This week’s two page update of Dicebox completes Book 1: Wander, which clocks in at 289 pages.

This’ll be the last Dicebox update of the year as I will be using the next couple of months to work on the rewrites to Book 1. This will entail creating 6 additional pages of story (and perhaps the elimination of ten existing pages) along with other art and word tweaks throughout. I’ll also be redesigning Dicebox.net in preparation of Book 2, rebuilding the archive with ComicPress which will hopefully be easier to maintain as well as offer more flexibility in navigating pages and so on.

Completing Book 1 took twice as long as I anticipated. But then, Book 1 ended up 90 pages longer than what I reckoned on. And there was that whole getting pregnant and having a baby episode. Book 2 should go much quicker as it’s a tighter story and there will be no more offspring for me (I’m a “one and done” kinda mom). Also, I think I have a handle on cartooning and where I want to go with it, the source of much fumbling early on.

Book 2 : Chase will begin on January 11th 2011, which is a Tuesday, the new update day for Dicebox. January 11th will also be the day I’ll open up pre-orders for the print edition of Book 1.

I’ve also been actually to get out and do things, like see live music preformed by Jecsa Hoop, Robyn Hitchcock and Janelle Monáe (not on the same night). My most recent musical outing was earlier this week to see and sketch a dress rehearsal of the Portland Opera’s current production of “Hansel and Gretel.”

For the past two productions, Portland Opera has invited a gaggle of cartoonists to come watch the Monday dress rehearsal before opening night and create art from their impressions of the same. Mike Russel has posted a summary of the first one, a production of “Paliacci” & “Carmina Burana” (which I couldn’t attend, alas) which includes links to reports of cartoonists as well as his live sketch blogging previous operas.

Below are my expanded sketches from the visual “notes” I took during the dress rehearsal of a very frenetic performance.

Sandman comes

Gretel in the woods

These are actually executed digitally in Photoshop, using brushes to mimic the colored pencil and pastel on colored paper I brought to draw on during the rehearsal. I tried to keep the execution expressive and loose, reminiscent of my approach to life drawing.

Below are examples of the sketches I did during the performance, including the gesture drawing I built the expanded sketches on. (click on thumbnail for a larger view)

Other cartoonists who attended include Barry Deutsch, Jonathan Case, Indigo Kelleigh, Emi Lenox,Adrian Wallace, Tally Nouriget, Trixie Biltmore and about eight others whose “Hansel and Gretel” art can be viewed on the Portland Opera website itself.

So since the last time I’ve updated this journal, there’s been 6 pages of Dicebox. Um, yeah, sorry about that to all those that use this journal to know about such updates. Life’s been crazy busy and exhausting but not in anyway that’s interesting, I’m afraid. Except that I managed to update this week’s page precisely on time, I was very excited about that.

Now next week’s page might be a bit tardy due to the Stumptown Comics Fest happening this weekend. I’ll be sharing a table with Kip Manley and Barry Deutsch with not much to sell myself but happy to say "Hi!" (If I’m not walking the Kid or forced to strangle Bill Mudron sitting behind us)

Another thing I’d like to bring to your attention is Patrick Farley’s Kickstarter bid to relaunch E-Sheep Comics. If you have a couple bucks to spare, I urge you to donate to the cause as this will allow him to be in a position to complete Spiders, Apocamon not to mention "Don’t Look Back." I, for one, am eager to see how all these tales wind up.

At a bit past 4pm today, the grand dame of our felines, Kali, passed away. She went quietly, in her sleep, not 30 minutes after she was purring happily in Patrick’s lap. (Though, happily, not in Patrick’s lap.)

She had been in serious decline for about six months. Really, we thought we were going to lose her at the end of January. But after a round of treatment she had bounced back and was her normal, dairy product stealing, cat trouncing, human loving self, albeit outraged she was suddenly a strictly indoor cat.

I was hoping we’d have her ’til the end of summer, but suspected she might leave us soon when, last weekend, she slipped out of the house and was discovered about 5 blocks away from some very kind folks who returned her with the aid of the address on her tag. Before then she wouldn’t go more than a block from the house.

She quacked, screamed like a drowning virgin,* never met a cat she didn’t want to beat up, had clandestine friendships with German Shepards, was on constant patrol, collected people, terrorized mice, performed hammer locks on birds, was always dignified except when:

• - She jumped up on a shelf full of CDs which triggered an avalanche of said CDs. She immediately tried to run up the cascade to regain her perch. But she didn’t.
• - She’s found a particularly nice patch of sun..
• - When she met Crash, Jenn and Kevin Moore’s substantial German Shepard for the first time. She was sitting on the porch rail and, upon seeing Crash, arched up so high in rage and fear that she fell over sideways.
• - Being adored by the Boys.
• - More than once she jumped to the top of an open door and pondered vexedly how she was going to get down as she swayed back and forth.

And there’s lots more stories, she had been with us a long time. But here’s one last one: Kali never accepted the fact that she had to share her house with other cats. She tolerated the Boys, but never accepted the interlopers who lived downstairs. I reckon that with Cicely and Roslyn having finally moved out a couple weeks back, Kali figured her work was done and she could rest easy.

