Episode 22: I Risk My Life Without Even Thinking About It!

It is indeed a dangerous thing and a very bad idea to try to put out an electrical fire with a water hose. It helps if you just don't think about it. Plus an alternate earlier version of this episode!

I don’t remember if it occurred to me in that moment that I could be electrocuted. I just had the hose, water on full blast, and sprayed it right on the burning breaker box. The conflagration flared up more with the water, popping and sparking, and then… it was done. The fire was, at least as far as I could discern, out. And I was still alive. Wet feet, wet grass, in my underwear (boxers, fortunately), but alive. Stupid and lucky and alive. My family was ok, our home was, more or less, ok. The firefighters got there and got to work, and we felt reassured that all would be well.

I’m still working with the strong black inks here. I am not thrilled with the bottom part of the page. I researched San Antonio fire trucks and did my best, but the final, inked version wasn't as clear as I had hoped.

Here’s a photo of the real thing:

This is the danger of bold inking, and it takes practice, trial and error. I have been determined since starting this series to put my work out there, let people see the process and the progress. I have redone a few of these before publishing, including this one. This was my second run at this page. Here’s the first run at it:

You can see I was combining some parts of this story differently. I changed my mind after it was already inked, but not cleaned up. I can’t find the roughs or pencils for this one, but I will be posting more process stuff here because readers find it interesting, and I find it interesting too, examining choices I have made, seeing where I change my mind, like I did here. And since it is a learning process, I am willing to redo a page if I don’t like it for whatever reason. I don’t have any hard deadlines, so why not take the time and try to make it more what I want?

I knew when I started back in cartooning last year after setting it aside for about a decade, that I was rusty, and that certain things were never my strong suit. But I knew that if I waited until I had everything perfect, I would never get it out there. The stories wanted to tell would not be told. I would still be waiting for perfect. I understand that expression; “perfect is the enemy of good”. I will continue to work to improve parts of my work that I don’t think are as good as they can be, but I will do that while I continue to make and publish these comics and tell these stories.

This is in keeping with what I tell my students, it’s all about just DOING it, a lot, every day, analyzing it as I go without harsh judgement, without getting down on myself or giving up. Just keep drawing comics, trying to improve, and progress will happen. I can see this in my own work. One thing about doing these the old-fashioned way is that I have the whole process, the roughs, the pencils, the first versions (if I keep up with them). So I can share them here.