The Adventures of Cynical Woman!

Episode 43 and Announcement

2009-11-10T07:46:00.000-08:00

Happy National Novel Writing Month to all you writers out there! If you're not familiar with NaNoWriMo or want to write a novel in a month, visit http://www.nanowrimo.org to learn more!

Also, I have a big announcement. The Adventures of Cynical Woman has officially moved!! This will be the final post to this blog. From here on out, you can find the webcomics at http://www.cynicalwoman.com. I will leave this blog up for a year before taking it down, just to make sure the word gets out. But if you need your weekly fix of Cynical Woman, visit the new site!

Episode 41 - Halloween!

2009-10-27T03:41:00.000-07:00

Oy, I hurt. I had this brilliant idea that I could do the text for the cartoon in Adobe, which would look much better than my own hand lettering. But then I got the cartoon scanned in and I thought, "Hey, if I can do the lettering in Photoshop, why not do the screen tones too? I know I've got a tutorial on that somewhere!" Several hours later…

I'm kicking myself because I should have just done the lettering and let it go at that, but nooooooo! I had to do the screen tones. And then I made the mistake of resizing the image down and then I saved it over the larger version of the file!! That hurts because now if I ever want to edit this particular episode again, I'll have to start all over from the beginning, scanning in the line work and then adding the text and then adding the screen tones…

Ugh.

So anyway, I have a question. Right now, I'm resizing the cartoon to 1200×410 pixels. This is the size you see after you click on the thumbnail. I've got a giant flat screen monitor, so I have no idea really if this is too small or too large for anyone else viewing the cartoon. Let me know if you'd like to see the cartoon a little larger, or smaller, because the size I shrink things down to affects how the screen tones work (and yes, I'm just stupid enough to try that technique again, because in spite of the time I wasted this evening, I really like how this turned out).

Enjoy your Halloween!

Episode 40 - Occupational Hazzards

2009-10-20T03:23:00.000-07:00

Yes, this really is a problem around this household. Finding time for... well, let's just say finding time for what's important.

It's hard for me to find time alone with the Hubster. In addition to the kids, we both put in a lot of hours at work, and since I'm usually up two hours before Hubster is, I'm usually out cold two hours before he is. We really do have to schedule sex if it's going to happen. Oh, and buy a nice bottle of wine so I can relax, because between work and chasing after the kids, I'm wound tighter than a cuckoo clock by the end of the day.

Anyway, speaking of work, I have four new stories for sale with Logical Lust. These stories originally ran on the Heat Flash Erotica Podcast, they are scorching hot, and I think you will enjoy them. Check them out here!

Episode 39 - Who's Yo Mama?!

2009-10-13T03:28:00.000-07:00

One day, this is going to happen to me. It just has to. In addition to reading my stories aloud to catch mistakes, I also record most of them for the Heat Flash Erotica Podcast (which is a free weekly audio show I do that you can download to your MP3 player or listen to on your computer, and if you're not listening you should be!). Most days I only write or record when the kids are in school or in bed. When they're home and awake, I'm so busy taking care of them, I don't have time to do anything else. But mark my words, one of these days they're gonna walk in on me while I'm working...

You may have noticed that this cartoon is done "old style," which is to say I did it on the computer using Manga Studio 4. I still love MS4, and much prefer the way the cartoons look when I do them on the computer, but the fact is, it takes too long to do the cartoons this way. This particular cartoon was penciled back in April, and then inked yesterday morning. Had I done this by hand, it would have taken me an hour at most to do the inking and then the cartoon would be finished. In Manga Studio 4, the inking takes longer, plus there are extra steps I do to add the tones and text balloons, which is part of what makes the digital cartoons so pretty. What to do? Continue drawing by hand, but draw better! It'll come with practice. Meanwhile, I'll just use Manga Studio for other projects, since I'd really like to do some Manga style artwork, and this is the best program I've got for inking.

Anyway, here is this week's cartoon, and I hope you enjoyed it ;)

Episode 38 - Mom's day off

2009-10-06T12:50:00.001-07:00

All I'm gonna say is, "Ugh. Urgh. Bleeeeergh." It's been that kind of week.

Episode 37 - Something smells funny around here.

2009-09-29T03:30:00.000-07:00

True story. Honest to god, Pixie came up to me one day and said exactly this. And it does not surprise me to hear this news, given the amount of stinky accidents we've had in the last couple months.

First, there was the poopie incident at the pizzeria in Chicago. Then we had an accident last week while she was home sick from preschool. Then yesterday, I hear a bunch of yelling coming from the upstairs bathroom. It wasn't clear what was going on until I got halfway up the stairs and smelled that smell. Sure enough, there was a turd the size of a dinosaur egg sitting in the bathroom floor. Less than a foot away from the toilet. And there was a tiny little shoe print in it. With matching little brown shoe prints all over the bathroom.

According to Pixie, she did not reach the potty in time because it was dark in there. Yes, dark, as in the light was off. Of course, this happened in the middle of the day, which means the upstairs bathroom was dim, at most. Sigh. I just keep reminding myself that she will not be pooping her pants when she walks down the aisle on her wedding day.

I hope.

So how's things with you all?

Episode 36 - What I didn't do on my summer vacation

2009-09-22T03:02:00.000-07:00

So, how was your summer?

Honest to god, I thought I would get so much more done this summer, but I feel like I barely managed to limp to the finish line. I was sooooooooo happy when school started and I finally had all day to myself. That was two weeks ago, and I am only now catching up on everything I didn't get done while I was busy chasing after two kids.

I'm finally settling into a regular schedule, and I hope to be a little more productive with this cartoon. I also hope to start work on building a new website, combining all my various sites and blogs into one easy to find spot where you can get all the cartoons and blog posts and other goodies at once. There will be the usual Cynical Woman madness, plus maybe some new stuff (i.e. some ADULT stuff). So stay tuned. I'll get that done. One of these days ;)

Episode 35 - I Can Haz Karate Skillz!!

2009-08-05T17:32:00.001-07:00

Ya know, I think this is the best Cynical Woman cartoon I've drawn yet. Lettering still needs work, but it's getting better.