*Thanks for that always, Dylan.

additional

The cat page that Kip created a while back for Kali and Ranger
Christopher Baldwin’s collage of all our now ex-cats.

Here I am, doing weekly updates again! This week with page 13 of part 9 : Out of a Molehill. After reading it I’ll bet you’ll figure out why I wish I could’ve uploaded this page last week.

Then there’s the fact that I wrote this and the next scene years ago. There are some shifts and changes, naturally, but the essence is the same. which makes the timing of this page even funnier for me. And, oddly, really drives home how damn close I am to finally being done with this first Book of Dicebox.

The inspiration came from the spectacular lunar eclipse I witnessed on February 21, 2008—which is also when I got my first hint I might be pregnant. My last cycle had begun right before the full moon in January, And as my cycle is a fairly regular 26 days and I’m more likely to start early than late… Well, let’s just say that five days later I bought my first and only pregnancy test.

A quick explanation of the symbolism: the hare helps identify the red disk as the moon, but also happens to be our family’s totem animal. As for the four cloud birds —I happened to see the eclipse with clouds—they reference to the ol’ folk augury rhyme, “four is for birth.”

(Tattoo done by Matt Reed of TigerLily Tattoo, designed by me.)

If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe. -Carl Sagan

Walking into work today, the iPod selected “A Glorious Dawn” by Symphony of Science, featuring Carl Sagan, Stephen Hawking and lots and lots of Auto-Tune. It begins with the above quote which always delights me.

The idea that the cosmos was created solely so that one day there would be apple pie is a magnificent thought to me. That some deity sprung into existence thinking “mmmmm, apple pie” or that the concentrated matter that became our universe blew apart in a Big Bang with the of anticipation of the warm apple pastry.

I can’t dismiss the fact that these thoughts occur to me in large part because of my 15 month-old daughter’s absolute adoration for Symphony of Science songs. Along with the fact that I have a duty to try to explain the universe and the whys-and-where-fors to her. (Clearly I favor a similar approach as Calvin’s dad.)

Taran’s sheer devotion to these remixed songs of scientist celebrities is a constant source of pleasure for Kip and me. Her especial favorite is “We Are All Connected”; upon hearing the first strains Richard Feynman on the bongos, she will get the most beatific smile on her face and toddle towards the source of the sound, which is usually her poppa’s computer, hoping to see the trippy visuals that accompany the video of the song. If the song comes up while she’s riding in the car, Taran will start to bob and weave her head and flex her hands in imitation of Bill Nye‘s “Really I’m just a SPECK!” hand jive.

Unsurprisingly, all these thoughts put an extra bounce in my step as I headed to work.

And is probably why, upon seeing Taran when she and Kip picked me up from work, I felt it necessary to pick up six to eight apples on our way home.

• - I’ve posted 10 pages of Dicebox, the latest, page 11 of Part 9 : Out of a Molehill, having gone up today.
• -Patrick has posted 18 pages to the bring his epic Dicebox guest comic, “Don’t Look Back” to a whopping 52 pages (and it’s still not done).
• -Kip has added three chapters to City of Roses.
• -Taran mastered crawling and has started walking.
• -I took part in two group art shows.
• -I gave JennManleyLee.com a complete overhaul.
• -Lived through off-and-on house renovation and repair.
• -And did many other things I can’t talk about yet or are too boring to recount.

Next up, after opening the Store at jennmanleylee.com and fixing some broken things at dicebox.net, I plan to try to use this journal once a week. We’ll see how I do.

If you are so inclined, please hie thee hence and give this design a score. Another one of mine should be appearing in a day or so on the Threadless site for scoring as well. Fun fact: these first two design aren’t actually the original idea I has for a Threadless t-shirt; I’m still tinkering with it.

Finally began the last part of Book 1 of Dicebox with this action packed page(permalink).

Forgive me father/mother/sister/brother it has been 43 weeks since my last update.

…

I just died a little there calculating the time lapse.

I actually drew 62 pages of comics during that time–just not Dicebox. Work for hire stuff, babies cost money and all that. But those pages don’t count, somehow. (I try not to think about how if they were all Dicebox pages I’d be done with Part 1 of Book 2. Nope, not thinking about it. Not me.)

All’s this to say it feels good to be actually doing updates on Diceboxagain. It feels right, even with all my dissatisfactions with this page* Actually, that feels right too.

Now as I’m still in a time of chaos and upheaval,** I will be alternating weeks with Patrick until “Don’t Look Back” finishes. I’m hoping my updates will become multipage affairs soon. Truth be told, I was hoping to make this update 4 pages in length as this is a slow passage even for me and will be more sensible and purposeful with the next three pages. Oh well, best laid plans and all that.

To sum up: I MISSED TORMENTING MY LADIES. Glad to be back to it. I feel like a whole person again.

*If you subscribe to the RSS feed, it’ll update after I correct one faux pas when I get off work)

**Not just the Kid, but some home repair that has currently left an office nomad. I can make art just about anywhere, but my work flow gets seriously disrupted which makes me less efficient.