deebrisbyfish

[deebrisbyfish]

Okay, so I'm a process junkie! I freely admit it. If you are too, I've got the bluelines for this strip, the tighter redlines AND 5 timelapse videos showing each panel being inked, (except for panel 3, where I forgot to hit the record button. lol) up on my PATREON for backers at the $5 level! That said, I also REALLY wanted to post the INKS without all the color effects here for folks to hopefully enjoy. I did a lot of mucking around with the full color version of this that muddied up the linework a little. I'm super happy with the final product, but also really wanted to share THIS version as well! Hope you enjoy!

[deebrisbyfish]

So, after doing the Fantastic Four, Jack Kirby parody strip this week, I KNEW I was gonna have to make good on my promise of Cosmic Space Vikings a few weeks ago. Then I figured out how to do it! When that strip makes it into print for the PATREON EXCLUSIVE comic book collections, I realized that IDEA would make for a great cover idea. Hence, this Jack Kirby THOR homage! Hope you enjoy this sneak peak of what's coming! (And join the Patreon at the $10 level to not only support the ongoing comic, but get these printed comics sent to you once a year! For domestic US Patrons only.) EXCELSIOR... wait, that's not my catch phrase... POTATO!!!

[deebrisbyfish]

How it feels more often than not, these days.

[deebrisbyfish]

I have been wanting to have a reason to try a Jack Kirby homage piece FOREVER, but couldn't come up with a valid concept to work a strip around. Getting loopy off of NyQuil gave me the inspiration to really have fun with Kirby's trippy, cosmic goodness. This idea DEMANDED color, for obvious reasons, and trying to mimic both the color style of the 60s and 70s, along with the look of newsprint printing was a LOT of fun to figure out. Now, on FRIDAY there will be an extra special... variation... on some of this art on my PATREON! Something extra groovy! ;)

[deebrisbyfish]

So, NEXT week's strip will still be a direct continuation to the strip about my being sick and overdoing it on the NyQuil. However, when I had this idea yesterday morning while leaving for work and feeling VERY much as if this had happened, I had to draw it and put it up. I mean, it has been crazy cold the last few days! lol

[deebrisbyfish]

So, back in January, I got REALLY sick for a full week. It wasn't COVID, but I'm fairly certain it was related to the mounting stress of certain political events that happened that week. (The "Inauguration. Ugh.) ANywho, as a result of my desperate attempt to remain functional for that time, I was mainlining DayQuil and working from home to not go bankrupt. lol. But doing that always leaves me VERY exhausted and VERY loopy, which inspired some fun comics.

[deebrisbyfish]

C'mon, I CAN'T be the only person who cups their hands to redirect the hot air out of these things? It's FUN! Gross. But fun! I had considered making the second panel here a fantasy sequence with myself in some kind of THOR garb as a follow-up to last week's strip, but decided to save that for the mini-cartoon in the title panel. I really wanted it clear what I was doing and decided that just adding the overshirt and playing with my hair and expression was what it needed.

[deebrisbyfish]

The nature of doing a strip like this means that I have WEEKS of strips written and drawn in the queue that were conceived or or drawn PRIOR to the events of January 20th. Prior to the flood of Executive Orders, chaos, and the purging of the American Government that we've all been witnessing. And by and large, I am okay with those strips. It is not my intention to spend my every waking moment making comics that focus on all of this. But I also had to take a moment to acknowledge it. As such, I know this strip will be divisive. Some will tell me that I am overreacting to the loss of civil liberties and the directed attacks at me and mine carried out by this administration. Others will tell me that my attitude here is too lax. That I should be raging MORE and LOUDER. But this strip is an honest representation of what my life and my fragile mental state have been since January 20th. I'm just struggling to hold on and keep moving forward. I'm struggling to justify still making comic strips or worry about my next werewolf novel. I'm struggling to not explode at everyone around me because of barely contained anxieties, anger and depression clawing at me 24/7. But I also have to hold on to some measure of hope that there will be a tomorrow and that I have to keep working towards that. That means going to work, writing, drawing, and moving forward. That means remembering that this comic is about the ins and outs of MY life, and that sometimes means strips like this need to exist as much as the sillier ones. And it means remembering that those silly little distractions from the cluster of our daily lives might be important for someone else. So, next week, regardless of the state of the world, Finding Dee will be a comic I drew over a month ago. it will be light-hearted and goofy and hopefully, it will give you a smile and a laugh. TODAY, it is this, and that's what it needs to be today. That's how I have to function. That's how I have to move forward. This is what I can do today. :)

[deebrisbyfish]

