 |
| Gregory McKay: Comic Artist Rehab |
It's late and I suspect I may be tired (which would be a good thing if true). So I won't write up the more thoughtful of my cognitions.
Sorry about that. Better luck next time.
However, I wanted to outline a new grand scheme.
For some time I have been thinking (oops! there's that mental thingey again) that I wanted to write up my experience of Fibromyalgia over the past 27 years.
I used to read all the Fibromyalgia self help books I could get my hands on. Cures. Existences. DIY treatments. Pathology backgrounders....
Been there/read all that.
So I was keen not to expand the burgeoning literature with more of the same or add to the self pity and the exhibit-your-symptom habits (justified as they may be).
My working title was "Fibromyalgia for Beginners" and all I needed was a means to the end product.
Now I've got that -- that 'means': a webcomic. Something fresh. Deceptively 'lite'. Something that suits my style of address.
I'm thinking of incorporating this as part of the adventures logged in my already existing webcomic, Mr Punch and Professor Ratbaggy [Emeritus]. (Note that tonight that link doesn't work. Sorry about that. Better luck next time. It's Google you see: Big Brother doesn't have a complaints department.)
I point this out because I'm gonna start spilling out musings in these pages on the topic of Fibromyalgia. It will be a sort of notation trail, mapping out the route to the end product.
The ends justifies the means.
In the meantime I need to skill up my webcomic making skills...while I write the script. Comics -- with more pages than one -- really need to be scripted -- storyboarded just like film.
Skilling up currently amounts to creating 2-3 episodes of a webcomic each week as I practice to say what I want to say in shorter creative time slots. A 12 panel comic currently takes me 4 hours to make. Longer if I stumble with the graphics and dialogue. I'd like to establish a routine of doing one every second day, but then I'm more engaged at the coal face/desk top than I thought I would be.
I happen to love making comics the way I do with photomontage. This is why I've asked myself to consider tackling the topic of Fibromyalgia by the same means.
