Amandoll

Listen To The Sorrowful Head

Oh boy another old pen and ink comic from the Amanda I was in the year 2003! Back when I had boundless, unstructured creative energy that I find uncomfortable and horrifying nowadays. But I had a goal of making two posts on sneer campaign this week, so here we are.

Speaking of goals, self-improvement over a lifetime seems to be a positive goal and a necessary step in achieving that is self-reflection by looking at one’s own past — don’t dwell in it!! Just look back there from time to time so that you can feel that sense of relief that comes with the awareness that oh thank god I’m quieter now. I’m really glad that I am not looking back on real life videos of myself because what if my personality matched these comics oh god what if it did?? Shudder.

Still, I wouldn’t be where or how I am today if I wasn’t where and how I was then. In a way, I admire Pastmanda for bravely creating drawn nonsense that had an target audience of one single person (myself). I’m too considerate for that now. If indeed the manic comedy of yesteryear is still inside of me, I don’t particularly want to inflict it on anyone. I mean, except for now, in these nostalgic posts. But this is a twenty year old antique comic! It’s historical at this point!

Oh no… Just like that, I have become a Sorrowful Head of a different type. : (

This is a scan of the first page of a two page comic called "Listen to the Sorrowful Head." It was written by me, Amanda Wood, in 2003. Drawn by me, too. Naturally. With pen and ink and my own little hand. The star of this comic is a disembodied head that is forlorn. He sits on the ground while talking to the reader, breaking the fourth wall. At first he says "life is somewhat sad when you are just a head." A child remarks that he is a talking pumpkin. A mother hurries the child away. In a cafe, he is frightening a table full of people by his appearance alone. They are afraid since he is a "severed head," they say. They ask if it is contagious. One says that they will be sick. Hooligans are using him as a sports ball in the bottom panel of the page. High-fiving each other as he hurtles into a garbage can goal area.
Page two of the comic starts with him atop a hill, looking down towards a sports field. He says that you can't even play sports like bodied people do when you are only a head. The next panel says that getting up a flight of stairs is humiliating at best. He is biting a jogger's pant leg, thunking up a staircase and two girls wonder at what they are seeing. The next three panels show scenes of him splashing through a puddle, because traveling in all weather can be difficult. He states that he feels so lonely. And that ostriches mistake him for their egg. The big last panel is of an ostrich bursting through some bushes, shouting, "my baby! I've found you!" And the head begins to rapidly roll away while saying "gasp! roll away! roll away!" The end.

I chose this one today because it perplexed me more than made me wince and feel ashamed. These 2003 era comics in my three ring binder are often so chaotic, filled from edge to edge with information that make it difficult to follow sequentially. What a big rookie error! What a buffoon! This is maybe the first one I did that I allowed there to be white spaces — if only a little.

I’m almost proud of you, Lil’ Amanda. You were making strides in November of 2003.

Sneer Back

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