Jeanne's Comix | despair and laughter and the process of learning to draw good

A-1 Helldragons

OH GOSH THAT WAS SO LONG SINCE THE LAST COMIC. I’m sorry! I don’t know what it is about January! It’s something about my birthday and New Year’s and ugggh. Please enjoy this!

ALSO PLEASE ENJOY THIS AS MUCH AS I: my comix pal Kathleen Jacques (of BAND VS BAND) drew excellent Bad Mother fan art for my birthday! Please enjoy her rendering of this charming, chilling scene from the horrifying everyday occult life of the Spector household. THANK YOU SO MUCH KATHLEEN. (I feel like I also owe her for use of the term “helldragons,” but can’t confirm this? At least in spirit, this is clearly a KJ term)

You Will Work for Rory Forever

Uh, let’s PRETEND this comic was posted on February 2. Mona’s official birthday is February 2, just like mine. I had this drawn well in advance of February 2, finished most of it, and then fell off the face of the earth. (I finished some other comics related stuff in the meantime, which I’ll post soon.)

There is more Bad Mother stuff in the works — I am not in a comics mood lately. I’m not sure why at all. But I will be again. This is inevitable, and there are a bunch of half done comix to prove it. aghgg

I guess my book is a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award! Here’s a review of it they did.

OedipaMaasive

This is a pretty depressing installment! Sorry.

So hey, I have been interviewed by Sarah Bridgins for Bookslut! The interview covers topics ranging from my book to newspaper comics, independent publishing, and terrible cooking practices. You ought to read it! You ought to buy the book!

A new comic will come Thursday next Tuesday, 1/15, due to unforeseen work delays! It will charm you! It won’t be about like, sex with catgirls on Second Life.

The Cat’s Secret Helper

Yet another exciting review of my novel has come in, everybody! This one is from Neon Magazine and it ends like this:

If you think that the protagonist’s involvement with a cult is an odd direction for the story to take, then you’re right. But this novel is built on odd directions, strangeness, darkness, sudden violence and the wildness of youth. The presentation of the book is similarly intriguing, with punkish, hand-drawn illustrations fronting each of the long sections, and an intermission in the middle. It’s the kind of thing, you get the sense, that Julie herself would have liked.

This is eerily gratifying, to have someone believe that one of my characters would like the story I wrote about her. I hope this is generally true! I feel that somehow even the Man Who Hates Fun would like the story I’ve written about him, just because like showing him in the worst possible light is somehow doing good service to Reason Itself. (I am actually working on the MWHF conclusion, but REALLY SLOWLY. Some pages are drawn and they are pretty good, I think, but I don’t want to promise stuff until I have a pretty solid idea of when.)

ALSO: a new issue of Rocksalt Magazine has come among us! This one has probably my favorite Rocksalt cover yet, by Anton Solomonik of ANIMAL CITY.

Regarding this strip: I don’t know if I’ve ever drawn the Spector family cat–or rather, I have, but I don’t think I’ve put the strip featuring this cat up yet? But it’s pretty transparently my cat, who is legitimately maybe some kind of Evil.

Like seriously THIS JOKE MAKES SENSE RIGHT

New strip Tuesday! It features more Second Life wackiness! Um, don’t read it at work probably!

Apology Cards

We are starting the YEAR OF THE SNAKE on a CLASSY NOTE, one that also features a pretty accurate drawing of my cat’s soul

It’s now been a year and a third since I moved back to Austin, TX. Thinking today about doing the first draft stuff of Bad Mother while I was getting ready to leave NYC, putting all my stuff in boxes. At the Cafe Orwell in Bushwick I think three subway stops from my own (I don’t think in terms of how many subway stops away things are anymore!) doing early drawings of Mona and Betty, trying to determine if “Mona Spector” was actually a ridiculously self-indulgent private joke name or if that was okay, not ordering sandwiches I couldn’t afford. Talking to girl in front of the cafe about the idea for the strip and asking if she thought the title was stupid; said she hoped to hear about it later; it took until May of 2012 until I felt “back on my feet” enough to actually start putting these weird little strips I was doing online. It’s weird to think how much time I’ve spent thinking about this strip relative to the actual amount of work showing, which I can’t help but think of as KIND OF NOT ENOUGH.

