Yeah, I was procrastinating the inking of this page forever. For a long time I assumed that I just couldn’t focus because my brain was too preoccupied with the usual problems of human existence and the existence of hairy men, and that I was just too lazy to ink the elaborate scene in the first panel. After three days or so, I suddenly realised that the composition was crap – I’d cut off their legs and the lower part of the fence, when it would be much better to draw them full figure and include the whole fence.
*Sigh* … I don’t have time to be this slow-witted!

In any case, it was fun to research demolitions a bit. V^(oo)^V

I’m not quite sure how strict British comprehensive secondary schools tend to be regarding what kind of jackets and coats students are allowed to wear over their uniforms. One school states on its website that “school coats” are preferrable, but students are allowed to wear any coat they like as long as they take it off inside school. In any case, I’m letting Willie wear her revolutionary postman jacket to school …
But maybe her skirt would be too short for some schools? :3

Heh, it almost feels romantic to have finished drawing this page on the same day as I posted it. Just like in the old days. I’m a bit behind on the pages right now, because I’ve been sharing a flat with someone, and that makes it really hard for me to concentrate. But yay, I actually managed to ink half of this page while my flat mate was in the apartment and talking to me from time to time. Thankfully he’s going away for the whole winter tomorrow morning, so I’ll have the space and peace of mind to focus more fully on drawing lots of comics again.

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Yesterday I was one of up to ten thousand people (or more) who occupied the Reichstag here in Berlin. (Some photos here.) It’s only the beginning.

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So I heard this song by Calexico the other day.

It’s very common in this area for people to have allotment gardens where they actually grow food for their families. But growing food on the street side is of course rather unusual …

Yeah, I just had to cram in that whole explanation about inflation and employment, because I do think it is a very important thing to understand about the economic system we have today.

The book Sophie is referring to is (if I’m not mistaken) The Self-Sufficient Gardener by John Seymour. The first edition came out in the 70’s, and since then he has made a thoroughly revised new edition, so now I’m a bit confused if it really was that book. But it can’t really have been any other one …

In any case, at a young age I was deeply impressed by that book along with two others by John Seymour — Forgotten Household Crafts and, especially, The Complete Book of Self-Sufficiency, all of which I kept borrowing over and over at the local library.

Okay, I visited my mum last week, so as promised, here are some photos from my childhood home, on which I’ve partly based the interior decoration in Willie’s flat. There were somehow surprisingly few photos that show the interiors. I guess if it had been after the advent of digital cameras, there would be a whole lot more.

Here’s a photo from our kitchen. Mum is preparing food for our dog Priska, whose leg is broken (she chased after a squirrel in the forest and jumped down a steep cliff) … ,:3 In the background I’m probably going to use the stool to climb up on the counter so I can explore the contents of the kitchen cabinets. I used to do that a lot.

Below Ainur is feeling sorry for poor Priska, while mum’s glasses are glowing ominously. I liked that sofa very much. It became very worn, and at some point mum covered it with terrible white and grey striped drapes. I hated them and refused to enter the living room. I don’t remember how the conflict was resolved — probably I forgot about it eventually, or it was just before we moved to Germany, where my parents got a brand new completely white sofa. :o(

There are no photos at all of the mysterious scary wallpaper in our bedroom. :o(
But there was a pretty cool wallpaper in the hallway, too, which was also covered up with some boring 80’s wallpaper later on:

(Ainur is posing with her rubber boots on the wrong feet, and Priska is photobombing …)

My webhost moved all their servers today (that’s why the site was down for a few hours), so hopefully it won’t be down again for a long time. V`(oo)´V

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All this dialogue in this page was rather difficult. I kept asking myself if I was being too simple and obvious, or too obscure … I recently watched Priest, so I went with the more simple and obvious. :op

At least it was extremely fast to draw, for a change. V^(oo)^;V

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The books Willie is referring to:

Codependent No More is a self-help book by Melody Beattie. I read it after breaking up from a very bad relationship, and it was quite an eye-opener (well, to this day I’m still struggling with the same problems). It talks a lot about focusing on yourself, to the point of embracing egoism.
(I suppose that it could be a useful antidote to stop your dysfunctional behaviour as a codependent. But I personally think the important issue is not to stop caring about others, but to learn to care for those who actually need it and appreciate it, in ways that are actually helpful and constructive — certainly including ourselves, first and foremost.)

There is a “Big Book” by Alcoholics Anonymous, which you can read in its entirety on their website.
There’s also a “Big Book” by Co-Dependents Anonymous, which has a similar structure to the AA big book.

The CoDA big book is not available online, it seems, but Adult Children of Alcoholics have some basic and quite helpful texts on their site.

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Now that’s all rather depressing, so here’s a warm-up sketch I did recently:

Whee!