The Graphic Novelist
Sat down on Wednesday and drew 3 pages of comics:
They are from the final chapter, the conclusion to my next graphic novel, Death in Oaxaca. The narrative is set in the city of Oaxaca in the remote highlands of southern Mexico. You have your middle-class migrants from the U.S. in their vainglorious folly. You have normal Oaxacans, as well as a 2,000 year old indigenous vampire who drinks chicken blood.
This vampire, Eduardo, is too polite to drink human blood. But he’s thinking of making an exception for Caroline, a bored housewife from Seattle. She thinks it would be fun to have an affair with Eduardo. She knows he has the hots for her, but does not know he’d like to drink her blood too.
The Cartoonist Dilemma
So, it’s fun to spend the entire day writing and drawing graphic novels. Why not do it every day??? Well, there is food. There is coffee. There is red wine. Shoes, children, gas and stuff like that. I guess for every one auteur cartoonist who makes a living wage, there are probably about 476 like me. Nominal professionals who do not make a living wage.
The difference is, well I’ll let you in on a little secret! It turns out, I’m actually, pretty much the best graphic novelist in the world! I’m not the best cartoonist, penciller, letterer, inker, writer or designer. It’s just that when you figure in the whole bundle of skills that it takes to make a whole, bit fat cartoon book — I’m one of the best.
There’s something else too. A wee little something extra, my competitive edge! I’ve actually been elected, drafted as it were, by a coterie of disembodied spirits to be their cartoon avatar on the planet. They can’t draw because they don’t have hands. Or eyes, arms or bodies.
This scheming bunch have conceived some sort of baroque master plan: They feed it to me in little bit pieces at a time. As their faithful cartoon consript, I translate their arcane hoo-haa, their mumbo-jumbo into comic book form and present it to you, the general genial public!
I’m outa gas for now. The coterie of bossy muses has left the building, so there’s just a guy typing this with a glass of red wine under the belt. So I’ll cut to the chase!
You can help me and my scheming overbearing muses in producing a high volume of comics. All you need do is visit my Patreon page and subscribe to my weekly comics updates. You can get in on the action for as little as $1.00 per month, although if you want to pad it out a bit it’s OK by me.
Thank you, and goodnight!
Steve Lafler