I was going to draw this last week and actually post it on time but I ended up running into massive self-inflicted technical difficulties! Suffice to say I fried my laptop’s brains and my PC went on strike when I accidentally overloaded its memory… which resulted in me not being able to save anything…
But we’re back! And happy to be so! And isn’t Glen frigging adorbs investigating bad puns? I thought so.
The Making of Glen
I could of spent a lot longer doing this comic in a more anal-retentive manner but I’m sort of in between doing 300 other things so I did this whole comic quick and dirty. I had no idea herons were such an easy shape to draw! Who knew!
The past couple of weeks have been absolutely horrible for me so I haven’t had the time, energy, or funny in me to draw a Glen comic on time. That’s why this one is going up a day late… and is darker than usual. As I have stated in my other blogs gallows humor is how to get through the dark times.
The Making of Glen
I am starting to experiment with the idea of multiple panels when I can’t get a concept out in one. And that more layers is always better than less. My life has been so stressful as of late I am struggling to find the time but I really wish to grow as an illustrator and maybe do a short Glen animation in the future. It’s always good to evolve as an artist.
My humor has been a little… dark…. lately. This year’s Thanksgiving comic is the perfect illustration of this. I wanted to do a joke about a pardoned turkey and immediately my mind ran to, “Put him in a balaclava!” (Apparently the voice in my head is British or else it would have said ski mask…) From there it was all down hill.
The Making of Glen
This week’s comic came very easily to me. I drew the body of the turkey first and added his head and wing in a second layer. From there I just needed to add the ski mask, Glen, and something suspicious for him to say. It all went very quickly. Think it took me less than an hour!
This week’s comic illustrates what happens when you mix Lord of the Flies with baby caterpillars and a holiday stool pigeon… Does anyone else find that damn elf as creepy as I do?! This was a weirdly cathartic strip this week.
The Making of Glen
This week has been rough. I’m dealing with some things in my personal life that have left me drained of energy, creative juices, and time. As such I needed something super simple to draw and well…. how did it get so complicated?!
I ended up tracing a photo of Elf on a Shelf and then deleting the photo layer and then repeating that with a chair that was tilted at just the right angle. Resize so both fit. Add caterpillars. And lights, and a halo around those lights with a soft wash… and there we have it!
I’m actually happy with this. More so than I thought I would be!
Well, it’s the day before Thanksgiving – otherwise known as America’s most passive-aggressive holiday and I thought I would draw a comic to reflect our ever conflicted sentiments on this event. On one hand Thanksgiving is kind of sweet – it’s a gathering of family and friends to eat a big delicious meal and give thanks to the indigenous people’s of North America for saving our asses and feeding us when we ended up on a strange new continent totally fucking unprepared. On the other hand it’s also the holiday we have to eat a whole meal with our most racist relatives and celebrate the near total genocide of aforementioned indigenous peoples…. SIGH. This is why we can’t have nice things.
To lighten the mood a bit I have decided to look at the ridiculous side of Thanksgiving – a historical narrative of pure lunacy – heavily influenced by Eddie Izzard’s “tiny flags” routine which has aged well over the years, I have to say.
The Making of Glen
This might sound insane but I have been so on top of things this week I actually drew this entire comic on Saturday, not the two minutes before release as I have been doing. As such I was able to take an idea I had and really tool with it. Mostly this came in the form of drawing things, realizing my perspective was way off, and having to resize and move them which I can do with the help of layers. WOO LAYERS! So much better than having to get it all right the first time around like in the Olden Times of Microsoft Paint!
I don’t know how much time I spent doing this but it was longer than you’d expect… I was however super relaxed listening to music and watching people get tattooed on the TV behind me. I’m a multi-tasker. This is probably how the Depressed Teddy found his way into the scene once again creating a mock Harold and Maude-esque suicide in the background. I’ve had a few chats with friends about whether or not Depressed Teddy should have an actual name and whether or not this lack of a proper name is contributing to his bleak mood. Is he Maurice the Intensive Care Bear? Or perhaps a Steve the Failed Welbutrin PR Bear? Or something cutesey like Chuckles? I don’t know…
Hell, I don’t even know a lot about Glen himself. I thought he was the size of a caterpillar but sometimes he’s the size of a teddy bear. It took me until yesterday to realize he’s been eating the mushroom to achieve this – one side makes you smaller, one side makes you bigger. I have been asked how old he is in addition to this and I just… I have nooo idea. He has an old sounding name and an archaic background story so it seems likely he’s been around forever but who knows! Not me!
I remember when the Deadpool movie was coming out. I had no idea who or what Deadpool was and only could imagine one of those fish tanks full of deceased guppies at Walmart… you know, a dead pool.
I did however watch with some glee and intrigue as others argued among themselves about it. Would this movie do the original Deadpool justice? Would he be a psychopathic killer who shags anyone and everyone he sees? And then the obvious… nope… he’s been mainstreamed and cuteyfied, like the Ninja Turtles!
But my issue with Deadpool wasn’t any of the above. I’m not enough of a nerd to care that much about him buuuuut I could wonder how the fuck he was breathing without a mouth hole. My issue was with the artist and his general design. WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO SMOTHER HIM?!
Welcome to my mind. It goes off a lot.
PS Glen’s hapless children will always be more subtly disturbing to me than any pansexual serial killer…
It had to happen. We had to be introduced to the most controversial character in the Glen family: the suicidal teddy bear. Why? BECAUSE. I know you’re probably staring at the screen laughing nervously and asking, “What?” It’s OK. We’re all confused. Mostly because I adopted the idea of the suicidal teddy bear from one of the weirdest corners of YouTube as he was featured in Les Rythems Digitales’ Sometimes. Sometimes we all feel like a suicidal teddy bear. Wait, what? No. Just say no to defluffing kids.
