Didn’t manage a daily today, but here’s Hourly Comics Day! 12-1am was spent cleaning these up and posting them, FYI.
Babydoll - 30 & 31.01.25
So I broke the rules of the Gentle Comics Habit and skipped 2 days, then to make up for it I broke the rules again and did 2 in one day, but both felt necessary for a mental reset. This week has felt really heavy and I’ve been napping, feeling like the old sick days of being in bed 20 hours a day, but with really fun and exciting stuff peppered in between. I think I really didn’t prepare myself well enough for dealing mentally with the physical toll of exercise, and it’s stressing me out to be achy all the time - some part of me is waiting for all the recovery to come crashing round my ears. The best I’ve felt all week was making these 2 comics back to back though - it’s embarrassing making fan stuff, especially since it’s being posted to my “professional” website, but as soon as I thought about Venom at the park it was a done deal, and of course it had to be a zine. The emotional journal-style stuff is just a fringe benefit!
24 & 25 minutes, plus 5 to finish off the back of the zine + colour in the black parts.
Odie - 28.01.25
23 minutes. I’ve been falling back into a stressful procrastination mindset recently - trying to remember that I just recovered from being sick for 2 years, and to give myself a bit of time, because often when I feel like I’m wasting it, gifting it to myself freely can help assuage the shame, which frees me up (eventually) to do the work. Add in a bit of intentionality to your procrastination - make a badge! Walk a dog! Listen to Poirot! Back on the grind tomorrow.
Prang - 27.01.25
22 minutes. After doing a single drawing of a building today I thought I could tackle drawing the sports hall, from memory, with no sketch - at least the last panel self portrait is a dead ringer. I’m back on the 0.1 fine line and I think it’s definitely the superior choice at this scale.
Fringe - 26.01.25
21 minutes. I’ve started adding some underdrawing in places, and I think there’s a pretty big difference in the result, but who knows. Unless I expand beyond one tiny page, I think refining the lines is the move. Or taking 5 minutes to actually plan, beyond a couple of images or keywords!
Bob - 25.01.25
20 minutes, one of which was spent trying to find photos of old hairstyles.
All over the map - 23.01.25
19 minutes. Was it the wind? Something knocked our toothbrush caddy off the wall and left the bathroom floor a maze of brushes and tubes. I’ve been up til 4 applying for a job. Hope you’re all doing wonderful.
Descent - 21.01.25
18 minutes on the dot. Mountain pictures to follow…
Confusing - 20.01.25
17 minutes (plus one minute to finish writing my sentence, I will not apologise!). This concept made sense at the time but now I think I’ve probably shortchanged both concepts by combining them.
Drogheda Zine Fair - 19.01.25
16 minutes? Every post is on a one-day delay at the moment, so this is about heading to Drogheda for the amazing Zine Fair on Saturday. What a lovely event with a great vibe. Can’t wait to go again (especially now I know the trick to escaping the car park).
My scans are gonna be a bit janky the next few days while I’m away, just a heads up…
Irish Goodbye - 17.01.25
15 minutes. Got home after midnight, a lovely day. The next few days I’m away, will try some alternate scanning methods…
Gestation - 15.01.25
14 minutes (+6 minutes, probably).
Park Loop - 14.01.25
13 minutes. I’m so embarassed about being afraid of dogs and I’ve mostly got over it, I love living beside the park now and seeing them all BUT there are 2 dogs there that have it in for me, this is the third and worst time with this wee guy. I was standing there literally frozen, panic rising, and his owner just ambling along, no rush, it gets to the point where he’s running into my legs before she arrives and leashes him, and I’m so freaked out and ashamed that I said “sorry”. Sorry your dog is so stressed out by me walking the other direction, 20 metres away. I just immediately go into this shame place where I think the behaviour is evidence that I’m a bad person, because dog people always say that dogs not liking you is a red flag. But most of them do like me, even if I don’t always know what to do with that. My dad instilled a fear of (big) dogs in me as a kid, which was then transferred to all dogs (and frankly, dog owners) when I was bitten in the park and the owner was unapologetic, just saying that the dog didn’t like 1. children and 2. running, so seeing a running child set him off. So I don’t have much faith in people’s ability to manage their perts.
Late posting this because I put off making it until I absolutely had to go to bed, so no time to scan last night.
Appearances - 13.01.25
12 minutes. I needed yesterday off but I’m annoyed that the minutes are out of sync with the days now, though I suppose they would have got off track at the end of the month anyway. Drawing this I was worried about misrepresenting other people, and now posting it I’m worried about being misunderstood myself! Autobio would wreck your head!
Borrowers - 11.01.25
11 minutes - well, more like 15 cause I couldn’t stop. I was planning to skip tonight, but I had to get down some thoughts about The Borrowers, and this still feels like it’s not enough. The staging was so good! The costuming - Mrs. Clock’s c*nty little shuttlecock hoop skirt! Pod’s matching map shirt and short set! Arriety wearing a TK lemonade label and some copy paper! Even if it hadn’t had a beautiful message about emigration, refugees and Travellers, it would have been amazing - but it did and I still kind of can’t believe it. I just went to see it because my mom and I used to read it when I was a child, but I’m so glad I did. (The dancing! The props! The pipes on these actors!!)
Succession - 10.01.25
10 minutes. Think I might need to expand beyond one page as the time increases. Or possibly I can use the time to try to draw better? I’m tired now, both because of poor sleep and because my eyes have been flame-grilled.
I think I like cooking so much because I decided after Junior Cert that I needed to learn some “life skills” before college and took up Home Economics outside of school, dropping Music. I do wish I had managed to do Music as well, but it’s one of the most distinct memories I have of being a caretaker for myself, making a choice that prioritised my long-term wellbeing over short-term enjoyment (which is pretty amazing considering I unofficially dubbed 6th year “the year of drinking” at the time - and then never named any more since they were all the year of drinking until I finished college and quit).
Mistake - 09.01.25
9 minutes. Wanted to skip tonight but battered on. That was the wrong choice, much like going for a run today after skating yesterday was the wrong choice. Rest is important! But I can’t skip tomorrow cause I’ll almost certainly be skipping Saturday, so I’ll see you tomorrow for 10 minutes.
Grace - 08.01.25
8 minutes. They’re not all winners, but I found my 0.1 pen.
Waxing Gibbous - 07.01.25
7 minutes. It was for Crumlin Children’s Hospital by the way.
One thing about me is, I have a pretty great sense of time (short-term). Like my body knows how long seven minutes is and draws with corresponding complexity. This sadly does not extend to e.g. important deadlines weeks or months away. Wish I could find the pen I was using before, a Unipin 0.1 - I’ve been doing some illustrations digitally recently for a secret project that I think are some of the best things I’ve ever done, and the Unipin gives a similar tiny monoline. I had big dreams of making the comics ever more detailed as time went on, but I’ve lost it so we’re back on the chisels (the chisel is also a Unipin, they’re good pens).
Song of the day: Full Moon by Brandy
Whose Soup? 06.01.25
6 minutes. This evening I attended the Food Not Bombs protest outside Dublin City Hall, against the DCC attempt to ban outdoor community food distribution. It’s been a long while since I was well enough to chance an event like this and it feels good to be back. It’s so easy to give in to cynicism (for me anyway) and it’s encouraging to be reminded about great work like this, and the past successes of similar actions. I did not look up a picture of Dublin Castle for the comic so you’ll just have to trust that it looked cool against the moon.
Also by “great hair”, I don’t mean like salon-ready or anything - it’s just that seeing people all standing/shouting/singing together at something like his reminds me how beautiful humans are, because I’m a cheeseball.