the empty box my beloved
my comic drawing process, web 1.0 love, and a break
hey — took a little break from drawing and learning how to draw in exchange for participating in jami attenberg's 1000 words of summer, a 2 week june writing fest where you try to write 1000 words every summer. it's been very fun and rewarding so far, but as a necessary shift in priorities I haven't drawn as much. that being said I did get the chance to work on some comics!
june has mostly been defined for me in twitter crawls, and getting lost in browsing through all my internet collections. I recently bought the 2022 queer games bundle on itch.io, which has like over 500 indie games by over 400 creators, all for $60, or in a pay-what-you-can edition, $10. I've bought similar bundles in the past and only played a teeny tiny fraction of games available, because I spend so much time just scrolling through them and thinking about playing them. it's kind of similar to how I read books. my tbr stack towers over me at any given time in the day and it is fiercely stressful (nothing reminds you of your mortality quite like a list of books to be read…) yet gives me hope like nothing else.
1000 words of summer started on june 4, which meant I spent june 1 and 2 feeling scared that I wouldn't be able to write much and relating hard to kafka's diary:
I also indulged myself and signed up for a 10-week poetry workshop, which I wrung my hands over about because I've never spent that kind of money on working on writing before! but it has been a wonderful experience so far. I've never had the chance to talk to any writers who are in different stages of life as I am, and hearing these people talk passionately about poems they find beautiful… it is so unlike the environment I was used to in business school. probably because it was business school. anyway. we're now two weeks in and I'm just very shocked at how much I've been writing this month, because I don't think I've ever been given so much time to just write, nor have I ever given myself the permission to just write words that suck, and by the thousands! it's very freeing and surprisingly very fun.
speaking of freeing & surprising fun, I decided to just spend a little bit more time and care on a comic this month. it's been a really long time since I've been able to get that 'lost' feeling in drawing, which I've now come to understand as 'flow', but it's cool.
I woke up randomly in the middle of the night a couple days ago and it took me forever to go back to sleep, which caused me to flit in and out of sleep as my room got gradually lighter. I was hanging out in that space right before you fall asleep, where you get very still and there's a real rushing pressure in your ears and if you imagine something very hard you can probably see it — not completely like a TV screen, but tangible enough that you know that you're looking at it. even if you can't see it. which is basically the whole thing about sleep; this weird agreement between you and your brain that you're experiencing stuff and seeing stuff but not really.
a crow cawed outside of my window and in my dream-fuzzed head it echoed, getting louder and louder until it turned into a person's voice calling out. and I heard objects shuffling around in my room. I knew they weren't real but it felt real in that moment.
this month been a kind of weird one — in shifting a lot of my attention and focus onto writing, a lot of my itch to draw, to make games, etc, has diminished. it's still there, which means I feel guilty about not giving them the time to make those activities enjoyable, but I dunno. it's kind of nice to focus on one thing for a bit.
in contrast to focusing, I've also been spending several hours getting lost in the wonderous world of neocities, which are sites based on web 1.0 and are these beautiful treasure troves of really personal, cozy corners on the internet. no social media or commercialization or accounts as barriers-to-entry here. one of the more modern manifestations of this is multiverse, which is meant to be a more expressive web…users have their own corner of the internet and make customized posts that feel closer to comic art than a text post. for example, this artful musing on janis ian's will you dance? a conversation about fungi? this moodboard I am obsessed with? are all examples of the free-form, gorgeous things you can make with it. it’s wildly simple yet modern. i’m quite in love!!!
not to mention that there is currently no way to comment or reply to anyone's post without making one of your own. by way of the platforms construction you are forced to basically call out into the void and see if anyone might call back. I think this is just a fact of having a public beta but it's still funny and sweet and kinda freeing. honestly I like it a lot. it has been reminding me a lot that there are many ways you can sit down and make something. they don’t have to be good or even public. it’s special specifically because you made it.
anyway. will be spending the rest of june hunkering down and making some drawings privately to see how that goes, will be reading lots to see how that goes, and then will be going on a brief vacation. catch you in july! get lots of rest! 💖
gallery
playlist for june, 63 songs:
some songs on the rotation:
stuff i read recently:
a reason life is beautiful
Hi Jess, I found your comics through the Rarebit website and the New Year one immediately sold me. This one's great too. I like how they are so teeny tiny bite sized and good-natured. Have a great day and enjoy some cheese :)