Category: Cartoon

Web comics and other cartoons by by Helen E. H. Madden

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Rats! Episode 70 – Turn About Is Fair Play

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Click on the image above to see the full-size version.

Do cadets at Virginia Tech still do Turn-About Day? I remember it fairly well. The upper classmen always did their damnedest to make the new cadets miserable all day long, because hey, turn-about is fair play, right? Only I can honestly never recall any new cadet who went out of their way to make an upper classman miserable. Yeah, I can recall some new cadets who did some really dumb stuff (I’m looking at you, freshman who insisted on drinking so much that you ended up puking your feet out your mouth and into the toilet on the very first night you got pass). And I can remember some new cadets who did some stuff accidentally or out of ignorance that didn’t make a lot of people happy (I fell into that category more than once). But I cannot recall a freshman cadet who went out of their way to upset or make miserable an upper classman. That would have been beyond stupid.

So turn-about really wasn’t fair play, and it was never going to be fair play, so whatever.

But I would like to know if the VTCC still does Turn-About Day, and if any rats out there think it’s fun.

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PerCaDraMo Day 09 – Mad Hatter

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As always, click on the image above to see the larger version.

This was done with a Faber-Castell brush pen on sketch paper. I have this tiny little sketch pad that’s 3.5×5 inches, perfect for carrying around to do quick cartoons like these. I like to fill the entire page but don’t always have time to do that with a larger sheet of paper. Remember, I work during the dribs and drabs of time I get between Mom duties and other demands. Anyway, this was drawn at our pediatrician office while waiting for the girls to get their flu shots. When I was pregnant, I used to do a lot of sketching in waiting rooms. I almost miss it.

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PerCaDraMo Day 08 – Planet of the Apes Again

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This was the original sketch I did yesterday for PerCaDraMo, and since I’m feeling lousy right now and I did two sketches yesterday, I’m going to just use this one for today. You can compare this with yesterday’s PerCaDraMo and see the difference between the two medium, Brushes on iPad versus brush pen on paper. I will say I was fairly pleased with the fact that I was able to make yesterday’s sketch look like marker on paper, at least to me. After painting in the black lines and areas, I went back with the eraser tool set up with a spotty brush and lightly picked up some of the black so the red color showed through. To me, that gave it the marker on paper effect.

Anyway, I’ve got a lot of stuff to do today, so I’ll post something new tomorrow. But for now, two apes in a row! Enjoy.

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ACW Episode 136 – Too Tempting to Resist

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Click on the thumbnail above to view the full-sized image.

Okay, I know last week I said I wasn’t doing NaNoWriMo, but it appears I’m doing it anyway. Since November first, I’ve been able to write at least 1800 words a day, and usually 2K plus. It’s not been hard; I just sit down for an hour and type whatever comes to mind. In some cases, this has been entire scenes, including plot, dialog, characterization, and setting. On other days, I’ve just written about what the theme of the story is, or I’ve done some outlining and back story. As far as I’m concerned, it all counts toward that end goal of 50000 words by November 30th.

I’ve yet to spend more than an hour writing when I do this, which has made me realize a few things.

First, I can type really, really fast. Yesterday I wrote over 2K words in 40 minutes. The keyboard was smoking.

Second, it matters more to me that I get the ideas down than that I get the words perfect. It’s take me a while to reach this point, but I’ve learned that once the basic bones of the story are captured, I can always go back and fix/edit/polish/perfect later. Thus the reason why it’s been painless for me to write 2K words every day.

Third, even though it’s only taking me an hour to get in my NaNoWriMo word count each day, it’s still a significant amount of time out of my day. After a week of doing this, I’ve come to the conclusion that I need to trim back a little more in other areas of my life, just so I have a life. I can’t do everything I want to do, and I sure as hell can’t do everything everyone else wants me to do. I posted on Facebook earlier today about how I’m getting tired of other people making demands on my schedule and telling me, “Hey, you work for yourself so your schedule is really flexible.” It’s not, and I’m not putting up with that attitude any more. I bust ass every day to take care of my family and to get my work done. So the rule is, if I am not employed by you, did not marry you, or did not give birth to you, you are not at the top of my priority list. In fact, you are probably at the bottom of the list, competing with a billion other lesser priorities for that last chunk of my free time that I may or may not decide to give away. Deal with it.

Final and fourth lesson – I love to to write, especially when I’ve got an idea in my head that I just can’t shake. I can’t do the short story a week any more, at least not write and podcast at that rate, but I can still write and once I’ve got something written and edited and polished, then I can podcast it. And maybe publish it too. And that’s a schedule and a goal I can live with.

For those of you doing NaNoWriMo, keep on rocking. For those of you not doing NaNoWriMo, thank you for your understanding and support. And for those rare few of you who decide you’d rather be assholes and not support, go suck it.

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PerCaDraMo Day 07 – Planet of the Apes

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I love Planet of the Apes. Not the Tim Burton movie, not the recent movie with James Franco, but the original movie with Roddy McDowell. I grew up watching those movies, and they were my gateway into science fiction. To this day, I still think they are the best series of movies ever made.

I had a tually drwn today’s cartoon on paper with a Faber Castell brush pen, but I’m not feeling well right now, so I’m not heading up tothe office to scan it in. I’ll post it tomorrow. It’s the same subject matter, same picture, just done on paper instead of on the iPad. This image was done using the Brushes app.