Time Away

For you few loyal readers out there, if you've been wondering where the Wild Child is, I'm taking some time off to rethink some things (and to enjoy the real world instead of this confounded internet).

I started Wild Child as a journey into the past to solve the mysteries of who my family is, who I am, and why my worldview is what it is - in the hopes that my life might have something to say to yours, too.  What I found surprised me. I spent the summer working on my manuscript: went home, rolled down hills, stared at the sky, listened to my mother, gave away most of what I owned, moved to Columbus, did a bunch of comic book events, turned 30, considered everything I've ever known from every possible direction. Just as I finished the manuscript for the entire book, some life events occurred that solved the mysteries for me, causing me to reconsider my conclusions, and consequently, the approach to the book. Life has a way of changing the game just when you think you have things figured out.

So, sorry to leave you with a cliffhanger, but I'll be back when I can articulate to you what I've discovered on my journeys.

  To be continued...

Wild Child in Poem Form

Presented with the challenge of "reading" a book with very few words, I wrote this poem to describe the plot of Wild Child #1:

In the patchworked topography

of slow, lonely hills

lives a mute mountain folk,

as ancient of days

as the Appalachian range.

There

a wild daughter

jumps the fence

and runs

from home-baked safety

to chase the wordly scents of

crickwater & moss,

rolling naked downslope,

mowing clover and hay.

Muddied, the

prodigal daughter returns,

feet baptized in a washtub

cuz that's what 

the good book says,

but more woman

than girl,

rebels against

hand-stitched innocence,

and casts herself

from the garden,

from the quilt,

from the washtub,

from the apple tree,

to the wilderness 

and the mercy of the wolves.

A century of progress

paves those hills 

into geometry,

gouges coal from the earth

and spreads it across the surface

as pickup exhaust,

tape-recorded angst,

and televised electricity

that deceives the night into 

thinking it is day.

Another wild daughter

falls prey and

rejects the good book 

to follow the howls of wolves.

And the wolves' howls

darken the black of the sky.

Thank you to the Pittsburgh Zine Fair, Cyberpunk Apocalypse, The Monollah Foundry, and The Heinz Endowments for promoting me. Thank you, also, to everyone who listened to and played in the dirt with me.

Subplot: A Love Story

Photo by Aaron Walker, 2007

Friends and family of autobiographical writers know they're never safe from being written into a story (so be careful what you say to us!).

My husband, Mark, made his debut into the world of comics in White Wolf Honey Moon, a short story I printed in The Kindlin' Quarterly Issue #3. 

Happy fifth anniversary to my traveling companion through space-time and the most inspiring character in the story of my life.

{The field next to my parents' house was my playground as a kid, the site of many important personal events, and continues to serve as the reference for the color scheme in most of my work.}

A Lifelong Pursuit

Most comics people got to know me as the editor of The Kindlin' Quarterly, a quirky underground anthology on its 8th issue. What you don't know is that I've been making similar publications since I was in grade school.

The Summersville Gazette

Excerpt from Star Trek:
The Next Generation News

In addition to a few short-lived newsletter attempts, in 1994 I made The Summersville Gazette, mostly about my dog Butter and distributed to immediate family members. 

Next came Star Trek: The Next Generation News, also in 1994, which featured summaries of recent episodes of the show and swooning digressions about Commander Will Riker.

And then there was...

The Stoopid Krap News flopped into the world as the creative outlet for a lonely kid with a weird sense of humor and unlimited access to a copy machine.  On Sunday afternoons, my dad paid me to clean the office of the small engineering firm he owned, and after the toilets were scrubbed, I cut, pasted, and copied (the old-fashioned way) until my mom came to pick me up wearing her nightgown.

I cranked out sixteen Wingding-laden issues from 1995 to 1997, with no regularity in length or frequency. The Stoopid Krap News was distributed to a total of six people (my brother and five friends)  and came with a strict warning that NO parent should ever see it, lest I be shut down.  

Heavily influenced by MAD Magazine, the content varied from fake news articles about the school bully's rumored incestuous background, drawings of the math teacher's haircut, comics on college-ruled notebook paper, and my rantings about the world at large. Most of the features only made sense at the time, but some of it is relevant outside of the junior high classroom and still tickles my funny bone.

