One Word Topic Comics.

My Favourite Little Challenge Moves to Notes.

So for years now I’ve been doing ‘One Word Topic Comics’ on Instagram, and occasionally on Twitter. So, of course, now that Substack has it’s own new little social media feed, I figured it would only be right to give it a go there as well.

Originally, the idea of it was basically just a quick and fun drawing exercise to get myself into a drawing mood, which frustratingly rarely comes about naturally, in fact - it often comes about when I’m doing anything but sitting at my desk drawing…

And so, the challange would play out by requesting ‘One Word Topics’ from followers, and then I’d set about attempting to draw these as quickly as I could. The best thing about it is not having to spend much time on the quality of drawing and the real work is trying to pull a joke out of just one word as a starting point.

So, let’s go! Here’s the results of the first Substack Notes based One Word Topic Challange.

Thankfully, there’s a lot less people following me here than on Instagram so the replies starting coming in at a slow and wonderfully manageable rate…

Not a bad start… but no time to dwell either way because more words were stacking up

This one was particularly tricky because my drawings of cars have never been very good. Most people can’t draw hands, a problem I solved by not giving my characters any, and in much the same way, I approached this comic by constructing the joke in a way that wouldn't require actually having to draw a car.

(Never mind the head-heavy horse, I told you - these are quick drawings)

This is far and away my favourite for this little session, and this is where the real joy in the exercise can be found - I would have never ended up with this comic if Maura hadn’t suggested trees.

This one is very stupid, barely funny, and that’s why I quite like it.

Every One Word Topic Challange will always have a request for Monday, so I was happy to manage to find an angle I haven’t done before.

Was quite happy with how minimal this one ended up being. A few lines, one figure, 10 words. Lovely!

I feel like this is a good one to finish up on, given my slackness in posting over the last few weeks. Rest assured there’s some fun stuff coming, I’ve just got to get around to drawing it.

And you know what? It’s probably not happening this week because it’s my birthday on Wednesday and given I’m turning 39, we can safely assume that the hangover will stretch through to Friday at the very least!

(But then I promise I’ll get on the pens!)

As always, give this thing a like, or leave a comment or, even better - give it a share! (A Substack Notes post sharing a Substack post, containing mostly instances of Substack Notes, does feel a little like a digital ouroboros, but let’s go with it for now!)