"Fixity In Our Joys" Comic Poem: AC/DC + Frost Mashup

Here's one that's exclusive of Ink & Snow. First & foremost, this post + piece are both to wish The Significant Otter a most happy-est aMAZingest birthday ever. Given that she isn’t a regular reader of Ink & Snow, I can safely slip this one under the radar, and similarly assume that uploading it onto one of my many social media platforms will go unnoticed – at least until it’s pointed out (on other social media platforms). Albeit this blog is the one place and space I can somewhat safely expound upon the process and include more in-depth metacommentary.

Moving through time + space... our Alaskan life, her history in the hills of Iowa, ore merged cabin with a wall of DVD' & comics and our respective mediums (though see excels equally in painting, photography and digital design); these three floater panels are superimposed upon a backdrop view through a window to her raised bed, all anchored by cAtticus and MoochieBear.

So it was originally a demo piece for the fall semester's Cartoon & Comic Arts course: One of the many tweaks and recalibrations to the class after it's initial offering (first time during a regular semester), was to add in another critique - assigning an 18x24" sized Comic Poem.  

A couple problems occurred over the course of making this. One, I rushed the inking stage - never mind showing off to students with a "show ya how it's done" demonstration, I was just trying to keep up with the assigned workload. So it was a shame to try and bang out the inking (done with a dip-pen, India ink, borders with a stick, and lettering with Microns) in one sitting, especially after investing so much comparative time and energy plotting and penciling. So the playful cavorting chickadees mutated into misshapen blobs of raven-ish shapes. Another unfortunate issue occurred after choosing the wrong kind of stock: I provided the majority of the students with 18x24" smooth Bristol, and a few watercolorists, including me, used watercolor paper. Just, as it turns out, not really the best, as this warped and buckled. That's also why there are some highlights off the gloss varnish btw.

I gave myself bonus gold stars when knowing her favorite poet was Robert Frost, but still I didn't know specifically which one was her favorite, that being "The Sound of Trees." I also was surprised to hear "Hell's Bells" reached number one in the favorite song category (great choice, even I'm more partial to a cover track from the Bon Scott era), and the mashup proved to be almost as much of a puzzle as piecing together the piece. Hence the staggered staircasing of panel boxes to ease the path of the viewer through the page. 

Meanwhile the original now nesting in a really spiffy frame including a pre-cut mat... some newsprint making for functional wrapping paper while it awaits her upstairs. I think of all the artwork of mine she's collected over the years I will be am most proud of this one. Even though I did manage to get a good high-res scan of the line art stage, and can make a bunch of edits before digitally coloring it in... nah, it was made purely for the process + this purpose. In other words nobody's gonna see it anywhere else but here, and the original itself.