Still trying to get the hang of this computer stuff. I am posting this with the hopes that the drawing didn’t turn out too small. I’m writing at the edge of the conventional weekend although I won’t be going to my day job this Monday. I’ve got bigger, better plans. They involve doctors.

Let’s talk about comics

This has been an interesting year so far. I’ve returned to being a weekly comic shop customer, I’ve been expanding my palate. This past week, I purchased my first Avengerscomic book ever. Something recently snapped inside of me and you know–alternative comics just aren’t enough for me anymore. I need more variety, more voices. I abandoned mainstream comic books (superheroes) so long ago that reading one now feels like it did the first time I picked one up as a young kid.  I’ve spent the last thirteen (more or less) years of my life raging against the evil comic book machines and now I’ve come full circle.

The most recent alternative comics I’ve been reading were certainly pushing me in a more mainstream/genre direction. Now I feel like the Berlin Wall of my literate life has been torn down and all aspects of my interest are united as one country. On that note, I also purchased a Captain America graphic novel. I might actually have a problem.

I can’t think of why I shut the door on so many comic experiences for so many years. I’ve been chalking it up to youthful pretentiousness. Late high school through college and the first post-college years. If a person’s going to get snooty about art, it’ll usually happen then.

Slowly, but surely, I’ve found myself gravitating toward the types of stories and types of drawing that originally first got me really excited about comic books. I don’t regret dropping superheroes for manga and alternative comics when I was sixteen–back then, the mainstream comics that I was aware of were almost invariably awful. But now that I’ve wandered back, I hope these superbooks will be on their very BEST behavior.

@darrylayo

Good morning, comics fans,

I’m sitting in the luxurious Cafe Grumpy with my homie John P. talking about comics, croissants, beautiful women and movies. I haven’t been updating my “Lizzie’s Tail” comic and I’m sorry about that. It’s a good little comic that will see its ending at some point. Until then…

Here’s a post about dudes.

I’ve been working on new styles and techniques for making my comics. I’m quite pleased with my progress. I’ve been also experiencing a desire to move into stories that are a bit more intrinsically personal than these comics about monster girls. Not that these comics aren’t personal, mind you, but it’s getting harder to keep working on images and not see myself reflected in the work.

Of course I still love writing stories about women. I’m not going to get all Dave Sim on you guys, don’t worry. Maybe I am just feeling the need to get away from writing about this crazy world in which nearly all the characters are of a single gender. Maybe.

RUN, COWARD!

Over these past few weeks, I’ve been drawing lots of sketches, plotting out plans, planning out plots and looking forward to making some new comics. I’ve been seriously considering putting this website on ice and moving my operations onto my website letsgoayo.com. I have been planning to uninstall ComicPress on that site and revert it to a WordPress blog. Basically, I’d like to just address you nice people directly like this, with pictures dropped in for your optical entertainment. I would like to return to standard scheduled webcomic posting at some later date, but only AFTER completing a project. Sort of like traditional publishing; the work comes out after it’s completed.

And let me restate, I will finish “Lizzie’s Tail” before making these changes.

Good day.

<3

Darryl Ayo Brathwaite.

I drew this little to-do over my lunch break today!

A few minutes while eating a sandwich from Subway! I think I’m getting better at this thing.

-Darryl Ayo

I spent the weekend holding down the fort with my new comic pals Steve Seck and Sara Lindo. Steve’s from Center for Cartoon Studies, Sara’s from SVA. Our table was against the back wall and while that’s not a problem at all, the show decided to place a series of standing tables in front of our area. This effectively cut off foot traffic so much that we hardly sold any comics all weekend!

This was the view from our table. As you can see there’s a big crowd at the show (this was the last third of the day on Saturday), but there is negligible traffic coming our way. Instead of aisles leading straight to the back wall, there is this asteroid belt of high tables dubbed “the reading area” on the official map. While it does give attendees a place to catch their breath a bit, it completely cuts off the walking flow and redirects casual foot traffic away from our corner. I described the arrangement as a “force field” for how effectively it protected us from the threat of making any sales.

On Sunday, the second day of the show, one of my tablemates actually sold no comics at all until about four o’clock. And all three of us sold fewer comics than we did on each of our respective first shows ever. I sold seventeen comics at my first MoCCA back in 2003 (when it was a single-day affair). I didn’t even sell half of that over the course of two days this year. My comics have gotten better and my name has gotten bigger. This is a preposterous scenario.

anyANYway:

Through all of this I had a good time this weekend. I got to meet some internet friends for the first time ever, I got to catch up with and hang out with previously-made friends and I got to slap palms with a bunch of new people. I don’t want to act like this was the Misery of a Thousand Sorrows or anything like that. But we can’t let things like this continue to happen.

-Darryl Ayo Brathwaite.