Yes, I am really and truly a black belt, which means I know the basics of karate and am most deadly to myself. I do train with various kobudo weapons, including the nunchaku, and I'm testing for my 2nd degree black belt in weapons this coming September (I'm already a 2nd degree black belt in open-hand karate).

I'm going to two classes a week right now, and those usually last 2 1/2 hours (thus the reason why I'm only doing two classes a week; I think more would kill me). I have on occasion hit myself - in the elbow, the leg, the back, and yes, the head. Others have hit me as well. In fact, the Hubster once mistook me for a 6 foot tall, 1200 lb gorilla during a sparring drill and to this day my right knee still has not recovered. Somebody else took out the left knee a few months later, so if I walk funny, you know why.

I'm heading to Chicago this weekend, and I'm taking a small drawing pad with me. Don't know what I'll draw, but it will probably show up here. Meanwhile, if you must see more of my work, I have set up a Deviant Art page. It's at www.cynicalwoman.deviantart.com. There's various things there, including a few odd cartoons that have nothing to do with Cynical Woman beyond the fact that I drew them.

One final note, if you love me, if you really really love me, take a few moments to visit my podcast and enter my contest!!! I'm running a listener appreciation contest over at www.heatflash.libsyn.com. I'll be giving away t-shirts, boxers and thongs, and print copies of my fabulous short story collection, Future Perfect. It's all naughty stuff, and it's good fun. To enter, all you have to do is leave a comment on the Heat Flash blog at www.heatflash.libsyn.com or send me an e-mail at heatflash.podcast@gmail.com. Contest runs between now and midnight EST, 26 August. Go here for specific details.

That's it for now. I'll see if I can't get some funky doodling done while in Chicago. Hubster's at a conference so I will be schlepping the kids around the city on my ownsome. Something painfully funny is bound to happen, I'm sure. Keep your fingers crossed that I survive.

Self-portrait of the Artist With Her Favorite New Book

2009-07-17T19:58:00.000-07:00

No, this isn't about a book I wrote. It's one I bought on July 9th from Amazon. This is Crescent, by Phil Rossi. I first listened to the podcast of this book last year, and fell in love. It's a creepy cool science fiction/horror tale about a haunted space station where all sorts of nasty things lurk in the dark. When I heard Crescent had been picked up by Dragon Moon Press for publication, I was very happy. When my copy arrived on my doorstep earlier today, I was jumping with joy. And to show you all how ecstatic I am over my newest addition to my library, I drew this picture.

See? Don't I look happy? If you're into horror and sci-fi, if you like a sexy, scary read, give this book a try. You can find out more about the print book and the free podcast version over at www.crescentstation.net.

PS - that gorgeous cover art is by Neil Aschliman.

Episode 34 - Summer Fun!

2009-07-15T04:11:00.001-07:00

Yes, Princess actually said this to me.

For the last couple of summers, I've tried to have a theme for our fun time activities, something the girls can dress up for and act out. The first two summers, it was princesses or fairies. The girls get to choose, and I'm kind of stuck with whatever they come up with. Naturally, princesses and fairies aren't exactly my cup of tea (in spite of the fact that I am mother to a Princess and a Pixie, but that's a little different). I tried last summer to get them to play pirates or zombies, but no dice. This year, though, Princess surprised me. She wants to be a ninja. We haven't made ninja costumes yet, but if I can just get to the craft store and find a pattern, we should be good to go.

We've also been playing zombies a lot, and Princess has recently discovered another princess she likes, perhaps even more than Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty. She now wants to be Princess Leia. I can not tell you how happy that makes me.

You may have noticed that I'm doing things much differently this week. This week's strip was drawn, inked, and lettered entirely by hand. I only used Photoshop to add the titles. But everything else is as it came off my drawing pad. I didn't even use the zip tones in Manga Studio, relying instead on cross hatching to shade things.

Much as I like Manga Studio, it's simply faster to draw the cartoons by hand. I've been practicing inking with a brush pen and have been pleased with the results. I still need to work on the lettering a bit, but today's strip came out well enough that I can live with it. Let me know what you think.

Episode 33 - School's Out! (But Is Color In?)

2009-07-07T14:19:00.001-07:00

So it's taken me a couple weeks to get this one done, and I'm a little irritated about that.

To get things done faster, I've switched to pencilling and inking by hand. This works better because I can carry a drawing pad with me wherever I go, and if I have a few minutes where I'm sitting and waiting for the kids, like I did the last couple of weeks, I can whip out the drawing pad and get to work. I even bought a shiny new mechanical pencil for this purpose, along with some red leads to go in it. Using a red pencil lets me scan in the drawing without having to worry about erasing the pencil marks. I just drop out the red in the channels palette and voila! All I'm left with is my ink work. Pretty neat, huh?

But then I got to thinking (and this is where the trouble usually starts)...

Maybe, just maybe, I should try doing the cartoon in color. Yeah, it might require an extra step or two, but wouldn't that be cool?!

No, it turns out it would not. Manga Studio Debut is not cut out for colorizing cartoons. I tried to get it to work, and had lotsa problems. First off, I want to be able to publish these cartoons as a collection at some point, a print collection, and there are very few webcomics that come out in print in color. Black and white is far easier and cheaper to print. Fact of life. So I would still need to prep the cartoon for black and white as well as color, meaning I'd still need to put in all those gray scale tones I've been using. I though I could kill two birds with one stone by doing the tones in color, but no matter what I tried, I couldn't get the tones to come out in the colors I wanted them too. You can see that this week's cartoon is pretty washed out. It looks like a hand tinted photograph, almost.

So not sure what to do. I'll keep exploring my options, but hopefully won't allow it to interfere anymore with production. Meanwhile, you guys let me know. Color? Or no color? There are ways of getting that vibrant color I wanted, but I'd have to skip the toning to get things out fast.

Just Doodling

2009-06-23T11:48:00.001-07:00

I'm schlepping Princess to camp at a local museum all week. The place is just far enough away, and her time at camp just short enough, that there's no point in me coming back home to do anything. So Pixie and I are spending the day hitting ALL the local museums and parks in that area. There are quite a few.

