencil. I am, however, working on b/w line drawings of the old cowboy and title because those are necessary for auxiliary use. I started inking the drafts before deciding the first production drawing — the grand opening — holds higher priority.

After kickoff I aim to produce new drawings on a regular basis. A real deal periodicity. I’ll publish by posting on the coffee sites, at least to start. It’s all in the air. It’s all in flux. It comes together. Allons-y!