24 Hour Comics Day: Oct 1st!!!

Tomorrow I will get up in the middle of the night (well.. 7 am.. but with my night rhythm of 3-11 that's the middle of the night) take a huge suitcase with lots of drawing paper, my laptop and even an air mattress and sleeping bag in there and get on the train to Zwolle, where I hope to arrive 1 1/2 hours later.

Then I will take a bus to the art school where I will join 29 other comic book writers at 11 am in an effort to make a 24 pages comic book WITHIN 24 hours.

It sounds like heaps of fun and a serious lack of sleep. The latter being something I am not good at, so I am bringing an air mattress that I can throw in an empty room at the school somewhere in case I really cannot make it till 11 am the next morning, or in case I finish in less than 24 hours.

Or maybe I'll just get up a bit later, take a later train, and try to do it in less than 24 hours ;-)

My friend Saskia gave me the greatest idea for a comic. It will be about my new bunnies Hobbes and Mouse. I have already designed their characters: Sherlock Hobbes and Sidekick Mouse:



So wish me luck! And check in here or my FB account, in case I will be able to put updates during 24HCD. I am sure I could use some cheering on ;-)

Bunny Update

After deciding I could not keep Lizzie any longer, I brought Lizzie and Ziggie to the Shelter and brought Hobbes and Flo back home with me.



It broke my heart, but I knew it was the right decision.

Six weeks later little Flo got sick. The vet admitted her, but she did not get better, so we decided to operate her to see what was wrong. Turned out her liver was completely ruined, so we decided to not let her wake up from the surgery.
We buried her in the woods.


Because it was better for Hobbes not to be alone for too long, I got him a new friend: Muis (Mouse)



But a month later, Hobbes got sick as well.



Because I had researched what was wrong with Flo's liver (the vet took a photo) I discovered she had cirrhoses and that could have been caused by infectants like a hepatitis virus or a parasite. So when Hobbes got sick I asked the vet to take some blood and have it checked for liver functions.

Turned out one of them was too high, but that could be a sign of a liver parasite called coccidia. (Lizzie had an intestinal form of coccidia last year, but the liver form is much more dangerous to fully grown bunnies as well).
So we treated both bunnies for that and after a week Hobbes started to get better! Yay! So unfortunately Flo could not be saved anymore, but because of what happened to her we were able to save Hobbes.

Needless to say it was another emotional couple of months but I am glad we got to save Hobbes
...and so is Mouse:

What a year...

It's Tuesday the 21st.. which means Monday the 20th is over.. it was the birthday of the friends I lost last November. He would have gotten 45 years old, but he never made that.

At the 1st of this month I said my goodbye's to my brother in law, who died in the early morning of the 3th. He was cremated the 8th of June.
He was the husband of my only sister, father of my two nieces of 11 and 15.

He was the relative I told you about before, the one that we found out had cancer the same week my best friend was buried.

It took two hospitals 3 1/2 months to find out it was related to acute leukaemia, but they couldn't really say what it was. But it didn't matter because two weeks later he had already gotten so bad he could not be treated any more. They hoped to keep him alive for 6-12 month with blood transfusions, but he barely made two months.

The week after all this I came to the realisation that I can't keep Lizzie and Ziggie. Lizzie started biting last October and despite all my effort to train her, have her spayed (or is it 'neutered'?), give her a boyfriend and even give her several different alternative medications, still bites as much and as nasty as she used to. I have nerve damage in two places of my left hand already. And now her new boyfriend won't let himself get petted by me either, because Lizzie attacks him when I even stick out a finger in his direction.

I have tried everything I could think of to try and change Lizzie's behaviour, but nothing works... So as much as it hurts me, I am going to see if the shelter can help me find a better place for them with someone that has a yard so they can go and live outside and that doesn't mind that they can't be touched a lot.

So I hope you will understand why I STILL haven't posted any cartoon updates here, but my life has been a bit of a complete and total mess the past 7 months *understatement*

Painting my Ziggie

And here is Lizzie's new boyfriend Ziggie!

