The Pen Monster Blog

There's this time dilation thing with social media where you go, "I swear I've ignored this site for months now!" And then you look and your last post was two days ago, which you totally forgot about because in the information age so much gets blasted into your eyeballs a day seems like weeks.

Add to that the ongoing decline of our civilization and environment and it's a wonder we all don't age and die within minutes like some sort of Portrait of Dorian Gray thing.

Anyway, here's a DTIYS the creator Thunder Chicken posted up on the Tapas forums. "Sexy dream boy" is well outside my wheelhouse but I was happy with the results.

"Nah! I'll spend the evening adding Clip Studio screen tones to a drawing I already finished instead."

It pops more, so it wasn't wasted time.

The past few months have been rough for me. Lots of housing insecurity. The beginning of this week saw me realize that a lot of that... mood... had been baked into the scripts I had been writing for the sci-fi comic I was working on.

When I set to work on a second draft, "This comic is shit!"

So I had a pity party. I think I earned it. I ate strawberries.

Today I got up and decided to draw these characters again and test out some new designs for them I was working on. And, MAYBE, claw back some self confidence in my ideas and abilities.

There's also a possible light at the end of the tunnel as far as housing goes. But I'm not hatching those eggs until the bridges are crossed.

This week the voices are whispering to me that I don't actually want to draw comics, I just want to draw whatever because the effort required for whatever is far less strenuous.

They once again remind me that comics are a fucktonne of work and the reward vs effort ration IS VERY BAD. Probably the worst for any art form that humanity has devised. And the fact is that I'd don't have the decade necessary to try and nurture a big enough audience to gain the reward that was worth the effort.

They make me so tired sometimes.

Later on, likely while I'm asleep and vulnerable, the voices will return and start whispering to me all their cool stories which I will dutifully write down and make thumbnails for. I can't refuse them in this. Their stories will then haunt my sketchbooks like angry ghosts because the effort of making them is too great.

Maybe they'll relax if I hire someone to finish their work for them.