Your style has been growing on me more and more since I saw it for the first time. I've got to say that this and your comics like in post #112, have such a simple, yet pure happiness to them. Not to be corny or anything, but they feel like a little light amidst the dark, or a little spot of zen amidst a whole lot of chaos -- A reminder that it's the little things that truly make life bearable and happy even in spite of the the fact that the big picture of every day life tends seem a lot less appealing.
It's much appreciated! The first two months was getting comfortable with
real drawing again (not relying too much on computers), then getting the writing as simple and stripped down as possible, and while coloring is still an after-thought, I feel like I'm getting the coloring to a place where it adds to the strip rather than just fills it in. If you look at the first dozen strips in this thread, they aren't nearly as good as the output of the last two months.
It's a work in progress, but I'm happy to see it getting to a smoother, more comfortable place. It's taught me a lot about process as well. When I was younger I was all about incomplete ideas and I rarely finished anything, and now I'm forcing myself to do things, and the progress is satisfying. Progress comes through the at of doing, not simply considering it. I try to imagine a basketball player getting better simply by watching people play basketball and considering it rather than doing, and it's a preposterous idea. Same with art. (and language study for that matter)
The process is zen though. Though I consider some things consciously, when writing, it has to feel right. The rhythm from panel one to four, plus the title. There is a certain kind of music... I was called pretentious by someone online recently (nobody I actually know, of course, this is the Internet where criticism comes cheap), and ultimately, I'd rather aspire to do something I'm proud of than to aim very low and apathetically, claiming I'm attempting nothing, even at the cost of being called pretentious by people (I don't know).
More to come, and I have a bigger summer comic project that should make use of Sapporo. It remains to be seen if I can muster the energy to get that done in good time though, while keeping these going too.
