"Draw Two Panels" spinoff: The Deckless Wonder

 Here's an experiment that's been languishing in my files. I've written already of my work with Isaac Cates on his Draw Two Panels game. It inspired me to test an idea for this spinoff:

I drew two cards that pose a simple question: is our heroine dressing or undressing? Where the cards are placed in the four-panel sequence would direct the answer.

After completing the first strip, I toss a coin twice, choosing one of the original cards and one of the new cards. Then I make a new strip, placing the cards wherever they can be made to make sense. 

I'm struggling to recall the exact rules. In each new round, I toss a coin to choose one old and one new card. There should always be four cards available for each new round, from which two are chosen.

Here's an alternate game, placing the first two cards in a different order:

This procedure can go on indefinitely, though I wonder whether the story can ever go anywhere,... 

...small wonder that I stopped after three rounds. On the other hand, a story stuck in time is interesting in its own way.

This general idea of drawing comic panels on index cards and moving them around is something we'll explore in my upcoming online course, Comics Inventions, enrolling now.

From the Archive, Rikki Ducornet's "Brillig," 2008

When Rikki Ducornet does science fiction, it's like nothing else, lyrical, grotesque, surreal. I just ordered her new book, Trafik, and can't wait to see it.

When Rikki invited me to supply illustrations for her short story collection, The One Marvelous Thing, we appended some comic adaptations from her earlier collection, The Butcher's Tales, such as this one.

Here are some of the preliminary sketches:

 

From the Archive, True Fiction #1, 2000

 

Has it really been 20 years? This minicomic, informally titled "Loss of Face," was my first attempt at improvising ink illustrations on the blank page, sans penciling. Many of the panels are collaged from various "takes."

The story was written in a similarly impromptu way. I was having coffee with a fellow cartoonist who complained of the difficulty of coming up with stories. I replied that a story could be begun from any thought or observation. Said friend had a prominent schnozz, so the first thought off the top of my head, offered as an example, became the first line here.

The series title may seem at first like a paradox or contradiction. I've noticed a couple of video productions using the name since. They usually refer to work that somehow blurs the line between documentary and fiction. But that's true of all documentary and all fiction. By True Fiction, I mean authentic fiction. That would be fiction that has nothing true about it. Usually, I intend metafiction and other experimental approaches. I've put out a dozen or so little self-publications under the name in the decades since, FWIW.

From the Archive: Hector Goes to Medical School

Here's a comic I published in 2001 in Pablo's Comics Extravaganza, a little anthology we put out in conjunction with a comic art show at a Denver cafe. It features the characters shared by members of the Hector cooperative, Hector and Wilhelmina, plus other incidental characters culled from our various strips.

I still use these characters on occasion, when it feels like the right kind of joke. Here's one that ran recently in The American Bystander #6.

from the archive: Demon Sightings on the New York Subway

In 2011, I got to take a couple silkscreen classes with the great David Sandlin. In the first, I produced a few copies of a concertina book, Demon Sightings on the New York Subway.

I've had many more of these sightings since. I don't know if it's the lateness of the hour or simply exhaustion, but now and then some of our demon cohabitants will relax their guards and permit their true selves to be seen.

If you sight any of these, message me. I'd be interested to know.
Happy Halloween.