Sunday, May 27, 2012

#6, Death, And Irrational Bigotry

May 22, 2012, I awoke late in the evening and stayed awake for 33 hours straight working on some of the final pages of issue #6, only taking two breaks to eat and use the bathroom.

May 23, 2012 Wednesday was the two-year anniversary of when I officially initiated my graphic novel series. I have made six stories within that time period, each more than thirty pages long, and I am about to begin my introduction story, which takes place before my first issue that I started two years ago. I have three pages of incomplete illustrations left to finish in issue #6 before I start the introduction. I need to think about the setting in which the protagonist Sawaporn is in when the story begins. Number 1 (which will become #2 after the introduction is finished) starts off in Bloomington, IL during the late summer and it is December by issue #6.

In the very near future, I will be drawing T-shirt designs promoting freethought and skepticism. A member of my freethinkers group has come up with many ideas and I will be their artist. I cannot wait to start this.

Unrelated, my dad, Howard Michael Haney (born August 12, 1949), died on May 20, 2012 and his wake was May 24. He had Alzheimer's and his brain deteriorated so much over time that it appears the brain could no longer regulate important body functions, though I am not certain. I am told that his blood pressure dropped rapidly and he died before he arrived at the hospital. To make things worse, during the travel to my father's wake, my mother decided to explain to me that my dad was not only going hell, but deserved it as well, for being an atheist while knowing that I am an atheist too. She also made it a point to randomly explain that homosexuals are abominations. I'm not gay, so I don't understand why she brought this up to me especially during a drive to my dad's wake. Her justification for this nonsense was "because god said so," which is the equivalent of a kindergartener saying "You have to give me your lunch money because I said so." She then explained this conspiracy theory of hers that all evidence that suggests homosexuality is not a simple choice, rather maybe something biological, was invented by "gay scientists" to spread the "homosexual agenda." She then proudly stated, "I will remain a bigot until the day I die an d stand with the lord." She has an irrational, black and white view of reality and wants reality to fit into her view, instead of the other way around. I think it is absolutely sick for a person to worship and love a deity with all of their heart that they simultaneously believe will torture their child infinitely just because their child cares about whether their beliefs are true and bases their beliefs on reason, evidence, and intellectual honesty instead of basing their beliefs on (magical) wishful thinking or willful gullibility (aka: "faith)." Tossing any respect at such a being is worse than worshiping a person that you know will rape your mother tomorrow. Of course, that rapist cannot sexually assault your mother infinitely. Maybe one day in the future she will realize that her needless bigotry based on superstition and ignorance is only destructive, but I honestly think that if she does, she will not care because in her mind her particular version of this misogynistic, genocidal, slavery-condoning, self-contradicting, jealous, megalomaniac, and (fortunately) fictional god and his bipolar, ignorant, intolerant, megalomaniac son will always agree with whatever she thinks.

I will make a parody of this vile conversation in my graphic novel series of her superstition-based bigotry, like I do with all things that I think are despicable. That is the one of the only two positive things that came out of this conversation. The second thing I finally learned was that she cares more about her fantasy than her family or even the real world around her.

Sunday, May 20, 2012

2012 Muse Publication

I will have more drawings printed in the next Heartland Muse magazine. I had four drawings printed last year, which I mentioned in my previous post. These new drawings are from October of 2010 through November of 2011. I like them a lot more than the spring 2010 drawings in the first publication. These are three of the potential drawings that might be used. http://deadavalanche.deviantart.com/art/Thai-Girl-Poses-As-Gary-Numan-212936536 http://deadavalanche.deviantart.com/art/Atheist-Thai-Woman-Plays-Chess-182349072 http://deadavalanche.deviantart.com/art/Atheist-Thai-Girl-EBM-or-Thai-242-270643961

Sunday, May 13, 2012

Issue #6, Coming Intro Story, & Some Introspective Stuff

I want to complete every illustration in the sixth Atheist Thai Girl issue before I do the Introduction story. Once I do this one, what was originally issue #1 when I started this nearly two years ago will be bumped up to issue #2. So the most current issue, which is #6, will actually become issue #7. I'm sure I only need one issue for the Introduction.

The reason I started part way into the storyline, rather than at the beginning, is because I wasn't certain how I should introduce the storyline. I always had trouble starting a new storyline. I enjoyed developing the story though and was already aware of the direction it needed to go. So, I started "issue #1" (which will be issue #2 once the intro story is finished) as the protagonist was walking through town and she saw an ad for an art show, which led to many horrible doors opening up in her life.

There have been moments when I could start a storyline from the beginning, but more often I would pick what I viewed as "Act II" and start drawing from there. I don't know why I was more comfortable with this. I still have a lot of finished and unfinished stories from my childhood and teen years. Some of them were started at the beginning and some in the middle. Where I started seemed to have almost no impact on whether or not I finished the damn thing.

I will start posting this entire graphic novel series one issue at a time after I complete the introduction story. This should take place during the summer months. I do not know how else to reveal my work to people.

I recently looked through the first three issues I had drawn from May-June 2010, July-October 2010, and October-November 2010. In late 2010, the artwork looked fine to me. Now, the artwork looks a bit primitive to me, or at least the rendition of the protagonist's face and hair along with some other characters. My artwork has improved since then, but I am slightly disappointed (for now) with the illustrations in these earlier works. This happens every year, though. In December of 2010, I would look back at December of 2009 and think, "I actually thought THIS looked decent?" I have looked back hundreds of times over many years and acknowledged that I made more progress.

I had some artwork published in late June of 2011. Unfortunately, this artwork was created and submitted in the spring of 2010 and was outdated by the time it was finally printed. These drawings were artistic female nudes. I've never had the opportunity to draw using a live nude female model, so I create the human anatomy from scratch. The flaws present in the drawings from the spring of 2010 were obvious to me when they were published over a year later, and I didn't like the fact that these outdated and flawed things were now representing me. Whatever I draw today that I'm proud of may look poor to me a year or two from now. I think that will continue throughout the rest of my life as I enhance my skill further. Maybe this is a result of teaching oneself rather than being taught by others. No matter what I did, my attempts to seek instruction from teachers or fellow artists did not improve my technique. For some reason I always had to experiment and learn my own way.

One last thing:
I've been in a weird mood over the last few weeks. During this time period and out of boredom I made a Facebook page representing the protagonist with the working title of the character: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Sawaporn-Songlakranangpunlapong/224505147663794

Meow!!