(Got rid of “Self-imposed.” I don’t think that really matters anymore, right?) *

Didn’t get to draw very much this morning; once my wife got out of the shower, I went down to spray a wasp nest. I wanted to make sure she’d be available in case a swarm of wasps attacked me and put me in the ER.

I made a huge boo boo when ruling my final page. The safe area is the wrong size, which means the dimensions of my panels are off by an inch. This wouldn’t have been a problem if I hadn’t finished penciling the first panel. So, I spent most of my time finishing that panel, figuring out how to solve this problem, and then finalizing the lettering.

You have to make the best of your mistakes, right? So, I’m using this opportunity to copy and paste the first panel into the others, with slight modifications that I’ve hand-drawn. The original intention was to trace the panel into the others, tighten them up, and ink them all separately. I like this approach normally because even when time seems to pass slowly, things change, and therefore to draw similar panels separately subtly gets across a sense of life, even when nothing is really moving. However, every once in a while, I like to copy and paste panels because I think it slows time down even more, exuding a sense of almost timelessness, a sense of utter stillness. So, that’s what I’ll be doing, just to see how this particular sequence comes across. If I don’t like it, I can always draw in the other panels, right?

* (UPDATE: 3-25-2008 – I brought back “Self-imposed.” I missed it, and it just seems fitting)