Game Delay

Hi all, the combination of (a) having to restore all of my computer’s damaged data and more importantly (b) traveling for two days midweek to support my parents during my grandfather’s final weeks has resulted in (c) no update. I would apologize, but it seems silly to apologize for taking care of family.

My grandfather was a distinguished bomber pilot during the War, flying a complete tour over Germany. He went on to work in PR – have you seen Mad Men? Yes, it was a bit like that. He was also an aspiring cartoonist, in the magazine gag genre. I’ve always found it funny that I picked the one ridiculous bohemian career that he, in his squareness, could be excited about. Granted, he keeps asking me when I’m going to break into the syndicates with my “strip”. These days I just tell him “soon, Grandpa”.

Updates will resume next week. Thank you all for your patience and notes of sympathy.

Family Man update!

Page 183 now online!

It continues to amaze me that people read this comic, because I am making jokes about Biblical scholarship. Remember that last comic I did, guys?  People got hit in the face with chickens in that comic.  For the next one you can expect, I don’t know. Hungarian puns, maybe.  Whatever will throw off the bell curve.

Anyway: the book!  It’s off to the presses!  There’s no turning back now.  That typo I probably didn’t notice on page 171?  That typo is going to be there FOREVER.  I’m taking lots of long walks and trying to breathe through my nose.

See you next week!  There’s some harsh and unfortunate stuff kicking my family around at present which might well knock me off the rail, but I’ll do my best to stick to schedule as long as it seems healthy.

Bonk.

Hey all, just a brief note: my computer is in the shop with a busted video processor (luckily nothing I have to pay for).

Since all of my image software and all of my shipping accounts are tied to that machine, this means no shipping and no comics updates until after I get it back; hopefully Friday, likely Saturday.

I will be checking e-mail in the meantime, so if you have any questions about an order or suchlike, please feel free to contact me.  Thanks for your patience!  Oy.  I really wanted to get going on everything.

Funny to be reminded of one’s dependency on a particular piece of technology.  I wonder how many medieval monks, scratching away at their illuminated manuscripts with goose quills, were driven to unexpected despair when their favorite feather supplier was struck by bird-plague.

Take Care of Yourselves.

Hello, gang.

It’s a rough time for us here in the Northern hemisphere of developed world; we’re all accustomed to a smoother time than this, aren’t we? The economic woes and the wars and the darkness and the general feeling of societal dis-ease and distrust.

If you are a person (like many of us) who already deals with depression or other mental distress, or who has experienced specific pain and turbulence of late, no doubt those effects have only been underlined.  I myself have been swamped with grief and miasmic anxiety this past month.

In the last month, two members of my family have committed suicide (one indirectly, by way of longterm self-neglect and substance abuse; one very intentionally, after a long struggle with suicidal depression).  Two other acquaintances, people with active roles in their communities and a creative outlook on life, have also recently killed themselves.

Please, my dears.

If you’re struggling, if you are in pain, if the normal palliatives of family and friends and work and all those things we’re supposed to do to “cheer up” have failed you:  please, please please, please, seek help.

Whether that is calling a crisis line, seeking professional help (even if you’re uninsured and broke, it does exist), scheduling a check-in routine with somebody you trust, revamping an old medication, lightbox, or exercise regimen, talking to a spiritual adviser, going running with a friend, anything that counts as telling another person what is going on and asking for help in taking action:  please do it.

The world does need you.  Please do whatever it takes to keep you present and whole.

Find a social worker near you.
Call the national suicide prevention hotline to talk to somebody near you.
Search for health clinics near you, including free and low-cost.
GLBT-friendly therapists, spiritual support, and other resources.

Spirit Photographs

One of my favorite ridiculous phenomena of the Victorian Era:  the spirit photograph. You could pay money to be photographed and have the supernatural forces around you revealed on a silver plate, be it ectoplasm or be it a mournful feminine face lost a diaphanous swath of otherworldly chiffon.

To the contemporary eye, they’re hilariously, magnificently fake; half-baked tricks of photographic exposure.  To me, they’re the perfect combination of anthropology and art, like old sci-fi movies set in a now outdated future.  They’re trying to envision something separate from their time and place – death, the year 1995 – but, hampered by their own chintziness, never achieve the escape velocity that real works of speculation or awe do.  We are looking at the lowest common denominator for how Victorian-era people (those who could afford a photograph, anyway) conceived of the afterlife.

Their origins are very cynical, these photos, but their falseness has now become quaint and pathetic.  Most of these photographers knew that they were scamming customers, but I wonder how many of them were lulled into thought that they were doing a pretty good job at interpreting an actual spirit world. Just helping it along, as it were.

For, example, of this photograph, the National Media Museum makes this note:

“The image of a young man’s face appears prominently over the man, draped in a cloak. The signature at the base of the image belongs to the sitter. The man had links with the person who compiled the spirit album, and he gave the photograph to her as a keepsake. He apparently recognized the young man’s face.”

