Turkeys on Parade

 So, back during the pandemic I took a spiritual business class with the renowned psychic/medium Lisa Williams, and it was suggested I make a video of myself drawing my comics. 

And so I did an experimental video, where I penciled in a comic page from a thumbnail drawing I'd made earlier about an experience I'd had on a vision quest years before. Here's that video...

I'd always intended to do a follow up video, inking in the same page, but never got around to  it, and the unfinished page lingered in my folder for a few more years. Then around Thanksgiving time this year it occurred to me that this would be a perfect time to finish inking this page about Turkey medicine. I started to ink it, but that felt really weird for some reason, and I realized I needed to follow through with that second video. Here's the second one...

It's strange that in both cases the video stopped unexpectedly after an hour because of an alarm or something going off on my phone. 

Anyway, I think the comic itself is pretty self-explanatory. I hope you enjoy it, and thank you for reading! 

Tower Moment

I wasn't sure I was ever going to finish this comic. In the middle of creating it, a wind storm knocked power out for days, leaving me unable to work on it in the evenings in the dwindling light of winter. Plus it is slightly more complex than most of my comics in that there were several portions of the page with separate shading techniques - The Tower card to look vaguely etched or woodcut, and the 'Natalie Wood' panel to look like a black and white movie.

On top of that was working through and sorting out my heartbroken feelings around the elections along with the guidance of hope I was receiving from my spirit guides, in order to organize them into words and illustrations that made sense and conveyed how I felt. 

*Phew!*

My hope is that by conveying my feelings and experiences will resonate with others and help them to sort out their own feelings, or in the very least know that they are not alone. 

I also feel like I cheated a bit on this page. I do usually go over my page on my laptop to edit out smudges, splotches, and ghost pencil lines that wouldn't quite erase all the way, but I pride myself on creating my comics the pencil and ink way (the brick and mortar of cartoonists) and try not to alter my drawings in any significant way electronically. 

Enter my long-time antagonist, white ink. Through all the years I've been drawing my comics, I have yet to find a brand of pens whose white ink maintained its opacity and clarity when drawn on top of a space totally darkened by black ink. On this particular page the stars are completely electronically applied. I eased my conscience by the fact that I was basically just poking my drawing with white electronic dots instead from a white pen, and not actually drawing anything. 

Anyway, thank you again for reading, and please follow my blog to remain updated on my latest comics! 

Dismem-Boar-Ment page 29 & 30

Just like the rest of my life, I have a number of things actively in progress when it comes to my comic projects. Though I have had no lack of material for chronicling my daily life and current challenges, I'm trying to make sure I'm not letting other series languish for too long. And so, here are the next two pages from my "Dismem-boar-ment" series concerning my experiences from a vision quest a few years ago. 

For obvious reasons, I drew these two pages together.

 

Below is how the two pages would appear together, if I can work out how to make sure they're positioned side by side. I may have to add another page somewhere along the way to make it happen, but the resulting effect is definitely worth the effort.

And then, just to bring it all full circle, I wanted to see what it actually looked like together as one image, and with color...

To read the rest of this series thus far, please click on the "Dismem-boar-ment" label below. To read just this particular chapter, please click on the "Birdman" label below. To remain up to date with my latest comics, please follow my blog, and thank you so much for reading!💖

Happy Birthday Tanya Tucker

I remember exactly when I received the original insight mentioned below. I was on my way to the Seattle Folklife festival for the very first time, something on my "Too Married To Do" list, but swirling along with my excitement was a whole mixture of guilt, sadness, and self doubt. It was then that this scene from Robin Hood Prince of Thieves popped into my mind, and I realized that if my ex and I were both going to be miserable, I may just as well have stayed. If I weren't enjoying myself and celebrating my new found freedom, then I was doing her a disservice and making her suffer for nothing. 

I also find it an interesting synchronicity that I "just happen" to be posting this on the anniversary of our divorce being finalized. I specifically wanted it to be a day that I could remember, as well as have something else to celebrate besides breaking someone's heart. So...   

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TANYA TUCKER!!

Thank you for reading! Please follow my blog to stay updated with my latest comics, and if you enjoy my work, please visit my online store on Blurb.com where I have a number of my graphic novels and coloring books for sale. <3

Cutting A-Cord-ingly

My life is in the midst of major, major changes, and as such comes the important priority of keeping myself energetically clean and pure, in large part by releasing the cords and ties to anything that has not and does not actively support my path and who it is that I am in the process of becoming.

And one of the beautiful parts of this path is when your guides step in unexpectedly and give you an entirely new method of doing things that you've been doing for years, such as cutting cords.

Our Guest Today Is…

Things have been a little crazy lately, so it’s been tricky finding the time and energy to post anything, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been working on my comics. 

Here are my three latest, random pages that I have finished in the past couple months. The interesting commonality between them is that they each have a different celebrity guest star - Tarzan, Mary Tyler Moore, and Mr Rogers! 

Enjoy, and thank you for reading! ❤️

 

Lady

It has taken seven years for me to work enough through my grief to be able to finally draw this comic. Not only that, it took two full weeks to actually post after drawing it. In fact, I don't think Emmie has appeared in any of my comics since her death way back then. 

By contrast, when Mr. Timmons, my precious, ginger "Cougar Boy" passed, I drew a whole slough of comics about him, and I think he's appeared, off and on, every once in awhile since then. Emmie is different - Different from any other pet or animal companion I've ever shared my life with. She truly was my soulmate. And thus, breaching the subject of her death and our connection for the first time on the comic page had to be treated with the deepest honor and the height of sacredness. That is why this page has danced and morphed in the back of my mind for the better part of a decade.

