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Little Dee (m-sa)
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written by dan wolff
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Past Blog Notes....
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October 1st Update
No new experimental comic. I guess that I have to admit that they are pretty officially on hiatus, simply because I don't see my work load lightening until at least 2010. Perhaps once the development of Spacetrawler is done, I might have time again. But I'll still try to post monthly here about my goings on regardless.
I do have something to show, though. This: spacetrawler.com is now live. Although it will likely be worked over a lot before the comics starts, and the comic itself won't start 'til probably the first week of January.
Hope all is well with the lot of you. Cheers. -christopher
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September 1st Update
Again, nothing to report. I know, I haven't really done an experimental comic since March. But that is how it's been with developing a new comic strip. I have clocked about a zillion hours so far into the space comic, have about a half year of strips written, edited, and thumbnailed (and are now being reviewed). I've also put in way too many hours on Sketchup, and am still too clumsy and useless at it. Sigh.
I still like the experimental comic script I wrote, and wish to draw it. I've just not come across the references I want.
Anyhow. hi. Wanted to update y'all.
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August 1st Update
Yup. Missed July (sorry, Argadi!). It's been particularly heavy lately in my life, personal stuff as well as comics related, and I apologize. One blog post a month isn't too hard, and generally I make it.
This month's comic is actually a rebirth of my diary comic. I have begun a blog about cooking, with my friends Matt, Dan, and Jessica. It has just begun, and we're still finding our feet. I am learning about food blogging, and thinking a lot about it. I have yet to find my cooking voice there I think, but this is the way to learn.
BUT, what I DO know, and AM confident in, is my cartooning. And so alongside each post of my blog is as well a diary comic of my cooking. So... there they are. Four of them in total so far.
Our blog: Cookrookery.com
Everything else is as per usual. The space comic continues in development. I've written and thumbnailed 40 strips, and have been digging in and editing like crazy. I want this to use my old strengths, but also to stretch my wings to new things. But it is hard to be new, hard to change. Water Street has helped me there, Bad Mile was also a huge help, but still it is very challenging.
Anyhow. I think next month I'll actually have a new standalone experimental comic, but I promise nothing. My plate is full to overloading, and I still want this comic making to be enjoyable.
-Christopher
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June 1st Update
Oops. June's here already.
Well, I've been crazy busy this month. Finished a few freelance jobs, prepped nine "Little Dee" posters for printing (should be up in a week or two), am working on Little Dee book #3, and spending too much distracted time on my new comic (but which I keep making serious headway on).
The above spaceship image (one of five) was built as a 3-D model for me by commission by the amazing Matt Nolan. I had him build it very simply because these 3-D models won't actually appear in the strip as you see it here, but I will be using them as drawing reference, for consistency and to easily rotate them at need for different angles.
Sadly, that is all I have to show you this month. I am putting my spare time into writing and creating this new comic, and I think it's going to be worth it in the end. Trust me. :)
-Christopher
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May 1st Update
No experimental comic this month. I've been working on a bunch of stuff. Little Dee book #3. Babysitting in San Diego. Freelance. And a lot of time into a sci-fi project I'm working on (the mess of papers shown below), which I'm mentioning as a tease. Hopefully I'll have more to tell in the next couple months.
but there is more pretty art...
I did do the Olympia comic fest poster, the fourth year in a row I've done it. I do it for free because I like them. And I'll be tabling there with Indigo Kelleigh on june 13th, so come by!
And I got commissioned to do this drawing of the Dee crew in Japan. I'm currently working on coloring it to do some prints.
All is well. As I've mentioned, I'm seeing someone, which always improves my mood. Money's been tight, but I've been working really hard and think I'll make it through without having to rejoin the office work force. Cheers to that.
Oh, and BUY ERIKA MOEN'S COLLECTED COMIC "DAR" (or at least read them online). Lovely.
See you next month! :)
-Christopher
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April 1st Update
Above is a wash drawing I drew in Wenatchee, WA. A quick sketch, but I like it.
This month wasn't great in the experimental comic world of me. I tried drawing a script I wrote in the autumn, but I abandoned it after pencilling it. but I'll share the pencils as they are interesting I guess in showing the process.
I was playing with trying to write a palindrome script. The words are not a palindrome, but the panels (at least the text) are. With more work, the drawings could have been too.
I was planning on shading it. It would be night, so the first half as they approached the house they would have been lit in the front and the background would be black. The second half, the house would light up the background and they would be shadowed on their fronts.
The title panel is a nod to the TMBG's song "I Palindrome I" where they sing "And I am a snake head eating the head on the opposite side."
Anyhow. I'm not adding it to the actual Water Street archive. But, you can read it here.
It's been a fine month. A little travel. Read some good books. hope all is well with you all.
p.s. - I'm having a sale on Little Dee original strips this week. Buy one and I'll refund you $5. You know you wanna.
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March 1st Update (2009!)
February is gone already. Damn. That was quick. Although it was a busy month. I've been ill twice, lasting about two weeks total. I took a small trip to the islands just outside of Seattle. I had a birthday (36th). Along with all the normal work I have to keep up with, it's no wonder it's all a fair blur.
