It goes without saying that this past year has been a clusterfunk and a half. However despite all the upheaval, societal change, devastation and the final encroachment of light at the end of this exhaustingly long tunnel there has been much time to do the art things. As the months ...

When writing and drawing comics, facial expression and body language can sell and reinforce character, tone and story.

A smiling face can say as much as their words about what's going on in the moment, and in the character's emotions.

But what about a sarcastic smile? Or sarcastic ...

Last week I talked about what kind of stuff to stick in the middle section of stories.

Here's a tangent I found myself on, about the actual halfway mark:

Well, the middle bit almost always contains the actual halfway point of the story. In many stories this is a ...

In the beginning, we set up our character
Iin the middle, we get them into trouble
In the end, we get them out of trouble.

Sounds so simple! It's tougher than that to pull off.

The middle of a story in particular, as people have talked about, is often ...

Last Friday, I accepted an invitation to attend a lecture/open mic/live guitar/spoken word performance presented by an artist who made the occasion more interactive and allowed for audience participation and the creation of new forms of expression.

The speaker instructed everyone to bring a piece of paper ...

The late night phone call, “Hey Man! Do you want to come to a party?” asks a mysterious caller on the other line. The man sitting alone in front of his computer monitor, who has grown accustomed to anti-social late nights, half-heartedly agrees to join in on the dancing and ...

Spoilers for recent Star Wars, eg the Mandalorian.
It went unspoken in my year of Newsposts, but 2020 is the 40th Anniversary the release of The Empire Strikes Back.

that's not true! That's impossible!
No, man! Search your feelings! you know it's true! Forty damn years!


Though ...

Drawing Lies - Deception, Insincerity and Sarcasm

Stories and characters have many contexts where emotion is needed - the happy and sad and angry and scared of it all is a big focus of my own comic drawing - I keep it cartoony (with as few lines as possible) and maybe slightly exaggerated ...

Recently I have been procrastinating on publishing a video. I have all the elements in there, it just needs the final touches, but when I look over it, I keep thinking, “Is this good enough?” “Will this be enough?” “Am I a fraud?” These questions plague me as I create ...

So the other day I watched a very interesting video about the new Mulan movie. It was by a Chinese person, explaining why several things were done in a way that is inherently alien to the Chinese culture.

I also recall that the original Mulan was not a hit in ...