July 20, 2012

Epic Friday: Left-Handed Comic

By Matt Gajdoš

It’s Epic Friday! I have an epic cramp in my left arm! That’s because I drew today’s comic with my left hand!

I was inspired by this webcomic by Drew Mokris that I found on reddit today.  It brought me way back to my high school days when our art teacher Mr. Delach instructed us to draw stuff with our non-dominant hand when he ran out of lesson plans.  If you’ve never tried it, it’s pretty crazy.  It’s great stimulation for your brain, kind of like folding your laundry with your toes if you’ve ever tried that, but it gives me a temporary cognitive smackdown.

To wit, today while I was finishing the comic, I put last night’s dinner on the stove to re-heat.  Two minutes later I started to freak out that someone was making noise in my kitchen because I didn’t remember that I had put food on the stove.  This effect wears off pretty fast, but if you’re into that sort of thing, it’s cheaper and safer than huffing glue.  I’m not sure exactly what happens in the brain, but I imagine it’s like that part in Smokey and The Bandit II when they have to shake Burt Reynolds awake from under a pile of beer cans and try to revive him to drive his Trans Am once more on an epic quest.

As for the comic itself, this is one of my all time favorite quotes.  It’s from a pre-kinder – so, a four-year-old – and it’s so sweet and thoughtful.  I’ve dreaded drawing this comic because I knew it would take a long frickin’ time to draw it the way I envisioned it in my mind.  So the left-handed thing gave me an excuse to be much more expressive and sloppy with it and stop procrastinating on getting it done.

Can you guess where I teach from my photorealistic depiction of the city skyline?

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About Matt Gajdoš

I'm a cartoonist and elementary substitute teacher. Kids make me laugh and inspire me to be like them. View all posts by Matt Gajdoš

This entry was posted on Friday, July 20th, 2012 at 12:00 am and tagged with adorable, apparatus, art, artist, arts, artwork, baby, beautiful, benches, bien, big sky, blue sky, bonito, boy, breakfast, burt reynolds, cafeteria, cartoon, chica, chico, child, children, color, comedy, comic, comic strip, comics, communist, crayon, cuidad, cute, dexter, dominant, downtown, draw, drawing, elementary, fresco, fresh, funny, girl, hilarious, illustrate, illustration, jackie gleason, K, kickball, kid, kids, kinder, kindergarten, L.A., LA, learn, left-handed, lefty, little, LOL, los angeles, los angeles basin, love, lunch, monkey bars, mountains, muchacha, muchacho, nice, nina, nino, palm trees, pen, pencil, pinko, playground, pre, preschool, puente hills, recess, sally field, san joaquin hills, santa ana mountains, santa monica mountains, school, sinister, sky, skyscrapers, sliding board, smart, smokey and the bandit, sweet, table, teacher, us bank tower, yard and posted in New Comic!. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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11 Responses to “Epic Friday: Left-Handed Comic”

• nonoymanga
  July 20th, 2012 at 12:17 am

  Mr. G Epic!!! Cheers Nonoy Manga

  Reply
  • Matt
    July 20th, 2012 at 12:51 am

    LOL Thanks!

    Reply
• shavenwookiee
  July 20th, 2012 at 6:56 am

  You drew that with your left hand???? Maaaaaaan, it’s still better than my drawing? *Sulks*

  Reply
  • Matt
    July 20th, 2012 at 8:48 am

    Aw, don’t sulk! It was really hard, and my head hurt, my eyes went cross-eyed, and I was sweating more than usual! You should try it! Maybe you’ll discover something cool!

    Reply
    • shavenwookiee
      July 20th, 2012 at 12:17 pm

      I’ll try it! But I can’t even draw with my right hand! And I’m right handed!
    • Matt
      July 20th, 2012 at 6:33 pm

      HAHA! I’m saying – maybe your left hand is the one you need to draw with!
    • shavenwookiee
      July 20th, 2012 at 7:26 pm

      Yeah possibly!
• thisislemonade
  July 21st, 2012 at 2:26 pm

  I find using my left hand on a black/white board comes up great. I haven’t done much drawing that way, but my handwriting comes out pretty cool Don’t know if you use one in your line of work…looks like you have much more fun using paints, crayons and the like
  Cool pic. No idea where it is, but if you’re teaching in the shadow of palm trees and mountains…awesome!

  Reply
  • Matt
    July 21st, 2012 at 10:10 pm

    Don’t have one but sounds cool! I don’t use paint, but I go for a painterly look, so glad you said that I use colored pencils and ink mostly, but also blend with 6B, 4B, and 4H pencils and an occasional crayola crayon. i like paint but i have trouble controlling it. also the tools i use allow me to do my comics relatively fast.
    Thanks as always for your thoughtful comments !

    Reply
    • thisislemonade
      July 21st, 2012 at 11:14 pm

      Seeing how you use crayons and coloured pencils has really inspired me. I haven’t used crayons since school! They tend to be seen somehow as only appropriate to children – I don’t remember there even being any in the art room in secondary/high school. They are really appropriate to the style and feel of the comic. Go Crayola!
    • Matt
      July 21st, 2012 at 11:58 pm

      I’ve always been a believer in crayons. They give you fast wide coverage like pastels, but they’re not nearly as messy.

      I remember doing an art project in high school in crayons. Admittedly, I was being a smartass, and I got an “F” on it, and it was not very good. But that was the beginning of my decision to think of crayons a legit medium for adults. I’ll see if I can find that picture, lol!

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