All Aboard the Germane Train. Stopping randomly.

Welcome back, strangers!

Did you have a good hiatus?

Things on this end aren't far from where you left them.  I'm still editing the book and looking for agents and publishers.  It's a slow process, but they say slow and steady wins the race (this strategy has never, ever won any race I've ever seen, but whatevs).  I'll keep at it and let you know if there are any developments.


If you're in America and don't work in retail, chances are you either just celebrated Thanksgiving or at least had a couple of days off.  I love Thanksgiving.  It usually means spending time with people I enjoy and eating traditional American foods like Doritos and things that come in casserole form.

Of course, moderation is a bit of a problem for me when it comes to said traditional edibles.  But then again, I live by the mantra: "All things in moderation including moderation", so stuffing my gob until I have the glazed over, lifeless expression of an Alex Trebek wax replica is no biggie.  Other mantras of mine include, but are not exclusive to: "Live free or don't", "Your Mother", "Death before the grave" and "I think I'd better not".

Anyhoo, I ate too much.  I don't know about you, but my food comas tend to last from Thanksgiving Day until around January 2nd.  They also tend to range in severity from "Food Malaise" to "Food Blackout" (one minute you're eating, the next you wake up in another state wearing a Cleveland Browns jacket you've never seen before).  Good food and time off tend only to exacerbate my cravings for both of those things, so between November whatever and January 2nd, my productivity is about as low as my cholesterol is high.  I'm surprised I even have the motivation to type this.

A germane train of thought can be as difficult to grab as a hard boiled egg when your fingers are covered with Crisco.  Where was I?

Oh, yeah, food, family, and "Saturday" edits.  This was the original panel from page 4:

And this is the edited version:

[ajopiwefjal;wegnaoweina[ogpknaewlkgnma.cgnuirepiuqoni[reregamopflmg;aflknhflnafhpjaof;a'm
knln;loih[oergqleknrge[qprhionq[erkmn.knouhalkfggla'sdkjg[woreihgls;dfkngehorjknj'oerkjfg'q;lrsk

Sorry.  I fell asleep on the keys for a minute.

I'll keep at it and drop in periodically to check in and say hello.  Hope your holidays went/are going/will go well.

Cheers.

Nose Job

Well, helloooo!

So glad you could make it to the latest episode of the "Saturday" update, which accounts for 24% of your recommended daily allowance of "Saturday" (according to the FDA, or Facetious Drawing Administration).  I've been considering a chewable vitamin that would double that dosage, but I'm just not sure about the legality or morality of such an endeavor.  But it would be snosberry flavored, so...bonus.

So, to fill you in briefly on the book progress: Still editing.

There.  How's that for brevity?  If you want more, continue reading this section.  If not, skip down to the bit with pictures.  Sometimes I think you only want me for my pictures.  Well, let me tell you something, Mister (or Missus): "Saturday" isn't just a pretty book to oggle, it has a brain and a heart.  Not LITERALLY.  That would be super gross.  But, I mean, there are jokes and hopefully some emotions.  I'm getting off track here.  I was supposed to be giving you an update on progress.  I'm editing one page and one panel at a time.  The process is going faster and will, theoretically, continue to speed up as I get further into the book where fewer edits are required.

I'm also still looking for an agent and publisher.  I can't say that's much fun.  It's mostly research followed by brief, polite requests made of very busy people followed by a long, uncomfortable silences.  Like the last time I asked Aunt Agnes for money (pulls at collar in Rodney Dangerfield-esque manner).



Ok: If you were skipping the progress update, jump in here:

There's a reason the edits are going faster lately: More experience.  When I started "Saturday" I thought I knew what I was doing and what I really wanted.  And I did, vaguely.

Think of it like cooking a meal with like, a thousand courses.  When I was making those first courses, I mostly had the recipe but didn't always have the ingredients I needed.  So if I didn't have sugar, sometimes I would just substitute salt.  They're both white and granular, right?  It'll prob be fine, bro.  Suffice it to say, whole courses had to be re-cooked because they were totes grody, as the French would say.

Now the whole meal is pretty much sitting on the table.  Don't worry: Most of it will keep.  There aren't many perishables in the meal (I managed not to reference "Wrecking Ball" or "Farmville" in the book).  Now it's just a matter of looking for and fixing small trouble spots, like dees:

Small changes to Elizabeth's character model.  That's it.  Just some minor face alterations (sounds like something a snooty bully would say just before he/she punches the crud out of you) and bigger hair.  Long, beautiful hair.  Shinin', sheenin', gleamin' flaxin waxin.  Here baby, there mama, everywhere daddy daddy.

So there you go.

Ok, I actually have to go ask Aunt Agnes for money.


Cheers.

Hawk eyed doofus.

Hiya.

Welcome back to the best post-Halloween, pre-election update of "Saturday" the book you're likely to read.  Ever.  I know that's a bold statement.  The gauntlet has been thrown.  The line in the sand has been drawn (I'll draw just about anywhere on just about anything, so sand is no big deal).  But I stand by my statement.  If you can find a better post about this obscure, unpublished book anywhere today, bring it.

