I love pictures, but words are easier
Sketchbook pages and rueful lamentations
I haven’t been drawing nearly enough. It’s my own fault! Truth is, writing is a lot easier. I’ve spent more of my life pouring effort into words than hand-crafted images - creative writing, sure, but also school papers, work assignments, thousands (millions?) of emails for every conceivable reason. I was a deeply committed letter-writer during my teenage years, and for years Hope and I spent all day every day messaging each other while trying to earn corporate money. I inhale words, exhale them, swim in them, drool all over them while they cushion my head at night. They’re an extension of my senses, prostheses attached to my hands and feet. In the beginning was the word (my first was “cookie”), and it’ll be there at the end too, sputtering in neon as everything else dims around me.
Pictures are a lot harder. You have make an effort to make a picture - after about age 10, society doesn’t give you many reasons to keep churning them out. You have to want it. I’ve held on longer than most, but
there are huge gaps in my resume. Once I hit college and put all my focus on theater, drawing became an occasional pastime at best, and that lasted more than 15 years. Sure, I’d draw and design materials for our shows, but it wasn’t a habit - when the project was over, I didn’t exercise that muscle until I had to do it again.
It’s still not a habit, which sometimes pains me. Stepping away from producing theater (10 years ago this past spring!), I was determined to make a go of cartooning and illustration. For a while there I worked pretty hard at it - at one point I even managed to post an image online every day for a full year. But a bunch of things came together to dull the momentum. Parenthood was a big one; my job was another. I never learned how to play the social media game properly, and then the whole thing curdled into bitter disillusion. That was around the time the bad man was elected, and my beloved pursuits suddenly felt frivolous - irresponsible, even. I tried to focus on creating political art, but it goes against my grain - it was bad art, and it didn’t change anything. Entropy took the upper hand.
I was hoping to make comics and art a regular part of this newsletter - I’m still hoping to, but I haven’t quite figured it out. It just takes so much longer than typing out my thoughts. The ridiculous image I drew for the this week’s whole belly clam post took me longer to make than the post it accompanied (though admittedly, the HiLobrow essay took longer than both together). Part of the issue is that I’m WAY more self-critical about my art than my writing - I spin around, dazzled by the visual creations of artists old and new, in books and online, and my own paltry efforts feel pathetic in comparison. I compare myself to the very best and get discouraged that things don’t turn out as I hoped.
I’m still working on stuff, despite it all. Congress of the Monsters 2 is coming along, but so very slowly. Part of it is logistical - I’ve taken to drawing on my iPad, which Dash also loves. The problem is that we both have the same evening hours free for drawing, which I usually cede to him - it’s the latest excuse! But I need to come up with a better long-term solution. To sit down and draw something - anything - requires a moderate strain of the will, which triples when I’m doing it on paper, where mistakes can’t easily be fixed.
I always keep a sketchbook going, but I neglect them for months at a time. I know I need to get over myself, and just draw without worrying about what I’m going to draw and how it’s going to turn out. I feel like I lost so much time, I’m too old, I’m impatient, I have nothing to say, I’m not as good as I want to be - every excuse is at my disposal, and believe me, I use them. Maybe if I made a commitment to share some sketchbook pages here once or twice a month. Here are a few from the past year or so…
They’re not much, but I guess they’re not supposed to be. I should be okay with that!
I’m feeling better after last week’s respiratory madness - still coughing like it pays a living wage, but it’s starting to slow down. Unfortunately, I got Hope sick, so it’ll still be more than a week before things feel normal around here. We’ve been taking it slow, and I’ve still been reading a lot. Here’s the latest:
FINISHED:
Essayism: On Form, Feeling, and Nonfiction, by Brian Dillon - absolutely loved this. A collection of essays about essays, with a poignant memoir woven throughout. The kind of book that makes you excited to read so many other books, hosted by an erudite, charming, troubled guide. Inspired me to do better at this whole writing thing.
The Big Book of the '70s: True Tales from 10 Years of Tackiness and Tumult, by Jonathan Vankin and about 50 different comics artists - this is one of about 17 different “Big Books” published in the late ‘90s and early ‘00s, featuring 2-4-page nonfiction comic stories illustrated by a range of artists. I haven’t picked one up in ages, but they still make perfect popcorn reading - you can inhale a handful at a sitting before or after something more substantial.
The Honjin Murders, by Seishi Yokomizo - a very enjoyable Japanese murder mystery originally written in the ‘40s, the first of a series starring eccentric detective Kosuke Kindaichi. It’s fun and fascinating to see these genre conventions transposed to a very different culture and time!
The Seeds, by Ann Nocenti and Davdi Aja - this was a graphic novel that I thought I’d like but didn’t. Fuzzy dystopian boilerplate. Pass.
STARTED:
Mythologies, by Roland Barthes
Or All the Seas with Oysters, by Avram Davidson
No movies this week, but hoping to have something to report next time. Enjoy your weekend!