The Great Wall of Ideas (and organization)

This Wall of Ideas comes to you today all the way from Winnipeg, Manitoba, (not to be confused with the Great Wall that snakes around China) and is sponsored by the letter 'Q'. (Why 'Q' you ask? To which I retort: why not Q? Okay, okay, I may have been influenced a little by my daily listening to Jian Ghomeshi...)

But I digress.

A challenge, I am finding out, about putting together a graphic novel is the ability to comprehensively and plausibly sequence and over-lap key events in the story; in my case, this particular chain of events has to stay true to a personal history (mine) as well as the history of the tainted blood scandal itself. Being a visual learner, mapping out these ideas (although time-consuming) is crucial...and, well, fun. 

While the Great Wall of Ideas (and organization) is just at the beginning stages, I expect to keep slogging away at it, adding my scraps and thread of ideas, until a complete story emerges. I will keep you updated.

Fiddling

I have spent the better part of this afternoon, fiddling and tinkering with templates and blog colours. I confess, due to busyness of other illustration work and general life duties, it has been awhile since I even glanced at this lonesome blog.


So now I am extending a 'welcome back' to you faithful holder-on-ers, and also to you new readers. Once again, I am gathering my thoughts, dusting off my 'How I Contracted Hep C and Other Bedtime Stories' illustrations, striking the usual bent-over-the-drawing-board pose, and getting back at it. 


Why now you ask?


Good question. 


As I mentioned way back in Tuesday, November 3, 2009 post, that if I could, I would find a cure for the Hep C virus.


As it stands my Creator did not endow me with (really any) scientific leanings, but he did give me some artistic skills. Having taken a rather lengthy break from doing anything remotely related to this endeavor of mine, I am now ready to jump back in.  I am excited to see how all these pieces of the graphic novel storytelling will fit together. It feels like the time is right. 


As before, I invite you along as I struggle through attempt to tell the story of ‘How I Contracted Hep C and Other Bedtime Stories’.


More entries to come soon! 

The Scarlet 'H'

After I found out that I had Hep C, I informed my roomates of this news. I barely knew, at the time, what Hep C was, nevermind being able to explain it to other people. Indeed, at that time in history, not much was known about the virus, at least not publically, anyway.

I have to admit that I felt an increasing isolation from my peer group due to some comments and questions that I encountered, questions like "is it safe to share utensils with you?" I felt like I, much like Nathaniel Hawthorne's main protagonist, had a large, shameful letter 'H' on my chest, for all the world to see.

That utensil question, asked immediately after I had informed my friends of my positive status, may have been a valid question considering not much was known, in the mid-nineties, about how Hep C was spread. It was, however, ill-timed and unsympathetic.