DavidCMatthews

I was searching through my old sketchbooks and notebooks last night, looking for drawings and notes I made about one of my earliest creations, the belly dancer Sayyina. (She might have actually been the first OC I created, since she was inspired by the belly dancers at Busch Gardens Tampa, where my wife Janet and I worked for a couple of year in the very early 1980s.)

And I came across some drawings of a character that I'd completely forgotten that I'd even thought of! I don't remember doing the drawings, and I didn't write down many notes about the character. But I did create about six or seven pages of sketches, and even a couple of logo ideas.

The series would have been entitled "Muscle" Shoals, PI. The title character, Patricia Shoals, is a private investigator whose nickname is "Muscle" because of her physique; bodybuilding is her hobby.

I chose six pages of sketches - well, five pages of sketches and one good sketch from a sixth - to give you an idea of what was running through what I laughingly call "my mind":

The first sketches

More concept art, including a possible action scene

...setting the mood of drama and action I wanted

Our heroine in danger!

Is he her boss? The police lieutenant she's always running afoul of? (I don't remember.)

And finally, one last "hero(ine) pose" of "Muscle" Shoals.

If I've done everything right, you should be able to click on the pic to go to its gallery page, with more info on each drawing.

The weirdest part of this thing: I was telling my wife Janet about this character I'd forgotten I'd created; when I told her the name "Muscle" Shoals PI, she said, "Oh yeah, I remember!" I'm like how could you remember that when I don't?!

...but now I'm back!

My wife and I took a road trip to visit a friend (fellow DA member Jimmy Dimples) in NC, two of my brothers in VA and a third brother in SC.

I hadn't seen my brothers in ten years (ever since my father's funeral), so it was fun being able to visit them. What wasn't so fun was having to deal with an overheating car in Charlotte NC that took $700 in repairs to make drivable again. Thankfully, Jimmy was willing to drive down from Mt. Airy (two hours each way) to pick us up and bring us to our hotel, then drive us back down to Charlotte to pick up the car two days later.

Other than that, it was a fun trip. But despite my best intentions, I wasn't able to work on as much art as I hoped, so I'm way behind in creating and posting artwork. So I've got some catching up to do!

So if you've left messages for me, and you're pissed I haven't replied to them yet... this is why. (Plus my apologies for not answering before now.)

Don't get too excited: there aren't any new finished pages. Yet.

What there are, though, are newly reworked versions of some existing pages. This is something I've wanted to do for awhile, because one of the reasons I haven't been enthusiastic about finishing "Contest Jitters" is that there were parts in which I couldn't stand to look at some of the work I did. So I've spent most of the time since the New Year finishing the reworking of the pages.

I also wanted to re-paginate the story so that they all fit into standard comics size, for eventual publication as digital as well as (I hope) print publication. During that process, I also found opportunities for expanding a few scenes, and laying (I think) a better framework for the events to come. (And I worked in a cameo appearance by yerz trooly.)

The repagination process also lengthened the story, from 16 to 23 pages. Some of the original long-scrolling pages had material that easily took up one and a half to two print pages. (It's those half-pages that necessitated the addition of new panels.)

So yesterday, I uploaded the new version of the story to the Satin Steele website, and you can read the updated story starting here. The first few pages are still the same; Page 7 is the first page with new artwork, 2 new panels at the bottom of the page.

There is a new page that I have started, though; if you're one of my Patreon sponsors, you can see a preview of the WIP version!

I haven't been checking in here as often as I should (my apologies for that), so unless you're also a member of my Patreon page, you probably don't know about the big road trip my wife and were taking this past week.

The plan was: up to NC to visit friend and fellow DA member JimmyDimples, and my cousin Susan in Laurel Springs; over to Tennessee to visit another cousin (Julie); over to Richmond VA to see two of my three brothers; then down to Myrtle Beach SC to visit my third brother. (It's been years since I've seen my brothers, and literally decades since I've seen my cousins Susan and Julie.)

The most ambitious trip my wife and I have ever planned (and most likely never will again). And it was going well, until the middle of our visit with Julie in Tennessee.

That's when we found out about Ian. A tropical storm which suddenly formed in the Caribbean, and was forecast to come up the Gulf Coast of Florida, and possibly over Orlando as Hurricane Ian*.

So we felt we needed to cut our trip short and come home to make sure the house was ready (well, as much as we can make it) for the approaching storm. The rest of our trip wouldn't have been as enjoyable if we worried about what would happen to our house (and our stuff).

We're safely at home now, making last-minute provision runs and tending to the property. The storm itself is expected to make landfall at Tampa Bay on Thursday, but we might be seeing rain as early as tonight.

Needless to say, I'll update you again after the storm goes away.

*although I have a few other choice names for this storm: Hurricane Fuckface, Hurricane Pain-in-the-Ass, Hurricane Shit-head... you get the idea.

Well, I finally got around to getting another COVID test. After all, it's been, what, two and a half weeks since my positive test?

And I'm happy to report I now test negative!

I was feeling fine, even when I tested positive - my allergies were acting up, but no actual COVID symptoms, and the allergies went away about a week ago - so the negative result is a relief.

(and I'm curious to see who's first in identifying the source of the title for this journal)