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July 2009
 

tymmi
Date: 2009-07-01 23:32
Subject: wait... does this spoil the ending for you?
Security: Public
Tags:!, you'll probably want to buy one


Sorry about breaking your feed, here.

Announced today. Maybe you'd be interested to know that I've been awarded a grant from the Xeric Foundation to help me publish my comic strip, !
Pretty exciting news, for me. I join some good company in the current batch of recipients, as well as the former recipients (who include some of my favorite cartoonists)
I don't have many details just yet. I've got my printer lined up, and yes, it will be printed as one long strip (somewhere around 35 feet long) and look something like this:

(one of the mock ups I made as part of my Xeric application)

I'll have more details, of course, as I get closer to solicitation.

Anyway, I've taken down the archive I kept up as I was posting the rough draft here. It'll be back soon enough, but all re-drawn and stuff. Up top of this post is my original sketch of the story, which took about 45 minutes to draw and defined probably the next following two years of my comics making life.

Congrats to the other Xeric recipients. I'm looking forward to your books.
Special thanks to Alexander Danner who nudged me to apply for the grant in the first place.

And thank you guys for reading.

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tymmi
Date: 2009-06-29 21:58
Subject: old stuff
Security: Public
Tags:comics

Remember me?

Haven't been real post-y of late, huh? Been pretty busy, but nothing I can show here yet.
I'm gonna try to get back in the swing of posting things, starting with some older stuff.
If you've been with me a while you may remember this one. A short story I drew, written by "Calamity" Jon Morris for one of his planned BOO! Halloween collections a couple years back. Jon's no longer displaying it at his webspace so I put it up over at my site. Thought I'd share it here too.

When Flies Were Big:


Three more pages, after the cut )

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tymmi
Date: 2009-05-24 11:20
Subject: a brief lesson
Security: Public
Tags:sketchbook

If you look at this picture in the horizontal alignment, it's just a reg'lar old merman swimming along.


But if you turn it 90 degrees clockwise he takes on more of a topless trannie merman with a flair for the dramatic kind of vibe.


Context is everything.

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tymmi
Date: 2009-05-18 17:16
Subject: do not be afraid of bad drawings
Security: Public



Another in my series of geometric breakdowns. Getting closer to what I want out of these...

More sketches, if you dare )

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tymmi
Date: 2009-05-06 17:03
Subject: projections
Security: Public



Boy am I bad at this blogging thing lately.

I'm about halfway through redrawing my ! story. I'd hoped to be further along by now.
I've set a deadline to finish the whole thing by June 10th. I can do it but I've still got a lot of work ahead of me. Keeps me busy.
And I'm waaaay behind where I'd hoped to be on Uncertainty, too...
I'll get back to posting comics here someday.

But, hey! I built a wall this weekend!
The second-floor stairwell used to just open right into Sophie's bedroom. We had gates and everything, but her or Jamon falling down the stairs was always a concern. Chris helped me to build the barrier and to move around some of the electrical stuff. Now it looks like a real room up there. When you ignore all the still bare wall board.

Oh, yeah... plus I also fixed our flickering livingroom lamp!

Who needs comics when you can hear all that exciting stuff?

*sigh*

Here's another in an intermittent series of non-comic sketches. Not Quite Geometric.

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tymmi
Date: 2009-04-07 21:58
Subject: titled
Security: Public
Tags:sketchbook, you'll probably want to buy one



Hey! Remember when I used to draw stuff and post it here?

*sigh*

I haven't gotten to the inking stage in any of my bigger projects so I decided to take some time and work up these gags a little. Other than this it's been all Uncertainty and !...

You know who does finish things on a regular basis?
[info]boxbrown.
(how's that for a smooth segue?)

Boxbrown writes comics with a warmth and earnestness that's rare and appealing. His regular gig, a kind of slice-of-life gag strip called Bellen, is one of my favorite ongoing comic. Examining relationships is his thing (Bellen = Ben+Ellen, his two main characters) and he does it well, with honesty and humor and always a terrifically humbling sense of humanity.
Boxbrown's also just published a book of some longer form comics, done in a similar vein. Check out his Love is a Peculiar Type of Thing, self published and subsidized by a Xeric grant.
I wholly endorse this book.



Look at that! A sort of comic and a little write up of someone else's work! Not too shabby for a guy who barely posts anything anymore.
Now, to keep from appearing too competent, the concept doodle, for the above )

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tymmi
Date: 2009-03-26 17:03
Subject: doodle drop
Security: Public
Tags:mostly banal, sketchbook



Why, oh why do we have to live in a world that allows insanely ambitious projects couched with unprecedented expectations to collapse under the burden of their own massive weight? Why, dammit, WHY?
(link from comics comics, but maybe you saw it somewhere else too...)


