Author: Kelci

Oh hello there you fabulous person you.

So you might have found me through Validation, the webcomic I make with the ever fabulous Christian Beranek (we’ve been getting some good press from that. Did you see the article on Comic Vine about us? Of course you did. That’s probably what got you here, too).

Or you might have found me through the illustration I did for the ever awesome Tumblr blog Cool Chicks From History (I drew the illustration for Rafaela Herrera, who is a badass lady).

Or you could have found me from Johnson & Sir (the webcomic I do about an Odd Couple-like pair of elf cops).

Any way you slice it, there’s more of you lovely readers out there.

So hi!

As you can tell, I’m pretty busy with webcomics and making art for cool people.

I’ve also been busy with moving from Ohio to Arizona. I’ve been settling into my new place (which is sharing space with my older sister) and then my mom came to visit from out of state, so I’ve been on vacation to be with them.

So, my apologies for not welcoming you sooner.

To gain your favor, here’s a picture of the Grand Canyon the same day that the government shut down. The blurry hand is a bonus, I guess?

Will there be more comics?

Of course there will be!

Keep your eyes open for a new semi-auto-biographical comedic comic soon! I’ll be announcing the launch here and on my Twitter and Facebook pages.

I’ll also begin producing my latest Halloween-inspired comic, Charlie & Clow!

And of course, my hyped-up, never-shut-up-about comic, The Legend of Jamie Roberts will launch next month! I’ll be releasing a six-page prequel on SmackJeeves on October 6th.

So you came in at the right time. :D

Thanks for stopping by! I do my best to update my blog every Sunday. So please bookmark this page for more news about my comics (I also do comic and book reviews here, so if you think I should be reading something, drop me a line at kelcidcrawford at gmail dot com).

I also post the occasional work-in-progress and art/writing tutorial here, so let me know if you would like me to tackle anything from character design to plot development.

Thanks for your support, and don’t forget to be awesome.

First: I know I promised a blog post about my opinions on whether college was worth it. I’m still working on that. It’ll be posted next week.

Second: This blog post!

I left Ohio around 10 am this morning to start my road trip to Arizona!

I was hoping to get to St. Louis before I stopped for the day, but traffic delays and construction on I-70 prevented that. (Grrrrrr…) Now I’m staying in Illinois at the exit that boasts the World’s Largest Golf Tee and Wind Chime. And I WILL check those out before I hit the road again tomorrow!

The update for Johnson & Sir was late today because of that, and because I forgot to set it to update automatically (I’m a dippy bird sometimes). Next week that won’t be an issue.

Thanks for reading!

Story Time.

Once upon a time (a little over five years ago now) I was looking for a college to go to. I knew I wanted to study art, especially comics and animation (I was really into animation at the time). During a high school field trip we visited the Art Institute of Pittsburgh.

Then I took a summer workshop there in their animation department where I learned to do character designs, the stretch and squash animation, and a little 3D rendering.

I even went so far as to try and see if I could go to school there.

This is what I learned:

• The Art Institutes are not accredited by any national education boards I could find.
• Because they are not accredited, scholarships and grants would not cover the costs of going to this school.
• Because scholarships and grants wouldn’t fund an education at a non-accredited school, if I went, all the schooling done would be paid for by loans.
• And at the time they were $60,000 a year. Not covering food or lodging.

Yesterday was my birthday!

I spent the whole thing offline, which is why you haven’t heard from me for a bit.

There were so many good parts to the day that I can’t tell which was the best one!

Well, there was the cake Marc got me: a Dairy Queen ice cream cake with my cartoon face on it (he asked the lady to copy the picture from my business card), and he knows I love my fun initialisms, like DFTBA (Don’t Forget To Be Awesome), so he added DFYAL (Don’t Forget You Are Loved).

It was offbeat, but it’s also one of the sweetest presents I ever got! (I got the first slice. I ate the portion with my right arm in an effort to subconsciously encourage my broken right wrist to heal faster).

Marc also got me knee pads, elbow pads, wrist pads and a helmet, just in case I ever pick up roller skating again.

(picture)

And he also gifted me a new wrist wrap! It’s like the back wrap I have already, but for the wrist, so that when the cast comes off, I can have extra support when I draw and write.

