Tag: lynda barry

The Late Night Comix Show

I’ve started streaming on Twitch. I’m calling it “The Late Night Comix Show” because I’m leading the audience (you?) through comics making activities LIVE on Sunday nights at 9 PM! I’m also reading some indie and alternative comics (comix) to tie in what what we’re making into what people have already made, with a focus on what inspires me.

A comic, or a recording of my attempt to get into the image of what the show could be!

This idea has been bubbling up in me for a while now. I’ve wanted to be in Lynda Barry’s lineage of comics making (I have other inspirations I swear!). Her comics classroom and teaching position look so cool! But I can’t snap my fingers and become a comics professor.

So I’ve wondered… “what isn’t she doing that I could be doing?”

I’ve also noticed there aren’t many streamers leading the audience through drawing exercises, at least at first glance. Places like the Sequential Artists Workshop (SAW) are holding free weekly zoom classes to make comics together, and that’s the closest thing I can think of to what I want the Late Night Comix Show to be. But as the sole show runner, and through the weird and new situation of “streaming” an almost one-way broadcast, I can do some different things.

“some different things”

Not necessarily original things! I’m sure the guided activity live stream is a thing! But comix? With the anti-critique, careerist-neutral, DIY philosophy of Lynda Barry? With time constraint and cheap material tactics?

Actually, I am thinking of WendyMac who has pretty much done this type of thing for children, up to and including using Lynda Barry’s methods. I am also thinking of Bob Ross. But also Mr. Rogers. Not that I’m planning to get that good at this, or that I’d like that level of production. I’d rather come off as a confident amateur. I feel like attachment to polished (gilded) aesthetics is a creativity killer, and it’s such a widespread and powerful demon. How many times has waiting “until it looks professional” stopped me from sharing my work?

But back to WendyMac – we deal with a whole new set of problems when we try to write and draw and make comics as adults… want to see me try to deal with them, LIVE? 🙂

Is this more or less professional than making this in OBS? If I waited to stream until I learned OBS… I would have never started.

My next stream will be tomorrow (5/7/2023) at 9 PM on https://www.twitch.tv/haberfish. It will also be recorded. It should be available there for 7 days after. I plan to upload recordings on YouTube as well. I run the show with that subset of the audience in mind.

I had fun doing my first two streams. So I’m confident enough to make a blog post! The first one I didn’t record – because I didn’t know I had to set Twitch up to automatically record. The second time my audio was bad. I solved that by turning off one of the cameras. So uh… the first recording is barely watchable. Try turning the volume down and don’t use headphones lol sorry!

The Late Night Comix Show is an experiment. It’s already been successful, because I have a lot of new data about what I like to do. I also now know members from my Comics in the Circle community are supportive of the idea! Now my goal is to make enough episodes (10?) where I can say I tried a variety things. At the very least it will be a log of my approach to making comics. My goal after that will be to confirm that I have audience members making comics with me, either live or using the recordings. If that’s happening… this could become a bigger project…

So that’s what’s up! If you’re interested, I hope you will participate to our mutual benefit! If you know of a friend who might be interested, please share this post! Thank you!

Three Artist Trading Cards

I put together a “wisdom text” shelf after taking a meditation course with Lama Rod Owens. It’s full of texts that have helped me experience some liberation. I’ll describe this experience as one where I feel open, not stuck, an experience of not constricting around any particular thought or feeling, at least for a moment. I feel like I can choose.

So a few weeks ago I went to this shelf without much expectation. I took out Making Comics by Lynda Barry. And I started reading it from the beginning.

This is the spread where I stopped. Look at that last sentence! YES! I have FAITH in the “spontaneous ordering forces from which stories appear.”

I wanted to make artist trading cards immediately. I also wanted to try copying styles of artists I had seen online. So I made these three cards:

Each started with a squiggle. I made one with pencil, then I made one with colored pencils, then I made one with colored Flair pens. Then I was tired, so I stopped. The styles I tried copying (from memory) for the first two were Paul Peng’s and Hannah Lock’s. Their drawings make me want to draw. This is a quality that I find precious. The goal was to experiment, not to copy their styles well. The experiment was a success because I made three drawings.

Stories and characters took shape. I had faith this would happen.