A doodle dabble

This week I have learnt that comic book writing is hard, drinking in the day is fun and that I have a domestic violence relationship with my car. The first lesson I learnt by having to dedicate a whole weekend to just one page of A4 stickwomen. The second lesson I knew anyway but I do love a refresher course. The third lesson was taught rather painfully when Foxy (my car) finally fought back. In the last year I haven given him a rear bump, a broken seat and knocked off both his wing mirrors. On Saturday Foxy fought back though when I hit my head on the car door frame on my way to Body Groove. Then two days later, after I had realised I had been driving for 5 minutes with the car boot open, I went to shut said door but instead shut it on my head.

This has nothing to do with fads I admit. Unless swearing loudly at the inanimate object you have given a personality to is now considered a hobby. But Foxy got such sweet revenge on me that even washing my hair hurts. So I feel the need to share my pain and Facebook status’s just aren’t enough anymore. Drinking in the day wasn’t my fad either, a gin is not just for fad, gin is for life. But it was fun and it did help with my actual fad of the week, comic book writing. This fad was introduced to me by the very talented comic book artist and friend Sophie Dean. Now, Sophie has always been extremely artistic, at University her Halloween costumes were incredible feats of ingenious paper maches inventions. Such as George the giant monster head with bin bag hair and eye holes in the nostrils.

She also loves a good doodle and has taken a way to pass the time and turned it in to a professional hobby. Sophie works in publishing rights and in 2008 was at the Frankfurt Book Fair. She did what all bored people with a pen and company time to waste do, she doodled. What flowed from that biro ended up being “The Guide to the Frankfurt Book Fair”, a comic piece of comic writing that won praise from friends and colleagues alike. It was so good that even Sophie’s boss loved it when she handed it in as her official report on the Book Fair (Yes, she’s that cool.) From there it just grew and grew, and now Sophie has her own website www.bitbookish.com dedicated to her comics. A site I really recommend you visit as she has a real witty, clever writing voice, and her drawings are much better than mine.

So who better to mentor me in my new fad of comic book writing? All I needed now was an idea. Hmmmm… usually I’m not short of ideas. Though they are mainly wooing or werewolf focused. Sometimes they get combined and it's about a wooing werewolf – they’re the best. But I was struggling to think of something that could be expressed in an A4 page or less as I knew I wouldn't be able to produce more than that. This wasn’t the time for a saga about a young girl in love with a time traveller or a bunch of prankster superhero friends; they would have to wait till creative writing class. I knew that it had to be short, funny and simple – so I considered a self portrait (see what I did there?) As I mulled this over I couldn’t tell if it was the wine I had been drinking since 12pm. Or because my housemate Rhiannon and I felt like the naughty kids banished to her room during a Belleville practise. Well naughty kids that are banished with a bottle of wine. But I was finding everything really funny and couldn't stop laughing, and that’s when it hit me. I’ll write about this, about all the funny times I have with my housemates aka my wives.

The fact that it was valentines weekend as well, made the decision to write a comic book dedicated to my wives all the more fated. I won’t go into the detail about these funny moments and the things I love and enjoy slightly less about my housemates. As that’s detailed in the ‘Good Wife Life – The pros and cons of having wives (i.e. my amazing housemates)’ comic strip.

So please appreciate my comic strip as it took me so bloody long to make. Firstly I had to get into my cuddle monkey (my brand of slanket/snuggie – the blanket with arms). Then I worked out what I wanted to say and how many boxes that would take. I then had to work out how to draw stick people, oh you may chuckle but it took me a long time to get to thIS standard of stick people drawing. Then I had to make sure that all the little stick people and their little stick accessories could fit in their little stick boxes. I then traced it all on a new page so I didn’t have the marks from old pencil lines that I had rubbed out. Next, I went over this pencil drawing in black pen so it would show up more when I scanned it. I then had to find someone with a scanner to scan it and email it to me – Thank You Lorna. Then I put the scanned image in a word document, finalised my dialogue and wrote my text boxes. Lastly, I got it spell checked and proof read by said wives before turning into a jpeg by copying it into paint. I admit that it may have been quicker if I used computer programmes more advanced then word and paint, but I knows what I likes and I likes what I know. But if that comic book writing process felt long to read then try living it.

Comic book writing is hard. It’s not the creative output for me. I feel I can get more across and in less time with just plain old writing. I’m sure they’ll be times in my life that can only be properly expressed through stick people. I’m just not so sure I’ll have another free weekend to dedicate to it. But I’ll probably dabble from time to time, I do get so bored so very easily. I’ll leave the full time comic book hobbying to the professionals such as Sophie. Whose dabble in doodling has taken her to a place both professionally and personally that she never imagined 2 years ago.

So another week over and a new fad to be had. Now, the eagle eyed among you may be wondering why I haven’t spent the last few minutes talking about lego modelling as that’s what I said I’d be doing at the end of my last blog. Well due to a back injury lego modelling had to be rescheduled to this weeks fad. So you’ll have to wait to find out why a back injury had delayed the lego modelling fun and what exactly is so fun about it. What a blog cliffhanger.

Hope you enjoyed reading and please become a fan of the shesbeenfad fan page if you haven’t already.

Look forward to talking to you next week

Many Thanks

Much love Mumf xxxx