(picture)

Yesterday was also the first time I ever watched BBC’s Sherlock. Holy shit I had no idea what I was missing! That show is SO good!

And after that Marc and the family and I got together to play board games like the Evil Baby Orphanage.

It was the first time we ever played the Evil Baby Orphanage, and the rules were a little weird and complicated. It took some explaining and talking out loud to figure out what was going on. But we eventually did, and the game was pretty fun. And surprisingly quick! We finished the first (and only) round in fifteen minutes.

The basic premise of the game is that you adopt Evil Babies (like baby Joseph Stalin or baby Hannibal) from the Time Stream and raise them in your Evil Baby Orphanage. Each player has one, and the goal of the game is to accrue a set number of Mischief Points (in our game, we defaulted to 8). Mischief Points are the points your evil babies are worth. But you have to keep your evil babies happy or else they might do something awful, like bully a baby from your orphanage into another orphanage, making you lose points. Whoever can get to 8 Mischief Points wins the game!

But mom and Rob (her boyfriend) weren’t interested in any complicated board or card games, so we changed to Apples to Apples, then Clue.

It was still a fun day though.

Thank you to all my friends who wished me happy birthday yesterday! You are all awesome!

That’s all for today. Thank you for your support!

Please excuse my absence yesterday. I was taking a day-long break from the internet so I could get some writing done and exercise my broken wrist (it’s doing much better now! I can now pick up teacups and write for two hours before stopping, and I can open doors again).

Today’s post is going to be different. Usually I blog about comics, my art, inspiration, etc.

But I wanted to share these sex ed channels with you for many reasons, which I will detail in a minute.

I love good sex education. I especially love those kinds of shows with a sense of humor that’s not insufferable to sit through. Sex is a hard topic to take seriously, but there are times when some sex educators try to make jokes to lighten it up and it just makes it even worse.

Thankfully I found two channels that not only share sex knowledge, but also make it fun and hilarious.

First is the MidWest Teen Sex Show.

Image courtesy of this link.

This was the first ever channel I watched about teen sex education. They have their own website, especially since many of their videos don’t seem to appear on YouTube.

They have since stopped updating, but the videos they did share were both semi-educational and entertaining.

They cover topics from condom use to fetishes, orgasms and the older boyfriend.

I would start with those four videos first, though the orgasm video is highly recommended for the skit involving Detective Boobowski trying to find the criminal Orgasm (it’s hilarious).

The other highly recommended channel in my arsenal is the YouTube channel Sexplanations.

Image courtesy of this link.

This channel is run by Dr. Doe, clinical sexologist and HUGE Firefly fan (she references the show often, especially in her video about How To Get The Sex You Want).

Of course she discusses the obvious topics, like orgasms and both female and male anatomy, but she also does things like interview an intersex person, answer questions about lesbianism, and even provide a rough A to Z of sexual terms.

Dr. Doe’s channel is relatively new and is still updating, so you should subscribe!

She also has a Tumblr, so you should follow her there, too.

“So,” you’re probably wondering, “Why did you make a post about sex ed videos? Sex is weird.”

First, it’s only weird if you think it’s weird.

Second, not only do I enjoy these on an entertainment and intellectual level, but I enjoy what they stand for, which is sex education and healthier living for teens and young adults.

Too often I see awful headlines about how another school has adopted an abstinence-only form of sex education, and too often I meet people who don’t know what’s going on with their own bodies.

(Like, one of my friends was roommates with a girl who thought periods were her baby bleeding out once a month. Hearing that makes me want to slap her parents in the face for teaching her that. This and other awful stories are what I witness from real people in the real world.)

Another thing, too, is that I am aware that a lot of you reading this are either young adults or teenagers, and some of you have not been adequately prepared in this sense. I don’t want to finger-point and say your lack of knowledge is someone else’s fault, because that’s probably already going on.

I would rather be constructive and point you in the right direction so that you can learn about your body and yourself in a constructive, but entertaining, way.

Because having knowledge can make you safe and help you enjoy the experience more.

Thank you for your support, and for remembering to be awesome!