Ah, I do love my little Mind Goblins. The idea when I started introducing them was to de-claw my various anxieties and foibles by making them ridiculous. Early on in the comic, I gave voice to my anxieties in a more serious fashion and found out that it ended up amplifying those negative thoughts.

With THESE little weirdlings, I get to express the IDEAS without empowering those voices. Plus... in the case of my anger... I REALLY do NOT let that out. Ever. It’s kind of a problem, but it seems MUCH more managable this way. lo

l

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Your character placement is storytelling. In this panel from GIANT GIRL ADVENTURES, Ronni (Aka, the titular, size-changing GIANT GIRL) is opening up emotionally, and that’s hard for her. She feels small, so I draw her small. I position the “camera” to emphasize that.

She’s looking away, and holding herself tightly. These are all visual cues we UNDERSTAND as soon as we see them that tell us things about how someone is feeling. It pluses the needs of the narrative.

But when Lexii the Pixie tries to lift her back up emotionally, I have her flit off of the ledge to look UP to Ronni again. That wasn’t in the script from Sabrina Pandora, but It’s there to help add to the storytelling with cues readers can pick up on.

Color is storytelling. If you are coloring your comic, consider the emotional value of color. What warm colors make you feel, versus cool ones. What color says not just about things like the time of day, but how your characters are FEELING.

Body language is storytelling. Sure, you can just have your characters stand around with blank expressions on their faces and let the dialogue do all the work. OR, you could, y’know, not do that

.Look at the above strip. EVERY panel here uses body language and expression to sell the ideas. In panel one, I’m leaning in. My hand is on the desk, and the other is raised. I look excited and childlike.

In panel two, I’m leaning back on the chair and gesturing confidently. There’s a touch of arrogance on display.

In panel three, my hand is up in a playful pose, my shoulders are bunched, and I’m biting my bottom lip. It’s all about childlike excitement.

And in the final panel, my shoulders slump, and my expression goes flat, as all the excitement and arrogance is deflated by a reality check. Yes, the script tells all of that, but you could take this script out and still tell me what cartoon me is FEELING.

It’s all part of the bigger picture that is visual storytelling, and all of it needs to be on your mind with every panel

.

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THIS is pretty much exactly what happened on the Monday morning AFTER the Reubens Weekend when we had gotten home, and had to wake up, and both go to work the next day. Heidi had gotten up before me and freed the kitties from the rooms we put them in for our sanity at night.

Random had made a very unilateral decision that I had snoozed enough. lol

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Since the print preview has had its official and very EXCLUSIVE premiere at The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum, here’s an advanced peek of something coming later this year!

Adventures in Dungeoneering is a BRAND NEW comic strip coming from me and my Giant Girl Adventures partner-in-crime, Sabrina Pandora! It’s a hilarious and adventure-filled new strip about a very unlikely group getting together to prove themselves in a dangerous world of monsters and mystery!

And YES, this WILL be the return of Dandy Q. Dog to a regular comic, for everyone who has missed the little guy!

And here are some contextless snippets of some of the interior art! ENJOY, and see you in the Fall!

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So, this strip only represents a tiny drop in the bucket of awesome things that happened in Columbus last weekend for the 2026 National Cartoonists Society Conference and Reuben Awards! Special thanks to everyone I name-dropped here, and to Dana Simpson, of Phoebe and Her Unicorn fame, who utterly rocked out to Heidi’s karaoke and allowed me to put her in this strip!

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I SOOOO need to start collecting some art more at the next one of these events! lol

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Spoilers. They didn’t! lol. I didn’t win in my category of Best Online Comic (short form), but that did NOTHING to quell my enjoyment of the evening!

Well, it quelled it for about 15 minutes or so, before my overall bliss returned. lol. I won’t lie that I was bummed out, but it was hard to keep that up considering just how much I had metaphorically peed all over this event.

I designed the T-Shirt, seen above. I designed the art on the drink tumblers, seen in part one, and Heidi DJ’d the party. We won this thing before we came in the door, and that was and remains a wonderful part of all of this that I will cherish forever!

We partied HARD at the after party, and much Chardonnay was drunk by ME. (No pics of THAT, thankfully!) Then, rested up for the final day of the event.

It began with the Saturday brunch, where we all got together to eat, talk, and swap doodles and stories!

There are stories behind ALL of these, but if you weren’t there, they won’t make all that much sense! lol

From the breakfast brunch, we all headed BACK to the BILLY for the remarkable (I’m running out of adjectives!) CARTOONIST SHOWCASE event! Over 40 of us all set up in the lobby of the museum and the adjoining building, just like a mini-comiccon!

This was sponsored by the always excellent CXC, and I was almost MORE excited for THIS than the actual awards ceremony. Honestly, I ADORE the Billy Ireland Museum, so the opportunity to set up as an artist there was something I could not have been more excited for!

FOR this event, I had two very special books printed. One, being a special, full-color FINDING DEE comic…

And the other, being something EXTRA special, I have another blog coming to talk about, but that’s a story for another day!