Yesterday, while Pixie ran amok in the Virginia Living Museum (where Princess' camp is being held), I squeezed in a little doodle time, experimenting with a new tool in my art kit - a mechanical pencil with red lead. I just can't drag myself to the computer anymore in the evenings to cartoon, so I am once again switching to doing things the old fashioned way, by hand. A friend suggested I use a mechanical pencil with red leads to do my sketching, then after inking and scanning in the artwork, I can just drop the red channel from the image, and voila! No erasing to do to clean up my artwork. This page has both red and blue pencil in it, and I can't get rid of both (it doesn't work that way), but I was able to experiment in Photoshop long enough to confirm that I can do what I want with the red pencil. So without further ado, here's my random doodles with the fancy new mechanical red pencil!

When you click on the image above, you'll get it in full size, which will be HUGE, but then you can see all the nifty detail. Yeah, I know, whatever. And yes, that is a talking toilet in the lower left corner. That was Princess' suggestion to draw.

Episode 32 - Laundry Karma

2009-06-16T15:13:00.000-07:00

I know, I know. It's about damned time, isn't it? All I can say is I've been swamped... by laundry, among other things.

It seems to be a rule in my house - if there are piles of laundry waiting to be washed, dried, or folded, my world must be in total chaos. If, however, I can manage to get the laundry done and folded and keep up with it every day, then life goes smoothly. I call this laundry karma. It's sort of like feng shui, only instead of rearranging the furniture, I have to deal with detergent and dryer sheets and dirty socks.

So while the laundry has been piling up these last several weeks, I've been doing my damnedest to churn out stories for the Heat Flash Erotica podcast, make cover art for one of my publishing clients, and attend various conventions. I wrapped up convention season on Memorial Day weekend with Balticon, and what a blast that was! Viv and Chooch from Into The Blender hosted a webcomic/podcast novel party where people where invited to come dressed as their favorite cartoon characters. Guess who I went as?

Since Balticon, I've been going nuts trying to keep up with work and Princess' school. I swear, her class had more parties in the last two weeks than a high school graduating class on a trip to Cancun! Today was the last day of school though, and that means no more having to quit work at 3PM to be at the bus stop for a few weeks. We do have two weeks of afternoon swim lessons coming up, but I can deal with that because I can take the netbook or my drawing pad with me and knock out some work while Princess swims (Pixie will go into the nursery so I can have an hour of peace and quiet). But after that, we are home free of obligations. I'm keeping summer simple this year, with plans to garden, hit the local swimming pool, visit a few local museums, and in general get back on track with writing and cartooning. Here's hoping I can get into a cartooning groove and stay there!

Episode 31 - Inspiration

2009-04-30T17:34:00.001-07:00

Ya gotta take your inspiration from wherever it comes, I tell ya.

This is something that often happens in our house, at least on the evenings that Michael is home. He takes the kids off my hands for a while so I can squeeze in a little more work. He's good like that. He gets the girls ready for bed and reads them stories and sings them songs and hands them monsters (we've been pulling imaginary monsters out from under the bed and handing them to children ever since Princess first started sleeping in her big-girl bed).

But the girls do not make it easy on him, and quite frequently there's lots of squealing and screaming and giggling and misbehaving, and that always leads to Michael shouting at the top of his lungs, at which point I usually step in to intervene because I honestly believe that only one of us should ever have to traumatize our children for life and that has been my job since day one.

Anyway, all of this is just the long way of saying this week's cartoon is drawn from real life and yes, I have actually heard Michael shout, "Get that bucket off your head and get into bed now!"

But only once was he saying it to me };)

Episode 30 - Obey Me!

2009-04-21T16:02:00.001-07:00

File this one under "things that actually happened." In real life, it was a two-year-old Princess, not Pixie, who ran around butt-nekkid, refusing to squat on the pot and do her duty. It was one of those hair-pulling days where no matter how many times you yell, your kid still doesn't listen. After believing I finally had Her Royal Tookus ensconced on the potty-throne, I called up my best friend, Mary. Wouldn't you know it, just as Mary picked up the phone, Princess came streaking through the kitchen in her all-together. It's a phone call Mary says she'll never forget.

But Mary understands. Mary's been there with her own darling little boy (he has the cutest brown curls!). And many times when she calls me, she gets just as distracted by her offspring as I do while on the phone. Our phone conversations usually run something like this...

Mary: "Hey Helen, what are you up to?"

Me: "Just getting dinner to-- Will you put that down? No, Daddy did not say you could play with the steak knives! Go play in the living room! Sorry Mary, what did you ask me?"

Mary: "I forget. Probably wasn't important. Hey, have you seen the ads for the new display at the museum? I was thinking-- Young man! Get down off that table! I swear, you're going to crack your head right open and I'm just going to point and laugh when you do! Sorry Helen. What was I saying?"

Me: "Uh... The museum! Yeah, I saw the disp-- Pixie! Quit hitting your sister with the frying pan! And take that spatula out of your underpants! I need it to cook dinner!"

Mary: "No, you may not have ice cream for dinner. No, not for breakfast either. Because we don't have any ice cream! Mommy got so stressed out after you tried to feed the cat to the dog that she ate it all in one sitting!"

Me: "Princess! Quit swinging your sister around by the ankles like that! You're going to smack her right into the wa--"

CRASH!

Pixie: "WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

Mary: "--and quit sticking your finger up your brother's nose! There's no ice cream up there either!"

Me: "I don't care if you didn't mean to do it! She's your sister, not a crash test dummy! And look at the size of that hole in the wall! Could it be any bigger?"

Mary: "Helen, I have to--"

Me: "--go. The kids are completely out of--"

Mary: "--control. I swear I'm gonna--"

Me: "--pull out all my hair if they keep this up! I'll talk to you--"

Mary: "--later, when things quiet down. Maybe in about--"

Me: "--fifty years or so?"

Mary: "Yeah, that sounds about right. Talk to you then. Young man! Put that hammer down!"

Me: "Bye. Princess! Pixie! Put those scissors down NOW!!"

Click.

And that's what a phone call is like when you have kids in the house.

Episode 29 - Thunder Pants!

