Oracular Dream

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As you guys know, I had a bit of a melt down over the summer. The first 3 years at my school weren’t doing too good for me, and I about gave up on this whole comic book thing. I overwhelmed myself with a unrealistic expectation to be perfect. Every day from morning until night I just drew- only to feel awkward and alone when I looked at the result. Not to mention all the stress I bottled in from emotional dilemmas.

During the summer I realized I wasn’t having fun and experimented with other mediums. Maybe I’d be an illustrator? Design shirts? Hell, who knows…but I wasn’t going to do COMICS. At nights I couldn’t sleep with knowing that my final year at SVA was approaching. Ugh, who the hell wants to go through another year of this!? But, heh, it actually worked out for me. I’m glad I decided to stay. When I got back to New York I talked with other students about their experiences with the school. Was I the only one? No I wasn’t. There were other confused students like myself who had a difficult time with School of Visual Arts. Finally finding other people to confide in- it gave me the courage to keep my head up. Also, my professor this year is also really smart, talented and patient. He takes time out of his day to listen to me. When students bring in their assignments he spends plenty of time trying to understand their work before constructively criticizing it.  He’s open to student ideas and gets involved with their projects. Sounds like what a professor should be doing right? Hahahahaha….ha…

Anyway, so up above are some sample pages of my comic for class, “The Black Sheep,” I’ll be working on it through the year. Maybe it’ll venture onto here at some point? LET’S HOPE SO.

UNTIL NEXT TIME,

-M.A.N

Got back last night from Rochester, NY. Spent a week “interning” for Ross Campbell. We spent most of the time, making coke floats, painting out nails and hitting each other with our hot pink pillows. Sounds like one hell of a internship, huh?! Was thoroughly impressed by Ross’s 4 floored mansion that has a giant statue of Alien sitting in the yard in front of it. And here I thought he lived in an attic of someone’s house! Haha….

TCAF itself was very pleasant. Wasn’t expecting there to be that many people because the convention was located in a library somewhere in Toronto, yet it was packed. It was difficult to see anyone’s work because of the piles of people gathering around. Most artists by the end of the day had sold out of most of their books, which from I understand is really hard to do.

Dave Cooper, my favorite artist, was also at the convention.  I just so happened to see that he was signing at the Fantagraphics booth and felt my body go numb. Ended up giving him most of my artwork and spit out that he was my favorite artist. Hah, he turned really red, looked at me and said, “Seriously…?” Hahaha. I also got to meet Mike White, Becky Cloonan, Faith Erin Hicks, Scott Chandler, Boxer Hocky, Anthony Clark, and Ray Fawkes.

By the time the end of the trip rolled around I didn’t want to come home. I kept joking around with Ross that I’d rather go home in Texas to sleep in my bed but I was really upset to leave. It was nice to sit for hours just talking about whatever was on our mind. It was also nice to tell stories of our characters and then argue with each other about what should be done next in the Wet Moon series. I felt at home, compared to SVA in which we spend most of the time talking about how much we suck and how we won’t get jobs after college. It was just fun.

Now that I’m back, I’m caught again with being stuck in my own thoughts. I’ve worked myself into a small circle of thinking that trying anything new might be pointless.

Oh yea, and the picture above is a inside joke between Ross, Ray and I. The man at the booth next to us had rather huge puppets sitting on his booth that blocked costumers from seeing Ray’s work. It was rather obnoxious, haha.

-M.A.N

Crawling out of my hole and trying to get myself to some of those groovy meetings called conventions. Signed up to go to Comicpalooza in Houston this Summer with My sister Heather. (ImagineTheEnding. You should know her. She’s always rubbing up against people’s legs.) If your hanging around Texas around May 27th then you should stop by my booth! Ugly will be out at that time, I hope.

MoCCA: With SVA table,  April 9th and 10th

Fresh Meat: Local School comic festival, End of June

Toronto comic art festival: Will be assisting Ross Campbelll but stop by and say hello if your in Canada! May6th-8th

Comicpalooza: 27th-29th

NYCC: With SVA table, October 13-16

SPX: With SVA table, September 10th-11th

There are also some new prints available on my Etsy: http://www.etsy.com/shop/OracularDream?ref=si_shop

Outside from my slave labor, working on finishing Ugly and such, I’ve only been mildly delusional. Hah, Seems like most of my day consists of my staring at my computer and piping chain linked fences in my comic book panels for 10 hours a day.

Yesterday I finally bought some more pants. I’ve been wearing the same rags for three years now! I’ve washed those pants plenty of times now but the texture is just awful! Literally, it’s like rags hugging my thighs. The buttons have popped off and zipper is starting to tear holes in the crotch area. If I wear my shirt low enough hopefully you won’t see my underwear peaking through. Away with them!

I need to live in a Nudest Camp.

Back from the con sitting in the sweats of many who bumped and squished into me. Heh, all my 35 PREVIEW mini comics disappeared on the first day of the con.  Also I sold two of my bookmarks-

Only two left! The poster above is also being sold on my etsy: Etsy

Wanna know about my con experience? Well…I’ll be honest, it was pretty hard on me emotionally. Going to San Diego Comic Con, and having so much fun there, I thought NYCC would be a blast because I was going with the school. Yet, my experience was far from fantastic for me- it was ok.

The invisible boundaries between professionals and fans have troubled me. It really is the most belittling feeling to approach artist much like yourself and have them talk to you as if their from another dimension. Their in arms reach yet they seem so far away, floating high on their professionalism. You start thinking that the only reason why some artist are nice to you in the first place is ONLY because you like their work and not because your an human being who might just be trying to make a friend.

The times outside the convention were fun. I jiggied with Chandra Free, Drew Gaska and Lindsay Cibos at random strip joints. Lindsay did a pretty fine time working that pole with her soy and sushi rolls. Go girl! My new stripper name is “Manju I like to lick out of your buns”

For rumors sake we actually did not attend any strip clubs. What actually transpired was far less interesting; wild sex orgies in the back of Drew’s car.

-M.A.N

-Ross Campbell’s Shadow Eyes
-Steve Emond’s Emo Boy
-Chandra Free’s The God Machine
-Anthony Clark’s Beartato

To my delight people passing by the School of Visual Arts booth picked up my mini comic of the previews of my work. Honestly, I really didn’t expect people to buy poorly printed out nonsense so I only had 25 copies. I’ve learned my lesson, I’ll print out more next time.

Anyway, there was not enough room for extra items to sell on our tiny booth, that was unfortanitly casted at the back corner of the convention, so the originals of these bookmarks up there will be posted up on etsy for $20 dollars each. It’s the originals guys not copies of the originals.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/OracularDream

In other news I bough quite a few comics:

They were all good but I loved Beartato by Anthony Clark. He sure is hilarious!

And because I am one of THOSE people, I drew quiet a few sketches for people. They throughly enjoy my peices. Rodgr Langridge gave me a free drawing of an elephant squishing someone and Steve Wolfhard Tweeted my drawing. Aw, so nice!