Category: Cartoon

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

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Freaky Friday – Astronaut Bob, what happened to you?!

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“Astronaut Bob, What Happened to You?!” by Helen E. H. Madden

Yet another iPad, ArtRage masterpiece. I love the dayglow colors in this one, and the way the brush strokes from the watercolor tool gave the space suit a wrinkled appearance. I had some trouble with this one initially because I drew it in white ink on a dark background, and then had to figure out how to color it between the two extremes of light and dark. My first attempt at coloring this failed massively.

These little sketches are so much fun, and very easy to do on the iPad. It’s sort of like throw-away art, art that I don’t really feel the need to fuss over because it’s a) drawn on the iPad, not an expensive sketchbook, and b) nothing more than a quick doodle, really. I think that allows me to be more experimental and free with what I draw. It’s no big deal, I can draw any stupid little thing I want, and so I do and the results turn out pretty well anyway. It’s nice to know I can do that and get away with it!

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Rats! Episode 48 – While you were drunk…

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I am not 100% certain, but I feel like there ought to be another cartoon before this one, finishing up the argument between Kitty and Claw before moving on to poor Irwin Rat. However, it isn’t in the pile of strips I have set aside for the first year, so maybe I’m just mis-remembering things. I’m getting old, so I tend to do that.

Friends do evil things to friends who are hungover. I think that’s a major reason why I never did much drinking in college. My buds were truly evil, and I think they would have seriously messed with me had I ever been hungover. My buds were cool, mind you. Very nice people. But evil, evil people none the less.

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ACW Episode 100 – Snow Balls!

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Oh good god. Have I actually drawn 100 strips? I can’t quite believe it. And yet here we are, at the 100th episode of “The Adventures of Cynical Woman.”

So now what do I do?

Keep drawing, obviously. I’m still having fun with this. If nothing else, it’s a fun way to document what goes on in my family. Perhaps years from now when I am old and grey and in the nursing home, my children will pull out these cartoons and show them to their children, who will then nod sagely and say, “Yeah, that explains a lot about this family.”

In any event, we had snow the day after Christmas, a good 12 inches of it. It was a bit of a surprise to me, and I wish I had cleared more work stuff off my plate so I could spend more time outside with the kids playing in the freezing white stuff. I did get out a couple times, but usually by the time I did, the girls were already done and wanted to come back in for hot chocolate. Still, we did have a snowball fight or two. But the Hubster was really eager to get out there. He build our cock-eyed snow man all by himself even…

From left to right, that’s Pixie, Princess, the cock-eyed snow man, the Hubster, my sister and me. I still don’t know what the snow man was looking at, and now he’s all melted, so he’ll never tell.

In addition to building a snow man, the Hubster also built Snowhenge in the big lot behind our house. Will have to see if I can find that picture. And he had snowball fights with the girls. I was on my way out to join then when Pixie came in snuffling and fussing about how Daddy hit her with a snow ball. Poor baby! But all he did was drop it on her and she asked him to do it, so…

Any way, one of my New Year’s Resolutions this year is to take a whole day off next time it snows. I want to bake, read, draw, and play outside. Screw working while there’s snow on the ground. I got better things to do on a cold winter day!

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Rats! Episode 47 – Who do you think you’re talking to?!

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I’ve never made this mistake, nor had anyone I was dating make it with me, but the thought of something like this happening struck me as being hysterically funny. Yes, I did make up some stuff for this comic strip. I occasionally do it for my other web comic as well, “The Adventures of Cynical Woman.” What can I say? Sometimes real life is a little boring. But not often.

Very little is boring right now, in fact. That’s because your’s truly signed up to be Cookie Mom for my daughter’s Brownie troop. I may have been an ROTC cadet and an officer in the Army Reserves, but I never had any experience with the Girl Scouts until this year. And boy, has it been an experience. The mom who conned me into being cookie mom said the job was low key. She LIED! I’m up to my assets in paperwork right now, and scrambling to keep up with everything. But I keep telling myself, I dealt with much more difficult tasks in the Army Reserves. Like running weapons qualification ranges. Being cookie mom isn’t nearly as bad as being the OIC for a weapons qualification range, because no one my daughter’s Brownie troop is likely to shoot anybody by accident. I hope.

Have fun this week, and thank you to everyone who’s left comments on the blog or sent me emails. I really do appreciate the feedback. It’s good to know people still want to read these comics even twenty years after they were originally published.

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ACW Episode 99 – COOKIES!

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Seriously, this was a mistake. I had no idea how much work would be involved with the job of “Cookie Coordinator” for Princess’ Brownie troop. Nor did I suspect how tempted I would be by all those delicious cookies…

Of course, the cookies aren’t even here yet, but as the “Cookie Mom” for her troop, I was give a free sample box to take home. I haven’t eaten the entire thing. Yet. But I want to. Oh, do I want to.

