Glen the Caterpillar Comics

Theme by Anders Norén

Author: Theophanes Avery

Theophanes Avery is a hapless wanderer, avid writer, artist, adventurer, joyfully androgynous being, and all around lover of life. They are the author of their debut book Honoring Echo as well as the writer of numerous blogs on many subjects.

Pirate Squirrel Drives Glen’s Nuts

Another day and another stretch of a pun, what can I say? It was a weird week. In today’s panel we get to see Pirate Squirrel stealing the ultimate ride – Glen’s acorn carriage. And we get to see Depressed Teddy all tangled up in the reigns!

The Making of Glen

I have been SO focused on writing and editing lately I haven’t had much time for Glen BUT with that being said I did add a few new elements this week. The first was a muse… I was completely and utterly out of ideas so I started having a nonsense conversation with someone until something came of it. This is so much easier than coming up with a new panel every week on my own!!

Besides that the biggest challenge I had drawing today’s panel would be the position of the depressed teddy bear…. again he’s in an odd position as I have him flopped up-side-down on the seat of the carriage tangled in the reigns. It’s… interesting how a teddy bear can change my perspective of the physical world…

I also stopped myself from making this comic overly complicated as I was going to have the squirrel driving out from under a house made of nuts… but that seems like a whole ‘nother joke in and of itself so I will save it for later!

Glen Minds his Peas in Queues…

Hey hey! Welcome to Glen’s new release day, FRIDAY! This time I am keeping it Friday. It was total madness to change it to Wednesday and I apologize.

Anyway… I was low on inspiration this week so I decided to play with puns. I learned that the phrase, “mind your p’s and q’s” is a British saying and that historians and etymologists can’t agree on what p’s and q’s actually are… So I decided to answer that question once and for all. They’re peas and queues.

Bear with me American audience, I know “queue” is not a word we use often here (unless we work the phones somewhere) and bear with me English audience for I clearly am not British. Much love to everyone though!

The Making of Glen

This week’s comic was so obscenely simple it only took me a few minutes to draw so I have little to report on except for the fact I am learning comics can get their point across very smoothly if there’s no distractions. Simplicity. It’s beautiful, isn’t it?

Glen Fails at a Dad Joke

I admit it – I have been obsessed with my writing lately and not giving Glen the attention he needs. Also writing has been my entire world for a few weeks and it’s burrowed into my brain so deep that I was unable to come up with a plotline for this week’s comic that wasn’t writing related. So here we are! Making bad puns… about writing…

The Making of Glen

Today I decided to draw Glen Old School – in one layer! Using the same tools I would have in Classic Microsoft Paint. It was a fun jaunt down memory lane but only lasted until I had to put in speech bubbles and text which are automatically a new layer. And then I decided a plain solid colored background was boring so instead I put them on the beach. They like the beach. I think. I’m still struggling to get the right expression on these little buggars. Could use some help!

Glen Decides to Give Cupid a Taste of His Own Medicine…

I guess Glen has had a far more turbulent love life than I have previously thought as he’s in a bit of a vengeful mood today – hunting Cupid with his own bow and arrow. Now how he got these items or what he plans on aiming them at he’s leaving a mystery but I have a feeling Cupid is about to fall head over heals for the Kraken… Today might not be the best day to be a cherub.

The Making of Glen

I wanted very badly to have Glen wearing heart-shaped granny glasses today but I wanted them to be translucent like real sunglasses and I could NOT find online how to do this! So I had to make something up.

Basically I took the watercolor brush, warped the opacity, and painted a nice square over Glen’s face. I then took the eraser and drew two hearts, erasing everything around them, and using a red water color brush to highlight the rims. I then moved them around to the best position on his face before drawing in the nose and ear pieces. I’m happy with the result but I feel like there was probably a LOT easier way to accomplish it. I have to get back to trying to learn more illustration skills. I feel like I am not finding everything I need.

I also made the background with heart decorations but it came out WAY too bright and seemed to be too distracting (seen below) from the over all image so I again took that pink watercolor brush and washed the whole thing out. I am satisfied with the results.

Glen’s Sweet Potato Commercial

This week was riddled with migraines and misery so the Glen comic I churned out is very simple… and terribly punderful. Did I get Gone with the Wind mixed up with Cassablanca in my head? Maybe…. but I don’t care, Glen is goddamn adorable in a fedora!

Glen dresses as musical genres…

I admit, I’ve been swimming around a void as far as inspiration goes so I decided to go back to the basics and basically use Glen as a paper doll like I used to do as a teenager. Isn’t he a peach?!

I know, these music genres seem really random, and they are! I chose them by which I thought would be amusing to draw. I may have missed the mark on a few but the rest? Adorable. And yes, circus and bubblegum are real music genres, if you don’t believe me ask YouTube.

The Making of Glen

This week’s Glen started with a random image in my head of Glen covered in bubble gum, weeping piteously because it popped on him, but could I make that into a whole comic?! It was a stretch but yes, I managed.