2009-04-03T20:36:00.001-07:00

We are actually mostly finished with Pixie's potty training. She's been in "thunder pants" for a few months now, only wearing a pull-up at night. Potty training is one of those things that as a parent you never think is going to happen, and in Pixie's case I was starting to wonder if she'd still be in pull-ups on her wedding day, but we eventually got things straightened out. It seems that so long as she was in a pull-up, she'd pee in it no matter how many times a say I sat her on the potty. Once I switched her to underpants, that quickly stopped.

Regarding the potty, does anybody else have a singing potty? Ours sings all sorts of little songs depending on what the occupant is doing. There's one song for lifting the lid, another for sitting on the pot, a third for actually making a deposit in the pot, yet a fourth song for rolling the faux toilet paper roll attached to the pot, and then a final song for closing the lid and pushing the little fake handle. It's all a bit much, in my opinion, and the whole singing potty thing really started to creep me out when the potty developed a short circuit of some kind and started randomly singing in the middle of the night while the Hubster was away on business. Nothing like waking up in the dark to the eerie strains of "Let's all sit on the potty!" Needless to say, I didn't bother to switch out the batteries when they died.

I'm headed out this week for a visit to Arkansas to see my folks. We're really looking forward to the trip, but alas I'll have no internet access while I'm there, which means yet another wait for the next cartoon. I'm starting to clear stuff off my plate however, and hope to get back to a schedule where I can turn out a cartoon a week, or at least every ten days. I'll get there by this summer, I promise.

In the meantime, you'll be seeing some changes around this site and my other sites as I merge all three blogs and websites into one mega-super site. I'm just spread too thing between the mommy blog, the cartoon blog, the writing blog, and the supporting websites. I figure if I get it all into one place, I'll be better able to keep up with blogging and you'll have an easier time keeping up with all the crazy wacky fun I have to offer (insert canned laughter here).

Have fun over the next week or so, and I'll be back with another cartoon as soon as I can!

Episode 28 - Misadventures in Sex

2009-03-16T12:02:00.000-07:00

This cartoon originally ran over on the Oh Get A Grip blog, where I post every Friday on various topics of sex and writing. Last Friday was my turn to talk about sex and humor, two things I know nothing about. If you want to know the details behind this particular cartoon (it's a TRUE STORY!!), check out my post at OGG.

This particular cartoon marks the first time I've drawn a toon on my desktop computer as opposed to my laptop computer. Manga Studio Debut 3, the first version of the comics program I use, wouldn't play nice with Vista (which is to say, it wouldn't work AT ALL!). But MSD4 works quite nicely on my desktop, perhaps even better than it works on my aging laptop. And with my Bamboo Fun drawing tablet hooked up to the desktop, that made for a really nice clean drawing experience. Hell, I didn't even have the usual crash and burn problems I've been having with the word balloons! I may make a permanent switch and draw on the desktop from now on.

It's been busy as usual over at la Casa de Madden. I went to EPICon and returned, more or less in one piece, and was totally freaked out by the number of people who saw my name tag and shouted, "I know you! You're Cynical Woman!" In fact, I wore my devil horns on Thursday night to the EPICon mixer, and then got scolded for not having them on during the day on Friday. I made sure to correct that error and wear them all day Saturday.

The most interesting thing to come out of EPICon 2009, for me at least, was a chance to sit and talk with Penny Sansevieri of Author Marketing Experts, Inc. I managed to snag a consulting appointment with her, and confessed to her that I'm suffering from blog schizophrenia, i.e. I have too many blogs and can't decide easily what content I should put on which blog. The fact is, I have three blogs - one for the cartoons, one for my day to day life as a working mom, and one for the explicitly erotica stuff. My life as a stay-at-home mom is so entwined with my work as a writer, that there are only very rare instances when I can separate the two, and most of what I do day to day as a stay-at-home mom who writes erotica could easily go into one general blog. It's just that occasionally, I really do like to stray into the very adult territory. Some days I like to blog about how I create erotic artwork, and I want to use explicit images for examples. Some days I like to blog about very specific topics on sex that aren't really appropriate for the general, albeit adult, audience that I think frequents my day to day blog. But these sexually explicit posts aren't nearly frequent enough to justify me keeping a full-blown erotica blog when 95% of what I blog about would actually appeal to work-at-home parents in general.

So Penny advised that I consolidate the blogs, as much as possible, AND she advised that I go with the brand name I have managed to make for myself - Cynical Woman. It's good advice and I intend to take it. Over the next few months, I'll be setting up a new website over at www.cynicalwoman.com (and getting rid of the flash site that's currently there), and I'll be putting the cartoons, the mommy blog, and everything else over there. I will offer separate pages for the adults only stuff, like the art gallery and the free reads I have at www.helenehmadden.com, but everything will be coming under one roof, hopefully by June.

So if you see a little construction going on around here, you know what's up!

Episode 27 - Now We Are Forty

2009-02-24T20:09:00.001-08:00

My birthday was yesterday, but my warrenty ran out a looooooong time ago. In the last forty years, I have...

Split my scalp (I was jumping on the bed, missed, and landed on my noggin; I know, explains a lot, doesn't it?)

Smashed my middle finger in a weight machine (not fun)

Ended up in the emergency room puking my guts up four times over a gall stone no one could find (but my mother knew it was there!)

Had surgery to remove gall stone no one could find (damn thing turned out to be as large as my thumbnail)

Broken my nose

Broken my ribs... twice

Screwed up my right knee (my husband's fault - he mistook me for a 900 lb. gorilla and attacked me)

Screwed up my left knee (someone else's fault - apparently they also thought I was a 900 lb. gorilla)

Screwed up my right knee again (completely random sparring accident - my opponent did NOT think I was a gorilla, but did get her leg tangled in mine during the match)

Fractured my sternum (once again, someone mistook me for a gorilla, only this time I must have weighed 1800 lbs. given how hard I got hit)

(BTW, these last six injuries all happened during martial arts classes, in case you haven't guessed.)

Had a c-section (for Princess)

Had a VBAC - Vaginal Birth After C-section (for Pixie, and I split right up the front into the naughty bits when she came out!)