So, a quick update to bring everyone up to "Saturday" speed (or down to it, depending on how fast you were already going): I'm hammering away at the edits and searching for agents and publishers.  I'm still having a pretty good time with the former.  The latter is...um, well, it is what it is.  Which is to say, necessary.  But not as much fun as a barrel full of monkeys.

Have you ever actually thought about how completely NOT fun a barrel full of monkeys would be?  If you're talking about the plastic kind with the loopy arms, fine.  But if you're talking about the real kind?  Dear lord.  Monkeys are really strong, very fast, loud, aggressive, wild animals.  And that's in the open.  Imagine how they'd feel if a bunch of them were stuffed into barrel and sealed up.  Then, anticipating slapstick, 3-stooges like fun, you start to pull the lid off the barrel.

"Oh, boy, this is going to be grea---".  Before you can finish the syllable, the monkeys are out of the barrel.  Like spring snakes.  Spring snakes with big teeth and opposable thumbs that are pretty miffed about being cooped up.

So maybe looking for agents and publishers is actually MORE fun than a barrel full of monkeys (the literal kind).

Anyhoo, here's one of the panels I edited recently:


(Original):

(New and improved):

India's face needed to be updated from the earlier version.  The new panel is also a little warmer, color-wise.  You might also notice India's gone from left-handed to right-handed.  It's little details like that I'm working my way through.  Gotta have a sharp eye and get up pretty early in the morning to catch tiny things like that.  Most people probably wouldn't even notice.

Guy in my head: "You mean like how you didn't draw the paper in the new panel so India is basically just writing directly onto the desk?"
Me: "Crud."
Guy in my head: "Yeah, you got a real hawk eye for detail."

Seriously, I just noticed that as I was typing this.  I imagine India's expression is the same expression you, dear reader, often have on your face as you slog your way through these posts.  And now that I know I have to go back and edit the edit, I'm right there with you.



Cheers.



P.S.- Go vote.  It's more fun than a barrel full of monkeys.

Par for the course.

Good Morning, Kids!

Thank you for tuning in to the latest episode of "Saturday" the book updates.  When we last left off, our intrepid hero India McGreevy was patiently putting up with tedious edits that, while, necessary to make "Saturday" its spiffy-ist, aren't the most adventurous things to talk about.

It occurs to me that talking about edits instead of being able to share exciting new adventures is like tuning in to your favorite Saturday morning cartoon only to find a re-run.  Actually, it's probably more akin to tuning in to your favorite cartoon only to find it's been replaced by a golf tournament.  As a kid, golf tournaments on TV were as much fun as soggy vegetables and dental fillings.

Golf: Where fun goes to die.  Quietly.

It's Saturday morning as I write this latest interlude, and I'm trying unsuccessfully to not contrast my adult Saturday mornings with the ones of my childhood.  The current ones are entertainment bogeys; grocery shopping and floor mopping.  Back in the day, I would sit on the couch eating sugary cereal and watching every brain-rotting cartoon I could find.

Brief aside: My mom was overly concerned that I would eat too much sugar.  The most sugary cereal she would buy was Honey Nut Cheerios, which, on the Dr. Frankeberry Scale of Sugary Cereals ranks about a 2.  Then she would MIX the Honey Nut Cheerios with REGULAR Cheerios so I wouldn't explode from sugar overdose.

(Before & After)

Anyhoo, there I was eating cereal and watching cartoons and basking in my responsibility-free Saturdays.  What I didn't understand is that, while I was basking, my parents were bustling about doing all those adult things (by "adult", I mean the variety that includes tax returns and oil changes, not the kind that includes R-rated movies and beer) that currently bogart my weekends.  They might have even been happy to not have me underfoot for several hours.

In the words of Homer Simpson: "Man, the kids were a pain.  Then we figured out we could just sit them in front of the TV.  That's how I was raised and I turned out TV."

Well, I think I'll honor both kinds of weekend today: First, I'm going to do some unpleasant, responsible things like fill out a tax return and watch some golf.  Then, to wash the sour taste of golf from my palette, I'm going to eat some sugary cereal in my footie pajamas.

 Here's a delightful song by Z-Trip and Supernatural about eating cereal and watching cartoons.  It has adult language and themes (and I ain't talkin' about tax returns, neither), so listener discretion is advised.


Until next time, loyal viewers.

Cheers.

Makes cents.

Hiya.

Thanks for checking in on "Saturday" the book.  I'm still chipping away at the edits.  They're going pretty well.

Normally, this is where I would show you the before and after of a panel I've recently edited.  But how about something a little different this week?  What if, instead of an amuse bouche (or, I guess an amuse oeil), I served up something a bit more...filling?  Maybe you're not just plain peckish this week.  Maybe you're famished.  Hungry like...well, not like the wolf, but like a horse or a hippo.  A hungry, hungry hippo.  But it's not marbles you want.  You're so hungry you feel like you could eat a whole page.  Well, good news:

This is an entire page.  Page two, to be exact.  Or, as Thompson and Thompson would say, "Er..to be precise, page two."  It's one of my favorite pages in the book.  And this is the first time I've shown it publicly.