Again, I feel like joining the National Cartoonists Society is one of the best things I’ve ever done, and after a LIFETIME of looking, I’ve finally found my proverbial tribe, as some say. If you’re a cartoonist on the fence about joining, get off the fence and JOIN! It’s really sooooo worth it!

We are already planning for NEXT years event with excitement!!!

Oh, there was an AFTER party on that last night, with awesome comic trivia! Our table lost, but Dana Simpson and I totally blame that on a faulty BUZZER!!

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The 80s-themed after-party on the first OFFICIAL night was amazing. I rocked the room in my Garfield T-Shirt, which not EVERYONE was a fan of…

Heidi, for her part, got a much better reaction with Snoopy!

Then came the party itself! Heidi was in the ZONE as the DJ for the evening

We sang Karaoke into the night with other cartoonists and guests, and had an AMAZING TIME!!!

After the party, and a MUCH needed sleep, the next morning was a flurry of activity, with official meetings and presentations with folks like Jim Davis, Dee Parson, and others. It was a great morning that I did NOT take a single picture for. DERP!

But then, after a lunch break where Heidi and I shared some Chipotle with George Gant, (ALSO no pics taken. D’oh!), came… THE event! The REUBEN AWARDS dinner and ceremony!

Heidi and I dolled ourselves up and schmoozed with all of the most amazing people!

Then… after the cocktail part, came the award ceremony itself…

To be concluded: PART 3

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It’s hard to put into words how much I adore these events, the people I’ve met through this organization, and everything surrounding this past weekend, but I’ll make a MINOR effort to do so, here in blog form.

Arriving Wednesday afternoon before everything kicked off on Thursday morning, I got to meet up with old friends and make plenty of NEW ones!

Cathy Guisewite knew who I was… AND liked the strip. I was sailing from that point forward, and it only got better from there. I also met Jean Schulz in the elevator, who ALSO knew who I was and liked the comic. (Though I failed to secure a selfie! RATS)

On Thursday, we all took buses from the hotel to the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum for a series of talks, one of which I was a panelist for. A special, LIVE episode of COMIC LAB with Brad Guigar and Dave Kellett!

It was a delightful (reference intended) experience I have been looking forward to for a VERY long time. I got to tell a lot of fun stories, including how I came up with the now-infamous “Green Goblin/Squatty Potty” strip, which got a LOT of laughs and comments throughout the weekend.

If you’ve never been to the BILLY, and you love comics and cartoons, you MUST make plans. It’s an astounding place I wish I could visit at least once a week. Seriously.

After that, it was the 80s night WELCOME PARTY, where lots of us slipped into our most RADICAL threads and partied, as Heidi spun the hits as DJ and later hosted a Karaoke party!

NEXT UP… the Opening Night Party and MORE!!!

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Heidi and I might have actually discovered our bizarre obsession with watching these kinds of videos independently of each other, but we are BOTH fairly obsessed with the gross things. lol

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I don’t USUALLY post strips on Friday evenings, but I felt like this idea was too much fun to NOT draw AND post on the actual evening of the Reuben Awards.

So, as you read this, I’m probably more than a little schnookered in celebration... or in consolation... along with many of my fellow cartoonists in the NCS in Charlotte!

And if you’re thinking that I had DEFEATED my impostor syndrome in last week’s strip... yeah. That’s not how it works for very long. lol

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So, later THIS week, I’ll be in Columbus, Ohio for the National Cartoonists Society’s 80th annual conference and Reuben Award weekend. This will be the second time since 2024 that Finding Dee will be a nominee for a Silver Divisional award for Best Short Form Webcomic.

Two years ago this time, I was an utter WRECK! My impostor syndrome was SCREAMING at me, and utterly kicking my butt. Everything it was saying here was magnified by a factor of 10, and it took all of the massive amounts of validation I received that weekend... in spite of NOT winning... to shut those voices up.

This year, however, as I write this, my usually ever-present Impostor Syndrome is a LOT quieter. A SECOND nomination means the last time wasn’t a fluke. Being asked to draw the official t-shirt said a lot too. I’m not writing any of this to brag, but to say that this kind of stuff can be fought against. Sometimes it takes a DANG long time, but it’s worth it.

Now, cross your collective fingers for me this weekend! (Big Reuben! Big Reuben! No Whammies!)

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While the influence isn’t always visible in FINDING DEE, I really adored the work of Todd McFarlane when I first discovered his work back in junior high. And for YEARS, I emulated the heck out of his approach to superhero comic-making. As such, I finally decided to try a more DIRECT homage to his work, doing my level-best to match the composition, line style, and even colors and letters of his SPAWN era.

As such, this is an homage not just to McFarlane, but also to Tom Orzechowski’s letters and Steve Oliff & Reuben Rude’s colors. This one was TOUGH, and a heck of a deep-cut reference, but I had WAY too much fun doing it.

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and the strips’ bluelines! Enjoy!

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Poe is now completely blind. Can't see a dang thing. Yet our little old man of a puppers can somehow STILL get that tongue RIGHT UP MY NOSTRIL with laserlike focus. It's frankly... impressive.

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