Anxiety 6

You never know what works for people. And then you don't quite know if it will work again... it's good to have a number of ideas to hand. Write a list. Rewrite it now and then with the things that work best on top. It's like a letter to yourself from someone who cares.

Anxiety 5: Irrational Fears

Here's something to help you understand the completely irrational fears that anxious people develop now and then. - Panic attacks can hit at any time, for many reasons that are sometimes hard to spot.
A panic attack feels like intense fear of actual death, and it's a natural reaction to mentally connect whatever situation you are in at the time of the attack with the fear from then on... even if that thing has nothing at all to do with the actual cause of the panic.
I managed to acquire an absolute horror of small pieces of paper, sellotape and the dancing penguins in the Mary Poppins movie and profiterioles that way. I got over those. Except for profiteroles. They freak me right out.

It takes effort and time to unpick these fears, and it's not a good idea to just force someone to face them. Be gentle with this stuff. It can be solved, but not by other people. It's easy to make it worse by mistake.

Anxiety 4

Hey everybody!

Thank you so much for the comments on this webcomic, I'm glad you're getting it.

I hope you are all toasty, happy, well fed and watching a bunch of movies. I know I am ^_^

Don't watch "Love Actually", it's a terrible movie. Unless it makes you very happy. Then whatever.
Love you all! Merry festivities!

Happy Inky Time Of Year

Anxiety 3

Anxiety - Q&A

Questions have started coming in about the Anxiety comic, and I don't really feel like dealing with the same stuff several times over, so here are my answers.

Q: Is this autobiographical? You poor thing!
A: It is. Incidentally, I am a sturdy, reasonably happy person and I live life exactly as I want to. Everyone has troubles at times.

Q: Um, will you write anything about, you know - will I be in this?
A: You might appear in this as a friendly animal. If you upset me, it will not feature because this isn't about settling scores or purging sadness, it's about kicking anxiety in the snout - anxiety, and nobody else.

Q: I have some advice how to beat your anxiety for good...
A: I've got this, thanks. - Also... the attitude of anxiety being something that must be cured, eradicated, beaten "for good" is incredibly hurtful to the people experiencing it. It makes us feel like our life is on hold, like we fail every time we get anxious, and frankly - like you don't respect us very much. - If you want to help, maybe actually learn something about anxiety, what it feels like and how to manage it.
What have you been reading anyway? Was it a self help book for executive managers by any chance? Do I look like an executive manager? Do you think I want to be one?
Ok, you can go now. We're cool.

Q: I don't get it, what is this about?
A: Hey, congratulations, you probably don't have anxiety disorder! You probably got something else you would like support for. Keep reading comics. It's all in there.

Q: Hang on, you still get anxiety attacks? I thought you were better?
A: I'm good. I have anxiety attacks sometimes, I get sad sometimes. Do you mind? I hope you don't.

Q: Is this a call for help?
A: If I ever call you for help, you will know it by the way I am calling you saying "help".

Q:So why are you actually drawing this?
A: Because I wish I'd known all this years ago. And because it makes me happy drawing it.

Q: Why are you drawing such sad things?
A: If you think this is sad, you are projecting.

Anxiety - 2

Anxiety Attack

I'm starting a new comic. Here's part one!

Quitting

Tomorrow will be my last day of teaching at Plymouth University.
I've been associate lecturer on the illustration BA for a few years now, and I am wrapping the gig up with three days of solid assessment. My hair is all at random angles, and I'm in bed at half past six. It's tiring, looking at other people's work all day. Some of it is brilliant, as always.
I will miss seeing the brilliant work, and I will miss seeing the less than brilliant work improve week by week. There have been many moments of joy, seeing a student work something out, or nerding out about inking, Star Wars or the shape of a kangaroo's nose.
What I won't be missing is the commute, regularly getting stuck on trains for hours, travelling through floods, on rail replacement coaches, once in the luggage rack. I won't miss catching all the colds on the way.
I've got a lot of work to do now, many books I want to make, and I need to be at home, in London, to make them. I'm quite sorry - this was a wonderful job. I've made good friends, and learned a lot. I think it's a good time to leave.
I'm a bit sad that I won't see the second years turn into third years now. That's always exciting, the point when they work out what they are actually doing. But that's ok.
I would like to apologise to anyone I freaked out by eating whole sugar packs from the tea kitchen when I missed my lunch break. Sorry.
It's been good.
:)

CHILDRENS BOOK ILLUSTRATION EXHIBITION

Hey!
There's an exhibition at Foyles Charing Cross, London, and I have some nice opictures in it.
It's still on until Saturday.
There are MANY pictures by all sorts of famous illustrators, it's free to go, and you can buy the pictures, so go have a look!

More Info Here