This is India, or Drawsalot Sarcasticus, as seen in her natural habitat.

It's chock-a-block full of all the things that make India the delightful little weirdo that she is: photos, drawings, toys and random objects she's collected like some kind of animal that squirrels things away.  It also served as kind of an ongoing reference for me as I made every page of "Saturday". 

From the very start (as I may have mentioned a million times before), I wanted this book to be as well-drawn, full of detail, and fun as I could make it.  I wanted it to be something that you would have to read more than once in order to see all the detail.  But more importantly, I wanted it to be something you would WANT to read over and over again.  And so I spent a lot of time on this page so I could use it as sort of a template for the craft and feel of "Saturday".

That's an interesting phrase, isn't it?  I "spent" the time.  I never really thought about it before, but it seems accurate, doesn't it?  They say time is money, and if that's right then you do spend your time the way you spend your money.  But time is way more valuable than money.  A friend of mine once said, "You can use your time to get money but you can never use your money to get time."

I've been thinking a lot about time lately.  I've been thinking about how valuable and precious it is.  And how I want to spend mine.  Mostly, that's with people I really like.  And it's also on this book and other things that are fun and interesting to me (and hopefully for you, too).  If time really were money, "Saturday" would have cost me like a gabillion time dollars.  And I don't regret a single penny of it.  Every time cent (red or otherwise) was well-invested.

I'm going to leave things there.  Thank you again for spending some of your time with me.


Cheers.

More sob, less Schwab.

Oh...hi.

Ready for the latest on "Saturday"?  Of course, I'm using the phrase "the latest" fairly loosely here.  Admittedly, there's been a bit of a dearth of new information lately.  Mostly because I've been editing and looking for potential publishers and that's not a speedy process.

Writing and drawing "Saturday" was like a super fun, interesting road trip.  Every day there was something new to see, to think about, to explore.  And I was super happy to have you as my road trip buddy.  Remember how great it was?  We gawked at the unfamiliar surroundings flashing by outside the windows,  sang at the top of our lungs when that one Phil Collins song we both love came on the radio, and you were totally cool about bailing me out of jail after that thing that happened at Six Flags.  I loved every minute of it and was happy to spend it with you.

But if writing and drawing the book was like a road trip, editing and looking for a publisher is like taking the car in to the tire store and waiting in the lobby while they balance the tires.  There are, like, fourteen people in line ahead of us.  The place absolutely reeks of new rubber and burned popcorn, the magazines are all from eight years ago and the television is playing infomercials about hair plugs.

Suffice it to say, it's not quite as much fun as the first part of the journey.  The thing is, you can leave if it gets too awful.  But I have to stay with the car.

It's still kinda interesting, right?  For instance, check out the evolution of this panel from Monday morning.  Here's the original recipe:

And here's the extra crispy version:

Ah, Mondays.  Where the lovely serenade of weekend pleasure is obliterated by the staccato noise of obligation.

"Walkin' Around. Some kind of lonely clown.  Rainy days and Mondays always get me down."


I've added The Carpenters to the list of things I love un-ironically, along with "The Golden Girls" and Gordon Lightfoot.

Anyway, I'll just be here at the tire store if you need me.

Cheers.

Edits, Charles Foster Kane, and the Bay City Rollers.

Howdy.

Thanks for stopping by the latest update of "Saturday" the book.

It's possible you're a stranger and have no idea what "Saturday" the book is.  Perhaps you stumbled into this tiny port from the mighty sea of the internet whilst searching for something completely different like "Saturday Night" by the Bay City Rollers.  But since you're here, let me give you the skinny: "Saturday" is the graphic novel I've been working on for a few millennia.

More specifically, "Saturday" is a graphic novel about a creative little girl named India McGreevy.  When India's creativity is poked, prodded, and taunted into submission by a dismal week, it takes her parents, a tattooed mechanic with a prosthetic leg, a traveling circus and the world's largest crocodile to put things into perspective.

Progress-wise, I'm pert near finished with the book.  Yes, most of the editing is still in front of me, but in the overall scheme of things, the editing probably only represents about 10-15% of the work.  Which is pretty cool.  Of course, those numbers don't take into account the work of finding a publisher and such.  But I'm taking the ostrich approach as far as that's concerned, so there's nothing to worry about.

In the meantime, here's an example of the editing process:

Before:

Afta:

Subtlety tends not to be my forte.  "Saturday", after all, has dinosaurs, robots, octopi, jet packs, a circus, a mechanic with a prosthetic leg, and the world's largest crocodile.  But the changes in this panel are pretty subtle.

Why even bother with them, you may ask?  Well, before I began "Saturday", my friend Jedediah Leland and I sat down and wrote our "Declaration of Principles" and...um...hm.  Crud, that was Citizen Kane.  Ok, then, I'm bothering because I have a dedication to my craft, respect for my audience, and a mild (severe) case of OCD.

So there you have it.  Looks like I'll be doing this for a little while.  Thanks for hanging in there with me.

Cheers.