There's a lot of text here, but it's all important.
I've come to a bit of a crisis point. I've come to realise this publication isn't going to happen, so I need to do some damage control, sort myself out. It's like dragging a corpse and every extra minute I spend on it is a waste of time.
In fact through talking to other people the idea of purposely creating a publication now seems ridiculous. Most of my researched artists did not start out with intent of creating a publication with their autobiographical comics. The comics have always been singular strips that have been published singularly, only years and years later were a selection of these strips collected into books.
I think in hindsight my research has blinded me. I've been reading most of these women's strips via the collected editions, as it gave me easy access to reading a body of their work. This has brought me to associate autobiographical comics more with books and publications rather than the ongoing diaristic process. They never set out with intent to have these collected into the thick books I'm reading. I have not been viewing these strips in the setting they were meant to be viewed in, thus I've lost an important piece of context that could have helped me from the beginning.
Further more as I mention in my essay and talked about on my blog but have neglected in my practice: most modern female artists currently purely publish on social media platforms such as twitter, instagram, websites and blogs. The alternative newspapers Alison Bechdel published in are pretty much dead. Even Bechdel publishes online now.
SO HERE'S WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN
I am going to scrap my publication! Is it annoying? Yes, but it's almost a relief to see it go. Instead I am going to produce 3 single page comic strips. I feel 3 will be a nice selection.
I will then provide context to this by posting them to social media. I think twitter and instagram will be most suited for this. I may also mock up a blog or website to show, as usually these internet are secondarily posted to artists websites and blogs for archiving purposes.
AND I'M GOING TO MAKE THEM FUN.
Another stumbling block I've come across is that I've been taking the autobiographical aspect very literal and thus I've been drawing mind numblingly boring content, People talking to each other, heads, people sitting down, more heads. Through talking to tutors I've come to realise it just isn't me. This kind of stuff is ok for a page or two, but beyond that I can't bring myself to draw any more. This may have worked for Alison Bechdel but we are different artists. So my strips will be much less literal and more experimental with telling the story.
I'm feeling a lot happier now, and am actually looking forward to making these final pieces.