   

                           

SUPER FERRET & THE SEIZURE COUSINS COMICS!!!!!!

JACKPOT!

Sweet sassy molassy! In the bottom of the closet of my old room, I found my Circus and Hit Parader magazines from 1994-1997. I was certain they had been trashed!



To celebrate, I'm giving yall a sneak peak of what's on my little lightbox for Wild Child #2. I'm making another cup of coffee. It's going to be a long night.

Yes, I hand-drew all that text. Yes, it took over 10 hours straight.
I loved every second of it.

The Perseids

Drawings, gift to mother, 2009

Early Influences

At home in West Virginia working on Wild Child #2, I found my childhood stash of comics.

In my hometown, which had a population of approximately 2500 in the 1990s, the "comic shop" was Kroger. My options there were: 

Comics and friends.

• Archie - I bought a few issues but couldn't really relate to the tribulations of popular kids who had friends.
• Batman! - My first crush (still going).
• MAD Magazine - Against all parental-control norms, I was allowed to read MAD on a regular basis, which I can only attribute to divine intervention. 

On rare occasions, my family would drive to the closest mall 45 minutes away. Over time, I accumulated: 

• MAD About the Sixties - a big book of jokes I wasn't old enough to understand.
• A single issue of Tales From the Crypt - #9, copyright 1994 - because I watched the show on TV every Saturday night.
• The Crow by James O'Barr - after seeing the movie during my teenage goth phase.
• A prized collection of Ren & Stimpy Comics #7-18 - because my classmates talked about the show, but we didn't have cable.

New title page for the 2nd edition of
Wild Child #1. 

That's a comprehensive list. After a long hiatus, the next comic I read was Ghost World in 2002. My collection now is modest and selective, consisting mostly of books by artists I've met.

Several people have asked me recently who my influences are. 

I keep three books on the shelf next to my drawing desk:

• Garage Band by Gipi
• I Never Liked You by Chester Brown
• The Complete Stories by Flannery O'Connor 

But I don't open them often. Limited exposure has taught/forced me to create with minimal influence. And I like it that way.

The Real Wild Child

My 6-year-old niece is the real wild child. She is my hero. She is a woman who knows exactly what she wants, believes that she can do anything, sets challenging goals for herself, and is unafraid to do what is necessary to achieve her dreams.

My family and I took her swimming today at the lake near our home. The adults talked and watched from dry land. Half child/half adult, I played in the sand on the beach. The wild child refused all suggestions/commands to change from her dress into a swimsuit (a decision I supported) and cannon-balled into the water. 

The shallow water, safe for swimming, was divided from the deep boating area by a horizontal wooden barrier with a vertical pole at its center. My niece swam out toward the barrier with fearless determination. When she passed the point where she could no longer stand on the lake shelf, the adults and I all screamed simultaneously for her to stop and return to shore immediately.

She swam back and sat next to me, quiet and defeated. The following conversation sounds like a transcript from a Family Channel sitcom (you can almost hear the sentimental piano music twinkling behind it), but I promise it's 100% accurate:

Me: Why did you swim out so far when you knew you weren't allowed?

Her: I wanted to touch the pole.

Me: Do you know how to swim well enough to make it on your own?

Her: Yes. Don't you believe me?

Me: If you know you can do it, I believe you.

She promised to shout for help if she got into trouble. The adults and I all stood at the ready as she waded out into the water. She looked back for permission, and we gave her the thumbs-up. Her feet left the shelf, and she paddled hard toward the deep water. She reached the pole easily, turned around, and smiled.

When she returned to shore, her younger brother begged for permission to swim out to the pole. My niece and I explained to him that he would have to work very hard until he's ready to swim to the pole himself. She taught him how to paddle, and he started to practice diligently on his own.

Untitled Comic from 2005

I'm going home for a while soon and hopefully learning how to drive, so it seems like a good time to share the first comic I made as an adult.

Dazed and Klon-fused: Crash Landing onto Psychotropic Island

In 2003, I moved to Cincinnati to study art at the University of Cincinnati's College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning (DAAP). At 21, I was convinced I was too mature to live in a dorm, but I didn't know a soul in "the big city," so I rented a one-bedroom by myself.