So here is hoping for a better 2013 in terms of work. Here is hoping that the detailed plans I have for this strip and these characters come to some kind of useful fruition! Here is hoping that the art gets better, that I figure out how to fit more Real Life Material into three or so panels, that it all just generally works kind of better and makes it more plain that I’m not like “slumming it” with this project, a fear that we will all have until we die, I think. Here is to LESS SLUMMING IT IN 2013! Here is to REALIZED DREAMS

And here is to everyone in NYC, where I really, really wish I could be tonight. MAY LOVE SUSTAIN YOU IN THE COMING YEAR, FRIENDS IN NYC AND EVERYWHERE.

Cathy’s Uncontrollable Hideous Laughter

We end our PRODUCTION SCHEDULE for 2012 on a Dungeons and Dragons joke, the surest route to INTERNET IMMORTALITY

I hope everyone has enjoyed these comics so far! I have a lot of plans for them! If you like these kinds of whimsical comic strips about the follies of child-rearing and of being a child, you should stick around! If you hate these kinds of whimsical comic strips about the follies of child-rearing and of being a child, you should also stick around! Maybe I will surprise you! Maybe something terrible will happen to all these people! Maybe something wonderful will happen! Who can say?

I wish you well in 2013! THE YEAR OF THE WATER SNAKE.

Dino Family Christmas

Here is a HEARTWARMING CHRISTMAS STRIP for you! I hope you are enjoying your own zinecraft/costume-related Xmas gifts today!

I was longlisted for the TOURNAMENT OF BOOKS! This means I do not get to compete unless one of the other books get SERIOUSLY HURT IN AN ACCIDENT such that its prose is no longer in competition status. I am not telling my readers what to do, but I am asking you to weigh the situation and make up your own minds about what is the proper course of action.

That is my Christmas wish to you. To hurt other books that stand in the way of mine. Also: do not let fear stop you from leading a human life.

There should be a comic on Thursday! It will be about Dungeons and Dragons and will take place in a moving car! See everyone then

Hungerbrot

They are at a restaurant called HUNGERBROT

It seems to be an ITALIAN RESTAURANT

I’m really tired with Xmas preparations as I write this! There will, however, be a festive CHRISTMAS strip for you come Tuesday. It’ll come out around the time the next jam-packed issue of ROCKSALT MAGAZINE appears!

I will see you then! Get some rest, everybody! Do not let the holidays get you down!

Cruel Lips

She doesn’t exactly answer this question, but would you in her position

So RIGHT NOW, as this is being posted, I’m doing a Reddit IAMA interview! Come by and ASK ME ANYTHING in a terrifying anonymous environment! I’ll probably keep answering questions for a while. If you like what you hear, consider picking up a copy of my book!

Next comic on Thursday, featuring a meal plus dinosaur facts!

Statue

Hi! It is a SATURDAY STRIP! Featuring nude statuary!

This was actually one of the first Bad Mother strips drawn, I think maybe even at the end of 2011? It’s sat around uninked and uncolored until now. I don’t know why I left it for so long — probably just because it’s a big ol’ page instead of the lean, mean strips, and probably because it has a giant naked statue, which is the kind of element I am leery of including. I wrote it in part to try to figure out the dynamic between Inez and Mona and in part to figure out what kind of weird stuff Mona would have in her bedroom. You can see some of it in this one, which is obviously the leaner, meaner version of this layout. The dynamic between Inez and Mona is also less, uh, HORRIBLE now, I think, though still problematic.

I don’t know what’s up with the painting behind the statue in the last frame. Mona has all kinds of creepy stuff in her bedroom, clearly!

So hey everyone! I am going to be doing an AMA on Reddit on Monday, December 17, at 4 pm! The subject is going to be my book, but I totally welcome/desire questions about comics as well. Please come by with your Reddit account and ask fun stuff! I’m going to try to respond to every question, but who knows how this will go?

New comic Tuesday! I don’t know who will be in it! Maybe Betty, who, you might remember, is Mona’s daughter, and who sometimes appears in this webcomic that is ABOUT HER.