What did I learn? I learned that making a caterpillar look angry is REALLY hard. I need to work on his facial expressions hardcore. Also it’s no easier to put make-up on Glen as it is myself. Fucking impossible. I don’t know how you ladies, painted gents, and other make-up lovin’ folk do it. Seriously. HOW?

Also I didn’t mean to cross dress Glen, and maybe I didn’t, but there’s a little playful genderfuckery in here. I appreciate that. I think so do these musical genres. I still have no idea how Glen ended up looking so feminine in the punk one though… that… I just have no explanation for.

Glen would like to be let in…

I’m not going lie – I had a whopper of a migraine this week which threw me for days so I was not with-it enough to draw and post a Glen on Wednesday. I apologize for all the adult children out there weeping because hump day was missing a certain blue caterpillar.

With that being said it looks like Glen spent those two days wandering the neighborhood like a feral cat… SIIIIIGH.

The Making of Glen

OK, so this whole comic was very spur of the moment and I didn’t spend a lot of time on it… still, this is the first time I attempted drawing Glen behind glass. I hope the little paw and tongue smudges were worth it.

Glen poses for Tarot cards…

This week I was running low on inspiration for Glen until the idea of drawing him as The Hanging Man popped into my head. I thought it’d be super cute to have him all tangled up and discombobulated. And when I drew it I was so happy with how it came out I knew I had to do a full spread – of totally random cards. You see, I don’t know diddly about Tarot.

That being said I sure had fun with this one! Glen is typically adorable and I couldn’t resist drawing a flaming tower, I mean who could?! Was it an unfortunate accident involving a Frankenstein-like experiment that caused this inferno or was the suicidal teddy bear at it again?? I do not know.

Of course now I have shared these four cards I am getting all sorts of commentary. “Now you need to draw THE WHOLE DECK!” “And a companion book! Glen’s view of the Tarot!” And I am struggling really hard not to do this because wow… it sounds like so much fun. I could learn the Tarot while drawing it! And there’s actually places I could print a self published deck these days. But who would buy them?! Glen isn’t that famous yet. Maybe someday…

The Making of Glen

I admit the past few Glen comics were… pretty quick and easy to draw. I’d become a bit lazy or maybe I was just lacking inspiration, I don’t know, but this week I was all in! And I had to do this in SO MANY LAYERS. Thirty-three to be exact and it wasn’t enough!

I learned that illustration can be moved and resized without issue but for whatever reason the text remains stubbornly where you put them. However the little grabby tool that looks like an arrow hovering over a cube works really well to just drag the text wherever. This was so much easier than the cut and pasting I was doing!

I’m also learning how to draw my characters from different poses and angles which sounds easy but wasn’t. Hanging Glen upside-down, putting things in his paws, and drawing the suicidal teddy lobbing itself out a window was difficult! Not to mention remembering how the hell I was making flames before! I think I failed there, honestly, but it doesn’t look that bad either.

Glen’s Great Whoopie Pie Caper…

Ever have a news story stuck in your head forever because it was just so random and ridiculous? That’s what happened today. I got thinking about an incident that happened at the Skowhegan Fair Ground last summer… someone, and I can only assume someone who was very very stoned, stole $1,000 worth of whoopie pies and cookies during the night. Not cash. Not anything of real use. Whoopie pies. I mean this is right up there with the theft (and then eventual return) of the Turtle Boy statue. Ah! Small town life in New England! There’s nothing like it.

But back to the point. I don’t believe they ever caught the whoopie pie bandit… maybe they will after the above vital evidence is released. It was a caterpillar. His name was Glen. And he was jus trying to spread joy. Mystery solved.

The Making of Glen

I did learn a few things drawing this… the first is that if I am tracing something – let’s say the tail end of a pick-up truck – I should enlarge it to the right size first. Tracing it in actual size and then enlarging the tracing just makes it look pixelated to high hell.

Secondly I learned layers are awesome to bury Glen under. Also hiding layers makes drawing additional layers far less chaotic.

Glen Rings in the New Year!

HAPPY NEW YEAR! WOOO!!

Did you know there are several dozen Happy New Year songs and they all sound exactly the same? Yeah…. so I was at a loss of inspiration for this comic. I knew being New Year’s Day I had to do something to tip my hat to the holiday at hand but here’s the thing…. As an introverted teetotaler who abhors drunkeness, crowds, and loud noise I don’t really like New Years… I know, I’m a total blasphemer. Worse yet I have no real positive Happy New Year Memories with which to draw on – no romantic fated kisses, no wild unremembered nights, no exuberance for what’s to come – if anything I’m just perplexed by the whole thing. This year I spent it geeking out to the Twilight Zone and Doctor Who.

But with that being said I am very much looking forward to the new year. I can’t believe it’s 2020! And I hope Glen’s fans out there are just as hopeful. It is a new decade after all. Let’s fill it with mischievous giggles!

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