Tuesday, June 30, 2026 - 5:17 PM

I ran into Sophie Yanow's Gentle Comics Habit after this year's annual Make a Terrible Comic Day. ^_^;; Which I did end up coincidentally make a terrible comic for, though I haven't taken a photo of it or posted it anywhere--it's just a two-panel chicken scratch pencil sketch in my sketchbook, with some veeeery basic German dialogue. Maybe I'll see if I can get photos where it'll show up and post it later? But not positive.

But I do reaaally like the vibes of this Gentle Comics Habit. I've been wanting to make more comics again, but been feeling pretty burnt out and empty. Like, I've got enough juice I can churn away on It Doesn't Matter again, but coming up with ideas for illustrations each week like I've been trying to keep rolling with since arriving in Germany in April has been tough. And sure, some of that is stress. Like. We were fully homeless for a weekend. Our cat escaped out a second story window for three weeks. My swiss cheese memory is required to learn a whole 'nother language. Visa bullshit. Money bullshit. The world being on fire bullshit. A literal record breaking heat wave.

Bro, Smash Mouth tried to warn us. The hits start comin' and they don't stop comin'. The ice we skate is gettin' pretty thin, the water's gettin' warm so you might as well swim. My world's on fire, how 'bout yours? That's the way I like it and I'll never get bored.

But also, can we please stop being on fire, now?

So I do like the thought of very, very gradually, linearly, rebuilding up a comics habit. I've thought about doing journal comic gads of times. But run into my own expectations, internal pressure, concern about making things "good enough" or that it was too boring or repetitive. But honestly, mostly scale creep.

It's hard not to pour everything into a project, it starts pouring back into your sense of self, and keeping your simple, silly idea simple and silly gets crushed by its own ballooning. ^_^;; Chaos, probably the only reason I've been able to keep It Doesn't Matter together is because it started literally bigger than I could make it, and I've had to chip parts off in order to get it to a functional size...and that's even assuming its current size can be considered functional. Chaos knows a scene a month is the best I've ever managed, and that scene 4 is such a tremendous monster I will NEVER be able to put it on that clip. Chaos, scene 4 might be most of the Zone, I don't even know. Like, it's not the most interesting thing that happens in the Zone, but it might be the longest! ^_^;; Poor, poor Imaginary who had to deal with the fuckin' mouthfulls of exposition vomit I wrote Tails spewing. ^_^;; Thank chaos Zacs beefed up Knux's reactions and added some good humor to the scene. Chaos knows I didn't come up with the, "Your dad thinks furries built the pyramids?" line!

Anyway. Comics. Gently making comics. One minute at a time. I can do that.

Like. I kinda can't? Because this first one you're only supposed to take one minute writing and drawing. ^_^;; And my minute timer came done as I was finishing scribing out "Ich habe eine kleine Kopfschmertzen." in pencil? So I wrote out the time I actually took on the comic itself. 2 minutes to pencil, another 5 to ink, so all told, 7 minutes. ^_^;; And in the challenge you're not supposed to go over time, so that you don't risk overextending yourself. ^_^;; Whoops.

^_^;; Ignoring the fact that I had already done my "writing" by checking the spelling of Kopfschmertzen before I started...

Sooo...yeah. ^_^;; I did break some guidelines. But sometimes that's okay.

The German is simply, "I have a little headache," because I did, and frequently do, and that's a good enough note to start on. Yesterday was not a great mental health day, I was suuuuper worn down from the previous three 40 degrees C/100+ degrees F days with no AC or ability to find respite, and the multiple 37/high 90s before that. And the previous weekend spent cooking in the side room with Gray cuz I didn't want to be apart from him, and D didn't want him in our home. It's been a shitty June. Let's hope Wrath month shakes out better 💙