I'm pretty sure I've done some other things to myself, or been injured by others who have feared my inner gorilla, but these things are too numerous to be recalled. In any event, what I'm trying to say is, I'm damned lucky to still be alive!!

There will probably be a two-week break between this episode and the next. It's not that I don't love you all, but this weekend I've got a 3-day karate camp to attend (yay! more opportunities to get injured!) and the next week I'm headed out to Las Vegas for EPICon 2009. If you're planning on attending EPICon, I should be doing a panel on podcasting for writers. And yes, I will be wearing my horns, so you'll know me when you see me };)

Until the next episode, see ya!!

Episode 26 - I Have A New Book! AAAAUGH!

2009-02-09T17:12:00.001-08:00

OH MY GOD!!! I HAVE A BOOK COMING OUT!!!

Seriously, I've spent the last few months running around like a chicken with my head cut off AND my ass on fire, trying to get ready for the release of "Future Perfect: A Collection of Fantastic Erotica." Final edits, cover art, announcements, promo, conventions, more promo... I've pulled more all-nighters than I have since Pixie was a new-born, maybe even more than I have since grad school (and that was a loooooooong time ago). It's been a lot of work, and I hope you all find that it's worth it.

Future Perfect will be available both in digital format and in print from Logical Lust. It will also be listed on Amazon.com, and I believe there will be a Kindle format for it as well.

I will be at Farpoint this weekend, the 13th-15th of February, in Timonium, Maryland. I'll be there as a writing and podcasting guest (and that feels so good to say - I was INVITED to be a GUEST!). I plan to have 20 copies of Future Perfect, plus copies of "Coming Together: With Pride," "Cream: The Best of the Erotica Readers and Writers Association," and hopefully a few copies of "Demon By Day." I'll also have some swag - bookmarks and postcards, and maybe even some nifty looking buttons for the Heat Flash Erotica Podcast.

I have to thank Michael for everything he's done through all this. No kidding, that man really does have a halo. He's taken the kids more evenings and weekends than I can count, caring for them while I lock myself away in the office to work. He's put up with my weird schedule (weekends off? Who the hell gets weekends off?). He's fixed computers, built computers, bought computers, and probably executed a few computers for me (the last I'm sure he did as humanely as possible). And he's taking the girls again this weekend as I take off for three days of pimpin-- er, promoting the new book up at Farpoint.

I still have a lot to do after the convention. I've got to get promo put together for EPICon 2009 and prepare for a panel I'm doing on podcasting there. Plus Michael and I have a three-day karate camp to attend, and Princess has a birthday coming up this month (so do I, but we really don't want to talk about how OLD I am, do we?). But, come March, I'm hoping that things finally start to settle down a bit. I won't be taking on any more new deadlines, but instead plan to concentrate on what's already on my plate.

Any other news? Oh yeah! I'll have a story in the upcoming "Coming Together: Al Fresco," edited by Alessia Brio. This is another charity anthology, which means I'm donating the story, but I have to tell you, competition to get into these anthologies is fierce, so I'm happy to be given the opportunity to participate.

I'm sure there's lots else going on too, but right now I've got a slippery Pixie fresh out of the tub and I need to catch her and slap a pull-up on her before we have an incident. Have fun this week! And don't forget to...

BUY MY BOOK!!!

Episode 25 - This Is My Life!

2009-02-01T10:01:00.001-08:00

Yes, this has been my life the last several weeks. Since November, I have struggled to survive the holidays, a convention (9 panels, 1 reading, an all-day author table!!), final edits on my new book Future Perfect, creating the cover art for said book, getting set up to join the "Oh Get A Grip" group blog (read us - we're fun!!), keeping up with the Heat Flash erotica podcast which now airs on Thursdays at 8PM on Radio Dentata (streaming internet radio with teeth!!), clean the house, feed the kids, help the Princess with her homework, potty train Pixie, and somehow find a few moments to have sex with my husband.

Yeah, it's been a little busy.

Things are starting to slow down a bit. I got my last major deadline out the door on Friday. I submitted a short story to Alessia Brio's Coming Together: Al Fresco, and regardless of whether or not I make it into this volume, I highly encourage everyone to buy a copy of any of the Coming Together books (I do have a story in Coming Together: With Pride, if you're interested). Coming Together is a charity anthology and all the proceeds go to the organization of choice for each volume. It's doing good while being bad, and ya gotta love that.

So this week's cartoon is just a glimpse into what's been going on at la casa de Cynical Woman. I'm tired, but things are evening out and I hope to be back on some sort of regular schedule in the next couple of weeks. I'll be at the Farpoint science fiction convention on Valentine's Day weekend, the same weekend as the release of Future Perfect, so I will be gearing up for that, getting promo ready and preparing for the panels I'm on (only six this time, I believe). Otherwise, I'll be turning my attention back to the podcast and this cartoon, putting in a little more time on my two favorite projects for a while. Hopefully, I'll have another cartoon ready within the week. See ya then!

Ephemera 01 - I Am a Baaaaaaad Cartoonist

2009-01-13T19:18:00.001-08:00

I did not forget you guys. Seriously. And no, I have not died. I have simply been too dang busy for words. Honestly. Right now, I'm trying to finish edits on my next book, get the cover artwork done for said book, get my podcast out the door, prep to participate in TEN panels at a science fiction convention coming up this weekend, and put together a workshop outline on podcasting for EPICon 2009 (Vegas, March, be there, baby!). Not to mention trying to recover the house from the holidays, recover the kids from the holidays, and oh, I've been sick the last week and a half.

Yeah, yeah, I know. Whine, whine, whine. Quit being such a big cry-baby, Helen, and get with the cartoons already! Well, I don't have a Cynical Woman cartoon done right now (although I already have the next few episodes scripted out and they will be funny, I promise!). What I do have is this…

I know, it's freaky, but this comes from my current sketchbook, which I carry around with me and doodle in whenever I get a free moment (free time? Ha! What's that?). This was mostly done in the dojo our family attends, during Princess' karate classes. The Saturday morning classes, that is, when Saint Michael the Magnificent takes Pixie shopping so I don't have to keep an eye on that hyperactive little busybody who gets into everything.

