Page Notes

I wrote this storyline years ago, then edited it over and over and over. I started drawing this panel months ago, and actually did 2 versions. When I started the drawings, I was thinking about my grief for my father's death, and not wanting to get into it, because it hurts so much. I got back to this about a week before the election, then was planning to work on it Tuesday and, looking at what I was drawing, shrunk back in denial. I'm not sure why the art syncs up with my life like this, sometimes, I choose to think of this project as a very personal conversation with parts of myself, a kind of deep, Alice-in-Wonderland art therapy. In any case, here you go: a young woman mourning for the passing of the woman who was the leader of her clan. Distraught, rudderless, in pain. And yet, and yet...a strong young woman, a leader-to-be. The symbolism of the boar could be seen a lot of ways, given the language of our time, but mostly I see this as a painful but necessary transition into adulthood for the main character, Sal. The image itself is an homage to one of my favorite movies, "Orlando", by the way. I have been in such dark places, myself, this last week, I am looking for any light there is.

Molly Demeter Sokolow Hayden (or Modemeter, for obvious reasons of length) grew up surrounded by her father’s comic book collection, sometimes literally. She fell in love with Will Eisner’s Spirit at an inappropriately young age and wishes she could draw like Jaime Hernandez. She lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband, her daughter, and her cat, and sneaks down to her drawing table whenever she can.