Comics Roundtable

A couple of weeks ago I participated in this Comics Panel Discussion at Chapel Hill Comics along side Ben Towle, Jamie Hibdon, Flynn Smith, Rio Aubry Taylor, & Mr. Jan Burger. Click the link above to see pictures if you're into that sort of thing.

Headaches

Warning: this is a little self-indulgent, but it was necessary at the time. 

 

So, disclaimer, things are much better than they were when I drew this comic about a month ago. My doctor had put me on a crazy anti-seizure medicine in hopes it would help with my migraines. Not only did it not help with the headaches, but I had really bad side-effects. I had trouble thinking and focusing, I would forget words all the time which made it very difficult to hold conversations, I was running into things while walking, I lost weight because I would forget to eat for a whole day, my fingers would tingle all the time like my hands were falling asleep, and I was having panic attacks. I was on this for a little over a month and for that month it became really hard to deal with daily life because now I was not only in pain but I felt like my brain was failing me.
It took so much energy just to get through work that I didn't really have energy for anything else so I mostly stopped hanging out with people because it was too hard to hold a conversation. I didn't go right back to my doctor to be taken off of it because I no longer trusted myself and I thought, maybe this is just what I'm always like. The headache specialist I started seeing this month took me off the medicine right away and things got better fast. Now that I'm seeing this specialist I feel much more hopeful that the headaches will pass with hopefully as few unobtrusive medications as possible.
I wasn't going to post this one originally because it just felt too personal, but I also wasn't really talking to people about what I was going through at the time so I will share now.

Zoy!

So I've been working on a few longer comics, or longer for me and it's been a slow process so I haven't had much to post. I did, however, find the first two comics I ever made when I was 13 years old. I thought they had been lost years ago, but apparently were hiding out in a folder somewhere, so I thought I'd share. I posted them ridiculously large because they're nearly impossible to read at the next smaller size.

Can you tell it was the 90's?

This one is only a very mild exaggeration of the ridiculousness of my Global Studies teacher, if exaggeration at all.

Turtle in a Forest Fire

Did I ever mention that I once saved a turtle from a forest fire on my lunch break? Well, I did.

Majka is a Hotdog

It's True!

Today in the Kitchen

I drew this a couple of weeks ago when Lyra caught a bird and brought it into the house. Majka seemed very uncomfortable and didn't quite know how to react to this lifeless body. However, a week later when Lyra caught a bird in the yard, and didn't kill it, Majka was happy to finish the job and gobble it up. Sorry birds.

Row Your Boat

My first attempt at working with water color and playing with grey scale.

An Oldie: Russian Lessons #2

Some more old comics. These are probably from around 2006. I recently discovered that my old comics had gotten infected with mold during the great mold outbreak in our house back in December, so I am digitizing them all so I can (sadly) dispose of the originals.

An Oldie: Kirill in... Dear Diary

(Click on image to enlarge) 

I drew this comic about 7 years ago right around when Kirill and I started dating. I drew comics through middle school and high school, but then stopped for many years. I started drawing again right around the time Kirill and I got together and he's the one who really encouraged and inspired me to keep drawing, I suppose that's why he's so frequently the star of my comics - my muse.

It's kind of interesting for me to look back and see how much my drawing style has evolved. It's also interesting that the early Kirill comics are purely fictions that he happens to star in, where as my comics about him for the past few years are all non-fiction.  

The Dragon and the King

 

(Click to make image larger)

1984

Majka's Dream

Fun-A-Day 2012

This year I am not running a Fun-A-Day and I will admit that not worrying about who's participating and organizing the show is making the whole experience much less stressful. Since there will be no Fun-A-Day NC I'll be participating in the Buffalo Fun-A-Day that my friend Curtis is organizing. Last night as I was trying to figure out a theme for this year's comics, something different from strict daily diary comics, and it occurred to me that this is a leap year so there are 29 days in February, and this is my 29th year so I'm making a comic for every year of my life.
February 1983 I was about 7 months old.

The Proposal

I actually drew this comic about 6 months ago, but alas, I'm slow. This is how Kirill and I decided to propose to each other at the same time.

I would like to point out that the conversation leading up to this point was a discussion about how we should get married (and not me demanding a proposal). Kirill wanted there to be an official proposal because saying we had a discussion and decided to get married doesn't make for a very good story.