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Farewell & What’s Next

Well that’s it folks. It’s time for the project to end so that me and Bert can work on new and exciting things =). While we reflect on the comic and talk about what’s next, it’s also good to think about why we started the comic in the first place which you can find at some of our old blog posts:

To see why Jess created the comic, go to the post: Hi and welcome =D (19 Nov 2009)
To see why Bert got involved with the comic, go to the post: Why a comic? (22 Nov 2009)
There is also a more in-depth interview in our first news letter: Newsletter #1 (3 Jan 2010)

Bert Reflects

Bert avatarI love to laugh. I love to make people laugh. When I teach, if I don’t get a laugh when I lecture, I think it’s a bad lecture. Probably not the best barometer of learning, but I at least try to keep students interested.

As I’ve said in multiple posts, I think laughter is a pathway to healing, and there needs to be a lot of healing in adoption! Sometimes we are too angry or, quite frankly, too wrapped up our own drama to see the forest through the trees. I’m not arguing for acceptance of adoption here, but merely trying to provide perspective. Laughter does that. Humour does that.

And that’s what I was doing here. I’d like to say I had some grand intention and vision in mind when I responded to Jess, but honestly, I was just responding to a Facebook post (I think) Jess had thrown out there about doing an adoption comic. I thought, I have some funny thoughts about adoption, let’s see where it goes. Thanks to Jess for taking the risk with me and allowing me to join what really was her idea from the beginning.

And it went some cool places. Jess talks about them below, and I echo them. We’ve had some positive comments and some negative ones. We’ve met some cool people and explored some fun things. We’ve gotten attention far and wide, and we’ve put a little of our own experiences into it.

It’s been fun to explore a new way to look at adoption, to make others laugh, and to, hopefully, create a place where people in the adoption world – adoptees, adoptive parents, adoption service providers, researchers, and others – can look at the lighter side of what it means to be adopted.

Jess Reflects

Jess avatar4 years ago I was suppose to be doing an art PhD on adoption and how it was visually represented. I had my bags packed, but a week before I was due to start, I found myself facing the full force of the financial crisis (as many did in 2009) and had to withdraw from the PhD as it was only 1/2 funded. So I find myself with suddenly nothing to do. I also find myself taking stock and asking what I really wanted from life. Apparently Adopted the Comic was want I needed at the time… a focus, something fun, a direction, even if was a random direction.

I kinda started doing this comic with no experience other than an idea and enthusiasm… maybe that’s how most projects happen… just doing something =P. But to my surprise the comic captured something in people’s imaginations…. confirmed when I was asked by something who know me, asking if I’d heard of Adopted the Comic =P lolz. What I find even more interesting is seeing how people reacted to the comics. We’ve had good and bad comments plus people like/relate to different comics for different reasons. I think we may have only scratched the surface with this project, but it for me definitely shows that attitudes to how the adoption community see themselves and being able to laugh as well as cry is a real positive step in the right direction.

It is very hard to let go of this project, but it has done more than I ever hoped. I want to thank Bert so much for coming on board and believing in this project as much as me. I doubt the comic would have come as far without his guidance and insight. Hat’s off to you Bert.

What’s next for Bert

Bert avatarThey say all good things must come to an end, and so it is with this. Honestly, right now I’m out of ideas and overwhelmed with the commitments of being a professor, husband, and father. So while there are many humourous moments I’ve had, I just haven’t had the time to write them down, think them through, or turn them into a comic.

And that’s what life does sometimes – you do a good thing, you see it to its end, and you move on. I have nothing but wonderful memories of this experience, and I’m glad I did it.

Thanks to Jess for all her hard work. Being the artist and the webmaster is tough work, and she did it for the love of it. Well done.

So, I hope everyone visits often to relive memories and keeps in touch. For now, I’m off to those other research projects (I’m working on some adoption related stuff that will be out in the next couple of years) as well as teaching and family.

The biggest thanks to all of you who responded to and supported this project. As Jess says, we couldn’t have done it without you and your response has been wonderful. Thanks so much, and continue to find the humour in our everyday experiences.

