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Charlie James

Zoo Doodles #2

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Here’s another sketch dump from the St. Louis Zoo. One more of these before Chapter 3 of The Moose Riders starts up. I’m working on the cover AS WE SPEAK!

Continuing my adoption-reunion story from the last few weeks…Last weekend my twin sister Chris and I met our birth parents and then three of our five older siblings and their families. It was a wonderful, moving experience. The similarities, not only in appearance but also personality/interests, were kind of astounding. Given a variety of beer options, my bother Kurt and I both chose Sierra Nevada. My sister Karla (who looks more like a twin to Chris than I do) quoted songs that Chris and I grew up listening to. I looked at my sister Lisa and saw a feminine variation of my own eyes looking back at me. Hugging the people who gave you life for the very first time forty years after your birth…I don’t have the words to describe those feelings.

I have a tendency to be a bit cynical, but it feels like I’ve been floating on a cloud for days now. I feel so fortunate to have had this experience. To have grown up in a loving home, raised by parents that cared enough about us to take us both in rather than see us separated, parents who worked and sacrificed and raised us to ensure we had the best life possible; then to meet an entirely different loving, caring family who made entirely different sacrifices for the exact same reason, and then welcomed us back with open arms and open hearts…

I’ve been using the word “overwhelming” an awful lot lately, but it seems appropriate.

Zoo Doodles #1

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Graphite and Airbrush. Again, the results of too much time with no customers at the zoo this summer. St. Louis Zoo doesn’t even have a panda. Well, a red panda I guess, but not the kind I drew up there. There will be a few more updates like this before The Moose Riders returns on October 11.

A couple weeks ago I mentioned that my twin-sister and I were looking for our birth parents. Last Thursday she called me to say that she had just gotten her original birth certificate in the mail. It’s been kind of a crazy, overwhelming whirlwind since. One minute I know nothing and the next I’m speaking to my birth mother on the phone, looking at photos of siblings I’d never known on Facebook. It’s been big. Tough to wrap my brain around at times. Calling it an existential crisis would be overstating things a bit, but still–I’ve got some stuff to process. Despite how that sounds, though, it’s been a hugely positive experience. We’ve been corresponding with our birth mother over email, chatting with our sisters on FB, feeling welcomed into this family while at the same time getting pieces of this 40-year-old jigsaw puzzle put into place.

It’s important to me to make sure our adoptive parents (or as we call them, Mom and Dad) know that we aren’t replacing our family, just adding to it. They will always be Mom and Dad. They’ve been there through every defeat and every triumph we’ve had growing up. They’ve loved us and cared for us. To say, “They’ve treated us like their own,” feels like a misstatement–we ARE theirs, and they are ours, and this reunion doesn’t change that.

Walt and Jesse

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Here’s a little filler to give you something to look at until The Moose Riders returns. Drew this at the St. Louis Zoo this summer while killing time between caricature customers. With temperatures hovering around 107°F, I had a lot of time to kill.

I love Breaking Bad. If you aren’t current, take this as kind of a warning for some generalized spoilers, and also a bit of profanity. Walt has turned into a completely unlikable prick. I assume this is because the writers are going to kill him off by the end of the season and want us to be OK with it. Or maybe he’ll redeem himself before the end so we mourn his passing. I don’t know. Either way, he’s a bigger asshole than in seasons past. I used to think Jesse was an irredeemable sack of shit, but turns out he’s actually kind of a good guy. This “mid-season break” is a ridiculously long time to wait for the exciting conclusion.

The Moose Riders, Page 62

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Here it is, the last page of Chapter 2. Like the last page of Chapter 1, I’m unhappy with my paint-job. Meh.

I wanted to make it clear that the previous 11 pages were a dream before we got to the bit where Westley wakes up in the sleeping bag, because I didn’t want a cheap “Dallas” ending. I’ll admit that the bloody antler on the cover was a tease, but I was feeling bad about that, so that’s why I tried to make the dream sequence obvious–limited palette, no sound effects or dialogue, the Mom glowing and floating, Westley running hard but not actually going anywhere, etc. Did everybody get that?