The students of DAAP, with their pantone skinny jeans and sculptural hairstyles, intimidated me with their apparent confidence. I missed the first day of my first class because I walked in, took one look at the people, and assumed that I had mistakenly walked into a graduate-level studio. I was actually three years older than everyone there.

Under the stress of the demanding Fine Arts program and difficulty making friends / adjusting to city life my first year at DAAP, I started having regular panic attacks and reluctantly started taking psychiatric medications.

Enter Klonopin.

Also known as Clonazepam, Klonopin is an anticonvulsant muscle relaxer used to treat epilepsy, spasms, and severe anxiety disorders. Prescribing such a strong, habit-forming medication was probably a mistake, but my doctor suggested it as a last resort, given my lack of response to Wellbutrin, Zoloft, Celexa, etc. and a horrible antidepressant/sleep aid called Remeron that gave me a migraine that lasted a month (that's another story).

Klonopin worked, in a way. I didn't have panic attacks. The problem was, I didn't have consciousness, either. Taking the drug allowed me to attend my classes, but I sat through them unproductively, more focused on the sensation of my blood cells floating through my veins than on gestalt theory. During a lecture, I fell asleep and out of my chair and was confronted by the concerned professor about my disinterest in his subject. For the one academic quarter I took Klonopin, my grades dropped from A's to C's. I couldn't remember what I'd done an hour earlier and busted my lips and knees tripping up the stairs on a daily basis. 

Klonopin also allowed me to vegetate at social events, too. My then-boyfriend (who has the patience of a saint) loved to throw parties, and I would pop my "mother's little helper" and then crumple in the corner like Milla Jovovich in Dazed and Confused, that heavy-lidded, strung-out girl who's always hanging around but is definitely not present.

After a difficult withdrawal process, I regained consciousness. Currently, I take no prescriptions. I still struggle with anxiety, a lot, especially in social situations. But I have been able to channel my daily anxiety toward productive goals. Other than a bad back and diminishing eyesight, the side effects of my new medication—drawing—are fantastic.

Hiding Place

The house where I grew up is in a very special place—an isolated, womblike enclosure of acres of forest and fields. As a kid, I played outside whenever I could, striking magical flint rocks, concocting various formulas of mud in the creek, naming and talking to the trees like they were my friends. When I transformed into a brooding, miserable teenager, the familiar woods became my escape by default; it was the only thing within walking distance on all sides.

Photo by Josh Barker

The woods (the wild) was a safe place where I could think, try out new voices and facial expressions, be angry if I wanted to be. More importantly, it was a solitary place where I could hide emotionally, and if no one could find me, no one could hurt me. When I couldn't physically escape to the woods, I retreated to my thoughts and hid there instead.

But, even in a good hiding spot, the forest does not feel safe at night, and, surrounded by the dark and dangers both real and perceived, one becomes acutely aware that she is alone.

I will find my way out.

Parting Gift

In a few weeks, I will pack up and move from the village of Yellow Springs, Ohio to the city of Columbus.

Today I received a very special gift from Yellow Springs' head (and other) cartoonist, Walter Rhodes: his own vintage calligraphy pen and pewter rest from Italy. 

Walter is an accomplished retired actor, an unforgettable personality, and an elder at the church where I currently work. I tried my best to be shy in his presence, but it was impossible to stay quiet around such a ham. We have spent many a long hour in the church office swapping ideas and stories and generally being kids.

True story from the church office.
Comic by M Young, color by Walter.

I have met many people who call themselves Christians in my life. Many of them horribly misunderstand the title, and most of them would bore God to tears. Walter is not one of those.

Read Walter's local cartoon series, Bench to Nowhere, here.

Bonus Story: Wolf Girl

My first attempt at writing Wild Child was in the form of a single, hand-bound artist book about a girl raised by wolves--a veiled autobiography. (This was also my college thesis project.) Years later I resolved to grow a pair and quit hiding behind a persona in my comics. But I love the archetypical character of the feral child, the patron saint of the free-spirited loner, so I decided to include, in addition to my life experiences, a storyline about a girl who runs away from home and is raised by wolves--to function as an allegory for my individual psyche while being a relatable figure who will appeal more to the collective unconscious. 

By the way, about 8 pages of Part 2 are sketched out, so watch for new work soon!