So, every now and then, when I get a sketch done (or as I find a few old ones I've got lying around), I'll scan it in and present it here. These will be called 'Ephemera' and they will be a nice little bonus to the usual comics. Or they will be a way for me to buy some time when my sorry ass gets behind in my work again.

Episode 24 - Happy Holidays, You Perverts

2008-12-24T21:34:00.001-08:00

It's 12:30AM, Christmas day. I've been up since 5AM, and refused to go to sleep until this sucker was finished and posted. That's how much I love all of you. Really!

Aside from the web comic and the book I'm currently editing (Future Perfect, due out in February 2009 from Logical Lust Publications), I decided to take it easy this week. My parents are here, along with my sister. I had one day where I buried myself in editing, and I missed out on making the gingerbread house, so that was the end of my daytime work hours. Since then, I've played Twister, made fudge with the kids, gone book shopping (our extended family overwhelmed the cafe in Barnes & Nobles!), wrapped presents, gone to church (yes, my family dragged the only Buddhist they know to church, and I had to stand through the whole mass, it was so dang crowded), and tossed naughty story ideas back and forth with my good friend Kathleen Bradean. We want to write something super-naughty, kind of like that cartoon up there.

Anyway, I need to hit the hay, because I know the kids are going to yank me out of bed at any minute, screaming, "Santa came! Santa came! And he left presents!" Here's hoping Santa hits your house too and leaves you something fun.

Merry Christmas and happy Boddhi Day ;)

Episode 23 - When Princess Grows Up...

2008-12-07T07:26:00.001-08:00

People always say that Princess is just like me, only shorter. That is not true at all. For starters, Princess wears a lot of pink. Pink shirts, pink pants, pink socks, etc. And she wears dresses. Lots and lots of frilly dresses. And she loves the jewelry and the bling and all the glitter she can get her hands on. There's a reason why we call this girly-girl Princess.

Me, I don't do the pink thing. I look good in black. And brown. And I'm killer in red. As for the type of clothes I wear, I'm a basic t-shirt and jeans kinda gal. Dresses? Don't own any. Well, okay, I have one or two, but they only get pulled out once every couple of years when someone gets married or dies, and those dresses are definitely not PINK. I don't like pink and I look horrible in it. In fact, I think I'm allergic to the color. Seriously.

Anyway, I wanted to apologize for being a bit late with this week's ep. My husband, St. Michael the Magnificent, spent all last week re-painting the downstairs and that completely disrupted my work schedule. But those rooms need painting, badly. We've been in the same place for the last 14 years, and things were starting to look shabby. Since I knew it would be another 14 years before we would re-paint, I made sure to pick out a color I would be happy with. I spent hours comparing paint chips, studying them in my foyer and kitchen until I finally found just the right shade. It's a very pale sort of shell pink. Wait, no. I did not say pink. It's really almost a warm white. You can't tell it's pink at all. Unless you look at the trim color which is mint green, and then you know it's pink...

Well crud.

Deep Fried - A Holiday Self-Portrait

2008-12-05T09:19:00.001-08:00

Yep, this is me. All frazzled and fried, just in time for the holidays. And from what I hear, I ain’t the only one feeling like this.

It’s December 5^th, and I have managed to buy a grand total of one, yes one, Christmas present. That’s it! Even though I put a little reminder in my calendar to start shopping waaaay back in October. See, that’s how organized I am!

So the plan now is to drug— er, occupy the Pixie with some TV and then spend the morning knocking out a few blog posts. After that, I’ll hit the online shops and do the Santa Mommy thing. The Cynical Woman cartoon gets the rest of the day. Tomorrow and Sunday are dedicated to my erotica podcast — I’ve got a story to finish for next month, plus recording to do for the next week’s episode. Oh, and I did I mention I’ve invited the Princess’ little playmates over for an evening of pizza and mini-chick flicks?

No wonder I look like this!

Episode 22 - Yoga!

2008-11-29T14:23:00.000-08:00

Allow me to introduce my good friend Patricia (also known as ‘Other Patty’)! She puts up with an awful lot from me. Of course, so do Mary and Patty…

The four of us form a gang we call “The Screeching Harpies.” Remember, this is a posse, NOT a mommy’s group. Yeah, we get the kids together to play, but our real purpose for meeting up is to plan the next Apocalypse. So if you see a gang of forty-somethings (we’re not quite that old but we’re getting there), sitting in your local sushi restaurant, cackling evilly as they devour platter after platter of sushi, you know who you’re dealing with.

This week’s strip got done a little quicker than last week’s, thanks to the fact that I now know what to expect from Manga Studio Debut 4. Since I bitched so much about the program last week, let me say something nice this week. The program’s got some new nifty features, especially in the drawing tools. The pen tool can now adjust its line width according to how close you’re zoomed into the picture (that’s a big help, believe me!), and I can save customized settings for the tools I use most often, which also helps a lot. The pencil tool stinks – it draws a line so faint I can’t see it on screen – but that’s okay because I can set up a customized marker tool instead for roughing out the artwork. And the text tool and word balloons are pretty nifty, so long as I save **every couple of seconds**. Otherwise, working with text will crash the program so bad I have to restart my computer to get it to work again.

But that’s about it! Over all, we’re doing good this week. Now go practice some yoga. Seriously.

Episode 21 - With Friends Like These...

2008-11-21T13:16:00.000-08:00

…who needs enemas? But seriously, this one is for Sam and Terri Pray of Under The Moon press. They were recently screwed out of buying a house because the local community voted to ‘not harbor producers of gay porn.’ Under The Moon produced one anthology of gay erotic romance, which automatically brands them as undesirable elements according to this particular pristine community, but hey, the hetero erotic romances were apparently okay. It was just that one book of gay smut…

Anyway, this is the first cartoon produced with the brand spanking new Manga Studio Debut 4.0! I was so excited when I got the notice earlier this week that the upgraded software was out, I went right ahead and bought it. I couldn’t wait to try it out. Among the new features listed on Smith-Micro’s website were an improved text tool and WORD BALLOONS! That’s right kiddies, for just $20 I could upgrade to a product that was going to solve the biggest problem I’d been having with producing the cartoons – getting the words onto the panels.