Painting my Lizzie

I painted her because I missed her so much now she has been out to stay with Uncle Sef for a week and a half to get hitched to a new little furry friend (and no: not to have babies, but because I recently learned bunnies shouldn't live alone)



The introductions went smoothly and since two night they have been sharing a cage so she may already be coming home with her new beau tomorrow night :)

This is the new beau, still thinking up a name for him


And this is the couple getting used to eachother:




And finally sharing a cage together:




With a little luck they may be coming home tomorrow night already! So then I will have TWO little bunny friends as my room mates :)

Sorry about the delay...

I am really sorry I didn't have much to upload here anymore these past few months, but me and my family seem te keep getting hit by tragedies that drain me from all energy to work on the book.
I just heard (on my birthday!) that a very close relative - only two weeks after his cancer diagnosis - has already regressed so badly that he is now officially 'untreatable' and has been sent home to.. well.. :-(

I'll see if I can just upload some old stuff maybe. Thanks for still checking here every now and then though, xxx

Lizzie at 8 months..

.. so fully grown if I can believe what the books say about it.
Isn't she cute?

Picking it back up...

Well.. guys... I was finally able to pick the editing and colouring back up. Took me quite a while because I was working really hard on it when I heard the terrible news about my friend, so every time I started again it just felt too traumatic and I stopped again.

But last week I organised a write-in for a couple of fellow wrimo's in a café and that way it was easier to work on the pages again and I was able to break through the trauma. I am going very slowly though (did 1 1/4 page since then), also because I had more bad news end of December and again last week (a close relative turns out to be VERY ill) and as a result I am not doing all that well myself. So I am going to take my time.

I am also not happy with the ending so I still want to change that, so I can't post that yet. I am also a little scared I will lose all my readers if I give you the ending before I am finished with the project.. but I don't want to tease you with withholding it for another half year or so. But I do need to edit it somewhat.

Maybe I can draw different ones and you guys can help me pick :-D

So.. there is my update.. I can upload some of the finished pages again every now and then if you like? Anyone interested in that?

Hoppy hoppy...

My best friend...

His name was Alfred and last Sunday he had fatal parachuting accident. He was 44...

I'll miss you always my dearest Fred...



The last few pages of my book may be a little later because of this, but I know you will all understand. I just wanted to let you know...

Page 138 - part 3

Nancy is not allowed to guess any more... *rofl*



(this is the last third of page 138, but because I had one page double this one still has the wrong page number underneath, but it really IS page 138.. :-D)

Page 138 - part 2

Page 138 - part 1

.. of 3.
tomorrow part 2 ;-)

Page 137!!

(and 138 in a way, since they turned out to be the same page :-D)

Page 136!!!

Yes Ron, there is an IKEA according to google.. :-D
(sorry for the bright green, but any other RGB green became too dark when turned to CMYK)

Page 135!!

I found out yesterday that page 137 and 138 are the same, so the whole story is not 142 pages long, but only 141... so here is the six-before-last page!

Page 134!!!

I am so stuck..

..it's just not pretty any more. Don't know how I was able to do 6 pages a day on day 1 and 2 because I can barely do one the last few days. And yesterday I only edited one.. could it be that we are in week 2 of NaNo? :-s

Page 133!!

Fully inked and all!!

But a link again because a thumbnail may give away the story.
click here:

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipteY4BprqAqT5AE0qvSL6cAP_ETF3AfVsGVRugsodi0enihP5UruxMZfBRRXzuslNBFcXvJuiuhGfx9FT_Gkm9qnm_VLGnbb1r5H1bRrR2SrxAF6Rp83KI9i4MV9DDk0GjCHGQVAvvQk/s800/nano09-blog133kl.jpg

Some more examples I am proud of:

Here are pages 9 and 29:





It keeps taking more and more time to edit and ink a page though... I went down from 6 pages a day to 4 already, but the honest thing to do would be to count 2 pages as 2k of words a day (compared to the NaNoWriMo participants that are writing a 50,000 word novel this month) but that way I will reach 50K already when I have only done 60 pages and I want to do at least 100 (3 pages a day), preferably 120 (4 pages a day) and ideally 142 (6 pages a day)... but I am already behind on the 4 pages-a-day quota...