It's a fairly well-known fact to anybody who's read this blog that I'm poorly read, and that fact has always been something I've been trying to change (not going to be much of a writer if you haven't read anything). So with the aim of developing a reading habit, I decided to start picking up books I'd always wanted to read but had never bought, waiting for that mythical
'someday' when I would be in a relaxed mental state to kick back and read a bit. 'Someday' turned out to be when I walked by the Fantasy section in Kinokuniya and spotted a paperback of China Miéville's Perdido Street Station recently, not horrendously overpriced as books in Dubai tend to be, and picked it up. Instead of relegating it to the bookshelf like several previous purchases, I cracked the thick tome open and started reading the second I got home.

I've been trying to get back to writing fiction for a long, long time now. In fact, I've spent more time trying than I did actively writing fiction from 2000-2003. It's not that there's a dearth of ideas or that I have suddenly lost the ability to string two sentences together, quite the opposite. In the past six years there have been short stories that turned into long stories, long stories that didn't go anywhere; several aborted novels, even more never begun; scripts and outlines and treatments and everything in between, but not a thing among them has been finished.

Well, today that changed. If only in a small way.

A couple of Watchmen doodles I did the other day. My megaproject to redraw the entire Watchmen graphic novel has stalled. I could blame everything from the economic crisis to the crisis of not being able to draw well, but really it was the good old Crisis of Infinite Procrastination. I will get back to it but I need to think about a better, faster way to tackle it. As it was going I was obsessing about it too much and not enjoying myself. No sense doing something entirely non-commercial, that will never see public viewing, and not have any fun doing it, right?

So, a couple of fun doodles, quickly coloured (but since this is me, it took the better part of a day to color these in).

BTW, you can click on the Class of 1985 pic, or indeed right here for a 1600x1000 wallpaper version.

V

It's been a while since I sketched, both in real life and certainly on this site. I'd like to change that, and whenever I finish a page -- I'd like to do one every day or so -- I'll post it here.

I have no idea where this comic came from. I awoke today and it demanded to be drawn. Inks are terrible, but I'm trying to get over my phobia of using large swathes of black,

V

PS This is exactly how we were taught it in school. Except for the monster, of course.

PPS ...I think.

Every New Year since I was 12 I think to myself, "You should really learn to draw." And at the end of every year I find that I have drawn less than the previous year. My problem is twofold: while I have ample access to teaching material on drawing and have dipped in and out of it frequently, I have never developed a knack for daily practice. Secondly, when I do practice I try to draw everything I imagine I would like to draw, and within a few minutes a lack of experience and skill leads me to be frustrated with the terrible doodles on the page which look nothing like the grand illustrations I imagine.

So this year I thought I'd just try to redraw the greatest graphic novel of our times: Watchmen.

Right, so usually I'd just link to this in my Google Reader Shared Items blog, but one particular picture in this set was too good not to highlight. Just look at it. I want it blown up and put on my wall.

The rest of the set is here

V

Further adventures in processed food in this, the fourth and much delayed strip of the second Comic Konga! Click on the image to see the full strip.

The drawing is all over the place in this. I'm just a bit out of it this week, I suppose, running around doing real life stuff. One more left; have the script, should draw it asap.

V