This is an homage to Dik Browne's classic comic strip, Hägar the Horrible, which I LOVED growing up! I've been wanting to do a strip in this style for a while to add to my collection of style-homages I've done, but hadn't found a reason to do so until now. (The fact that the week it was scheduled to run just HAPPENS to be the 52nd anniversary of the strip's premier was completely unplanned! But I take these things as "meant to be" type stuff.) To make a long story short, I never knew my Father's side of my family growing up and was actively discouraged from reaching out to it. My Mother told me LOTS of things about my ancestry from both sides of my family that I had to learn to take with a VERY BIG grain of salt. She has generally been... a less than reliable source of information. But she DID tell me my Father was of Norwegian descent. There was a LOT of nonsense around that information what was BS, but taking an Ancestry DNA test confirmed at least that. At that point, I realized that I had a great IN to finally do a Hägar themed gag! (Yeah, yeah! I'll get to a THOR piece before too long. lol)

[deebrisbyfish]

This strip has been a script in my document file for almost a year before I sussed out how to make it work the way I wanted. Originally, it was written to just be Heidi and I on the couch, fighting over the remote. She likes to skip intros. I do NOT. This is a regular debate in our home. lol When I realized that for the final panel gag to make any SENSE, it would work better if the strip ITSELF had a "Skip Intro" button, it all came together. It's surreal and weird, and I am happy with how it all came together.

[deebrisbyfish]

This strip is one of those, "This basically happened almost verbatim and I just wrote it all down and punched up the dialogue." Heidi had never seen The Transformers: The Movie as a kid, but she LOVES 80s rock and hair metal and that soundtrack is just dripping with it. And yes, The Touch is NOT the first song on the album, but for the purposes of this strip, I felt like using that opening really sold the gag.

[deebrisbyfish]

Looking for Finding Dee on social media?! I am all OVER the place! I'm on Bluesky! I'm on Substack! I'm on PATREON! & I'm on Facebook!

[deebrisbyfish]

I REALLY hope I'm not the only person this kind of thing happens to. I mean, not in the "I wish to spread my weird suffering to others" way, but more in a "I hope this bit is relatable and that I'm not alone in it" way. lol And yeah, I rarely have any idea why this is happening when it happens, and I almost NEVER know what it's actually triggering. That said, if I were to make this more accurate, It would have shown something like 5 more panels of exhaustive sobbing and screaming. This stuff... kinda drags out in reality. lol

[deebrisbyfish]

Hi! Just found your page and I love your art and your story. I'm just curious, where does the "brisby" in your title come from? My partner (also trans) was given Brisby as a middle name and uses it as a chosen name, and I figured they were the only one. Have a great day!

Hey there! Thanks for the kind words, I really appreciate it! Regarding the "Brisby" in my URL, etc., I was pondering that as a middle name for a WHILE in my transition before settling on "Sarah". "Brisby" is taken from "Mrs. Brisby", the mouse protagonist of the movie, "The Secret of NIMH". (Named Mrs. Frisby in the novel the movie is based on.) It's one of my all-time favorite movies and was tremendously influential on me becoming a cartoonist.

[deebrisbyfish]

While I don't overtly begrudge anyone who feels the need to start working on the next Tin Tin slasher film or Popeye... whatever... (The slasher film's already been made. Ugh) I do not get the appeal. Like... I dunno... the whole idea of "HA! Blah blah is public domain, now I can make a version of it that's extra edgy! The whole thing has such big, 12-year-old edgelord energy to it. You do you, I guess. And, yes. I get that there's a smidge of IRONY here, considering that I'm USING Popeye here to make this point and that I regularly do style homages and the like. That said, I do feel there's a defined difference here. That SAID, this EXTRA post is my New Year's example of the kind of stuff that is available EVERY Friday at the $3 and above backer level on my PATREON! Consider joining or leveling up today for every fun weekly all while helping me keep this train on the tracks! Thanks and enjoy!

[deebrisbyfish]

On January 9th, 2016, I came out as transgender to, well, everyone. In a way, it's like a second birthday that, THIS YEAR, will be celebrated with leftover Pizza for lunch! lol

That said, It's hard to process that it's ONLY been 9 years that I've been on this journey as it's hard to remember NOT ever being out. It's weird.

As such, every year at this time, I like to re-present this sort of... Finding Dee ORIGIN story! A 5 page encapsulation of the fact that, YES J.K., Trans kids DO exist and I WAS one back in the late 70s.

This year, I'm posting the snazzy color version with lovely hues by Katy Rewston from the first color collection! For those of you who have read this, I hope it's still a fun read. For those this is NEW to, I hope you stick around and enjoy the ride!

[deebrisbyfish]

Another thing about this time of the year that is a minor irritation for me, is the VERY unique kind of hat hair I have to deal with. The nature of winter hats combined with the dry weather creates... well... what you see here in the last panel. Pony tails become my friend for a few months every year. I should invest in ear muffs. lol