Those who have never experienced this depth of connection with an animal companion may scoff, and there are not enough words to convince them of a reality they cannot imagine. For those who've experienced this, there are no words necessary. So I simply and humbly submit to you this expression of my heart, and tribute to the Love of my Life...

...My Lady.

Ultimately Final

In an earlier post I mentioned how I have been working on putting together another graphic novel book called Home Gerb Companion for self publication from a blank book full of a series of comics I'd drawn long ago. Before I started drawing my Drawing Breath comic, directly portraying my life, I drew a comic where my three characters - Gerb, Longleg, and Wormy - would have a running dialogue about my life from the sidelines, kinda like Mystery Science Theater 3000 style.  

The thing is, I never actually finished the original comic. I got up to the penultimate (second to the last) page...

...And then I paused because I had ambitious plans for the final page! I would make the last page like a pop-up book with the Phoenix, from whom Longleg had gotten the quill pen, unexpectedly flying straight out of the book at the reader in 3-D! The thing is that at the time the internet was relatively new, and it didn't have the wealth of information that it does now, plus I didn't have regular access to it. Not that I didn't have access to other information and instructions. It's just that my life was different back then and I didn't have the same resources or reservoirs of energy to draw on, so the project got set on the back burner where it has languished for almost twenty years. 

Then recently, when the arrow of inspiration hit to publish this volume, I realized that one way or t'other, I had to finish that last page. Not being sure how I would self publish a book with a pop-up component, I went ahead and drew the page, reserving the right to, at some future date, make that page an actual pop-up. Until that time, here is the final page of the Home Gerb Companion graphic novel drawn 18 years, 9 months, and 12 days after the previous page... 

I am really excited to get this work into book form! Stay tuned to my website, Facebook, Instagram, and this blog for updates to when it will be available for purchase. Meanwhile, if you'd like to see what other of my comics I've already published check out my Perching Wolf Studios bookstore on Blurb.

 

The List

As per usual on the Shamanic Path, I am undergoing yet another initiation/rite of passage. This feels like a big one. If such things have beginnings, I can pretty much trace the start of this one back to last summer when I experienced my first Sundance. I had made a skin offering as a dedication to my path, no matter what it looks like or where it leads, and things have been building ever since then. 

But this is the blog for my comics so I don't want to go into too much detail here, however Blogging is definitely on my list that this comic represents. Stay tuned!

My dear friend Rev. Judith Laxer cameos in this comic and had asked me to tweak the wording a bit, some of which was successful. But she pointed out that it is the Wise Woman Tradition, not Way. Try as I might I couldn't squeeze the word tradition into the allocated space.  

Check out Judith's website for Tarot, Hypnotherapy, and Ministerial Services at Judithlaxer.com, and join her congregation celebrating the Divine Feminine at Gaia's Temple, in person or online!

And in case you're curious, here is my actual original list as it appears in my journal...

 

Dismem-Boar-Ment page 28

I present this page in the spirit of Divine Timing. This particular page, the latest in my "Dismem-boar-ment" series, has stumped me for a year and a half. For whatever reason, I could not get a clear picture on how I wanted this page to look, despite countless pages and thumbnails exploring dozens of possibilities. Then suddenly last night, as I was sitting here just recovering from oral surgery, it all just clicked and this was the result. 

So with the relief and joy that accompanies the flow of the Spring melt and the initial running of the sap in the Vernal quickening of creative juices, please enjoy this page with the anticipation of more to follow. 

To read entire series so far click on the "Dismem-boar-ment" label below, and to see just this latest chapter thus far, click on the "Birdman" label. And as always, please follow my blog to stay up to date with my latest comics, thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoy them as much as I do!

 

Meanwhile…

 I received a new sketchbook from Santa Claus this past Christmas, which has shifted my focus away from drawing comics to drawing other things. 

If you don’t know, every week on my Perching Wolf Studios Facebook page I do what I call Totem Tuesday. I post an original drawing of an animal with a paragraph or three about the spiritual significance of that animal and how that animal can aid us in our spiritual growth. Here are a couple recent drawings from those posts… 

Moth

Civet

After posting the entry for Moth, I was drawn (pun intended) to incorporate within an image of Moth, many of the significant changes and focuses right now in the progression of my personal path…

Among the symbols within the whole image are the face of Kali Ma, the pattern from the back of the hood of a cobra - Cobra being significant to Kali as well as Snake’s medicine of shedding old skins, the face of Black Panther, Snowy Owl’s face and wings, hoof print of Reindeer, a pair of Buffalo hoof prints, a pair of paw prints of Wolf, Xenia’s chakram, a pair of Flying Fish, the phases of Grandmother Moon, Wonder Woman’s insignia, the constellation of Cassiopeia, cowrie shells for Goddess and the Divine Feminine, arrowheads for Artemis, Deer antlers for Elen of the Ways, some spirals for Herne, and a couple triquetras for my Irish ancestors. 

I will likely soon write a more in depth post about this particular drawing and all its representations, and how they reflect my path right now, on my other blog “Wind Buffalo Journeys.” 

Speaking of my path right now, I’ve been feeling compelled to draw some of the deities I’m currently working with, including Anubis who is teaching me about my wings…

…Ereshkigal, goddess of the Sumerian Underworld, shown both ‘regular’ and with a skull-face as she appeared when I first met her…

…And of course Rick Nelson…