Remains of the (Satur) Day

Bonjour!

If you're just joining us, this isn't going to make a lick of sense.  So in the words of Inigo Montoya: "Lemme esplain...no, is too much.  Lemme sum up."  "Saturday" is a book I've written and am currently illustrating.

Too summed-uppy?  Ok.

 "Saturday" is the story of India McGreevy (an imaginative little girl with a penchant for sarcasm), her parents Fred and Elizabeth (nice people with a penchant for martinis), and their various predicaments during one particular week (a week that seems to have nothing better to do than make all their lives unpleasant).

At this point in "Saturday" (the book), it's Saturday night.  These panels come from page 29 for those of you keeping track at home.  A day's adventuring behind her, India is back in the fortress of drawlitude (get it?  "Fortress of Drawlitude"?  Like Superman, except...um...never mind):

I was showing a page of the book to someone just last night who looked at the drawings of India and said, "India doesn't have any friends, does she?"  I had to think about it momentarily.  I'm sure India has at least ONE friend, but she is kind of a little weirdo.  She sticks out like a sore thumb.  A sore thumb with a giant mess of black hair on it.

When you're a kid, being strange is a liability.  The problem is that pretty much the only friends you're going to make are the other outcasts.  And if you want to fit in, being friends with those kids is guilt by association.  But the normal kids can smell weird on you (hopefully not literally) so you end up getting consigned to the island of misfit toys along with that kid who always has peanut butter on his face and the other kid who thinks he's a dinosaur.

I was a weird kid who grew up into a weird adult.  And a lot of my friends used to be the weird kid.  Except as an adult, it's awesome.  It makes for interesting people.  In the words of Kerouac:

“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars."

So, the moral is: go ahead and be the weird kid.

By the by, today is Mother's Day.  So, for all the Moms (including mine) who helped raise strange kids, who wondered often what on earth your kid was doing, wearing, eating or saying but loved them in spite of/because of their weirdness...thank you.

Also, it's all your fault.  But mostly thank you.

Cheers.