Blue Moon Blog

We’ve completed the latest installment of Tzivos Hashem Kids comics, which I wrote about last month. I’ll blog a link when we’ve posted the finished pages after it’s printed, but here’s a little preview of one panel where our hero, Joey is searching for an important book in his grandparent’s attic.

While laying out the pages, in this panel I just quickly added boxes and brick-a-brack to frame Joey with the book, and to establish an attic environment with the limited space I had. In the foreground I indicated an old lantern sitting on a box. By the pencil stage, it struck me to change that object to an old tray my grandmother had left me when she died. It means nothing to anyone else, but it’s a plus whenever an artist can connect to material with references to personal emotional or nostalgic touchstones; it can bring the work further alive. At the very least it makes it more fun to draw and look at later.

It doesn’t end up being much in the final art, and will be partially covered by a word balloon, but I know it’s there. I was pleased when Mary said, “Hey, I know what that is!” as she started coloring the pages. There aren’t many more on the planet who would recognize this obscure little object.

I’m not sure why this is the single trinket Grammy chose to leave me in her will. Maybe when I was a kid it caught my eye sitting on her dresser, and I commented on it to her? It’s not much to look at, as it’s dirty and beat up, crinkly in the center and off-kilter. But it means a lot to me because she chose it for me. Over more than thirty years now, I’ve used it to hold pins and buttons other such stuff, usually on my dresser or nightstand. Every time I see it, I think of her. I just moved it to the studio, where it holds and displays marbles, as I’ve been collecting them since the summer.

I don’t know if you’d call it a tray, or a dish, or a dish-tray. Laura thinks it looks like a hat.

Here’s to the little knick-knack my Grammy wanted me to have, in all its glory, awesome power and might!