Taking Cues from the Greats - Part 2

"I just love Yanina! She's so cute and thick!" [From a dear friend]

"Yanina as goth punk" pencil

I was introduced to R. Crumb or for the uninitiated, Robert Dennis Crumb, in the back of the class in junior high.  

As I continue to draft my webcomic series, Summer to Winter, I have to hearken to my heroes and sheroes in comics.

Now this was the late 1980s and superhero comics were my jam, but I loved comics enough to step out of my comfort zone to read what others were interested in.

"Yanina as goth punk" inked  

 

Enter R. Crumb... For anybody familiar with his work, he tends to draw beefy, meaty, and hairy people, mostly his women being beefy and meaty. 

"Yanina as prep goth" final piece

His women are often tall and curvaceous with imperfections such as moles, an odd angled nose, and exaggerated ethnic facial features. And yes, his earlier works were racist and derogatory, but the volume I viewed opened my mind to how a comic could show a variety of human beings and still make them *seemingly attractive* to take center stage.

"Yanina as prep goth" pencil  

Since I was so used to the so-called ideal perfections of the feminine form in superhero titles from DC and Marvel, 

Crumb's art took me by surprise to see women, and men, with hair on their thick legs, thick lips, protruding nipples through tight shirts, butt crevices in tight pants, shorts, and micro mini skirts.

In comics, I've noticed that regardless of the woman's height and or shape/body type(and even the shapes were severely limited among feminine bodies), comic women were always 110-120lbs.

110-120lbs. Read that again. 110-120lbs. Regardless of body type, shape, height, and age. 110-120lbs. Now, at the time, I'm about 12-14. I don't know why I'm annoyed by this. I just am. 

Even though R. Crumb's beefy, meaty women were not the first outliers I've seen in comic form, they were very rare to me. And certainly not weighing in at 110-120lbs!

Crumb's work is also... A LOT. With such sweaty, hairy, and messy people in these pages came very frank and stark depictions of sexual activity, intensity, and desire. Pun definitely intended that it was naked and raw. With characters fondling, groping, and self-pleasuring...

Comics in the 1980s were viewed through a sexist and prudish lens. I could read comics at home, but outside, it was frowned on for a GIRL to read comics, and more so, such "filth". Male classmates introduced these R. Crumb comics to me, and I remember at the time they thought I shouldn't view them. That they were not for my eyes. Mind you, we were all the same age. I was loud in my demands, and rather than get in trouble for sneaking comics into our school space, they grudgingly let me read over their shoulders. 

R. Crumb's comics were everything that adults who hated the comics media on a whole: unsavory, unflattering, grotesque, obscene, and worst of all, sacrilegious. His comics spoke on religion, and especially his version of Genesis was as unflinching as they came. 

It is no wonder I depict a variety of body types in my own works, especially when it comes to my women, girl, and feminine characters. For which I have received a lot of negative feedback and criticism. 

It is no wonder I draw many of my female/feminine characters the way I do. And write what I write, pushing my own envelope, stretching into unfamiliar storytelling territory, to break out of my own creative comfort zone.

Because I depict my characters in varieties, because no body type is taboo in my stories and illustrations, along with some negative comments, I've received so much more positive criticism and glowing feedback!

If you want to check out more on R. Crumb and his works [I must warn you, if you're easily offended, easily grossed out, and prefer your art/comics to look "clean", "polished",  and without blemish, then his artwork may not be for you. Just saying] - Welcome to rcrumb.com - The Official Crumb Site

Until next time, Dear Readers!

Why the Teacher(s)?

Happy 2019!

I tend to have a lot of educator characters (main and minor) in my slice-of-life comics and I wondered about that. 

And then it occurred to me: While reading "Archie", I was often curious about teacher, Miss Grundy, and the school principal, Mr. Weatherbee. 

What did they do after school? Did they like each other? What kind of families did they have or come from? What were their hobbies? 

As the child of a schoolteacher, I knew that teachers didn't live at the school but had homes like everybody else. Also, why were story teachers always old?

These sorts of questions drove me crazy as a kid. I also had to stop a lot of stupid rumors among my fellow elementary school classmates.

No, teachers didn't live at the school. They didn't sleep under their desks.
No, teachers had families and kids.
They do have spouses.
And teachers had nothing to do with the cafeteria food menu.
That's why they often bring their own lunches.
And no, teachers didn't give out homework to torment us.
Oftentimes, they had to answer to a higher authority, such as the school administrators and school boards.

Why did I only see a scratching of the surface on these musings when I watched those Hollywood films about a teacher going into a ghetto neighborhood to 'save the children'? What about the teachers who already lived there? Didn't they have a say?

Family, friends, family friends, I was always surrounded by teachers. Why not tell the stories I overheard? Why not come up with my own?

Teachers have a life, let's all acknowledge that, shall we?

INKTOBER 2017 PROJECTIONS

Last year, I worked on most of the characters from the dog Great Depression novel.

While I'm still working on that, during many of the disasters, and Irma, a curious thing happened: a science fiction story near and dear to me, that I've had in mind since childhood, started to figuratively write itself! These will be a series of shorts that I'm currently compiling.

For this Inktober, I'll showcase these SF characters with updated looks!

Just as I did with NaNoWriMo and Camps NaNoWriMo to pen most of the Great Depression novel, I'm using #Inktober2017 to work on a slice-of-life comic series. So, HAPPY INKTOBER!

P.S. If you wish to see my Inktober 2016, hop over to my DeviantArt profile at http://coppersphinx.deviantart.com

The New & Improved Stacey!

On May 9th, right on the cusp of completing my thesis, I quickly sketched my revamped 'Stacey' character. Her personality remained intact. I only did some more digging (pun almost intended but happily kept) into what kind of dog breed she came from. Here are the results. She made a hit on Facebook.

Materials used: Prismacolor designer pens and Uni-ball precision 0.5 illustrator pens.

Tired of being judged!

As an artist and writer, people constantly ask to see my work. When they do, I am almost NEVER prepared for the results.

All right, now on to the rest of this diatribe - I have a complaint. It has irked me for some time, until, finally felt I had to tweet about it, which I did, and ranted about it to my "Women of the MFA" group, my Facebook school's page, as well as the rant has grown large enough to become a blog post (Which is what you're reading now. Ta DA).

Why, when people look at my characters, and I show them my couples, the main female is QUICKLY judged faster than the main male?

Because I am an educator at heart, I like to give examples so I don't sound totally random.
So, for your reading displeasure, here are the things I've been told (to my face!) about my (female) characters.

Keep in mind, not ONE of these statements has ever been directed to or said about my male characters:

"She's too chunky."

"She's got thunder thighs!"

"Kill her off. She's not good enough for the male protagonist."

"I don't like her hair(style)."

"I don't want her with the male protagonist."

"Get rid of her and use me instead (with the male character)."

"She sounds like an idiot."

The recent, "She's not pretty enough."

And, today, "Why is she wearing that? Change her outfit."


This has happened over the years, and, at first, I thought it was funny, because, you know, these are fictional folks.

Now, I'm feeling almost personally judged, though these people aren't 'real' to others, they are REAL to me, their writer/artist!

Can the back-biting/judgmental foolishness stay in the real world and leave the fictional world alone? Can I get an Amen? Or should I shut up and stop whining? 

I would really like to know why our society loves to quickly judge the female, whether she is real or fictional. Why the need to jump down on a woman, from both genders, and how detrimental do you think this is to our society/economy/globally?

What is your take as a writer/poet/artist/reader? Please leave a comment on this. Thank you.