Except that it wasn’t exactly that easy.

First off, I bought the download version (with a back-up disk on its way to me). When I installed and started up the program, it asked me to install the materials for MS Debut 4. Materials are those nifty gray scale images that I use for backgrounds and fills. I knew I had the materials – I’d seen them when I checked out the program folder after installation. Problem was, I couldn’t figure out exactly which folder to point the materials installer to. I tried the folder marked ‘Materials’ but that didn’t work because that would be too easy, apparently. After an hour of trying to figure out how to get the materials and tones installed, I finally sent an e-mail to tech support. To their credit, tech support answered within a couple of hours. In the meantime, I searched around the Smith-Micro websites (there are two of them, and it took me a while to figure out which one had a FAQ on it for technical questions) and the Manga Studio website to get some answers. What I discovered is that the good folks at Smith-Micro wrote up perfectly nice installation instructions… if you were installing from a disk. But they left out a few details if you were installing from a downloaded version of the program.

Once I finally heard back from tech support, I was able to get the materials installed and I went straight to work. The pen tool has some nifty new updates that make it ever better for inking cartoons, which is a huge plus. However, the text tool crashed the program repeatedly, which led to yet another e-mail to tech support who replied that they couldn’t replicate my problem so obviously the fault was with my computer and not their program and I would have to un-install and re-install the program to fix things. Joy. That only took another hour or two of work time to accomplish. And even after that, the text tool still kept crashing the program unless I saved after every use of said tool. It’s annoying, and it bugs me because if I add more than two text objects to a page, that program is gonna go down like Moses in the fifth, and the only way to get it to come back up and cooperate is to shut down and restart the computer.

However, I can get the text tool to work, and once I figured out where Manga Studio kept the word balloons hidden (the user’s manual says they’re in the materials window – they’re not!! They’re in the Beginner’s Assistant window), I was able to add my dialogue to my cartoon and finally output the finished work.

So this week’s image was all done in Manga Studio Debut 4, which is really how I prefer to do it, and it was done in the space of a single day (would have happened even quicker if not for technical difficulties…). Drawing by hand is fine, but I really do prefer doing the whole thing digitally, and in just the one program. The quality of the inking, the ease of adding tones, the supposed ease of adding text… If it weren’t for the fact that the text tool is buggy as hell and the fact that the user’s manual is unfortunately obscure on certain important aspects of the program (like installation and where to find those bloody word balloons!), I’d give Manga Studio Debut 4 a perfect 10. As it is, the best I can rate them is a 6.5. The program has great potential, but it’s also got some serious flaws. Let’s hope Smith-Micro figures this out and does something to address the problem.

Episode 20 - Sudden Death

2008-11-13T20:41:00.000-08:00

Oh my god, I think I just gave birth to twins. Twin strips that is.

Please notice that while this week’s strip is THREE WEEKS LATE, it is also TWICE AS BIG. And I got railroaded by a butt-load of work and the Princess’ kindergarten stuff. For details on all of that, see my other blog here.

But at last this episode is done, and I can honestly say I still haven’t figured out how I want to draw this. Manga Studio or Adobe Photoshop? By hand or on the laptop? All options have their advantages and disadvantages, and I’m seriously wishing that Smith-Micro would hurry it’s ass up and put out Manga Studio 4 so I could test it and see if the new version solves my current problems. But noooooooo! That would be asking a bit much I suppose. I’m only a heavy consumer of computer graphics programs after all.

So about the cartoon itself. This is something that has happened all too frequently to me. I get a great idea while I’m out with the kids but when I finally make it home, ‘I got nothing,’ as Orziel would say. I have learned to keep a notebook with me as often as possible, and I even have a handy little folding keyboard for my PDA, but none of those really gives me the freedom to write the moment the inspiration strikes. Because I’ve always got to keep an eye on the kiddes, see? I look away for a few seconds and the next thing I know they’re tattooing someone else’s darling child with purple and green Sharpie markers.

But the writing does eventually get done and the inspiration is never completely gone. It just goes into hiding.

The bastard.

To learn more about Orziel and his lovely boy-toy Jarresh, visit Mojocastle Press at http://www.mojocastle.com/demon/byday.html and BUY A COPY OF MY BOOK, DAMMIT!

Going to bed now…

Episode 19 - Napkins

2008-10-21T20:00:00.001-07:00

I swear, I thought I’d never get this one done.

In an effort to find a more effecient way to do these cartoons, I tried doing the pencilling and inking the old fashioned way, on actual paper. Both stages went very quickly, and I was extremely happy with the results.

Until I scanned in the inked cartoon, that is. It did not look good when I went to clean it up. Manga Studio gives me a very nice, crisp pressure-sensative line. My pens do to, but they also bleed a bit on the paper, and that showed up very quickly on the scan. So it took me a while to fix that little problem.

Then there was the matter of adding the screen tones to the cartoon. You know, those little shades of grey I color with? Yeah, those were a bitch. I had to make them all by hand in Photoshop, and then the pasting in took lots more time than I would have prefered. I did learn a few things in the process, which was nice because I’m still feeling my way around Photoshop, but man I was not satisfied with those tones. Manga Studio has some very nice tones, and they look great when I paste them in. My handmade ones do not measure up, I’m afraid.

The lettering and adding of word balloons did go much quicker than it would have in Manga Studio, and that has led me to the following conclusion. For the next episode, I plan to do the pencils on actual paper, scan them in, import the scan into Manga Studio, and then ink them there. Then the cartoon gets exported out to Adobe Photoshop for lettering and word balloons, because that’s one area where Manga Studio really falls short. At least Debut does. Not so sure about EX. I’ll have to see.

And about what’s going on in the toon itself? Those screaming kids in panel one are all part of my “mom posse” playdate group. Patty and Mary of course are there with them, and yes, I have wandered off to capture story ideas on whatever paperlike surface I can find. Writing on cheap fast food restaurant napkins sucks, by the by. I know. I’ve done it.

See you in a week, hopefully!