Before this month's comic, a few pics...
Me on Orcas Island.
Misha, of who you may remember my comic Misha and Marx:
And this, because it's an awesome lovely, wonderful pic of my friends' daughter, "Bean."
Okay, on to comics. So, this month I wrote and drew a humble little ditty. Just some thoughts and emotions rattling in my head. The drawing style is expressive, and perhaps a little crude. Some by choice, some because I drew it while distracted: being feverish and unable to keep anything in my stomach (did I mention being ill twice?).
Anyhow. It's a cute little piece, and I hope you enjoy.
Let It Be Dreams is the title, and aside from that direct link, you will find it archived on my baldwinpage site on the Water Street page.
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February 1st Update
Ah pies. I've been making an awful lot of them the last couple years. And mostly inspired by my loving community down in Olympia, ringlead by the lovely Keylee and Nick.
Well, this summer, while traveling, i started contributing (drawings of) pies to potluck from the road, and have continued to send them one during every potluck I missed. Here are the first 16. When I have 16 more (who knows when), I'll post a second installment, etc. (this all is archived of course at Water Street).
Anyhow, life's been pretty great. Some concerns with future freelance, as MAD Magazine is going down to quarterly rather than monthly, and I believe I will be effectively lost in this transition.
But overall, all is well. I have tons of travel plans, which simply keep popping up out of thin air. And life where I'm living is pretty damn happy right now.
Anyhow. Enjoy the pies!
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January 1st Update (2009!)
Well, this month's comic is actually a comic I drew from early April 'til late June of 2008. But I did it under a pseudonym, so only one or two of you have probably even ever heard of it.
I wasn't sure it's future, and so I held off until i sure it was a dead project before posting it here.
It's an exploration of shock-humor a bit, and playing with writing characters I fine to be both fun and unredeemable. two things I don't do much of. But it was fun. And then i got a wee bit bored.
I really need to love my characters. I need to care about them, at least some of them, or else I don't care about them, and lose interest.
Anyhow, read it here, as always, linked from waterstreet.
December was a month and then some. Traveling, questioning, writing. Working on new comics, working on a novel. Reading tons.
But I'm tired right now. Time to move on to 2009 and let it pass.
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December 1st Update
Another month has somehow passed. I made and ate lots of pie (if you missed them, I blogged about them at littledee.net). Overall, a quiet month for me. Things HAD been quite busy, overwhelmingly so. And so, very tired and full of anxiety, this month I just holed up at home, trying to relax and let it pass.
I read. I wrote a letter. I worked on my short novel. I drew. I puttered.
I don't have anything BIG to show you, i'm afraid. But two very nice LITTLE pieces. The first one is the monthly Water Street addition, a one page comic which I wrote as in ode to a dear friend's lovely dog, Misha. It is titled Misha and Marx, and as usual, is linked to from the Water Street page.
The second piece is a diary strip, a commission a woman had me draw of her and her husband's day. Read it here.
Hope you enjoy. Love!
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November 1st Update
Well, First off, Happy Halloween. I had a lovely night out with friends to see Halloqueen a Queen cover band, with my housemate Sean as the lead singer. It was pretty amazing.
And then it was home, a couple more hours of work left on the comic, but I didn't want to miss another update.
It's been a strange month, including being swept away (helped by the generosity of others) to a tropical location (my word, where the current takes me these days). During which, my friends were bantering both about the godly sexiness of tanned surfer boys, but as well about the zen of the act of surfing. it was pretty funny. And inspired this comic.
It's getting more and more difficult to find new ways of drawing which intrigue me. And so I played around with using screened-over high-contrast photos I found of the Wall Street pit for the backgrounds; and also a quick loose paintbrush cartooning for the characters.
Anyhow, before I continue to blather on too much. Enjoy this month's experimental comic...
A Friendly Conversation in the Stock Market Pit
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October 1st Update
I lost the thread this month. Moved again. Feeling non-settled, and unsure of what's next. Feeling good, but disorganized.
So, no comic this month. almost pounded one out, but didn't feel good about it, doing it half-assed and without caring.
I need a bit more time to think and write. Plenty of ideas, but need grounding.
See you in a month.
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September 1st Update
This month I felt a little unsure what to do for an experimental comic, and my friend Kevin suggested "Time Travel. There's a lot you can do with it: paradoxes, parallel universes, or just going back to berate your younger self for being an idiot." (that last bit referring to "I Hate This Town")
And so I did. Called Time Travel, a short ditty beating the dead horse of time-travel concepts to death with its own broken leg.
Hm.
All is well here. I just made blueberry pancake cookies, an idea I've been thinking about gleefully for weeks now. They came out pretty good. I used a chocolate-chip cookie recipe, but replaced the chocolate chips with dehydrated blueberries, and the brown and white sugar with pure maple sugar.
The biggest downfall is that the maple sugar tastes sweet, but not particularly maple-y, despite being pure maple sugar. Perhaps, if I attempt it again, I'll also use two eggs and switch to baking powder (from baking soda) for a cakeier cookie.