Here're some lousy doodles that I'm sure interest no one, but anyway... )

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tymmi
Date: 2009-03-19 16:47
Subject: "Uncertainty" process post
Security: Public
Tags:sketchbook, uncertainty



So, another reason I don't post much sketchbook stuff is that it looks like that. This is me figuring a page layout for the upcoming Uncertainty in my 5 cent Walmart spiral-bound notebook. The lines are awful and nearly unreadable, but that's okay because they're really only for me anyway. Naturally, I chose to lead the post with this.
It gets a little more better, under the cut )

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tymmi
Date: 2009-03-07 16:20
Subject: i are still heer, internet.
Security: Public
Tags:sketchbook



Woah! It's been forever since I posted anything here. Didn't know this sketchblog-thing would become a monthly gig...
Here is something I drew just now, though. Especially for you!

Actually, I've been pretty busy with comics stuff lately. What's taking most of my (art) time right now are ! (which you've already seen) and Alexander's Uncertainty (which you can't see just yet). So, I'm drawing a lot, just not posting anything I draw here.
I'm going to try and get better with keeping this sketchblog stuff up. Maybe I'll post some in-process work for Uncertainty...

And wish me luck on getting ! into print. So far it hasn't been easy.
(but I am making headway)

I'll be in touch.

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tymmi
Date: 2009-02-09 17:15
Subject: mother
Security: Public
Tags:paper dolls, sketchbook



Chasing a notion this week...

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tymmi
Date: 2009-02-06 16:40
Subject: footprints
Security: Public
Tags:sketchbook



These last few sketches were done with a set of color Sharpies I've had for a few years now. In my crappy sketchbook they bleed like crazy. I have a proclivity for using only the cheapest of art materials.

I wanted to try and make a drawing work using only the colors available in the pack of markers. I drew this scene once and caught myself layering the colors to achieve a greater variation. I started over to try and keep it "pure"

Turns out "pure" looks a lot like crap and I ended up layering up on the second drawing too.
The two versions are pretty much the same, but I prefer the second (shown here) for the echo of Karel Čapek in the footprints.

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tymmi
Date: 2009-02-04 17:56
Subject: this one's for Derik
Security: Public
Tags:sketchbook



Derik said he saw panels in the ghost image under the truck sketch the other day, and so he did: Here in this little nonsense comic.

I remember now why I don't post too many things out of my sketchbook anymore. The book is 9" x 12" and my scanner can only take a little more than 8.5" x 11". That means I have to scan everything twice and piece it together in photoshop. Very annoying.
I am too stubborn (or lazy - or cheap) to buy a new - smaller - sketchbook however, so I guess I just have to live with it...

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tymmi
Date: 2009-02-02 16:31
Subject: B-E-A-T
Security: Public
Tags:sketchbook



(Did I say there would be sketches posted here?)

Sorry for the internet silence, but last week really kicked my ass. Like a real, physical beating. Between work, a funeral, and 18 inches of snow (okay, more like ten. It just felt like eighteen when I was shoveling it) I got pretty worn out. Y'know... "beat."

Here is a picture of a truck that I drew toward the end of last week. It is also quite "beat." In that way it could be considered a metaphorical self portrait. A connection hammered home by the sloppy typography.

I was tired and messed up the lettering at the bottom there. Something compelled me to try and fix it but it still doesn't look right.

Anyway. Yeah... yay for drawing.

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tymmi
Date: 2009-01-26 16:15
Subject: Guest Artist: Tessa Varju
Security: Public
Tags:guessed art?

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.

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tymmi
Date: 2009-01-24 10:47
Subject: waht now?
Security: Public
Tags:sketchbook



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...

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tymmi
Date: 2009-01-20 17:37
Subject: ! - the end
Security: Public
Tags:!



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!

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tymmi
Date: 2009-01-15 21:57
Subject: ! - page fifty-one
Security: Public
Tags:!



The story so far.

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tymmi
Date: 2009-01-13 18:15
Subject: ! - page fifty
Security: Public
Tags:!



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

And think...


That's ridiculous!

The story so far.

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tymmi
Date: 2009-01-09 14:38
Subject: ! - page forty-nine
Security: Public
Tags:!



LiveJournal still here? Guess I'll post another page.

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

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tymmi
Date: 2009-01-07 16:29
Subject: ! - page forty-eight
Security: Public
Tags:!



(The story so far...)

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