You may have noticed that I haven’t posted a song or drawing for a couple weeks. There is a reason for this. (Side note: I always talk to “you” as though I have an audience. Why do I do that?)

I’ve decided to put those two goals on pause for the time being because, one, they were taking up more time than I had available due to my poor prediction of how long it would take and how much free time I have; two, it only took about a month before it started feeling more like an obligation than something I wanted to do, and these goals are about me getting things done that I want; and three, other things have come into my peripheral that may be taking up more of my time in the near future. Those things will be announced if and when they start happening.

This isn’t giving up. It’s more that I learned that drawing and songwriting are not things I enjoy when I force myself to do them. That said, when the occasion calls, I’ll now look to those two things as more valid forms of expression to get things out of my head than I did before. If training myself to think that way was the intent (it partially was), it has been met. So you may still hear the occasional song from me when I need to say or emote something and you may still see the occasional comic when I have a funny tidbit of conversation from Amy to share or drawing when I see something beautiful in my head.

I didn’t feel like drawing a comic this week, and I’m at least half a week late anyway, so here’s a crappy drawing of my shoe that took maybe half an hour:

(Click for full size, as always.)

It’s been a long time since I sketched something I was looking at. Despite that, I don’t think I did that bad. What do you think?

Also, a hearty CONGRATULATIONS to Amy (yes, the one made “famous” in my dumb comics) who got engaged on Tuesday to the dapper and charming Dan B. The only downside to this moment of awesomeness is that now I have to work my vacation time schedules around their prospective October wedding date, seeing how Amy wants me to be there and stuff. I know, life is rough. Way to not work around my needs with your little wedding, guys. Jeez.

I get to be the funny one in this one. Weeee. Also, Amy said she didn’t want to wear a smock any more, and she wanted… uh… more evident lady parts.

(Click image for full size)

Other than the fact that I accidentally gave her black lipstick in the second frame and that I seemed to have trouble drawing myself consistently, I think it turned out decent enough.

I’m on a roll. Once again, this was an actual conversation, barely edited so it would fit into comic form, and clearly not censored whatsoever. That’s how I like it. And I’m posting it without running it by Amy first because she’s gone all weekend. Whoops.

(Click for full size)

I tried drawing it bigger this time, which meant it took two pages to get it done. It made the job easier, but this whole scanning, cropping, cutting, pasting thing isn’t very fun. Other than screwing up the proportions of Amy’s head on the third frame, I think I did a decent job. I’m finally starting to get comfortable drawing the characters, which helps a lot.

Drawing number two is done. I feel kind of guilty about scrawling out some rudimentary cartoon characters and calling it a “drawing.” But whatever. I’ll draw something legit at some point. Maybe.

(Click for the full size)

For the record, all these comics will be heavily based on actual conversations with Amy. So if they don’t make sense, that’s why.

I decided to pen over the pencil on this one, then erase for a cleaner drawing with more contrast. In the process I smeared the ink and had to clean it up. Then the scanner made a really uneven scan so I had to digitally alter the image to clean it up.

As promised, here is the first of what will hopefully be 26 drawings that I’ll be doing this year:

(Click the image for the full size.)

A year or two ago my good friend Amy and I said we would start a web comic of our conversations because we are the funniest people ever. Or at least she is. So this is my first try at that. I’ve got plenty more material for these so this may not be the last you’ll see of Josh and Amy comics.

I’m open to criticism and comments on anything about this drawing, so go right ahead. I’ll even beat you to the punch and say that clearly I have problems with consistency between panels. Hopefully that will go away over time as I get more comfortable with the characters.