Ambient Zero on INSTAGRAM + birth of the next project

This week, I finished the final pages of THE CLIFF, Book 5: "The King"... it will be released of THE COLLECTED CLIFF, Books 1-5 next year by Editions TRIP Comix of Montreal.

THE CLIFF, Book 5: "The King"

final page (49)

Meanwhile, I've been kicking back and forth what the next project will be.  I finally opened an Instagram account and had the idea of posting a drawing a day --

https://www.instagram.com/poopsiepenguin/

Instagram Post #1: "Poopstar"

 Instagram Post #2: "Polite Houseguest to the Darkness."

Instagram Post #3: "LIFE IN THE CITY - Early Summer"

Instagram Post #4: "Triad of Influence."

 After a few iconic drawings implying dizzying heights of lateral connections amid a flurry of funny animal word games, it seemed a better idea to do just one story per day, starring a beloved character who elicits reader response: Poopsie the Penguin.

Instagram Post #5: "Poopsie the Penguin, in: 

THE SCISSORS THAT ATE NEBRASKA"

Instagram Post #6: "Poopsie the Penguin, in: 

THE REMNANTS OF CONSCIOUSNESS"

There was mild response, but not the avalanche of hilarity I had hoped for.  Now it seemed a better bet to do just one panel per day, which continued as a serial in a known and beloved default genre: the private detective story.  (I also transferred to more polished posts, scanning and adjusting the original drawings in Photoshop... a sort of "lo-fi to hi-fi" transition, although the drawings retained their savage incompetence and splinteriness around the digital edges.)

Instagram Post #7: Poopsie the Penguin, in 

"THE MYSTERY OF THE SHREDDED BEGONIA" 

(Episode 1)

Instagram Post #8: Poopsie the Penguin, in 

"THE MYSTERY OF THE SHREDDED BEGONIA" 

(Episode 2)

Instagram Post #9: Poopsie the Penguin, in 

"THE MYSTERY OF THE SHREDDED BEGONIA" 

(Episode 3)

However,  almost nobody was reading it.  Maybe one or two ardent admirers of the absurd, or dedicated devotees of the deranged, were "liking" it on Instagram or Facebook.

Instagram Post #10: "The Escalation of Euclid."

Huh.

Instagram Post #11: What is Meditation?

(page 1, rough outlines - on the drawing board)

Then yesterday, I settled on the next project: a graphic novel called "What is Meditation?", in the confessional autobiography / documentary format, with a regular nine-panel grid, inspired by Harvey Kurtzman's "Hey Look!" pages from the 1940's-1950's... except for the fact that I can't draw nearly as well as him; yet the project is tempered by the inclusion of the metaphysical.  And I married this new graphic novel in development to the Instagram idea of posting at least one page per week... also, I am not typing a script as I did for the CLIFF series and ARCHITECTURE DEPARTMENT.  I'm drafting the script by sketching on note paper, then drawing directly in ink onto the large final paper.  So this new project is retro in its nod to the American comics master Kurtzman and the great meditation teachers of Buddhism and Advaita, current in its semi-real-time sharing via social media, and forward-looking in its ambition to unite the three prominent paths of my life: comix, meditation and teaching into one potent, redolent, fraudulent package.

Please join me!