Episode 18

2008-10-14T20:31:00.001-07:00

At long last, episode 18 is here! This week you get to meet Patty, another one of the moms in my posse (I don’t do MOMMIES GROUPS!). Patty is pretty practical and has a solution for everything. While she never said this line to me (actual credit goes to Alessia Brio, I think), this is something she would have said. Her solutions are great, it’s just me and my freak life that makes them impossible to use.

This week, I handled the pencils the old-fashioned way – with an actual pencil and paper! I found a drawing pad that was 24” by 8”, which equals a long, skinny sheet of paper perfect for sketching out four panel comics. I’m still experimenting with the inking. Will it be quicker to ink in Manga Studio or to do it by hand as well and then import everything into Photoshop or Illustrator for lettering and word balloons? I’d stick with Manga Studio because it’s so much easier to handle toning and the pen tool gives such a nice dark line, but honestly, Manga Studio Debut sucks at handling text.

Manga Studio 4.0 comes out sometime soon, so I’ll check that out and make a decision then. But I think I’ll stick with actual paper and pencil for the initial sketching. That happened much quicker. I’ve already got next week’s strip pencilled and ready to scan.

Enjoy the cartoon!

Episode 17

2008-10-01T20:30:00.000-07:00

Oh my freakin’ god! I thought I’d never get this one done…

Notice that there are FOUR characters in this week’s episode. Notice how they are all be-YOO-tifully drawn and inked. Notice how late this week’s episode is.

*Sigh*. I’m working on ways to get these done faster. Really, I am. Meanwhile, this week’s episode features Jarresh (the young hottie in the loin cloth), another character from my e-book Demon By Day (http://www.mojocastle.com/demon/byday.html). Yes, it’s shameless self-promotion. Self-pimping, even. But this week’s ep is also very true to life. I spent many a play date pondering what I was writing while chatting with my best friend. What can I say? Mary is a fellow freak. She understands my need to write porn.

Anyway, enjoy this week’s episode. Hopefully, the next one will arrive a little quicker.

Episode 16

2008-09-23T03:08:00.000-07:00

This has happened to me far too often. There’s nothing so frustrating as having the whole story in your head and not being able to capture it. That’s my best friend Mary on the bench with me, by the way. She knows about all my writing woes, and yet she still puts up with me.

Episode 15

2008-09-13T14:16:00.001-07:00

This is the real reason why we need four hands and two sets of eyes. Multi-tasking is very important to us writer-moms.

By the way, this one took forever to draw – four characters plus all those seat. Ugh! It was worth it though. That hottie in the passenger’s seat? That’s Orziel, the main character from my e-book, Demon By Day.

(Insert shameless pimping here!) Demon By Day is available from Mojocastle Press.

Episode 14

2008-09-09T14:08:00.001-07:00

This is also a true story, although Pixie wasn’t able to blow up the ‘balloon’ herself. She asked me to do it instead.

Episode 13

2008-09-09T14:05:00.002-07:00

True story! My youngest, Pixie, gets into everything. And the results are maddening, but funny.

Episode 12

2008-09-09T14:05:00.001-07:00

This one stars my best friend Mary! She’s the nurse, the one who will give you a colonoscopy if you look at her wrong… Just kidding. She’s really nice. She puts up with me.

Playing for Keeps is a super hero novel written by Mur Lafferty, who also produces the “I Should Be Writing” podcast. Both her podcast and the book are cool, so check them out!

Episode 11

2008-09-09T14:01:00.001-07:00

Sadly, this one is also true. My poor husband. He really is an angel.

Episode 10

2008-09-09T13:58:00.000-07:00

Here we have it, the sad, sad truth about my life. Not the glamorous cliche with whips and chains and lingerie, but a pre-dawn wake-up call and a blank page. Still, I love my job. Beats working at Micky-D’s.

Episode 09

2008-09-09T13:56:00.002-07:00

No, this one didn’t really happen. But hey, I’m allowed to dream, right?

Episode 08

2008-09-09T13:56:00.001-07:00

True story! I wrote a piece for Coming Together: With Pride, an erotica charity anthology edited by Alessia Brio. Proceeds from this book go to AVERT.org to help with AIDS/HIV research and education. Remember, coming is good. Giving is better.

Episode 07

2008-09-09T13:51:00.002-07:00

Yeah, this one’s happened to me too.

By the way, where do babies come from?

Episode 06

2008-09-09T13:51:00.001-07:00

True story! This has actually happened to me on a couple of occasions. Thus I no longer join mommies’ groups. Not that I don’t have a mommy posse. I do, but we’re all too weird to be a proper mommies’ group. We’re more like a murderous gang of heathens and freaks. Seriously, don’t piss any of us off. We might have to rub you out. Or else let Mary jab you with a hypodermic needle. She’s a nurse, she can do that. She can give you a colonoscopy too, so watch it pal…

Episode 05

2008-09-09T13:46:00.000-07:00

Don’t ya just hate smart-ass main characters? Especially when they’re pretty boys. Yeesh!

Episode 04

2008-09-09T13:42:00.000-07:00

Here’s a scene that happens all too often. One kid sick, one with a poopie diaper, laundry waiting to be done… I can wash it, but never can get around to folding it for some reason… and in the midst of all this, me trying to work on my great epic pornographic novel. Yep, that’s my life.

Episode 03

2008-09-09T13:40:00.000-07:00

I did this cartoon as a Mother’s Day present for my mom. When I was three, she found herself trying to run me to ground so she could kill me for something I’d done (yes, I was trouble even then). That was when she decided she really needed to go back to work. I work at home these days, so I don’t have my mom’s options for getting out…

Episode 02

2008-09-09T13:33:00.000-07:00

Ain’t this the sad, sad truth? Baby got back, but so does Mama…

Episode 01 and Welcome!

2008-09-09T10:48:00.001-07:00

Welcome to 'The Adventures of Cynical Woman!' This is the official home for the Cynical Woman cartoons, written and drawn by Helen E. H. Madden. Basically, this is my life as a stay-at-home mom and erotica writer. If you like the cartoons, feel free to print them out or pass them on to your friends. These cartoons are protected under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. That means you can share it, but you can't sell it or take credit for it. Thanks!

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1969-12-31T16:00:00.000-08:00

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