Fat Comics

In 2007 I began making a few small drawings with black and red Sharpie brand markers, on cardstock. They were essentially doodles of no great importance, in which I worked out little sequences in which the transformation of a form was charted in stages. Ergo, they were time-based images and by default, driven by a line of narrative action, however minimal, that had a beginning, a middle and an end. Did this constitute a comic strip? There was some interest to be had in these little Sharpie drawings. First, the line itself. When using a larger-width Sharpie, which I was in this case, the amount of ink deposited eventually exceeds what is necessary to describe a clean line. In other words, it bleeds. This is a wonderful chance element in making Sharpie drawings, as the imperfect, fat line, takes the polished edge off of what one does, and returns drawing to a more primitive state. Second, the notion of a minimal comic. Although this is an idea that I wish to explore and expand upon much further, this first foray into the bare essentials of sequential art lays the groundwork for an attempt at much greater abstraction in the comic strip form.