And I don't own a dehydrator, so I cut all the blueberries in half, lay them out on a plate cut-side-down, and put them in the oven on the "warm" setting for 4 hours. I am so bordering on OCD sometimes. Here's the berries laid out, pre-dehydrated.
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May 1st Update
What haven't I been up to this month? I've been in Seattle. Writing. Drawing. Knitting. Shipping books. Comic Festing. Making pies.
It was so lovely to get to travel for so long, but I must say that it has felt so good to be in relatively one place, to see my community here who I love so much, and to just breathe a bit.
Well, except for the stopping to breathe a bit. I have been so non-stop busy. But for good or bad, this worked well for my monthly experimental comic. I will be doing a strip a day about my life (in diary form) for the month of May (it ended up being 3.5 months long). Along the lines of American Elf kind of thing. Probably some Eddie Campbell influence. Just snippets. All true (as true as memory can be), except I'll be changing most or all names. Not necessarily funny. They may change tone as I go along and discover more what I like to do with them.
For the first one, I wrote a diary of my entire day, and then re-read it a few times to decide which snippet I most wished to draw. For now, I think that is a good approach. Oh, and it will always run two days behind, because I live the first day, write and draw it the second day, and then it gets posted that night for the day after that.
You'll be able to see them daily as i post them here on baldwinpage.com at 6:00 a.m. NYC time, or you can watch as I post them over at livejournal each day after I wake up and get computer access. They'll also be archived on Water Street.
Day 1 (p.s. octopuspie).
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April 1st Update
I have been traveling for about half a year, and this past friday I finally returned to the Pacific NW. Here's a lovely pic from the last leg of my last flight of my trip, as I oh-so-demurely quaff my apple juice.
I have attended my first Sunday potluck, made two pies, babysat, picked up OTHER people at the airport, taken the bus, eaten a burrito. The list is complete.
Yes-yes, but what about cartooning.
Among other things, I created the premise and core characters for Mike Rouse-Deane's Guest Strip Project, as well as wrote and drew the first strip, main banner, and cast page. Mike Rouse-Deane has done several projects like this for charities. This one benefits the Make-A-Wish foundation. I was happy to contribute. (I hope you do as well, either in cartoons or donations!)
As well, this week's addition to the Water Street annals, a comic titled Unretractable, which I have nothing to say about. Or too much to put into words.
And lastly, I also did the poster for the upcoming Olympia Comics Fest (below). I.... should be tabling. Let me get back to you on that one, but I want to. And you should drop by regardless. (But I WILL definitely be tabling at Stumptown in Portland on the 26th-27th).
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March 1st Update
March already? I have so much to do.
I had a lovely February, including a cheerful birthday which included hot tubs and snowmobiles (beasts I do not love, but it was an exciting brief experience). And now I am about to embark to see some close friends in NY, then a wedding in Pheonix, and back to the Pacific NW in time for the Stumptown Comics Fest on April 26-27 (where yes, i will be tabling. Stop by!)
And then there's this month's comic.
I'm not even sure the feeling is hatred. But when I come back to my hometown, it wins. It is boxing with one round, and I'm sleeping on the floor til 3 is counted. And I've been here, and I've been pretty happy and feel good and confident these days, and so I thought I could go out and face it a bit, but I've always been a sucker in that way.
I've walked every street in this town in my youth, depressed and full of unjustified fear, and doing it again on any level just makes me sink into myself. And then I bumped into some folks I never wished to bump into again, and I suddenly was not even in my body.
Anyhow, so I got a beer and a veggie burger at the people's pint and scribbled out a comic. Not even a comic about it, as much as a comic which embodied my emotion and allowed me to not become present in my body again, while my hands did what they wanted to do.
Oh, and my hometown isn't a terrible place. This is my personal past, and little more. And this month has actually even given me a bit of resolution with it.
Anyhow. I'm actually working on a different experimental short, but didn't have it done. But this one, with its pencil sketchiness and its bizarre self-avatar... I've come to really like, and wanted to include it on Water Street.
Read it!
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February 1st Update
Well, December passed, busy, social, traveling. January was much the same, although I kept better organized and managed to write and draw a new comic. A somewhat dark piece, in a way which isn't something I normally would do, but it was fun to play with and I am pleased with it.
It's called Moved In. And as per usual, is linked from baldwinpage.com off of the Water Street page.
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January 1st Update
I try to post an experimental comic on the first of every month, but unfortunately I have no update this month. I've been traveling; Boston, Dublin; and simply couldn't manage to finish it. So, I'm afraid you'll have to wait until February 1st.
I've had plenty of ideas though. Lovely ideas. Wicked ideas.
Hope you had/are having some great holidays.
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2/5/07 - So, I have a blog over at livejournal. I will be updating it on the 1st of every month, so if you wish to keep tabs on me, I'll give an update of what projects I'm working on, what might be coming up, and hopefully post a little bit of art or something. I'll also be posting it here, so you can read it here or there.
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LINKS
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To support my work, please purchase items at:
Good Port Publishing
My current address as of 1/1/2007 is:
234 Central St NE, Olympia, WA 98506
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