Inspiration of Line, Language, and Sound

These cartoons are playful interpretations
based on what could be happening
in my densely populated intricate drawings.

Below is the original size
and full population
of one such drawing.

I use small dip pens and black ink.
Sometimes I use a brush, as you see in the center.

I zoom in on the characters through photoshop
to crop them into cartoons.

The dialogue captions are abstractions,
paralleling the abstraction of the drawing style.

Single line spacing indicates one individual talking/thinking.

Two separate paragraphs with a clean line space separating them
indicates a conversation between two individuals.

Lines or paragraphs separated by a "---" space
indicate individuals having private thoughts
unconnected to one/other.


"Playing Outside the Box"
4.5"x6"

The Sound of Music in the Mind
Since these characters come from all walks of life, when I began this cartoon process, which is really a writing project, I had to make a choice about language usage. Do I use straight ahead proper English or do I get more creative, matching the dialogue to the simplicity of the drawing style? 

My inner brain jumps all over the place, full of sound bites and music that have nothing to do with grammar or correct spelling or A to Z straight line logical sense. I am assuming we all have variations on this type of scattered mentality, and that we all collect the pieces into some type of coherence that directs us towards productive thinking.

Following this form of inner chaos into constructive thinking, I chose to lean my writing towards an inner chatter style. This expresses an experimental sensibility and the cartoon blog is meant to be just that: a bunch of experimental fun. This allows me to juxtapose different types of cultures and genres of thought into one panel. I can approach a stick figure's mind from a point of view of small town, inner city, top of the mountain guru, or a totally out there crazy enigmatic thinker. I can mix and match deliciously, concocting meals of thought that parallel California cuisine and while this isn't specific to individual people I know, this is exactly how I put all the people I have known together in my mind. We are one big group of humans, after all, and as such we have certain basic tendencies. It is not our language, per se, that is our common thread, but it is the impulsing human sounds that come from within. It is a core awareness of being alive and observing, questioning, and reacting to what we live with and through, everything spoken with a slight accent of individuality. Hopefully I'm getting somewhere near this in these dialogues I'm writing.

The musical quality that sometimes comes through in these dialogues symbolizes our core ability to create song, no matter how non-musical we might be in our normal lives. We all have a heart beat that anchors our existence with a thump, thump, thump. Add a few beat-ish consonants and some looooong vowels and you have human song smoothing the dialogue into something more than just words of philosophy.

I probably quote people right and left, and have no idea I'm doing so. I am in great gratitude for anything sensible or non-sensible that I have picked up along the way.

I thank the following two contemporary bands for the inspiration to write down these dialogues. The first puts sound together eclectically, as if merging cultures together at that core level I refer to above. The second band makes up language to fit their vision.
Alt-J
sigur rós 

 Beyond these two bands I have been inspired by hundreds of musicians and musical genres. Just a few along the way, in no particular order:
Muse 

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