Did any of these photographers avoid either the pure cynicism of a scammer or the self-delusion of being the spirit world’s darkroom assistant, and instead settle on the middle notion that they were simply giving people comfort?

“A photograph of a mourning scene, probably taken by William Hope (1863-1933) in about 1920. A woman mourns for her husband in a Chapel of Rest, standing by his body which is wrapped in sheets and laden with flowers. The woman’s son stands beside her. The image of a man’s face has been superimposed over the original photograph. The spirit album notes that the family were Roman Catholics and believed in life after death.”

It does make me think about where we we might ourselves, here in this smug moment of the present, be sitting (unbeknown to us) on a little velvet chair, waiting for the nice man to take the exposure and show us another world – above, below, ahead.  And about how the effects of sorrow are the same in any time and any place.

Monday Morning Poem: Annie Stayed.

My maternal grandfather died a couple of years ago.

We were very fond of each other – he took me to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (a full day and a half drive) from 7th grade through my high school graduation, a gift of immeasurable impact.  He was a bright, curious, caring, and endlessly enthusiastic man. He reacted with genuine joy whenever his didactic little granddaughter held forth on erudite topics.  I still remember his delight upon hearing me tear apart the production of Romeo and Juliet that was one of the first productions we saw together at OSF.

I didn’t ask for anything of his after he passed away; my mother knowingly brought me a few things that meant a lot, but all in all my memories were the most vivid token of our relationship.  Recently, however, his last wife sent my mother a number of his old files.  Including one entire manila folder full of every letter and picture and document I had ever sent him, or that my parents had sent him relating to me.

So I’ve rediscovered verything from short stories I wrote in second grade to novellas I wrote in middle school to graduation notices and e-mails and silly cards.  I haven’t quite had the strength to go through all of it yet, but one thing I did find:  the poem below.  I remember this odd, apocalyptic little poem quite well but had no record of it myself, so knowing that he had it all along is very touching.

And, now that he’s gone, the poem – being as its topic is a girl with a fondness for the departed – takes on a sweet poignance.

Anyway. Here it is.

Annie stayed.

Annie McSalva stood that day
but no one was there to enjoy her stay
only the ghosts had not gone away

Annie remained for the ghosts.

Annie McSalva walked down the streets
her feet tapping sidewalk to various beats
She looked in the theatres, all empty seats

Annie played Hamlet for ghosts.

Annie McSalva read all the books
out loud, in the library, and none gave sharp looks
the ghosts listened well in their crannies and nooks

Annie read on for the ghosts.

Annie McSalva swam in the pond
that led to the gutters and sewers beyond
but nobody stayed to drink that which was fond

to Annie, who swam with the ghosts.

Annie McSalva lay in the sun
and thought that the world had only begun
but the ghosts whispered back that it almost was done

Annie survived with the ghosts.

photo by Nocturnal Bob

Wednesday Fan Art

Another week, another drawing of somebody else’s character!  Continuing with the unintentional theme of “naked green ladies”, this week it’s Angora from The Meek, by Der-shing Helmer.

Sadly I drew this sucker on Bristol, and had to use my four remaining Colerase pencils – or else I would’ve watercolored again.

I’ve been gawking at The Meek since shortly after it started up, so it was a pleasant surprise to turn up at APE and see actual print copies of the first chunk!

The Meek is one of the few comics that manages to be densely, lushly illustrated… and lively.  Too often an artist will lavish all their time on the coloring or the stylish character design…and forget to inject life through gesture and interaction or, you know, writing.  The result is eye candy that I get bored with about ten pages in.

But Der-shing has been knocking it out of the park for several dozen pages now.  I can’t wait to see where she’s going and how these delightful, elastic characters are going to smack into each other.

Also?  I adore how she draws Angora’s boobs.

Family Man update!

Pages 159 & 160 now online.

This concludes Chapter Two of Family Man – and therefore Volume One.  Starting today I get to research potential costs for a print edition.  I’ll be shopping it to publishers as well, but since this is, after all, Volume One and therefore presents a bit of a risk, I’m anticipating the need to self-publish it until I have the structure for Volume Two mapped out in a format understandable by other human beings.

I’m expecting that Volume One will be pricey to print; the comic loses legibility when printed in fewer than four colors (even though it LOOKS like the only color is sepia-green).  So stay tuned for a possible pre-order fundraising drive.  If you’ve had a great experience getting a color project printed, please refer me to your print vendor!

BUT, THE BIG NEWS…

…I’ll be taking three weeks off of updating the comic to get a head start on the next chapter.  In the meantime I’ll be updating with drawings, a podcast, and other extras.  When I come back, Family Man will move onto a single, cohesive self-hosted website.

