This weekend’s Comics Go Pink campaign for breast cancer awareness was fantastic! Many were business as usual but coloured in pink and featured the ribbon, some had links to cancer charities or information, a few actually tackled the issue and all were handled with dignity and good humour. (It’s so easy for boob-jokes to go horribly wrong.) They were all great but it wasn’t hard for me to pick a favourite:
Between Friends - Sandra Bell-Lundy
The whole feature has just delighted me to no end. A group of people who are just doing something because it helps. They’re drawing, (ha ha!) attention to the issue, put some original artwork up for auction to back awareness with action and aren’t bombarding me the rest of the year with the pink-ribbon merch that has so over-saturated the market it actually inspires cynicism. I’m not opposed to pink ribbon stuff, I volunteer design work for thinkpinkdirect, they produce team shirts and merch for cancer charities and do a great job. I object to things like pink ribbon candies put out by huge corporations who are donating a tenth of a cent per purchase and loaded with chemicals that are probably causing the cancers they’re cashing in on! (See, cynicism.)
I’m not part of King Features, but this is a cause very close to my heart so I want to put up something pink in support. I won’t get it posted today, but since October is breast-cancer awareness month, I figure I’ve got some time…Also, it’s been ages since I did anything in colour and I’m having fun with it. I do a lot of digital colouring in my day-job, so I picked up a set of pink Pantone markers to do this one old-school. Actually, all of Promises is drawn on paper and composed in Photoshop. My handwriting is illegible so I don’t do my own lettering, but I really love having a piece of original artwork when I’m done and for my money, pencils trump tablet any day.
Speaking of which, I’d best get back to inking and get the Monday strip posted.
