Jun10
5Comment
Sigh. Tonight I feel so conflicted; everything is bittersweet. I will miss Maddie beyond belief, she’s been a part of me for 2.5 years – longer when you count the parts where I was just thinking about a different life Medusa could have had. I know Maddie so well, I really don’t feel like her story ends here, although our visit with her life is ending. And since this is the last strip I guess I can tell you other things I know about her:
Her favorite musician is Orpheus, the hot lead singer of a band that plays at The Jolly Grape. She helps him out with a little problem he has with his wife and the Lord of the Underworld, using her love know-how, and she gets backstage passes for life in return. She also helps Circe out with her new crafty-as-a-fox boyfriend who isn’t all he seems….Maddie never stops loving the action side of her job, but sometimes having to always be invisible around all mortals gets her down. She and Perseus…maybe I’ll leave that to your imagination?
Thank you all SO much for honoring us with your attention. I will never forget how grateful I am that you’ve stuck with us and this strip for so long. Over and out!
Doris
Time is a funny thing. Here I was thinking, No way, has it really been 2.5 years? And then, while I was eating dinner with the fiance, I realized that the World Cup qualifications were on TV. Already!? And here I was thinking I couldn’t possibly wait four years to watch the Netherlands give it another shot! I guess working on fun comic strips really make the time fly!
I asked myself as I finished this last strip, do I feel like I’ve made 2.5 years worth of improvement in my art? The answer was yes and no. It’s actually very similar to when I was training to run a marathon. Yes, I did build muscle and get into shape – but I didn’t get into amazing shape. In some ways, my body just learned how to work more efficiently. So yes, I’ve gained some neat cartooning, cintiq and photoshopping skills I didn’t have before. I’ve also gained a whole ton of speed working with weekly deadlines :) But I don’t feel like I’ve made huge improvements in coloring, lighting, and anatomy (cartooning, while the epitome of exaggerated anatomy, must still obey proportional rules to to avoid awkward distortions). These are all things I’d love to continue working on.
For now though, I’m definitely going to enjoy taking a bit of a break. Things I’d love to get back into are digital painting, traditional media painting, sewing and costuming…who knows. As Bill Watterson wrote in his last strip of Calvin and Hobbes (which was a huge influence for DorWei)…
“Let’s go exploring!”
