week 9

12/31 - Okay, this week we see if Rufus can be pulled off. So far, we have the basics, he's an artist, he has an interest (or at least a "mild" interest) in Madge romantically, he eats healthy food, he gets startled fairly easily, and he wears a silly hat which has a tendency to jump when said startling occurs. Which brings us to a very nice quality of comics and literature, and that is the symbolism which can be created in the work (as opposed to culturally accepted pre-existing symbols, like a horseshoes for luck, or a heart for love). You see, after we see his hat fly up in the air a few times, we expect that each time he's startled, that it will do this. He being startled, means a hat goes in the air. But the REAL interesting part, is that I can then work it backwards, that then i can show a hat in the air, and that comes to mean that someone is startled. Interesting, no?

1/1 - Huzzah, happy new year. More Rufus hilarity.

1/2 - "Author Quiet" activated. Brrrpt.

1/3 - Well, Rufus troubled me. Not enough to panda him, but enough that I was ready to really open him up this weekend, see what i could find. But I think I may have found the key, thanks to some prodding from Anya and others, that he, like Shep, was too cartooney-looking. Now, I did know that, and I even tried to redraw him when I redrew Shep, but he wasn't a success. So I simply had hoped it wasn't too important, but you know, it was. So yeah tonight, I think I stumbled on how to successfully redraw him and still keep.... him. So anyhow, below is the new Rufus with the old rufus below that for comparison. I happened to redesign him AFTER I had already drawn the strip, so that's why there's both. Enjoy!

1/4 - Another week made through. I'm almost giddy. Boy am I cracking up. Today it seems like an amusing thing. Well, right now it does. The forum on how to create a strip for syndication with author notes, featuring the strip entitled "madge's diary". Nobody bothered to tell the author his role and so he seems a bit tangental, using this as a forum to blab about his days. Bumped into Eric today on the streetcar home from work, and he told me of drunken dancing until he knocked things over. Earlier, Jim, mail courier guy at work, told me incoherently stringed together stories and jokes, half of which I seemed to catch. Earlier I transcribed some poems, and now I am scanning and uploading my strips, afterwards i will try to squeeze in watching a film called "wit" with Emma Thompson, which i rented yesterday out of curiosity and inspiration to maybe this weekend putting together a new idea i have for a comic book which I will likely never do. But it's a good idea. P.S.- Finished watching it, and it was amazing. An hour and a half monologue (practically) of Emma Thomson playing a scholar which a sharp and philosophical wit. "what do you do for exercise?" a doctor asks her. "Pace." The plot is a direct line, she is dying of ovarian cancer. This is NOT an easy movie to watch, especially if you have ever been through surgery and know the pain, or have been there for someone who is going through it. But it was so beautiful. It did deal with the issue of scholarly seclusion or isiolation. What it means to be human or detatched. I'm not sure where I lay. I have compassion, but allow myself to be touched by few. I'm a hard man, hard on myself and life. The more exposed, the less vulnerable, the less in touch. Perhaps this is part of what makes a syndicated cartoon. And I'm tired, enough rambling.