Slow Down
A comic made wayyy too fast
This is one of those projects where you can tell that I lost steam half way through. I worked backwards for this one. I had 6 weeks to finish it for cartoon school but I rushed it in a week and a half so I can table with it at 2 zine fests and comics readings that were a few weeks a part. So basically, I was trying to make, edit, publish, and perform all at the same time in rapid speed.
This was a recipe for disaster because between zine fests, my brain would whisper “but you’re done you don’t have to keep making edits” “people bought it anyway.” But I knew it could be better. The first drafts didn’t suit my taste as a reader. It’s important to me that I like the work I am making.
The issue was I was already moving on. Other juicer opportunities like poster commissions, pitch acceptances, and personal essays I wanted write were coming my way. Going back to these pages felt unnatural because my brain already got the dopamine high of accomplishment when I read and tabled with the first drafts of the story.
It took so much willpower to trim the fat off this story but I’m happy with the structure of it now. The first draft was trying to do a billion things in 6 pages. Which is normal for a first draft. The problem was I didn’t allow myself the time to edit and treated the intention to revise as an after thought.
I guess subconsciously I made a comic about a someone who also needs to slow down and learn to enjoy the process. This is the first story of a series I started with my friend Eva, Eva’s Newsletter, called Cochina. When we met online we talked about how gross we feel and how that makes us feel more like a women than anything else. We’re still trying to understand where Cochina will go, but for right now we are just trying to make honest stories about owning our insecurities as Latinx women far away from home.
I’m sharing this even though there are panels that could be drawn waaaaayyyy better because I want to post something on here every Friday and because I wanted to show that slowing down might actually get you the results you’re looking for faster than speeding through it.
Want a copy of Cochina Issue 1?
it comes with a playlist wink wink
Happy you shared the physical zine version, I thought it was good!
Great--and suspenseful!--story, and I love the illustrations (especially the trumpet player but also especially all of it!). "Trying is cool" is so cool.