American Hell - Drawing Conclusions in Black and White

A rare non-cartoon post to tell you what’s happened to American Hell. It hasn’t stopped.

Ever since my drawing tablet died I’ve been producing the cartoons by drawing with my finger on the touchpad of my laptop. Yes that little rectangle of space that’s just over 2 inches wide. For accuracy and (relative) smoothness of line I would magnify a drawing space by 4 then draw a line but keep having to drop back out to the normal 1:1 view to see where my line was going.

When finished drawing I would reduce the picture to 40% of its original, making it smoother as well as the right size for the screen. And doing the words is the same process.

And that’s why you haven’t seen too many cartoons over the last, em, while. Because I rarely find myself with the hours necessary to produce one cartoon. But I’ve kept writing them.

But now, in a matter of days, new hardware is arriving that should return me to not only producing cartoons again but getting back to the more prolific rate it started with.

But.

Things won’t happen immediately. For I’ve bought the tablet to be first used in another project, my painting cycle tour of Ireland. It’s an Android not a drawing tablet, as it’s intended to replace my falling apart laptop as well as let me blog etc. from the road on the trip – but I’ll be able to draw on it.

Or in short, new cartoons are a coming.

This traveling lark sure does interfere with posting.

I’m currently moving through England, doing a couple of paint jobs. The notebook came with me, as did a dozen scanned American Hell drawings, but not alone can I not find the half-hour necessary to collate and publish, more importantly I can’t find the time to get my head out of the paint tins to find anything funny. Or sad. Or anything. There is no thinking time. I should have thought of that.

On the plus front I have got closer to creating a widget for you to stick American Hell in your sidebar. Stay tuned. Or fed, since this is a blog and not a radio programme.

2 out of the next 3 days, if not all 3 of them, I am traveling. Maybe somewhere in there I’ll laugh. Or cry. Either way American Hell postings should be resuming shortly. At least until I step on a plane for America. But that will be a long way from tins of paint and almost certainly make me laugh. Or cry.

Apologies. American Hell is not being done for a few days due to me moving country.

Had I scanned a couple of hundred drawings a couple of weeks ago the site would be still motoring along seamlessly, but I couldn’t tell you where the scanner even is right now.

Although I don’t fly until September 10, after tomorrow when my stuff has shipped things will calm down and although I’ve packed my sketchbooks and notebooks I should at least be able to draw some new things – I think.

In the meantime you could suggest some names for cartoons so I have a batch waiting for me. Or go and persuade me that the order of the most popular cartoons is all wrong. Or if you’re really desperate for other cartoons of mine, you could check out my Hairdressers Guide to Information Technology

Thanks for persevering. If you have.