The comic itself, blog updates, notes, gallery images, cast page…all brand-new and all at Lutherlevy.com.  The site will have a complete (and extremely sexy) Comicpress overhaul courtesy my slightly unhinged design skills and the eternal patience of Comicpress guru Tyler Martin.

No ads!  No subscription fees!  Still free as always, just lots prettier and in one place.

I’d like to thank Joey Manley and the other folks who’ve pitched in at Webcomics Nation for providing a really great service.  WCN has saved me a lot of hair-tearing in the past few years.  If setting up your own webspace and installing Wordpress and Comicpress and customizing your theme and all that just feels utterly daunting to you, I totally recommend wandering over to WCN and checking out their features.

And now, back to the drawing board!

Family Man update

Page 156 of Family Man now online!

Ariana’s mysterious doings continue in their mysteriousness.  Let me tell you, the research I did for panel four was one of the more stomach-addling things I’ve researched yet for this comic.  There will be others!

Appearances:  unless this incipient cold takes me down, I’ll be at the Wordstock Festival here in Portland this weekend with Erika Moen.  I won’t have books to sell (I’m reserving my stock for APE, so that California folks get a shot at the last of the first edition), but I’ll have prints and minis and buttons and stickers, and if you order the book from me I’ll send it to you with free shipping as well as a limited edition  print.

Then I’ll be at the Alternative Press Expo (APE) in San Francisco on October 17-18, gossiping about dead people with fellow history cartoonist Kate Beaton at Table 440.

I’ll see y’all there!

SPXtreme

This past weekend I was at the Small Press Expo (SPX) in Maryland, frolicking with my fellow cartoonists and other assorted comics industry folk and their associated people.

It was a dang good time, which I needed very sorely since it has been, shall we say, a challenging six months.  I sold out of books on the afternoon of the first day – and in fact I only have 30-some books left in this printing.

So it’s back at the printers for another round, and I’m keeping those 30 in reserve for APE, where I will be splittin’ my table with Ms. Kate Beaton (history nerds unite).  If you order a book online before Halloween – which is when I’ll start shipping the second printing – I will throw in a snazzy extra Bite Me! print that I am devising this week.

Anyway.  Next week will see a new page of Family Man, but in the meantime, here is my brief and fragmentary convention report for SPX, in cartoon form, drawn 30,000 feet in the air on only three hours of sleep and a cup of airplane tea.  DOES IT SHOW.

Seriously, the Miss Teen Maryland USA pageant orientation, right next door.  Hundreds of long-limbed, insectile lasses with no visible pores and heels higher than the Empire State Building.  The contrast between the pageant girls and the females of SPX was enough to suggest that the human species is actually sexual trimorphic.

I am sure that Kate appreciated my help a whole lot, especially that bit where I frightened all her customers.  Seriously though, she is a classy lady.  Once or twice she was convinced that she had been horrible to somebody when really she had said “thank you” in a gentle voice and then politely excused herself to attend a panel.

We’ll be shackin’ up together at APE, so be sure to come witness the amazing power of the Goofus and Gallant history show. (hint: I am Goofus)

Apparently next door at the beauty pageant they were introducing themselves under hot lights, and the AC had to be cranked up to guarantee that no make-up would run or sweat stains would appear.  The result was several thousand shivering nerds.  I myself resorted to wrapping a pashmina around my head to save my frontal lobe from icing over completely.

The party outside of the Ignatz awards was very enjoyable.  Towards the end of a very strong hotel martini I wound up spending some quality time with Jim Ottaviani.  A few years ago, Jim O saved me from the purgatory of temping at the local hospital by having me draw Wire Mothers for him.

I rewarded him by failing to realize that 9 by 12 inches is not the same proportion as 6 by 9 inches, but luckily he is a forgiving guy.  The conversation then segued into a discussion about how much we like secular humanism.

Pastries:  the Comics Bakery table was overflowing with delicious homemade treats, and still further veggie pastries were fetched from the pastry shop a few blocks from the convention.  Also I stayed at Carla Speed McNeil’s house, and her fabulous husband Mike kept doing things like making biscuits, chocolate cookies (”to go with the sorbet I made”), scones, etc.   The result was that I probably took in a whole stick of butter over the course of the weekend.

Before she took me to the Metro to catch my flight, Carla left me unattended in her studio.  The result is that I now know more about her upcoming projects (Finder and otherwise!) than any of you sorry fools, and she has some inexplicable stains on her penciled pages.  Also I got to see her Eisner award.  You could use it to kill a man no problem.

And that is all I had the energy to draw on the flight home.  It was a really great time – I will be back again next year if it’s up to me.  Thanks to everybody who stopped by or who shared my company over the weekend.  I’ll see some of you in San Francisco in a few weeks!  (with the last copies of the first edition…)