So now I’m going to take a month to finish the script for Chapter 3, get Chapter 2 prepped for the printer, and get the character pages put together for the parents. The plan will be to have the Chapter 3 cover up on October 11 and then keep rolling from there. Over the next few weeks I’ll be posting sketches, doodles, and whatnot, so please keep checking back.

Ok, so here’s some personal stuff. My twin sister and I were adopted. We’ve talked for years about looking up our birth parents and just finally got around to actually researching. We have gotten some non-identifying info and now know that our birth-mother was 39 and our birth-father was 37. Turning 40 today puts them in their late 70s, so I’m feeling guilty/anxious/dumb for not getting this ball rolling a lot earlier. Hopefully the original birth certificates will come through soon and we can go to the next step.

Growing up, our parents never kept the fact that we were adopted a secret from us. I don’t even remember ever finding out–we were adopted at only a couple months old, and Mom and Dad just talked about it for as long as I can remember. Seeing characters on TV and in movies that find out later in life that they were adopted–it just never made any sense to me. Why keep it a secret? Also, the adoptees who feel that their birth-parents somehow abandoned them–I don’t get that either. Seems to me that they were the ones faced with this difficult choice and they made the decision that they thought was best for us. Maybe my feelings on this are influenced by our adoptive family. They love us and cared for us, so I can’t look at the birth parents and say, “How could you do this to me?!” They did us a favor.

Seems strange to be this close to finding the answers to these questions I’ve wondered about my whole life. Glad I have a twin to go through this with.

The Moose Riders, Page 59

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My friend JT went to the Star Wars Celebration VI last week. I can’t tell you how envious I am.

So here’s the plan for next week: two-page spread should go up on Tuesday, and then the last page of Chapter 2 on Thursday. Three pages in two updates in one week. Check back, or follow me on Twitter, or “Like” the Chrome Dome Facebook page to get notified. Thanks!

The Moose Riders, Page 57

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My summer vacation is wrapping up. This was a busy one, with trips to Disney World, Holiday World, Six Flags, and Raging Rivers. Also drew caricatures at the zoo, moved bedrooms around, and still put up a Moose Riders page every week. As I mentioned before, we’re getting close to the end of Chapter 2, and at this point Chapter 3 isn’t fully scripted. I would really like to avoid any downtime between chapters, but with school starting up again, I might be forced to take a short break before Chapter 3 begins. If that is the case, I’ll try to have some kind of content updating here–sketches, doodles, whatever. Thanks for your support!

The Moose Riders, Page 56

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Living in a 2-bedroom home with two kids can be challenging. They’ve been sharing for years now, but it just seems unfair to force them to continue, so we are giving our daughter our bedroom and our son will take over completely the one he’s been sharing with her. We have moved into the room that has sort of served as an office (we call it “the computer room”).

I have this amazing Mayline Desk-o-Matic IV drafting table that I’ve been using to draw The Moose Riders on–it was passed down to me from my father who used it for years as a draftsman/mechanical engineer. The table is great, but way too freaking big for our house, especially now that we are moving into the room where it used to reside. The frustrating thing is, I wasted that table for most of the time that I owned it–it just sat there as a surface to collect junk mail. I’ve probably used it more in the last 8 months than I did in the first 17 years I owned it.

So now I’m faced with the task of trying to unload this massive table that I don’t really want to get rid of in the first place AND find a Murphy bed to replace it with. An even trade would be ideal. Hoping I can stick a smaller drawing board on the Murphy bed while it’s in its non-bed state. Heading to Craig’s List now.

The Moose Riders, Page 55

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Here’s page 55, which means we are rapidly approaching the end of Chapter 2. As it turns out, I am also rapidly approaching my 40th birthday. I’m thinking about doing this thing where I finish the chapter ON my birthday, so it feels like I’ve accomplished something before I’m over-the-hill, but that means I’ll have to sneak a few more pages in before September 6. If I can find time to draw pages 60, 61, and 62 before this arbitrary deadline, do you folks have any opinions on how you’d like the posting to go? I’m leaning toward sticking the last 3 pages up all in the same week–Sept 4, 5, and 6. Or do you think you’d rather have two weeks of 2-page updates, say a page on 8/28, 8/30, 9/4, and 9/6? Or do you even have a preference? Thoughts?