What’s Next for Jess

Jess avatarI was pretty rubbish at drawing comics when I first started this, not realising what a different mindset you had to have for cartoon drawings over just sketching. Needless to say I’ve come out the other end of this project with some stronger illustration skills.

In 2011, with my new found skills, I was asked to illustrate, in a similar style to this comic, the education book Learn Thai – Through Stories, Grammar and Exercises – Book 1 by Karine Jones. Amazingly it was published in 2013!

Before this comic I’d never thought of myself as an illustrator… but now with the project ending and having published a book I have completely breathed life back into my art. My spark is back and I am so excited about what the future will bring as I pursue illustration full time. I’ve made a whole new body of illustration work which you can see on my artist portfolio website: www.jessica-emmett.com/illustration/

While this joint project has come to an end, It’s been clear to me that I still need comics in my life, so I have decided to start my own solo comic. It’s not only gonna be about adoption, it will include comics about some of my other loves like technology and archery, but yes there will be some adoption comics still from time to time. You can find my new comic here: www.straythoughtscomics.com

It really is an exciting part of my life right now and I could have never got here without Bert’s excellent writing and all your encouragement and support. So from me, a huge thank you to everyone that’s been involved!

Website Rebuild & Changes

Hi All, some of you may have noticed that the website has been in maintenance since 25th March 2013. Basically I did site update and managed to screw up the back end of the site which ment I couldn’t edit or add content. So yeah the only way to fix it was to completely rebuild the site from the ground up… again!

Anyway it’s up now, sorry for any innocence.

Well it has been a good excuse to reevaluate the website and look at how to strip down the site. I’ve deleted a number of pages and functionality that will make it easier to manage. Notably I have disabled the RSS/Feeds, removed a number of pages and merged most of the content into the blog. But the comic functionality remains, so i hope you can still enjoy them =).

Sketches

I (Jess) thought I’d start this page (now a part of the blog) so people can see some of the sketches, ideas, close-ups, alternatives and less polished elements of my work. Also in the few years I’ve been doing the comic my work & style has profoundly developed so it’s also interesting for me to look at that process as well. I started drawing on paper originally then colouring on the computer to then drawing purely digital straight into the computer with a graphics tablet (which i much prefer). I have to admit that i like reading manga and much of my style comes from that. Enjoy =).

You can see more of the step by step progress of a comic on the Newsletter #1 page and you can see a live digital drawing from start to finish on the Interholiday comic post page.

Megan's Earth Stains Blog

Everyone once in a while we have people write blog about the comic. We liked her blog so wanted to share it with you. It’s not always easy writing a blog, but what is important is to get you to take a step back and think, and Megan’s article did that for me.

Here is her link:

earthstains.blogspot.com/2012/02/adopted-comic.html

At adopted the comic, it is always encourage to get feedback and comments, I encourage you to leave a comment on Megan’s blog if her blog post touched you in some way. Enjoy.

Help Like My Artist Profile

Hi all =) I finally got around to updating my personal adoption and artwork website from the ground up, which is something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time. If you like my work, you might like some of the other projects that I’m a part of. Also you may be interested in my blog that’s on my site, where I reflect on mainly adoption, and sometimes art:

www.jessica-emmett.com

After years of being an artist, I finally started to get my own facebook artist profile. Help me kickstart this by liking my facebook page here:

www.facebook.com/JessicaEmmettArtist

^.^ Thanks!

Adopted the Comic is Two!

Adopted the comic is 2 years old o/. Thanks everyone for the support and words of encouragement =)

We try and do the comic as much as we can, but as you can image life gets in the way a lot of the time. We still have comics in the pipeline and we hope that we can keep the comic going =). We have been honoured to be able to add to the community and two years ago we just weren’t sure how people would take “adoption humor” but I’m glad to see people enjoying our work. A big huge thanks to everyone adoption or not =D. You guys rock!

Bert’s Poetry Slam

While we love doing the comic, me and Bert explore other creative avenues =D Bert has been kind enough to share a poetry slam that he did last March. The slam was put on by the University of Waterloo Speech Communication program and it was Bert’s debut! Enjoy!

 

To see Bert’s full poem click the “transcript” button below to expand the full poem.