100 Tiny Moments Book - Available for Pre-Order.

"There is imaginative and poetic potential in the small details of life that surround us, and very small details can encapsulate the most important things about life"

- Josie Long, in her introduction.

Almost a year after I began work on the 100 Tiny Moments project, and finally the comic is ready for print.  I have brought together all 100 strips from the project, with an introduction by comedian and '100 Days' project leader Josie Long. 

 I am selling 100 copies of the book: each one is hand numbered and comes with a different 100 Tiny Moments badge.  You can pre-order your copy now through paypal and I will pop your copy in the post when the book is released at the end of October.  Just order your copy from the 'Shop' section of my main blog: www.edwardmaross.blogspot.com

 

'100 Tiny Moments From My Past, Present and Future' - 116 pages, black and white. Available for pre-order now.  The book will also be available to buy from me in person at MCM London (29th - 31st October).

Day One Hundred and One: Final Thoughts.

So this has been the first day in 100 days where I haven't drawn anything, haven't opened myself up to other people and talked about my life in comic book form.  It's been an amazing process and I've met so many lovely people and seen so much great work with such depth and variety.  Although it would have been nice to continue this project for a while, I'm certain it would only have been a matter of time before I missed a day or ran out of good ideas, or started to repeat myself.  I'd rather it was short and sweet than over-long and increasingly tenuous and flawed.

Perhaps in ten years, I'll come back for another 100 Tiny Moments, from what will be an entirely different persective.  We'll have to wait and see how my past will be viewed, and how my current experiences will be reinterpreted.  And what will my hopes and fears for the future be?

I would like to thank Josie Long for leading us all through this project, and my friends and family for supporting me throughout the process.  And of course, thanks to Mary for her inspiration, for putting up with me for 100 days, and for pushing me to produce the best work I could.

Finally, if anyone is interested in keeping up with what I do next, including me publishing my 100 Tiny Moments as a comic, as well as other projects in the works, please give me an email at:
edward.m.a.ross[AT]btinternet.com
Or follow me on twitter.

One-Hundredth Tiny Moment.

 

Ninety-Ninth Tiny Moment.

 

I should hopefully be at Josie Long's Lost Treasures of the Black Heart tonight.  Hopefully see some folk there.

Ninety-Eighth Tiny Moment.

Ninety-Seventh Tiny Moment.

Ninety-Sixth Tiny Moment.

 

If you checked this strip before 10am today you might have noticed in the last three panels I was saying rather than thinking my comments.  Now corrected!

Ninety-Fifth Tiny Moment.

Ninety-Fourth Tiny Moment.

Josie has asked us to push our projects to the MAX in the last few days.  Erm... I'll try my best, though since they're currently taking around two to three hours to complete as it is, I'm not sure how more I can max out!  I've got something special in the works for the last few days, plus I'm putting together a wee exhibition of some of my favourite tiny moments for the London event on the 10th (come along, if you're in the area!).  Double plus, I've got a super special set of 100 unique tiny moments badges that you'll be able to grab one of at that event.  They're super cool, and have been made for me by the wonderful Heidi Kuisma A.K.A mybitofsky.

 

Photo © Heidi Kuisma 2010

Ninety-Third Tiny Moment.

Ninety-Second Moment.

Ninety-First Tiny Moment.

Ninetieth Tiny Moment.

 

I was in two minds about using photographs as part of this comic.  In the end I opted not to try and illustrate the images of my aunt Mary and for the first time used unaltered photographs as part of the strip.  To me Mary exists only as photographs and stories and other people's memories and because of that, an illustration seems insufficient.

Eighty-Ninth Tiny Moment.

Eighty-Eighth Tiny Moment.

Eighty-Seventh Tiny Moment.

Eighty-Sixth Tiny Moment.

 

A continuation of yesterday's strip... kind of.  Only two weeks left to go!  I can't believe it. 

Eighty-Fifth Tiny Moment.

Eighty-Fourth Tiny Moment.

Eighty-Third Tiny Moment.

Eighty-Second Tiny Moment.

Eighty-First Tiny Moment.

Eightieth Tiny Moment.

Seventy-Ninth Tiny Moment.

 

I'm fascinated by the idea that one day I might just be so out of the loop, so old fashioned that I won't really understand the world around me anymore.  Previous generations who didn't understand racial or sexual equality weren't bad people, just informed by their own upbringings and confused by new social mores.  I worry and I wonder what's going to confuse me and shock me when I'm older.  In what ways could the world change that would leave me a bigot? Or will I cope just fine: will I roll with the changes?

Seventy-Eighth Tiny Moment.

Seventy-Seventh Tiny Moment.

Seventy-Sixth Tiny Moment

Seventy-Fifth Tiny Moment.

Seventy-Fourth Tiny Moment.

 

Apologies for the lateness of this completed strip.  That's my first slip-up though! 

Seventy-Third Tiny Moment.

Seventy-Second Tiny Moment.

Seventy-First Tiny Moment.

Seventieth Tiny Moment.

 

This is a true story from today.  After I spotted the cat I ran off to find the poster and get the owner's number, but by the time I came back, the cat had escaped.  I called the cat's owner once I was home and found out that the cat may have actually been another local Siamese cat.  I guess I'll never know...

Best of luck to the owner in finding her cat!

Sixty-Ninth Tiny Moment.

Sixty-Eighth Tiny Moment.

Sixty Seventh Tiny Moment.

Sixty-Sixth Tiny Moment.

Sixty-Fifth Tiny Moment.

R.I.P. Mole.

Sixty-Fourth Tiny Moment.

Sixty-Third Tiny Moment.

Sixty-Second Tiny Moment.

Thanks to Gosia for her help today!

Sixty-First Tiny Moment.

Sixtieth Tiny Moment.

 

Fifty-Ninth Tiny Moment.

 

  

Fifty-Eighth Tiny Moment

Sorry for the lateness of this one, but my internet went down last night.  Better late than never!

Intermission 5: Comics.

It occurs to me that for a number of people reading this blog, this'll be one of their first experiences of reading comics as an adult. I was a fairly late starter to comics myself. I'd enjoyed The Beano and Calvin and Hobbes as a child (you're never too young or too old to enjoy Calvin and Hobbes), but never appreciated what comics could be until I was almost 17.

The first thing you realise when you actually look at comics is that they aren't a genre as so many misconceive, but a whole medium. That much should really be obvious, but it isn't, for far too many people. In the murk of cultural snobbery comics have either been dismissed as kid-lit and macho, violent escapism, or in the case of some works (Art Spiegelman's 'Maus', Marjane Satrapi's 'Persepolis' for example) have been elevated in an almost exaggerated fashion by cultural commentators, who it feels to me, see these works as flowers that have grown out of the muck of the rest of the medium. It's a start at least that some comics are getting mainstream attention, and the works of both Spiegelman and Satrapi deserve their stature, but my question is why this polarity has to exist at all? Why can't we learn to pick up comics off the shelf the same way we pick up novels? Why is there shame associated with a medium that can juxtapose all the power of prose with that of illustration? Why is this exciting young medium invisible to most, a mere flirtation for some, and an obsession for the rest?

Fifty-Seventh Tiny Moment.

A second comic on the love theme. Love is reading gory descriptions from a true crime classic before bed.

Fifty-Sixth Tiny Moment.

Josie Long has set the task of love week this week for 100days. Well, here's my take on it. Love is eating someone's tears.

Fifty-fifth Tiny Moment.

Fifty-Fourth Tiny Moment