Ian James Andersen

Citric Journal

Daily four panel comic strips

The Citric Journal is a daily four panel journal comic strip I've been doing since November 2009. It's entirely auto-biographical, showing small moments from each day of my life. Over the years the writing and drawing styles have changed to suit my current views on both comics and life in general. I've found that keeping a daily comic is a good way to stay familiar with concise story-telling techinques while providing a challenge to keep things interesting for both myself and readers. All of the comics can be read online here.

Beginning

Like most daily journal comics makers, I was originally inspired by James Kochalka's diary comic strip American Elf, which most cartoonsits acknowledge as the creator of the daily journal comic.

Inspiration

The four panel daily auto-biographic comic format was arguably created by James Kochalka in 1998. Kochalka's diary comic series American Elf, which he sometimes called his “sketchbook diaries”, ran from October 1998 through to the end of Decmeber 2012 when he decided to end the strip. I learned about Kochalka's comics in 2009 and shortly after decided to start keeping a daily journal comic of my own because it seemed like a good way to start making comics.

Early Strips

For the first year I worked on the strips almost completely in private, only mentioning them to friends. I decided that it was better to see if I could keep up with the comics for a least a year before sharing them publically to make sure I wouldn't stop after only a handful of comics. The early strips quickly go through a variety of changes in the way I was creating them as I tried to find the right size and tools. The first strips are very rough and even the first three or so years have a very unrefined quality to the drawing, the current style only developed in the last two years.

Current Goals

My focus right now has been on trying to give the comics a more poetic feeling. This can be tough sometimes, especially when I'm working on school deadlines and am spending most of the day indoors working on class assignments; a student hunched over a desk isn't the most compelling thing to write or read about. I try to focus on small moments, and am trying to avoid talking too much about sleep.

Drawing Changes

Since I've been making the comics for 6 years now, the style of both the writing and drawing has changed numerous times as I try to improve.

Evolving Styles

There are a few times where I completely changed the materials I was using to work with because I decided a new method would help make the strips better, but for the most part I'm not sure how concious some changes were, the categories below are all loosely defined based on how I see things now.

Cartoony Era

The first year of strips have a much more cartoony feeling to them, inspired by an interest in animation and wacky sorts of drawing. This gradually tones down over the first year into a much subtler form of drawing. Although looking back I admire the idea of making things a little more manic, I don't think I had enough of a grasp on how to do that but keep things from getting out of hand.

Lots of Lines

The next major shift I notice starts around January of 2011 where I started using more lines to put texture into environments. I think I decided that I needed to make things a little more visually interesting by adding texture to things. The lines seem to increase for a while but towards the middle of 2012 start to be placed with more thoughtfulness. For the most part these textures are still around, but now they are much more regulated as opposed to this almost expresionist-esque approach.

Refining Approach

Starting around Early 2013 I think I finally figured out how I wanted the comics to look and started getting closer to how they look now. This was the same time I moved from Houston to Denton to start classes at The University of North Texas. My way of drawing seems to solidify during this time. I also reduced the size I was drawing at in September of 2013, which made a big difference as I realized I was much more comfortable drawing smaller.

The Current Look

The current drawing style is similar to the last change listed above, but with a greater awareness of trying to place things more thoughtfully. Overall I'm happy with how things look now. During the past year I've been more interested in finding ways to reduce the number of words and giving strips a more poetic feeling.

Major Themes

Although I try to make sure I don't repeat myself, over six years of creating a comic every day it‘s there are some reoccuring things that show up.

Dogs

I'm a really big fan of dogs. Most days, if I see a dog, and especially if I get to pet one, there's probably nothing better that's going to make it into a journal that day. I enjoy drawing dogs and the funny things they do, especially drawing my dog, Viktor, who I usually draw being annoying and rude, but usually he's a very good boy.

Food

I've read a few different places that auto-bio comics about food are considred taboo, but I love drawing food and drawing about food. I try to keep these comics mostly focused on the process of cooking food or just the pure joy of eating something really good rather than on what the specific food is. My favorite food to make is probably soup because it's so versitile and hard to mess up but turns out great almost everytime.

Bikes

I draw about biking a lot even though bikes are a bit complex to actually draw, especially at the size I make the comics. I've used a bike as my main (and for a while only) form of transportation for the last five years, so bikes have worked their way into these comics.