comic & process: burdens of life

I like to talk to birds and bugs and plants while I'm outside, walking around. I wonder sometimes if they find it calming or strange. Read on to see how this comic came together.

the sketch

This comic was an exercise in reducing word count. So much art is made better by what you cut rather than what you include. Less is more.

I like to do the sketch in a color other than black because I draw the lineart in black. If my brain wants to start doing clean lineart while I'm just capturing the general idea, then I struggle to stay open to potential changes that could make the comic better. Using any other color helps me stay loose, fresh, and iterative. I never want to assume that the first draft is the best one.

less is more

This comic started out very wordy. As much as I liked the tone of the original text, the quantity was just too high. Short-form comics are kinda like social media videos in this way. You only have a very brief window of anyone's attention span- just a few seconds- and you want them to digest the comic within that window.

After getting feedback from friends on a few different directions for the text, I finally got the word count down in addition to making the text bigger. I always try to show my comics to a few friends before I call it final. They always help it become the best version that it can be.