My first animated gif???? Also: Book Update (Patreon)

I actually made an animated gif in Photoshop????? I've always either used one of those free services online or got Matt to do it but today I put on my Big Boy Pants and looked up a tutorial and DID IT MYSELF. Like a GROWN UP. 

What you see here is all the steps one single page of Let's Talk About It went through to become the work of art it is at the end. (NEW PATRONS: You can learn more about LTAI here!)

1) Maria Frantz, our art assistant, provided the initial rough sketch, based off the script. 

2) My pencils.

3) My inks.

4) Matt's colors. 

We've finished 3/5 of the book! Just last week we turned in the third milestone and got our second check from Random House Graphic. The fourth section is the rest of the comic content, and then section five will be miscellaneous art stuff like the cover and some other things I don't remember right now. The last of it has to be turned in by December, so that's five months left, right?

I'm proud of what we're making, I'm proud of our book. 

Working on two books simultaneously is.... not recommended. If it can be avoided, avoid it. 

We're also still working on the second Drawn to Sex book, like we had originally planned. This next one is going to be collecting all the health comics from Oh Joy Sex Toy and it was originally going to come out from Limerence Press in the fall of this year, but then the opportunity to do Let's Talk About It with Random House Graphic came along and we couldn't turn that down so... you know. Two books. At the same time. Hahaha, it's fine, IT'S FINE, EVERYTHING'S FINE. For various reasons, the Drawn to Sex book got bumped to next year and LTAI will be coming out in 2022. I think? God, I don't even remember any more. 

Most of this year was spent alternating weeks on each project, so Week 1 would be working on an OJST comic for the website and D2S book, Week 2 would be on the LTAI book, Week 3 back on OJST, Week 4 LTAI, and so on and so on. 

This wound up feeling really unsatisfying for me, because right as I'd get back into the swing of working on one comic, bam!, it was the end of the week and I'd have to switch gears to the OTHER project. I could never get into a comfortable groove with either, you know? 

Now we've been mixing it up: two weeks on one, two weeks on the other, three weeks on one, one week on the other.  I wish I could just put my head down and power through this last section of LTAI comics, but hiring guest artists to cover my absence on OJST is time consuming and expensive, so it's just not a sustainable option. Also, I've gotta finish drawing the OJST comics that the D2S: Health book needs in order to be complete. 

Wah, listen to me! "Oh noooooo, I have too many awesome passion projects to work on that I somehow managed to earn my living doing! Poooooooor meeeeeeeee." But also, well, yeah. It's hard work. My health has been suffering a lot from the stress-- I've been goin' real bipolar (swinging from manic to depressive to manic to depressive over the course of weeks, which makes it hard to get work done) and my legs sometimes stop working? Like, they won't support my weight and I crumble to the floor? I still tried to get to work anyway, because you don't need your legs to draw (Or, at least, I don't) but every time I got close to my home work desk I'd feel overcome with terror so, uh, I got to have the day off that day. BUT THAT PUTS ME ANOTHER DAY BEHIND SCHEDULE. auhg. 

I dunno. I'm doing the best I can. Matt's been sweet, I've got an appointment with my psychiatrist tomorrow to see about adjusting my medication, and I'm trying real hard to be kind to myself because I'm positive the physical side effects are how my body is processing stress (I had blood work done recently and everything was normal enough). Mostly that means sitting in my garden and tending to my many, many plants. 

Comics is hard. Being self-employed is hard. Running a small business is hard. It's hard. And it's worth it. I think it's worth it? I believe in what we're doing. I'm proud of what we're making. I'm going to be okay and I'm going to have two books to show for it at the end. It's going to be worth it.