DEAR DIARY SPECIAL FEATURES
After my Christmas issue kinda crashed and burned due to preoccupations in my social calender in the week leading up to the holiday, I wanted to get work on another project right away. Well, while in Hawaii, I decided to keep the sketch book by my side and jot down ideas along the way. When I got back, disasterous social events preoccupied my mind yet again but after a week I began to think a new issue would help me get over a certain someone. The first panel I did was the in-joke interlude, which was drawn about 2 hours after the event actually happened with Muhamed in the chinese restaraunt.
The Name and the Meaning From there, a few days later, I drew the blind girl panel, which I was moderatly satisfied with, but thought I could do better. After this panel the idea came to me while I was sitting at the computer thinking of a title. I was originally gonna call the thing "Hell Hath No Fury..." leaving off the "...as a woman scorned." but thought that was a bit of a downer for a title. So then I got thinking about titles like "Understandibly Obscene" and things like that until it hit me..."dear. diary." It was perfect and absolutly relevant to what I was feeling. I thought, "ha ha, this'll get 'em..." and actually went into the issue attempting to base it around the whole diary scenario. But the more I drew, the more I reolized I didn't want, deep down in my heart, to be at odds with these people. I kept the title, but changed the meaning around it to make fun of myself rather than anyone else.
Theropy Panels such as the "at least you've still got your health" and "the first date" were drawn and I was satisfied with that particular approach to an obviously delicate situation. However, as I kept drawing, I kind of used it as a sort of theropy, to let out all my sadness and frustration into joke-form, something I could laugh at and deal with. As I continued along witht he issue, more light-hearted jokes about the trix rabbit etc followed and I was starting to see the issue taking shape.
The Cover The cover was initially going to be me keeping a diary away from a hord of people trying to take it from me...but as I started I wasn't really feeling it. I needed a spoof, Travesty was a spoof, I thought, and it came of great, I need a spoof. So I chose srgt. Pepper #1 because it would give me the opportunity to throw all kinda of people in the background, and #2 because I had always wanted to do a full-color nice -looking spoof of the pepper cover using my characters. I had done a black and white version in my agenda the year before and quite liked it so this was really a branch-off from that. The problem with the cover was it was too bright when it was al finished, so I imported it into easy photo and lightened the background signifigantly, thats why it looks kind of lighter in the background as opposed to the foreground. For anyone who was wondering, the list of people goes like this: (from left)
Abe Laborial Jr. (the drummer for Paul Mccartney's new band; Ultimate Spider-Man; Julius; Bobby Hill; Stan Lee; Doop; Paul McCartney; Spock; Dan; Clarissa (behind Tom's head); Silent Bob; Jay; Jean Grey (in between Jon and Paul); Ren (look to the immediate right of Paul's head and you can see his ear and half of his jaw); Krum; Jason Lee; Paul Kaminski; Jon Chardranathon; half of me(look to the direct left of Tom's head and you'll se my eye); Mike in Jedi-mode; Mario (below me); Hank(below me); Beavis statue; My boss Greg (in the tv)
Original Cover Design
Final Cover Design