Yesterday, I added the title “guest speaker” to my resume (if a ten-minute gig can indeed add something to your resume. I say yes). I stopped by the Sequential Art: History and Criticism of Comic Books and Graphic Novels class, taught by Leonard Rifas (two links there because I couldn’t find just one that had any real complete information). It was finals time, so I got to see presentations on Jim Davis, abstract comics, a comic depicting tidal pool life in the Pacific Northwest, and the perils comic marketing. This last one was presented in comic form and included the line, “Being a comic writer is about being the coolest person you can be… but you’ll also be a broke loser!” I went next and introduced myself by saying that I am, at the very least, not a loser. Cue pregnant pause.

I drew this during class. You can see drawings from the previous two pages through the paper. Normally I’d Level that kind of thing out, but you can see the anemones I started out with that brought me to this particular drawing. I miss drawing in class – drawing at work is fun but not quite as pleasurable for some reason.

Also, my cartoonist group is doing a series of profiles of members. I got to be first.

Other things I am up to lately: contemplating work for anthologies, trying to get through my enormous pile of library books, looking at job prospects, and laughing at people complaining about Seattle summer not being here yet. I’m also getting my first reactions to Furlough two, which are generally encouraging, especially because I’m in that afterglow of finishing where I’m plotting all the ways in which I’ll make issue three even better. And I’m pleased as punch with issue two, so it’s a very nice place to be.

I learned to knit back in twenty-ought-four, following a night of patient teaching from my friend Leah. I’m not an expert knitter now, but I’ve knit a few sweaters, endless dishcloths, and a menagerie of other things. (I’m on Ravelry, if you’re so inclined.)

Before I learned to knit, I didn’t get cables and bobbles, and I found overly complicated colorwork to be more distracting than impressive. After knitting for a few years, I realized why these things are attractive to a certain sector of knitters: it keeps things interesting.

Now that I can knit-purl-knit-purl with no problem, slip stitches and twist cables and make lovely seamless hats with robotically perfect ribbed brims, I find myself looking at patterns with an eye for a challenge. I find myself looking at things that might be considered grandma-esque sweater patterns by the average observer. (No link for that one, as I’m not going to be a dink and link even to an anonymous online sweater picture for ridicule. Picture sailboats and ducks and crazy stitches; you know what I mean.)

It was a crazy realization, made somewhere in my interminable knitting of dishcloths with more and more garish colorways. The weirder, the better. Leaves? Bats? Boobs? Owls made of cables? Yarn that goes green-orange-blue-yellow-grey-green? Bring it on. If you just knit basic top-down stockinette sweaters for the rest of your life… well, I don’t think you could, really. I can’t. And it is, of course, enormously satisfying to feel like you’ve tamed one of these deliberately difficult patterns. Fortunately, even sweaters are relatively small mountains to climb.

I went to the Grand Canyon today for the first time with Kimberly, one of my nearest and dearest. We drove through south central, central, and northern Arizona on the way. The terrain varied so much I felt like I drove across three separate planets: saguaro cactus-laden Scottsdale, striped mesa-filled Sedona, and finally the scrubby plains and hills of northern Arizona, so abrasive they look like they’d bring the shine out of anyone if given long enough. It’s the mesas that got to me, and the canyon itself. There were infinite stripes of infinitely subtle colors that have been brought to the surface by the Colorado River and rain and tectonic movement, so many that my meager rods and cones weren’t quite up to the challenge. My circa-2004 digital camera sure as hell wasn’t. I took a few pictures, but mostly I just stared, amazed that my depth perception seemed to stop – I knew I wasn’t taking in true distances after a point.

And suddenly, I understood something. I’ve long wondered why artists would paint what I’ve considered boring-ass landscapes – amateurish (or not) oils trying to capture Southwestern vistas but forever falling far short, usually ending up in the bland, revoltingly neutral realm of motel art. And yes, probably that’s why a lot of it exists: the world has a sad, unquenchable need for inoffensive art. However, I think many artists make these places into their white whales. Most photographs will never capture it; instead, they tilt at their canvases, trying to reproduce it.

The paintings are still, in my opinion, heinous, and will forever remind me of those ORIGINAL ART BLOWOUT SALE WHOA ads I see on TV when I visit my grandma in St. Louis. But I’ll be a little more understanding about them now.

See? Hopeless.

I’ve officially asked two trusted readers to look over my wonktastic comic script. I should clarify, I suppose, that these aren’t scripts in the traditional way – the way I’ve found of writing out my comic scripts is regular fictional prose, but the text surrounding the dialogue isn’t done artfully. Instead, it’s done as transparently as possible, as they connect to a scattering of images in my head. Here, let me show you a bit:

Moira stands against the wall, uncommonly uneasy in her suit. She fiddles with her scarf. “What I say now has to be strictly between us. If I could produce some kind of confidentiality agreement for this, I would, but it’s off the record, and so…”

“Of course, Moira. I’m like my mom – we could’ve worked for the CIA.”

Moira smiles ruefully. “Yes, I know. That’s why I’m telling you this. That, and I’d hate to see you make a mistake when I could prevent it.”

Kate has an odd look on her face; she’s rarely unable to predict things at work. This is one of those times.

Usually, this is what you write when you don’t know how to say what you want to say – what they teach in screenwriting classes, to lay down the bones and then fancy them up with the usual oblique ways the human mind works. It’s just strange to send this kind of barebones, inelegant thing to actual people, ones I respect.

Sketches to come later this week.

I’ve updated the appearances page. I’m officially going to be part of Artist Alley at the Emerald City ComiCon here in Seattle on March 13th and 14th, 2010.

I’m looking to split a table if possible, so if you know someone who’s looking for space in this sold out section, talk to me.

I’m trying to make something a little less, well, template-tastic. I’m hoping to debut it this weekend; in the meantime, here are some sketches that came out of the pen just after I made the headers that will be on the site soon.

I’ve also added a sample comic story – you can find it under My Work/Stories, over there on the left. I’ve started a page for appearances and functions soon. It’s mostly empty for the moment, as I’ve only started sending out applications for conventions for 2010. More news as I get it, and hopefully soon.

Faces from ye olde nib

The only actual character here is the fellow on the lower right; the rest are just for fun. The one character’s name is Ben, and he’s in Furlough, whose script is currently in a resting stage between draft 1 and edit one. Drawing men can be hard for me, and I haven’t quite gotten his look down yet. The ladies in the story, however, are quite well defined at this point.

I, Breanne Boland, have bought books, borrowed books, and paid off fines for other books borrowed.  I have cleared my debts with the city of Seattle.  I have, in collaboration with yon boyfriend, replaced a garbage disposal.  I have done much laundry and some knitting.  I have bought my first Christmas present of this year.  I have watched a fine film (The Descent), and I have given what I hope was useful advice to a friend.

Furthermore, I have finally and properly launched my website.

In the future, it shall be more attractive.  It shall have drawings, rather relevant for an artist.  It will have information other than, “Hey I made this website you’re looking at how about that huh?”  But for now, it has more than my hilariously lo-fi handmade html index.  And it was good.