Web comics and other cartoons by by Helen E. H. Madden
The Evil Mr. Wiggles
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So, I’m a little late getting this one up. I mean, it’s the middle of July and I’m talking about the end of school, so yeah, a little late. But this one was actually too good (in my opinion) to not draw and post. And yes, this actually happened. The kids finished up with school in time for us to drive 2 1/2 days to Milwaukee so we could spend 4 days doing nothing but karate. And then we spent a day visiting with family in Chicago, and then we spent another 2 days driving home. And I was soooooooooo exhausted when we got home. But we did survive and make it home, so there’s that.
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At our Girl Scout troop meeting last week, we made tie-dye t-shirts. And yes, I ended up with one that matched my hair. It kind of startles people for some reason.
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UPDATE: The response to this particular episode was so strong, I went ahead and set it up as a print on Society 6. You can buy a copy here.
I also set it up as a coffee mug, so enjoy!
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The kids and I started playing Minecraft a couple months ago, and life will never be the same. Pixie seems to love the game the most, and she has spent quite a few hours at my desktop building houses and mining for ore and catching chickens, etc.
For me, the game has a rather ironic feel. I’ve been reading articles on productivity and recently came across this one on grinding in games versus grinding in real life. I realize that in real life, grinding translates to the everyday tasks I hate to do – laundry, dishes, making the bed, etc. I can get away with not doing most grinding tasks for long periods of time (for example, I dust the house maybe once a year). And some grinding tasks I’ve been able to pass on to the kids (I make them clean their own bathrooms, sort their own laundry, etc.). But there are some grinding chores that have to be done daily, and I hate them, because these are the most futile tasks. Cleaning the kitchen is especially miserable for me. I can spend an entire afternoon washing dishes and scrubbing down the counters, only to have all that hard work go “POOF!” the moment another family member enters the room. The kids make a mess every time they grab a snack. And when Hubster cooks, he can turn the kitchen into a disaster area beyond even FEMA’s scope to fix. (Okay, yeah, FEMA doesn’t have the best reputation for fixing things, but you know what I mean).
So I’ve been trying to find a way to turn these grinding chores into something that either seems more enjoyable, less miserable, or more productive. I haven’t succeeded yet, but I will keep trying.
In the meantime though, yeah, I live with a bunch of creepers. Really messy creepers.
Pray for me.
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I can spend hours cleaning the kitchen, only to have it destroyed by one man making one meal. And yes, this conversation actually happened. He’s lucky to be alive.
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When my girls were toddlers, my mother started buying them Barbie dolls. All kinds of Barbie dolls, but mostly princess dolls. At the same time, my mother was also buying the girls a LOT of pink dresses. We had one year where the mailman brought us a new package every week, and it always had a new pink dress and a new princess doll, and the girls just ate it up!!!
A few years later, my kids now like Goth fashion, Minecraft (and video games in general), steampunk, cartoons, and comic books. Pixie still wears pink on occasion, but her dolls are more often painted bright green, with splatters of red for that “zombie” effect.
It’s nice to know I have some influence on my kids 🙂
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Yes, this actually happened. I was working on a display for a Girl Scout recruiting event and thought it would be fun to make a camping diorama with needlefelted Girl Scouts. And I thought it would be even more fun to enjoy a glass of wine while I did this. Then I discovered a few weeks later that there are actually thimbles I could have used instead of bleeding to death for my art. Ouch.
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I have spent FOREVER working on this one simple comic. And yet it isn’t so simple. I decided to try a different pen for inking this one, a brush style pen with a rougher edge. It seemed appropriate for an image of Hubster and I feeling a bit “rough around the edges.” And once I had the image inked and colored, I decided that a bit of rough shading would look nice too, as well as some touches of texture, etc., etc., etc. The hard part was figuring out how to make a brush style balloon pen for the text box in the back. I must have spent two hours today playing with settings and searching on the internet for information on how to make a custom brush tip and assign it to the balloon tool.
But, it’s all done now, and I’m very happy with the end result. I think it very accurately depicts how Hubster and I felt on Valentine’s Day this year, which is to say absolutely AWFUL.
Click on the webcomic above to see it larger!
Kids are so much fun to draw comics about. And so easy. They offer so many real-life instances for inspiration.
Princess does not wake up easy. Even as a toddler, she would sleep hard for hours at nap time (ah, those were the days) and then wake up all bleary-eyed and groggy. Not much has changed now that she’s a pre-teen.
When I started work on this cartoon, it immediately reminded me of some of my favorite “Bloom County” comic strips. Nobody draws groggy, sleep-deprived people like Berke Breathed does. I even pulled out some of my “Bloom County” books for inspiration and spent all day reading comics. That was not a waste of time at all. Nope, no-siree-Bob.