My tweets

• Sun, 12:43: RT @50NerdsofGrey: Frantically he tore off her dress, bra and knickers. His heart was racing but he just managed to close the wardrobe door…
• Sun, 12:44: RT @OKBJGM: i get it. remaking songs i loved as a teenager at half tempo in a minor key turns them into haunting reminders of innocence los…
• Sun, 12:44: RT @TheMarySue: It's The 30th Anniversary of #Clue! https://t.co/oxoat7jd8s https://t.co/rtrbaEjw6s
• Sun, 12:50: RT @cleolinda: The R2-D2 one though https://t.co/NlQNEORs1T
• Sun, 12:52: RT @LeVostreGC: Holidaye typpe: Put a litel rosemarye yn yower spyced apple cider. Thys ys yn facte a real holidaye typpe and nat a jest.
• Sun, 12:53: Post-MFF badge done for Jell-O Blue. Not sure why it's sideways. https://t.co/BKDMR1R8nd
• Sun, 12:55: Work is kicking me up one side and down the other but I seriously want to draw tonight.
• Sun, 17:27: RT @ConanOBrien: Fun party hosting tip: Put dozens of extra coats on the bed. When guests ask where everyone else is, laugh maniacally & ch…
• Sun, 17:29: RT @ziroro326: メーン7おめでとうって感じの絵 https://t.co/IWnnGhnpjI
• Sun, 17:30: RT @HubSpot: "Pursue something so important that even if you fail, the world is better off with you having tried"- @timoreilly https://t.co…

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The Unexpected Bashfulness of Charity Cheeger

The cover for issue four of Rough Housing went up today, and I’m quite pleased with it, but I also noticed something about it on reflection.

For a comic ostensibly set on the beach as an excuse for me to draw beefcake/cheesecake, there has been precious little cake in it. With the possible exception of Langley in her “Hello Kitty” underwear, this is probably the most fanservicey image from the comic so far.

I also noticed for the first time just how bashful Charity is. I mean yeah, in the original issue 1 cover (which looks so sparse now compared to the final version with Langley, Roxie, and Parker in it) she’s wearing a shirt over her swimsuit, but that was intended as something of a tease. In the issue four cover, she is explicitly hiding behind Langley so as to not be seen in her bikini.

Honestly… I was not expecting this of Charity. I mean, she was never intended to be an exhibitionist, but my original conception of her was that she was very much a chip off the ol’ block of her mother Comfort, who was anything but shy! Charity was supposed to be bouncy, exuberant, and fun-loving… but as the story evolved she has ended up serious-minded, high-strung, suffering from a deep-seated need to live up to… something, and even a bit prudish.

This is the kind of thing I mean when I say that strong characters often go off in their own directions. Being in the role of “boss who has to whip the hotel into shape” almost requires Charity to be a more serious-minded character, because if she was just another party girl she’d get lost in the mix. Certainly I can’t see Comfort coming in and kicking Langley out of the manager’s bedroom; but Comfort also wouldn’t take on a managerial role, on the grounds of “What fun is that?”

As for my unexpected recent reluctance to draw fanservice… I have no idea what that’s about. I used to love to draw beefcake and cheesecake both, and I was always rather proud of drawing what I considered to be “empowering fanservice,” which showed happy and confident subjects who were in the picture because they wanted to show off. Now I’m just not comfortable with it, and I can’t figure out why. Maybe it’s that with the proliferation of porn to the near-exclusion of other things, the idea of fanservicey art just sorta seems like a quaint relic of time gone by? Who’s gonna care about characters posing in swimsuits when there’s “YCH orgy” pictures all over the place? Or maybe it’s my own attitudes towards sex and sexuality being out of synch with the world around me that’s making me want to just avoid the topic all together?

I dunno. Obviously I have my own issues to deal with, just as much as Charity has hers.

-The Gneech