We’re having a new tile floor installed in the front half of our downstairs this week, so my online presence will be spotty at best. Hopefully, I get all my blog posts done before the workmen show up. Otherwise, if the blog looks sparse this week, you know why!

PS – if anybody wants to buy Girl Scout cookies, you know where to find me 😉 And yes, Princess’ Brownie troop is doing “Gifts of Caring.” If you’d like to support the Girl Scouts but don’t want to eat the cookies yourself, you can buy boxes to be donated to a worthy cause. Princess’ troop is donating their “Gifts of Caring” boxes to the USO. I’ll let you all know how to place orders later on, if you’re interested.

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Rats! Episode 46 – Heads up!

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Welcome back from the holidays! I’m guessing all the cadets are still out on break, but the rest of us have returned to our normal schedule. And I’m doing my best to stay on top of getting these cartoons up on time. It’s a bit easier when I don’t have to worry about shopping for presents or cleaning the house before relatives arrive and stay for a week.

So on to this week’s cartoon. Ah, the stupid things people do for love. It’s always fun to point and laugh at some sap who’s so lovesick he’s dopey, but then it happens to you, and it’s not so fun anymore.

Judging by the backdrop, I set this cartoon right front of the cadet dorms. I think that’s the flagpole there, with a plaque commemorating alumni who served and died in WWI. My memory is fuzzy on this though, since I haven’t been to the campus in a while. But I’m pretty sure that’s where this is happening.

Lots of weird stuff used to happen on weekends around the dorms. None of it ever to me though. I was pretty boring back then. Not much has changed over the years.

Hope you all had a good holiday!

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ACW Episode 98 – New Year? What New Year?!

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I have been busting ass since before the holidays began and I still haven’t caught up. I don’t know why, but there was a sudden influx of work in November and December and it’s been all I can do to keep my head about water. I have a novel to finish, book covers to create, cartoons to draw, a podcast to start this week…

AAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUGH!!!!!!!!!!

Okay, calm down… breathe… just breathe… slowly… slowly…

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

All right, now that that’s out of my system, where was I? Oh yeah, I’m overloaded. I’m going to have to continue to bust ass to complete everything that’s on my plate. Once the novel is finished and the podcasting is well underway, I’ll probably feel better, but I have to start podcasting this week before I’ve finished the novel. And there’s a ton of stuff going on at Princess’ school too this week. And we have to head out of town this weekend to see my in-laws–

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGH!!!!!!!!!!!

I think I better lie down now.

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On the fifth day of Christmas my true love gave to me – SKULLS!

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“Skulls!” by Helen E. H. Madden, 28 December, 2010

I told you you’d get sick of hearing about my iPad, but I can’t stop posting the results. I’m in LURVE with iPad and ArtRage! I made this drawing to be the background image for my unlock screen on my iPad. I really ought to add a skull and crossed bones in the center, and I may later on, but for now, I like it as it is!

You just know there’ll be more to come…

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ACW Episo– HEY! Did I mention I got a new iPad?!!

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“Bloody Mary” by Helen E. H. Madden, 28 December 2010

You guys are going to be so sick of hearing about my love affair with my new iPad. Sorry about that, but I am really, truly, honestly in LURVE!

I’ve done about a drawing a day on the iPad since I pulled it out of its box on Christmas morning. That’s a drastic increase in productivity and creativity for me, and I’m not at all unhappy about it. I’m mainly using the ArtRage app, but have been playing around in Sketchbook Pro, Brushes and Inspire Pro. ArtRage is the most complicated of these apps, but also the most flexible and it’s given me the best results so far. I’m sure, however, that I’ll get up to speed with the others before long.

I’m not using a stylus for these images, just my fingers. ArtRage lets me zoom in very close for detail, which is nice even though the zoom function is a bit of a pain to use. But it makes up for that with all the other natural art tools I can use – water colors, ink pen, chalk, crayon, etc. Layering various tools on top of each other has produced some interesting results. Again, I’m a very happy camper.

And this is far from the last you will hear about my iPad. In addition to creating artwork with it, I found a yoga app and a calorie counter/fitness tracker app. Plus I’ve downloaded plenty of ebooks. I’ve already read one book since Christmas, and plan to get through another before New Years. Yep, I’m a happy girl.

Enjoy your holidays, folks!

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ACW Episode 97 – Merry ChristmaaaaaaaAAAACK!

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Happy holidays, folks! I opted to go with a Christmas card rather than the usual strip, and decided to play around with ArtRage to give it all those pretty colors! Huzzah!

This is the first Christmas for our new cats, Hiccup and Toothless, and they’re quite excited by the tree. So far they’ve stuck to just knocking off lots of ornaments, but I’m pretty sure they’ll be climbing that tree any time soon. And I just know how that’s going to end. Meanwhile, we’ve failed so far to take our annual holiday picture and send it out with our cards, so if you’re on our list and you get a copy of this in the mail, you know what happened!

Anyway, Merry Christmas and all that jazz. Blog updates will be spotty at best this week, but you know I love you all anyway!