Yesterday, my friend Noah texted me and wished me a def chill vibes mood Thanksgiving. To everyone reading this, I hope your Thanksgiving was indeed def chill vibes mood.
I briefly considered rearranging my release schedule and fast-tracking a Thanksgiving comic to fit the holiday, kinda like what I did for Halloween. The difference though, was that “The Haunting of Oh Manor” was not strictly a Halloween comic. It was something I was going to do anyway, but since it included a ghost, I scheduled it to align with All Hallows’ Eve. I didn’t have something like that for Thanksgiving and I can’t really make a comic about what my Thanksgiving was like before Thanksgiving. Plus, each comic takes roughly a week to make and unfortunately I do not yet have a time machine.
So what was my Thanksgiving like? It had a very unusual start for me: I slept in. I stayed up pretty late the previous two nights working on another project and it finally caught up to me. Even when I don’t get much sleep, I usually still wake up around the same time and just power on through the day. This day though, I got up at 11 am and it felt great.
I should probably clarify that I currently reside in Texas, but all my family lives in Maryland and Virginia. I have missed Thanksgivings before, but obviously this year is much different. I didn’t miss the large extended family gathering this year because of work or other obligations; it’s because it didn’t happen at all. To be fair, if for some unconscionable reason, the big family bash was happening, I still wouldn’t go. This is not the year. Anyway, that’s all to say that I spent Thanksgiving by my lonesome, just like every day for the past eight months or so. Besides watching the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving special, it was by and large a day like any other: cooking, cleaning, comics. I called my parents and they showed off their bounteous smorgasbord. I had just finished eating some leftover curry from the night before. To sum up, I don’t really revere holidays. Some traditions are nice, but I don’t place much significance on manufactured celebration or commemoration. A day like any other… and I still got laundry to do.
A few notes on the comic itself: I’m very proud of how this one turned out. I had a blast playing with the different panel sizes and for the most part, there’s a good balance between text and image. It feels clean and well-arranged. I’m getting less picky when touching up text when I edit the comic. I used to spend hours trying to make my handwriting as leveled and uniform as possible, but there comes a point where it defeats the purpose of lettering by hand in the first place. I’m not making a serialized superhero comic. This is personal, autobiographical, and does not need to fit any specific standard. My handwriting should come through, with all its idiosyncrasies and oddities. I’m enjoying doing more comics about phone or FaceTime conversations, for much of the same reason I enjoy the conversations themselves: they break up my usual routine and I get to interact with another human being. Always a welcome diversion. Just be warned: your call may be recorded* for comics-related purposes.
*mentally, not physically